by Sable Sylvan
“What do you think?” asked Mason.
“This is not a competitor. I’ll tell you that much,” said Savina. “I like smoke. I like bacon. I like heat. However, this isn’t a hot sauce. This is a sauce that happens to be hot.”
“I agree,” said Mason. “I think the smoke and bacon is overpowering and it tastes like someone just made a bacon smoothie and tossed in some charcoal briquettes. Onto chili number to.”
“Toe?” asked Savina.
“Sorry, two,” said Mason. “To is ‘two’ in Norwegian.”
Savina tried the next chili. It had a chipotle flavor, a cayenne garlic flavor, a jalapeño flavor, and a roasted habanero flavor.
“Am I crazy, or…” started Mason.
“Somebody tossed all the sauce together,” said Savina. “It’s awful. I cannot finish this.”
“So that leaves three and four and five,” said Mason.
“You’re sure that ours wasn’t the first or second, right?” asked Savina.
“There wasn’t a hint of mango in them,” said Mason. “Don’t worry. One of these is ours.”
Mason passed Savina chili number three. Savina tried it. There was the familiar mango flavor and the special savina habanero pepper’s heat and unique flavor profile. The chili was hot, real hot, and Savina needed some tea and lemonade for this…but it just wasn’t because of the heat. This was the only delicious chili they’d had, and it featured the hottest sauce. What was a Texas girl to do other than gobble it all down, along with some ice cold sunshiney goodness?
“We came through,” said Savina. “Well, unless…”
“Unless?” asked Mason.
“Unless someone else made a mango savina sauce,” joked Savina.
“Did you see any of our siblings at the Gobblin’ Market?” asked Mason. “Because I didn’t scent them. Chili four.”
Mason passed Savina the penultimate cup of chili. She tried it. It was a very herbal, floral sauce, but while that may be nice for perfume, it didn’t work for hot sauce. It also tasted a little like tea. As much as Savina liked her sweet tea, she didn’t like it mixed in with her chili.
“Bad,” said Savina. “Just…bad.”
“You got that right,” said Mason.
“Chili cinco, five, the last one,” said Savina. “Whew. Here’s hoping it sucks.”
“Here’s hoping,” agreed Mason.
Savina tried the chili. It had a paprika base that was reminiscent of Eastern European cooking, but it worked with the cayenne peppers, carrot puree, and sugar that it had been blended with. There was just a hint of tomato, too. This would be a winner with the Scovilles for sure.
“I have to admit, it’s a good sauce,” said Savina.
“It’s good, but it’s not great,” said Mason. “Trust me. Our sauce is going to take first.”
“Okay, I trust you,” said Savina.
“Come on, let’s play cornhole or something to pass the time,” insisted Mason. “The hot sauce competition is over. There’s nothing we can do right now to change the outcome of the competition. All we can do is have a good time. Plus, if we lose, so what? At least we had a ton of fun making the sauce. It’s not our fault if other people have poor taste buds.”
“Wow, you’re already a sore loser, and we haven’t even lost yet,” teased Savina.
“That’s the spirit,” said Mason. “Come on. That cornhole board isn’t gonna play itself.”
Mason took Savina by the hand. The feeling of his polar paws on her hands sent a chill down Savina’s spine. It wasn’t out of fear. His hands weren’t cold, so why did his paws make her feel as if she was in the middle of a Nordic blizzard? Savina didn’t pull her hand away, and she followed Mason to where the kids were all playing backyard games, from horseshoes to cornhole to whatever apps they had on their phones. Mason started a game of duck-duck-polar, and soon enough, more kids and adults joined in, and even some of the teens found themselves having fun with the family rather than playing around on their phone. That evolved into a game of hide and go seek which ended when Alice rang her bell to call everyone back over to the picnic tables to hear the results.
Mason had just caught Savina in her hiding place when the bell rang. His ears pricked up as he heard the clanging of the bell.
“Come on,” said Mason, taking Savina’s hand again.
He led her through the crowd to Alice and Herb, who were surrounded by their siblings. Herb had a small trophy, but how the heck Herb had managed to find a trophy with flame designs on the side, featuring a bottle on the top, was anyone’s guess.
“The results of the hot sauce competition are in,” said Alice.
“In last place was chili number two,” said Herb. “This was a mix of all our hot sauces. This was the dummy sauce we entered. We call it ‘Death Sauce’ because it’ll kill your taste buds.”
“In fourth place came chili four,” said Alice. “It was a sweet, floral, herbal sauce, but it was not popular at all. Sorry, honeys.”
“It’s all good,” said Abigail, holding hands with Clove. “We just had a ton of fun making it.”
“In third place came chili one,” said Herb, reading off a card. “Comments said it was too heavy, not a hot sauce, and plain not good.”
Savina saw Addison frown and Sage squeeze her hand, so there was no need to guess who had made that sauce.
“Second place goes to…” started Herb.
Savina felt Mason squeeze her hand. She looked down. Her knuckles were white. How hard had she been holding Mason’s frikkin’ hand? She looked back up at Herb.
“…Chili number five,” said Herb. “This was a close call but, as much as the Scovilles love themselves some paprika, another sauce earned approval from both sides of the wedding aisle.”
“Our winner is chili number three, featuring a little red hot sauce that packs a heat that goes great with our meat,” said Alice. “Congratulations, Savina and Mason! You won the competition!”
“We…we won?” asked Savina, looking to Mason. “Holy heck, Mason, we won!”
“Yeah, what did I tell you?” asked Mason, giving Savina a devilish wink. “We had nothing to worry about.”
They walked up to Alice and Herb to get their little trophy.
“There’s only one question left,” said Herb.
“What’s that?” asked Mason.
“What’s the hot sauce called?” asked Alice. “You just wrote ‘mango savina’ on the bottle. It needs a catchier name.”
“Oh, I know the perfect name,” said Savina.
“What is it?” asked Herb.
“Let’s call it… ‘Alpha Sauce,’” said Savina, squeezing Mason’s hand back. “After all, Mason was the alpha of this entire thing, from asking me to be his partner on the project to taking me on a frikkin’ helicopter ride to New Orleans to get the mangoes and the peppers.”
“I think it’s perfect,” said Mason.
Before everyone dispersed, there was a shout from the front of the house, which was unattended.
Mason was off like a shot as people were still trying to figure out what had happened. Savina ran after him as everyone else panicked.
“Mason!” shouted Savina, but it was too late. Mason had apparently seen something she hadn’t, and he’d shifted, destroying the preppy clothes and losing his human form. He took on the form of his bear, a bear that may have had pale rose gold fur tinged with blue, but a bear that could still take down anyone or anything on a hunt.
Savina kept running toward Mason, to see what the heck Mason was running at. She turned the corner and saw it.
There was a wolf, a big frikkin’ wolf, and one of the small Scoville cubs.
Mason was already growling at the wolf. Savina rushed forward, common sense be darned, and grabbed the young one. It was a ten-year-old who was big for their age, given they were a shifter, but Savina’s adrenaline rush helped her run forward, grab the kid, and run back to where she had been before, safely behind Mason.
Mason’s
bear was slowly getting closer to the large gray wolf. The wolf looked unlike any wolf Savina had ever seen before, at least in the wild, and that’s when she realized what it must be: shifter. There were scraps of clothes on the side of the house, but luckily, they were from the shifter, not from the child. Mason’s bear growled at the wolf, but as Mason pulled back to growl, the wolf had lunged.
Mason turned, pushing the wolf over, swiping at its face. The wolf hissed angrily as its nose was torn by Mason’s paws. This wasn’t a friendly shifter fight. This wasn’t some big city urban shifter kerfuffle that would all be smoothed over. This was Fallowedirt, and this fight was wild, primal, and the kind of fight that, if Savina had any common sense, she would’ve run away from.
Instead, Savina did what the thing inside her told her to do. She finally listened to it, instead of talking back to it. She put the child down and brushed him off.
“Find your parents, get help,” ordered Savina.
“Will I get in trouble?” asked the kid.
“No, no, no,” said Savina. “But I’ll be in trouble if you don’t. I’ll buy you twenty pounds of candy, just go get someone, anyone, okay?”
The kid nodded and was off like a shot. Savina would’ve been faster, but there was no way the kid could’ve taken the wolf or been anything but a liability to Mason. Savina was a liability, but she also had more than just plush softness in her curves. She had muscle, too, and she was about to show this wolf that he’d messed with the wrong frikkin’ family.
Savina looked around for anything to grab. On the side of the house was the gardening shed. She just had to have an opportunity to run there, grab anything, and run back out.
Mason circled the wolf. His rose gold fur glistened in the light. His blue-tipped fur made him look like a creature from a fantasy book, but his hulking form made him look all predator. Mason may have been the omega of the Scoville Clan, but in the wild, bears had no omegas. Each bear was the alpha of his own story, and Mason, well, he was no exception. Mason eyed the wolf, squinting his arctic blue eyes to keep the sun out.
The wolf lunged, and Mason swiped, but the wolf had smaller size on its side. It was bigger than a normal wolf, but Mason was bigger than a normal polar. He had power on his side, but not size. Mason lunged to the wolf and barreled into it, pushing it to the side of the house. The wolf started to wriggle to get free.
Savina saw her opportunity and took it. She ran to the shed and grabbed the first thing with a handle that she could. It was an ax. She’d have to be careful with it, so as not to accidentally hurt Mason, but all Savina was missing to look full lumberjane (the female equivalent of a lumberjack) was a flannel shirt and some suspenders.
Savina carefully carried the ax in two hands. She walked out to where the fight was still going on, where another polar had entered the fray, a polar with a black streak. It was Sage. None of the other Scovilles were there, in their shifts. That kid must not have followed Savina’s orders, but that could be dealt with later.
The wolf lunged toward Mason, but this time, Savina got in its way. It looked up at her, ready to snap, and that’s when the wolf saw, for the first time, the ax in Savina’s hands.
“Unshift,” ordered Savina. “Now. You run, and I’ll cut that tail off. That’s a Quincy guarantee.” Savina threatened the wolf with the ax, making it glint in the light and send a ray of light on the wolf’s body.
The wolf backed up, toward the wall, and shifted back into human form. Mason and Sage stayed in bear form, cornering the wolf shifter. There was the sound of footsteps coming from behind Savina. She resisted turning. She knew that the cavalry had decided to arrive.
“What in the heck is going on?” asked Grandma Quiggly.
“That’s what we’re about to find out,” said Savina, walking toward the wolf, still carrying the ax for protection. “Who the heck are you, and why are you here?”
“I’m with the press,” admitted the nude man, who didn’t bother covering his bits.
“The press?” asked Herb. “What you write for isn’t the press. It’s the tabloids, isn’t it?”
“I write for Shifter Romance Daily,” said the nude man.
“Uh-huh, and Ms. Sylvan sent you here to take pics of the wedding?” asked Herb. “Well, there’s no wedding today. It’s just a family gathering, and seeing as you aren’t a Quincy, a Quiggly, or a Scoville…”
“I have freedom of the press,” insisted the man.
“And this is Texas, where I got the freedom to defend my home,” said Abigail, a shotgun in her hands. “And I got the freedom to protect my family.”
“Your sister’s got a gun?” Basil asked Cayenne.
“You thought that was for show?” asked Cayenne. “Her frikkin’ thesis was on Texan gun law. She was frikkin’ pre-law.”
“Wasn’t that a thesis against guns?” asked Basil.
“You know Abby can argue anything, plus, hey, if it’s legal, might as well take advantage of it, right?” asked Cayenne. Alice shot Cayenne a look, and she shut up.
“You wouldn’t,” said the man.
Abigail cocked her gun and pointed it in the air before letting out a shot.
“Try me,” said Abigail. “Get talking.”
“Fine, fine,” said the man. “I was sent here to take pics of the wedding. I thought that the Scovilles would hold the wedding at an alternative time, y’know, to make sure the paparazzi didn’t show up at the main event. I’ve been staking out the house, and when I saw you had some event going on, I wanted pictures.”
“And that’s your phone over there?” asked Abigail, pointing to an errant smartphone glinting in the grass.
“Yes,” said the man.
“Oh, really?” asked Abigail. Then she cocked her gun back and shot the phone into bits, before cocking the gun again and shooting it one last time for good measure.
“Get out of here, and don’t come back,” threatened Herb.
“Fine, fine,” said the reporter. He grabbed his wallet and headed down the drive, naked, back into the town of Fallowedirt proper.
“I’m gonna give the manager of the hotel a call,” said Alice. “We’ll give him a free case of sauce if he kicks that guy outta his hotel, plus pay that guy’s bill, so the hotel doesn’t get punished for this.”
“Tell him to keep an eye out for any other reporters, too,” said Herb. “If he agrees not to rent to them, we’ll give him free sauce for half a year.”
“He’ll go for that,” said Alice. “I’m sure of it.”
“Now, you two boys better go get cleaned up,” said Herb, looking at Sage and Mason. “And Clove, Basil, clean up the mess.”
“You got it, sir,” said Clove.
He and Basil went to get a plastic bag so they could pick up the scraps of fabric and the busted up phone. Abigail went inside to put away her gun in her gun safe. Sage and Mason went to the shower room, which was connected to the backyard, while Alice, Cayenne, and Addy entertained guests with Herb. Savina went inside to get changed into some fresh clothes before heading back out to the party.
Things had gone back to normal. Savina saw Mason, laughing and joking with Sage as if nothing had happened. She approached him and put her hand on his arm. When Sage saw Savina approaching, he knew it was time for him to get a refill of sweet tea with his fated mate.
Mason turned. He hadn’t expected his mate to touch him, especially not publicly. It was a gentle touch, a tender chaste touch, but it sent a chill down his spine. His bear roared, its eyes flashing, telling Mason to push this into a kiss, into him cradling her in his arms and carrying her upstairs to his bed.
“Hey, Sav,” said Mason gently.
“Mace…I just wanted to say thank you,” said Savina. “You made sure nobody got hurt back there. I don’t know what I would’ve done if you weren’t there.”
“You wouldn’t have been there if it wasn’t for me,” said Mason. “You could’ve gotten hurt, Savina. Why did you come over to me?”
“I don’
t know,” said Savina. “Something inside of me took over. I can’t explain it. I just…I wanted to make sure everything was okay. I was scared, and I wanted to do something, and I could do something. That’s all.”
“I know the feeling,” said Mason. “It’s over now, Savina. Everything’s gonna be fine. Your sister talked to the hotel manager. They’re not going to let any paparazzi rent a room. After all, she’s decided that she’s going to rent out the whole dang hotel now, as well as the motel outside of town, for the weekend of our wedding.”
“Our wedding?” asked Savina.
“Sorry, I mean, our siblings’ wedding,” said Mason. “Slip of the tongue.”
Before Savina could argue, someone else came up to the pair.
It was one of Mason’s aunts. She was with the ten-year-old boy.
“I will never be able to repay you for what you did for my family,” said Mason’s aunt.
“Aunt Eliza, you don’t have to repay me,” said Mason. “What happened was that darn wolf’s fault.”
“Leif, you are never to run off like that again, do you hear me?” scolded Eliza. “Leif had so much fun playing hide and go seek that he decided to play again. That’s why that wolf found him.”
“I just want to break the rules like Mason!” said Leif.
“You can break the rules when you’re older,” promised Mason. “You know I can fly helicopters, right?”
“Really?” asked Leif.
“Really,” insisted Savina. “I’ve been up in the air with him. He’s a great pilot.”
“I’m only a good pilot because I follow the rules,” said Mason. “That’s why I can break them, because I also follow them.”
“I’m confused,” said Leif.
“Just trust me on this,” said Mason. “Do what your parents tell you, follow the rules, and when you get older…your parents will let you do fun stuff, just like my parents let me dye my hair and go surfboarding and traveling and scuba diving and ride motorcycles.”
“Your parents let you do that?” asked Leif.
