Chapter 27

Chapter 27
“What’s going to happen?”

I pushed the mini blinds in Erik’s street-facing apartment window open and looked out over the town. Behind me, Erik poured himself a drink – a regular sized one this time – and offered a glass to me.

Erik shrugged. “To Jenga? He’ll do some time, some community service. I mean, admitting to a conspiracy is a lot better than getting caught with your pants down.” He laughed a little. “Between you and me, I think we could prevent this happening again by cutting back some of those trees and putting some solar panels on his house. Actually I’m gonna push for that at the hearing.”

I nodded. “But all that money he stole, and putting everyone in danger.

How can that happen, and then he gets solar panels out of the deal?”

Erik shrugged. “I guess love made me go all soft,” he said. “As far as the money he actually did steal? He’ll pay it back, plus interest. If he can’t, he’ll have to work it off. He ran a weird snake-oil medical practice for a while... anyway, we’ll find something for him to do.”

“I do feel sorry for him, in a weird way,” I said. “Only friend is a zombie?”

“Witchdoctors do what they do. Sometime we’ll have to go up there and I’ll show you his house. Quite a site. Usually wide open, buncha toads and snakes and stuff running around. And you can’t forget the television. Best picture I’ve ever seen.” He sipped his scotch and watched me. “I get you though, it is sad. But still, he broke the law. Gotta pay the price.”

God those eyes could make me stupid on the smartest day of my life. I stared back, into the glittering yellow of his irises, and tried to think.

“I’m just... if he did something like that out in the normal world – er, I mean, discounting the zombie – he’d be in jail for the rest of his life.”

“Uh-huh,” he said. “We don’t do things the normal way here. I mean, don’t get me wrong, I’m sure if there were a serial killing were-rhino on the loose we’d have to do some really tricky maneuvering to keep the FBI from barging into town, but for the most part, we’re just out  here, being us.

Doing our own thing.”

He took another drink and looked out the window.

In the early afternoon sun, Erik was bathed in orange. He smiled and sucked his bottom lip under the top one, which accentuated his already sharp cheekbones. “I wasn’t just making things up,” he said.

“About what?”

“We’ve got something we still have to do, you and I.”

Erik turned and brushed his dark hair back, out of his eyes. That familiar tingle crept down my stomach, making the muscles between my legs clench despite my best efforts to keep myself clear-headed. It wasn’t working as well as I hoped.

I decided to take that drink after all.

“You think they’re fine with it? The council, I mean. From the way you talked earlier, they’d string us both up if we were officially a thing.”

Erik finished his drink and watched me finish mine. “I’m sure there will be talk, and probably some fretting. But they’ll get over it. After all, you’re the one who linked up the whole thing with Jenga and the theft. If that’s not good enough for them, I don’t know what is.”

He took the empty tumbler out of my hand and set both glasses down on the desk with a soft clunking sound. “But we still have other business to attend.”

“Yeah?” I asked, bending my head back and tasting the smoky liquor that lingered on Erik’s lips. “What kind of business?” I asked as soon as our lips parted with a gentle suck.

Outside, a couple of cars went past and someone shouted at someone else.

It occurred to me that no one in the town, except the four people – five counting me – at that meeting, knew what had happened.

Then I realized it didn’t matter. This was the way of things, the way it worked. I had to admit that it didn’t make much sense at all to me, but then again, it seemed to work.

Mostly.

“You, my dear,” Erik kissed me again, slowly, deeply, swirling his tongue against mine and breathing my breath. “You have only been half claimed.”

“I... wait, what did you say? How can someone be half-claimed?”

Erik stared into my eyes for just a moment, refusing to look away. To test him, I glanced out the window that had him framed in light, but he just stood there smiling and staring, until I felt his eyes burning in my soul.

“It’s... something we do to show that we fully, completely, totally trust our mates. It takes both sides being as careful and gentle as possible, and then when it all goes right, magic happens.”

I closed my eyes and felt a wave of heat rush up my throat when he touched my neck with his lips, and another one as his fingers fell along the curve of my sides. “Everything about you, Izzy,” he said softly, “just perfect.”

My mouth fell open and I drew a gasp that he interrupted with another harder, deeper kiss. Erik’s scent permeated every pore of my body, his hot, heavy taste rolled over my tongue like sweet wine.

His fingers trickled all the way to my waist where Erik curled them, holding me tight in his huge hands. “I’m... I’m safe with you,” I said when he pulled away, sucking the end of a kiss off my bottom lip. “You make me feel like nothing’s going to go wrong, not ever.”

“You are,” he said, brushing his lips against my prickling throat. “And it won’t. Not as long as I can help it.”

Against the bare skin on the top of my arms, Erik’s smooth, supple leather jacket slid as he moved his arms up and wrapped them around me, pulling me in close. With my head in the crook of his neck, every note, every hint of oak and leather and spice in the vague afterglow of the cologne he put on hours before filled my nose.

“As long as you’re sure this is exactly what you want, you’re about to make me the happiest wolf man on the planet.”

“Why wouldn’t I?” I asked, open mouthed. I extended my head to try and kiss him again, but Erik pulled back and avoided my lips, instead pecking me on the cheek. “Unless there’s something else about me you don’t trust.”

“Isabel, I—”

“No,” I said softly. “I just need to know that you actually believe in me. That you’re not just telling me you do because you love me, or you’re addicted to me or whatever. I don’t want to be – no, I won’t be strung along again.”