Back to the bed, I faced the same dilemma—only now with more churned thoughts.
I had to do something. Still a few hours of daylight left. I couldn’t crawl into a hole and fret about Gabriel and London, Jed and cuffs, Kage and so much dangling between us, on top of already being in a hole fretting about faie and vampires and one in particular named Dieter.
Our mage: Gavin. He’d had all day Saturday to answer now and I hadn’t even thought to check again on the long train journey.
I grabbed my purse off the foot of the bed. No phone. That was odd…
I searched everywhere; bag, pockets—as if I could have missed it in my jeans—around the room. When was the last time I’d seen it?
Train? No … I’d just been thinking how I hadn’t used it on the train.
Once I got back? No.
So … the hotel … Gabriel … my text to Andrew. Then I’d texted again when Gabriel had shown me back to the lift—he’d not gone down with me and run the risk of seeing Andrew again. Still, he’d been absurdly polite—carved from another time.
Reaching the lobby, then, meeting up with the others, was the last time I’d seen the phone. I’d put it back in my bag. Andrew had returned my latte. I’d sipped that, just as good cold, while we’d walked to Victoria Station—a long way.
Through the station, onto the train, the motorcycle, and I’d never looked again.
And my phone was gone.
My heart was hammering with the panic of it, upending my purse, small as it was, picking through everything as if my phone could be hiding inside a lip gloss or a pack of tissues. My innate sense of lists and weights and balances failed me as my throat closed and my ears buzzed, hands shaking while I felt again around pockets.
“Cassia? Someone to see you,” Atarah called from the front door. There had been a knock which had flown right by.
Was that Andrew’s voice?
I ran for the door as if my room had caught fire. Through the meeting room, out to them, Atarah stepping away, giving me a smile. Andrew there at the threshold.
“Andrew—”
“Looking for something?” Andrew held my phone in the blue case up before me.
I ripped it out of his hand, ready to bash the case right into his beautiful, grinning face.
“Don’t you ever touch this phone again.” Shaking all over, I grabbed his shoulder, leaning in as he stood a step below me in the doorway. “You’re an unconscionable monster and the fact that everyone around here singles out Jed as a villain—or even Jason, of all people—is laughable. If you ever steal this phone again you’ll wish you’d never seen it.”
Andrew still smiled. “You didn’t mind last time. Honestly, darling, I thought you’d be stopping by an hour ago. I told you mine’s the one with the yellow door by the willows. Took you a while.”
“When did you take it?”
“A master never tells. Anyway, that’s not why I came—glad as I am to avert a crisis and reunite the two of you.” Glancing between my face and my phone. “I’m here to escort you to dinner.”
“Dinner?” I stepped back, letting him go. Just dawning on me that Atarah was observing us.
“Our picnic?” Andrew held up a heavy, lidded basket by the handles meeting at the top.
I stared at the basket.
“You can’t have forgot my sincerity in a mere several hours?” He lifted one eyebrow. “I’m flattered, darling.”
“You … cooked me dinner?”
“I did indeed. And a bit disappointed to do it on my own, seeing as you didn’t bother calling to get your lovey back. No matter—it will be a surprise. And we’re all together again: you, me, and old blue.”
“Oh.”
Andrew waited. He cocked his head.
I had agreed to this, forgotten or not. I nodded. “I’ll be right out. I… Just a minute.” I shut the door in his smirking face.
Chapter 36
Andrew spread a blue and white checked blanket on the long grass in the apple orchard while I hung back.
He wore sandals, which he slipped off to walk around on the blanket and pat it down. He rested his basket on a corner, placed his phone in the middle, displaying a screen of three thick white candles flickering away, then swept his arm out to me in a courtly manner.
Barefoot, changed for the hot evening into loose cargo pants and a clean white T-shirt, he—again—looked ready for a photo shoot.
“Your chair, miss,” he said graciously with a nod. “Welcome to the candlelit Café Droughdoulan.”
“The what?”
“Family name.”
“Oh, right. I was just talking about those with… Anyway, sorry. It takes something away when you have to explain the joke to the audience, doesn’t it?”
“I would explain every breath I take to you and never grow tired of the effort, or company.” Before I could start to think too much that he was sounding like Zar, he added, “But … the pleasure of that company is tenfold when I don’t have to explain.”
I laughed. “If you say anything else that goes over my head, I won’t mention it. Preserve the moment.”
“Thank you kindly. Why are you standing there, Cassiopeia?”
“What if spiders get on the blanket?”
“I’ll give my life to protect you.” He pressed his left hand over his heart.
“Seriously, though, if you see a spider—”
“I shall mash the little bastard into a pulp before it can move so much as a centimeter in your direction.”
“Well…” I finally stepped over to the blanket. “Turns out you do know how to sweet-talk a girl. Not just the flashy, insincere stuff.”
“Oh, no. My commitment to your safety, comfort, wellbeing, happiness, pleasure, fantasies, desires, curiosities, and ample space between yourself and all things eight-legged is absolute.”
“Mostly curiosities, I hope.” I settled on my hip with my knees bent, also sliding off my shoes.
“I knew you’d like that one.” Andrew sat cross-legged and opened the basket. “But let us exercise caution there. You know what they say?”
“Do I?”
“Curiosity killed the witch?”
“Oh, yes. That one. Speaking of curious. Did you notice…?”
“Blinding blue of your eyes making the sky weep for shame? I did indeed.” He was setting out plates, covered dishes, and cotton napkins with our utensils.
“It’s nothing.” I hesitated.
There was the conversation I’d just had with Jed. But, even more fresh, walking through the mobile home park just now: many wolves and pups around. I already didn’t feel especially hungry. I couldn’t complain my way through this meal to boot.
Yet, I wouldn’t be able to stop thinking about what was going on around here. I could say something without getting into anything Jed had said or implied.
“I know not everyone is … entirely accepting of the council’s choice to invite me into your confidence…”
He paused with a foil-covered bowl in his hands, his expression sobering as he looked at me. “Someone giving you grief, darling?”
“Not at all. It’s only … just now walking down here. Everyone we passed… Is it that they’re afraid of me? Because I’m a witch? The retreating or whispered comments? I don’t suppose your ears could pick up anything said?”
Again, Andrew paused.
My stomach sank. “You could hear. Are they really that suspicious? Even after they’ve seen what we’ve been doing? Trying to help all of you?”
“The council was divided, even at the top, when the three packs came together.” He set the bowl down and glanced beyond me to rows of homes some distance from us.
“Diana pushed them with support from a handful of members whose opinions she respects, including Isaac, and—believe it or not—Kage and his parents. He’s her grandson. I’m sure more immediate family getting behind the idea helped push her in the end for our second try with a spellcaster—which was you. I’d been vocal ab
out bringing in humans from the start. Everyone knows I’m a worm-lover, though. Not to mention a mongrel foreigner. I’d tried to go to the police at first, but core stopped me. Failing there, at least we had to ask within the magical community. Reaching out to Broomantle was a shambles, as you know.
“By July, when she did have support from several Sables, she changed her approach with the South Coast Council and didn’t ask if they fancied the idea of humans involved. She told them that was what we were doing in the Sables and called the meeting that you crashed.”
Andrew poured chilled sparkling water in short glasses for us as he continued. “Half our pack are worm servants. So are the Greys. The Aspens … not so much. They’ve been able to live more independently, more like our Bavarian friends. They didn’t want anything to do with this choice. And … yes, there are plenty of wolves here as well who don’t think you can be up to any good with your magic and your wormy ways.” He passed me a glass over the flickering candles. “I’m sorry for that. But it’s not everyone. Some only wish…”
“I would go away?”
“The best we can do is prove Diana right.” He paused, a bit of the smile returning, and lifted his glass. “To good hunting.”
I touched my glass to his. “Thank you for believing in worms, Andrew.”
Again, I wanted to ask him about his own loss. Almost went to the police and they’d stopped him? Physically? It was a story I longed to know. About him and Sarah, about the many months it had taken for Diana to bring in a scry. Once more, though, it wasn’t the time. Andrew hadn’t asked me out to talk about his murdered lover.
Which made me think of my own fears, Jed’s warnings, their allegiance display, and Zacharias.
It seemed like most of the conversations I’d ever had with Andrew involved gossip and scheming…
I said nothing as I set the glass on the blanket and Andrew uncovered a dish.
He held it out to me. “Scotch egg?”
I blinked, pleasantly distracted from worrying topics. “Did you get those in the stores?”
He chuckled. “I made them, darling. I said I would make you dinner.”
“You can cook? For real? Not just … meat plus fire?”
“You tell me. For the sake of sincerity, I should mention I didn’t bake the bread or separate the curds from the whey, but I did essentially fix everything here with my own fair hands and I shall allow you to be the judge of whether or not I can cook.”
Andrew had made beautifully fried, crisp and golden Scotch eggs, chicken salad sandwiches with olive and slivered almonds, and a silky cheese dip for raw vegetables sticks—carrots, celery, and cucumber.
I forgot all about not being hungry. Did they have all this in the stores and Kage didn’t bother? Or had Andrew put in a special request with a core member while we were in London? He hadn’t had time to go shopping for himself.
That wasn’t all, either. After the still warm eggs, which Andrew ate in two bites, despite the thick layer of sausage, and the sandwiches with the vegetable dip, he’d put together what he called individual trifles and I called parfaits. These were in two separate tall glasses to see the layers: Victoria sponge cake, fresh strawberries, rhubarb sauce, vanilla custard, all stacked three layers deep up to a top of freshly whipped cream and a final crowning berry with the green stem on.
The second time today I wanted to photograph my food. This time, though, I’d left my phone safely home and couldn’t either way.
He admitted that he hadn’t made the cake. “Mum”—really Jason’s mother, Tabitha—had done that yesterday for a weekend treat with the berries and Andrew had pinched some to make his trifles.
Otherwise, he said it was all his work, including the rhubarb sauce and custard from scratch. This was what I would call vanilla pudding at home and I was surprised he’d had time to let it set. Probably had to put it in the freezer.
“You must have been cooking since the moment we got back.”
“I have indeed. Didn’t mean to be late fetching you. Then again…” Arching an eyebrow.
“I’m sorry, Andrew. I had no idea you were working so hard on this. You didn’t have to.”
“Apparently I did. You think I’m an insincere prat.”
“I never said you were a prat.”
“In your lingo … a jerk? A pig? A shallow, troll-headed moron?”
“I never said any of that.” I laughed. “Moron is the very last thing I think you are.”
The trifle was as divine as everything else and I ate slowly. I usually didn’t like rhubarb—slimy and over-sweetened in whatever it was in. This, though, remained tart and complemented the sweet custard and soft cake. The untreated, fresh berries added the right touch to make the whole thing a summer day in a glass.
“Besides which,” I went on after savoring a bite while Andrew gulped a great spoonful. “You really can cook. I am impressed.”
Andrew licked cream off the top and gave a nod. He was perfectly capable of eating in a civilized fashion, but I loved the balance between two worlds he showed me. Watching Gabriel eat had almost made my skin crawl. Even Isaac ate faster—and more—when he and I were on a date. And, when Isaac was left alone, he ate like the rest of them—all in a swallow.
“So you learned to cook from your adopted mother?”
“Nah…” Gulping again. “I never paid the attention to her that I should have. But my first job with humans was in a restaurant. That went from serving to actually working in a kitchen, then another kitchen when I got a gig at a hotel, all eventually leading to leaving the culinary world for my now expired position. I’m no chef. I lucked into the kitchen work and washed dishes half the time, but they tried me in appetizers and similar to help in a pinch. Then, yes, I got more interested and now cook with Mum. You probably think we’re blood-soaked barbarians after bunking in corpse-nose’s care. There are more around here than just Merab who cook, though.”
“You can’t tell me this is usual for you. Are you going home after for a steak?”
Andrew chuckled. “Had one when I got in earlier. This meal is afters for me.”
“Did you really?”
He grinned. “If I hadn’t, your Scotch eggs might not have made it as far as the orchard. Much less that chicken.”
“Thank you for being Red Riding Hood instead of the wolf and making sure the basket arrived safely.”
“You would love my quiche. It’s usually cheese, bacon, and herbs, but I’ll add broccoli special for you. Brunch tomorrow?”
“I can’t commit to that.”
“Because of your shocking memory? Want me to call and remind you?”
“No.” I laughed. “I’m sorry about that. Because I don’t know what’s happening tomorrow. I’m trying to arrange something with this translator. I’m afraid Zar and Jed will want to tear off to London again. And I’m supposed to be looking for kindred.”
And what about Kage? If I should be on a date with anyone now it was him. Tomorrow, before translator, kindred, brunch, or anything else: Kage.
I sighed and finished, “Also sleep-deprived and a bit stressed at the moment to say if I can see you for brunch. But thank you for offering.”
On my last sentences, Andrew, who had been nothing but attentive all meal, looked past me, off to something in the distance.
I shifted my position, still eating dessert, to follow his gaze.
It was Rebecca, walking along the fence, stopping to either set something down, or pick something up in the long grass there, then on top of the fence posts and knotholes.
“What is she doing?” I asked, still watching.
“Hiding marbles.”
“For pups? Like a treasure hunt?”
“Something like that. It’s a conditioning game. We have to teach them years before they actually learn to change how to handle it. By the time we reach Moon’s transition, we’ve been trained how to understand scent messages and how vision and hearing will be different. It’s a lifelong journey. They’ll
have soaked those marbles in vinegar or covered them in powdered milk before they’re hidden. Something we can smell even in skin. Then the pups go searching. Keeps them busy for hours. They love it. And they get to keep the marbles they find until the next game. Certain marbles and patterns are coveted, you know. I still have a couple blue cat eyes myself.”
When I shifted back he was smiling into my eyes. “I do love the color blue.”
“Then why do you always wear warm shades?” I asked.
“Saving for special occasions.” But he looked past me again. “Uh-oh.”
I looked.
A young male with floppy, in-his-face hair and baggy shorts, jogged after Rebecca.
“One of her admirers?” I asked.
Rebecca—young, willowy, elegant, with a dancer’s body and honey-colored hair down to the middle of her back—drew far too much interest according to her.
I looked forward to my chance to speak with her. Rebecca was savvy about the pack and had been a huge help to me personally on those early, strained introductions. She’d wanted to be on this mission herself but they wouldn’t allow her. Diana had been firm on this since almost all of their losses had been female, including one pregnant female, and Rebecca was too valuable to her pack to rush off after murderers.
She wasn’t the only one who wished she was along. So did I. Too much testosterone and not enough common sense in this group.
Rebecca, not Andrew, might be the one to ask what had really happened in the eyes of the pack yesterday when five of mine had offered me the vow and it had apparently traumatized the rest.
Which reminded me, I needed a conversation with Atarah as well.
Calmer after dinner and a laugh with Andrew, I remembered Isaac inviting me to ask her about him.
Did he know what had happened yesterday in front of the pack? Would he have done the same if he hadn’t already been off to work? I didn’t need to ask.
“That’s Darius,” Andrew explained. “AKA the twat.”
“Andrew, really.” I gave him a look.
Andrew shrugged. “Not my fault that he is. Look at him.”
Moonlight Heart: A Reverse Harem Shifter Romance (The Witch and the Wolf Pack Book 4) Page 23
