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There was a stark difference between the two of them Delilah hadn’t noticed. Whereas Graham was a tall, fair-skinned ginger-haired man with a chiseled jaw and a swimmer’s physique, Jude looked more like an enforcer. The flecks of gold in Jude’s green eyes stood out against his rich, umber skin, and Graham’s eyes shone with gold, and hazel. In the right light, and under the right context, the two of them were really quite handsome.
“Glad you decided to come,” Graham focused on her. “Miranda talks about you a lot.”
“We were hoping you might join us for the run,” Jude added.
Delilah looked at Miranda. The wind picked up, blowing into a set of wind chimes hanging from the teahouse patio.
“I mean, I’m game if you are,” Delilah told her.
Miranda channeled a sudden burst of enthusiasm. “Thank god you said that!” Miranda exclaimed. “These days, I don’t have anybody to run with anymore.”
“Nobody can keep up with her.” Graham smiled ruefully.
Miranda winked at him. “If you’re up for it, Delilah, we’ll meet up with them later?”
Relief rushed through Delilah. She still felt best with Miranda. “That sounds great.”
Chapter 11
Delilah
Delilahwasbeginningtolove sunsets in the city. The way the orange, pink, red, and yellow beams of sunlight bounced off layers of towering metal only amplified their beauty. Unlike at home, where they seemed lost beneath layers of trees. Here, the clouds also seemed more plentiful or more densely packed, which created a canvas teeming with different colors.
Perhaps she had never truly taken the time to enjoy sunsets, being so fearful of the moon that followed them. Each passing moon had been a countdown to her inevitable transformation. That unease seemed so far away now, and she heaved a sigh of deep relief.
Delilah and Miranda had spent some time shopping. From the plaza, which was a sanctuary for many shifters, the Fang District had seemed relatively small. But entering each of the shops through the back entrances had revealed how large this area truly was.
They had agreed to take a full day to shop later on after Miranda had generously purchased a bottle of Honey Rose, the perfume that concealed shifter scents from people and other shifters.
“I’m buying it for you, and I’m not taking no for an answer,” Miranda had told her, looking at several glass bottles of the pink substance on a shelf display. “You’re going to use it, and it’s going to keep you safe.”
“I keep telling you. I don’t need your money,” Delilah had told her, trying to whisper. “I can afford the perfume on my own. Let me buy it for myself.”
“Didn’t you just tell me you were living in some cramped hotel room? No.” She shook her head. “I’m getting this for you. You’re going to start saving up for an apartment.”
It had been a very hefty price tag, costing hundreds of dollars for a small bottle. In spite of Miranda’s insistence, Delilah kept telling her that she would pay her back. Eventually, Miranda stopped acknowledging her protests.
The stores had been run exclusively by shifters, some even lone wolves whose packs had left them behind. In spite of this, the customers in almost every shop had been non-shifters, or very carefully veiled shifters wearing Honey Rose, and none of them seemed to pay any notice to the “employees only” exits Miranda and Delilah left and entered the shops through.
Extending outward on a path leading down from the plaza were trees as far as the eyes could see, which Delilah knew to be Fang Park. Compared even to the sizable plaza of the Fang District, Fang Park was immense and could have easily swallowed up the other sector six or seven times over.
After meeting back up with Jude and Graham, Delilah and Miranda approached the park together, moving from the main Fang District path downward to a brick-paved slope. As they reached the park gate, Graham immediately pulled out his phone and then opened an innocuous-looking app. It looked very bare bones, and even as she watched, Delilah had no idea what the app did.
“I’ll send you this too later if you join the Grimmaw pack,” Graham said, putting his phone away after tapping on a blue circle. “All it does is work the locks of the gate to Fang Park remotely. That way, I’m always able to open and close the park if a shifter wants to go for a run.”
“If anybody ever wandered into the park while a shifter was out running, it would be very bad,” Jude added. “I’m sure you get it.”
Delilah nodded.
“Oh, Dakota!” Jude waved toward a very gruff, angry-looking shifter, accompanied by another bulky shifter and a small woman. At first, Delilah was very concerned, as the shifter he waved to was covered from head-to-toe in piercings and tattoos.
“Sup,” the shifter acknowledged with no clear emotion.
“This is Dakota,” Jude said redundantly as the trio approached. “And this is Samson.” Jude pointed to the other extremely muscular shifter, whose red hair stretched even below his waist. Delilah noticed that his hair was even longer than hers.
“They’re the pack’s enforcers,” Graham added. “They’re often patrolling the park, making sure nobody’s in here who isn’t supposed to be. They act as our security, our muscle, and in the rare cases where we need them to, our intimidators.”
“And I’m Sarah,” the small woman wearing glasses announced sheepishly.
