The Mammoth Book of Paranormal Romance 2 (59 page)

Except for one baby gargoyle. Gary rapidly became the main attraction, especially with the ladies. They crowded around, cooing like a flock of diamond-studded doves. As they all watched, Mrs McAdams fed Gary a mini-quiche. He stuffed it in his beak and chirped happily, looking around for more. A collective “aw!” filled the air, drowning out the string quartet.

More guests crowded around, asking questions.

“What’s his name?”

“What a cute little tail!”

“What’s with the bandage? Is something wrong with his wing?”

“Where did you get him?”

“Does he eat caviar?”

It was at that moment that Selina saw Jake approaching, looking handsome in a dark suit and crisp white shirt. He’d even put on a maroon silk tie. Selina caught her breath. She’d expected him to dress up a bit, but this was above and beyond for a guy who lived in boots and old jeans.
This is worth putting on a hundred of these shows!

They’d been going out for a month – movies, dinners, checking all the right dating boxes – and she’d caught plenty of glimpses of his alpha wolf side. But this was the first time she’d seen Jake on display, dominating a room. The guests turned as he walked past, their expressions both admiring and cautious. If Jake wasn’t that far from the wild, neither were humans. Their instincts still knew a potential predator, even when one walked by with a happy smile on his face.

That confidence was contagious. Just by being around him these last weeks, she could feel herself getting bolder, thinking far beyond her mind’s usual neat rows and columns. She’d broken her own rules and let her liaison with a supernatural boyfriend become public. After all, no red-, blue-, or green-blooded woman would miss an opportunity to point to Jake Hallender and say, “He’s mine!”

“Caviar would be too rich for a gargoyle’s digestion,” Jake replied, pitching his voice perfectly to carry over the cocktail hour din. “The consequences would be unpleasant.”

All attention, including Gary’s, switched to Jake. The gargoyle reached out, and Jake took him from Selina’s arms. She brushed the wrinkles out of her dress, thinking for the thousandth time how nice it was that Gary didn’t shed. Although it had cost her a mint, she’d broken out of the pin-stripe fashion rut for the opening. She was wearing a bolero of heavy Tibetan cream silk over a grey-green halter dress. The full skirt was cut on the bias and moved like water, kissing her knees in sensuous swishes. She felt beautiful and exotic, her fair hair piled on top of her head in a mass of loose curls. From the look on Jake’s face, the outfit was a hit.

Janos chose that moment to stroll in. Tall, with iron-grey hair and a stern brow, he looked like somebody had ordered him from the Tycoons “R” Us catalogue, complete with the extra-grumpy options.

“Good evening, Selina,” he said, giving Gary an evil look.

“Good evening.”

“I must admit, for an accountant you’ve done a fine job with the show.” Janos took a step over to the plinth where the snuff box was displayed on a black velvet cushion.

“Thank you, sir.”

It didn’t take an empath’s powers to tell that her success had irked him. Janos needed to be top dog – quite a contrast from Jake, who simply
was
the first among his pack.

Janos turned back to face her. “I’m not certain, however, how your gargoyle will do anything but distract our clientele. I would prefer that you put it away and circulate among the guests.”

She’d planned to do that anyway but refused to make excuses. “Understood, sir. I’ll put Gary in my office.”

“Thank you.”

“She brought Gary at my request,” Mrs McAdams said with an edge in her tone. “I thought it was kind of Selina to make the effort to please an old lady.”

Janos gave a slight, old-fashioned bow. “I would expect nothing less of my staff.”

Jake passed Gary to Selina with a look just short of an eye roll. He bent to whisper in her ear. “Just give the word and I’ll get the whole pack to pee on his Jaguar.”

Smothering a laugh, she shouldered the gargoyle in time for Jake’s cellphone to ring. He answered it as she watched Janos stride away in search of more employees to harangue.

Gary struggled, trying to lean out of her arms and snag more of the mini-quiche. Selina turned the other way, facing Gary away from temptation, and watched Jake’s face. Phone calls often meant problems with a patient. She hated the possibility that he’d have to rush off. This night was her triumph. She wanted him there to share it.

Waiters pushed through the double doors at the far end of the room, bearing trays with more food and drink. Like a school of fish, the guests drifted in their direction, leaving Selina and Jake behind.

She began to pace back and forth from table to plinth, waiting for Jake to get off the phone.

“Selina!”

She jumped. It was her boss, glowering and pointing. Jake abruptly hung up his phone.

“What?” Selina glanced down just in time to see Gary stuffing the snuff box into his beak.
Oh, shit!
Gary’s wing was still broken. She couldn’t exactly whack him on the back.

“Stop him!” Janos snapped.

Jake solved the problem by grabbing Gary’s beak and prying it open before the gargoyle could swallow. With one quick sweep of fingers, Jake pulled the snuff box off the gargoyle’s pointed black tongue. He dropped it, sticky with spit, back on the plinth.

“Get that animal out of here!” Janos snapped. “Get it out before I put it out.”

Jake wheeled on him, a sudden blast of irritation breaking through Selina’s shields.

“Jake, don’t,” Selina said quickly. “I’ll put Gary in the back right now.”

The gargoyle burrowed against her, hiding his face. Janos and Jake glared at each other. Jake’s eyes narrowed, an eerie stillness settling over him.
This is bad. This is really bad.
The guests were starting to drift back their way, fresh glasses of bubbly in hand.

“Jake?” She touched his arm.

He blinked and was suddenly back to normal. “I’m really sorry. There’s an emergency and I have to go.”

Disappointment stabbed through her. “Okay.”

He saw her look and gave a small, apologetic smile. “I was hoping this wouldn’t come up tonight. I really wanted to be here, but . . . it’s Steve. It’s his last chance, and it’s not going well.”

She suddenly felt sick. “Oh, no.”

Jake held her gaze. “Come with me. He – I – both of us could use your help.”

“Don’t you dare,” growled Janos, who’d been eavesdropping but was obviously unmoved by anyone else’s emergencies.

Jake’s eyes flickered in her boss’s direction, then back to Selina.

“Selina?” Janos took a step forward.

“What happens if Steve doesn’t make it?” Selina asked quickly.

Jake gave a quick shake of his head. “Then he really doesn’t make it. His time’s running out.”

Damn.
Selina bent to kiss the top of Gary’s head, breaking his gaze. She resented Janos for being hard to deal with and resented Jake for asking so much of her. For a moment, she even blamed Steve for being an incompetent werewolf. They were pushing her into a corner.

Janos glared at her. “If you leave, you’re fired.”

Shock stabbed through her, but she knew Janos wasn’t kidding. This was about control. It didn’t matter if she was a valuable employee – she was committing the double sin of stealing the limelight away from her boss, and then valuing something other than the job he bestowed on her.

“Don’t do this,” she begged.

“Trust me, you’re on thin ice right this minute. Choose wisely.”

How can I
? The decision boiled down to her life – the gallery and everything she’d worked for – or Steve’s.
No, there’s more to it than that. It’s my human and fey sides at war all over again.

It was the life she’d built with her own hard work versus all the traumas and disappointments of her early years. It was the freedom to be all she could be, or the freedom to be who she truly was.

Neither choice would give her a complete victory, but turning her back on Steve wasn’t possible. Just like success based on living a lie wasn’t really success.

She looked around at the magnificent gallery that she loved, and the show she’d worked so hard to put together. She could tell by the smiles on the faces of their clients that the event was a hit.
And some of that was because Gary charmed their socks off. Supernatural is the new black. Cute supernatural just ups the appeal. A smart businessman would be taking notes, not kicking me out the door.

It all flashed through her head in an instant. The next moment hummed with trepidation.
I’m throwing my life away on a newbie werewolf I don’t even know
. But behind Steve’s plight was her own. She was caught between two species herself, hiding what she was under a placid, human face.

She was sick of it. Sick of being on her own. Sick of never being honest.

She couldn’t blow Steve off when he needed her.

Jake was right. Why
didn’t
she get business partners and strike out on her own? All she’d lacked was confidence enough to think outside the box. Money wasn’t the problem. She’d led the life of a hermit and saved enough to bankroll her own gallery.

Selina felt a thrill of defiant pride as she looked Janos in the eye.

“Buh-bye.”

They took Jake’s vehicle. He’d installed a gargoyle carrier in the back, which looked like a large, felt-lined box with barred windows. As Jake sped down the country road, Gary cheeped every time they hit a rut.

Selina sat in silence, doing her best not to let her anxieties spiral out of control.
What am I doing?
Leaving Janos was a bold stroke, but Selina was left with a feeling of free-fall, kind of nauseating and exciting all at once.
What am I doing? Everything I’ve worked for just went poof!

Jake had kissed her once and then left her to her thoughts, silently supportive. That was fine with Selina, who needed the space to come to grips with her sudden freedom. His phone rang twice more before they reached their destination. The news wasn’t encouraging.

Selina cracked open a window, letting the night air wash over her. Finally, they pulled into what looked like a farm. The driveway forked and they went left. The path wound through a dense stand of cedar trees, finally coming to a dead end at the foot of a steep rise. Jake threw open the door of the Explorer and ran up the tree-covered hill. Selina went more slowly, wincing as the kitten heels of her fawn suede sandals sank into the spongy earth. She laboured up the slope, grateful when Jake turned to grab her hand.

As they crested the hill, she saw that a clearing spread under the shifting night sky. Cedars ringed much of the space, hissing in the fitful wind. Clouds drifted across the full moon, morphing from shape to shape like skaters bending, stretching, spinning in a slow ballet. Selina shivered, the thin bolero nowhere near warm enough. Her feet were freezing and ached from trying to balance on heels on rough ground. Jake’s hand was the only solid, comforting thing.

A couple of battery-operated lanterns had been left at the edges of the clearing, adding sharp shadows to the moonlit glade. As they drew nearer, Selina blinked rapidly, realizing the dark shapes beneath the cedars weren’t bushes or clumps of grass as she’d first assumed. Wolves ringed the space, a huge, hairy form every six feet or so. There must have been twenty. Or thirty. Eyes glinted like scraps of fire as they stared into the circle, but that was the only movement. Otherwise, they remained as statues. She wondered which of them she’d met in human form.

Selina pressed closer to Jake. “I had no idea there were so many werewolves in town,” she whispered under her breath.

“It’s not like we’re in the phone book under W.” He slipped an arm around her waist and drew her to the edge of the circle. A thin grey wolf stood and moved to one side, making room for them to join the ring. As Jake guided her forward, Selina could see the object of their attention. Steve sprawled in the middle of the clearing, half-changed just as he had been in Jake’s office. The wind rippled through the grass, wavelets of silver through the darkness. He seemed to float, marooned on a restless sea.

“What’s going on?” she whispered.

“He passed out partway through the change.” Jake swore. “I had hoped this would work.”

“What would?”

“We put him in the full light of the moon.”

“I thought the full moon didn’t make wolves change.”

“But it helps, especially when you’re new at it.”

Selina shivered. “And he dies if he doesn’t go all the way?” Her heart seized with pity. So much more than distance separated Steve from the circle of watching wolves. They were on a safe shore. He was on a perilous journey.

Jake looked uncomfortable. “He could. Or he could stay like this forever. There’s no question he’d go crazy.”

She remembered the terror in Steve’s mind. “I know.”

“He’s dangerous in this state. All those old horror movies didn’t come out of thin air. That’s why so many wolves are here. We can’t let him get away.”

At the moment, Steve remained perfectly still. He wasn’t going anywhere.