Leigh Evans - The Thing About Weres

“How can you promise that?”

“I can’t but I can promise that I’ll die trying to keep us together. And that I will protect and love you for as long as we have left.” Trowbridge’s scent licked my trembling arm. “Come on, sweetheart, say the word to close the gates.”

I looked through the Gates to Merenwyn. Saw the grass swaying in its wind. The wedge of blue in the valley. A bird circled the trees, looking for its nest.

Karma—this is it. No more lessons from you.

The next person through that round window will be me .

Did she hear me? I don’t know. Truth be told, I no longer cared.

We were done.

I’d never be her bitch to torture again.

“Sy’ehella.”

The kitchen smelled of soap and candles. To Cordelia’s baleful dismay, the power had inexplicably gone off just after we straggled back to the house. “I’ll get the utility company out here first thing in the morning,” Harry had said grimly, just before he’d gone to pick up the barbecued chicken order from the Swiss Chalet in Collingwood. In the interim, the pack had brought every type of candle and votive you could imagine, until Cordelia taped a note to the door advising them that our needs had been met. She and Biggs had chosen the best from the collection set on the front porch and placed them here and there. Candlelight flickered and scents mingled—cinnamon, pumpkin, and vanilla. Not a floral tone among them. But then again, they’d been brought by Weres.

With wolves it’s all about the things that speak to the stomach.

And perhaps, for some, the heart.

I studied Trowbridge. Dark hair, less than a quarter inch long. Blue eyes the color of the Mediterranean, now downcast, fixed on his task. A streak of dirt highlighting sharp cheekbones. Shoulders wide with a hollow right there, below his collarbone—warm and ready for my head. Muscles strong enough to carry a whole pack’s burdens.

Wearing Ralph and the T-shirt I’d worn last night to bed.

Faded jeans tight, top button undone.

Bare feet.

Nice feet.

Mine.

My Trowbridge wrung out the tea cloth, and resumed his ministrations. Dab. Press. Dab. The bite wound on my forearm was worrying him. He hadn’t said anything, but the deep furrow of his brow was telegraphing his uneasiness.

If I thought he’d believe me, I’d have told him that the sweet Fae blood that kept oozing from one of the deeper tooth marks wasn’t a big deal. Merry had done her best. Sooner or later, I’d heal; I always did, one way or the other. Besides, we’d dodged a bullet. We weren’t dead yet. While my twin was in—

No. Stop it.

Yet, it was impossible not to think of him. Someone had recovered Lexi’s hat from the floor and placed it on top of the refrigerator. Probably Biggs. He would have seen it, and thought “hat” instead of what it was; my twin’s bowler, with a single strand of long blond hair curled on its brim. I drew in a ragged breath and Trowbridge’s head sharply lifted. “You didn’t hurt me,” I said softly. “I was just thinking about our assault on Merenwyn.”

“You think too much,” he murmured.

“Ditto.” With a sigh, I tugged his makeshift compress free from his hand. “That dirt on your face is driving me crazy. Let me get it.”

And … I felt it. The instant I placed the cloth tenderly to his cheek, a faint tremor went straight through his body. I glanced up. His jaw was hard, his gaze hooded. Someone less observant than me might not have noticed he’d just vibrated like a tuning fork. Though they might have cued into the fact that the air between us was becoming decidedly musk-toned.

“I feel it, too,” I told him with my eyes. “And I’m no longer frightened by the strength of my desire for you.”

Whether he got that, I don’t know. But one of us had to change the subject before my knees started knocking, so I asked, “What are you going to tell the pack when we come back from our secret mission?”

He gave me a real, true-life Trowbridge grin—devil winking from glimmering blue eyes, teeth flashing. “I’ll cross that bridge when I have to.”

Despite myself, I smiled back. “You really shouldn’t use that phrase, Trowbridge.”

Gravel crunched as Harry’s truck pulled up at the back.

“Dinner!” called Cordelia. She placed a glass by Trowbridge’s seat—the tall Windsor chair with the armrests had to be his. The others didn’t have a nice strip of wood to balance your elbows on. Or, for that matter, come with a relatively new seat cushion. I still don’t know where Cordelia found that ruffled gem.

“I’m starved.” Biggs walked into the kitchen with the ferret draped over his arm—evidently a truce had been called. The animal’s small head tilted toward me, its expressive face so human, I couldn’t shake the feeling that Lexi’s pet had something to say but not the language skills to say it.

Ferret, I’m going to bring him back, even if I have to club a few mages to do it.

Cold fall air chilled the room as Harry shouldered through the door, his arms burdened. A second later Anu ghosted into the room. She stood near the doorway, her posture set on preflight, her eyes fixed hungrily on the food that Cordelia was pulling out of the sacks. Trowbridge pulled out a chair at the other end of the table and said something to her in Merenwynian. With a coy sideways glance toward me, she dropped into the chair.

Forget about it, niece. He’s mine.

Cordelia fussed, taking time to discard the containers and rearrange the food on serving platters. Meanwhile, Harry tore open a white plastic bag, pulled out a bottle of Grade A maple syrup and set it in front of me with a “There you go, Little Miss. Your main course.”

Then he winked and pulled out a medium paper bag from the recesses of his coat jacket—the type you got from Deidre’s Bakery on Wellington Street. “She saw me passing and sent these to you. Compliments of the shop.”

I inhaled. “White chocolate chip with macadamia nuts.”

“Your favorite,” Cordelia said. “Try not to eat more than four at one sitting.”

The rest of the family’s meal was set on the table.

I would say that they fell on it like wolves, but they didn’t. Everybody politely (and somewhat impatiently) waited for Trowbridge to choose the first piece. He requisitioned a whole chicken, then they fell on the platter like the wild creatures they truly were.

Hiding my smile, I twisted the cap off the bottle of syrup and poured a good measure into the bottom of a bowl. Then—I promised , okay?—I slid the happy meal to my niece. For a moment Anu’s gaze stared at it. Then, she half stood, leaned over and filched a piece of chicken off Biggs’s plate.

“She just…” Biggs’s head swung back and forth. “She just…”

Trowbridge grinned—which made him look about ten years younger and three times handsomer. Then he picked up his fork with his left hand, and searched for my hand with his right. He rested our entwined hands on his strong thigh.

I stroked his thumb with mine.

We could grow together, if time and fate let us.

Get stronger over time.

Suddenly, that desperate race I’d envisioned in my future—me plodding heavily around the track, sides burning, feet whimpering, all in grim hope of catching up to Trowbridge—seemed enormously stupid. He was here with me, right now. Not ahead of me.

Beside me. Holding my hand.

How simple was that?

Tonight, no one at this table expected me to be anything other than what I was.

I picked up my spoon.

I am Hedi Peacock-Stronghold.

And I am loved.