My Furry Valentine

by Karen Ranney

  That wouldn't thrill Austin, the heir apparent.

  I couldn't help but wonder what would happen if I told my father what Austin had done. Would he just brush that information aside? Or would he take measures to curb my brother’s arrogance?

  I wasn’t going to test the issue.

  “I’ll have to see Austin,” I said.

  “You can’t avoid him forever, unfortunately.”

  “True. But I can wish.” I stared down into my empty coffee cup and stood to make more.

  I needed to feed the Brood, brush their teeth, and start my day. Just as if I had a job to go to and something important to do. They were just going to have to wait for a moment, however. I made myself another cup of coffee before returning to the table and sitting.

  "How do you feel about concubines?" I asked Mark.

  “China.”

  "What?”

  "Wasn't that the country where all the leaders had concubines? A whole harem of them? It reminds me of China. The whole practice.”

  Well, that was an answer, but it was a non-answer. Let's just put it this way, he’d skirted the important part.

  "Have you ever had a concubine? If you marry again would you consider having a concubine?”

  "Are you applying for the position?" he asked.

  I kept my smile on, but it was difficult. "Is there a reason you're refusing to answer?”

  He stood, took his coffee cup to the sink and dumped it out, and then put it in the dishwasher. I swear, he was amazing.

  He came back to the table, bent down, and kissed me on the nose.

  "I think it's an archaic practice," he said. "Plus, I think it's damaging to marriage. If you love your wife, why would you look to another woman for anything?” He stepped back, smiled down at me and said, "I've got to go to work. Will you be all right?”

  I nodded, keeping my smile pinned in place, watching as the Brood followed him to the door.

  He turned and looked at me once more before leaving.

  “I’ll be here about six,” he said.

  “I’ll be at the Council meeting, but I’ll have Simon let you in.”

  He nodded.

  “I need to get you a key and the alarm code,” I said. Anything else? Like drawers in my dresser and space in my closet?

  Damn, I’d capitulated without a word spoken in my defense. All of a sudden I had a roommate. Maybe a bedmate. Maybe a lover.

  My life had gotten more complicated and it had all happened in the blink of an eye.

  After Mark left I called Marcie and for a few minutes we talked about stuff, like how the puppy was fitting in at the castle. Evidently, he was devoted to Antonia and she to him.

  “They’re never far apart," Marcie said. "I've given up on the battle of the bed. He sleeps with her and it's the sweetest sight. She's given up her doll and her stuffed duck for Jack.”

  I was feeling self-congratulatory until she said, "Dan, however, would like to talk to you.”

  Thankfully, there was a note of amusement in her voice.

  “Is he angry that I just dumped Jack on you?”

  "No," she said. “He said he knew you were coming and I don’t doubt that for a moment.”

  Neither did I. Dan was a wizard, almost as powerful as his daughter. He could probably see the future, which was depressing. He’d spent a fortune and years preparing the castle for war. Did that mean it was bound to happen? Or could the future be changed? Maybe I should ask him to give me a taste of what was to come, but did I really want to know?

  "What do vampires have that I don't have?" I asked.

  “What do you mean?”

  “I’m trying to figure out the advantages of having witch and vampire blood in me," I told her. "I can do a spell and make it work. We've already tested that with the hearing spell. By the way, it works perfectly. But I realized that I don't know enough about vampires. I could already walk in the sun. I don't crave blood. So what does a vampire have that I don't have? Why would it be a good thing to have vampire blood?”

  "The ability to mesmerize," Marcie said.

  That stopped me in my tracks mentally. I’d never considered that. I wish I’d known about the ability to change someone’s mind earlier. I would have used it on my CPA. Or my father.

  “Does Mark know about the ability to mesmerize?” I asked.

  “Yes.”

  Oh, goody. How much of my attraction to Mark was what I was feeling and how much was what he was sending out?

  "He says he’s moving in," I said.

  I don’t know why I told Marcie that. I’d never been the kind of person who confided in my girlfriends. We didn't giggle over the phone about a boy. I’d always been determined to be a vet, so that any free time I had was spent studying. Until, of course, I’d fallen into teenage lust over Craig.

  "Are you happy about that?" Marcie asked carefully.

  "I don't know how I feel about it," I said, which was the absolute truth. I didn't know whether to run for the hills or go clean out my dresser. Or make sure the room he occupied last night was ready for him as a permanent visitor.

  "Is there something you want me to do?" Marcie asked. Again, that note of caution was in her voice and I couldn't blame her.

  I was being silly even confiding in her, but she was a friend and probably the closest friend I had. No, no probably about it. She was most definitely the best friend I had.

  “Do you want me to talk to him?” she asked.

  That made me smile. What could she possibly say?

  "No. I was just venting. This male-female stuff – and it doesn't matter whether I'm Pranic or not – is scary. Almost as scary as Maddock.”

  “Nothing is as scary as Niccolo Maddock," she said.

  She was right.

  “Anything else I need to know about vampires?”

  "The older ones have great speed," she said. “I don't think they actually become invisible, but they’re fast. And although I've never gotten anyone to corroborate, I think some of them can become other creatures.”

  “Like bats and things? Spiders?”

  I was now delving into fiction, which just shows you how much I knew about vampires.

  "Bats," she said, a note of amusement in her voice. “Not spiders.”

  “Thank God.”

  "I don't think God has anything to do with vampires," she said, the amusement gone.

  I wanted to say something to her that would ease her mind or rid her of thoughts of Maddock. I wanted to tell her that I was special, but I couldn’t do that, either. Unless she already knew. Did Marcie know, before I entered the lottery, that vampires went out of their way to avoid Boyd Weres? Was that the reason I’d won?

  It didn’t seem fair that every conversation I had only added to my list of questions and my general confusion. Instead of asking her point blank if she and Dan had known who I was, I thanked her for the information she’d given me and asked for the direct number to the castle librarian.

  I was going to have to get more information about this brave new world I was living in.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  I’d ignored everything

  That morning I spent a few hours at the castle, being escorted into the cavernous library by a man who was — as my father would probably say — a little light in the loafers. Not that he was gay, but he had the oddest walk, almost as if he was pushing air beneath his feet. I had the curious thought that he was walking only for my benefit and that when he was alone in the library he was more accustomed to floating.

  There were, I was shocked to discover, a dozen tall shelves filled with information on Were animals, including cats. I gulped when I stared at the number of volumes I was going to have to read in order to do research on Alice.

  “I’ve been instructed to show you this section as well, Miss Boyd,” the librarian said, leading me to a chair beside a table. Next to it was a small bookcase of two shelves.

  I thanked him and sat, reaching for one of the larger volumes. I was i
mmediately reminded of the Boyd family Bible, a massive book that had a three inch section in the middle where births and deaths were recorded. This book was as large, a good foot thick, but it wasn’t theological. Unless magic was a religion.

  I immediately turned to the pages that had been marked with neon green flags.

  By the time I’d gotten to the second paragraph on the first page, I knew that Marcie had wanted me to read this. I couldn’t help but wonder if she’d made all the lottery winners read it or only those of us — in other words, me — who had been transfused twice.

  Rarely is there royalty in magic, with the only exceptions being those who can connect with more than one world. Once that has been accomplished there are no limits to their power. Those creatures are to be feared above all others. All such preventative measures as are possible are to be employed lest they be created and multiply.

  In other words, the might of the magic world — which I still couldn’t define — was arrayed against us Pranic individuals.

  Let me see if I got this straight. Vampires didn’t like us. My fellow Furries wouldn’t be all that fond of us, either, especially Mark and me, having forever tainted Were bloodlines. (Which brought up the question of what a child of ours would be like. I had to get on with my reading, so I brought myself back to the present with some difficulty.) Now the other magical creatures — whoever they were — were being exhorted to prevent us from, well, existing?

  Bummer.

  Was there some sort of rule about it? Did Alice, for example, Were-cat that I suspected she was, have to sign some sort of pledge? Did she know that I could straddle two worlds, in a manner of speaking? I was a Furry, but I had witch and vampire blood in my veins. I hadn’t done anything on the mesmerizing front, but I could recite a mean spell.

  Speaking of spells, there were oodles of incantations in the book and some of them looked interesting. I took out my phone and photographed a few of them. Although it was a silent process, the librarian made a point of sliding soundlessly toward me from two shelves over in order to deliver a massive frown in my direction. Evidently, what’s learned in the library should be kept in the library.

  I spent another hour perusing the book and then two others before I left the castle. I still felt goofy about talking to Marcie about Mark, so I didn’t ask to see her. Nor did Antonia pop up even though I half expected her to.

  Before I left the castle grounds I made notes on my phone about what I’d read. I needed to do some more online research about human organizations that were anti-vampire and probably anti-everything vaguely paranormal. Although humans had accepted vampires for a while, did they know about elves and gnomes and other things I suspected existed? How did they feel about witches who had been around since the beginning of time?

  I put all my questions away for right now. I had to get home and change for the Council. Maybe I could pull my father aside and ask him about the family gathering. I knew I had to go, but now I was beginning to think that I should get to my parents’ house early. I should confess — to my mother, at least — about the lottery and tell her that I was Pranic, just in case Austin said something at the meeting. I wouldn’t put it past him.

  While I was at it should I tell her about Mark moving in? That was a big deal in the Furry community. It was a sign of commitment.

  Commitment, that's what I was lacking. I had been pussyfooting around this whole situation with Mark and with my father and with everyone else whose lives I’d touched in the past few months.

  I hadn’t been committed. Hell, I hadn't even fought for my job.

  I could almost hear my grandmother's voice: you haven't been true to your nature, Tor, my dear. It was as if the ottoman had grown a mouth and spoke to me. That was another thing. I hadn’t gotten to the bottom of the haunting, either, or what my grandmother — unless I was hallucinating royally — had been trying to tell me. What danger was I in?

  I’d ignored everything. I’d been acting as if I were a delicate little Were princess instead of a strong, intelligent, determined Furry. I’d been weak and that was the last thing I was. I hadn’t addressed the issue of Austin, either, and that situation wasn’t going to get better by ignoring it.

  My brother had disobeyed Were laws. He’d behaved as if he were alpha of the family, making judgments about the other members — more specifically, me. Austin had been judge and jury over my being Pranic. He’d decided my punishment. That wasn’t his purview.

  Personally, I thought he’d been remarkably shortsighted. After all, I had a foot in the vampire and witch camp by virtue of my blood. I could say a spell and have it work. I was damn well going to try the mesmerizing thing.

  Maybe even on Austin.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Just shoot me now

  The Council meeting was strange.

  None of the Council members looked at me. Ever since my father had appointed me to the Council, I’d pretty much been Furry Non-Grata. As the first female Were Council member, I was used to being shunned.

  Yet there was something interesting about tonight's meeting. The male Weres didn't seem as derisive as before. In previous meetings, when I’d made a comment or asked a question, a few of them had looked at each other in that knowing way of theirs, as if they were saying, “Look at the village idiot.”

  Tonight no one snickered. The two questions I raised, one about the new swimming pool construction and the other about chaperones for the high school dance weren't dismissed out of hand. Instead, I received thoughtful responses to both.

  I didn’t know if it was my natural charm or the fact that we'd all participated in the Great Uprising at Graystone. That's what I was beginning to call it. In actuality, it wasn’t even a rumble between Furries and vampires. It wasn't a real fight after all. Not one to the death, at least. We could bruise each other but that was about it.

  My father might have said something to each of the council members, but I didn’t think so. Hamish Boyd practiced the sink or swim mentality in rearing his children and I mean that literally. When I was six years old, he carried me out into the water at Port Aransas and told me to swim.

  It was either that or drown.

  Luckily for him, Were children were actively discouraged from calling Child Protective Services.

  Tonight my father was acting as if we were not related. He was being very formal, which kind of put the kibosh on my asking him about the family meeting. I decided to keep my mouth shut and go, if for no other reason than to show support for my mother.

  It would have been a great deal easier for me if my father had divorced my mother instead of acquiring two concubines. That way, I could put him in a category labeled Over There. I wouldn't have to mess with seeing him or coming to grips with his behavior. I could just label it Unacceptable.

  It was obvious, however, that my mother still loved him. Her eyes lit up when she talked about my father. She blossomed when he walked into a room. I caught them looking at each other sometimes. Her cheeks would turn rosy and she would laugh a little before finally turning away. I wanted to tell them to get a room, but they already had a whole house.

  The Council meeting was short, for which I was grateful. I might not have a job, but I had plenty of other things to do. Like worry, for example. Ever since this afternoon I’d realized how sucky my life had become and only because of my own inattentiveness. I was in a hurry to start correcting things. I felt like I was in a heightened state of alert, almost as if I were in my wolf form in the middle of a strange forest.

  Before I could make a getaway, however, my father said, "Torrance, may I have a word with you, please?”

  It was framed as a question, but we both knew it was a command.

  He waited until the room was empty and then came to sit beside me at the horseshoe shaped desk. He didn’t say anything until the silence was like pulled taffy, white and thin. It was a trick he’d used ever since I was a child. He also used that technique in the courtroom until everyone focused on h
im.

  I studied my nails, instead.

  "Tell me about Craig," he said.

  I had expected the question, but I still didn't know what to say. If all else fails, resort to the truth.

  "I saw him last month," I said. "In Kerrville.”

  "You didn't mention that.”

  I nodded and reluctantly told him the rest of the story. I left out the bit about the ram’s horns and the sheep’s head, however.

  Now was not the time to tell my father about my ability to be a human lie detector. It was not something I could control. I was just grateful it wasn't happening around my father. There were just some things I didn’t want to know.

  If I saw him in bondage like I had Derek, just shoot me now.

  "And he and Mark were fighting last night?”

  I nodded again.

  “Who started the fight?”

  Well, damn. I glanced at him and then away.

  “Mark?” he asked. For the third time, I nodded.

  "Why?”

  "Because Craig was standing too close to me," I said. I hadn't expected to blurt that out and I certainly hadn't anticipated my father's smile.

  I glanced at him again. Yes, he was genuinely amused.

  “Have you put any listening devices at Graystone?”

  His amusement abruptly faded. "Why would you ask me that question?”

  "Asking a question is a very clever way of not answering my question. How did you know that I’d left the clinic?”

  "I have investments in a great many things," he said. “One of them is the Alamo Veterinary Clinic.”

  Are you kidding me?

  “Before or after I started working there?”

  He didn’t answer me, only said, “As a major investor I am naturally informed whenever any staff change is made.”

  In other words, after I’d bought into the clinic. I watched as he stood and grabbed his briefcase.

  “What are you going to do to Mark?” I asked.