by Amelia Jade
Angela: Figured it out at last did you?
There was a little yellow face with an expression on it that looked like it was smiling.
Noah: Yeah! Finally managed to come out of the prehistoric era I guess. I still prefer talking in person however.
Angela: Well perhaps you’ll have to come see me again then.
Noah: I would like that. I don’t work tomorrow evening. Are you available?
The wait for her reply seemed to drag on forever, until the point where Noah could barely contain himself. Finally Hector turned and simply arched an eyebrow at him, indicating he needed to knock it off. Feeling slightly stupid, and about twenty years younger based on the butterflies in his stomach when it came to talking to a girl, Noah sat back, resolving to wait out her reply in silence.
That didn’t stop him from snatching at his phone like a madman when it went off, hurriedly tapping on the screen repeatedly until it finally obeyed him and showed the message from Angela.
How does dinner and a movie at my place sound? I’m not sure I could find a babysitter on such short notice. The demand is rather intense these days.
He chuckled out loud at the understatement. With almost all of the women that Cadia was helping out having given birth—only a few stragglers remained—the town of Cloud Lake was stretched to its limits in ways it had never before known, including a lack of babysitters.
Noah: That sounds just great to me. What time would you like me there?
Angela: Say 6ish? I put Cooper down for a nap then, so it would work well. Just knock softly.
Noah: Perfect. See you then!
He wondered for a split second if the exclamation mark was too intense, and then decided he honestly didn’t care. If Angela couldn’t handle the fact that he was excited at the prospect of seeing her, then she wasn’t what his animal was telling him.
He sent the message and sat back in his chair, uncaring of what anyone might think of the beatific smile upon his face.
“You must like the job a lot.”
Noah jerked upright in his chair as Gray spoke from in front of him. He opened eyes which had closed themselves at some point without his permission and focused them on the tall figure of his boss.
“Uh, actually, yes,” he replied. “I do like it.”
“Good,” Gray said, giving him a nod. “But it’s not nap time.”
“I wasn’t napping, sir, but you’re correct my eyes should not be closed.” He sat properly at the desk, his feet on the floor.
“Better. Don’t let Hector lead you into thinking it’s okay to slack on the job.
There was a snort from the other shifter. Noah looked back and forth between them, questions running through his head. The respect and care they had for each other was obvious to anyone with half a brain. He could easily see it, because he was on the outside of it. Not that Noah was offended; he was the new guy, the outsider, such as it was. He’d known coming in to Cloud Lake that it would take time for him to ingratiate himself with the old guard.
What he hadn’t expected was the sudden cold shoulder that had been shown his way. It wasn’t an icy one, but it was certainly a change from how things had been the first several days he’d spent in Cloud Lake.
Ever since I overheard Andrew tell them about an agent from Cadian Intelligence they haven’t been quite the same. It’s hard to blame them though, if they feel their way of life here is threatened.
Their way of life. It was something Noah hadn’t had much of a glimpse of since his arrival. Both Hector and Gray spent the majority of their time off-embassy. They both had mates, he knew that, and so it seemed a safe assumption that the majority of their time was spent there.
Yet they rarely talked about it, never truly saying where they went. It was almost as if it was a secret that he wasn’t supposed to know about. Was staying off-embassy prohibited maybe? Could that be why they were so reluctant to talk about it until they knew him better?
“Something on your mind?”
Shit. Noah had gone and gotten lost in his muse with Gray still standing at the desk. “Umm.”
“Go on, spit it out,” his boss said.
“I was just wondering something, sir,” he said, thinking quickly.
“And what’s that?”
“Well, back in Cadia, there are some rumors going on about Cloud Lake. They didn’t really concern me. In fact, they still don’t, but I can’t help but be a little curious.”
Gray’s face went very still but he indicated for Noah to continue.
“Anyway, there are rumors starting to circulate that there’s a community out here.”
Gray glanced at Hector before replying. “I would say that’s true. We’ve got a nice little enclave here at the embassy. Both Hector and myself have found mates within the human population, and if he gets his head out of his rear, Andrew will too one day.”
“Unlikely,” Hector joked, but there was a tightness to his voice that hadn’t been there before.
“Not like that,” he pressed on, determined to ask his question. “But a community of shifters living in Cloud Lake.” He paused, then decided to forge ahead. After all, he’d already come this far. “Shifters who shouldn’t be here. Ones rumored dead. That sort of thing.”
Gray’s face didn’t change the way he’d expected. Instead of closing itself off or perhaps looking agitated, the senior-most embassy guard burst into laughter. Big, rolling booms that filled the lobby.
“You listening to ghost tales now?” he asked mid-guffaw. “Dead shifters living here? OooooOOOOoooOOOO!” he said, waving his hands in the air in a mimicry of a ghost.
Noah glared, annoyed at the dismissive response to a serious question.
What did you expect? If there are such shifters living here, it’s unlikely that they’re going to just up and admit to it. Gray, Hector, Andrew, and anyone else here would go down with the ship if it was found out they were harboring fugitives and rogues. Doubly so since they’re doing it on human territory.
“Yeah, we’ve heard those rumors too,” Gray said, calming himself at last. “They started up right after we were assigned here. People started seeing shifters everywhere, and they assumed that there were more of us here than there actually are.” He shrugged. “Add in that new faces arrive every few weeks, and suddenly it feels to some of the locals that there is a community of us here, living secretly. One of them mentions it in hushed tones at a bar where a shifter is drinking, not realizing we can hear it, and boom, that makes its way back to Cadia.”
Noah sat back slightly, perplexed. It was a perfectly valid, acceptable, and even believable answer. But it didn’t feel right to him. Gray wasn’t telling him the truth. Or at least, not the entire truth. He opened his mouth to say more, but boots clomped up the front stairs before he could and Chase appeared in the doorway.
The other shifter stopped, looking back and forth between the three of them.
“Did I interrupt the super-secret meeting?” he joked.
Noah shook his head. “No, I was just getting reamed out by Gray here for doing my job with my eyes closed. He was just getting to the juicy bits where he insults my heritage and then I fight him because he calls my mother a Financial Coitus Expert.”
“How is telling the truth insulting you?” Chase asked without skipping a beat.
Gray laughed. Noah groaned. Hector typed away on his phone.
“You’re worse than a human child,” Gray said, reaching over the desk to swat Hector in the head.
“Hey!” he protested. “We’re trying to decide on something.”
Gray rolled his eyes. “On what?”
Hector looked around, as if suddenly aware of the presence of the other two shifters. “Um, of that new project we’re doing,” he said. “You remember I was telling you about that?”
“Oh, right,” Gray said. “Well, do it when you aren’t giving the new guy a terrible impression of how we operate here, got it?”
“Yes, boss,” Hector said formally be
fore sending another text message.
“Hector,” Gray said sternly at the way his order was completely ignored.
“I’m just telling her that you’re having a power trip and telling me to put my toys away so that I feel as miserable as you do.”
Gray grinned. “Damn right. What’s the point in being the boss if I can’t make everyone around me hate their lives as much as I do? Now put your phone away, and teach the new guy something useful besides how to pick your nose and burn things down.”
Hector shook his head. “I’m going to get you. One of these days, you’re going down.”
“Yeah yeah,” Gray said, then waved at the pair of them to continue. “Have fun boys.” Then he turned and pointed at Chase. “You, come with me. Let’s see what you’ve learned.”
Chase gulped and followed the senior shifter into the conference rooms at the back.
Noah just smiled and waved, wishing him good luck. He made a mental note to give some further thought to what had just occurred between him, Gray, and Hector. That would wait, however, because something even more pressing kept forcing its way back into his mind.
He had a date with Angela!
Chapter Nine
Angela
She scrubbed the countertop down, working her hand in circles to remove some of the buildup that had occurred over the past few days. Normally she was a fairly fastidious person, but with a young infant on hand now, she was quickly learning to live with a less than sparkling-clean place. That was all changing now that she’d agreed to have Noah come over for dinner and a movie, whatever that was supposed to mean.
“You should have just agreed to Rachel’s offer,” she muttered to herself as her curly locks bobbed and wove while she put some elbow grease into cleaning the counter.
When Rachel had heard, she’d offered to look after Cooper. A playdate with him and Karlie she’d said. But Angela wasn’t quite ready to do that yet, though she knew the time was coming soon where she would have to start distancing herself. Not a lot of course, but enough so that the two of them could learn a little independence.
Of course, now she was going to be having Noah here, in her house. Alone. With her. What was she supposed to do after dinner? Just tell him to get up and leave? Would he go if she asked him to? Another thought struck her. What if she didn’t want him to go? What if he stayed?
Just go with the flow. Stop overthinking it and just let happen what will happen.
Like she would ever be able to do that, Angela thought with a snort, using the ridiculousness of the thought to power her arm’s strokes as she lifted the last of the grime. A quick rinse of the sponge and she stood back to admire her work.
“Excellent.”
The kitchen had been the worst of it, and so she’d saved it till the end, naturally. Now all that was left was to shower and dress herself. That was a tough prospect, and made even more so as she worked to get herself back to a semblance of her old pre-pregnancy self. After four months of classes she was starting to feel better, but the truth was, Angela had never been carved from the typical feminine mold.
Picking up Cooper, she took him back to the bedroom where she doffed her clothes, looking at herself in the mirror. A distinct lack of curves stared back at her. The one term that had always seemed to best describe Angela had been “blocky” or “sharp-angled.” She had no real hips to speak of, nothing that flowed and curved in a delicious manner that men might be interested in.
She’d often thought if she worked out a lot she’d resemble a bit of a weightlifter. She had the frame for it, that was certain. She had breasts and a butt, sort of. A turn sideways in the mirror proved that fact to her. Neither were large, or as perky as she’d have preferred, but they still existed, so she felt lucky that way.
But cladding herself was, in her opinion, a little more challenging if she wanted to pull off the feminine sexy look. A lot of clothes just sort of hung there on her, refusing to add shape or flow to her body.
“Okay,” she said out loud, tearing her eyes away from the mirror at last. “Let’s go get Mommy cleaned, shall we?”
Cooper just sort of stared at her wide eyed.
“Yeah, I’m speechless too,” she said, closing her eyes and smiling to herself. Picking up the carrier once more she moved back out of the bedroom and into the bathroom. Showering had become an interesting prospect, because Cooper seemed to hate her shower curtain.
Angela was fairly certain that it wasn’t the fact that he couldn’t see her, because she’d been out of his sight numerous times before. She’d also showered with no shower curtain, and that didn’t bother him, so it wasn’t the shower itself. But pulling the curtain across while she showered always seemed to provoke an intense reaction from Cooper.
“So just face him the other direction, you idiot,” she said out loud, the solution suddenly striking her.
Angela spun him around so he faced the door, gave him a couple of kisses and then hopped into the shower. Blissful silence followed.
“Mommy One, Silly Baby Zero,” she intoned, keeping track as she luxuriated in having a shower without worrying about having to try and keep the spray aimed away from the floor, and then cleaning up all the water that made its way there anyway. It was pure heaven.
The peace helped her relax and not worry as much about her upcoming date, and she lounged under the water for longer than intended. Cooper never made a peep though, and she figured that perhaps he was aware she’d needed this badly. Whatever the case, he was smiling and burbling happily when she got out and checked on him.
“Good baby,” she crooned softly.
It was almost time to feed him, and so she set about doing that before getting dressed, deciding it would be easier while already topless.
Eventually she was able to start focusing on getting herself dressed, picking out the perfect outfit to hopefully impress Noah. He didn’t seem like the type that cared, as long as she was happy. But she still wanted to make him look twice, if possible.
“Go with Rachel’s suggestion this time,” she told herself, speaking out loud to try and make it more forceful.
Her eyes roamed over the little closet, landing on the outfit she’d set aside, that Rachel had told her to wear. She’d called her best friend right after finishing up talking to Noah, half freaking out, half out of excitement. Rachel had immediately told her what to wear, and also what to make food-wise, to try and deliver a good impression.
“After all, the end goal is to ensure he comes back enough times that he stays, right?” was what Rachel had said.
Angela wasn’t quite as convinced of the way things work as Rachel was, but she had to admit, so far she was liking just about everything she’d seen from Noah, which was a major plus.
“Fine,” she said, agreeing to the absent Rachel’s demands and pulling the chosen outfit from the closet. “I’ll put this on.”
***
The door eventually shook as someone knocked on it, startling Angela. She’d been in the bathroom doing last-minute touchups. She didn’t wear makeup, but she wanted to ensure her hair looked perfect, that her teeth were clean, that sort of thing.
“Coming!” she called, hustling over to the door. “Who is it?”
“Pizza delivery,” Noah said back, pitching his voice to sound closer to that of someone going through puberty.
“Oh God,” she said, opening the door. “Is this where you tell me you’ve got a big sausage one for me?”
Even before the words were out of her mouth she clamped down on her lips, horrified at the suggestion she’d just made.
“Um, I hadn’t been intending on going there,” Noah said with a polite cough. “I thought that might wait.”
“Yeah, I’d been intending to wait before I made any overtly sexual jokes too,” she said, deciding to just address it head-on. “But apparently I’m just too filthy-minded it would seem.”
“Ah, so dirty jokes are your specialty?” he inquired with a grin.
“N
o, just badly timed embarrassing remarks,” she shot back.
Noah laughed and she moved aside, allowing him to enter the unit. It wasn’t much, but it was hers. The buildings were all alike, with units that were long rectangles. The entrance was on one short side, opening immediately into her lounging area. Past that was the kitchen along the right and a slim table on the left. Beyond that was the walled-off area for the bathroom, and a hallway on the left that led to the bedroom located at the rear of the unit.
That was it, nothing crazy to see, and each one was laid out the exact same. It was what had allowed the shifters to construct so many buildings in such a short period of time to house all the women once they’d first been discovered and freed. It might not be her ideal home, but Angela wasn’t complaining one bit. It was free, and the Cadian shifters had said they would pay for her to live there for as long as she wanted, including and up to the rest of her life if she so wished.
They’d also made it clear the buildings weren’t likely to last more than a few years, but at that point they hoped to have more permanent homes ready. A number of women had already managed to re-establish contact with families and friends back home and had left the complex. More and more were shacking up with locals, whether they be human or shifter, and she had no doubts that the Cadians had hoped this would be the case.
“Cute place,” he remarked.
“Thanks. I’ve tried to make it my own as best as possible.” She waved a hand around the interior. “I’d give you the grand tour, but you’ve already seen the best parts.”
Internally she winced at the way that opened her up to a remark about the bedroom in conjunction with best part, but Noah didn’t take that route. He didn’t ignore it or let her off the hook either, but he thankfully refrained from making a suggestive comment.
“I know, it was when you opened the door,” he said softly.
She batted him with her arm—but not too hard, it was a good line after all—and laughed. “Okay there, playboy. You’re already in my house.”
He grinned.
“But good answer,” she said, letting the back of the hand she’d swatted him with linger for just a few seconds on his heavily muscled chest, feeling the curve of his pectoral.
