AllFreeNovel
Share Us
This guy is smart, incredible looking, and absolutely in control of himself, if not everybody around him. I am impressed.
“Let me tell you what remains of our father’s work,” Fury says. “Absolutely nothing. Our home was destroyed to the atomic level. We are now spread across the country, and indeed, across the world. This means that we can now be hunted down and picked off, one by one. You may think that you have escaped the war, but I’ve come to warn you, there is no escape. If I can find you, others can. Maybe they will not come today, or tomorrow, but you can be assured that they will come.”
“What do you want, Fury?” Order sighs.
“I want you to consider opening your home to some refugees. We need to rebuild strongholds. We need to create defenses. We need you.”
It’s a short, but stirring speech, and Order is not unaffected. It’s almost as if he too has been thinking about these matters. I knew it. I knew hiding in the Outback would never satisfy him.
“There are many abandoned mines in this region of the world. Their subterranean reaches are potentially very useful for us, and secure besides,” Order says.
“Exactly. These are places we can lurk and breed. We need to establish satellite bases for those of us who are choosing to create families. Justice and his human mate are now proud parents of twelve.”
“Awesome,” I deadpan to myself. I don’t really want to hear more about that. I’m glad she’s happy, and safe. That really is all that matters, but I will forever be sad at the way our lives suddenly diverged.
I am not dressed to receive royalty. I am wearing short shorts and a tank top, and what the Australians call jandals. The floppy rubber is held to my feet by rubber straps that run up over the sides of my feet and dive between the gap between my big toe and whatever you call the toe next to it. They make a satisfyingshlick shlicksound when I walk. But enough about the jandals. I am meeting a monarch.
I step around Order and I extend a hand to the monarch, wondering if I should bow my head, or kneel, or curtsey, or just straight up lie face down on the ground. He has a certain majesty and regal bearing that commands my respect.
“Hello, sir,” I say. “My name is Tessie. I had a last name, but nobody has used it in a very long time, so I don’t bother with it anymore.”
“Sir!” Order snorts. “You’ve never spontaneously sir’ed me!”
“I guess that says something about you then, huh?”
Fury chuckles. “Respectful and impudent in the same breath. I see the attraction.”
“You don’t mind that I’m a wolf? One of your enemies, even if I was made reluctantly?”
I like to get the awkward bits of a conversation out of the way as quickly as possible. It helps either move things along, or end things up front, and I am fine either way.
“There’s no changing what you are,” Fury says. “You did not choose to be turned, and Order did not choose you after you were turned. We need all the allies we can get at this point. You may function well as a guard if you wish to aid us in the simple act of survival. Your senses will make you more than usually aware of any hostiles in the area.”
I feel rather pleased at the notion of receiving some responsibility. It’s been a long time since anybody saw me as useful. When I was still properly human I got very accustomed to riding a desk and being ignored by most people. This monarch looks at me and sees my potential. I can’t help but be very, very pleased by all that.
“What about Stealth? And Justice? What about the others?” Order asks the question with more than a slight hint of bitterness. “What about those who cling to the old ideologies so tightly they can never allow a supernatural to exist in their presence?”
“I know there was tension when this one was turned,” the monarch says, glancing at me.
I smile slightly at his use ofthis one. There’s a soft of informal affection about it, even though we are strangers. He seems intelligent, as if he has done his homework.
“I have spoken with the others,” he continues. “I have impressed upon them the importance of not casting out potential allies, especially those with blood ties to the enemy camp.”
Order bristles. “So you believe her to be useful? I don’t care if it has occurred to everybody that she is potentially a pawn to be used. Tessie is not a tool in this war. She is my pet. My most beloved mate. She is everything to me, and I will not allow her to be used.”
He is so sweet. I feel tears rising to my eyes hearing Order speaking so protectively of me. He has truly chosen me, fur and all. I don’t know what I did to deserve him. For the longest time, I felt like an outcast. I felt wounded and odd and estranged from even the concept of love. But Order has made me his. He has accepted me, and claimed me and now he defends me even to the highest of his kind.
“I’m not here to use your pet,” the monarch says. “I’m here to ask for your help. I come to you not as a leader. I come to you as a brother.”
“He comes to you as a brother,” I repeat. I want Order to agree to this plan. It feels like that gives us a point, and maybe takes us a little closer to peace. It might even mean getting to see Sally again one day.
“You might think you are for this plan, but remember, they wanted to kill you,” Order tells me. “You were unconscious, and they tried to kill you. I got you up and out of the vault in time, but they intended…”
“They who? I thought Justice helped you help me escape?”
“Stealth, mostly.”
“But then the only other person…” I pause as the logic of the matter forces its way through my head. “Are you telling me Sally wanted me dead?”
