Page 7 of Fae Devoted (Fae Touched #3)
J ohnnie smiled at the pair of Anwyll guards standing sentry outside Príoh Walker’s apartment, the cold to-go cup she carried numbing her fingers.
“Happy Belated Majority, Johnnie,” the pretty brunette warrior greeted. Unlike Johnnie, her grin was genuine.
“Thanks, Evelyn.” As she knocked on Abby’s door, Johnnie was acutely aware of the condensation from the full smoothie dripping onto the hallway’s expensive carpeting.
“Sorry I missed the party at Chess.” Evelyn tilted her head toward her partner. “Robert and I ended up working overtime.”
The male member of the Guard stood with his shoulders and one booted foot propped against the wall across from Samuel’s suite.
His raised knee showed off a muscular thigh, and his thumbs stuck in the front pockets of his cargos highlighted the white tattoos encircling his biceps and lining his forearms. “I would have asked the guest of honor for a dance if I’d been there. ”
“If we don’t count the male vamp being celebrated,” Evelyn teased the handsome Anwyll known as a shameless womanizer, “which birthday girl were you planning on bestowing your questionable charms on this time?”
Robert’s attention never strayed from Johnnie, his slow once-over proclaiming the female presently claiming his interest. “Think I could get a rain check on that missed dance?”
“I’m…” Unavailable? Taken? Unfortunately, neither of those things were true. Although harmless, there wasn’t a dance invitation she wanted to accept beyond the mating kind with Jacob. A truth she couldn’t lay bare now or in the foreseeable future.
Abby chose that moment to open the door, saving her from giving Robert a reasonable excuse for turning him down.
“Hey, Johnnie.” The petite female who’d stolen their pack Alpha’s heart wore a sleeveless blue dress and five-inch black heels. And unlike last night, her blond hair was pulled into a sleek ponytail, her makeup flawless.
Johnnie shifted her weight and tugged on her braid. “Have you got a minute to talk, or are you headed to work?”
“I have time. Lady Rose isn’t expecting me for another hour or so.” She moved aside. “Come on in.”
Johnnie entered the sizable suite and stepped straight into the living room.
The modern kitchen was to her left, the loft-style bedroom straight ahead.
The decor was masculine, done in dark browns and smoky grays, yet Abby’s feminine touch was in the flower-filled vases scattered throughout the open space and the pastel pillows and blankets gracing the king-sized bed in the rear of the room.
A blazer matching her knee-length column dress was tossed across the arm of the massive leather chair, a beige clutch with a gold logo laid sideways on the end table.
“Samuel bought too many donuts again, y’all want some?” Abby asked the guards.
“Shocker,” Johnnie heard Evelyn snicker over Robert’s chuckle.
“I’ll fix the bags, and you can take them home after dropping me at Lady Rose’s office later,” she said without waiting for an answer, then shut the door.
“Does the Alpha do this every day?” Johnnie’s gaze fell on the overflowing container of glazed donut holes and the large box stuffed with chocolate eclairs on the marble countertop.
If food equated affection in the shifter world—and it did—then the bountiful display shouted Samuel’s love for his Ca’anam from the rooftops.
“Pretty much.” Abby went behind the kitchen island and started to fill plastic sandwich bags with the pastries, then placed them in paper sacks. “His solution to my habit of skipping breakfast…or should I say dinner…is providing an overabundance of temptation.”
It was six o’clock in the evening but working for the vampire queen meant Abby was on duty all hours of the night.
“Want one?” She offered Johnnie a decadent eclair.
“Of course.” Wolf shifters loved to eat, which was convenient as it took an enormous number of calories to fuel a Ferwyn’s high metabolism. Taking a big bite of the cream-filled pastry, Johnnie admitted it wasn’t half bad. Not as good as her homemade eclairs, but still dang good.
“Penny is stopping by to drop off wedding magazines in a few minutes. She can take the leftovers to Hop and her brothers.” Abby eyed the line of brown lunch bags on the counter. “And give them away to everyone she passes within a three-mile radius.”
Johnnie laughed along with Abby, but her amusement faded when her gaze fell to the melting smoothie she held, the pastry’s sweet vanilla cream turning to ash in her mouth.
“What did you want to talk about?” Abby washed her hands, then dried them with a kitchen towel imprinted with a colorful floral design. Another new addition to the onetime bachelor pad.
“I hate smoothies,” she said, eyes filling.
“But I thought you…” Abby’s voice went soft. “What happened?”
“It was delivered.”
“What was?”
“The Riverfront Café brought this to my office at closing.” Johnnie tossed the untouched drink along with the half-eaten eclair into the trashcan beside the kitchen island and sighed. “It was from Jacob.”
“That’s sweet,” Abby tilted her head to the side, “isn’t it?”
“He’s never sent one to me before tonight.” Johnnie flopped onto the massive sectional and placed her head in her hands. “Ever.”
“Oh.” Abby nodded in understanding. The gift of food from an unmated Ferwyn male’s hand to an unmated female was considered an act of courtship in shifter society. “Well, maybe Tucker—”
A hard knock followed by Penny bursting into the apartment called a halt to whatever Abby was about to suggest as an excuse for Jacob’s abrupt change in behavior.
“No, absolutely not,” Penny hissed, whirling to confront the Ferwyn guard nipping at her heels. She gave the door a vicious push, intending to slam it in the shifter’s face.
“You know the routine.” Hop slapped his hand on the center of the door, effortlessly keeping it open.
“Are you kidding me?” Penny screeched. “You do know whose apartment this is, don’t you?”
Hop didn’t budge, a hint of color on his high cheekbones the only sign of his irritation.
Although Johnnie’s hair bent more toward auburn than Penny’s bright crimson, they were both born with the fair skin and freckles often found in redheads.
But that’s where the similarities came to an end.
Johnnie was slow to anger, her disposition typically sunny, while Penny swore like a sailor and had a temper to match her fiery locks.
Penny threw the stylish yellow tote hanging on her shoulder in the general direction of the chair. It hit the cushion and toppled onto its side. Several bridal magazines spilled to the floor.
Using a painted fingernail as scarlet as her curly hair, Penny pointed to the two Anwyll stationed in the hall. “You can see the witches guarding the commander’s room, right? I know you’re getting up there in years, and your vision is probably failing, but I assume you can at least smell them.”
Johnnie’s eyes about popped out of her skull. Penny did not just imply the virile, attractive male nearing two hundred and fifty, which was middle age in shifter years, was old and half-blind?
Robert smirked, eliciting a stony glare from Hop that wiped the smile from his face. Evelyn stared straight ahead as though her life depended upon it.
“Abby,” Penny said with deceptive calm. At five-foot-eleven, she could shoot daggers at the unyielding shifter without lifting her chin.
But this was a stand-off Johnnie could have told the irate woman she wouldn’t win.
“Tell this…male,” she sneered, “that he doesn’t have to search the apartment before I can come inside. ”
“Penny, please.” Abby shifted her weight from one foot to the other, her cheeks flushed.
“Oh, for fuck’s sake. Fine.” She folded her arms over her nearly flat chest. “Make it quick, Blackwater.”
Two months ago, Penny was with Abby when the two were robbed outside a restaurant downtown.
Since then, either Hop or one of the human’s three ex-military brothers shadowed her every move.
It seemed like overkill to Johnnie, but Alphas were protective of their packs, and as Abby’s best friend, Penny was considered an honorary member.
Hop gripped his charge’s slender bicep, gently moving her aside before entering and making a sweep of the open living area, walk-in closet, and solitary bathroom. “All clear.”
“Of course, it’s all clear,” she griped, marching to the couch and flopping down next to Johnnie.
“I’ll be waiting in the hallway.” There was a gleam of challenge in Hop’s eyes as he added, “Call when you need me.”
“As if that’ll ever happen,” Penny shouted as the door closed behind him.
Johnnie refrained from laughing, but it was a near miss.
“This is getting ridiculous. I can’t take a piss without one of my brothers or mister stick-up-his-ass waiting outside the bathroom door. It’s been months since you were…” Her expertly made-up blue eyes darted between Johnnie and Abby. “Since we were…um, robbed.”
“You mean since I was kidnapped.”
“Shit, I didn’t mean to—”
“You were kidnapped?” Johnnie’s heart shot to her throat. No wonder Sarah was worried about her safety. “You weren’t staying with your brother?”
Conlan was said to have taken Abby somewhere private to recuperate after the ordeal, while Penny chose to stay in Memphis with her family.
She returned several weeks later with Alpha Walker’s final Mating Mark on her skin and hair bleached the shade of fresh-fallen snow.
Abby never mentioned why Conlan didn’t return to the island with her or why she hadn’t stepped foot off the Fae Touched property since.
“None of this is your fault, Penny.” Abby’s palms pressed on her stomach before she dropped them to her sides and walked to the refrigerator.
She retrieved a bottle of wine from the bottom shelf, set it on the counter, and rummaged in the drawer for what Johnnie assumed was a corkscrew. “Anyone want a drink?”