“No. No-no-no. This isn’t happening. This isn’t possible.” Crawling farther into the house, starting to partially shift as I went as emotions surged, I caught a hint of that alluring scent of what was mine, hopped up, and ran in that direction, which just so happened to be the living room. “MINE!” I roared, spotting the white ceramic pot sitting on the coffee table.
Rushing to it, growing as I launched myself at it, I had my precious in my arms, curling it towards me protectively, snarling so loud the windows rattled, before I realized the culprits for my love blossom’s relocating were all sitting on my sofa and loveseat, gaping at me.
Well, most were gaping, Pen and Viv, both heavily pregnant, seated next to each other, were wearing odd frowns. Viv was almost scowling, her hands rubbing her belly lovingly.
Pen’s lips were pursed but her large grey eyes were wide. “Oh dear,” Ben’s petite but curvy mate muttered softly. Two little curly mops popped up on either side of her, from where they must have been playing behind my sofa, the little tin soldiers I let them play with whenever they came over to Uncle Gren’s clutched in their chubby little hands. “You yelled at Mommy,” Giles whispered, blinking his eye rapidly as he stared at me, like he wasn’t sure if this made him mad or sad. “You’re not apposta yell at Mommy.”
“‘S’not nice, Unca Green Beans. I’m telling Daddy,” his brother grunted out, scowling and looking every inch the miniature of Ben in that moment.
Vivienne and Segrid’s daughter, Violet, sat between her mother and auntie, probably used to her Daddy’s booming voice, chortled like I’d just done or said the funniest thing in the world but didn’t glance up from her coloring book. Her brother, Dresig, made a grunting noise and then shoved his thumb into his mouth.
I lost all hope of keeping this quiet when Katarina’s girls, all sitting neatly at her feet, playing with fashion dolls, swapping their dresses and shoes and fixing their hair, all looked up at me. They did this synchronized blinking thing that Alfie said had to do with them all being from the same litter and their own pack, however that went, glanced from their mother, the small, barely showing bump of her belly, then me, then cupped their hands to begin whispering.
“You stole my love blossom,” I accused, still pissed and viney haired. “You had no right to even touch what’s mine.” My gaze swept the room, eyeing each of the women trying to stare me down, but I was too riled up to care. “And how did any of you get in here?” I demanded to know.
“You keep your spare key under a fake rock.” Viv snorted and then crossed her arms over her chest. Viv was a powerful Kelpie-sorceress-Water Elemental with her Troll mate’s added Earth powers. Add to that, her general hard shell, I wondered if Seg enjoyed sleeping with a woman who acted as if you pissed her off she might chop your gnads off. Or as us plant people liked to joke, our ‘zomes.
“And you thought to what?” Lower, making sure we didn’t have little ears paying attention, I grumbled quietly, “Have a mafia style meeting and ambush me? Am I going to find a dead something’s head in my bed?”
“We know you’re lonely,” Katarina began softly.
“I’m not,” I snapped, but they didn’t know.
Kat glanced from the pot I was clutching like a lifeline, to the death glare on my face.
“I heard about what happened between you and Nymphadina,” Pen began, but I held my hand up and cut her off.
“I don’t care what she said. I don’t want that- I don’t want her any more than she didn’t want me. I-”
“Look, Green Beans,” Viv began, her eyebrows shooting up when I bared my teeth at her. Pausing, she glanced around. “What did I say?”
Penelope smacked her hand to her forehead. “O-nay on the eenBeans-grey.”
“Huh?” Viv gave her sister a funny look.
“No on the green beans, Nannie Vivi,” Jules, Giles’ twin, chirruped, popping back up.
“Ohhh.” Viv glanced to her nephew and offered him a sweet smile. “Thanks, squirt.”
Jules nodded, offering me a dirty look as he slowly slunk back down to play.
“This is stupid,” I started.
“That’s a bad word,” one of Kat’s daughters, I wasn’t sure which one, piped up.
“It is. You shouldn’t say that,” I said on a long sigh. I was getting a migraine. My temples were throbbing.
“Stealing is bad,” one of the quad sisters whispered.
“We didn’t steal anything,” Kat told them primly. “We…”
“Broke in and entered and rifled through my things? Touching what is mine.” The women, my girls, looked stunned to see me so fit to be tied, and to have it directed at them. I was Green, roll with it Green Beans, that abomination of a moniker, and I just blew everything off. They’d never crossed the line with me before. Until now.
Dimly, as I began to lambaste the ladies for involving themselves in all of this, for sticking their noses where I didn’t want nor need them to, and things quickly grew heated, tires screeching reached my ears. There was thudding, which could have been anything, I lived in Mordenne after all, a supernatural mecca. It wasn’t until the front screen door was torn from its hinges and my female came barely in, mostly shifted and pissed, spotting me with my teeth bared and bending down so I was nose to nose with Vivenne, who starting to make the pipes rattle as her power manifested, that I’d say things really took a turn.
The shit, it hath hitteth the fan.
Chapter 14
