by Amelia Jade
“Okay, but seriously,” she said, returning to the issue at hand. “I need to do something to occupy my time. To make some more money. Even part-time. Heck, I’d do dog walking. I can take Gwen with me to do that.”
“You don’t need to do it for money.”
“I don’t want to do it for free if I can get paid.” Elle looked at him like he was crazy.
“No,” he said, laughing. “That’s not what I meant! I meant, you should stop being so concerned about money.”
“In case you haven’t noticed, I’m not exactly swimming in cash,” she said dryly, crossing her arms. “Where else am I supposed to get money?”
That wasn’t a good sign. Braden suddenly wondered if he’d made a mistake in going down this line of conversation. He could sense the jaws of the trap, spread wide around him, but there didn’t seem to be much in the way of escape. No matter how he inspected that question, either he wound up agreeing with Elle that she needed to get a job, or he stepped face-first into the trap.
Never one to shy away, and determined to convince her that she needn’t worry about money now that he was around, Braden strode forward willingly. “If you need money, just let me know. I’ll get whatever it is you need. You just have to tell me.”
“I’m not a charity case.”
The words came so swiftly that he realized she’d been prepared for it all along. This was something else then that had been eating at her. Something that she’d not mentioned to him. How could she view him spoiling her the same as if she were accepting charity? It was so not even close to being the same!
“I don’t believe anyone ever suggested you were,” he replied a little more darkly than intended. Perhaps he was more upset that she viewed what he was doing as charity, instead of a need to give his mate anything she could ever desire.
“I’m not going to let you pay for everything for me!”
“Why the hell not?” he shot back. “It’s not like I have anything else to do with the money! Why can’t I spend it on you and Gwenevere?”
“Don’t you dare drag her into this!” Elle snapped. “This is not about her. You will not use her needs against me.”
“I’m not trying to do that!” he all but shouted, only just managing to keep his voice down so that they didn’t disturb Gwen. “I’m just trying to give you everything you could ever want. I want to make you happy,” he added, tossing his hands into the air in frustration. “How is that a bad thing?”
Elle sighed. “It’s not a bad thing, Braden. I never said it was. I said that I’m not going to let you pay for everything. I want to be independent. To be able to do things on my own. I do not want to have to come to you for every little handout. Do you understand? I want to be able to go buy lunch with my own money. Or take us out for dinner every now and then. Or buy myself a new damn water bottle when mine breaks!” Her eyes were welling up with tears, but she blinked rapidly, trying not to let them fall.
“Your water bottle is broken?” he asked in surprise. “Why didn’t you tell me? I’d have gotten you a new one.”
Not good. That was not a good thing to say. Strike two, Braden. You’re really swinging for the fences today, aren’t you? Well done.
“That’s exactly what I mean!” Elle shouted, forgetting about Gwen, who was still busy trying to hammer the red cube into the blue sphere’s spot on her play station, seemingly oblivious to the argument going on around her. “You just waltz in and try to play white knight every time I need something. Well dammit, I want to be able to provide for myself!”
Braden recoiled, stunned at the passion in her voice. He knew his views were somewhat out of place in the modern world. Every shifter was told that before being allowed out into the human world. They had to be cognizant of the differences in shifter values versus those of the humans. Many of the differences were simply outdated and not major, but sometimes, such as in this case, they made a big difference.
“I like you,” she stated. “Don’t think I don’t. But Braden, the way you want to do all this, it’s kind of controlling and possessive. And not in an okay way. I’m perfectly fine being your girl. You can tell other people that I’m yours. But that’s because we’re together. You don’t own me, in any way shape or form.” She paused, ensuring she had his attention. “Do you understand that?”
His initial urge was to snap out a response. But once again, his hard-earned knowledge paid dividends, and Braden forced himself to slow down, to only speak when he had a thought-out response.
“I don’t want to own you.” He stated the words with a ferocity that could only come from someone who believed what they were saying. “That has never crossed my mind. To provide for you? Yes. To give you the world? Absolutely. To ensure you never want again? You’d better believe it. I am not doing this to try and control you. I simply see that life put you in a tough situation. You’re kicking ass at it. You’re an amazing mother, Elle, and amazing person. Nobody can deny that. But why should you want, or have to not have the food you want, or the proper gear for Gwen, when I can provide it? Are we not a team? Isn’t that what teams are supposed to do, look after one another?”
“Yes,” she said. “But I need to have independence of my own. I want to be able to at least contribute. And being a baby factory does not count, even if I do want more children! I get that you have money, and that you want to spend it on me. And there will be plenty of times that I’m okay with that. But I need to be able to demonstrate to myself that I can do this. But more importantly, I need to be able to show Gwen that her mother knows how to provide. Otherwise, what kind of example am I setting for her?”
Braden nodded. That last point was a good one, and not one he could easily refute. “I mean,” he sighed. “It’s not like I would ever attempt to forbid you from getting a job. I’m not that dumb or stubborn.” He flashed her a smile to show he was joking. “I just wish you’d go do something you want to do, instead of doing something you feel like you have to do. Especially since you won’t be able to continue doing it once we’re back in Cadia.”
He’d thought that would be an end to the argument. That they had come to an understanding, and would work out the finer details from there.
The look in Elle’s eyes told him he couldn’t have been more wrong.
“Excuse me? Once we’re back in Cadia? What’s that supposed to mean?”
Strike three.
Chapter Seventeen
Elle
“Well, in Cadia humans have a hard time getting jobs,” he stammered. “It’s not impossible of course, but it will take time. Like, possibly years.”
“That’s not what I meant.” Her words were coated in venom.
How could he say something like that so nonchalantly? As if she were okay with it?! They’d never discussed such a situation. Did Braden just expect that she would up and leave everything she knew behind to go somewhere that she’d never been, with someone who’d left there to come to Cloud Lake? How did that make any sense!
“Um, I’m confused.”
“Obviously,” she said, sarcasm dripping from her tone. “That’s because you only think for yourself, and not anyone else.”
Anger flared up in his eyes, but Elle didn’t back down. Her blood was boiling now, his arrogant presumption having lit the fuse on her temper.
“That’s a lie and you know it.”
“Oh yeah? Explain to me then how you just figured that I would be willing to move back to Cadia with you? That I would just leave everything I’ve built here and come live with you in the middle of nowhere? In what world? Did you ever ask me if I wanted to do that? No! You just assumed that, because you were the man, that I’d follow you wherever you went! Wrong, mister. Not happening.”
The huge shifter reared back in surprise, whether at her vehemence or at the fact that she wasn’t willing to move to Cadia, she didn’t know. Nor did she care.
“You don’t want to move to Cadia?”
“NO! I DON’T WANT TO MOVE TO FUCKING CADIA.
WHY WOULD I WANT TO DO THAT?” she screamed, the noise somehow not upsetting Gwen. She continued in a lower tone. “How could you even suggest that?”
“Because you’re my mate,” he stated bluntly, uttering the term with such clarity, as if he’d just told her the sky was blue. “That’s what happens when two mates find each other. They settle down.”
“Wow.” He literally did not get it. At all.
Elle did, however. There was no malice in his words, or in the way he seemed to assume she would just come with him. Not even a controlling aspect. The presumption went deep, to something in the core fundamentals of who he was, and the world he’d grown up in. She could see that now, as he spoke.
“I may be your mate—and we’re definitely going to discuss that later—but first you need to understand something, Braden. You do not get to just make decisions like that for me. I take it that back home, the women go to live with the men.”
“Exactly. When two mates find each other, it’s generally acknowledged that once they’ve gotten to know each other to a certain degree, the female will go and live with the male. You are my mate, Elle. You can debate it all you want, but trust me, I know. I wasn’t going to break it to you just yet, because I know you humans require longer to accept these sorts of situations.”
“So you just dropped it on me in the middle of a fight?” she snapped.
“I didn’t know how else to explain it. You’re my mate. You come and live with me. That’s what happens.” He inhaled deeply before speaking. “What did you think was going to happen?”
“I’m not sure,” she replied. “I figured that maybe we’d, I dunno, talk about it? But beyond that? Well, I talked to the other women, all the ones who live on the north side of town. The Koches and the like. They all said that you would probably be welcomed there. So we could move in to that community.”
Braden smiled, though the look failed to reach his eyes. “I see. So we’re allowed to move where you want, and make these sorts of decisions and start asking people if it’s okay. But if I do, we get in a huge fight. Got it. Do you not see how hypocritical of you that is?”
“That is not the same damn thing and you know it. I simply asked if you would be welcomed there if we moved in. I made no assumptions or anything of the sort. You, on the other hand, assumed I’d be moving with you, simply because you told me so.”
“Either way, you never mentioned any of it to me.”
“Fair point,” she conceded. “I didn’t. I was planning on it though, which I think is more than you can say. And I was planning on doing it by asking you about the future, and where you saw things going. That way we could have a discussion about things, share each other’s ideas.”
He bristled. “My idea is that you move into my house in Cadia.”
Elle snarled. “No, Braden. That’s not your idea. You didn’t want that. You assumed that I was going to do that. There’s a difference, a rather large one. In the first scenario, you present it as an option, and tell me that’s what you prefer. In the second, you tell me that ‘this is what’s happening.’ Do you see the difference? In one I have a choice. In another, I’m being told what to do.”
“So I worded it poorly,” he said, digging in stubbornly. “I don’t see why that has to result in a fight.”
“It has nothing to do with your wording! It has everything to do with the mindset behind it, Braden. You need to understand that I will want to voice my own desires, and then come to a decision with you. Not have my decision made ahead of time by you.”
She stood up. “And until you can understand that, until you can see why what you said really bothers me, I think you should leave.”
His jaw dropped open. “Are you kicking me out?”
Elle closed her eyes and took several deep breaths before responding, trying to keep her voice from cracking. “Yes.” She failed, her voice breaking midway through, but she got the word out anyway.
Braden shot to his feet. “Wow. Fine. Okay. I’ll leave.”
He walked over to the door, pulling his boots on in silence. Without even doing up the laces he stood and walked through the door.
“You can come back when you’re ready and willing to treat me like a real person, with real desires and opinions, not simply someone who will do as you want.”
The door closed without him saying anything. The instant the latch clicked all of Elle’s strength evaporated and the tears came, flowing down her cheeks, falling onto her shirt and rapidly soaking it.
Everything had been going so well up to that point! Now it wasn’t entirely clear whether there was even still a relationship. The fact that Braden hadn’t said a single thing on his way out left her feeling distraught, nearly sick to her stomach.
There had to be a way they could work this out, to come to an understanding.
Wasn’t there?
Beside her a red cube bounced off the plastic play station and went tumbling across the floor. Elle watched it bounce repeatedly until it came to a stop. Was it an omen? A sign that she and Braden weren’t compatible? Maybe it was. Maybe she was the blue sphere, and he was the red cube, determined to do little more than bang against each other, but never quite fitting.
Gwenevere began to cry. Elle went to her child, picking her up and holding her, even as she joined her in tears.
“I don’t like that idea either,” she whispered, wondering what to do next.
She never felt so lost.
Chapter Eighteen
Braden
“I just don’t get it.”
He was speaking to nobody in particular. Which was a good thing, considering that there was nobody around. Not that anybody was willing to listen to him in the first place.
“What did I do wrong?”
He wanted to ask Elle that. To try and understand where he’d erred, and why she’d lost it so completely on him, to the point that she’d kicked him out. In hindsight, leaving without putting up more of a fight had been a mistake. Braden should have fought a little harder, even if it was just to show her that he didn’t want to go. What was done was done, however, and now he had to try and find a way to unfuck the situation.
“I’m trying.”
The bottle sloshed in his hand as he waved it around, trying to ward off his demons with a simple hand gesture.
Braden wasn’t an alcoholic. He rarely drank. But after five days, he had decided to get good and drunk. Turns out when you don’t drink often, that’s not too hard, even for a shifter. Now he was in the lounge, moping around on his own, wondering what the hell to do next.
Five days. One hundred and twenty hours since she’d kicked him out, give or take a few. In that time, she’d refused to see him. He’d tried. Every day, he tried to ask her to get together, to help him understand what he’d done wrong. Every day she’d refused. Now he was out of options, and out of ideas.
He looked at the bottle. It was empty. “And I’m out of booze too.” His eyebrows came together as he attempted to concentrate. At what point had he finished off the bottle? Braden couldn’t even remember drinking the rest. That was probably not a good sign, but he didn’t really care.
“More,” he muttered, scanning the shelves on the other side of the bar. Leave it to shifters to install a well-stocked bar in their embassy.
Getting up, he stumbled backward, nearly dropping the empty glass onto the floor.
“Get it together, B,” he said, making fun of his own name. “Can’t even stand up to go get some more alcohol.”
Incensed by that statement, he rose to the challenge, plunking the empty bottle on the counter and walking unsteadily around it. After a bit of a struggle he managed to get the cap opened and took a long swig.
“Ooooh, that one burns!” he exclaimed, the amber liquid trailing fire into his stomach.
He shook his head in an attempt to clear it, but all that did was set the world to spinning.
“I think I’ll just sit down right here.” He slid to the ground, his back against one of
the cabinets.
Half a bottle of alcohol, several painful burps, and possibly even a nap later there was a sound from the doorway. “Fuck off,” he yelled listlessly, lacking the energy to put any real force into his voice.
Footsteps sounded, and moments later a familiar face peered over the bar.
“Why are you sitting on the ground behind the bar?”
“Why are you leaning over it?” Braden smiled, proud of his profound question.
The blurry face laughed. “Because somebody told me to fuck off, and I wanted to see who it was.”
“Well, ta-daaaa. It was me! Now fuck the hell off.”
“No.”
Braden stared upward, trying to glare at whomever it was. “I know you.”
“I fucking hope you know me,” the voice said, moving around the bar until the body it was attached to was standing right in front of him. “After all, I am your boss, you drunk idiot.”
“’M not an idiot,” he protested half-heartedly.
“Yes, you are. Do you have any idea how long you’ve been in here drinking?”
Andrew. It was Andrew who was talking to him he realized in a sudden burst of clarity.
“Uh, like three hours?” It was a guess, it could have been one, it could have been six. Braden had no idea.
“Try three days.”
“What? That’s fuck’in’mposble!”
A hand reached in and snatched the bottle from his grip. He tried to resist, but it was like a child fighting against an adult. The other person was just far too strong for him.
That’s because Andrew is a gryphon shifter. If he wants to kick your ass, there isn’t much you can do about it.
“Go ahead,” he said. “Do it. End me.”
“Is that why you think I’m here?”
There was the sound of rattling glass. A lot of it. Far more than two bottles worth. How much had he drunk?
“Why else would you be here?”
There was the sound of water pouring from the tap.
“I don’t want any water.”
