Beasts and Burdens (25 page)

Ask?
Ethan looked to the other dragons in case they might have a second and third option.

Many of life’s most difficult problems have simple solutions.

You want me just to ask her to go against her beliefs.

Not you.
The dragons turned together and wobbled back to their exits.

Once again Ethan was floored by his anticlimactic conversation with them. If Annette knew he had spoken to them she would be dancing with joy, hoping that he held the key to the universe. All he knew for sure was dragons were reticent, a little judgmental, and smelled like cattle.
 

66

“Look man, I know you’re probably ass deep in…” Daniel cringed at his own metaphor, and redirected his message to Heaton. “This is like the fifth message I’ve left you in two days and that doesn’t even count the calls I didn’t leave messages for. Once again,
we
are okay, but since I haven’t heard from you I’m starting to worry. Actually, worry started when you didn’t call me back after the first message. Seriously, call me back, text me, write me a goddamn letter, just let me know you’re okay.”

Daniel ended the call, leaned against the barn, and sputtered his exhale through his lips. Nevia came out of a nearby shed with a pitchfork in hand. “No message yet?”

“Not a one.”

She grimaced and rested her fork on the ground as she looked him over. “You want to go find him, don’t you?”

“You know I do,” Daniel said a little acerbic. He knew she knew what he was feeling even before he could verbalize it. “I can’t leave Cori.”

“I think I can protect her for a couple days, Daniel.”

“It’s not that. It’s the pregnancy.”

“What about it?”

“Belus insisted that Cori be protected by me. If he was insistent enough to convince Danato that I was the man for the job, than he must have been worried about her. She’s been under a lot of stress lately. It leaves room for concern.”

“Do you know anything about delivering babies?”

“I’ve been present for dozens of births. It’s a good luck thing. I’ve witnessed more than my share of difficult labors. I know enough to get the baby out without killing either one of them.”

“Okay, than you stay and I’ll go look for him.”

“How would that ease my worry?” he asked wide-eyed.

She smiled shyly. He thought she would have more trouble accepting their newly defined relationship, but it actually had relaxed her. The last six months were frustrating to say the least, but now that there was a label on them, it seemed far less complicated.

“Just a thought.” She shrugged.

“I appreciate it, but I’m not risking either of you. Heaton’s a big boy; if he’s in trouble he’ll figure a way out of it.” Daniel wasn’t sure why he was putting up a fake bravado, since she could smell right through it. “Besides that, you aren’t leaving me alone with my mother.”

Nevia scoffed. “Please, the sun rises and sets on you. Cori might as well be the moon. I’m just a stray meteorite that’s she’s hoping will burn up before I can reach you.”

“I like the metaphor, but technically my mother is the sun, so therefore the rising and setting on me, is just her being overbearing.”

“Yeah well, maybe you and Cori can take an orbit around her together and make her happy.” Nevia yanked her pitchfork up and headed into the barn.

Daniel followed her in and stepped up directly behind her, only touching her incidentally. “Nevia, my mother has been the most important person in my life for a long time. The only reason she is not making this easy on you is because you are the first woman I have ever introduced to her as my girlfriend. She is testing you, you have to sense that.”

“I sense territorial love, beyond that it’s all very mixed.”

“Mixed emotions would be ma’s specialty. Just ignore her. Trust me she isn’t the type of woman you can win a fight with. I gave up trying a long time ago.”

“I’m not good at knuckling under, Daniel,” she said firmly.

“I know.” He smiled and kissed her neck. “I know you’re struggling with this, and I would never ask you to be someone you’re not.”

“But it’s your mother and you want her approval.”

“Aye, as stubborn and infuriating as she is, I love her.” She turned around and looked him over. Whatever she saw there didn’t bring a smile to her face, but she was content with it. “What are you doing with that pitchfork?”

“Your mother
requested
I change out the hay in the horse stalls.”

Daniel narrowed his eyes. “She hasn’t kept horses for years. Too much work just to get saddle sores.”

“That’s why she was so smug about it. Damn it. I’ll figure her out yet.” Nevia dug the pitch fork into bale of hay near the entrance to the stall and broke it up.

“What…you’re not seriously going to do it, are you?”

“You want me to play nice? This is me playing nice.”

“But…” Nevia scowled at him and he shut his mouth. He didn’t quite understand her motive for continuing the useless task, but he figured it was a good way for her to take out her aggressions.

67

Cori set the table for dinner while Daniel stared aimlessly out the kitchen window. Mrs. McGrath scuttled about getting the finishing touches on her surprise meal. Nevia came in through the mud room looking like she had taken a dirt bath.

Cori grinned at her. “What on earth have you been up too?”

“Your stalls are ready for horses, Mrs. McGrath,” Nevia said curtly on her way through the kitchen to the bathroom. “Should you choose to get any?” She added before she was out of earshot.

Maggie looked after her. “Be sure to scrub hard dear, Ireland doesn’t wash off as easily as American soil.” She called after her, though there was no guarantee she heard her.

Cori chose to ignore the dig at her heritage, but only because she wasn’t entirely sure what the insult meant. Daniel checked his phone and shoved it back into his pocket. It was only the third time she had seen him do it in five minutes.

She stepped up to the window and looked out with him. “You seem agitated,” she whispered.

“I’m fine,” he forced a smile for her, “just hungry,” he added louder for his mother’s benefit.

“Mind your manners boy,” Maggie grumbled back, but her lips turned up as she continued to doctor her meal.

“You don’t have to do that, you know?”

“Do what?”

“Pretend. Despite appearances…and past evidence, I’m actually not that fragile.”

“Fragile?” Daniel thought about that. “When I first met you I had three different images of you in my head: the one Ethan put there—based on his rants, the one I put there—based on my view of women as a whole, and the one you gave me.”

“Which one was more accurate?”

“All of them and none of them. I think you were honestly unprepared for the world that was thrown at you. Surviving your…past…” It was Daniels turn to be concerned about his trickle down knowledge, but she didn’t flinch. “…acclimating to your present, and trying to plan your future, all while falling in love with Ethan. It must have been very hard. I think you bravely bite off more than you can handle, and then you foolishly forget that you can ask for help, but…no, I don’t think you’re fragile.” Cori tipped her brow at the evaluation of her character, but he wasn’t necessarily wrong.

“Then tell me what’s wrong,” she said softly.

“I think Heaton’s in trouble, but I can’t do anything about it, because of the situation we’re in.”

“Oh, Daniel, I’m sorry. This is all my fault. If I weren’t here—”

“Then it would be some other danger, some other time,” he said curtly cutting her off. His intent was to take the blame from her, but his tone only made her feel worse.

“You could leave me with your mother and go check on him.”

He looked her over like he was considering it, but shook his head. “I can’t.”

“Dinner’s ready!” Maggie announced for the entire house to hear, though four of those ears were only a few feet away from her.

68

Daniel had no intention of leaving Cori, but since his reasons for not wanting to leave were only conjecture, he didn’t want to worry her. He was more than willing to change the subject to supper. He sat opposite his mother at the table, and Cori sat opposite Nevia who arrived late from her shower.

He gave her a quick once over, admiring the fresh, clean skin she had exposed. She was already in her frumpy pajamas with no intention of getting dirty again. He was always amused that she had so many extremes of clothing. She loved her designer casual wear, but on the job she looked the part of the ex-FBI agent. At night she had no qualms about wearing old t-shirts and sweats. He wondered if she would find it amusing that he found her most attractive in her timeworn loungewear, or perhaps she already knew that.

“What are we eating, ma?” Daniel asked dragging his eyes off Nevia.

“Boiled pigs feet,” Maggie said with pride and lifted the lid of the pot before her.

Daniel groaned. Cori visibly convulsed upon seeing the delicacy. Nevia to her credit handed her plate to his mother so she could load her plate with several feet.

“Ma,” Daniel tiptoed around the topic, “Is that all you made? No tatties? Soda bread?”

“I wasn’t aware I was running a restaurant,” she said with feigned annoyance. She wasn’t hiding her amusement well.

Cori looked to him fearfully. She was starting to turn green. He raised his hand ever so slightly off the table to tell her to wait. He passed his plate to his mother and she loaded him up with more feet than he would ever consider eating.

“Cori, sweetheart?” Maggie asked cheerfully.

“I got it ma.” Daniel used his knife to skin one of his feet and pick off the meat for Cori. She appeared more than relieved, but he was sure that she wouldn’t make it past the first foot without leaving the table.

Nevia however was digging into her pig’s feet like it was fried chicken. By the vacant stare she held at the wall behind Cori, he was almost certain she might need to excuse herself soon.

“Well, at least she has an appetite. God knows where she’ll put it.” Maggie pulled out a pig’s foot for herself. “Probably go puke it up later,” she mumbled.

Daniel glared across the table at his mother. “Mother!”

“Well, that’s what the American women do,” she defended coarsely. “The shallow ones anyway.”

Daniel slammed his fist on the table making everyone jump, but his mother. She had never been afraid of him. Not even after he killed his father. “That’s enough!”

“Oh, is it? I wasn’t aware that we were sharing a meal over your table.”

“It’s not my table, but it is
my
girlfriend you’re trashing.”

“Girlfriend.” Maggie scoffed, “I know your lifestyle, Daniel. Forgive me if I’m being unkind, but at least I’m honest about the future she has with you.” She turned to Nevia. “Don’t let him fool you. Despite my greatest efforts, my son has turned out just like his father.”

“I am nothing like my father!” Daniel jumped to his feet and Nevia was right behind him. He wasn’t sure he needed to be restrained, but he knew if Heaton were here he would be placing a calm hand on his shoulder. Her standing impassively next to him was enough to remind him that he was too dangerous not to keep his temper in check.

Even with the events unfolding as they were, Maggie was still seated, unimpressed by his dramatic movement. “He was a philanderer, and so are you! I’m not going to watch you entice this girl with the pretense of a relationship that isn’t going to happen.”

“It is happening! We are together!” Daniel glanced at Nevia for confirmation of this, and she offered him a reassuring nod. She was stock still, but he knew she was biting back every comment, repartee, and defense that came to her mind.

“For how long? Don’t do this Daniel. Don’t waste her time. Let her go while she can still find someone to give her what she wants.”

Daniel shook his head. This was the argument all along. He was too old, too troubled, and too undeserving to have her. Yet, she was here. She pushed him to be more. She stayed with him even when he pushed her away. She was biting her cheek just to keep from disrespecting his mother, as he had asked. She was eating pig’s feet, for feck’s sake!

“No!” He answered. “I won’t let her go.”

“Oh, Daniel, why—?”

“Because I love her!” Daniel yelled at his mother. He managed to say it with authority and not the childish tone he usually ended up using on her.

When she blinked dumbfounded at him, he knew he had won this battle. When he looked at Nevia she was staring down at her pig’s feet. It was the first time he had ever said that out loud. It might have been too soon. He might have just scared her away.

He didn’t bother sticking around for the uncomfortably awkward silence that was about to take over. He stormed out through the mudroom to find a haystack to pontificate on.          

69

“Hey.” Nevia walked around the bound hay stacks that created a wind shelter for his mother’s land.

“Hey,” he said back. He didn’t know what to say beyond that and she seemed to be struggling with words as well.

“I…um…you…” She attempted to crawl up the tall rounded hay stack, but like most beginners she didn’t understand the approach she needed to take. “Does this thing come with a ladder?”

“If you’ve come to let me down easy, I’d rather you stay down there.”

“What?” She looked hurt. “I wanted to thank you for defending me, for defending us.” She touched his leg, squeezing his shin.

He smiled at her, though it was mostly forced. He had too many emotions running through him to focus on any one. He imagined that was messing with her radar on him. She looked nervous and desperate to get close to him.

All the better to smell him.

“Daniel please, either help me up, or talk to me.”

“Talk about what?”

“About what you just said in there, did you mean it? You were angry; the vibe didn’t really match the words, you know?” She tapped her nose.

“Why do you ask?”

“Daniel,” she looked out at the field he was staring at, “it’s kind of an important set of words. At least to me it is.” She looked down at her feet before turning back to face him. When he didn’t answer her question, she took in a steadying breath and cleared her throat. “The thing is…I love you. I guess I was too chicken to say it first, but if you really feel that way too…then I can tell you, right?”

Daniel didn’t react to the statement, so much as relax. He did love her, more than he realized until he heard himself say it. “I don’t want to be your boyfriend, Nevia.” He cruelly let the sentence hang between them, and she froze wide-eyed. This might have been another rare time when she would cry, but he didn’t want that. “I want to be your husband,” he said it quietly, as if it might be more appealing as a plea than a question.

She gulped and returned to the haystack searching for a way up again. She was letting her silence lay heavily between them on purpose. “Let me up,” she finally demanded in frustration.

“Say the right word and I will.” He was trying to be funny, but his heart was balancing on her answer, so he couldn’t fake the levity.

“Let me up first.” She snared him with her gaze and didn’t look away.

He reached down and helped her climb onto the hay. Instead of taking the spot beside him, she straddled him and pushed him
flat
on his back. She yanked his hair hard, making him yelp as she pulled him into a hard kiss.

When she withdrew, releasing his lips and hair, she added a punch to his shoulder. “Ouch, why the abuse?”

“You know why!”

“Are you going to answer me or just keep beating me?” he asked sourly.

“Ask me properly and I’ll give you an answer?” She said giving away nothing.

Daniel sat up as she shifted back on his lap. He cupped her rear so she didn’t fall back. Daniel licked his suddenly dry lips and cleared his throat, so the words wouldn’t catch. “Nevia…” He felt sick, but he knew she wouldn’t offer him any leeway on this. “Will you marry me?” He could only manage a whisper, but she smiled hearing the words just fine.

She leaned her head back exposing her neck as she chuckled. He winced at the strange reaction, but let her have her moment. When she came back to him she leaned in for a kiss. He pulled back slightly. “Say it.”

“Yes.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes.” She smirked gently removing his glasses. “You have beautiful eyes Daniel.”

He shied away from her gaze. “You’re the only one who would ever say that in the light of day.”

“You are a magnificent creature Daniel McGrath and I want to claim you as my own. Are
you
sure about that?”
“You’re not going to pee on my leg, are you?” He squirmed beneath her.

“No, but I will cripple any woman that touches you.” He smiled at her joke, but he realized that she wasn’t joking. “You have to be sure Daniel. If you choose me, it must be me alone. I try not to let my werewolf heritage control my life, but there are aspects beyond my control, and that is one of them.”

Daniel nodded and tipped her chin up so he could kiss that sweet neck. “Will you keep yourself, only for me?” he asked between kisses.

She shifted on his lap pressing herself into him. “It will be yours alone.”

Daniel had never thought of monogamy as a path for him, but knowing that he was the only man to facilitate her orgasms, made him want to reserve all his sexual energies for her. It didn’t seem like a commitment so much as an honor.

Daniel pushed forward on the hay stack sliding himself off and her with him. Nevia landed on her feet despite the lack of warning. He grabbed her too forcefully and shoved her against the warm hay. “Sorry,” he said breathlessly.

“It’s okay, I kind of like it.” She reached for his pants, but he pulled her hands away.

“You first. It’s the least I can do since I don’t have a ring for you.”

“I don’t need a ring,” she murmured as he slipped her pajama bottoms down.

“Will you wear one?” he asked curiously as he knelt down and invaded her privacy in the best way possible. She gasped trying to find grip against the hay stack.

“I’ll wear whatever you want, just don’t stop.”

He chuckled and delved deeper into his decadent celebratory dessert.  

70

After his atonement for a ring-less proposal, Daniel and Nevia snuck into the barn for a literal roll in the hay. When he had finally sated her romance overloaded appetite, he was spent physically and mentally.

He sucked in air trying to get his heart rate down. Nevia continued to kiss his chest and neck. “Say it again,” she whispered and rested her head on his chest.

“I love you.” She smiled up at him, half dazed. “I don’t get that smile very often. I must have fucked the cynical out of you that time.”

“I’m not cynical, just…wary, and serious.”

He grabbed her and flipped her on her back resting his leg over her thighs so she couldn’t move. “You’re guarded.” He pinched her nipple making her wince a little. “Sorry,” he apologized, before kissing the delicate flesh. “Why do you love me?”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean…I’m an arse.”

“You aren’t an arse…anymore.”

“Okay, but initially, something in your brain said, “Hey I’d like to get me some of that.” What would ever possess you to choose me, one night stand or otherwise?”

“I don’t think you’ll like the answer, it’s another of my werewolf heritage things.”

“Oh, yeah, how’s that?”

“Power, strength; it’s kind of a turn on.”

“No shit, you and every other woman seeking alpha males.”

“No, you don’t understand, the reason I was a virgin when I met you, was because I’ve never found human men attractive.”

“What?” He chuckled.

“I avoided male werewolves because I didn’t see a future with them. It wasn’t until I started researching that I found out the reason there was no future was because the council of the moon had been preventing normal family units for over a century. When I got the job offer to become a hunter, I saw it as an opportunity to make a difference. And I did.”

“That you did.” He smiled though he couldn’t hide his disappointment that she was in danger because of that opportunity. “So, humans—normal humans—don’t do it for you?”

“No.”

“But you didn’t know that I was not normal when we first met.” She shook her head, not hiding the guilty look on her face. “You didn’t know until…oh.” Daniel took a deep breath.

“Told you, you wouldn’t like it.”

“You were turned on by me killing?” he asked disgusted.

“I was turned on by a man with such a great power that he could kill, if necessary,” she scolded him. “I’m not a sexual deviant, Daniel, but you must always take my werewolf heritage into consideration. There are certain aspects of my life I keep secret purely out of habit, but if you are going to be my husband you should know them, so you can, accommodate as needed.”

“Like what?” He flushed.

“I have many tradeoffs. You know I can smell emotions on a psychic level, you also know I can’t see worth a shit in the dark.” Daniel snorted, but stifled his laughter when she glared at him.

“I find that particular trait romantically fortuitous since I can see very well in the dark.” He winked at her and her glare softened into a pout.

“Also, I don’t turn into a werewolf on the full moon, but…I do have some pretty viscous mood swings on the night of one. PMS times fifty. You’ll need to either avoid me, or…be extremely dominant.”

“Dominant?” He struggled not to laugh again. “Are we talking bedroom bondage?”

“Not necessarily, more like emotionally thick skinned and quick on your feet. I’ve lost a few friends because of inconveniently timed visits.” He smiled broadly. “It’s not funny, Daniel.”

“I’m sorry, that is definitely something we will have to work through, thank you for telling me,” he said soothingly as he leaned in to kiss her breasts which had been left terribly bereft of his attentions for almost a full two minutes. “Keep talking, baby. I’m listening.” He sucked her nipple hard, making it pucker back up to full form before tracing his tongue around it.

“That is so distracting, Daniel.”

“Not as distracting as I’m about to be. Keep talking. I love listening to you when you’re in teacher mode.”

“Really?” she asked as he shifted onto her, parting her legs.

“Yeah, didn’t you know I find brains hot?”

“Shut-up, you do not!” She laughed.

“Hell yes, I do. Haven’t you ever heard the expression, ‘fuck your brains out?’ That’s why I love blow jobs so much.”

“You’re so vulgar.”

“I’m just getting started,” he said shifting to start round two.

“Wait!” Nevia’s hand pressed hard against his chest and her head tipped up offering her nose a better angle at the air.

“What’s wrong?”

“We need to get dressed right now.” He didn’t know what she had smelled and he didn’t bother asking. The seriousness in her tone was undeniable. He was off her and almost dressed when the gunshots started.

71

Cori heard the gun shots from the bathroom where she was brushing the taste of pig feet out of her mouth. She dropped her toothbrush and ran out of the bathroom. She could hear glass breaking, plaster chipping, and Mrs. McGrath screaming.

“Get down Maggie!” Cori braced herself low in the hallway avoiding the bulk of the mayhem in the kitchen and formal living room, though she did get dusted by the plaster falling from the walls.

When the bullets stopped, Cori crawled to the kitchen to check on Mrs. McGrath. She was huddled in a ball by the sink. Water was spraying out from the pipes and the window over the sink was shattered, but she wasn’t hit. “Mrs. McGrath move behind the fridge away from the outside wall.” Cori wasn’t sure where she was getting her cool, calm, and collected voice from, since she was having a heart attack herself, but she could only assume that it was stemming from her overdose of motherly hormones.