“Then no real harm done.”
“No harm?” Mom nearly screeched. “His freckles! They’re covering his face.”
“They’re cute!” Dad protested.
“What will Orson’s parents think?” she replied.
“Why would I be meeting his parents? I thought you wanted me to meet him for dinner…” Suspicion settled heavily on me. There was much more to this blind date than I thought, wasn’t there?
Mom flushed. “Well… Orson thought it would be a good time for us all to get together. His parents, us and you both.” She winced at the scowl on my face.
“So have you already agreed to a price for me? Or do they need to see the goods in person before they choose how much they’ll pay?”
Dad stayed quiet, leaving Mom to splutter, “that’s not what this dinner is!”
“Right. Sure. I hope you’ve trained a replacement for me at the hotel, because you know I won’t be allowed to work once I’m mated into his family, right? Oh, and forget Sunday dinners with me, I’ll have to ask his permission to leave the house—“
“Hold on, Sully,” Dad cut in, “his family aren’t that conservative.”
“So you admit I won’t be able to work anymore? Won’t earn my own living, see who I want to and when…?”
His shared look with Mom told me he had no idea who they were selling me off to. It was her job, after all.
“We’ve already agreed to the dinner. We can’t back out now,” Mom finally said into the silence, which stretched between us.
I stared down both my parents, aware I wasn’t going to win this. Didn’t mean I was going down without a fight. They wanted me to go to dinner with potential in-laws? I’d make them regret it.
“Fine. I’m going to get ready for work. Might as well enjoy it while I can.” Didn’t have to clue them into my plan, either. Orson and his parents would be backing out of this deal they made so fast.
With a devilish smile on my face, I slammed the door to my bedroom and raced for the shower to plot.
Two
Imri
Iwasbeginningtowonder if Uncle Malik had secretly hated me. When I’d gotten the letter about my inheritance, I thought it was a gift, not a curse. For a moment, I’d felt like I’d won the lottery. A man I barely remembered from my childhood, had only seen sporadically through my early adulthood, had thought to give me all he owned in the world upon his death, aside from a couple of small things for my siblings.
Then I’d rocked up to the outskirts of this strange haven town, Haenvale, to be horrified at the “house” he’d left me. There was so much to do, I had a minor panic attack at the thought of making it livable. Then I went into town for supplies, only to be ticketed for not having an inhibitor, then told there were back taxes to pay on my property.
Luckily, Uncle Malik had left me a tidy sum, along with the sizable chunk of land andramshackle house. I would need it to get the place in order! Once the taxes and fine were paid, I still had more than enough to really make this place somewhere I could settle down in the long term. Really, I’d barely made a dent in the cash from all his many inventions.
The place would be amazing, as long as I could deal with the residents.
Haenvale was like most haven towns. Holier than thou and painfully smug about how safe they were without actually teaching their inhabitants to get along with each other. I liked the idea behind the inhibitors, truly, but far from giving an even playing field, they masked future issues or shoved them behind closed doors.
When shifted, minus those handy inhibitors, the prey and predator shifters were segregated. Not that Haenvale had much of a predator population. We were very much in the minority. I felt it everywhere I went in the town. Not to mention my inhibitor seemed different from other ones, like those the prey shifters had.
Yeah, I got one of the damn things, of course. There was no way I was paying a fine every time I went into town to get food and things for the house without it on. I would followtheir rules while still being grateful I’d grown up in a city where we were taught the benefits of controlling ourselves instead of relying on fickle magic. Sue me, I wasn’t a fan of magic users after a bad ex. Not enough to tar them all with the same brush, just a natural wariness after being burned.
The inhibitor made me feel strange, though. I felt like there was a barrier between me and my dingo. My senses weren’t as sharp. At first I thought it was just my sense of smell, the reason for having the bracelet on, but no, it was more than that. I felt disconnected from my animal side completely.
“Imri, are you sure you want to take the place on?” my mom asked, with no small measure of concern. We were on a video call, the signal surprisingly strong in the middle of the woods where Uncle Malik’s, or rather my new house, was located. He had several crystals and rune engraved metals boosting the signal. Likely why the call was so clear. His inventions were in evidence throughout the large property, from the water heater powered by crystals, to the solar panels for electricity.
The building itself wasn’t new. The deed said it had been standing for maybe a hundredyears. They weren’t sure the exact date of construction, which wasn’t concerning at all.
“Sure,” I replied, not sounding at all sure. “Mama taught me well. The place has good bones.” The right things to say, even if they might be lies. I still had to check the plumbing and wiring. The roof, at least, was new, or newish. I gathered no one had been in the place for about three years, maybe slightly longer. Ever since Malik had gotten too sick to manage alone and moved into a hospice. “Some new drywall, fittings in the kitchen, and it’ll be golden.”
My mama, Mom’s omega partner, had a construction business she inherited from her dad when he retired. It was being passed on to my alpha sister when it was time. She was already learning the ropes. My beta brother was getting Mom’s café, hence why Uncle Malik, Mama’s only sibling, had left his estate to me, the youngest of the family.
