Chapter Sixteen
Cliff
I woke with the taste of the night before lingering in my mouth. I couldn’t imagine yesterday’s cum would taste that great, and it didn’t, but the staling scent of our lust had a whole allure to it as I rolled over on rumpled sheets to gaze across the bronzed, sculpted back of my boyf—mate?
I patted his back and rubbed my hand down his spine, taking in his warm skin. Part of me wanted to lean in and kiss across his body, to learn what his soft flesh felt like against my lips. It was stupid, I admitted to myself, but tempting. I lasted a while, holding out against my desire.
The clatter of birds outside muddled with the goings-on of people and the odd child’s laughter. Morning light pierced the old gauzy curtains, motes of dust pricking the pretty orange. My shadow moved with me, rippling over the hills of covers until the shadow of my hand fell over his warm skin. With a hesitant touch, I walked my fingers over his shoulder, down his blade and spine before I leaned down, inhaling deeply. Finding a clean patch of skin, I gave in and kissed, relishing the way my stubble rasped against his skin. It made me pluck another kiss as he stirred with a thick groan.
“Is this what death is like?” He took a deep breath and hummed. “I admit. I didn’t think my kind went to a paradise.”
“Not paradise.” I pulled away from him, my cheeks burning. Part of me didn’t think I’d be caught indulging.
“Could have fooled me. I woke up with the most handsome male worshiping me with soft kisses in morning light. Could have rolled me over and kissed my c—”
I shoved him and snorted, catching his eye when he turned his head to face me, lips ticking up into a smug grin. I averted my gaze, unable to imagine how red my cheeks had gone, only able to process how fiercely they burned. “Don’t have to keep flirting. I’m already yours, dude.”
“But flirting is fun. I can touch you and get satisfaction. My words are a way to touch your heart and get satisfaction. I can only say I love you so many ways, but when you have my mind and attention so well—” He waved his hand dismissively. “I’ll flirt.”
“Sorry. It’s hard to get used to the whole…thing with us.” I sat up and rubbed at my face, catching hints of something crusty on my skin. “Ugh, I’m disgusting.”
“Why so?”
“I smell bad, I am covered in us , and I’m going to fuck this up somehow.” I rose from bed, the cool air hitting my body as I searched around for my clothes. “And Jacque is hungry and needs his board. Shit, and all I have is pellets.”
I froze when warm hands caressed my shoulders, sweeping me into a morning kiss with breath far fresher than my own. “I’ll handle some salad.”
The way his low, raspy tones barely muttered over my lips made my cock twitch. Fuck, he was dangerous. I could get lost in a man like him.
God.
Whatever.
I made my way out to the SUV and rummaged through my stuff. I couldn’t fit much in it, but I didn’t have much, fortunately. I’d have to rent a van to get the rest.
Jacque peered up at me from the couch as I carried in his board and set it up in the living room in front of an older TV, one not quite in the tube era but somewhere between tube and flat screen, a fat screen if it were anything. It still had aux cables.
The moment I had his board set up, he sat up before them, reacquainting himself with each of the domed surfaces one by one. His ears perked up, nose twitching. His golden-brown eyes darted from one to the other, head tilting.
“Buck is out getting you some salad, dumpster muffin.” I made a show of setting up his water fountain and a bowl of pellets.
Gimme salad, bitch! He hit the button on his mat proudly. Though, I heard a slight whisper in my mind of delicious leaf .
Unsure of what to do while I waited, I flopped onto the couch and listened to Jacque sniff and explore his buttons and reacquaint himself with new surroundings.
Outside! He pressed the button and ran to the door before scratching at it.
“Yep. That’s to the outside,” I said, earning a hard stare while his thoughts celebrated his logic. “Smart guy.”
“Am I doing the right thing?” I threw an arm over my face and sighed, tensing up when my phone dinged from my pocket. I’d been ignoring everyone, but I glanced down to see a text from my mom.
Call me. I stared at the two words and rolled my eyes. She probably needed me to handle something for her stateside. She’d stopped calling and asking things from Rayne a while ago, citing he was too needy . Knowing her, it was likely he asked for twenty bucks, or a full conversation and she lost her shit over it.
Unlike Rayne, I’d learned to let her lead the conversation and not speak. I was the golden son, after all.
I dialed her number and held the phone to the side of my head, eyeballing the charge on it. Twenty-five percent. It rang twice before my mom’s whimsical lispy tones came on the line. “Cliff, it’s been a while.”
“Still in Germany?”
“Oh yes, it’s lovely. Your father is doing great, and Hunter is finishing up high school on base.” She prattled on about her wives group activities and considering getting Botox again while I half ignored her. Our younger siblings never had much to do with us, as our parents sort of had the three of us run feral while their younger bunch got the treatment they couldn’t afford when we were older. Having six kids was a pain.
“Mom. I got a boyfriend.” I interrupted her prattle, eyes tilted up toward the ceiling as I waited.
“A boyfriend.” Her flat tones gave me neither positive nor negative feedback.
“Yep.” I heavily enunciated it to solidify the point.
“Well, have him use protection.” She sighed heavily and I raised a brow, blinking in surprise. “Because I’m absolutely not ready to be a grandmother.”
I hated to break it to her but she already was, but— “What about me, shouldn’t I wear protection too?”
“I didn’t know omegas topped—” she started, and I cut her off with a choked breath.
“You fucken’ knew… You knew I’m—” I spluttered.
“Oh gods, don’t be so dramatic. I thought you had a chance at a normal life but was bound to happen to at least one of you. Honestly, I thought it would be Rayne.” Her voice trailed off.
“It’s Rayne, too!” I huffed. “And by the by, you want pics of your granddaughter? She’s cute as fuck, Ma.”
She paused. “Well shit. So, what are you two? Wolf? I come from them, but I never shifted or went witchy…”
“Oh my god, Ma!” I fought the urge to throw my phone. “Eve’s totally a witch of some kind.”
“Be nice. She’s just spirited.”
“No, I’m serious. She’s—” I huffed a sigh. “Rayne and I aren’t shifters. He can shift, but I’ve not done it yet.”
“Omega witches?” Her airy tones went hard, like the conversation began to bother her. The bombshell I dropped should have made her ask questions or blow me off, but I didn’t expect this.
“He’s mated to a thunder god. An aspect—Lightning.” I rolled my eyes. “And I’ve got a god of mountains and earth. Bu—”
“Tempest? Buckling Stone?”
What. The Fuck .
“Yes! Mom, you better come clean with some details right the fuck now because how the fuck are three of your kids mated off to gods and you not—”
“Three? Where’s Eve? Who?” Her tone went sharp.
“Grim Dawn.”
The sharp gasp that met my words on the other end made me hesitate. “Your father and I are coming down. Aspects… Hendrick!” I heard her shouts on the other end, rattling off something to what must have been my father. “If Rayne— It’s Louisiana, the pack lands, right? Thunder Acres?”
Once again. What. The. Fuck? “Mom. Seriously?” I gritted my teeth and took a deep breath, ready to fire back and let loose on her. Years of vaguely homophobic comments, half-ass churchy shit, and neglect and she had held back all of it.
“Ma…”
“We’ll be there as soon as we can get a flight.” She hung up before I could say anything else, and I fumed as Buck walked back in, eying me as I called back.
“What?” she answered, her tone put upon.
“No. Don’t what me. Explain. Explain all this bullshit because you’ve got three kids that are gods and holy shit. Hunter, Lilly, and Ember…”
“You keep them out of it. If there’s even a chance, they’re normal, I want them out of it. I won’t have them feeling like shit because they’re not special and magical and loved by everyone like a non-latent.” Her sharp tones assaulted my ears. “I had a feeling Rayne would manifest in some way but fucking hell. All three of you shacked up with gods!”
“Okay, you better calm your tits, Ma. You think you’re hurt? Imagine all we’ve been through not knowing. Rayne even tried to reach out but you—” I snarled into the phone and met Buck’s wary gaze, sadness flickering across his face as Jacque cluelessly tried to climb his leg and reach the handful of greens he held. “Fine. Come down. Have some answers. Have a good whatever time it is for you. And how you fix this will totally decide what nursing home I shove you in the moment you can’t not piss yourself.”
I hung up at a squawk of protest and fumed until Buck came up behind me and rested a hand atop my head for a brief moment. “I take it there’s more to your birth mother than we thought?”
“I liked her better when she was just a useless airhead.” I sighed heavily and dismissed a call as she tried to call back. “Totally putting her in a shitty home.”
“Mh,” Buck grunted in agreement before finding Jacque’s bowl to give him the greens he so desperately wanted. His munching noises filled the silence before our words did. But still, I waited for him to speak. “Latent?”
“What’s a latent?” Mom had said something about that to me.
“Someone who carries the blood to be a shifter or witch but doesn’t express. A demi is someone who carries little blood but expresses or has the potential to express. You, for instance, like Rayne, would be a demi. You may have manifested into a shifter had the right circumstances occurred, but it was destiny that you attuned to me. Rayne had destiny with Storm, and it looks like Eve has a destiny with Grim. And your mother has a destiny with someone’s foot. If not yours, mine.” Buck ran his fingers through my hair, over my neck until he tilted my head back and kissed me with a soft brush of lips. “Doesn’t matter though. Your family is here, and the sooner you realize it, the better.”
Jacque jumped onto the couch with a clump of dandelions in his mouth. I gave him a quick pat to his head before Buck let me slip from his grasp. My chest heaved once in something that was a mix of a sigh and yawn. I’d not felt so good in years. “Rayne and I are no better, really. We never were super close when we got older, but Rayne could have told me what was going on. Could have called as much as I could have called him.”
“The only reason I knew Storm found Rayne was that he had no clue what he was. He called me to come look at the strange young human he found kissing him on the side of the road.” Buck gave me a cocky grin.
“Like just kissed him first meeting, not even a hello?” I snorted.
“Well, he was a horse at the time.” Buck added no context before walking off to the kitchen and fiddling around with the coffeepot.
I rose from my seat, following after. “Wait, you can’t just tell me Rayne made out with a random horse and walk off.”
“Not a random horse. Storm.” He milled in the cabinets, finding some dubiously old grounds.
“You know what? I don’t want to know.” I sighed and loped off to the bathroom, taking the opportunity to bathe.
By some miracle or god powers, Buck was clean and dressed when I returned, his hat firmly in place as he shot me a half smile. “Ready to go pester Storm?”
“I guess,” I said, stretching out and giving him a covert little sniff as I walked by. Surely he’d have some stank left on him, but no. It made me feel better that we wouldn’t be going off somewhere, stinking of sex. “How did you sleep?”
“It’s weird. I closed my eyes and time disappeared for a bit. I saw old memories; good ones, and I thought a lot about our mother.” He rubbed at the back of his neck in a learned but nervous gesture that endeared me, but at the same time made me acutely aware of how inhuman he was. Little things like that had to be learned and practiced. So, I wasn’t sure if he genuinely did it out of habit or did it for show for me.
“Sometimes it’s bad stuff. Sometimes it’s not memories. Actually, most of the time it’s not memories. Dreams are weird.” I shrugged. “Wake me up if you have a bad one, man. They’re scary sometimes so don’t freak out and go all god-power mode…”
“I won’t freak out .” He gave me a stern glance, bordering on a glare that melted into hesitation. “I don’t think. Storm never did…”
“Good thing to put on a list to ask. Man, I have so much I need to ask Rayne… Brook was helpful and so was River, but they’re opposite. River’s the omega in their partnership and Brook wasn’t human to begin with.” I chewed on my lower lip and offered Buck a half smile when his eyes met mine. I couldn’t imagine him being shy or unconfident in himself, not with how he was, but there he stood, looking to me for answers when I’d only been on this earth for a blink of time in his eyes. “Maybe need to figure out when my heats will come… River said it was really dependent on the god and the aspect.”
“And we’ll need to decide what we do for the next one. We can repeat what we did or use some of the herbs the wolves use to halt conception.” Buck rubbed his chin. “Back in my day, preventatives were more…offensive than defensive, if you comprehend.”
I did. “Yikes.”
He nodded sagely. “Far easier to be proactive than reactive. Less painful, too.”
“Need to ask about that. I’m not going to have a period or something…bleed or whatnot?” My cheeks burned and Buck shook his head. “Different mechanisms. Omega wombs don’t form an implantation layer until insemination and ovulation occur, so yeah. It makes the process a little less successful in the long run, but no bleeding. If you do end up bleeding, it means that you ovulated, and implantation or life was unsuccessful.” He said the latter very tactfully. “It can happen. Life is precarious and, in the beginnings, all life is tenuous, even for the gods.”
“Shouldn’t happen. Not to anyone, even people.” I frowned.
“We’re people.” Buck’s low tones made me hesitate.
“Yeah. More people than most.”