by E A Price
Kurt let out a definitely unmanly-like yelp as the cheese in his hand exploded.
Isis and Trina returned, only Isis’ expression was much more accusatory. “What now?”
“Just a little mishap with some cheese.”
“Are you feeling okay?” asked Trina.
“Fine,” he said, which was the truth. Kurt was just glad Sydney wasn’t there to see him acting like such a dunce. He pulled a box of Chinese take-out from the fridge and yes, that exploded too – right over Trina and Isis. Mostly Trina – Isis’ cat reflexes saw her ducking behind Trina before more than a couple of noodles landed.
“Kurt!” shrieked Trina.
“Fuck, I’m sorry!”
He stepped back, bumped into the blender and the next thing he knew every electrical appliance in the kitchen was on and going full-tilt.
On reflection, perhaps he wasn’t fine.
*
Wade didn’t know what to do. Neither did his wolf. Which made them both agitated and jumpy.
Susie had taken the day off work because she said she felt sick. He knew she hadn’t been well at the party, but he assumed it was down to alcohol, and likewise today she was nursing a hangover. But she did not look well.
She was sweaty and warm and could barely stand to be touched. She’d been getting worse and worse all day and was now muttering something about being poisoned.
Wade kept telling himself that her natural healing abilities would kick in, but so far, they hadn’t. His wolf was nearly beside himself, and it was time to do something.
He pulled his struggling mate into his arms. “C’mon, babe, time to get you to a hospital.”
Wade hated human medicine, and most human doctors had no idea what to do with shifters, but his mate was in pain, and if they could help, they would. He’d make them help.
*
Damnit! Sydney jiggled her key a few more times. It was firmly stuck.
Yep, this right here is the reason why you don’t stick your car key into your apartment lock. There was less wiggle room than the time she tried on that ill-fated bikini. It was so tight she hopped around the changing room, before falling over, ripping the curtain as she went and giving the whole store an eyeful. She was never donning a bikini again.
What had she been thinking? About the key - not the bikini. Easy she thought scornfully – she’d been mooning over that darn witch again. Kurt hadn’t left her thoughts since she met him and it was starting to worry her. Her work had been sloppy to say the least. What was wrong with her? Thank heavens her colleague Nelson had been watching her closely earlier, else she might have made some huge mistakes that could jeopardize the case…
She hadn’t been this hormonally challenged even when she was a teenager. She needed to do something about it. Blushing, she considered digging out her vibrator. Sydney was no virgin, but only just. Growing up as a geek and surrounded by huge overprotective rhino shifters meant that she had little to no dating life as a teenager – and certainly no sex life. In college she’d been pretty focused on studying and her various inventions, but one guy had slipped through – a teaching assistant called Jim. Sydney had been shy, but he had been patient, and eventually they did have sex. Then he dumped her. Turned out he and a few other assistants had a bet going to see how many of them could seduce their students. Sydney was too embarrassed for her reputation and worried about it getting back to her father to do anything about it. Luckily, one of the other girls – a granddaughter to one of the members of the Council of Supernaturals – was not quite so bashful. The bear shifter made a big stink and got him fired, plus she also broke two of his ribs, an arm and his nose. So it all worked out in the end. But it meant that Sydney was even more hesitant about boys and sex and so on and so forth – the things that still made her blush and giggle like a schoolgirl – and therefore had no clue about how to deal with her crush on Kurt.
Ignore it, maybe? The coward in her said yes, but every other urge said jump him and lick him all over.
Sydney sighed and gave her key one last jiggle. It was stuck tight. She called her brother, Denzel. He was good with keys and locks – the result of a misspent youth. He would sort it out.
For now, though, she really needed to pee and didn’t know her neighbors well enough to prevail on them. But perhaps she could get in through one of her windows. She’d have to smash it, but Denzel wouldn’t mind replacing it. Briefly, she wondered if she could hold it, but given that she had drunk five ice teas that afternoon, she doubted it. The window it was.
*
“Hey, mom.”
Kurt’s mother, Christine looked liked she’d just stepped out of an episode of Dynasty – all big hair and shoulder pads. She dressed like she was ready for a night on the town, but honestly, it was just an average day for her.
“Sweetheart,” she purred, “how lovely to see you.”
She air-kissed him – so as not to ruin her lipstick – and ushered him inside, settling him onto her plush pink couch and plying him with lemonade.
“Not that I don’t love your sporadic and too few visits,” she paused so that jibe could sink in, “but I do have a Tupperware party to attend in half an hour.”
Kurt cocked an eyebrow. “You like Tupperware parties?”
“Why not? I like Tupperware – I don’t know how witches managed before it. Keeping potion ingredients fresh is a nightmare. Tupperware was sent by the goddesses.”
“I ah, just wondered if you could help me, my magic’s a little wonky.”
Christine canted her head. “In what way?”
“Well, you might want to look out your window.”
She sashayed to the window and let out an ‘oh’ of surprise. Yep, her front lawn was now purple.
“Are you sure that was you?”
“Can’t imagine it was anyone else, I’ve been off my game for a couple of hours.”
The incidents at the crime scene were just the start. When Kurt got back to the SEA, he set off all the car alarms in the parking garage. Sent coffee flying all over the security guard Boris. Turned Diaz’s shoes into fluffy bunny slippers. Made Wes’s shirt turn from a staid blue check affair into a hot pink tank top. Turned Mason’s coffee into a peanut butter and anchovy milkshake, and turned Lake’s hair red. They were all pretty annoying on a sliding scale – Lake’s hair being the worst, but his last act of the day was what sent him running to his mother.
He made Jessie Sander’s clothes disappear. Her mate, Director Sanders was not impressed – or perhaps absolutely livid was a more apt description. Jessie was understanding; Gerry Sanders was not. Three large shifters had to hold him back. The snake shifter could be coldly clinical about a lot of things – his mate was not one of them.
Yep, Kurt was persona non grata at that moment, so he turned to his mother. That showed how worried he was. Spending time with someone who referred to him as her special little man and had no boundaries when it came to the bathroom was not top of his list.
“Did something happen?” she asked with warm motherly concern.
“No, I can’t think of anything.”
“You didn’t mess up a tracking spell again did you?” she asked with cold witchy disdain.
Christine could easily flip between hot and cold. She made for a very scary dinner companion.
“I was at a crime scene; everything seemed normal and then I just started going haywire.”
His mother thought for a few moments and then tried a few enchantments. Given that he managed to transform her couch cushions into stacks of newspapers, they weren’t successful. She tried several other things – truly disgusting potions, some more enchantments and even dabbled with a little voodoo, but nothing helped.
Crap. Maybe he was just destined to have wonky magic.
*
Sydney used her useless magic detecting device to smash her window. Well, it might not be any good for its original purpose, but it certainly could open a window.
She climbed through the small spac
e, grateful for her petite frame, even if her hips were just a tad too rounded. About to run to the bathroom, she forgot one important thing – her very robust alarm system. Within seconds, shutters came down on the windows, and she was trapped under a net.
“Oh, no,” she wailed. “Not now!”
*
Christine slumped back into her seat and eyed him beadily. “I’m sorry, my special little man, I really have no clue. I can’t detect another witch’s magic, so it must be something triggering yours.”
Kurt groaned. If his mother couldn’t help, he didn’t know anyone else who could. He wondered if Sydney had her machine working yet. Perhaps she could figure something out with one of her devices. Maybe he should call her, hear her sweet voice…
The bulb in the overhead light exploded making his mother scowl.
“Are you sure nothing strange happened today?”
He was about to deny it, and Sydney’s cute little form ran across his mind. He wouldn’t say she was strange. The bulb in a table lamp also exploded.
“What is it?” demanded his mother.
“Well, I did meet this girl… woman, and…”
“And?” she prompted.
“And nothing, I liked her.”
The glass top of his mother's very expensive coffee table followed suit.
“Perhaps there is more to it than merely liking,” she suggested looking more than a little smug, not even glancing at the table.
“I don’t know about that,” he said hastily. Although given the look on her face, she was already picking out dinner service patterns for their wedding registry.
“It’s not unheard of for witches to be a little off their game when they meet their mates.” Yep, she was already planning the bridal shower. “Particularly males – magic and testosterone make for a heady mix.”
Yeah, he figured that when he hit puberty. The stories of his childhood were a little more embarrassing than most. Few males inherited the witchy gene. There were wizards out there, but they were rare, and their magic was different, and warlocks were just dangerous creatures – barely human at all.
But was he really to accept that Sydney was his mate? The thought made him uneasy but not really unhappy. The little human was sweet and gorgeous – her spirit animal was surely a unicorn. He wasn’t looking to settle down, but the thought of settling with Sydney wasn’t all that unappealing.
“So, which coven does she belong to?”
“Ah, yeah, about that…”
*
A knock sounded at her door, and if Sydney weren’t currently trapped under a net while trying to cross her legs, she might have actually jumped for joy.
“Help, I’m in here!” she called. She didn’t care who it was; she’d even entertain a door-to-door vacuum cleaner salesperson at that moment in time. She might even buy a vacuum cleaner.
“Syddy?” rumbled a deep voice.
Darn. Actually, she cared a little bit. It was Chad. The six-foot-six mass of muscles who, at her father’s encouragements, seemed set on wooing her. Could she last until Denzel showed up? She glanced toward the bathroom. Probably not.
“I’m trapped,” she yelled.
“Your car key’s in the door,” he said, and she imagined him creasing his massive brow. Chad was hardly the smartest cookie, and he sometimes took a while to figure things out.
“I know, I came in through the window, could you…”
Within seconds, the door splintered off its hinges, crashing to the floor and Chad came in, lumbering over it. He peered down at her.
“What are you doing under that net?” he asked.
Sydney let out a protracted sigh.
*
“A human?” hissed Christine.
“Yep. Her dad’s a rhino shifter, but she takes after her mom.”
Okay, so he wasn’t just ruining everyone else’s day when he got back to the SEA, he also asked around a little about Sydney. Just because he wanted to know who he was working with – that was all. She was new to the SEA, barely there three weeks – well, he would have noticed if she’d been there longer. Girls like her don’t go unnoticed. He got the bare facts about her – parents, brothers, major in college and preferred beverage. But the real scuttlebutt was which of the shifters were narrowing in on her. When a new girl started working at the SEA, the shifters always zeroed in until one of them went in for the kill. Horny beasts he thought in irritation. Surprisingly, word was Sydney had remained pretty unmolested from their attentions, though that might have something to do with her dad – a high up enforcer in the only rhino crash in Los Lobos. They had a few rhinos working in tactical, and through them, he put the word out that Sydney was off limits. Kurt thoroughly approved of this, and didn’t for one second consider this warning included him.
“Rhinos?” repeated his mother with no small amount of derision. “You’re going ga-ga for a woman who is part rhino?”
“Only the good parts,” he teased.
“Are there any good parts of a rhino?”
They’re pretty horny he thought and had to force himself not to let out a dirty and perhaps somewhat wistful laugh.
“I only met her for a few moments, but she seemed nice.”
At the SEA, creatures of all species were thrown together and thought nothing of mating one another. Nobody would find it odd for a hedgehog to mate a wolf shifter, or for a tiger to mate a human. But outside the SEA, a lot of people preferred to keep within their own species. The coven his mother belonged to was very discerning, and none of the members would be caught alive dating a shifter. They viewed shifters as nothing more than animals.
Christine sniffed. “It’s not conclusive. You can’t assume she’s your mate just because of this.”
“I never said she was my mate, that was…”
“What about your girlfriend, Trina?”
Kurt gritted his teeth. “Trina is not my girlfriend.” No matter how many times she appeared in his bedroom each night. They’d dated for eleven months, and that was ten months and twenty-eight days too long.
“I don’t believe for a second your mate could be part rhino. There must be some other reason for your current predicament. I will look into it.”
“Thanks, mom, but don’t miss your Tupperware party on my account.”
Christine gave him a stern look. “This is far more important. I won’t have my son mating a rhino shifter… I mean I won’t have my son…”
Kurt held up a hand and gave her a sour look. “Let’s end this conversation here.”
His mother at least had the grace to look a little embarrassed. “I’ll call you when I find something.”
He said thank you, endured some more air kissing and left, hoping that his magic didn’t turn his car into a giant marshmallow on the way home.
Mate, huh? He liked staying out late, drinking with friends and doing whatever he wanted. But a flash of a future where his nights were spent with Sydney curled around him while they watched TV, ate pizza and went to bed early did have its merits.
*
Chad made himself at home. He found Sydney’s supply of beers she kept for her father and brothers and was now watching an iron shifter competition on TV.
To his credit, he had already boarded up her window and managed to get her door back on its hinges. They both needed replacing, but she felt sure she could rely on Denzel to sort them out when he arrived. Having overprotective brothers wasn’t all bad.
Now thoroughly relieved – in more ways than one – she approached Chad, with a view to getting him off her straining couch and out of her apartment.
“So, Chad…” His eyes slid in her direction, and the beer hovered before his lips. “Ah, what can I help you with?”
His brow creased.
“I mean,” she amended, “was there a reason you dropped by? I mean I’m grateful you did, but I was just wondering…”
Chad cleared his throat. “Yeah, there’s a monster truck rally on Saturday. I was wondering if you wan
ted to come with me. I need to buy tickets.”
“No, thank you, Chad.”
He didn’t seem to hear her. “Looks like it will be a doozy, I’ll get you a ticket. Do you want to get some dinner first or get a burger while we’re there?”
“Thank you for the offer, Chad, but I don’t want to go,” she said firmly.
His brow creased again, and Sydney perched on the edge of the couch carefully, fearing her added weight would completely crush it.
“Do you really want to mate me?”
Chad smiled and nodded.
“But, why? You don’t even know me. We've barely spent any time together before.” Chad had been pretty friendly with a couple of her brothers growing up, but he'd barely ever said two words to her until a couple of weeks ago. Her father had never really allowed Sydney to play with the other crash children – they were twice her size and their games were a little too rough.
The frown returned. “Your dad said it was a good idea.”
“Is that all?” she asked in exasperation.
Chad shrugged. “He said you would be a good mate. He told me to do it.”
“But don’t you want more than that?”
“Sounds fine to me.”
Sydney scrubbed her hands down her face. There was no way she could mate Chad. Surely her father wasn’t serious? She knew he worried about her constantly, but did he really want to push a mate on her that she didn’t want? Yes, he probably did she thought miserably. His own mating had been arranged – her mom was the daughter of a rhino and a human from a crash in Ursa. Arranged matings to cement warm and fuzzy feelings between crashes were common, but few rhino shifters wanted a human. If the mating was arranged, the least they wanted was another rhino shifter to ensure their kids were also rhinos. But her dad didn’t seem to mind. He agreed to the mating in principle, flew out to Ursa one day to meet her mom to ensure they were compatible, and flew back the next day bringing her with him. He was supposed to spend a couple of weeks there, getting to know her, but he didn’t need it. As he told it, he knew from the moment he met her that they would get along and thankfully love soon grew. But that was them, and Sydney doubted she would grow any feelings for Chad. He was a nice enough guy, but she feared that after twenty years with him, she might smother him in his sleep. Plus, he didn’t come close to Kurt…
