Page 44 of Peacock Me Like a Hurricane (Rise of the Resistance #2)

RAFE

M y primary stopped here after letting the coyote and the writer know about her plans to let the secret agent knock her up.

Don’t think I’m being nasty.

I’m behind anything that makes my woman happy, even if I think it’s going to cause a hurricane of resentment to swirl around her while she’s chowing down on ice cream and pickles. However, she felt optimistic enough about whatever tripe those two fed her to pop in and join us for a planning session for this wretched party that everyone in my house seems dead set on throwing despite my loud and frequent protests. I’m concerned with her sanity now that we’re having a full-fledged discussion, to be honest.

“We’re going to have a massive community-wide party for my birthday, including all the warring factions out for blood, and your idea is to make magickal rooms that do what, again?”

She snorts. “You’re the idiots who wanted a fetish ball. I’m making the fetish part happen.”

Hex arches a brow. “In the most sodding dangerous way you can, Nancy. Are you sure that you want to put that kind of magick into play? I figured you’d do silly minor spells like funny mustaches or something.”

I shrug. “Hell, it can’t be any worse than what went on at the costume-switch Halloween party or the Christmas party from hell, right?”

They all look at her as if she’s lost control of the crazy train and is standing in the middle of the tracks.

I don’t blame them; this is likely going to be a bloodbath.

Victor prowls across the room, his eyes only on her. “Love, I’ll do anything you ask—always—and you know it. This seems like asking for trouble that you don’t want.”

I rub my temples, trying to get a handle on so many things at once. Her insistence on this laughably bad idea and the boys trying to talk her out of it; a party with everyone I don’t want to see not only attending, but looking for me because I’m the host. Right now, I don’t have any interest in stroking people’s egos or glad-handing a bunch of sharks who came to swim in our pool.

What the fuck are we thinking?

The cat hasn’t even admitted to the world at large that she’s mated with the great fashion hound, and she just dropped the fertility bomb on our vengeful mates. She can’t be this crazy. She must have a plan.

What is it?

“Look. The entire thing sounds like a bad bloody plan to me, but then I’ve not been in the mood for stupid for weeks. However , given my status as primary to the community leader and given that she has to let some cats—no pun intended—out of the bag at some point? In public is better for crowd control and more efficient to boot. If having this idiotic party will help us move on with everything, I’ll get behind it, even the stupid magick room plan.”

She beams at me and I wonder what in the hell she has up her sleeves. The cat smiles more now than she did for months thanks to the assassin, but lately, she glows from the outside in.

Who am I to deny her that?

“Awesome! I’m thinking about so many cool things.”

She has a plan and I wish she’d clue us all in so we can get on board. Even the bitch looks suspicious.

I shake my head as she prattles on, looking animated and excited. Hell, I’m a little jealous. I was skeptical when they started hanging out after she contacted him and more so when they started getting serious, but I can’t argue with the results. She’s happy, and that makes my heart warm.

The cat and me? We’re a match like two opposite poles—fire and ice, soft and hard—and we go together without a hint of drama. I’m not threatened by her choices; I’m thrilled for her. I wish our families hadn’t taken the odd twist that left me as the charity case when she’s gone. I could have had Victor, but I royally buggered that one when Wilde and I started seeing one another.

That’s another regret to go with the whole fall and winter fiascos that sent us reeling into the miasma of the here and now.

At least there will be alcohol and lots of it—I’m going to need it.