19. Soren
SOREN
The sun drops behind the mountain, and the stone lets go of me, warmth flooding back into my claws and wings, then everywhere else. I rise out of the crouch and stretch until every joint remembers it can move. I’m barely upright when Treasure crashes into me and throws her arms around my waist.
“Hey,” she says into my stomach.
I lift her straight off her feet and press my forehead to hers. Strawberries and clean cotton fill my next breath, and every stiff hour I spent in that corner no longer matters. I carry her into the bathroom and set her on the counter by the sink.
The shower stall could hold me with my wings half-open, and the tub where I bathed her last night sits deep at the far end. I reach into the stall and start the water.
She spots the toothbrush on the shelf, the one with the wide grip, and her mouth falls open. “Hold up. You have a toothbrush?”
“The wolves gave it to me.” I stand a little straighter. “Human toothbrushes are too small for my claws. This one was made for a hand like mine.”
She shakes her head at the shelf. “Y’all really thought of everything up here.”
“This is not the only land with shifters, Treasure.” I catch her hand and hold it against my cheek. “But it is the only land in the world where humans and supernaturals live side by side. They have had time to build things right.”
She smiles slow and keeps it on me while I unwrap the loincloth and step into the water.
Sable and I have washed in lakes and cold springs for centuries, in public washhouses when a town allowed us. I had forgotten what it is to have a room like this behind a door that is ours.
Through the glass, I watch my mate hop down off the counter and pull her dress up over her head. She stands there bare, folding the towels she takes from the shelf and stacking them by the sink, then reaches back and gathers her hair, twisting it up into a tight bun.
My eyes stay on her breasts the whole time. My tongue slides out of my mouth, and I snap it back in.
She grabs the washcloths and opens the glass.
“Let me take care of you this time,” she says, and shuts the glass behind her.
A rumble starts low in my chest, and she smiles at the sound of it. I pull her under the water with me. She tips her head back and looks up the whole long way to my face.
“Tonight you try on the pants.” She leans back against the tile and takes full inventory of me. “Matter of fact, I might need new measurements, because what you’re packing… good Lord.”
I hold my hand out for the washcloth, and she lifts it up out of my reach.
“Nuh-uh. I told you, this one’s mine.” She snaps the washcloth once and works the soap into it. “You’ve always smelled good to me, so I figured you kept yourself up. I don’t need the play-by-play.”
“I may look like a barbarian,” I tell her, “but I care for myself.” Then I bend down through the water until my face is level with hers, close enough to count the drops on her lashes. “I am not human, Treasure,” I growl, low. “I do not always live in the human way.”
“Mm.” She goes right back to scrubbing my chest. “Scary. Hold still.”
Then she tips her head back at the water coming down on us. “Now what’s up with this shower? No shower head, the water just falls out the ceiling.”
“Shifters build to fit themselves.” I sink to one knee on the tile so she can reach my shoulders, and even kneeling, she has to stretch. “It will take me time to learn to live in a home again. It has been long.”
“And you have me now.” She says it plain, scrubbing along my arm. “So you and Sable aren’t doing it alone.”
There is nothing I trust my voice with while she works. No hands but my own have ever done this. My eyes burn gold in the wet glass.
She quits scrubbing and leans in. Kneeling has put my heartbeat right at her ear. She rests her head against me and listens. Then she picks the washcloth back up and finds where she left off.
I owe her words for this morning. “The thoughts you heard. I did not intend??—”
She reaches up and presses the washcloth over my lips to hush me. “Soren. I teased you. That’s what I do when I like something.”
She drags the cloth away and cuts her eyes up at me. “For the record? I’m real curious about all them positions you owe me.”
My ears pull flat against my head.
“Ohhh.” She points the washcloth at them. “They go flat when you’re embarrassed? Soren. That’s the cutest thing I’ve ever seen.”
I answer that by rising off my knee and pulling her flush against me. She catches herself with both hands.
“Oof,” she says, muffled.
Her breasts press warm to my stomach, and I lengthen against her, shameless about it.
“See, this is what I mean.” She leans back to take me in. “You gotta give me a breather. Don’t get me wrong, I love it. But you’re gonna kill me with that thing.”
I loosen my hold and set space between us. “No, I will not. And if I ever cause you pain, you will tell me, and I will stop.”
“I didn’t say that.” She sighs up at the ceiling. “I’m just…” She waves a hand around for the words. “I thought I was gonna die from all the orgasms.”
I smile wide enough to show fang, and she swats my chest with the wet cloth.
After, we dry off and dress. She slips her flats on at the bedroom door and picks her purse up off the dresser. Then she walks the front room, trailing a hand over everything she passes. Whatever she names, I will build it, buy it, or dig it out of the ground.
She stops in the middle of the room and turns a slow circle, already placing things. “I can’t wait to settle in here.”
I scoop her up mid-sentence and make for the door. “We can start moving you tonight.”
“Huh?” She twists in my arms. “Wait. I can’t.”
I stop at the bottom of the porch steps. What I want is to carry her back inside and shut the door on the question. I keep my voice even instead.
“My love. We have completed the mating process. I cannot be away from you, Treasure.”
“I’m not saying that. What I’m saying is I still have a job.” Then she pauses, frowning. “Well. At least I think I still have a job.”
I stare at my mate. There is a chest of treasure sitting in her apartment, and what she wants to keep is her apron. I do not argue with her. If she wishes it, she will have it.
I spread my wings. Her arms tighten around my neck, and we lift off into the dark.
She loves to fly. I learned that on our first night in the air, and it holds true all the way down the mountain, her laugh warm against my throat when I bank over the valley lights. I hold her tighter than the flight requires. It is over too soon.
The shopping center lot sits nearly empty. I come down soft a few feet from her car. She kicks her feet to be set down, and I frown at losing the weight of her.
She tosses her purse onto the passenger seat, then leans into the back and comes out with the pants she made me.
“You wish for me to wear them now?” My wings pull in close behind me.
“Yes!” She claps once.
There is no one in the lot to see, so I let my mate dress me. She crouches and holds the pants open at the ground. “I made sure they’ve got extra stretch at the bottom for those big feet.”
I step in, one clawed foot and then the other, a hand on her shoulder for balance I do not need. She put her hands on cloth and thought about my feet. No one has ever considered my feet.
She works the pants up my thighs, and there I stop her. I unwrap the loincloth and pull them the rest of the way up myself. She snatches the loincloth off the asphalt and tosses it into the back seat. “You won’t be needing this no more.”
She steps back and takes in her work. “How do you feel?”
“Uncomfortable.” The fabric grips places no fabric has ever gripped.
She beams at me. “That’s the spirit!”
I want my loincloth back. I keep that to myself.
“Are you staying with me tonight?” she asks, softer.
I tip her chin up with one careful claw. “Yes, Treasure. That is not up for debate.”
She pats at the edges of her hair, humming to herself.
My brother’s scent rides in on the night air. He drops out of the dark and lands out past the streetlights.
“Perfect,” she says, and leans back into the car for the second pair of pants.
Sable sees what’s in her hands and steps backward.
I take the pants from her gently. “Allow me to help him, Treasure.”
“Mm-hmm.” She glances between us. “So I’ll head home, and you’ll meet me there?”
I stop what I am doing and rest my forehead on hers. “That is fine, my love. I will not be far behind.”
She shrugs, pushes up on her toes, and presses a quick kiss to the corner of my mouth, getting away with something.
Sable catches sight of my mark on her neck and smiles. He will put his life down guarding her now.
She waves at him.
“Sister,” he says. He folds one wing across his chest and bows his head over it. She presses a hand over her heart.
She drops into the driver’s seat. “I’ll pack up some things tonight. And while y’all are resting tomorrow, I’m ordering us some furniture from Cozy Corner.”
She shuts the door and starts the engine. I watch her taillights all the way down the row.
Sable waits until she turns out of the lot. Then he groans and snatches the pants from my hand.
“We have worn garments before, brother. In the old country. I burned mine.”
“You will not burn these. My mate made them with her own hands.”
He mutters something in the old tongue. Then he steps into them and drops his loincloth with the face of a warrior taking a wound. “For my sister.”
He says it with a smile, so I leave the groaning alone.
“She is very happy with you,” he says, working the waist into place. “I am glad for you, brother. Truly.”
I glance back down the road. “She loves the land. She wants to use the treasure to make the cabin a home. Curtains, furniture, pictures on the walls.”
“It is hers to do with as she pleases.” His wings settle behind him. “I will not ask after your watch today. A new-mated male keeps to his mate.”
I stop smiling anyway. “Dawn caught me at the cabin, brother. I watched nothing but her.” I hold his eyes.
“No one faults you. My watch was quiet. But strange. The sheriff of Shadow Wolf Creek finally came by to take a statement on what was stolen.” He pauses. “Cleaning solution.”
“Cleaning solution.” I frown at him. “That is very odd.”
“Indeed.” His wings shift behind him. “There is more. A scent ran through that solution, all over the facility. When the sun set and my stone let go, I went inside to be certain.” He lowers his voice. “The scent is close to our Settling, Soren.”
My wings pull tight. “What?”
He nods once. “Witchcraft. There is no doubt left in me.”
“Then why circle Stanley’s?” I ask it half to myself. “There is nothing in that diner worth a witch’s trouble. Nothing but??—”
One thing in this town reads red where every living human reads gold.
“Treasure,” I say.
Sable is still talking when my wings snap open. I launch, and the parked cars rock in my wake. My brother is right behind me.
I have been drunk on my mate for days, and I let the one duty I was built for slip.
I fly harder than I have flown since the ocean. Her block comes up fast, and the wind off it carries a scent I know from the old country, a human gone dry. Ghoul.
I land on her roof. Sable comes down beside me without a sound, and we listen.
“We cannot kill him,” Sable says, low. “Jalen asked for the dragon’s call, not a corpse.”
I turn and stare at my brother. That thing has been circling my mate, my reason for standing. And I am meant to hand it mercy.
I do not think so.
“Consider our home.” Sable doesn’t move.
My claws bite into the roof edge. Below us, her headlights swing into the lot, and her car settles into its space. We hold to the dark and listen harder.
“He is inside her apartment,” Sable breathes.
Nothing in that apartment moves at all.
“He is not searching,” I say. “He is waiting.”
For my mate.
I drop off the roof and land on her balcony rail. Sable hisses my name from above. I hear him and do not care. That ghoul is leaving her home.
NOW!