Jade arched a brow at me and then pulled his long, mid-back length hair up into a ponytail. Most of our friends and family forgot but we messed around during college. It never got serious because life pulled us in two different directions. We made great friends but meshing our lives together so intimately was never going to work out.
“Like I said, you could come over and hang out with me and Jondi,” he said again.
I definitely missed that hint the first time around. I pondered it for a second. We were older now. It might be different. I still worked too much and Jade still wanted to save the world. We’d found our niches and he was right. I was one of the few people Jondi tolerated in his space. Was it time to grow up and settle down? I could do worse than Jade and we already knew what we hated about each other.
“Can I think about it? I mean I have to pay out the lease anyway,” I said, buying time.
“I was inviting you over to play house not to marry me,” he laughed.
“Yeah, but we had three pregnancy scares in college. My sperm like your eggs too much,” I laughed. “So, playing house might not be a game for long and we’d have to think about how Jondi would feel if we tried and it didn’t work.”
“You’re going to be a great dad someday, Kieran Ruffin Forticaine-Milton, and a great mate for someone too, but it’s not gonna be me, huh?”
“You are a great dad and the same for the last part, huh?” I laughed.
We were quiet for a long stretch of highway.
“Friends still?” he asked when we got close to the farm.
“Forever,” I nodded.
I lost track of the times we’d ‘broken up’ or ‘fallen out’ and had that conversation. Jade and I were definitely better as friends even if we were both lonely, horny cats.
Chapter 5
Vatten
Canton Valley Farm
The party was just about in full swing. Well, if you could call an assembly line of shifters passing boxes, bags, and furniture into a house a party. I watched from under a sugar maple. They were efficient and laughed and talked as things were passed from one set of hands to another over and over again until everything disappeared inside the house. Then some of them broke apart from the group to set up tables and chairs and the other half brought out food to cover them.
“Say hi and make friends?”my dog asked from within his inner sanctum. His tail was wagging ninety miles an hour. The screaming goof loved to meet new people but I wanted to watch them a little longer first. Usually, when I traveled for work I met the client, fixed the problem, and went home. This time the formula had been broken and like my polar bear ancestors before me – I didn’t trust the strange. If it was strange it was best to see if it was edible first. Only, people weren’t the sort of food I wanted to eat. Still, something in the air was off. Something electric and staticky. It hung from the thick air.
Philip had asked if I could see spirits but he hadn’t asked if I could feel this shit. What was this shit? Sometimes it was spirits.Sometimes it was negative energy. Sometimes it was just the fact I was a bit of an empath in the way that most dogs were.
A cherry red pickup truck that looked as if it never saw a single day of work in its life pulled in a bit late to the party. Two men were inside of it and stayed there talking for a long time. I made up a story about them in my head. They were true-mates discussing their kid’s problem at school. He liked to scratch up the furniture and hated to have his nails cut. Yesterday, he scratched up the teacher’s desk. I liked to make up stories to go along with the people I saw when people watching.
The man in the passenger seat flashed the driver a sad-ish smile before stepping out of the truck. A second later the driver’s side door opened and everything inside me exploded into sparks. I choked on the canine sounds that my inner beast tried to force from my throat. Oh, no. Oh, shit!
The driver’s scent wrapped around me like a warm blanket. It splashed on me like it was a lake I could play in. His scent was everywhere all at once and it burrowed itself into me more with each breath I drew into my lungs. He was a cat. A housecat. His boyfriend was a lion or a dragon or maybe some mix up of both. More lion, though. Definitely more lion. But the housecat – he was mine.
Oh, no! His poor boyfriend!
My dog forced a high-pitched bark up my throat and it vibrated off my tongue. Everyone looked at me, including my mate and his boyfriend. The cat’s pupils dilated and his nostrils flared. His mane of hair ruffled in a breeze around his face. Fucking gorgeous. I wanted to hide in that hair – to sleep under it. To roll around and--- His gaze met mine and for a second I thought I had died. My thoughts all exploded into a billion littlestars. Then I had to move. My feet sprinted me across the grass to where all the cars were parked without asking my permission first. It took every ounce of my being not to jump up on him and lick his face. No, first I had to apologize to the lion-dragon but make it clear that his boyfriend was my true-mate.
“I’m so sorry,” I said, reaching out for the lion who took a big step back. He was an omega like me. Poor guy. Maybe I could find him another alpha to be his boyfriend. Maybe he could live with us as a roommate or something. “I’m so sorry that your boyfriend is my true-mate but he is. He’s mine now and I don’t think I’d be very good at sharing. I get territorial and I mean he is mine after all. We chose each other in the Other World and I hate to use the line but I licked him first technically. If you lick—Never mind. I’m so sorry that this is hurting you. I’m so sorry. We can be friends, though. You can never have enough friends, right?”
A new scent rushed into my head. It was the lioness who had baby talked me before. Evie.
“What did you two do to Vatten?” Evie demanded with a hiss and the men took a step back.
“I don’t know what his problem is,” the lion said. “He ran up to me and started barking or screeching or whatever that sound was.”
I facepalmed. I was speaking in dog to a lion. Yep. That right there was the story of my life. I glanced at my cat for help. A grin pulled at the corners of his mouth.
“Eran! Jade! What did you do?” Evie hissed.
“Evie,” my guy said. “He’s --- He’s mine.”
