TJ poured her a new ’rita and sat back down on the couch, sipping her own.
She didn’t pick up her glass right away. She sat cross-legged and cross-armed in the large chair, growing more morose and annoyed by the minute as she realized her most trusted adviser insisted on approaching this whole issue rationally.
“I don’t consider it just ‘details,’ Teej. I’ve known him almost my whole life, and he’s never acted like he wanted me, or even liked me. He’s always treated me like an irritating little sister and now he figures out I’m his mate, all of a—”
TJ slammed her glass down on the coffee table so hard some of the icy green concoction jumped the rim and puddled on the finished wood. She paid no attention to the mess.
“Lark. Are you going to argue with me about wolves and love and bonding?”
She blinked in surprise. “Oh, my God.” Her heart dropped down to her shoes, and her face burned with shame. “I’m a selfish fucking bitch,” she said through her hands. “I’m a stupid, insensitive asshole. I can’t believe I didn’t even stop to think about you and Josh. Oh, Teej…”
“Stop it, sweetie. Just stop,” TJ murmured, sighing. “I wasn’t trying to make you feel like shit. I was reminding you I know something about this. I want you to look at this calmly. You need to figure out what you’re really feeling here.”
She raised her head to see TJ looking at her with love and sympathy, and she wondered what she’d done to deserve such a best friend.
“You don’t think I’m a bitch for freaking out about Taran claiming me, even though you lost your boyfriend when he found his mate?”
TJ took a couple deep breaths, staring into space for a minute. “You’re not a bitch, baby. I’m your best friend; you’re supposed to come to me when you’re unhappy. I lost Josh seven years ago. I’ve healed.”
“You’re healed, but you refuse to date werewolves?”
“Yes,” TJ said firmly. “Losing Josh hurt like hell. But it hurt mostly because it wasn’t his fault. And once it happens to you, you want to make damned sure it never happens again. Josh loved me—he really loved me, I know that—and then Melissa showed up, and it wasn’t his fault or her fault. It just felt so fucking random.”
“Some werewolves don’t leave their girlfriends, or their wives, when they meet their mates.”
“True. But they end up miserable. If a wolf’s in love with a woman and his mate shows up, he’s screwed either way.”
“But since it’s so rare for a wolf to even find a mate,” Lark said gently, “the odds of it happening to you again are, like, nonexistent. So you could—”
“Lark, I’m not discussing Nick. Not today, not tomorrow, never. We’re talking about Taran.”
“Okay. Sorry.”
“Forgiven.”
Lark knew she meant it.
“Now. Can we agree having the wolf you’ve loved for ten years wind up bonded to you is maybe not the worst thing you’ve ever experienced?”
She sighed. “Oh, hell. I guess so.”
“All right. That leaves what? Anger at him for not telling you before he claimed you.”
“Right. It feels like he trapped me.”
“But he can’t. He can’t force you to stay with him. He’s fucked if you don’t want him. He’s bonded to you, body and soul, for the rest of his life, so if he committed some great sin, he’ll be doing penance forever.”
“Yeah, but for the rest of my life, there’s a wolf out there who can sense me, can find me, can never forget about me… I mean, there are some really scary stories about bonded wolves whose mates rejected them.”
“And none of them apply to y’all. He’ll never hurt you, he’ll never go crazy on you. Like you said, he’s never acted like he wanted you. You really think it’s because he didn’t?”
She frowned. “What? You mean like, he wanted me and purposely acted like an asshole so I wouldn’t know?”
TJ rolled her eyes. “Duh. And why do little boys chase little girls and hit them with their backpacks?”
“I hadn’t thought about it like that.” She recalled something Taran said last night. “Oh. Oh, wow.”
TJ raised her eyebrows.
“Last night, after…after we made love. He said something about forgetting what it was like. He said he hadn’t been a busy wolf lately, and I was surprised, because he’s always had women, you know? So that would mean…”
“That would mean he hasn’t had sex in a while because you’re his mate. He probably hasn’t wanted anyone else. Even when he’s horny, being with other women would just make him unhappy.”
The implications staggered her. She leaned forward, resting her chin on her hands. “Holy shit. What if he’s been feeling like this for years? What if he’s been suffering as much as me? I mean—”
“How was it, by the way?”
“Huh?”
“The sex, Lark. How was the sex?”
“Oh. Um, unfuckingbelievable.”
TJ grinned slowly. “Really.”
“Yeah. Scary good.”
“Well, no wonder you’re so pissed off. Y’all could’ve been having heart attack sex all this time.”
She snorted her margarita. It burned her nose. “That’s not what I’m really worried about right now, but yeah, I guess.”
“So. What you’re really upset about is his not telling you first, because now you feel trapped.”
“Yeah. I feel responsible for him. He asked me if I’d expected a fuck buddy.”
TJ damned near snorted her own drink. “Shit. He said that? Did you punch him?”
“No! I was too upset to even notice. Hey. Could I punch him?”
“Oh hell yeah. He’s bonded—he’s yours. Look him in the eye, tell him to go to hell, throw something at him, alpha don’t mean shit after this. I don’t know why they refer to a wolf claiming his mate, when he’s the one who gets shackled, but oh well. So, you felt trapped…”
“Yeah. I always fantasized about him wanting me, or…”
“Falling desperately, head over heels in love with you…”
“Yeah. And then we’d have wonderful sex and be together. But I never tried to imagine the rest of it—explaining it to the family, dating like normal people. Get married? Break up? I mean, when you think about it, the complications could be horrible.”
“Well, yeah, I’d say so. Y’all never lived together, did you? I mean when you lived with Meg and David. I can’t remember.”
“No. Taran joined the Army a year before my folks died.”
They each sipped their margaritas, lost in their own thoughts.
“I’m getting buzzed here,” Lark said after a while.
“I’m getting bombed.” TJ smiled. “Wanna give me the details on the sexy sexy?”
“I’ll need another ’rita before I can do that.” She laughed. She found it weird and difficult to dish personal dirt on sex, even to her closest friend in the world. “Teej?”
“Yeah?”
“I feel bonded to him. You think it’s my imagination? I haven’t felt this way before. With the other guys, after the first time we made love—I didn’t feel this—this pull, this tether. I just feel like we’re connected, and I don’t…” She trailed off, unable to explain it any better.
“They say it’s a two way thing,” TJ mused. “Scientists, I mean. They’re not sure how it works. They’ve just observed in a lot of cases—and I mean, like, a maj—maj—most of the time—” she hiccupped, and they both giggled, “—when a wolf bonds to a woman it’s recip—she bonds back, you know? Nature’s way, I guess.” She hiccupped again. “Someday when I’m not trashed I’ll tell you all about the werewolf’s limbic system.”
“The wha-huh?”
“Limbic syst—the brain, you know? Controls emotion, memory, the primal stuff. ’S where the mate switch is, they think.”
“He tried to tell me,” Lark mumbled.
“’Scuse me?” TJ demanded. “What’d you say?”
“I
said, I think he tried to tell me. He ashked me—he asked me to stop him, or make him stop, or if I wanted to st—whatever, you know? Like he felt guilty. I thought it washh just the big brother thing, like he wash—was—trying to protect me. Cause he does that, you know. Really pisses me off. Always Mr. Bossy.”
“Um, alpha, shweetie.”
“Well, that’s no way to run a relashunship. Mr. Sensitive he ain’t.”
“But now you’re his mate, you can do something about that. You can’t really change him, and he’ll shtill be a-a alpha—crap, I think I’ve had enough.”
Lark sighed drunkenly. “Me too. I can’t go to bed like this.”
“Me neither.”
“We need to eat. Wanna order pizza?”
“Sounds good. You call.” TJ managed to lurch into the kitchen with an armload of glass and no bumps or bleeding. She called from the kitchen a minute later.
“Hey, Lark?”
“Yeah?” she replied as she wiped the margarita rings off the table.
“There’s a big brown werewolf across the street, shtaring—staring straight at my kitchen window.”
She sat down on the couch. “Okay. Is that shtalking, or is that guarding?”
“Let’s call it guarding, and let’s ignore it. Call for pizza.”
“Okay.” She pulled out her cell, but didn’t dial. “Teej?” she wailed. “I don’t wanna call Papa John’s! I wanna call Taran. Like right now, and tell him I’m sorry, and I love him, and—”
TJ staggered back into the living room. “NO. Lark Manning, no. Drunk dialing ish not what you need to do right now. Even I know that, and I’m drunker than you. Here.” She held out her hand. “Gimmee your cell phone.”
“I could just call him from your phone, you know.”
“Oh. Yeah. Okay, don’t. Bad idea.” She stood up, swayed, righted herself. “Lish—listen to me. You need to take a few days and think this over, sweetie. He’s not going anywhere. This is a huge change in your life. Don’t act on impulsh—” She hiccupped. “I’m drunk, but I’m right. Sleep on this a while. Get ushed to it before you call.”
“I know, I know, you’re right,” she said miserably.
Her every nerve screamed to call him, run to him. On the other hand, she’d acted on pure emotion earlier, and look where it got her. She needed to get her head straight before she poured her heart out.
***
He spent the next six nights on four feet outside TJ’s apartment, enlisting friends always willing to help a wolf guard his mate. Maintaining a discreet stance in the shadows of the office complex across the street, someone kept an eye on Lark’s arrivals and departures from dusk to daybreak. Between the apartment surveillance and the GPS tracker on her car, he covered her as well as he could hope.
She could see her uninvited security detail, but so what. He didn’t do it to goad her into communicating; he did it to protect her life.
He’d anticipated complaints from people in the area. Even in a twenty-first century metroplex, many people recoiled at werewolves loitering about in public. After dropping a couple hints to the rent-a-cop who drove the little golf cart—he didn’t explicitly call it a stakeout, but if the rent-a-cop got that idea, Taran wouldn’t disabuse him of the notion—no one approached him or his buddies.
It reminded him of stories older werewolves told, of the days before werewolves came out. Everyone knew certain parts of the city and surrounding countryside—Memorial, Katy, Sugar Land—experienced less crime than other areas. Most people assumed higher incomes made safer neighborhoods. Residents knew better. Even the roughest working class parts of Sugar Land suffered little crime. Something besides money or fear of cops protected those neighborhoods. Years later, everyone learned it was werewolves. Good werewolves ate bad guys.
He called Nick three times a day, to see if the roughneck had emailed the could-be photo of Kuba and if the lawyer had called about a poker game. By Monday, Nick quit answering his phone. Taran started calling from other people’s numbers, but TJ started taking Nick’s calls, and he couldn’t bring himself to talk to her. Once, after answering the phone and hearing nothing for a few seconds, she said, “Taran, do you want to talk? We could talk.”
He could handle a hell of a lot—Army Ranger training, live combat, gang violence, formal challenges, his mother’s attempts to fix him up, his first unsolvable case, even his mate’s rejection. He couldn’t handle Tyler Jean Turner’s sympathy. He hung up on her.
Nick finally called on Thursday afternoon as Taran drove back to headquarters after making arrests in a moonshine ring. He could still solve cases, just not his most important one.
“Hail, Alpha. This humble wolf is grateful for your attention.”
“Watch the ’tude, wolf. You want to talk about Lark, I’m listening. I just got tired of telling you I hadn’t heard from my wolves.”
“Oh well, at least TJ is doing real secretarial work for a change.”
“TJ’s my assistant, not my secretary, she works her ass off, and that’s the last attitude warning you’re getting.” Nick paused for a minute. “She’s worried about you.”
“I’m not comfortable with that.”
“She’s worried about both of you. Lark is—”
“I can’t talk about Lark, Nick. Not attitude, just fact. You calling about my case?”
Nick exhaled sharply, and he steeled himself for another tongue-lashing, perhaps a command to submit for discipline. But after another pause, Nick said only, “Yeah. Lawyer’s name is Petri. He’ll meet you tomorrow night at seven. Warehouse downtown, 7000 block of McKinney, white brick with red trim. There’s a goth club in the front of the building. Go around to the back, gray door, tell them Petri sent you, password is Brunson.”
He laughed in spite of himself. “Fuck. It’s like an old speakeasy. If the cops show up do all the tables slide into the floor or something?”
“No idea,” Nick replied drily. “What do you expect, with the dumbass gambling laws we have? Petri will meet you inside. Tall, blonde, yuppie, radiates lawyerness. He’s nervous as hell about bringing a cop, but I told him you’re my best friend. You better just hope Vice doesn’t have a raid planned tonight.”
“I’ll make certain they don’t. Thank you, Nick. This could be the break I need.”
“Don’t thank me. You’re my wolf, and I want these curs brought down. Talk to you later.”
They hung up. On impulse, and before he had a chance to come to his senses, he dialed Lark’s cell phone. As expected, he got her voicemail. He wouldn’t hang up; alphas didn’t hang up. They just talked real fast when they had something difficult to say.
“Look. I don’t expect you to call me back. Christmas is gonna be hell, it’s my fault and I’ll worry about it. Shit, I’ll probably have to leave town.” He took a deep breath. “I should’ve tried harder to tell you. I just wanted you too much. I’m sorry I yelled at you. I’m sorry I told you to grow up and, and—everything else. I didn’t mean to—no, scratch that. I lied. I’m sorry I hurt you, I’m sorry I scared you, I’m sorry I yelled. I’m not sorry I claimed you. I wanted you before I knew you were my mate. I think I loved you before then, and I know I love you now. I’m
no—”
Beeep.
Goddamn it. The first and only humiliating apology of his life—getting cut off in the middle of it didn’t do much for his self-esteem.
Alphas didn’t have self-esteem. Alphas were self-esteem.
Fuck it. He dialed again.
“You need to understand something, Lark. I’m never gonna regret fucking you, hear me? It was the best night of my life, and it was the best night of yours. I’m gonna think about it every day single day.” He felt himself growing hard just saying this out loud. Maybe he really was an asshole; he’d live with it. “I’m gonna think about how you looked, how you smelled, what you did, the way you begged me to make you come. And when we see each other—because we will—you remember this—I’ll be thinking about it whenever I l
ook at you.” He stopped, panting heavily. “I love you.”
He hung up.
Chapter Six
She always turned her cell phone off when she worked. Sometimes she forgot to turn it back on till long after she got home—or, in the present case, TJ’s apartment. Around nine-thirty Thursday night she saw she had six missed calls, including two from Taran. Hands trembling, she looked to see if he’d left a voicemail.
She stared at the screen for five minutes before she pressed “send” to listen. The first message set her pulse racing, her stomach flipping and turning itself in knots. The second message turned her legs to jelly and she had to sit down, because her body ached and burned like he was in the damned room, saying all those things in person.
She listened to it at least a dozen times, turned on and trembling. Then she started to panic with the (largely) irrational fear someone could get hold of her phone, hack her password, and listen to the message. She emailed the voicemail to herself and then erased it. When she got home, she’d print the email from her computer and add it to the Taran Box, which no one, not even TJ, knew about.
It contained every item, memento, or, most rarely, gift she ever received from him, including the ticket stub from the showing of Beauty and the Beast. He had taken her and two girlfriends to see it the first time he came home on leave following her parents’ death. After the movie he took them to Bennigan’s for dinner, three giggly eight-year-old girls and one gorgeous eighteen-year-old wolf. Their constant squealing, he said later, made his ears ring for days. Over the years, she’d filled the box with silly shit like that. Nothing like the message, though. That message was the hottest thing any guy had ever said to her. “I’m glad I fucked you; I’ll remember it every day of my life; I love you.” It was probably as close to romantic as Taran could get, and it was all she needed.
***
He stopped by the office Friday night to confirm plans with his captain: no raids on the party, nobody cared if he won money, and a couple guys in the unit hanging out in a bar one block away from the warehouse in case Kuba showed. Taran would send a prearranged text, they’d show up and take the Czech downtown for questioning. Given Kuba’s rap sheet and the information from Miami, they could hold him at least twenty-four hours without a warrant for his arrest.
Kiss and Kin: A Sexy Shifter story Page 7
