by S. E. Babin
"Har," Jeremy grumbled.
I studied my friend. "Why so grumpy, Bark Boy? Didn't Morgana come out and cast her woo-woo juju on your tree?"
He glared at me. "She did and I've been having nightmares ever since."
Shaw chuckled. "That sounds like Morgana."
We both stared at him, incredulous. "Did you suddenly become her BFF or something?" Jeremy said.
His cheeks reddened, and I burst out laughing. His skin was so pale, the blush made him look like he was wearing makeup.
"Of all the people to have a crush on, it had to be her?"
"We can't help who we fall in love with," Shaw admonished me.
“You seem to be falling in love a lot this week, dude,” Jeremy said.
I couldn't argue with Shaw about falling in love though. Not without being a huge hypocrite. Cherry bitched at me the entire way home last night. She kept accusing me of doing something with Maron and while I'd defended myself, I really didn't have a leg to stand on. The smell of Maron was all over me. The problem was it was lingering, and it was beginning to really piss me off. I'd showered, scrubbed my skin within an inch of its life, and her scent was still clinging to me. My siblings had remarked on it over breakfast and I'd almost bitten their heads off.
When I argued that I hadn't done anything, which was true, Cherry had retorted I didn't have to do anything, she could smell how much I wanted to.
She wasn't wrong.
I wasn't sure what had gotten into me the other night, but when I saw Maron on that date with that pretty boy witch, something ugly reared up inside of me and howled. I barely remembered taking her by the elbow and acting like a stalker. When she shoved me, something snapped, and I felt like I was waking up from a dream. Thank goodness she was a vamp. If she hadn't been, things could have gotten a lot worse. It was rare, but there were times when the wolf took over, and I couldn’t help my actions. It happened a lot when I was younger. This was the first time it happened since I’d become an adult.
I owed Maron a sincere apology. I'd already apologized, but I could tell she didn't want to hear it that night. If I were being a hundred percent honest, I figured she didn't want to hear it now, either, or any time soon. Probably never.
It wasn't like me to act like that. Over anyone. I certainly didn't feel that way about Cherry. Her skin was chilled every time I touched her and she flinched away as if she couldn't bear the touch of another person. But when I thought about Maron and how fiery she was, something ignited inside of me.
It was awful and I had to figure out a way to get her out of my head. It was beginning to affect my work.
Or, according to my sister, my dweeby little hobby.
Speaking of which, Jeremy was still babbling on about the storm. I tried to bring myself back to the present.
"So I think we should try a drone," he concluded before he turned to me. "What do you think?"
"Uhhh," I said.
Shaw snorted. "I'm pretty sure he's been in la-la land for the last ten minutes. Probably dreaming about his little ice queen."
If they only knew. "Yeah," I said and rubbed the back of my neck like I was embarrassed. "She's great."
Jeremy’s look screamed he knew I was full of shit, but he didn't say anything.
"So, when's the third date? The big one." Jeremy winked at me. He was screwing with me and I had no choice but to play along if I didn't want to be exposed.
"Tomorrow," I said.
"Yeah?" Shaw asked. "Wow. No performance pressure or anything?"
"Dude," I said. "She's a lady."
"Yeah, she is," Jeremy said in an over-exaggerated tone.
I barked out a laugh. "You guys are assholes. I don't kiss and tell."
Jeremy reared back. "The hell you don't! Remember Charity?"
Shaw's mouth split into a grin. "Oh yeah. Charity of the bubble gum body spray?"
"Once," I said, though I couldn't help but chuckle. "And it was too weird not to share." I held up a finger. "Not anymore."
"We're still going to ask you, though," Jeremy said as he elbowed me.
"Please don't. Back to the drone. What about a drone?"
"I want to send one up into the storm and see what's going on up there," Jeremy said.
"During the storm? It will crash."
He shook his head. "I'll wait for the rain to calm down."
"What kind of camera?" Shaw asked.
"Probably my Go-Pro."
"What if it doesn't come back?" I asked.
"Do you have a ladder?"
A chuckle burst from me. "If you want to lose a good camera, go right ahead. But you're going to have to volunteer your own gear."
"In the name of science, I shall. Let's meet back here tonight at seven and we can see what happens." We chatted about what to bring and went our separate ways. On my way out, I locked eyes with the grumpy barista and she made kissing noises at me.
I flipped her off and a surprisingly sweet laugh burbled from her. Grinning, I walked out of the building and made my way over to my parent's house. It was dinner night.
Yay for me.
The Sterling Inquisition didn't have long to wait. It began as soon as I asked my sister to pass the potatoes. She did but before she'd fork them over, she asked how the mysterious woman who smelled like strawberries was doing. This was not good, not good at all, because Cherry did not smell like strawberries and if my family remarked on it while she was here, this could set her off all over again. Cherry smelled like winter. Cold and stiff.
I snorted to myself as I dished out an appalling amount of food onto my plate. This was what I wanted.
So why was Maron still stuck in my head like an earworm I couldn't stop singing?
"She's fine," I said. When in doubt it was best to stick with honesty. They had no idea I wasn't talking about Cherry.
My brothers were grinning at me. They usually knew when I was bullshitting. But there was no way they knew about this. They were just interested in the fact that I had a woman.
"I looked her up," my sister said casually.
I gripped my fork so hard it snapped in half. "Oh?" I said, calm and cool and collected as I sat the remnants of the destroyed tableware down. "And why would you do that?"
My sister looked at the mangled fork and then me. "Because it's natural to stalk your potential sister-in-law?" she said slowly, her voice lilting at the end like she wasn't sure if she was asking or stating.
"Do you make a habit of stalking people?" I asked her.
My brothers were watching us like we were Serena and Venus smacking the ball back and forth to each other across the tennis court.
"Not usually," she drawled, her eyes beginning to spark with interest at my discomfort. "But since you haven't brought her around yet, I thought this one might be serious."
"It is," I snapped. "Serious. We're very serious."
She held up her hands like she was in a stand-off. "Okay, weirdo. I get it. You're -" she made air quotes, "serious."
Copper laughed and tried to cover it up with a cough.
"No. No air quotes. We are serious." My innards were churning with annoyance and the desire to make them understand. To make myself understand, too. "In fact, we're so serious, we're planning a summer wedding."
Oh.
Oh gods.
What in the everloving hell made me blurt that out?
"Whaaaaat?" my sister screeched. "Sterling that's amazing!"
"What the hell?" Copper declared.
"Dude," Bronze said, shaking his head at me.
"Uhhhh," I said and promptly shoved a ton of mashed potatoes in my mouth to keep myself from saying something else completely ludicrous.
Meanwhile, my sister pulled out her cell phone and immediately started to dial, but my mouth was too full to keep from protesting, so it came out like, "Mmmmfffooooooo."
"Moira," Bronze said, "don't do that. Let Sterling do it." Bronze glared at me. He knew my ass was lying.
Copper leaned back in his seat so far the f
irst two legs came off the floor. A shit-eating grin crossed his face and he didn't say a word in my defense.
Moira, in turn, rolled her eyes at Bronze, and didn't bother to hang up. I lunged across the table to swipe her phone but she deftly moved to the right without even getting out of her seat. My elbow hit the gravy boat in my desperate attempt to stop her and Copper whistled low. "Mom's going to be pissed about that. We're using her favorite tablecloth tonight."
"Mom!" Moira cried.
I swallowed the potatoes that had now turned to glue in my mouth. "Moira," I croaked.
"STERLING IS GETTING MARRIED!"
Thirteen
Maron
Two weeks later
I was still seeing Dimitri, though things hadn't heated up yet in the sexy times department. His kisses were still warm but chaste, and our intellectual chats were beginning to get a little stale. I wasn't bored but... well, I was kind of bored.
However, he was still handsome as all get out and I'd found a book of poetry in the briefcase he'd brought over the other night when he'd stopped by to ask me if I wanted to watch the Science Channel with him.
I hadn't. What I'd wanted to do was shovel cake in my face and watch The Real Housewives, but I didn't think Dimitri was the kind of man who liked watching women with three inch acrylic nails try to walk in heels while thinking up yo mama jokes.
So I watched some show with him about the origins of the universe and by the time it was done, I was practically drooling on my popcorn in boredom. Dimitri was in nerd heaven, though.
I kept looking at him trying to find something that made me burn, but I had yet to find it. Still super hot, though.
"What do you think about the storm out there?" I'd asked him.
Dimitri shrugged. "Odd but not unheard of."
"Do you believe things were falling out of the sky?"
He'd chuckled then. "Are you Chicken Little?" he asked.
I frowned at him. "I'm not trying to push a conspiracy theory or anything, I'm just curious." I'd always hated that human tale. There was a lot of crossover between their world and ours because the people here couldn't resist popping over to see what the mortals had. So now we had their television networks, a lot of their books, and more of their culture than I was sometimes comfortable with, but the tale of Chicken Little had always bothered me. The chicken truly believed the sky had fallen but ended up getting eaten for his trouble.
Dimitri turned his attention from the television to me. "I can't imagine things coming out of it. It looks to be an odd storm cloud, yes, but I don't see too much to be alarmed by."
I was more alarmed by his calm demeanor over it. Something odd was happening up there and everyone was way too calm about it.
"Okay," I said finally.
Dimitri crossed his arms. "Spill it," he said. "Something's bothering you."
I pressed my lips together for a moment. He didn't seem like he was humoring me. In fact, it was the opposite. He seemed to genuinely want to know. "It's been sitting over our town for way too long. There's been rumors about the thing for awhile now, but no one seems to be doing anything about it!"
"It's our nature, Maron. Both human and supe. It's not bothering us right now, so all we do is watch."
"Why watch when we can blow it out of the sky?"
A laugh burst from him. "You sound like you're from Texas or something."
I couldn't help it. I laughed, too. "I would rather take care of it before something happens, you know?"
"I know. But what if it's harmless? Wouldn't you feel guilty if you destroyed it?"
"It's not harmless," I insisted.
"How do you know?"
"It's just a gut feeling I have."
At that Dimitri turned his attention back to the television. "Gut feelings aren't science, Maron."
Oooh burn. Strike two.
I hadn't seen him since that night, though it wasn't from him trying. I'd replied to the texts he sent and kept claiming I was busy. He'd asked me to go out with him tonight, but all I wanted to do was stay in and work on a piece I'd drawn up the other night. It was a moon and stars piece and I'd hand drawn and sawed out a large wolf. The symbolism of it wasn't lost on me. I wanted to throw it away, but it was made of pure silver, so I couldn’t without wasting a lot of money.
I stepped away from my bench and hit the News button my phone. It popped up to the front page of the Midnight Cove newspaper. I usually skimmed it a few times a week just to make sure I was keeping up with the most current news. Today's news, though, had me sinking down to the couch.
The headline was on the very front page of the digital news.
LUNA AND BLOSSOM FAMILIES UNITE!
Her last name was Blossom. Were they freaking kidding? I tried to control my breathing. Half of me wanted to laugh. Half of me wanted to cry. And how in the world were they able to get engagement photos that quick? Sterling and Cherry were holding each other in a super cheesy awkward hug and both were smiling like they'd been punked.
"Serves him right," I muttered, but I still read the article.
Cherry was from a prominent family I'd never heard of in the werewolf circle. I'd heard of Sterling's family before because they were the only ones who'd ever balked the alpha’s father. They both came from old money, though there was no employment listed for either of them. Apparently Sterling's work with the weirdo conspiracy society wasn't held in too high esteem with his family. Their wedding date was listed four months away.
Perfect. A summer wedding.
Even though the temps were never too hot or too cold around here, I imagined Cherry being outside in the middle of our summer and melting into a little pool of frigid water at Sterling's feet.
I cackled at the imagery and tossed my phone down. It had been maybe three weeks since they'd met and he was already getting married. Sadness trickled through me. I guess he'd found his soulmate.
It bothered me, though. Especially after the incident next to the coat closet. The one I kept trying to forget about but couldn't. It played in my head every time Dimitri kissed me, and that did not bode well for my future as a potential wife to someone else.
I couldn't help but think this wasn't how the soul mate search was supposed to go. But I also didn't think wanting to claw each other's eyes out like Sterling and I did was a good thing, either. I sighed and fully reclined on the couch. Life was weird and it seemed to be getting weirder every single day. How hard was it for a girl to fall in love in this town?
With Portia around here, the answer should have been not hard at all. Was she making me work for this? If so, she was running her dating agency the wrong way. I picked my phone back up to look at Sterling and Cherry’s stiff smiles. He didn’t really want to marry her, did he?
A plan began to form in the back of my mind.
A terrible one.
But one that would answer my questions about this whole soulmate search.
Fourteen
I stood in front of the Society for Nonconformist Beliefs second-guessing my decision to ambush Sterling. I’d already admitted it was terrible plan and while I was fully aware I was not living in a rom-com, sometimes you had to do what you had to do to get closure.
Today was my closure.
I pushed through the doors of the building and right into a large open lobby filled with people. The smell of fresh brewed coffee hit me right in the face. I headed straight to the cart and was greeted by a disturbingly pretty but pierced all over worker.
“Whaddya want?” she barked at me, a bored expression competing with the sneer on her lips.
“Uh. Well, I’d like a Cafe au Lait and then I’d like to ask you a question.”
One pierced eyebrow rose. “I can do the coffee. Anything else is gonna cost ya.”
“Oh? And what’s the price?”
“Depends on the question.” She turned away and made my drink. Her hands were steady and her fingers were deft. Within less than a minute, she pushed a piping hot drink back to me and
rattled off the price. I handed her a twenty and noticed she didn’t bat an eye or use a calculator to give me back exact change. I studied her a little more thoroughly. Few people were that good at math. I still counted on my fingers and I considered myself to be at an above average intelligence level.
“Good at math,” she said, her expression bored. She must get asked that question quite a lot. “So what’s your question?”
“Sterling Luna. You know where he is?”
A smirk appeared on her face. “That jackass? Yeah.” She hooked a thumb over her shoulder. “He should be in within the next fifteen minutes. Totally predictable, that guy. I don’t think he has a job.”
“Oh,” I said, as I sipped my coffee. Surprised, I pulled it away from my lips. “This is really good.”
“I know.”
I snorted with laughter. “So what do you want for that info?”
The woman shrugged. “I’ll give you that one for free.” She leaned forward. “But if you ever want to know who’s cooking the books in this town, come see me.”
I choked on my second sip. “Wow. How do you know that?”
She tapped the side of her temple. “Numbers. It’s kind of my thing.”
A thought occurred to me. “Say. How do you feel about metalwork jewelry?”
In response, she rolled up her sleeve to show off an impressive array of handmade bracelets.
“Nice.”
“Yeah. I get them from all over. Usually online but sometimes at markets and festivals. Why you asking?”
I dug around in my purse and pulled out a little jewelry bag I carried around with me. I had two pieces in here, some of my best work. I opened the drawstrings, shook the bag, and out tumbled a metalwork apatite ring and a hammered sterling silver bracelet. I held my hand out to her, and she took the jewelry, a look of reverence on her face.
“Ah, shit man.”
I grinned at her. “I make them. Out of my studio.” I rummaged in my purse again and found an old beat up business card. I pushed it across the counter to her. “Call me if you’re interested in doing my books.”
