“Yes, you hadbetterambulate quickly!” Mar-ee called after her.
“I don’t have any children, you idiot,” Talia snapped at Lukan, livid with anger. “I live with my father and grandparents. Where the hell did you get the idea that I had young children?”
“You do not have any children?” Lukan echoed, a look of shock on his face. “You are not a mother of three?”
“No, you giant hairball!”
“But Alexandra told me that you did,” Lukan protested, shaking his head. “It is in your company profile; she showed it to me. You have three children, from three different fathers, and you left each of their fathers.”
“You have got to be kidding me,” Talia said furiously. “You think I have children that I’m leaving behind on Earth? If I had children, I would never leave them. Not for any man in the universe. Not even you.”
There was a short, breathless silence. “What do you mean, not even me?” Lukan asked, his brows drawing together quizzically.
What Talia meant was that Lukan was the only man she wanted, and she doubted she’d ever again want a man other than him, if she were honest with herself. But she wasn’t about to tell him that; she was furious.
“How dare you think that of me? How could you?” she shouted.
“Yes, how could you?” Mar-ee said indignantly from behind Talia’s shoulder. Then she slid out and crossed her metallic arms indignantly.
“Because Alexandra said so. She was very detailed and specific in what she told me about you. I do not understand why she would say such things,” Lukan said. Then a look of comprehension dawned on his face. “Actually, I do understand it. Alexandra wanted to form a pair-bond with me, even though I told her that she was not my true mate. She must have lied so that I would not pursue you, because she thought I might change my mind about her. On your first day at work, I expressed interest in you. She immediately told me that you had a history of meeting with men, bearing their young, and then being unfaithful with a new man.”
“And you believed that about me?” Talia spat.
“I had no reason to suspect that Alexandra was lying to me.” Lukan shook his head. “She was very clever with her deception. She told me that you did not like to talk about your children because you were ashamed that you were an unmarried mother. Therefore, I never brought it up. ”
Talia made a choking sound.
“I believe the phrase you are looking for is ‘you stupid jerk’,” Mar-ee said. “Or does this call for stronger language? I can consult the lexicon of obscenities on my hard drive for more appropriate insults if you like.”
“No, thank you, I have plenty of my own that I’m sorting through right now.” Talia took a step back, away from Lukan.
He looked down at her. “Talia, wait.” A pleading note had crept into his voice, a note that she had never heard before. “I have yearned for you from the moment that I first saw you, and when Alexandra told me those terrible things, it was like a living death for my heart. Even though Alexandra told me terrible things about you, for some reason I could never quite bear to let you go. That was why I insisted that you work directly with me, even though it was a torment to me.”
“Having me work with you was a torment?” Talia felt a stab of pain right through the heart, and blinked as hot tears spilled onto her cheeks.
“Now you are making her cry! You gor-bellied, toad-spotted malt-worm!” Mar-ee shouted.
Then she paused. “Sorry. Wrong era. Those were Shakespearean insults.” She banged the side of her head with the palm of her hand. “My hard drive needs updating.”
Lukan reached out to grab Talia’s hand, but she took another step back. He let out a groan of frustration. “Talia, if I have hurt you, my heart will tear in two. It was a torment because you are my true mate, and I thought that I could never have you. You were so close to me, and I yearned for you and could not have you. Those pills that I chew every day? They are a drug from Ilyria, which I had to take after I met you. A Vulfan who is denied his true mate is at risk of going mad. The pills dulled my pain and kept my animal from leaping out of my skin. Just barely.”
This was too much for Talia to process. “What are you saying?”
His eyes burned with intensity. “You are mine. I am yours. Shall we go back to my home now? Our home, I mean.”
Our home? One minute he acted like she was the devil in female form, and believed every horrible thing Alexandra said about her, the next minute he was talking about ‘our home’?
“Whoa,” she said, a storm of conflicting emotions swirling inside her. “Not so fast.”
“Hey! You big lug, what did you do to her?” Cora Lee shouted, pushing her way through the crowd, with her werewolf boyfriend at her side. “Why is she crying?”
Instantly, wolves began to gather around Lukan, and another group began to gather around Cora Lee and Tristao.
Talia realized that all the wolves around Lukan wore red ties and twisty silver lapel-pin insignias, and all the wolves around Cora Lee and Tristao wore blue ties and circular lapel pins.
The two warring packs. She didn’t want them to fight because of her. She also felt as if her head was about to explode. She had just been transported to another world where alien werewolves were real. Cora Lee was going to marry an alien werewolf. Lukan had programmed Mar-ee to be her BRF – Best Robot Friend. Lukan had believed horrible lies about her for the past year. And now he suddenly wanted to basically throw her over his shoulder, caveman style, and carry her home?
“Are you all right?” Cora Lee asked her.
