Chapter 9 #3
“I made these this morning.”
He opened the box to reveal two Danish pastries filled with cream cheese and thinly sliced apples.
They smelled heavenly with a touch of cinnamon and something a bit savory.
Rosemary maybe? Parker slid each one onto a napkin.
He set one treat and one coffee cup in front of me.
He turned it so the hole in the cup’s lid was facing me. Then he did the same for himself.
Once he was done, he sat down in a chair in front of my desk and took a sip of his coffee. I went to sit back down again too, but it didn’t feel right. I grabbed my treat and coffee, then I rounded my desk so I could sit beside him. Yeah. That was better.
I leaned back and took a bite of the pastry. Holy Magic. It was perfect. Flaky and sweet, but not too sweet. The rich savory notes of the rosemary balanced the apple beautifully.
“I thought they might be our fall special. What do you think?”
His gaze was fixed on me as he brushed his fingers over his mouth. Shit. Did I have crumbs? I licked my lips. His eyes darkened and his hand trembled a little as he lifted his coffee to his mouth.
Right. He was worried about something, wasn’t he?
“The pastry is amazing, but I think you knew that,” I said. “So, tell me, what’s going on?”
He bit his lip, and his gaze darted around my office. He seemed as nervous as I was. “Oh. I have a new one for you.”
“Yeah?” I humored him.
“Where do cows go on a Saturday night?”
“You tell me.”
“To the moovies.” Parker grinned.
I snorted.
We stared at one another for a long moment. Great. We were back to that same awkwardness again.
“You didn’t come here to tell me a joke.”
“No.” He glanced at his hands and shook his head. “I feel silly coming over here. I shouldn’t have said anything this morning.”
“Hey… Talk to me.” I wanted to reach over and pat him on the arm or the leg or something, but if I touched hi m, I might not be able to pull my hand back again. My control was barely hanging on.
Parker was in my space. In my space! I wanted to corral him here and never let him leave, even if the only things I had at hand to create a maze were my desk, a filing cabinet, and a couple of chairs.
But then I really would be a monster, just like the minotaur in the myth.
Scholars believed the bloodthirsty King Minos asked Daedalus to construct a complex maze to imprison the minotaur.
But even though the minotaur was imprisoned, the king continued to use him as a weapon against the Athenians right up until the poor supe was murdered in his home.
But it was more than a myth for my kind; it was a cautionary tale.
As a species, we understood what it was like to be trapped, and I could never do that to another person. I doubted any minotaur could, even if the temptation was there. It went against everything we were.
Sure, the Eternal Magic had stepped in after that whole fiasco with Theseus, giving us a deep understanding of where we were in the world, physically.
After that, we became the ultimate navigator.
The apex of all wayfinders. We were better than any modern GPS system.
She’d ensured we’d never be trapped like that again, but it was a history we’d never forget.
But my impulse to hide Parker away wasn’t about imprisoning him; it was about keeping him safe. Would that make it okay? I doubted it.
Besides, it wasn’t like our enemies couldn’t navigate mazes too.
Even that asshole Theseus had found a way through it to hunt and kill the supe.
It was funny how minotaurs tried to forget that part of the tale, probably because we always felt protected at the heart of a maze.
But that was a false sense of security. We were never truly safe.
And sometimes the things that made us feel safe were also the things that trapped us.
Great. I’d just talked myself around in a convoluted circle. Parker had completely disoriented me, which was supposed to be impossible to do to a minotaur.
“Yeah. I guess that’s why I came…” Parker nodded. His cheeks darkened even more. He fidgeted with the corner of the paper napkin.
“You said you wanted to talk about your grandmother. Is she okay? Did something happen since last night?”
Parker heaved out a deep sigh and set the pastry and his coffee on my desk.
I noticed his hands had a slight tremor.
“I shouldn’t bring you into my family’s weirdness, but ugh…
I can’t talk to my mother about it, because she’d probably come to Willow Lake then too.
And we already have enough of my family here. ”
I waited.
“It’s all my fault that Fin and Nana are here.”
I froze. He’d summoned them here? I’d been wrong about him. I took a big gulp of coffee, which made my stomach churn even more.
Did I have antacids in my desk drawer?
No. I couldn’t get them now. I needed to get through this first. Once I was sure I was in control again, I knew I had to respond to him.
“Oh?” Not much of a response, but it was all I could manage. I’d only spoken one syllable, and my voice still cracked over it.
He rubbed his forehead harder. “This is going to sound so ridiculous.”
“Hey. Don’t say that.”
“Nana called me late a couple of nights ago. I was already asleep when she called, and I was groggy, and I said things I shouldn’t have.”
I lifted my eyebrows and waited for him to continue.
“I said that sometimes I got a weird feeling, particularly when I was at the pub.” He grimaced.
“I feel like such an ass repeating that. And, please, don’t think this means I don’t like it here.
I love Willow Lake. I feel like destiny brought me here.
Which is all very woo-woo and stuff, but I can’t think of a different way of saying it.
” He glanced at me. “Did I ever tell you how I ended up here?”
His gaze caught on mine. His eyes were so damn beautiful when he was looking at me like that. I wanted to keep staring into his blue eyes, but that wasn’t why he was here. I shook my head.
“Uh, no. I don’t think so.” What a lie. I remembered everything he’d ever told me, and I knew for a fact he’d never mentioned this before.
“It was like I saw the real estate listing and knew it was meant to be mine. That I belonged here. It felt like magic, like a fairy godmother had intervened to bring me here. That’s weird, I know…” He averted his eyes.
I wanted to reach over and touch him, to reassure him that he did belong.
I didn’t move because I sensed he was about to say “ but” and I really needed to know what his concerns were.
“But,” he whispered, confirming my thoughts, “sometimes I get a weird feeling, like I said. And it is probably just that, even after living here for a few years, I’m comparatively new to town, and small towns can be quirky about newcomers.
But the thing is… I said something to Nana the other night that piqued her interest and now she’s here.
And she decided to bring Fin and his friends because they have, in her opinion, useful surveillance equipment.
And she’s going off spying on people in the middle of the night…
” He scrubbed his hands over his face. “And… I don’t know what to do.
I can’t lock her in my apartment. And Fin and his friends are snooping around too. It’s out of control.”
I sucked in a shaky breath and let it out slowly as I processed what he was saying. Okay. We could salvage this. It might not be as bad as I’d originally thought. The hunters might not know anything.
“I know there are secrets here, and I know I’m an outsider,” Parker said in a soft, dejected tone that nearly broke my heart.
“I’ve never really had friends who trusted me with their secrets.
Not really. Not the important ones. So, it isn’t like I’d expect to suddenly be worthy or whatever…
” He flapped his hand in the air as if his words were on a whiteboard and he was wiping them away.
“You don’t have to tell me anything, obviously.
But Nana is relentless, and Fin’s friends seem really nosy, and they are all here because of what I said.
I want to fix this. And I want you to know I’m sorry. But also…” His words trailed off .
“What?”
“And that I really hope you aren’t running drugs or have a BDSM club around here that I don’t know about.” He blurted out the words so quickly they merged.
“Huh?”
“My grandmother…” Parker started. “You know what? Never mind about that.” He winced.
“Just tell me,” I encouraged.
“Please tell me Willow Lake isn’t a Mafia headquarters and that Van isn’t a crooked cop.
” He squirmed. “Those were my questions, but do I need to know the answers? No. Because I’d probably have to be initiated, or whatever Mafia types do to new recruits, and I’m too old for that kind of work. I’d be a terrible mob enforcer.”
“There are no drugs. There is no Mafia.”
Although, maybe I shouldn’t protest so much.
If the paranormal investigators thought we were criminals, they might not notice the supernatural activities.
But I hated that Parker had such horrible suspicions about the community.
Willow Lake was magical. In a world where magic was slowly dying, Willow Lake was a beacon of hope.
And, truthfully, I didn’t want Parker to think badly of me either.
“Okay.” Parker winked at me in an exaggerated way. He attempted a smile, but it wasn’t one of the easy ones he usually cast in my direction.
“No, seriously…”
Parker was watching me closely now, as if I held all the answers .
My heart thudded hard in my chest. If I ever ran a marathon, I doubted it would beat as hard or as fast as it was now. I tried to swallow, but my mouth was too dry. I wiped my shaky hands on my pants.
Then the strangest thought hit me.
What if…?
What if I told him? If he knew, he’d understand what we were hiding.
Or he’d run, screaming, straight into the hunters’ arms and start working to annihilate us.
I remember watching a cartoon years ago, where the character had an angelic being on one shoulder and a devilish one on the other and they argued back and forth.
I could relate. Today was one of those days.
One was saying, “No. Not Parker. Parker isn’t like those other humans.
” And the other was saying, “If you thought you could trust him, you would have already told him you’re a minotaur. Humans aren’t trustworthy. Period.”
Before I could decide what to say to Parker, movement outside my window caught my eye.
I swung around to see what was happening.
Two cats strolled along the ramp in front of my window that led to the cat door that connected to my office.
I’d installed the door for Simon, but neither of these felines was my security guard.
I hadn’t seen Simon’s brothers shifted very often, but I bet these were Clive and Warren, two of Simon’s littermates.
They were obliviously talking to one another as they strutted up the ramp with their tails straight up in the air.
The very tips flicked back and forth with each step like they didn’t have a care in the world.
Paws, a powerful cat- like creature who hung around at the Willow Lake Inn, could speak non-stop without regular humans being able to detect that he was magical, but regular cat shifters didn’t have that luxury.
Since a cat shifter’s shifted form matched that of a non-magical animal, seeing them fully shifted wouldn’t be a problem.
But talking? Normal cats didn’t speak like humans.
If Parker heard them talking, he’d be exposed to magic.
After that, he’d be able to see under the magical glamour that protected all supes. I had to stop them.
I bolted from my chair.
As I charged across the room, I could see I was already too late. I darted around my desk and put my body between the cat door and Parker.
“Well, we’ll just have to convince Levi,” Clive said as his furry feline head pushed through the flap.
“I still think we should have talked to Simon first,” Warren said.
Neither of them whispered. Neither of them had poked their head through the flap to make sure I was alone. Had they already forgotten we were supposed to be extra careful right now?
As soon as Clive was inside, he greeted me. “Hey, Levi. We’re here to talk about Simon’s hours this weekend. We’ll work them instead because Ogden says he’s refusing to come out from under their bed.”
Then Clive froze as if finally realizing something was wrong. He tilted his head to look at me.
“Uh, Levi? What’s the matter, man?”
“Keep going, asshole,” Warren said, ramming Clive with his head from behind. “You’re blocking the door. ”
“Levi looks constipated or something,” Clive said, then his gaze flitted to something to my left. “Oh, fuck… Abort. Abort.”
He tried to push out through the flap when Warren was still trying to push his way in.
“Get your fat ass out of the way!” Clive shouted.
“What the fuck, Clive,” Warren grumbled as their small cat bodies got stuck in the narrow opening.
Warren looked around. His eyes widened in obvious shock.
Then he was scrambling backwards. With Clive and Warren both going in the same direction, they managed to get outside.
They stumbled off the ramp and landed in a pile of fur and legs.
In the next moment, they were running. Clive raced toward the parking lot, while Warren went in the other direction.
A second later, Warren had doubled back and followed Clive.
I didn’t move.
Black spots danced in front of my eyes. A high-pitched ringing in my ears obliterated any other sound. My lungs screamed for air.
“What the ever-loving fuck was that?”