“Another mate, uh?” Donatello teases, his humor much better now that he’s healed and out of the sun. His skin is flawless like nothing ever happened to it. “How many do you think you can take?”
I chuckle. “Few. Relationships aren’t easy.” Not that I know much of it. I never had a long relationship, but I’m sure they require work, and working with several people simultaneously doesn’t sound fun. “Have you ever heard of something like this?”
Donatello studies my face with a soft smile on his lips. “Yeah. It’s uncommon, but I’ve heard the stories. I like to think you would be too much for one guy to handle. He wouldn’t be able to and would let you down.” A smirk crosses his face. “You need more than one to keep things interesting.”
I roll my eyes. He’s right about one thing, though. Throughout life, men always let me down, but I don’t think it’s because I was fucking them one by one. They might have been just bad at it. For some years, I thought something was wrong with my body. Once I told one of these guys how bad the fuck was. He just shrugged and said I was frigid. For a while, I thought he was right.
When I discovered the beauty of sex toys, things changed. I’m not frigid. Those fuckers were just bad at it.
“Here.” Apollo stomps back into the living room, his eyes back to their dark shade. He offers me an ice bag and a towel. Nice of him to think of the towel. “You hungry? I can put something together.”
I shake my head. “No, I’m good.” If this morning’s adventure did something to me, it was to disappear with my hunger. “What’s our new plan?”
That gets them thinking. Both Donatello and Apollo cross their arms over their chests. On the other hand, Ren leans into the couch and pulls me against him until my back is pressed to his chest. His warmth seeps into my skin, making me hum in delight. I stretch on the couch, putting my feet up and plopping the ice bag on my ankle. Now that I’ve stopped trekking, I’m sure it’ll be good before noon.
“Do you think we could stay here for a few days?” Donatello shoots in Apollo’s direction. He also leans forward and grips my left boot, untying the laces.
Apollo hastens to undo the other foot. This competition the two have going on isn’t so bad now they have stopped arguing about everything. “Sure,” Apollo replies, freeing my toes. I wiggle them with relief. The problem is less the boots and more the trekking. I’m not an outdoorsy person. “We gotta lie low now. We have the human cops and my guys after us. There are the vampires too.”
“And I gotta learn how to use these powers,” I chime in, watching Apollo wrap the towel around my ankle so the ice won’t burn the skin. “I need to go after my mother. She may have some answers. She might even help me control this thing.”
Donatello nods in agreement, but Apollo looks less keen. It’s Ren who tugs me closer, his breath skittering down my cheek. “Are you looking for your mother?” he asks, fingers stroking my arm absentmindedly, making shivers race across my skin.
I nod. “Yeah. All I have is this one memory of her abandoning me in an orphanage.” I release a sigh. “But we’ve been to a seer, and she showed me how it was my mother who put a seal on my magic. I want to know why. She might have more answers.”
Ren nods next to my face. It’s so strange how I’ve known him for less than an hour but feel comfortable in his arms the same way. It makes me believe in the mate thing. “Then seeing her should be a priority.”
I exchange a glance with the others and the two nod in agreement. “Great,” I say with a smile. “Then we’ll drive there tomorrow. We should rest up today.”
“I’ll put the food in the fridge,” Donatello says, getting up and fetching the two gigantic bags like they mean nothing. “Anyone feeling a coffee?”
“Always,” I tell him with a smile. He smiles back and moves away from my sight.
Apollo approaches, reaching out to put a strand of my black hair behind an ear. “Anything you want?”
Besides your naked body? Only Donatello’s and Ren’s naked bodies. “No, I’m good.”
He arches an eyebrow. “Honest?”
I chew on my lower lip. “You know,” I slide a glance to the fireplace, “I wouldn’t say no to a fire in the evening. And wine. Or whiskey. I’m up for both.”
He chuckles. “I’ll ask my clan brothers about the booze.” I make to stop him, but Apollo’s quick to exit the house.
This leaves me with Ren. I half-turn to stare him in the eyes, and his hand finds the top of my head. “Tell me about being a wolf, Ren.”
He does, scratching my scalp until I’m all gooey and ready to nap. Ren tells me about how they can turn anytime, but their wolves adore shifting in the full moon. He tries to explain how it is to have an animal inside you every second of your life, but it’s hard to understand. From what I get, it’s like having an extra consciousness, always asking you to drop everything, shift, and run into the woods.
“Is it painful?” I ask him. “Shifting?”
He shakes his head. “Not at all. It’s magic. Does your magic hurt?”
“No. It’s like cold, trickling down my veins.”
He chuckles. “Mine’s hot. Like being out in the snow, then dipping into a hot shower.”
Apollo does come back with a bottle of wine. I cheer him on, and he leaves the house to cut wood. I hear the chop-chop sound as Ren tells me about hunting and how eating raw animals set him off the first hundred times. I laugh him off, but I’m distracted now. From this position, I can only catch glimpses of half-naked Apollo letting an ax drop on pieces of wood.
My ankle is healed by now, and if it weren’t for the dirt on my arms, I would even forget about busting through a windshield and rolling down a ravine. Nothing hurts, and nothing bleeds, and I still have to tell them I healed myself. It’s something I didn’t expect I could do.