“Not even close. Some desperate‘oh my god I missed you’reunion sex starts happening. And I guess they were too busy to remember to lock the bedroom door. So now the brothers hear people yelling. One of her brothers runs around the other side of the house and starts throwing rocks at windows on the lower floor and howling, trying to cause a distraction.”
“Jeezus!”
“Two of Mel’s male cousins hear this shit and come running, leaving the sister and other cousin, a girl, behind the wheels of their two vehicles with the engines running. They help boost Mel’s oldest brother into the window and he literally shoves people out of the bedroom and locks the door while Mel and Calvin grab his shit and start tossing it out the window. Mel and Calvin jump out the window and meanwhile, at the back of the house, they hear a gunshot.”
“Oh…fuck!”
“So while the cousins are helping Mel and Calvin grab his shit and run to the vehicles, Mel’s other brother runs around the house to see what happened. Meanwhile, the lights go out.”
“What?”
“The shot came nowhere near the first brother and he’d already made his way to the breaker box and yanked the main.”
“Whew!”
“Yeah. Miracle of miracles, they all make it safely into the vehicles and cue happy ending, right?”
“Except?”
“Except one of Calvin’s older brothers managed to get in a vehicle and follow them, and he cut them off at a nearby stop sign and confronted them. Mel apparently had a knife on her.”
Ken gasped. “Shestabbedhim?”
“No, she flattened all four of his tires. However, one of the cousins was thinking and started filming Calvin’s brother acting like an insane asshole, threatening to kill them, etc. So Mel jumps back in the car and they take off.”
“And then?”
“The cops surround them ten minutes later at a gas station where they were filling up ahead of getting on the freeway. Theycannotcatch a fucking break. Calvinstillhas no clue she’s a wolf shifter. That any of them are wolf shifters. But Mel’s oldest brother takes over and they show the cops the video they just took. Looks pretty cut-and-dry to the clueless human cops that Calvin’s brother was lucky all they did was flatten his tires, because by all rights he was threatening them and trying to prevent them from leaving, and they showed remarkable restraint. Had they cleaned his clock it would have been self-defense.”
“Then?”
She smiled. “You’re getting good at this. Just as they think they’re in the clear and are about to get in their cars, up rolls two cars full of Calvin’s brothers and his father.”
“Fuuuuck.”
“Cue round two. Mel’s oldest brother and Calvin tell the cops the others are crazy, that Calvin is a grown-assed adult who was basically being held hostage by his family, and he wants to go with Mel and everyone. Then Calvin’s father calls Mel a whore and Calvin tells his father, and I quote, ‘Go fuck yourself, you greedy old fucking pervert.’ And I guess after Dad and the brothers stroked out over witnessing Calvin’s impromptu metaphorical spinal replacement, when the father tried to go after Calvin, Mel launched herself at the dude and it took her brothersandthree cops to pull her off him while the cousins, sister, and other cops formed a ring around Calvin to protect him from his brothers, who were trying to drag him back to one of their cars despite him already screaming he wasn’t going with them.”
Ken’s eyes widened. “Holy shit!”
“Needless to say, the chaos that ensued precipitated the calling of several more cops. After they get everyone separated, the cops finally send Mel, Calvin, and the others on their way. But about an hour from home, they realize they’re being followed by a car, so cue a chase and they finally pull into a CHP station for help. Calvin’s father and two brothers pour out of the chase car and once again try to drag Calvin into their car while Mel and her brothers are fighting them and someone else runs in to get the cops. By this time it’s like ten in the morning, no one’s had any fucking sleep, and everyone is absolutely done with everyone else’s bullshit.”
She stretched. “Frankly, I wouldn’t have blamed any of our people for shifting and ripping out throats at this point. Wouldn’t have approved of it, but wouldn’t have blamed them, either. So now the father and Calvin’s brothers are arrested andstillno one’s thought to call me or their local enforcer yet. They finally make it home, where Mel and her siblings live with their parents.”
“That sounds too easy.”
“It was. Calvin’s father and brothers either made bail in record fucking time, or somehow bribed or talked their way out of jail, and apparently got Mel’s address from one of the police reports. So the same two brothers show up at Mel’s house like two hours after Mel and them arrived home. By this time, Mel’s father Karolos has been read into the situation and called their local enforcer, Tyrone Cobbe. But Tyrone’s an Alpha, not a Prime. Tyrone’s already got Carbry Deverelle, the main Prime for that area, inbound on a flight from LA, but he won’t arrive for another hour yet. And, oh yeah, Calvin is now freaking the absolutefuckout having just learned that wolf shifters are not only athing, but also that the woman he wants to spend the rest of his life with his no-longer-virginal dick buried inside of is also one.”
“He was a virgin when she claimed him?”
“Yup.”
“Oy.”
Dewi laughed. “Somehow, the cops do not get called before Carbry arrives and settles shit down. He orders the brothers away. Tyrone had already purchased plane tickets for Mel and Calvin to ship them to Idaho via Spokane so she can take him to the compound and formally present him to Peyton for recognition. Carbry thinks everything’s hunky dory. Leaves. He’sjuststepped off the plane back in LA when he gets a frantic call from Tyrone, who’d hung out to drive Mel and Calvin to the airport.”
Ken had hoped for sex but at this point he was too invested in the story to not hear the end of it. “And?”
“It was Calvin’s father, mother, grandmother,andthe uncle of the girl they wanted Calvin to marry—her father apparently paid Calvin’s father a considerable dowry already and Calvin didn’t know it—and a few other random relations from both human sides of the conflict. They sit down around Tyrone’s car and now they can’t leave for the airport. Cueanothercall to the cops to remove them. Well, again, Tyrone isn’t a Prime. So after the cops arrive and drag them out of the way, Tyrone finally gets Mel and Calvin out of there and to the airport. There,anothergroup of assorted relatives from Calvin’s and the girl’s families roll up trying to stop them. I guess they breed like rabbits or something.
