17
Mason, Alex, and I had only been resting in my bed for all of a minute when both of their phones began going off simultaneously. Alex had taken my blindfold off, and in the pale early morning sunshine streaming through the crack in the curtains, I saw him wince.
Mason, however, who was on his side, toying with a lock of my long hair, just gave his eyes a slight roll. “It’s probably some problem with the Darkwings again. Probably more of their spies getting caught, which is strange. They seem to be awfully bold for some reason lately. A little cocky, even. Like they think they’re about to own this city or something, and they’re just getting impatient to move right on in. If that’s what they think, though, they’ve got another thing coming. Right, Alex?”
On my other side, Alex took maybe just a second longer to respond than I thought he should have. “Hey, that’s exactly right. They’ve certainly got another thing coming if that’s what they think. You heard what the council said last night. It’s best to just continue on with our defense strategy until we’ve decimated them all one by one.”
Even before Alex had finished speaking, even as the last word he’d said was still on his tongue, Mason had let loose with a short burst of inexplicable laughter. Which was more than a bit strange, particularly since nothing Alex had said had been even remotely funny.
It was clear to me that I needed some serious answers from Alex. I’d needed them for hours, actually. However, like the night before, I knew I couldn’t say anything with Mason around. I’d told Alex that I was going to trust him until he could explain everything to me, and I was going to continue to trust him. Not to mention that I wasn’t in any hurry at all to find out whether or not Mason really would kill me if he found out that I’d tried to come clean to Alex about the phone call I’d overheard. How he could do that to a woman he’d been sharing a bed with, I still couldn’t fathom.
At present, it seemed that my best course of action was to just remain silent and not even acknowledge Mason’s inexplicable laughter. Whatever it was that had made him crack up, I didn’t want to say anything that would possibly make all that mirth turn to anger on a dime, because, with a sudden chill dancing along my spine, I was developing a very strong feeling that it could. So, being that I was still tied up to the bedposts and unable to defend myself, not that I really could against a shifter anyway, I kept my lips sealed.
Beside me, Alex just stared up at the ceiling and said three simple words: “Something funny, Mason?”
Some subtle hint of steel that had crept into Alex’s voice suddenly made me feel extraordinarily self-conscious and nervous to be tied up to a bed, unable to escape the room if a fight suddenly broke out. Not to mention that I was completely naked to boot. I could somehow just see myself being killed within the next minute, whether accidentally or on purpose, while two powerful shifters, who were also completely naked, battled around me or even right on top of me. Being that my wrists were still tied to the bed posts, I wouldn't even be able to shield my face with my hands.
However, Mason immediately lowered the tension in the room, at least mostly. He looked over me to Alex with just a faint chuckle rumbling in his muscular chest. “Sorry. It wasn’t anything you said. You know I just get funny random thoughts sometimes. That’s all it was.”
“You sure about that?”
“Yeah. I’m sorry for laughing while you were talking, Alex. Really.”
“Well…fine, but we do need to get going.”
As if to make his point, Alex got up and began throwing on his clothes. Mason followed suit right away, whipping on his boxers.
Once he was fully dressed, Alex leaned over the bed to give me a quick kiss on the mouth. “I don’t know when we’ll be able to see you again. Unfortunately, I have a feeling that the Darkwings are going to keep us quite busy all day. We’ll be back as soon as we can, though.”
I nodded, knowing that by “we,” he really meant that he would be back to see me as soon as he could.
“Come on, Mason. Let’s go.”
Alex began striding out of my bedroom, followed by Mason. However, me shrieking stopped them both dead in their tracks.
“Hey, guys! What about the naked woman tied up to the bed? I realize that dealing with the Darkwings may be an urgent thing, but could anyone please take three seconds to untie me before you both go?”
Alex was at my side, unfastening one of the silky scarves restraining me, long before I’d finished speaking. “God, I’m really sorry, Kira. I’m really sorry. I guess I just have a lot on my mind.”
I said that I completely understood. “It’s fine. You’re untying me now.”
Mason soon joined in the untying, giving me a sexy half-grin. “I’m sorry, too, and I’m going to make it up to you. Sometime soon, I’m going to bring you a sandwich from the most legendary sandwich shop in the city, Shorty’s. Their specialty is a meatball sub with marinara, provolone, and freshly-grated parmesan, but I’ll see what I can do about getting them to add some banana slices to that, just for you.”
Now freed from my restraints, I sat up in bed, covering myself with the blanket. And, in spite of myself, and in spite of everything Alex had told me, I actually found myself cracking a genuine little smile at Mason. For the life of me, I just couldn’t seem to not crack a smile at his little jokes sometimes.
“You know,” I said to Mason. “That meatball sub actually sounded pretty amazing to me until you mentioned the banana slices.”
Following Alex out the door by walking backward, Mason curved his lips in a sly half-grin that was devastating in its sexiness. “When I see you again, Miss Wakefield, I’m going to bring you a meatball sub from Shorty’s. I’ll tell them to hold the banana slices. Maybe I’ll bundle you up and take you up on the roof of the building for an autumn picnic with a full view of the city.”
I wasn’t sure that I’d ever be able to eat fifty stories above the ground. I honestly wasn’t sure that I’d even be able to breathe. Not that I thought it would ever be a wise idea to be up on the roof of the building with Mason at any time anyway. Just because, all smile-inducing jokes aside, I knew that he might suddenly decide to kill me at the drop of a hat. And if we were up on the roof, he wouldn’t even need to put much effort into it. All it would take would be the slightest little shove for him to send me hurtling to my death. Although, I reasoned, being that he possessed superhuman strength even while in his human form, he could probably kill me just as quickly and as easily indoors with a light punch to the head if he really wanted to. At any rate, neither scenario seemed like a very pleasant way to die, to say the least.
To my extreme disappointment, I didn’t see him and Alex for the rest of the day. However, to be specific, my disappointment was only about not seeing Alex. I needed answers and more information about the whole Mason situation, and the longer I went without getting them, the more my anxiety began to feel like some breathing, living thing that was beginning to grow out of control.
After pacing around the apartment for most of the afternoon with a tightness in my chest that I knew wasn’t from asthma or any other medical condition, I called Dana to see what she was up to, asking if maybe she wanted to go grab a bite to eat at the café or something. However, unfortunately, she said she was tied up babysitting and didn’t know when the child’s mom was going to return. So, I decided to go to the cafe by myself, have dinner, and bring Dana back some spiced hot apple cider that the café had recently added to the menu for fall.
When I left the Towers, the late afternoon sky was a dark slate gray, and a few crispy orange leaves from a tree near the building were swirling in a stiff breeze. By the time I arrived at the cafe, a few raindrops were falling on its wide green awning out front. Inside, the place was packed, with the large plate-glass front windows steamed up with the breath of so many people inside in addition to the hot plates of food coming out of the kitchen. Strangely, several dozen customers, mostly women, sat in booths and at tables with expressions that struck me as a little glum, or maybe tense somehow, or both. I couldn’t fathom why this might be, so I just chalked it up to the chilly, rainy weather.
Since Dana was the only real, close friend I’d made in the city so far, I kind of didn’t know who else to sit with, or where else to sit. Our usual table was taken by two young women eating large plates of pasta without looking like they were really enjoying it very much.
Feeling like the new girl at a high school or something, I shuffled through the main aisle of the café, deciding that I’d take a little empty table near the back, rather than interrupt anyone I’d been introduced to by asking if I could sit with them.
However, before I could reach the little table, a stocky young woman with pale blonde hair waved to me from a booth and said hello. Her name was Brianna, and like Dana, she had an outgoing, indiscriminately friendly sort of personality. Not that I knew her all that well, though. Dana had just introduced us briefly one day.
I made my way over to Brianna’s booth, where she and a friend sat with bowls of chili and glasses of iced tea. Soon, I was sitting with them with a bowl of chili of my own, after Brianna had introduced me to her friend, Liz, and had invited me to join them.
At first, in the glow of a strand of little lights shaped like pumpkins running along the wall next to our booth, the three of us just made small talk, discussing things like their kids, the weather, and what I thought of the city so far.
But then, Brianna took a sip of her iced tea, seeming to be studying me over the rim of the glass, set the glass down, and then did a little throat-clear that struck me as very forced-casual for some reason. “So, Kira….”
I set my spoon down, intent on what she was going to say.
However, instead of finishing the thought, Brianna just turned bright red, obscuring the very light smattering of freckles on her cheeks. “Oh, I’m sorry. I was just going to ask you something, but now I just feel like a big gossip or something, and I really hate gossip. Lord knows it’s caught up with me a time or two.”
Now, I was really interested in what she'd been going to ask me. I could only guess that it might have something to do with Mason and Alex.