Chapter 41 The Bird Smells Trouble
The Bird Smells Trouble
TAURUS
I’m standing on the porch in the open air; it’s sticky and damp in that way that makes your shirt cling and your hair coil at the back of your neck.
The trees drip with last night’s haze, and I’ve got the feeling—the one that comes when cicadas go quiet, the hush before a tornado, or the pause in a bar right before the glass smashes someone’s face.
Something’s running up my spine—a tingle, a warning, a ghost—but I can’t figure out if it’s a memory or a premonition.
Sampson’s awake, which is odd for the lazy stoat, but today I have the porch to myself for a minute because I needed space before the walls caved in.
I’m barefoot on the stone, feeling the smooth surface as I listen to the hum of mosquitos stalking my blood.
I hate how the little fuckers never let you alone, how you can slap yourself raw and there’s always one more.
I smack my ankle and wipe the smear on my thigh, irritated, trying to focus on the sense that’s nagging at me.
I know what it is, even if I don’t want to admit it.
Something is coming for us. Not in the apocalyptic sense, like a bomb or a pandemic, but something smaller and sharper.
It’s the kind of thing that slides in between your ribs and works its way up until you’re bleeding to death.
I know it in my bones, which is why I’m standing here brooding when I feel Sampson step up behind me.
He comes out quietly with his hair a mess and his eyes half-open, and he acts like he doesn’t see the tension in me.
But he knows, just like my wife always knows.
Rafe closes the screen door and puts his chin on my shoulder so his mouth is right beside my ear.
“Morning,” he whispers, and I feel the heat from his breath on my neck, which should be comforting but only makes the tingling worse.
When I’m jumpy like this, even comfort makes my body react like it's in danger.
I lean into him because his arms are strong and firm. Letting myself press against his chest, I feel the thump of his heart and the slow, careful way he puts his hands around my waist. “Morning,” I say back, and I try to keep my voice light, but it comes out gravelly with frustration.
I’m not fooling anyone, least of all Mr. Perceptive back there.
He kneads the back of my neck, working his knuckles into the places where the nerves are all bunched up. “You’re so tightly wound right now,” he murmurs. “Something eating at you, love?”
I close my eyes and let him work. He’s the only one who can get the knots out, like he’s learned the map of my body by heart.
“Yeah,” I say, “there’s something bad coming; I feel it.
I thought maybe it was just me, but it’s not going away, even after the storm dissipated.
” I pause, searching for the right words.
“It’s like the universe is holding its breath. ”
The stoat doesn’t laugh or tell me I’m being dramatic like the women often do. He just keeps working up my neck, his fingers finding the tension right at the base of my skull and rubbing until my vision goes sparkly. “Whatever it is, we’ll handle it,” he says, and I want to believe him.
I want to believe we’re safe in the home I built, that all the bullshit is behind us.
We need it to be just us on the porch, sweating and swatting bugs, but I know better than to assume it will happen.
We’ve had very little peace, and that’s enough to make anyone paranoid.
My suspicion is because this isn’t the kind of story that gets happy endings; there are too many variables working against us.
I tilt my head back so I can see his face. He’s got the shadow of last night’s stubble and soft, adoring eyes that don’t look away. The sun is behind his head, and it makes him look like something out of a photograph, but I know he’s real because I can smell his skin and feel his warmth.
“We’ve been living the happy as best we can,” I say. “The women, us, and the animals in this big house doing what we can to survive what’s happening out there. But it will not last; it never does because those people won’t leave us alone.”
He shrugs, the way men do when they don’t have an answer but want you to know they care. “Maybe this time is different,” he says, but I hear the doubt in his voice.
Even Rafe knows that the populace of this cursed dimension is ridiculous and grasping, with no respect for anyone other than themselves.
I turn away and look at the empty stretch of land surrounding our home.
Between it and the gates and the magical enhancements, it prevents a lot of issues with people being where they don’t belong.
Unlike his former residence, the doors stay locked and people cannot move in and out as if they own us.
Both Talia and I insisted on that, and neither Rafe nor my wife complained.
Now it feels like that demand was prescient and we were brilliant for making it.
My mind drifts to the meeting that’s supposed to happen today.
I don’t know who’s coming, but I know what community members called for it and why.
Keeping them happy is important to my wife, but I have the sense that nobody is going to walk away from it unchanged.
Those nasty bitches are going to make this a spectacle and a public flogging for our whole family; I just know it.
And yet, that’s still not what the bad feeling is about.
“There’s a lot converging,” I say. “Everyone’s been waiting to air their shit, even Talia—fuck, especially her.”
Sampson pulls me around so we’re face to face, and for a second I think he’s going to kiss me, but he just looks at me. “Whatever happens, we protect our own.” His voice goes low, like a growl. “No one fucks with our family.”
I nod, but I don’t tell him that sometimes it’s the family that does the fucking. I don’t say that sometimes you have to choose who you protect, and that it’s never the person you think.
Because I’m a bit terrified that he and the cat might end up having to choose the good of the Resistance rather than the goddess and me.
I think about the way the troll stood at the party with her manic grin and her voice like a chainsaw, laughing even as she tried to tear us apart.
I think about how the cat clung to me when the blogger appeared, refusing to let go even when she cried after returned home.
I think about how his silence was louder than anything I’ve ever heard, and how the goddess said he didn’t shed a tear over the resurrection.
“She’s going to go boom,” I say, and I realize I’m snarling inside again. “It’s going to be bad.”
Sampson puts both hands on my shoulders and squeezes, grounding me. “Which one?” he says, but his eyes are scanning the horizon, like he’s looking for the threat already.
I wish I could tell him I’m overreacting, but I just stand there, feeling the pressure of his hands, and I try to remember how to breathe. “Take your pick, love. Either of them could blow depending on what is said.”
Rafe chuckles and shrugs. “Sari will have problems keeping the focus on her, that’s for sure.
She’s still acting like Belle’s a good community member when she’s never even lived here.
Sari doesn’t see any of us as lost, so her opinion is that all she has to do is figure out how to get us back.
For her, that’s by any means necessary, including breaking my primary’s heart by ordering this bullshit. ”
Yep, I’m going to have to admit my fears to him or he won’t understand.
I sigh and lean into him again. “Sari’s lost you and the minx.
Wilde has lost the goddess for good. She even lost me—despite never having me—so that’s enough to set her off.
It doesn’t matter that the bulldog closed the curtain.
” Pulling my smokes out of my pants pocket, I light one and take a deep drag.
“I’m afraid I’m going to lose both of you to her again.
She’ll drag you both back. Goddess is afraid of that, too.
I just don’t have it in me to be happy about that. ”
Tilting his head, he moves in front of me, dropping to his knees. “I’m not going anywhere. I said I’m yours and I meant it. The cat’s no different. We love you; we love our family. They can’t take us away.”
Looking down at him, I growl low. “I can’t lose my family, Sampson.
I’d die. I love all of you too much.” I turn my head, swallowing hard.
“I can beat my chest and stomp around like I’d kill the bint if she even sniffs at you, but in the end, the only thing I can do is come down on her like hell if she tries Talia again. ”
Sampson slides his hands up my thighs and gives me a push, tumbling me back onto the lounger. Crawling up the chair, he rests his forearms on my legs and looks at me. “We’re not going anywhere, love. They would have to drag me kicking and screaming away from you or her. We will never leave you.”
I wrap my arms around him and squeeze. “Lord knows she and I are physically incapable of leaving you. It’s never going to happen.” I tangle my fingers in his hair, holding on with my heart as well.
“It’s been good, but the rule states that it never lasts.
We had a bad day, but since then it’s been large with the happy.
That means double the gut-wrenching misery on the flip side.
The worst thing that could happen to us is losing you and the wife.
It’d be the coup of all time for Sari because it’d kill me. ”
“Not going to happen.” He shakes his head. “Nothing she could say would ever make us leave. Even if it gets bad, you are worth every second. I can’t be without you, mate. You’re both in my blood, my heart, and my soul.”
Closing my eyes, I release some anxiety with a sigh.
I trust him. I stroke his hair away from his face and pull him up my body to kiss him.
He drapes over me, tongue twining and dancing with mine as he purrs.
When the kiss breaks, I rest my forehead against his and smile.
“You sod. You’re going to get me worked up and dig me out of an introspective slump. ”
“Aw. One entire day of brooding is now down the drain in favor of naked time. That’s a tragedy. You’d better watch the strain on your ticker.” His eyes dance and he tugs on my lower lip with his teeth before letting go.
I roll my eyes and huff. “What is it with you lot and my bloody ticker?”
He shrugs and grins unrepentantly. “If you didn’t make an issue of it, no one would know.”
“Come on! Do you know the last time I made an issue of it? It’s you and the wife, I bloody well swear. You just have to keep poking with those tiny sticks.” I pause and groan. “Oh, for another turn of phrase.”
“Here, I thought you enjoyed getting poked. It’s sad,” he chuckles and makes a sad face. “I guess we’ll have to find someone else to poke at.”
I go pale and look panicked. “Don’t joke—not about that. Don’t joke.”
Rafe must realize that he scared me, and he winces. “Sorry. I didn’t mean it that way. Not even a bit. Truly, love, neither of us would ever do that.”
The lump in my throat is hard to swallow past, and my heart is pounding despite my assertion. “Guess we have to worry about my ticker after all.”
Snuggling closer, he wraps his arms around me and buries his face in my neck. He whispers low, “Never. I will never leave you.” His hand covers my heart, and he twists his fingers with mine. “I will never let what happened to you happen to me.”
I nod and sniff, my eyes glistening a bit. I hold him tightly, unable to let go.
Moving slowly, he resettles in my lap and curls around me, his purr vibrating over my skin. He echoes his claim and his promise over and over, using his voice to soothe my soul.
“Christ, luv. I never knew—never thought I’d love like I love you and her. It’s so much that it scares me sometimes. It makes me so fucking vulnerable that it terrifies me.”
Hands stroke over my hair and neck as he nuzzles. “It’s okay, love. We love you just as much. We love you with every fiber of who we are.”
Needing comfort, I just lie there with him and soak it in. After a short while, I pull back and look at him. “Are you just going to sit there all day or are you going to pull me inside and take advantage of me, lover?”
His eyes narrow, and he wrinkles his nose, looking peeved. “Oh, right then. How dare I sit here and love on you so that your beleaguered ticker doesn’t explode when I should try to get in your pants? What was I thinking?”
I smile and cup his face, kissing him. “I love you, you lazy stoat. The love you give me humbles me.”
“You deserve it.”
In a blink, I apparate us into the bed and I smile. “Let me show you what you deserve.”