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19: Charms
Sean
I yawn, bleary-eyed, and take another sip of coffee.
We’ve got patrols circling outwards from Candlewood proper to our borders, looking for any other signs of the vampire that triggered the ward. The only odd thing we’ve found so far though is one of the local nutjobs, an elderly woman named Kassandra. Jack and I found her a few miles deep in the woods behind the packhouse smudged head to foot with some silty black dust and looking for all intents like she’d been dragged through an ashtray. She was covered in cuts and scrapes from running in the pitch dark through the underbrush, and I’m waiting to hear from the pack hospital that she’s stopped her repetitive babbling and I can come and question her.
Across from me, Ian’s shot and stares blankly at t
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Where Wild Things Roam 20: Insecurities
Ian “This isn’t a topic I think I can be much help with, Alpha,” Dr. Myers says gently, her eyes averted as her gloved hands examine my testicles, the final humiliating step in a medical consultation I naively requested. “My knowledge about conception in faeries is limited at best. Everything feels normal here, so you can sit up. I’ll get these samples to the lab.”Well, that was awful for my ego.Dr. Myers pulls the paper-thin hospital gown over my exposed parts and pats my knee and I wonder if this can get any more emasculating.As she takes her gloves off and washes her hands, I sit upright on the exam table feeling more violated than I ever have in my life. No wonder women hate pelvic exams and mammograms.“Shifters are easy, really. Finding a mate is enough to
Where Wild Things Roam 21: Compromised
Jack I hate alliance negotiations.But compared to Mom’s daily freak-outs over my mates’ ceremony at T minus three days and counting, they look like child’s play.Let me say this in her defense: she did not lie to me.Not in the least.I remember distinctly her warning at the Luna’s induction into Candlewood, that she would make my triumvir mate’s ceremony twice as large as she had for Darby, and she has lived up to that times two.Because that’s really the problem, right? I have two mates.And this triumvir mate ceremony has gone from being a downright shitshow to being a legendary downright shitshow.“We can’t change the date,
Where Wild Things Roam 22: Wild Magic
Sean Ian’s boulder arrives early the next afternoon, and lacking instruction, I have it unloaded behind the new landscaping where the courtyard will be off the packhouse addition.“What is this for, Ian?” I watch as he circles it, his arms over his chest, grinning like the cat that swallowed the canary.Before he answers, I see his eyes glaze—he’s talking to someone briefly through the link. When they clear he answers, “You’ll see in a minute. Excellent work, by the way. You have no idea how much I appreciate it.”A few moments later, I hear the tinkling of female laughter and it feels like the sun emerging from behind a cloud. When did I become this masochist, yearning for these moments of agony? I turn in time to see Darby tossing Tessa’
Where Wild Things Roam 23: Revelations
Ian Even with the rain, the triumvir mates party is still raging in the plaza, but Sean, Jack and I, along with our mates and Anna’s family, retreat to the packhouse after Anna’s astounding reveal. Though the medicine man declines, returning to his room to meditate on the coming of a thunderbird, the rest of Anna’s family socializes in the dining and family rooms, Townsend’s staff attending to everyone’s needs unobtrusively and efficiently as usual.Sean disappears briefly after sunset, and I suspect he’s checking in with our malodorous vampire contact who has turned out to be remarkably reliable and resourceful. When he does turn up again, he avails himself immediately of my best Oban, and on the same pretense, I approach him at the wet bar, leaving Darby chatting with Anna’s sister on the sofa.
Where Wild Things Roam 24: Help
Jack Jack? It’s Darby’s voice, soft and quiet, reluctant to disturb.I struggle out of the vestiges of sleep, glancing at the illuminated dial of the clock. 4AM. What is it, Luna? What’s wrong?Ian’s gone. He’s been gone for hours and doesn’t answer through the link.Shit. I’ll be right there.Extracting myself, careful not to wake either Anna or Lili, I throw on some clothes and pad out into the darkened hallway, heading for the alpha addition to the packhouse. Darby’s waiting for me outside the door.“Did he come to bed with you?” Of course he did. I can smell him on her—she smells strongly of sex. “Nevermind. Did Tessa go to bed with
Where Wild Things Roam 25: Blessings
Sean For as small as this town is, I have to hand it to the medical personnel and non-medical allied health staff in Candlewood. They take patient privacy and protected health information seriously. Not a peep, or a rumor or a whisper anywhere in town gets back to me about Ian and Darby visiting Dr. Myers for a fertility consultation. In fact, by the time I start wondering about Darby’s recurring atypical headaches and mood swings, and the subtle but potent change to her scent, then use Big SIS to hack into the hospital’s information system again, she’s been taking the medication for over two weeks.It’s an estrogen blocker Darby’s taking, a drug to stimulate ovulation. “I should have known,” I whisper to myself in my office. After Ian’s medical visit, it was only a matter of time.
Where Wild Things Roam 26: Assault
Ian I’m in between meetings when Darby drops by on her walk back from the homestead with Tessa.“Move another tree?” Tucking my mate onto my lap, I nuzzle her neck, slipping one hand between her thighs. Her pretty pink pussy is constantly damp and warmer even than usual from the medication, and it’s irresistible. I can’t keep my hands off her the instant she’s around. Not that that’s much different than before.“Yes, and I’m exhausted,” she grumbles. Darby’s head tips back, resting against my shoulder, exposing her throat to my ministrations and she moans, relaxing into my arms. “For the sake of honesty, I only stopped in to use you for your body.”“I’m okay with that,” I murmur with a smile. It&rs
Where Wild Things Roam 27: Disasters
Sean It takes the valley four days to stop burning, and by that time, nothing there is left alive.“Sweet Arianrhod,” I whisper, following Jack as we sort through the rubble of the cottage for anything salvageable or that Darby may want or need, but there’s nothing. The few pieces of intact stoneware we unearth from the kitchen pulverize to powder as soon as we try to move them. The stone knives splinter to razor shards. The supernatural fire was so hot even the glass is fused into brittle, glistening drips and puddles, the mortar between the cottage’s stones baked into choking dust.A few charred tree trunks twist skyward in pained supplication like the shriveled, blackened hands of the damned, all that remains of the once achingly beautiful orchard. Of the younger, smaller trees, only piles
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