Authors: LeTeisha Newton
Chapter Fifteen
While she was sleeping, someone had snuck into her room and given her a roofie. That person clearly wanted her to believe that the home she walked into was truly hers. She knew differently. Her home had never been this full of people. Not to mention there were all people that she did not know.
She was surrounded by a foulmouthed guardian angel and his friends. Aaron didn’t seem very much like he should be working for the guy upstairs. There was Lea, a real angel that liked to walk around in corset tops, hip-hugger jeans, with a
belly-button
piercing no less. Now there were four new people sitting in her home. They looked at her as if they were completely welcome there and she was the nutcase for not recognizing them. There were three men and one woman.
Two of the men reminded her eerily of Clyde. There was a predatory nature about them. They were tall and thickly muscled, their bodies honed as if they were ready to pounce on the nearest person. One had dark hair that was long and braided into a thick rope that hung over his shoulder with piercing green eyes that seemed to laugh even if his face was made of stone. He was standing next to a much lighter-skinned black man. The other was blond, with starburst blue eyes that seemed to dance with their own magnetism. The third man held on to the dark-haired one, his hair cut short, his waves perfected. His eyebrows manicured and arched, and he had a look on his face that reminded her of Aaron.
The woman, by contrast, was probably the most approachable if Tatiana felt so inclined. This woman was a ball of energy, smaller than the men were, and darker, like her. Her hair was in natural curls around her face in an almost Kelis style before she got “Bossy.”
In her arms, she held two of the most beautiful children that Tatiana had ever seen. The boy was a dirty blond. His hair looked soft as it curled around his head. He was asleep against his mother’s breast so she couldn’t see the color of his eyes but the chubby cheeks and rounded nose were so adorable that Tatiana just wanted to kiss him and play with him, just to see if he would smile for her.
The little girl lay on her mother’s other breast, except that she was wide awake. She kept reaching for the blond man standing next to her mother until finally he lifted her into his arms and gave her a big, loud kiss on her cheek that made her smile. It was like sunrays when she did. Her hair and skin were darker, like her mother, and was in curls around her head. Her eyes were the same starburst blue as her father.
Tatiana had never seen such a true blue color before in her life. The daughter was absolutely beautiful. She would grow up to make a mark on the world. If Tatiana guessed right, she already had her father wrapped around her finger.
“Well I guess we should introduce ourselves since we’ve bombarded your house. My name is Ayana. This is my husband Ethane and over there is Collin, the dark-haired one, and Sean. We are friends of Aaron’s.” Tatiana’s gaze swung to Aaron questioningly, wondering why these people were in our home.
“Baby, I thought we would need some help with all that was going on with Clyde.” Tatiana remained silent. She had told Aaron’s her worries and what had happened in her fear and panic but she didn’t want to share them with anyone else. Something in her wanted to keep Clyde’s identity safe. Even if what he was scared the shit out of her.
The dark-haired man stepped forward. “This is good, that you want to protect your other half. It is a natural instinct that comes with being a mate. But let me assuage any worries that you may have. We are like him,” Collin continued. “I am
thul
and Beta of the pack and Ethane is my Alpha.
Thul
is simply an old word that means I am the historian, so to speak, of the pack. As you are friends of Aaron and he is a close friend of one of our mates, that means we will accept you and Clyde into our pack as well and teach you what you need to know.”
“Wait. Wait a minute. I have no idea what the hell you just said. I saw you lips moving but I didn’t understand a thing that you said,” Tatiana rushed. “Clyde is not my mate. I love him, surely, and there is something going on with him that I don’t quite understand but we are not animals.” Ethane smiled and tapped Collin on the shoulder.
“You’re supposed to be smoother than that.” He chuckled.
“Well, Sean can tell you I’m not good at being smooth. I kind of go into things rough and hard. You understand,” Collin tossed back, laughing. Sean smacked Collin’s shoulder.
“I am standing right here, excuse me,” he argued. “Look, chickapea,” Sean continued to Tatiana, and she couldn’t help but smile as she turned to look at Aaron.
“Why does he remind me of you?” Tatiana asked Aaron.
“More like I sound like him. Remember when I was telling you about my drag mother who took me in when all those things happened to me, when no one else would be there with me and I went to the House of Kox?”
“Yes, I remember you telling me about that.”
“Well this is Fonda Kox. Right now she is Sean,” Aaron explained.
“Like you are Aaron and Coco?”
“Exactly. She is my—”
“He,” Sean interrupted.
“I’m sorry, Mom. He is my drag mother and just like I prefer to be called ‘he’ when I am Aaron, so does he when he is Sean,” Aaron explained. Tatiana just smiled and nodded, not exactly sure how to compute all of that and not knowing how to take the people in front of her.
“Look,” Ayana began, “I know that this is very difficult for you. You should have seen us when we went through it. I was actually attacked by another female shifter because I was going to be claimed by Ethane. It was something that terrified me, so I know how you feel. Sean and I are most definitely human. We have never shifted and we will never shift, even though we are mated to these men. What they have done is give us longer and stronger lives to live with them. Now we get to have as many years as possible with their love. I can tell you there is no love like a love that is between mates. He is my husband but he is more than that. He is my best friend, my lover, my confidant, and he is my strength. When we learned of marriage vows as little kids, that was until death do you part and under God’s eyes. This is the same thing and yet it is so much more powerful than that. Don’t run away from it. You’ll be happy in the end.”
Tatiana sank into her chair.
“So you think Clyde is like you?” she asked Collin and Ethane.
“We don’t have a doubt, as we can see his mark on your shoulder,” Ethane answered. Tatiana raised a hand to the mark on her neck. It had faded to almost invisible. It did not hurt or bleed. Anytime she touched it, it just made her body ache as if she were calling to Clyde.
“He marked me?” Tatiana asked then.
“Yes. It is the first step to making you his mate. It does not seem, though, that he has completed the ritual. Once he has that mark on your shoulder will become permanent like a tattoo. Right now, in a month or two, it will fade and he will have to replace it. While it is in this temporary state, technically another wolf could come along to claim you, to take what it his. It could be very dangerous if there were any other shifters around but I do not believe you will have to worry about that. We just need to educate him as to complete the ritual or both of you will go through unnecessary pain. Your bodies will need each other and the hunger will mount. We have to help you both,” Collin explained.
“But I don’t know if I can,” Tatiana said finally. “When we were in bed making love what he did to me was beautiful, it was powerful. Shit, it was earth shattering. But when he wasn’t touching me all I could think of was the fear.”
“But what about the dream?” Aaron asked then. “Were you afraid then?”
“Well…no. I don’t think I could be. The wolf was too beautiful to deny. He soothed me and sat with me. Wait a minute. Are you telling you know about my damn dream? How the hell do you know what happened?”
“Well you had a little help there too. Remember, there was an angel here.”
“An angel?” Sean asked. “What is really going on?” Aaron sighed and Tatiana watched him pointedly as well.
“Okay, long story short for everyone. About a week and a half ago I was slated to die.”
“Die!” Sean gasped and Tatiana seconded the motion.
“The angel, Lea, came to me and told me that if I would do good works for her I would get a new chance at life. Putting you and Clyde together would be my first good work. So, I became your guardian angel. I prefer Fairy Drag Mother but no one is listening to me anyway.” Aaron laughed self-deprecatingly. “All I know is that Lea knows that the two of you were supposed to be together and we needed you to be more comfortable with the wolf. She was helping you.”
Tatiana sat back and rested her head on the back of her chair. “This is just way too much,” she whispered then and put her hand across her face. She sat there and listened to the people around her move in her home. She sat down in a seat but she couldn’t look at them for the moment.
There were too many revelations she learned in the short time of knowing Aaron. She had met a guardian angel, found out that shifters existed, met her a true bona fide angel, and now she was dealing with two more shifters that were telling her that she was Clyde’s mate. She wasn’t exactly sure how much more she could stand of all of this. After a second, she felt a weird pitter-patter around her feet and soft brush of fur on her legs. She froze and then she did what every person screamed at the girl in the scary movies for doing. She looked down to see what it was. There at her feet, were a dark-chocolate wolf cub and a tawny wolf cub rolling around playing.
“Oh my God, they’re so cute,” Tatiana said and reached down to pet them. The cubs licked at her fingertips before nipping them while they continued to play, leaping and pouncing on each other. Tatiana laughed as they danced around her hands and played as if they were prey. They would jump at her when they came close and then dart away when she moved her fingers.
“They are—” Tatiana stopped when she looked up. Ayana was no longer holding her twins and Ethane wasn’t holding them either. Tatiana looked back down at the cubs and then back up, shock and awe spreading through her.
“This is?” she started but couldn’t finish.
“Yes, those are our children. My daughter, Jade, is the more playful of the bunch. She is the older twin and she seems to watch the world happen around her. Her brother, Ezekiel, is more inclined to follow her lead. I figured it is good learning for him as a young man,” Ayana said with a laugh.
“Were they born…like this?” Tatiana asked haltingly.
“No. They were born human by C-section. They were rather large. That was the only difference I could tell between shifter children versus pure human. Since they were one month old, they have been able to shift into their wolves. Whenever they get rowdy or overenegized they seem to turn into the wolf to run it off. It does make it so that they have been able to move around much easier and younger than human children. The wolf cubs don’t have any issues walking or running around. And if the cookies keeps disappearing off the counters, I’m going to start believing that they can climb already as well,” Ayana finished, staring at Jade and Ezekiel.
Tatiana chuckled down at the children. She couldn’t bring herself to be afraid of them, even knowing what they were and what they could do.
“Can you walk away from this?” Ayana asked then. “I have the greatest love I would have ever found with my mate and we have two beautiful children who also walk with the wolf. Would it be fair for me to deny them?”
Tatiana looked up at her. She just didn’t know what her answer was.
Chapter Sixteen
Collin rolled his shoulders, slightly uncomfortable to be in the States again. Away from their home on the island, they could not safely shift into their wolves unless they were on high ground or dense forest. Even they would have to deal with poachers, hunters, or owners of animals who would shoot them on sight because they thought they caused a danger.
He had gotten spoiled living on the island and being able to shift whenever he wanted to and now his wolf was feeling it. His wolf wanted to stretch his legs and run. That or he wanted to mount his mate, Sean, and take him in every way he thought imaginably possible. Collin never thought that he would take a partner in the first place and to now have one that was also a man was something that he thought that he would have to get use to slowly. But the love inside of his heart for Sean had crashed through any insecurities or worries. The fact that Sean could also become Fonda was like he had two loves for the price of one and he found it absolutely decadent. Now it seemed that he and Ethane would have to help another shifter through the same transition. They drove steadily toward Mansil Enterprises to speak with Clyde.
“I don’t know how he could not shift until later in life,” Ethane said then.
“I have no idea. We will have to speak with him to find out, but it is quite obvious that his wolf has won out later in his life and will be less controllable for him.”
“Yes, it will. We’ve been shifting since we were kids so we don’t see it as difficult but this is a grown man, turning into the wolf for the first time. This is dangerous for everyone involved.” Ethan sighed then.
“Well we’ll just have to get in there and see what we’re dealing with,” Collin tossed back as they got out of the car and into the elevator. They went up as Tatiana had directed them. As soon as the doors slid open, Collin inhaled deeply and took in the scent of a wolf.
“He’s shifting,” Collin said and they streamed to the back of the building past a pert woman at the desk that smelled of hot want and treachery at once. It was a stink that Collin shook his head to get out of his nose. They followed the scent of the wolf to a back office. They slammed through the door and saw a blond man on the ground, his shirt already in shreds and his tie tangled around his throat. His muzzle flashed in and out, from human to wolf so fast that Collin could barely see it. Ethane went to his knees and grasped the man’s face, forcing him to look at him.