“And no garlic?” she teased, batting those gorgeous eyes of hers at me.
“And no garlic,” I agreed wholeheartedly. “Although I wouldn’t mind the part that came after…”
Naomi rose on her tiptoes and kissed me hard enough that my fangs responded. After all these months, I was still so viscerally affected by her.
“It’s a date,” she said, pupils blown and her stare heavy-lidded when she broke the kiss.
God, she was perfect.Soperfect. More than I could ever ask for. Again, I was swept up in a torrent of affection, admiration, and attraction, those three words I’d been trying to perfect swan-diving off my tongue.
“I need to sa?—”
It was almost as if the same fate that had united us was trying to give me a hint, because suddenly the double doors of the front entrance slammed open, and a group of people strode in, breezing right past Iko and Carolina.
Naomi and I parted, and my guard was instantly up. I didn’t even need to see who it was tofeelthat this group did not mean well. But once I was facing the dozen intruders, I realized I recognized about half of them.
Celestia, Vinicio, who I assumed was her newest boytoy, Maldras, and two other members of the coven. As for the others, I thought I didn’t recognize any of them, but then some part of my mind reminded me that I was actuallyquitefamiliar with the frog-shouldered shifter at Celestia’s side.
Naomi’s eldest brother.
Oh come on!It was the Friday before Valentine’s Day. Didn’t these people have anything better to do?
“Ain’tnofuckin’ way,” Naomi growled as she strode forward. I was right there with her, containing the rage bubbling up inside me.
Except we weren’t the first ones to get there.
Carolina did, a stormy expression on her sharp features.
“Excuse you,” she said firmly, with a surprising amount of strength in her voice. It reminded me exactly why she and Naomi were two peas in a pod. “I believe our greeter welcomed you to our event. Perhaps you didn’t hear him?”
“Who the hell are you?” Celestia asked, and honestly, I was surprised shecaredenough to crash our event. Certainly, herattention would be better spent working on her painting or sculpting techniques.
“What a strange thing to ask when you never even paused to introduce yourself,” Carolina shot back so quickly that Celestia’s expression shifted to one of shock. Clearly, she still wasn’t used to people verbally volleying with her rather than just mindlessly nodding along to whatever she said. “But for what it’s worth, my name is Carolina Crestworth; I’m one of the heads of this event. I’d be happy to show you around.”
“We don’t need a guided tour around thisfreakshow,” one of the ones I didn’t recognize spat, derision dripping from every single syllable out of his mouth.
I didn’t know how it happened so fast, but suddenly Iko was behind the group, putting his hand on the shoulder of the stranger who smelled like a shifter.
“That was rude,” he said, voice lower than I’d heard it in ages. It was easy to forget that my very large friend was from an extremely mighty species known for being able to crush a man’s skull with one bite. “Apologize.”
“I-I-I—” the man stammered, and I reveled in the satisfaction of it. More people were joining, surrounding the group of intruders like an immune system reacting to an infection.
“The question is who the hell are you?” Xiánlü asked through her assisted-speech device, and maybe I was mistaken, but I felt like the choppy, robotic voice had a bit more steel to it. It made me wonder just how much the siren would be able to express herself if her device could put emotion into her words.
Matter for another day, I supposed.
“Yeah,” Daniella also chimed in. “Why ya coming in here all aggro? Not matching the vibesat all.If you guys just want to have a fun time, that’s all right, but you do need to come correct.”
There were only around twenty-five or so of us “freaks”, and yet it felt like so much more. Perhaps because this was the most community any of us had in a long while, or evenever.And Naomi was absolutely right. I was seeing exactly what having people to rely on and support each other could help accomplish.
Celestia and her little gang clearly hadn’t realized it waswayharder to bully people en masse.
“Please, as if we would ever be desperate enough to care about the ‘vibes’ of such a rancid event.”
“And yet here you are,” Carolina said. “At the rancid event. Is this the attention you wanted? Are you so desperate to be worshipped at all times that you had to come to a mixer for people who are regularly terrorized by people like you? Is the thought of us having a space so terrifying to you that you had to get all dolled up in your pseudo-goth Victorian outfit and traipse here in those platform shoes of yours to… what exactly was the point of this again? Did you think you could just show up and shame us into slinking out of our own party?”
“Enough of this fucking chit-chat,” Naomi’s brother said bitingly. “The rest of you abominations and losers can do whatever you want, but I’m here to get my sister out of this cesspool. Maybe she doesn’t have a wolf, but she’s not like the rest of you. I’m going to take her home.”
I snarled, my body reacting on its own, because suddenly I was within biting distance of the man. Although “man” was a generous term. I didn’t often use the accelerated speed that came with my gift, but the idea of the douchewolfmakingNaomi do anything she didn’t want to was motivation enough.
