Drinking Demons

by Kat Bostick

  Father Above, Mari knew why she wasn’t bothering. It would be a waste of time. Bond or no bond, Jasper wouldn’t let her simply walk away from him. He would probably be furious if he found out she was even considering it, regardless of whether or not it was meant to protect him. They’d already lived that particular drama earlier in the fall. Trying to leave only made her realize how bereft of joy—of life—she would be without him.

  So here they were. Getting married because Mari was an adult and she could repeatedly remind her father of that, but at the end of the day they both knew she was still bending herself sixteen ways to get his attention like she was eight years old. That was why this ridiculous marriage idea came tumbling out of her mouth for a second time today. Anything to keep him from judging her more than he already did.

  Turned out, claiming she was engaged to a man she only met months ago was not a good way to earn his approval.

  Whatever. She and Jasper were as good as married without the rings and the paperwork and all the frivolous details. Or they would be if they’d actually, um, consummated their bond. Which they would. Eventually. As soon as Mari figured out how to extricate the evil inside of her. Might as well celebrate first. Wedding nights were supposed to come after the wedding. Or the mating ceremony, depending on your species.

  Species? Were werewolves a different species entirely? Or just a warped version of humans? Some of them were human once, after all. Ooh, Jasper was right. She was avoiding.

  “How did we go from a marriage proposal to a biology lesson?”

  “Shit.” At least half of her inner ramblings had actually been outer ramblings, apparently. “I need a freaking muzzle.”

  “I’ve been told the same thing once or twice.”

  “That’s because you bite even when unprovoked.”

  Jasper stooped and sank his teeth into the side of her neck, mostly getting a mouthful of jacket. “You always provoke me.”

  No wonder Clem assigned them chores on opposites ends of the house. No wonder Charlie refused to let Jasper be the one who sat impatiently behind the front desk while she worked her six hour shift. When they were together, she and Jasper were incapable of focusing for more than a millisecond. He was a constant distraction.

  As if reading her thoughts—Mari still hadn’t figured out if he could actually do that—Jasper redirected the conversation. “Is it because of your dad? The marriage proposal?”

  Halfway, but she wasn’t sure if she should mention the other half. That meeting with Charlie was a disaster and she didn’t like feeling as if she’d been talking about Jasper behind his back.

  “Would it be so bad to get married? I would want to. Eventually. It’s important to me.” She dragged the toe of her boot back and forth in the snow, making a trench in the crunchy white stuff.

  He lifted her face to his with a warm finger, shaking his head gently. “What have I told you about hiding from me? There is nothing you should be afraid of telling me.”

  It was a nice sentiment but, sadly, there was plenty she was afraid of telling him.

  “For once, I just want him to be happy with him. I want him to look at me and think, ‘Yeah, she finally has her life together.’”

  “And getting married means you’ve got your life together?”

  “Sure.”

  “What part of your life isn’t ‘together.’” He made air quotes.

  All of it. “I don’t know, just parts of it.”

  “Mari,” It was a warning, gentle but not empty. Jasper was good at finding ways to extract the words she wasn’t speaking.

  So, she told him the truth. Mari told him how unsuccessful she felt working as a clerk at the front desk when she should be pursuing a career—not that she knew what she could or would do. She told him that she felt like a failure for learning next to nothing new about herself as a witch. And she told him how frustrated it made her that even if she was learning her practice, she couldn’t share it with her family and friends back home. Those were not achievements she could proudly tell them over Christmas dinner.

  There it was again, that line of separation between the two worlds she lived in. When she first came to the pack house, Mari felt as if she were made up of two halves, two warring sides that each wanted different things. She thought by choosing Jasper, the pack, and life without a coven, she would finally end that constant internal struggle. Maybe she’d only won a battle, not the war, because she still felt split in two. One foot in Klein, one foot in Humble Springs.

  Maybe that was why she sucked so much at everything she was trying to do here. The good intentions were there, but she was so riddled with insecurities that her insides probably looked like swiss cheese.

  As she vomited out a slew of those insecurities, admitted to him that she was failing at the few things she desperately wanted to be good at, she was overcome with a pestering, familiar guilt.

  Honesty. That was her new gig. No matter how difficult, Mari wanted to be an honest person. Lying was a way of life in her family and she hated it, didn’t want to be a part of it anymore. That was why she was so intent on making the lie she told her father the truth.

  But she was failing at honesty too, wasn’t she? Even as she shared with Jasper, her mind niggled with the awareness that she wasn’t sharing everything with him. How could she, when the rest was so damning? Mari was letting Jasper believe that apprehension was the sole reason she hadn’t completed their bond, poking those same holes of insecurity into him until he was a sieve more than a person. Even though she was nervous about the commitment, that reasoning was just the lame excuse she repeated to both of them to avoid the real fear.

  Mari was tainted. Blackened down to her soul. Or at least, she feared she was. In dreams, she heard that wicked voice—her voice—whispering darkness to her. Power pumped into her whenever she felt her temper rise even one degree, tempting her to use it for all the wrong reasons.

  How could she burden him with the consequences of her actions? Mari was terrified that completing their bond would open the link between them too much, letting her darkness seep into him. So long as they were bound as mates, Jasper had no choice but to be soaked in her soiled soul.

  Belatedly, she wondered if perhaps Dad was right about her after all. Mari woke from her near death experience feeling light, liberated from the vision her father supposedly had of her. Only, that lightness didn’t last. Not when she realized the weight of what she’d done. She wasn’t like Lyse, using the wolves as tools to harm her enemies, to gain power, but she wasn’t completely different either. Both of them made sacrifices for what mattered to them, both of them paid the price with their soul.

  What terrible deed could Mari do, given enough time for this darkness to fester? Was she even safe to be around the pack? Was Jasper constantly on the brink of unravelling because of her? Like that faint contact with the black magic ichor inside of her was already affecting him?

  These were the questions that haunted her. These were the fears she couldn’t tell him.

  So yeah, she was a failure and a liar. But what the hell was she supposed to do? Mari hit one crossroads and chose a path, only to end up at another fork three steps in.

  Or maybe she’d already picked which way she was going to walk, consequences be damned. Because when Jasper smiled sweetly at her, nodding his head in understanding, and said, “So, let’s get married,” she felt nothing but satisfaction.

  ✽✽✽

  By dinner time the day felt like it had been a year. A long, stressful year. The very last thing Mari wanted was to announce to the whole pack that she and Jasper were engaged and planning to be married by Christmas. As if they didn’t already know.

  No secrets in a pack and all that.

  But if a day was already a write off, she might as well get this final suffering over with and end it by skulking off to bed to hide under the covers while Jasper worked on some painting he wouldn’t let her see.

  “First you skip the one knee, now you’re refer
ring to our engagement announcement as ‘getting it over with.’ I’m beginning to think you’re not very romantic, honeysuckle.” Jasper brushed hair behind her ear as he whispered, caressing the shell with his lips.

  She shivered in that way only he could make her and answered, “I’m sure Teal has some weird southern saying about how I’m less romantic than a horse in high heels. Don’t get your hopes up, Red.”

  The others were just settling at the table, plates of steaming food sitting before them, when Charlie stood at the head of the table and raised a hand for silence. Heads turned his direction and a curious hush fell over the table.

  “Our young lovers have some exciting news to share with you all before we eat.” Then he sat, a knowing smile on his face. Charlie was making it impossible for Mari to chicken out.

  “Thanks, Charlie.” She said flatly, her expression conveying the same annoyance. With an inhale for bravery, Mari glanced around the table and quietly announced, “Jasper and I are getting married.”

  Teal was the first to react, clapping Jasper on the back and giving Mari’s hand a squeeze. “We’re due for some good news around here.”

  Clem clapped her hands together. “I’ve never been to a wedding! How thrilling!”

  “I’ll come for the cake.” Cash winked.

  Deak was as sullen as expected, his first and only response to question if they were inviting guests and if he could leave the pack in the event that they were. Cora said nothing. Her chair screeched as she pushed back from the table and stomped out of the room.

  “That went well.” Mari muttered into her glass of wine, taking a much needed sip. She didn’t used to enjoy drinking, but she was beginning to see the appeal in dulling her senses.

  Before anyone could get up to follow Cora and coax her back to the table, she returned with an arm full of magazines. Using her hip, she shoved Jasper aside and knelt between him and Mari, dumping her load onto the table and nearly spilling a bowl of potatoes.

  “Sugar, winter weddings are in right now.” Cora purred, shoving one of about seventeen bridal magazines under Mari’s nose. “And you are going to look gorgeous in champagne.”

  Mari glanced helplessly up at Jasper. Amusement sparkled in his eyes as he speared a Brussel sprout with his fork. “You wanted to get married.”

  Chapter 5

  Jasper

  Heat seeped from the cardboard cup in his left hand, the coffee rapidly cooling in the late autumn air. Jasper wasn’t bothered by the cold, but he would be bothered if the drink didn’t make it ten feet from the car to the lobby without turning to ice and became one more thing that he unintentionally spoiled.

  “Hey, handsome.” Mari purred as he approached the front desk at the lodge, a grin splitting her lips. “Please tell me there is a gallon of chocolate in that cup.”

  “I would never bring you coffee without chocolate. ” He leaned over the counter and kissed her.

  It was a chaste kiss. Mari hated having an audience and whenever he was in the lodge, Jasper was on the receiving end of an excess of stares. Most of the employees were familiar with every member of the pack, at least by appearance, but they still viewed them as strange and exciting points of gossip.

  No wonder Deak was sour about coming to work with Mari every day. The back of Jasper’s neck prickled as at least three sets of eyes landed on him. He rolled his shoulders, doing his best to ignore the sensation as he handed Mari the paper coffee cup.

  She popped the lid and her smile widened. A mountain of whipped cream and chocolate syrup overflowed from the cup. One of these days her teeth were going to rot from all the sugary junk she liked to put in her mouth. “I’m surprised you know how to order coffee.”

  “It’s easy.” He shrugged, pretending it had been and that the menu at the coffee shop down the street hadn’t confused him for several minutes. He’d never bought coffee that wasn’t black and hadn’t realized there were so many options.

  Mari swiped a fingerful of whipped cream and licked it off her finger. Jasper had to stifle a groan. “Wow, are you trying to get in my pants?”

  “Is it working?”

  She blushed and changed the subject. “What’s the special occasion?”

  “First day of liaison duty. Or don’t you remember?”

  “Oh, shit. Today? Really? Of course, it had to be today.” Mari narrowed her eyes and ate a much more resentful fingerful of whipped cream. “I’m not going to be good at this. Why does Charlie want me to do this?”

  “You will be good at this. That’s why.”

  “C’mon, Jas. This is bullshit and you know it. Liaison? Charlie made that up on the spot. No one else has an official title or role.”

  “Maybe he wants to change that. He’s been talking about making allies for years.” Jasper rolled his shoulders again, catching the gaze of a woman in her mid-thirties who sidled up behind Mari. She was vaguely familiar, though most of the employees in the lodge looked the same to him in that white and black uniform. The expression on the woman’s face was a mingling of trepidation and fascination. Even as she dropped her eyes, she couldn’t stop casting sidelong glances at him. “Charlie said you could leave. We should go.”

  Catching his clipped tone, Mari looked behind her and gave the woman a polite smile. “Hey, Mandy, I’m going to have to cut out early.”

  “It’s on the schedule.” Mandy responded curtly.

  Mari’s eyes pinched a fraction and her nostrils flared. There was an odd tension between her and the other employees that he couldn’t figure out. It was probably one of the many intricate human issues that evaded him. Or woman issues. The opposite sex spoke a language so subtle even a werewolf with their keen sense of emotion and body language couldn’t easily interpret it.

  “Okay. I guess we can go.” Mari unpinned her name tag and busied herself typing something into the computer on the desk. Jasper took her coffee in one hand, using the other to snake up her back and cup her nape as they headed for the door.

  “She’s still staring. Why do they always stare?”

  She laughed. “You really don’t know?”

  “Humans are nosy.”

  “Jas, it probably doesn’t have much to do with curiosity.”

  “Then why do I feel her eyes on my back? I hate it.”

  Mari laughed louder. “She’s staring at you because you’re nice to look at. And trust me, the view is as good from the back as it is the front. I should probably bite her.”

  Jasper didn’t believe that for a moment, but he still smirked. “Does that make you feel territorial?”

  “Terribly.”

  The SUV was already running when they climbed inside. This time of year it was a necessity unless they wanted the first fifteen minutes of their drive to be miserable. The cold was a viper, slithering easily and eagerly into every crack and crevice until the leather seats were blocks of ice and the moisture from their breath dense clouds. Jasper didn’t mind the cold, but he knew Mari did.

  “Are you unhappy?”

  “What?” She studied him over the top of her coffee cup, wariness pooling in her coppery irises.

  “With the job.” He clarified. The employment options in Humble Springs were limited and most jobs related to the tourist industry. If Mari insisted on being employed, he was concerned she would want to seek something further out of town when she inevitably grew bored of the lodge. “You don’t like Charlie’s employees.”

  “No, they don’t like me.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I’m insufferable?” Her chuckle was humorless. “I’m sure there are plenty of reasons. Charlie is paying me double what they make, which is pretty silly when you think about it because all the money I earn ends up back in his house one way or another.” She lifted a finger, counting out more reasons. “Charlie gave me a job when several qualified locals wanted it. I’m constantly being shadowed by Deak and it’s awkward. Oh, and there is the part where I just showed up here a few months ago and now live with the m
ysterious vampire cult leader but won’t say a peep about it.”