Auntie nods in acknowledgement.
"She's sick," Auntie says. "Unusual for wolf shifters like her, but it can happen."
"And Duff is some kind of annoying, fucking health nut who does not eat in greasy spoons," I tell her.
"Some people," she says, rolling her eyes with an expression that says 'Can you believe this shit?'
"Anyway, I think I can solve your problem," Auntie says. I just need to get to the apothecary. I'll just make my trifling nieces take me into town. I'll whip something up in the apothecary."
Twenty minutes later, Auntie is back in the apothecary. As I materialize, this time wearing the red t-shirt she likes so much, she grinds some dry mixture in her porcelain mortar and pestle, brows knit together in concentration.
"What are you making?" I ask, curious about the dry mixture which smells a bit like oregano.
She gives me a sly smile, one that brings out the apples of her generous cheeks. "It's a secret," she says.
I must look hurt, and she adds, "It's just something for Twyla to help her over her flu."
I watch her mix new ingredients into the pestle and grind them down.
"What will you do when your curse is broken?" she asks. "Did the witch tell you what to expect?"
I think about Astrid, her angry words, her accusations. I find I cannot remember the old crone's face.
"I want to stay here," I say. "I want to be with you."
"But what will you do with yourself? Not much call for invading and pillaging these days," she smiles.
I frown. I have always been so focused on the latest match that I haven't spent much time thinking about what I would do once the curse has been broken.
As I ponder this, she keeps talking.
"What's the longest you've ever worked on a mating?" she asks.
I blink. "Seventeen years," I say, thinking of just how hard it was to get two gay men to accept their mating during the French and Indian War. The battlefield is no place for a house cat.
"How about..." She looks thoughtful as she purses her lips. "The most remote place?"
"Tristan da Cunha," I say, thinking about the volcanic archipelago that is only reachable as a six-day boat trip from Cape Town. Not only did I have to get the mates together, I had to wait as the parents of the mates negotiated a bride price, which was paid in the local currency. Which turned out to be white potatoes.
"What was the longest you stayed in one place?" Auntie asks. She pauses in her medicine making and leans against the counter, watching me.
"Once, I stayed in Detroit for about five years, right after World War II," I say. "I made dozens of matches in that time."
She nods and looks impressed.
"What's the largest group of people you've brought together?"
"Seventeen," I say. "Two lucky women and fifteen doting men."
"More like two women picking up the dirty socks of fifteen lucky men," she replies sarcastically.
"What was your most difficult match?" she asks, returning to mixing her medicine.
"A bride about to marry the wrong man," I tell her.
"Really?" she says, eyes wide.
"It happens more often than you would think," I tell her. "In fact, I have stopped quite a few weddings."
Auntie squints at me, disbelieving.
"You can get away with a lot when you're a house cat."
We go on like this for a while as she finishes mixing the virus cure for Twyla Turner. She picks up a tiny funnel, takes one of the little brown bottles from the wall of brown bottles behind her, uncorks it, and pours the contents into the bottle. Then, she removes yet another bottle, shakes it, and pours some of the liquid contents into the first bottle. None of the bottles have labels, so I cannot imagine how she keeps everything straight.
"What are you putting in there? Eye of newt?"
She rolls her giant doe eyes at me. "He's got jokes."
I smile. It's going to be fun being mated with this woman.
She puts a label on the bottle, puts away all the implements she has used to create her concoction, and makes for the back door.
"I'm going to see Twyla," she says, gracing me with a high-beam smile. "Once she's back at work, we just need to get Duff there. And when they are at the same place at the same time, voila! Your work will be done, your curse will be broken, and you can get on with your life."
"With you," I put in. Auntie turns on her heel and looks at me.
"Excuse me?" she asks.
I am much taller than Auntie, and the top of her head does not reach my shoulder. She's adorable today wearing a snug t-shirt and one of her long, loose skirts. And again, no shoes.
I place my hands on her delicate shoulders. She blinks at me.
"When my curse is broken, I will stay here with you."
I need to make sure she understands my intention to stay with her and mate with her. Auntie is my reward for centuries of a curse that had me making everyone happy—everyone but me.
"I will stay here with you, and you will be my mate," I tell her. Her big, brown eyes get bigger and wider. Her mouth drops open, the pink tongue emerges, and my dick thumps in my jeans.
I pull her into my arms, inhaling the scents of the coconut oil she uses in her hair, scenting the gardenia moisturizer on her skin, feeling the softness of her body, feeling her heat.
"You are my mate," I repeat. My heart, which did not beat for more than a thousand years before I met her, thrums in my chest in triple time. "I will be here with you when the curse is broken."
I kiss her then, because I cannot look at her lips for another second without claiming them, and because I know what they feel like, what they taste like, and I need to kiss her. I need her in my arms, and in my life, and in my heart. I need to make sure she knows this.
"Tell me," I say, my lips near her ear like we are sharing secrets, my heart beating fast enough to make me pass out. My hands on her back tremble with fear. What will I do if she doesn't tell me what I hope to hear? What I need to hear?
Auntie is a magnificent woman. She is any man's dream, but in my case, she is not only my dream, but my destiny. My fate.
"Gunnar," she begins, her voice gritty, her body pressing against mine urgently. She rubs against me like a cat seeking neck rubs. Her soft body, which yielded to mine the night before, is insistent against me now as she drags me into the back room.
"Lock the door," she says, and works the fly of my jeans. The exact mechanics of her being able to touch me like this still baffles me. She's undressing me. Kind of like she wants to...
"Fuck me," says my filthy-mouthed little mate, and I'm all too happy to oblige. She is just the right size for me to hoist her up, pin her to a wall, and with a few fumbling motions, I enter her.
"You...don't...have...panties," I notice, surprised to find there is nothing covering her pussy, nothing to prevent me from burying myself balls-deep in her steaming, wet hotness.
The woman's hands are all over my back, holding onto my shoulders, her fingernails curling into my flesh, conveying just how crazed she is for me. I think I have my answer.
"Fuck me," she screams in my ear. She pants, breathing hard, her pussy clenching around my cock.
I point out the obvious. "I am fucking you," and I babble a string of curses that I know she doesn't understand, but it doesn't matter. This woman is mine.
This woman is mine.
Mine.
Mine.
Curses chant in my brain. The flesh of the woman I love surrounds me. We are desperate together. I slam into her over and over, and we are crazed in our union.
"Uhhhhhh..." she grunts, "I can feel you, I can feel you."
I don't know what she means until electricity vaults through my bloodstream and suddenly, I'm releasing into her body, releasing everything I am, everything I have, triggering her own release, and then she's shrieking in my ear. Pleasure shoots through my body, and I'm not ashamed to say I let out a helpless cry of ecstasy.
I still ha
ve her pinned to the wall as we recover, chests heaving, teeth vibrating from the harsh intake of breaths. I let her down, and we adjust our clothing. Finally, she speaks the words I've been waiting 1,200 years to hear.
"Of course, you're staying with me," she says. "You are my mate. We belong together. Plus, I'm pregnant."
Then, all matter-of-factly, she grabs a handful of disposable towels, wets them, cleans herself, and does the same with me. I watch her in a daze as she holds my softening member with delicate fingers and cleans me, dries me, and tucks me back in my jeans.
"Let's get this done," she says. She opens the back door of the apothecary and exits. And I stand there like an idiot until I hear her voice on the other side of the back door.
"Well, come on." Her exasperated words travel through the back door, clear as a bell. I walk through the wall to join her and find her hustling to climb into a small blue car. I mean, it's fine so long as I'm largely non-corporeal, but when I'm back to my old six-foot, six-inch self, I will no longer be able to fit.
We drive to a small house a quarter of a mile from the apothecary. Auntie enters, and instead of wasting time chit-chatting with the teen girl who answers the door, pushes past her to make a beeline to what I presume is Twyla Turner's sick bed. She gives the brown bottle another shake and hands it to Twyla, who looks at Auntie as though my little conjure-woman has gone mad.
Auntie administers the cure and wags a finger at Twyla, telling her to get her ass out of bed because "fate isn't going to wait on you."
Twenty-four or so hours later, Auntie and I are in one of the window booths when Duffy Hannigan walks into the diner with the bell over the door to announce his arrival. This is the first time he has set foot inside the diner, lured by rumors of the addition of menu items purporting to be healthier versions of greasy spoon favorites.
Duffy sits at the counter, pulls up the virtual menu, and peruses the choices.
Twyla is back at work, looking none the worse for wear given her recent bout with a nasty virus. She approaches the counter with a carafe of coffee in hand, distracted because she's doing too many things at the same time, trying to keep up with the lunch rush and ensure everyone gets what they need to have a pleasant dining experience.
She comes to a stop where Duffy is seated. She looks at him, mouth open and eyes blinking. Duffy, perhaps sensing eyes on him, looks up and blinks at her. They just stand there, looking at each other with wonder on their faces.
"Hello..." Twyla says softly, then licks her lips. "Would you like some coffee, stranger?"
Duffy has the besotted look of a man in love. He pushes the cup and saucer across the counter to her. "Sure..." he says.
Twyla starts to pour the coffee. But she's looking at Duffy, not the cup, and coffee pours like a waterfall on the counter, missing the cup by inches.
Duffy smiles stupidly at Twyla, and Twyla smiles stupidly back. Both have the confused, dopey look of people utterly and instantly in love with one another. Coffee continues to pour out of the carafe, then it begins to trickle into Duffy's lap.
When Twyla realizes what is happening, she gasps and turns around abruptly to set down the carafe. She grabs a hand towel and runs around to the other side of the counter to frantically pat at Duffy's crotch area, where a large coffee stain begins to spread.
"It's okay," Duffy says, reaching for Twyla's hand. Using his fabulous wolf reflexes, he catches her hand. When their bare skin connects, they both jolt as if struck by lightning.
Or maybe just struck by fate.
"Let me help you with that," Twyla says, hooking a thumb toward the back of the diner. Her eyes look a little unfocused, and words come to her slowly. "There's an employee bathroom in the back. Just follow me."
And he does. Soon, carnal noises emit from the back of the diner. This being a shifter town, no one bats an eye.
I turn to Auntie. She smiles broadly and looks a little misty-eyed.
"Our work here is done," I say.
Then my world goes black.
Epilogue
Gunnar
Three years later…
Spring comes to Texas in a dizzying array of wildflowers. Of course, everyone knows about bluebonnets, and it seems every person raised in the state has an image of them as a child standing in a field of Texas bluebonnets. But the state is also known for Indian paintbrush, evening primrose, brown-eyed Susans, sunflowers, and myriad other blossoming flowers that appear on roadsides every spring.
Many of these native plants have medicinal properties, which is why every spring I accompany my wife to pick a fresh supply for the apothecary. Today, we are in the field near one of her niece's homes. Mitch and Tu's expansive tract of land is a great place to pick wildflowers. Vanessa Cermak, the enterprising Alpha bitch of the Perdition pack, saw business opportunities in Auntie's annual flower-picking ritual and had organized Perdition's first wildflower festival. Mitch Wayne was nice enough to donate space on his land for the town to host a carnival and farmer’s market every year.
I hold the tiny hand of my firstborn child, Sigrid Gunderson. She is just over two years old and has her mother's warm brown skin, but my blond curls. She also has my whiskey-colored eyes.
"Daddy!" Sigrid squeals. "Pick up, Daddy!" She holds her hands up to me, fingers outstretched, and gives me pleading look.
I am more indulgent than I probably should be, but I pick up my little girl and hoist her onto my shoulders. She grabs fistfuls of my hair like I'm a horse she's riding bareback and yells at my wife.
"Looks like you showed Daddy who's boss, huh?" Auntie pushes a wheelbarrow with several small crates inside. Each crate holds bunches of different flowers. When she straightens, I see the silhouette of her enormous pregnant belly. She is not a very large woman, but I produce very large babies, and while she still has weeks to go carrying our son, she looks as if she might give birth in the next few minutes.
My transition to Perdition resident has gone better than I would've expected. The moment Duff claimed his mate in the back room of the Last Chance Diner, my curse was broken. I passed out in the diner, but awoke in the tiny apartment Auntie kept above the apothecary. Apparently, naked men appearing out of thin air as a result of broken spells was not at all a unique occurrence in Perdition. No one batted an eye when a tall, naked, Viking Age male simply materialized out of nowhere. Several townsfolk assisted Auntie with getting me to her home, and my sudden appearance was the talk of the town for a few weeks. But only a few weeks. After that, it was business as usual. There was always something odd going on in Perdition.
People were curious about all of the matchmaking adventures I'd had over the years. I wound up selling the rights to my life story, as well as the stories of those I helped over the past 1200 years. About a year after Auntie broke my curse, I set up shop as a matchmaker. My job is part detective and part dating coach, and I am well on my way to making my first hundred matches. Putting people together is a lot easier when you can interview them about what they're looking for in a mate and coach them on how to be a good mate.
I help Auntie with her flower gathering, Sigrid's grip tight in my hair. The girl has no mercy for her poor dad. Once Auntie has enough flowers picked, I put them in the bed of our pickup truck, and we head for the fairgrounds where a family of Roma jackal shifters have set up a carnival. We feed Sigrid small bites of cotton candy and corn dogs. I impress Auntie with my performance at the strong man contest—not easy to do in a town full of shifters. I win a stuffed toy dog with floppy ears. Sigrid, in her mother's arms, loses it when she sees the dog.
"Puppy!" she shrieks, bucking out of her mother's arms so suddenly that we cannot react fast enough to prevent her from hitting the ground with a thud. Big, liquid brown eyes look around, bewildered, looking at us for cues as to how she should feel about this recent turn of events.
"Smile," Auntie says through her teeth with a tight smile on her lips. "Otherwise, she'll think she should be crying."
But it is already too
late. Sigrid's bottom lip trembles. Tears shimmer in her eyes, and her face turns red. Her mouth opens in a silent scream, a round "O" of displeasure, and moments later, she begins to howl.
When my wife told me she was having a baby, I was thrilled, but I had not considered that she was also telling me that she was having a toddler, a middle schooler, a teenager. All of a sudden, my future flashes before my eyes. A future filled with mood swings, crying fits, and teenage angst. And that's after years of being peed on, puked on, and cried at.
"Aren't you glad you broke my curse?" I ask Auntie.
She looks annoyed, probably because I didn't get with the program early enough to prevent Sigrid's current meltdown. Auntie scoops up Sigrid, thrusts her at me, and we continue to walk the midway as the toddler howls like a siren.
Life is good.
About the Author
Erin grew up watching Star Trek and reading Barbara Cartland novels (don't hate), wishing she could create something that brings her love of science fiction together with her love of romance. Still a romantic nerd at heart, she writes sensual, diverse stories that blend fantasy, adventure, and love.
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Also by Erin St. Charles
If you enjoyed this story, check out the rest of the Erin St. Charles paranormal romances.
AVAILABLE NOW
THE MINOTAUR’S KISS — Book One: Mac and Diana
THE WOLF’S CONCUBINE — Book Two: Phelan and Lola
THE WOLF’S SUCCUBUS — Book Three: Eric and Jane
THE MINOTAUR NEXT DOOR – Book Five: Blake and Sophia
That Time She Broke Her Viking's Curse Page 8
