Page 11

ELIAS

My phone blew up minutes after the bloodsucker left. Marlowe had gone into the bathroom to clean up her neck, and I held back a sigh as Cam’s name flashed across the screen.

“Yeah?”

“What the fuck did you do? What happened to Marlowe? I knew I couldn’t trust you alone with her. Let me talk to her, NOW,”

he barked.

I winced at the command, but quickly regained my composure. “She’s a little shaken up, but she’s fine. A vamp ambushed us at her old place.”

“I told you we should have all gone with her!”

he yelled. “But no, you were too selfish. You’re always putting yourself above the pack, and now Marlowe’s suffered because of it. I’m coming out there on the next flight, and I’m going out to Chicago with you guys, too. No more private trips. I should have trusted my gut when you tried to sell me on this bullshit last night…”

I held my phone a good distance from my ear, letting him get it out of his system.

Marlowe finally came back out, a small Band-Aid on her skin the glaring proof of my mistake. My failure.

I couldn’t quite defend myself against Cam’s tirade because deep down, I knew he was right. My greedy desire to have our omega to myself, to take this trip with her alone, had put her in danger.

Cam? she mouthed. I nodded, and she took the phone from my hand.

“Baby?… I’m fine, really… It’s not Elias’s fault, I asked him to give me some space while I sorted out my feelings… He got here right away, the vampyr didn’t hurt me… You don’t have to come out here, I won’t leave Elias’s side again. I learned my lesson… Okay, fine, he learned his lesson, you’re right…”

She continued to talk him down, her voice smooth and calming, her tone placating and sweet.

“I promise, I’m fine. If we run into another vampyr, I’ll insist you come out, okay? I love you, too, baby. Give Julian a kiss for me!”

She finally hung up and gave me back my phone. “There, all fixed.”

Nolan’s name flashed next and she took it back immediately while I guided her out the door. “Hi Nolan… everything’s fine now, but there was a vampyr waiting for me…”

Marlowe repeated the story again to Archer on the street outside the cafe, finally satisfying everyone and bringing them back from the edge of buying tickets out here. She was an absolute force to watch with the way she spoke to each of their personalities. She asked Nolan to help her find a moving company, and appealed to Archer’s need for reason and logic. But it didn’t feel manipulative, it was just insightful.

“Okay,”

she said, handing me back my phone and looking at the menu by the door. “Ooh, a cranberry orange latte, that sounds delightful.”

My lips curled in disgust and she laughed, dragging me inside.

The display case was bursting with baked goods, and I rubbed the small of her back and pointed towards them. “Do you want anything to eat?”

She leaned down to get a closer look when a voice called out from a table in the back. “Marlowe?”

A tall, thin Asian woman with large glasses and bleached blonde tips, dressed in baggy pants and a fitted long-sleeved shirt, came running forward.

“Esther!”

Marlowe cried. “Oh my god, how are you?”

Esther slapped her playfully on the stomach. “Why didn’t you tell me you were back in town?”

Her eyes noticed my arm wrapped around her friend’s waist and they wandered up towards my face. “Whoa, you aren’t one of the guys I met.”

I raised my eyebrow and looked down at Marlowe. “She’s met some of the guys?”

Marlowe’s cheeks blushed the cutest shade of pink. “Cam and Nolan were in the room when we were FaceTiming.”

“Uh-huh,”

I said. I flashed Esther my friendliest smile and extended my hand, turning on the charm. “Hi, I’m Elias, Marlowe’s boyfriend.”

I could tell Marlowe was annoyed, bordering on pissed, by me using the boyfriend title. I had effectively claimed the role as her public-facing partner, at least with her friends. She’d just spent the past hour trying to smooth things over with the pack after the vamp attack, so this wasn’t going to go over very well. But her friend had seen my arm around her—what else could I say to explain the intimacy?

Esther gave Marlowe a knowing look and then took my hand. “Nice to meet you, Elias. I’m Marlowe’s friend from grad school. So… these other guys are your friends, too?”

“Yes, I was her father’s attorney and Cam used to work with him, so we kind of took Marlowe under our wing when she came into town.”

A sly smile spread across her face. “Is that right? Well, I’m assuming you’re here to help Marlowe move out, then? Did you run into Mike? How’s the breakup going?”

“Oh, um…”

she averted her eyes, looking at the pastries. “I haven’t seen him yet, I asked him to give me some space. Do you recommend any of these? I haven’t tried any of their seasonal flavors yet.”

“Oh yeah, the chestnut scones are really good…”

Watching her talk with her friend made me so happy for my little omega. I knew she’d been disappointed by her difficulties in finding a place for herself outside our pack in Maiingan Hollow. Although that alpha female detective had been an unexpected surprise, and Marlowe seemed genuinely interested in reaching out.

She finally settled on a gingerbread loaf to go with her sugary latte, and I got myself a black coffee.

“Do you want to sit with me?”

Esther asked. “I would love to get to know this guy better.”

She gestured towards me with her thumb and grinned in an overtly suggestive manner, making Marlowe laugh.

“Sure, I’m sorry I didn’t call to let you know I was in town. We’re only here til Monday, and then we need to go to Chicago…”

The two talked nonstop, and I merely listened, my hand gently resting on Marlowe’s knee. From Esther’s boyfriend and job, to Marlowe dealing with the loss of her father, the topics were wide and varied, the mood never getting too heavy as Esther always found a way to wring a smile back out of her friend.

“Oof, I need to go to the little girl’s room, I’ll be right back,”

Marlowe announced, getting up from the table.

“You need to ask for a key!”

Esther yelled, and Marlowe pivoted towards the cashier.

Her smile suddenly vanished and she turned towards me with all the calculated precision of a wolf. “What is she hiding from me?”

I nearly spit out my coffee. Did Esther have some shifter in her line, too? “Excuse me?” I asked.

She leaned forward slowly, tilting her head as she inspected me. “Something about the two of you feels… off. She’s barely been gone for three weeks, and not only has she broken up with her fiancé, but she’s quit her job, she’s moving to bumblefuck Wisconsin, and is suddenly best friends with a group of guys who are all suspiciously good-looking. It’s weird. Like, cultishly weird.”

I gave her a thoughtful frown and shrugged. “I see your point. If she were my friend, I’d be feeling protective of her as well. She’s gone through a lot in the past few months, and these are big decisions to make while still in the throes of grief.”

She pointed her finger in my face. “And that answer seems far too perfect and considerate.”

I snorted a reply. Apparently, this human woman was more perceptive than I was giving her credit for, so I decided to let some of the “nice new boyfriend”

veneer slip to comfort her with normalcy. “Esther, I’m a lawyer. Perfect and considerate responses are my specialty.”

Esther withdrew and crossed her arms. “Alright, touché. But my earlier comments still stand. You’re hiding something.”

She was sharp. “Well, we certainly aren’t in a cult, if that’s your main concern. I’ve known my friends since high school. Me and the guys you met are more like brothers than anything else. Maiingan Hollow is a small town, and we all knew her father in various capacities. We got to know Marlowe as we grieved our loss, and then talked her through her breakup. And as for our relationship—I was desperately in love with Marlowe from the moment I’d laid eyes on her, and was fully prepared to pine for her from a distance until she recently told me she wanted to be with me, too.”

Esther still wasn’t quite convinced. “Aren’t you worried you’re just a rebound?”

Ouch, straight to the point.

I looked down at my hands, finding a speck of blood I had missed after the fight with the vampyr. “Of course. I worry constantly that she’ll think her feelings are just a result of some trauma-based connection. But my feelings for her are real, I know that.”

Her fingers drummed along her forearm, and she looked out the window at the fading daylight. “I’d always had a bad feeling about Mike, you know. I never said anything to Marlowe about it, but I noticed the way he’d look at her like she was a piece of meat sometimes, or the way he’d evaluate every other woman in the room with him like he was constantly shopping around. He creeped me out whenever I was alone with him.”

I leaned forward. “Do I creep you out, too?”

Her eyes turned back towards me. “Not really. But still… I can tell something is off with Marlowe.”

I took a sip of my coffee. “You obviously know her much better than I do, so I don’t know how to relieve your worry. I have a feeling only Marlowe can do that, but as far as I know, she’s been perfectly forthcoming.”

“Hmm…”

Her gaze darted back up as Marlowe came back. “All I know is, you better take care of her. She may act tough and like she’s got it together, but she’s all duck.”

“Duck?”

“Calm on the surface, but furiously kicking under the water.”

“Talking about me?”

Marlowe grinned, taking her seat.

Esther laughed. “I was just telling Herclias here about that time you got drunk and ran through Green Library naked during finals week…”

“Esther!”

she chided. “I begged you not to say anything about that!”

I grabbed a small piece of her cake loaf and chuckled. “No please, I’d love to hear all about Marlowe’s grad school exploits.”

Marlowe collapsed further into a pool of embarrassment as Esther explained in excruciating detail how much money she’d spent over two years ordering robot-delivered boba.

“Wouldn’t the founders of your fellowship be proud,”

I joked. That founder being her father, of course.

Marlowe kicked me under the table and I winked.

Esther clocked the interaction, more evidence for her case that Marlowe wasn’t telling her everything.

But whatever Marlowe wanted to disclose to Esther was up to her. Shifters didn’t have any hard or fast rules about letting humans know of our existence. Humans didn’t always believe us, of course, and sometimes they did and tried to kill us, but it was ultimately up to the individual to whom and how they shared our secrets.

Eventually Marlowe yawned. “Shit, I’m exhausted and we haven’t even started packing my place. Elias, can you get me another coffee to go?”

I kissed her on the nose as I got up. “Of course.”

Were I a human, Esther’s hushed questions to Marlowe would have been much too quiet for me to hear, but since I was a shifter, every word was clear as day as I waited for our order.

“Are you sure everything’s okay? You’ve been through a lot, and yeah, he’s hot, but isn’t it a little soon?”

Marlowe glanced towards me, perfectly aware I was listening in. She smiled, and turned back to her friend. “I feel like I’ve found where I belong. Elias and the other guys… I can’t explain it, we just clicked. I wish my dad had lived a little closer so I didn’t have to leave, but after everything with Mike, I need a fresh start. And I think I have one with Elias.”

Esther reached over and gave her a hug. “He has a huge dong, doesn’t he?”

Marlowe burst out laughing. “You have no idea.”