When Jasper got back to the house, it was very late and he was quite drunk. It was the only way he could cope with being around so many people. So many visions... Useless visions. The liquor tempered them.
He spotted Ryn and waved at her awkwardly. "Hi."
She tried to hold in a laugh, couldn't. "You are..."
He answered for her. "Not sober, fairly awkward and very sorry."
She giggled at him. "Come sit down in the kitchen. I'll get you some water."
He looked around as he made his way to the table. "You cleaned." He collapsed down in a chair.
"That I did. Here," she passed him a glass of water.
He stared at it. "You found this. Where?"
"The attic." She sat across from him. "There's enough stuff to make up there to make this place an actual home."
He stared at the glass, suspicious of it. "This glass could trigger a vision. I am not in the mood for that shit." Jasper slurred.
She shrugged. "If you get a headache from it, I can fix it. Go ahead."
Still staring at it like the glass could bite him at any second, he slowly drew up his hand and poked it. It rattled on the uneven table.
"Safe?" She asked.
He picked it up, stared at it a little bit more, then downed half of it. "Yup."
"We can designate that a safe cup for you."
His eyes widened. "Cool..."
She giggled. "Gosh, you're cute."
Jasper held up a hand. "I am a voracious man-eater." He said matter-of-factly. "I could eat your intestines for lunch." He stared at her for several seconds more. "I'm a lucky fuck."
She cocked her head at him. "How's that?"
"You're pretty." He tells her.
She smiled. "Thanks."
"I didn't think it would be possible for me to have a mate. I didn't think it would happen. But gosh, Ryn I kinna like you. Witch and all." He grinned. "I was so pissed off when I saw you send that bolt of lightning at the fae. So pissed."
She shook her head, smiling. "You haven't even known me for twenty-four hours."
"I watched you." He confessed. "I've watched you since you were sixteen."
She was taken aback. "Seriously?"
He snorted. "Umm... That boy... I don't even know his name. Blonde guy. Short. You know how... he was uh, mugged? Walking home from your house?"
Her eyes widened. "Jesus, that was you?"
"You told him no. He didn't listen. I couldn't just let him go. At least... at least the other guy treated you right." He placed his hand on his chest, "not as good as I, but well enough. You were too young. You still are now, really, but..." He trailed off.
She stared at the table, still smiling softly. "I can't believe you protected me like that."
"It what we do." He drank the rest of the water.
She took the cup from him and refilled it, giving it back. "He broke up with me after that. I was so sad, but the more I thought about it," she cleared her throat, "he probably would have raped me."
He nodded solemnly. "If the pack ever found out I attacked him I woulda been in a world of hurt. If we find our mates before they're eighteen, we're never supposed to interfere. But I couldn't..." He shook his head, started on his refill. "Couldn't do it. You said no."
"My little guardian angel." She murmured.
Whether it was the alcohol or the embarrassment, he wasn't sure. He flushed. "Hey, you watch your mouth. I am not small. And the things I've been thinking about doing to you all day are nowhere near angelic. I've been hard as a rock since I woke up. Jeez." He picked up the glass and covertly rubbed the heel of his palm on the inseam of his jeans.
"When all this wears off are you going to go back to very brooding and very silent?" She asks.
Sighing, he nodded.
Ryn placed her head in her hand. "That's okay. I can deal with that."
He stared at his boots for a moment and kicked them off.
"Hey," she warned, standing and picking them up, "I just cleaned this place." She walked over to put them by the door. As she came back, he grabbed her by the hips and pulled her between his knees.
"I want you... So naked." He murmurs, kissing the exposed part of her chest. Jasper looked up at her, "be naked for me?"
She swept her thumb along his bottom lip. "Nothing tonight."
He shook his head. "No... Nonono, no touching. I've just... I've never had a woman naked. Just for me. I'm too scared to touch you, I break everything I touch."
Ryn stared at him for a moment. She let her cardigan fall off her shoulders, laid it on the table. His blue eyes looked so innocent with drunken anticipation. Ryn pulled off her top next, and he looked at her bareness longingly. Only pausing for a moment, she tucked her thumbs into her tiny shorts and worked them down her legs. She was left in only a little white pair of panties. Ryn looked down at herself. "I... I have to admit, this is as far as I've ever gotten with somebody."
"Can I do the honors, then?" He asked, looking up at her.
She smiled nervously. "Sure."
Barely touching her, he reached out and hooked his fingers into the soft cotton and pulled them off her hips. They collected in a little puddle on the floor.
He sat back in his chair to analyze her.
"Everything you ever wanted?" She asked.
He shook his head. "Better. 'Cause you're real. I don't remember all the women I crafted in my mind but there's no way in hell I could forget you."
She gave him a soft, pleased smile. "My, my. When you talk, you manage the sweetest things."
"Come along, my pretty little thing. Let's go to bed."
*
When Chrissy woke up, she thought it was a dream. For the first time in since she could remember, she didn't wake up lonely. The sunlight warmed her, but there was none of Louisiana's thick, muggy heat. Someone's arms were wrapped around her waist and -
She quickly realized it wasn't a dream when she felt something prodding at her back.
Chrissy whipped around and clocked whomever it was in the nose, scrambling out of bed.
"Whoa, just me- FUCKING OW!" Tristan jumped out of bed as well, clutching his nose.
"What. The. Fuck!" She screeched.
Blood started trickling down his hand and onto the hardwood floors. "Jesus, Christine! You fell asleep in the middle of the bed while I was rubbing your back. Fuck's sake!" He looked down at the blood pooling in his palm and on the floor.
She paused. "I did what?" Chrissy thought back to the night before. "Oh. I did, didn't I?"
"Yeah!" He shouted. "Ya did!" He went into the bathroom, snatching a hand towel and pressing it to his nose. He sat down on the edge of the bathtub and Chrissy followed after him.
"Well, that doesn't explain why I woke up to your dick poking me in the back." She told him.
He threw out one of his hands exasperatedly. "Because I'm male, Chris! It's what that thing does!" He gestured to her. "It doesn't help that you're in heat and I can smell it!"
She stared at him in shock. "I'm what now?"
He stood up to look at his nose in the mirror, she moved out of his way. "Yeah, if you're so hell bent on hating me, get ready for one of the worst weeks of your life."
"B-but I read on it!" She exclaimed. "It's supposed to take like a week for that to start I-"
He turned to look at her coldly. "Welcome to being a queen, Chrissy. Alphas and their mates are supposed to have the strongest relationship of the pack. A king and his queen even stronger than that. I'm both."
Like a puppy with her tail between her legs, she came close to him. "Here, I can help..."
He hit her hands and snapped. "Just stop caring, Christine. It's what you do best."
She swallowed hard. "Hey, now. That's really mean."
He turned to look at her, slamming his hand down on the counter. "Is it false?"
She was quiet.
"Go find your brothers or something. Just get out of my house." He picked up her jeans that she had left on the floor and tossed them at her.
You can't be all that offended, Chrissy. You did break his nose. He won't hit you back.
*
Unsurprisingly enough, her brothers had barely left the pack compound since she left home. Micah lived with his mate Sloane, and Luke and Alex had a house together. It explained why only one slept at the house at a time and why the other two were always mysteriously gone. They had other homes and other lives she never knew about.
In all honesty, she didn't really want to see them. Christine was pissed. She'd been avoiding them, really.
She stood against the exterior wall to Alex's and Luke's house, smoking, trying to contemplate what on earth she was going to say.
Finally, the front door opened, then the screen door, and Alex appeared in view.
"What's up, ladykiller?" She asked, knocking the ash off her cigarette.
He leaned against one of the porch's support beams. "Does Tristan know about your nasty habit yet?"
She rose an eyebrow at him. "A Hamilton says you have a pack of camels in your pocket."
"Ten it is." He said, then dug through his front pocket. "Shee-it." Alex muttered, then dug in his front pocket for his wallet. He pulled a ten out and handed it to her. She snatched it and shoved it in her bra.
"He doesn't. I hid the one I had under the bathroom sink. It's not like we get cancer anyway." She avoided looking at him. "Yeah. Thanks for telling me that."
"I don't have an excuse." He said. "Not for you, Chris. You deserved to know. You've got every right to be angry."
"Yeah! I'm fuckin' pissed! Honest to god, I would've rather spent the day reading about things that are gonna give me nightmares and hanging out with that tyrant than seeing you lyin' sacks of shit." She threw the cigarette on the ground and smashed it underfoot.
He folded his arms. "What'd you do then, Chrissy?"
She sniffed. "I broke his nose this morning. And I hit him over the head with a book last night, and broke his arm the night before. Stabbed him in the gut. Take your pick."
He raised an eyebrow. "Based on what I know of him and his exes, I'm surprised you can sit."
Chrissy looked at him and then to the trees. "I'm not." She muttered. Alex burst out laughing, and she couldn't help but chuckle a little bit herself, kick at her heels. "Yeah, he's something else. Sneaky fucker."
"He's... He's actually pretty likable, Chris. He's funny and he's honest. Like your kind of honesty, the shit someone don't wanna hear but you're gonna say it anyway." He smiled to himself. "Me and Micah, we always used to joke that your boyfriend would have to be a Mythic otherwise you'd kill him."
She huffed a laugh and shook her head. "Well, a normal guy would be dead or hospitalized, I'd give you that." She frowned, "did dad really beat the hell outta you when you and Luke threatened to tell me? Tristan told me yesterday when I asked him about it."
He nodded. "Yeah. That was some of the worst pain I've ever been in. Luke and I had to make scarce for a couple days. I had like, five broken ribs and my insides were pulverized. And Luke was even worse than I was."
She watched him with consideration. "Where'd you go?"
He sighed. "Here. Doc Vanessa is mated to the police chief. She took care of us. That was how Luke got that job on the force, really. Say what you will, but this pack has taken care of us. Tristan has. We're a family." He nudged one of her shoes with his own to get her to look up at him. "A family that doesn't abandon the black sheep."
That's what they always called their family minus their father. The black sheep.
"Stop with your sissy shit you're gonna make me cry." Chrissy muttered.
"We've been abandoned a lot, I know." He continued. "But they won't."
She swallowed hard.
"Now you're being a sissy."
Narrowing her eyes at Alex, Chrissy lunged for him. They started laughing and fighting, just like usual. It wasn't long before Chris had Alex's arm behind his back, her knee in the middle of his spine. "Say it!"
"Never!"
She twisted his arm further. "Say it!"
"No!"
Using her free hand, she started to tickle him.
"Fuck! Ahahah! Oh, Jesus stop!" He cried.
"Say it!"
"Uncle! Jesus, uncle! Get off!"
Laughing, she let him go and stood upright.
"Nice job, Chris." She watched as Micah jumped up on the railing, heaving himself up and swinging one leg over, placing the other on the edge.
Sloane appeared next, rolling her eyes at him. "Can you stop climbing on everything?" She asked.
"You're just jealous." He smirked at her.
She narrowed her eyes at him. "Okay, just for that." Sloane ran back down the steps.
He shook his head, taking a cigarette from behind his ear. "She can't do it."
But Chrissy and Alex watched as Sloane jumped up onto the railing, heaving herself up just the same, then grabbing onto one of the pillars and kicking confident Micah to the ground a good eight feet below.
"How's defeat taste?" She called from her perch.
"Like dirt and you doing the dishes tonight!"
She shrugged and looked at them, "I mean, I was just gonna get some carry-out Chinese."
"Count me in." Alex told her.
Micah soon jumped up the steps. "I hear the town drunk has a mate." He sat next to Sloane on the railing.
She shoved him. "Jasper's not a drunk." She looked at Chrissy. "He was cursed by witches about seventy-five years ago when he was like fifteen or fourteen. He's an oracle. The unfortunate thing is that he gets visions constantly, not just of the pertinent stuff. They get triggered by everything, and it gives him horrible migraines. He tried everything, but alcohol is the only thing that works to stave them off when he has to go around people. I've watched the poor guy pass out because of all his visions before. He's actually really sweet."
"It's Katheryn DuPree. The Texas oilman's daughter." Chrissy said. "At least, I think."
"The blonde chick in the cherry red beemer?" Alex asks.
Chrissy nodded, "yeah, the small town princess."
"Ah," said Alex, "that rings a bell. Jas and Tristan were talking a little bit about her during the meeting yesterday."
She cocked her head at him. "You're in on those?"
He nodded. "We both are," he gestured between himself and Micah. "Luke too. We come from a line of greats. Luke is one of the best trackers in the south, I'm one of the better fighters and Micah-"
"I know shit." He said.
Alex laughed. "Yeah, and Micah knows shit."
Sloane nudged him playfully. "He's their diplomat. He's training with the mayor to take his role. Studying species law." She rubbed his arm lovingly. "He's really good at it."
Micah grumbled and rolled his eyes.
"You'll be there soon too." Sloane added, "as queen."
Chrissy shook her head. "I'm not good at nothin'."
The boys stared at her. "History." Alex started.
"English."
"Science."
"Art."
"Wrestling."
"Being a hardass."
"Strategy."
"Overall intelligence, really."
"Okay!" Chrissy interrupted. "Okay. That's quite enough."
"Really?" Micah drawled. "We can go on. Origami, cooking-"
Alex took over, tallying fingers as he went. "hand to hand combat, archery, Mortal Kombat, Call of Duty-"
She was starting to turn pink. "Please. Guys, enough."
"Making men fall head over heels in love with her." Everyone turned around to look at Luke, who had arrived home from his shift. He started up the porch steps. "Thomas won't shut up about you. He keeps asking me how you liked your birthday gift."
Chrissy narrowed her eyes at him. "You're still due for a beat down."
He groaned as he came up the last step. "I've got the graveyard shift for the next two months. Let it be, Chrissy."
For the second time that day, Christine broke someone's nose. As Luke fell flat on his ass, she shook out her hand. "Nice to know that it'll be healed by tomorrow."
"You smell like cigarettes." He mumbled, holding his nose.
"And you smell like a whiny bitch." She hit back. "Now go inside, get an ice pack, take a shower and go to bed."
He didn't refute that, stood, and went inside. She was offered light applause from Alex and Sloane. She bowed gracefully. "I'll be here all week, ladies and gents."