Chapter 22
Braun
“Are you famous?” The question was so unexpected I probably looked stunned as Dorian climbed in the front seat of the car. “I had a half-dozen students show up today with the craziest excuses and some of them brought their parents.”
“Really?” Famous was not the word I would’ve used. “What kind of excuses?”
His life really was stranger than mine and I turned into a wolf on a regular basis.
Dorian’s sigh as I pulled away from the front of the high school said I was going to enjoy the drive home. “The most boring and impressive in an odd way was one of the kids in my third period class who needed to come look and see if he could find their favorite pencil that they lost.”
Interesting.
“What did he do when he couldn’t find it?” Was it just an oh well kind of conversation?
“He found it.” Dorian’s impressed tone had me doing my best to hold back a laugh as I pulled up to one of the only stoplights in the area.
“I think he’s a mage of some sort because he whispered something as he was chattering away and looking under all the furniture in the room and bam. He found a pencil.”
Impressive.
“The best part was not having to pretend not to notice any longer.” Dorian’s grin made me chuckle as the light changed to green. “I got to give him a firm teacher look and ask if he needed more homework.”
So he’d still been really cute and sweet?
“What did he want to know?” There had to be something specific the kid had been curious about.
“If I was really the new Alpha Mate and if I was human and if I actually liked the meatloaf they serve on Thursdays.” I must’ve looked stumped based on the grin he flashed me.
“Evidently the kids figured out the teachers had a bet going on but they were curious about other things. Like my lunch habits and which one of them I’d managed to flag as not human. ”
Made sense.
But it also made me wonder if some of them had been trying to stand out on purpose. Because if they had, we needed to have some talks with the local parents.
Contrary to how it must seem to Dorian, some of those kids were humans who shouldn’t know what was going on.
“Were they trying to be sneaky or obvious?” It didn’t seem like they’d been doing a good job of being discreet but with kids it could’ve been either one.
“I have no idea.” Frowning, Dorian sighed as he seemed to be studying the houses we drove past. “His conversation was hard to follow because he kept mumbling words that weren’t English, and now I think I need to have my classroom swept for magical bugs.”
Being a teacher was hard.
“The head janitor is a mage. He only cleans because it makes him happy.” We were all pretty sure he had some kind of OCD but it seemed rude to ask and he was managing it in productive ways. “Ask him to start doing sweeps of your room while he actually sweeps. He’s really good.”
But kind of grumpy.
“Oh.” Dorian cocked his head as I turned right. “Are all mages moody?”
Would saying yes be rude?
“I think they just get fed up with dealing with shifters and stuff.” He probably included the kids in that too. “Now that you don’t have to pretend to ignore everything, I’m sure you’ll have better conversations with him.”
At the very least it’d probably piss him off less.
“They can’t get worse.” Shaking his head, Dorian smiled at the gator sunning himself on the side of the road. “I will never get used to the wildlife around here.”
“The best part is trying to decide which is real wildlife and which is some kind of shifter or mimic.” That had him nearly turning all the way around in his seat like a kid. “It’s hard to tell as you’re driving past.”
“How do I tell what something is?” Dorian barely turned back around in the seat before charging into the new conversation. “Do I just try to talk to everything and see what responds? I really don’t want to end up looking more insane than I already do.”
My scoff made him jump. “They didn’t think you looked nuts. You were confusing and unshockable, but that just made them more curious about you.”
His low hum as he settled back in his seat made me think I’d surprised him. “I guess I’m not used to fitting in?”
“Well, you’re going to have to get used to it here. You can talk to the locals and your students aren’t going to scare you.” They’d tried to hire regular humans back in the early nineties and it hadn’t gone well. “Just the fact that your students kept stopping in to be nosy says they like you.”
And that we were all insanely nosy…humans had nothing on a shifter with a curious streak.
“Are we taking the scenic route home or are we fucking with the person who seems to be following us?” Dorian wasn’t subtle at all as he twisted around in the seat. “A black SUV makes him look like we’re in a Men in Black movie.”
Would laughing make me an ass?
“Both.” As Dorian sighed again, I pointed to a small store that looked like it was in the middle of nowhere.
“If you walk through to the back of that store where it says Employees Only Moron it opens up into a larger store full of magical throw pillows and weird knickknacks that are supposed to affect the mood in your house.”
I thought the whole place was overwhelming and kind of weird, but I could see Dorian’s eyes light up. There were going to be countless shopping trips in my future, so I knew I had to pick the ones he’d like first. “What do you think about going exploring once we get your stuff moved in?”
“That sounds wonderful.” As he watched the SUV in the side mirror, he shifted in his seat. “Um, I’m not sure if you were paying attention yesterday but I might’ve told Emeric we were going to make a space in the house that’s just for him.”
Yes, I’d heard that one and his response.
“He can’t live in the guest room forever. Eventually we’re going to have guests and the options upstairs aren’t set up for family.” The utter relief flooding through him was so strong I could smell it. “Which room should be his? Does he have an opinion?”
Dorian rolled his eyes as he tried to hide his smile. “He has opinions on everything, but in this case, I think he’d appreciate any one of them.”
Before I could decide if I wanted to tease him or be politely supportive, he sat up and sucked in a breath. “We need another air filter for his room.”
“We’re bringing in a mage to put the best quality spells on the bedrooms upstairs that we can afford.” I didn’t care what it cost. “Ones to block sounds and anything else we can figure out.”
I wasn’t sure how humans had kids and a quality sex life, but I wasn’t going to figure it out.
“He’s old enough we don’t have to worry about him not being able to come and find us in an emergency.” Or whatever else parents of little kids worried about. “He’s also not stupid and doesn’t seem to be reckless outside of the whole coming to find me thing.”
“Under the circumstances I consider that dangerous not reckless.” His tone said he was going to keep rolling that one around in his head. “We’re making his aunt get a new phone when she gets back, right?”
Ugh.
“Yes and I’m going to have a long conversation with her.” The fact that she hadn’t understood the danger she was in was startling. “Even after telling me she was pretty sure her brother hadn’t died in a car accident, she wasn’t worried where Emeric was.”
“We need to ask her about where she grew up.” Shaking his head, Dorian frowned as I nodded. “I know they came in under your uncle but his record keeping was terrible and this just isn’t reasonable.”
I had a calendar which seemed to have been more than he had.
“Agreed.” It was also a good learning experience for a variety of reasons. “I’m going to need to make a few interesting phone calls when I stop wandering around the backroads and we get home.”
“How about I go over and visit with your mother for a few minutes?” He didn’t sound like he thought that was a brilliant plan, but that was because he was smart. “Then if we need to kill more time, I’ll have her show me around the immediate area?”
That should be fine but I didn’t want to push our luck.
“Let’s just have you walk back to the house slowly depending on how my calls go.” I hated to hide them away but I wasn’t sure what was going on. “The wards are still strong and nothing seems to have been testing them, but this idiot is making decisions like a cartoon villain.”
He was still just following us around through the middle of nowhere as I went around in circles around the pack land.
“Maybe he’s just not bright?” Dorian shrugged when I laughed. “Not every bad guy is smart.”
“Okay, I agree with that but at the very least he’s making confusing decisions.” There was nothing subtle about following me as I made four right turns just to end up where I started a few minutes before. “Maybe he got lost and is following us to be able to get to Emeric?”
Dorian’s hum as he looked back at the SUV said he thought that was questionable too. “Nothing Emeric said explains why anyone would want him. We’ve got to be missing something.”
“I haven’t had to deal with the level of insanity before, so I’m slightly out of my depth.
” My uncle had made sure I understood the magic of the pack and the practical running of our businesses but I don’t think he’d dealt with anything like this either.
“The worst thing my uncle ran into when he was Alpha was a small problem with someone acting like the mob who was trying to move in and set up shop.”
A few phone calls and a late-night visit from what’d probably seemed like a monster had fixed that problem quickly.
“That’s a story I’m going to want to hear at some point.” Still halfway around in the seat, he glared. “Once we’re not being followed by someone on a cell phone. He’s not even using a handsfree device. He’s got the phone in his hands and he’s so distracted he’s swaying in the lane.”
I had a feeling he would always amaze me when it came to what he would get angry about.
“This area isn’t very populated, so he shouldn’t run into anyone.” I’d mostly been taking backroads to keep us away from town until I knew what I was going to do, but it would serve several purposes. “Can you read his license plate?”
“No.” Dorian started grumbling to himself about remembering his glasses as I told the car to call Jessen. “Oh, I can zoom in with my phone.”
He was brilliant and I was a steady driver, so we made a perfect pair as the car connected with Jessen. “I didn’t do it, Alpha.”
For fuck’s sake.
“My mate is listening. Pretend we’re a functional pack and you can tattle on someone later.” My mother was at fault in some way, but I didn’t have the time to figure out what she’d done. “Dorian is going to read you off a license plate and I’d like you to see what you can find.”
“Yes, Alpha.” Jessen had contacts for everything but I knew my mate was going to have question when he raised one eyebrow.
“Ready?” His tone was pure professional teacher but his gaze was skeptical mate.
“Yes, Alpha Mate.” Jessen’s respectful tone shocked my mate into forgetting he had questions for me. “Ready.”
“Here you go.” Reading off the license plate, Dorian gave him all the information we had so far. “I was also able to get a fairly good picture of him and he’s got brown hair and looks frustrated.”
Frustrated?
“Thank you, Alpha Mate. One second.” Furious typing was going on in the background as Dorian glanced back over at me. He gave me a reprieve because the phone was connected but I knew the list of questions he had was growing longer by the second.
Jessen’s response didn’t help either.
“It’s a rental that’s connected to someone named Nickle Mann.
So yeah, probably a really bad alias.” Jessen chuckled as Dorian sighed.
“Yeah, there’s nothing for the money man online but he was a moron and attached his phone to the car.
One second…yep…real name seems to be…not English…
really not English, Alpha. I’ll forward this to you but I’m not even going to attempt to figure out what some of these letters are. ”
Well, that was unexpected…and it had Dorian frowning at me even deeper.
“You got that information very quickly.” It seemed like he’d run out of patience. “It’s amazing what you can find out online.”
“I…is there anything else you need, Alpha?”
Jessen panicked too easily.
“Yes. I can’t take the chance of dragging this moron through town, so I’m going to head toward the pack.
” He was just too stubborn to make better choices…
he hadn’t even tried to run me off the road.
“I need everyone who’s not working somewhere else right now to be in the woods along the road just inside the boundary. ”
We didn’t need to end up on some tourist’s vacation pics on Instagram or whatever people were using lately.
“Got it. We’ll be ready by the time you get here.” The chicken in wolf’s clothing hung up before my mate could ask any more questions.
I wasn’t so lucky.
“I thought the pack ran the gas station?” He groaned when I smiled. “You never look as innocent as you think you do when you smile like that.”
Nope, but it distracted him and gave me a few seconds to think.
“We run the gas station and the park, but we also have several other businesses. Online ones primarily. Most are owned by the pack and the money they earn is used to maintain the pack lands and then what’s left over is divided out to the different families.
” It kept the risk with the pack and not one individual.
“One of those businesses is helping people find information online and it requires highly technical computer skills that I do not have in any way.”
I wasn’t going to let my mate think I was some kind of hacker.
I just employed them.
“Good grief.” Closing his eyes, he shook his head. “My list of questions for you keeps growing in unexpected directions.”
He was really cute when he went all frustrated teacher dramatic.
“If it helps, I was going to tell you about all that kind of stuff once we handled Emeric’s situation and you moving in.” We already had enough on our plate. “Oh, and we stay within all paranormal guidelines…even the stupid ones that the government keeps trying to tinker with.”
Some people just had too much time on their hands.
“And it just got bigger.”
He sighed as I made a right and kept an eye on our unnamed bad guy.
“I’m going to need a new notes app…this one just isn’t designed for this level of interesting.”
Hmm.
“Don’t worry. I’m sure Jessen’s son can build you one if you explain what you want. He’s really handy.” He was only eight but my mother had always described that family as precocious.
I had a feeling Dorian was going to agree with her.