Page 24

Othoni

“You have to cut that out,”

Mori said as we walked back into the B&B. I was surprised that he waited that long before trying to scold Teddy. My jaguar grumbled inside his inner sanctum, and I took a deep breath to hold him back. His leg muscles were already coiled to pounce, and I didn’t want to knock Mori down in the lobby. That would probably scare the bird man who worked behind the counter. He didn’t want Teddy. At least, he hadn’t shown signs of wanting my mate.

“Cut what out?”

Teddy asked, playing innocent and wrapping an arm around my waist to pull me closer to him.

“Let him tell it his way. You have to give dying people grace, Teddy! He’s someone’s carrier after all!”

“Where are his kids then?” I asked.

“In the Other World,”

Teddy answered, and Mori and I blinked in bemusement.

“How do you know that, mate?”

I asked, hoping to soften the tension before my jaguar grew too irritable with the whole thing.

“Astral told Marsin and me. They knew each other before all this, you know. They had two wolf sons. They’re living in the safety of the Other World. They probably can’t come over to visit him. Which sucks for them but there is probably some mechanism in life and death that will let them see him over there. At least they’ll probably get to do that much,”

Teddy sighed and turned on his heels toward the door.

“What?”

Mori asked.

“Are you okay, alpha?”

I asked, following him.

“I’m going to get something to eat,”

Teddy said. “Mori’s going to want to lecture me and talk this in circles all night and I can’t do that without food.”

“We can order in a pizza,”

I offered.

“And we can wait until tomorrow to talk about it all. I just wanted you to cut him some slack. He’s a jackass. We all know that. Life made him a jackass. This is his last hurrah. It’s not like he can go out fighting a monster or something and guys like him would always prefer to go out that way.”

“What does he remind you of your carrier?”

Teddy asked, his voice losing some of its angry edge.

“My sire, actually,”

Mori grinned. “Rough start to life and all that. Forced into being someone they probably wouldn’t have been otherwise and all of that.”

“Are you two going to be okay with each other?” I asked.

“We are,”

Teddy nodded. “Death and dying makes assholes out of everyone around the dying person. Everyone has their own ways of dealing with it. Hell, Sequin and Daliah still haven’t totally gotten back to where they used to be. I don’t think any of us can.”

“Death makes us all something more,”

Mori whispered. “It leaves this giant hole and then we have to fill it up and whatever we fill it up with grows in that dark space. We just have to ensure we fill it up with something worthwhile.”

“Well, I have a hole to be filled,”

I announced, knowing it would catch Mori off guard enough to leave Teddy alone about Dern for the rest of the night. “So, I think we should call it a night. Are you okay to sleep by yourself? If you wake up with another nightmare and we don’t hear you, wake us up, okay?”

“Okay,”

Mori blinked and nodded.

“Will you be alright?”

Teddy double-checked.

“I will be. You two have fun.”

“We’ll send pizza,”

I laughed and grabbed Teddy’s hand.

I dragged him down the hall back to his room. We moved all my stuff into it earlier in the day since he was already so settled in. Not only did it let us be as close as possible, but it freed up another room for a guest if anyone else needed a place to stay. Waste not want not.

“You smelled like you were going to knock him over again,”

Teddy said once we were locked up inside the room. He scrolled on his phone ordering pizza as he spoke.

“I was. He can’t talk to you like that. I know he’s heir to the bears or whatever or maybe that’s Preston. I don’t know how that works. Maybe they’re not heirs at all. It’s complicated because they have a runaway leader too that’s there sometimes. Anyway. He’s important too. I just…”

I sighed, realizing how much I was rambling. “Sorry. I got off track.. I …”

“Hey, did I say to shut up?”

Teddy glanced up from his phone. “But before you go back to that, what do you want on your pizza? It feels like I should know that already but that’s an illusion until we exchange the claiming vows.”

“Anything. Everything. Except anchovies. Don’t put fish on pizza. Fish is great but not with cheese. That’s some tastebud torment and an abomination to the spirit of the fish,”

I said, scrunching up my nose remembering when I first tried anchovies on pizza.

“I’ll remember that,”

Teddy said and scrolled around his screen for a few more seconds before placing the order and glancing up at me. “Seriously. I like listening to you talk about what’s going on inside your head. Though, if you’re trying to figure out who should be more important to you, in this case pick Mori. Only because no mate is worth knocking your friend around for no solid reason.”

“Only it’s solid to my jaguar,”

I said, perching on the end of the bed. “He was telling you what to do and he’s not the boss of you.”

“Is that your job?”

he arched a brow.

“It’s no one’s job,”

I crossed my arms. “At least not where Dern is concerned. It’s not like you bit off his tail and shoved it up his nose. You’re not obligated to be nice to assholes even if they’re traumatized assholes.”

“I didn’t think I was that big of an asshole,”

he shrugged. “It’s starting to feel like this is all one big game to Dern. If he wants attention he could just say so.”

“I think he hates attention,”

I shook my head. “That’s why he’s so grouchy about all of this. He’s telling us because he wants us to know that despite what our parents’ generation says that monsters are still out there. We’ll have to be careful when we start the business but we should help people too. That and I think he wants us to wrap things up. You and me. He wants to take credit for another set of mates meeting. That seems important to him. Do you think he could’ve been friends with your mom without you knowing? I mean, she had a whole life before you were born, I guess. Maybe you could ask your sire.”

Teddy glanced at his phone screen and frowned.

“Either you’re actually starving to death or you’re avoiding something,”

I chuckled.

“Both. My dragon eats when he’s not thrilled about things. Usually, in the wild, he’d probably hunt but right now pizza is good enough. I’ve only talked to my sire a few times since leaving Starscale 1. We’re not fighting exactly but at the same time I can’t be a good family member right now. Maybe never. I miss them all, especially, my little brother, Minter, but I can’t play the ‘ignore it’ game with Nelum and I’m being childish about it and wanting childish things that are unfair.”

“You want him to be your mom,” I said.

“Again. I want him to be her again. Not like in some weird I want to change someone’s gender way or even that I wanted her to be reborn as a woman again. I just wanted him to remember it and he doesn’t. Not like I do. I should be happy that reincarnation worked properly and she’s happy but…”

“That is such bullshit, Theodore Moonscale, and we both know it. You’re under no obligation to be happy about something that hurts you. I’m not saying to rub that in his face or anything but you don’t have to be happy about it. Emotions are logical. If they were we’d call them logicons or something. I can’t imagine how it feels. I couldn’t imagine one of my parents being gone for good and then suddenly being back but as a stranger. It would kill me, Teddy.”

“You’d find ways to live. It’s what we do. It’s why I came here in the first place,”

he said, meeting my gaze. “Seriously, you’d find a way. Not to be the toxic positivity guy but it makes me think about what I do every day because one day I’m going to be gone – everything I was just fucking gone – and I want to make these days count. So, believe me, when I gouge Dern back, I’m doing it on purpose.”

I couldn’t help it. I laughed.

“Well, at least you’re not poking him with bullets.”

“My poor tattoo,”

Teddy frowned.

“Want me to kiss it and make it better?”

I teased, excited at the thought of getting my tongue back on his flesh.

He crossed the room, joined me on the bed, and captured my mouth in a long, slow kiss. He was still delicious. His big, warm hands ran up and down my sides as we kissed. Somehow, I ended up on my back with my shirt off and tossed across the room. Teddy licked over my nipples and then up to my collarbone. I gasped as his mouth shifted up to my shoulder and his lips found my swollen claiming gland. He licked over the taut skin, teasing me with how easily he could break it open and start our claiming vows.

“Pizza’s here!”

Mori announced. “You two weren’t answering the phone. So, they called the front desk. When you still didn’t answer the desk called me.”

“One second!”

Teddy called back and I put my fist in my mouth to drown out my laughter.

“It’s okay. I took some. The rest of the boxes will be out here unless someone else helps themselves to it!”

Mori called back through the door. “Tomorrow you two are on your own. Marsin and Astral invited me to go on a tour of the moonshine place. I promised my carrier I’d sneak him some back if I could.”

“Sneak?”

I called out.

“Yeah. He doesn’t think my sire would like him drinking it but tough teats and all that,”

Mori said, disappearing down the corridor again, his voice growing fainter with each step he took.

“Tough teats,”

Teddy echoed him.

“They are, aren’t they?”

I smirked, glancing at my nipples.

He bit me, “Ouch!”, before sliding off the bed to gather up our food. I started to get up but he shook his head. So, I stayed in bed, hoping Mori had tipped the delivery person, as he gathered the boxes and carried them back over. Then he fed me a slice bite by bite. The first bite was cute. The second felt a little ridiculous. By the end, it was sort of nice to lay back propped up on fancy pillows and have my true-mate feed me pizza. If this wasn’t the good life, I didn’t want it.

We took turns feeding each other pizza while we talked about everything under any star we’d ever seen. He told me stories about Lotus and London where he grew up and promised he could teach me all the old Grim Howlers’ dances because his mum taught them all to him and his siblings. He talked about his siblings and his best friend, Sunny. He was even friends with Sunny’s Dad, Clarence. I told him about the pard and all the faces that were a regular part of my day. I told him about how annoying brewing the potion was and how the best part of being away from the village was not having to sit and watch the cauldron all day.

“I feel really lucky. Not because I’m ungrateful, though,”

I added quickly. “In the past, it wasn’t safe enough for anyone to leave like I did. It wasn’t safe for an heir especially. Th whole pard might’ve been wiped out if something happened to me. I mean, I do carry the potential for all the magic the pard has. Well, sort of. I carry the potential to carry it. I won’t carry it until my carrier moves on but still. So, I do feel really blessed not to have to sit there and watch the cauldron boil and simmer. Literally, it wasn’t possible for anyone else in my pard back in other generations.”

I fell asleep all wrapped up in Teddy’s arms. Sure, in traditional courtship we might not have shared a bed, but I wasn’t sure if I’d have been able to fall asleep without him. I never wanted to sleep anyone other than right beside him all wrapped up in his arms ever again.