10. Neeps And Tatties
Neeps And Tatties
Milo
Cancelling the directions on my phone triggers its low battery warning to flash, and I suck my lower lip between my teeth.
I didn’t bring the charging cable with me, and I’ve no idea what to do if my phone dies before I sort this out—whatever this even is.
Zipping it into the pocket of my leather jacket takes away the temptation to keep checking it for…
I don’t even know what for. But I know I’ll do it if it’s not sealed away.
When I finally reach my destination there’s no truck in the drive, no bikes on the lawn, no sounds from over the gate to the back yard, no lights on, nor any other evidence that anyone even lives here.
A tall hedge runs up the left side of the property, offering shelter from prying neighbourhood eyes, and for some reason it feels important to not be seen by any nosy curtain twitcher.
Cutting up beside the hedge, I beeline for the porch—confident, like I know the homeowner. I must still be wired from what happened back at my apartment, though, because I don’t think I’ve ever spared a single thought for who might see me walking anywhere before.
The doorbell is one of those fancy ones that’ll probably livestream me to the homeowner. Wary, I knock instead.
My fingers twitch nervously where they hang by my sides.
Not wanting to look like a drug dealer or something, I rake them through my hair and blow out a long breath.
I’ve been sent here for help, I remind myself.
Also, there’s no way that Time Guy or the police or anyone can find me here.
Mostly, that’s because I didn’t expect to find myself here, so why would anyone else?
When, after a minute or two, there’s no answer, I knock again. Louder this time, and with a little lean left and right to try and peep through the windows. Surely someone’s home?
Why would the Witches Council direct me to an empty house in an emergency?
I turn and scan the houses opposite. It’s quiet. Too quiet for a family neighbourhood. A chilling, creeping feeling, like I’m being watched—or stalked—raises the hairs on the back of my neck.
The longer I wait out on the porch, the more vulnerable I feel. Accepting that I’ll be seen through one of those unflattering fishbowl lenses, I press the strange doorbell.
Its melody chimes through the large house as if it’s hollow, as if there’s no soft furnishings to absorb the sound, and that uneasy feeling intensifies.
Scratching the back of my neck, I shuffle my weight from foot to foot. Come on, please answer.
A long and low whistle, a bit like a catcall, splits the stifling air of this upscale neighbourhood, and I squint at the little doorbell, looking for the camera.
“Erm, hi. Hello,” I babble, unsure of the etiquette for conducting a conversation through one of these.
“Aaand just who is it we have ’ere?” The Australian accent that responds is the last thing I expected in a day already marked by incredibly unexpected things.
“I’m Milo—I was sent here,” I add, before cupping my hands around my mouth to whisper, “By the Witches Council.”
“Were you now?”
I whirl on my heels so fast that I almost fall back into the door.
The person I’ve been talking to is neither communicating through the doorbell, nor a person.
He’s walking languidly up the drive toward me, hand in one of the many pockets of his combat pants, and maybe walking isn’t the most accurate word because he is a werewolf and that… strut, screams alpha.
Dark blond hair, styled with artful precision to look messy, catches in the bright sun as he tilts his head to examine me in return.
His hoodie reads, “probably needed a hug,” and if my heart weren’t beating faster than a rabbit’s right now, I’d snort at the irony.
I have a shirt that reads “werewolves need hugs, too,” and the renegade part of my brain wants to ask him where he bought it.
Thankfully, the part that’s responsible for my survival is currently in charge.
Holding up my hands, I swallow around the tight ball of anxiety that clogs my throat, and with some awkward mix of squeak and swagger, I choke out, “I was told to tell you, ‘neeps and tatties.’”
As if the words are magic, the Australian alpha comes to a dead stop halfway up the drive. The fingers buried in his pocket twitch, alerting me that he has something in there, and I’m really not sure I want to know what it might be. Yet I struggle to pull my gaze away.
The doorbell behind me beeps.
My breaths freeze inside my lungs.
It’s possible that he just remotely disabled the house alarm, but it’s also possible he just primed a bomb. There’s something in the way those light grey eyes, neither blue nor green, watch me, that give me confidence both of those are valid outcomes.
“Been waiting long?” he asks with a cheery tone. As if I’m expected.
“Not really,” I play along. But I’m increasingly uncertain whether, now the homeowner has now shown up, I even want to go inside that house anymore. “A few minutes.”
He nods, as if satisfied with my answer, and resumes walking up the drive toward the porch. Toward me.
I step away—closer to the path that cuts through the front lawn. Can I outrun an alpha wolf? Probably not.
Just as he’s about to plant a huge, mud-caked boot on the deck, someone else appears from the side path as if they were in the back yard this whole time, and plants a strong, dark hand on Mr Australia’s shoulder.
“Easy, Tuesday,” the stranger says. American, but still not local—more East Coast. “Neeps and tatties means he was sent.”
Tuesday shrugs this other man off, who retracts his hand and straightens to full height, gaining a good few inches on the alpha wolf beside him.
I tilt my head as I try to work this newcomer out. He isn’t human… but neither is he a werewolf. The orange reflective lenses of his ski-style sunglasses don’t quite suppress the supernatural glow of his eyes. What is he?
“I know that,” Tuesday tosses out. “I’m just curious. A fella can be curious, can’t he?”
Tuesday makes to continue his approach up onto the deck, and despite the fact that he triggers my flight response, something about the stranger’s presence counters it enough that I remain standing right where I am.
As Tuesday steps up, the behemoth beside him drags his hand from his pocket and smoothly confiscates whatever it was he’d been fiddling with earlier.
Dressed in all-black compression sportswear, including black running shorts and some kind of Velcro strap around the bicep of his right arm, this guy should be intimidating—he’s clearly some kind of alpha werewolf handler, and that alone should be terrifying, but it isn’t.
“Don’t be the fun police, Guardian,” Tuesday whines from between tightly clenched back teeth.
Guardian, then, turns to me and smiles. That’s when his likeness strikes me—he looks like the dhampir from that movie. The badass one with the long leather jacket. Except, he’s not a vampire. I’m pretty sure of that on account of the fact that it’s daytime.
With his fist still encasing whatever he just took from Tuesday, Guardian calmly tells him, “Fellas can be curious all they like, but you can’t. Not in public.” As if Tuesday’s plotting of revenge isn’t written all over his face, he directs his attention to me. “Who sent you?”
I bounce my gaze between them for a moment, trying to work out if it’s wise to ignore Tuesday. Then I decide that as Guardian is obviously Tuesday’s superior, that’s exactly what I’m going to do. “The General’s Office—at the Witches Council—said this was a safe place.”
“The Witches Council?” Guardian asks.
At the same time as Tuesday accuses, “The Witches Council don’t have a General’s Office.”
“That’s what I thought!” I agree. “Unless it’s new… I haven’t had anything to do with the Witches Council in…” I cut myself off, unsure why I’m suddenly spilling my life’s secrets to a werewolf and a man I’ve only just met. “A long time.”
Tuesday is so close now that if he wanted to, he could grab me by the jacket.
I step off the porch and onto the path.
“But you know, it’s probably fine now. So, I’ll just go.” As I talk, I hold my hands palm up and back steadily away.
The Witches Council must have got the address wrong, because this is clearly some kind of packhouse… even though I was sure that the nearest pack territory to here was way north, in the forest.
“And just where is it ye plan on going, Pup?” The gruff question, asked in the sexiest Scottish brogue I’ve ever heard, comes from directly behind me.
I whirl, heart pounding, and come face to face with a literal man-mountain.
Having always been tall, I’m not used to looking straight ahead and my line of sight landing on the neckline of another person’s T-shirt.
My reflection in the sunglasses he has tucked there shows the unattractive way my mouth hangs open as I unashamedly rake my gaze up his towering form.
Vibrant auburn hair gleams copper in the sun’s rays.
It’s short-cropped at the sides, longer on top, but it has that look about it that suggests he’s been pushing his fingers through it all morning.
It crowns a thick and healthy short beard of equally red hair, and a flood of saliva washes over my tongue.
Then my eyes find his: two golden chestnuts set under a thick and heavy brow. A brow furrowed under the weight of an equally thorough assessment of me. A furrow that fast becomes a scowl the longer I take to answer, and it’s a scowl that screams serial killer.
He steps to block my route off the end of the path, and I swallow reflexively. I also don’t engage my brain before I find myself answering him back.
“Pup?” I question. “Ah fuck…”
I turn to look over my shoulder, but neither Guardian nor Tuesday have moved from their spots by the porch. Not keen on backing myself into them, I take a steadying breath and exhale slowly.
“There’s obviously been a mix up. I needed help from the Witches Council, and they sent me here, but I didn’t know it was… That it belonged to you. And it’s clearly the wrong place for me.”
The ginger alpha in front of me folds his arms across his ample chest, and only now do I notice the paper bag he clutches. It’s stamped with a French-style patisserie logo, and saturated with grease from whatever baked goods he’s purchased.
Oh, hey, I picked up a coupon for that same deli just yesterday.
Maybe I should offer it to him as a kind of weird apology for disturbing their pack this morning.
No sooner do I pat my jacket pockets searching for it, than two more alpha werewolves appear from beyond each of the adjoining neighbours’ hedges.
My gaze bounces between them until a strange grating sound from behind me pulls my attention.
When I turn, another much smaller man slides off the garage roof and lands on the floor in a near-silent crouch.
His hard stare is the most savage of them all despite the fact that his stature clearly marks him as an omega werewolf.
He up-nods me, as if I’m a friend, but absolutely nothing about him suggests he’s friendly. In fact, he has a look in his eye that not only makes me think he can read my mind, but that he’d love for me to make that observation about his designation out loud.
I can be a lot, sometimes; my ex would always say that about me. I can also be chaotic and impulsive, but I don’t have a death wish.
The rugged Scotsman clears his throat, and despite the obvious threat emanating from the diminutive werewolf, I turn my back on him.
The ginger alpha doesn’t like that I’m giving my attention to anyone who isn’t him.
Or, more likely, he’s waiting for an answer to his question that I still haven’t provided.
But now I can’t remember what he asked me.
I open my mouth, to once again apologise and make up some excuse to leave, but instead of words, a long and loud gurgling noise escapes my stomach. I slam my lips shut, gripping the bottom one between my teeth. But the damage is done.
Heat rises from my ravenous tummy up my neck and over my cheeks, as if it can chase the embarrassment right out of my body. But if the burp didn’t do that, turning bright red in front of a pack of werewolves definitely won’t.
I fix my gaze upon the bakery bag, because there’s no way I can make eye contact with any of them now.
“Sounds to me like yer in exactly the right place.”
In spite of myself, and as if magnetised, my eyes trail up until they meet the Scottish alpha’s. He isn’t looking at me, though, and when he nods at someone over my shoulder, the house door opens with a soft click.
Only then do his hazel eyes land back on me, and before I can protest, he takes a step closer.
I back up.
He takes another, and I back up again.
The corner of his lip quirks into a smile, and that deep brogue sweeps over me like a wave when he announces, “I was just on my way to the kitchen. What do ye say to staying for some breakfast, and ye can tell me all about why it is ye need a safe place?”