CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
Elysian
Elysian nearly ran into the door. She was so used to it opening by itself that it didn’t occur to her that she would need to use the handle in the future until her nose was bumping against the wood grain.
She was going to have to get used to a lot of things, she supposed. And learn to use a hair dryer.
Walt chuckled and put his hands on her hips. He shuffled her gently to the side. “Let me open it. Just in case.”
A thrill went through her at the way he so naturally moved to protect her. The idea of being mated for life was something she still needed to get her head around, but she had to admit that so far it was wonderful. A well of comfort and safety when everything else in her life had been upended.
Walt swung the door open to reveal a man on the doorstep, wearing not the blue uniform of Salem police but a white t-shirt and blue jeans. Over his shoulder she could properly see the devastation of the lawn, and she winced at how bad it looked in the light of day.
She gasped when she spotted a woman with blonde curls standing beside the truck, peering through the broken driver’s side window, but when she looked up Elysian realized it was a stranger, not Willa come back to torment them again.
A police cruiser was parked on the street, ‘Jardin County Sheriff’ emblazoned across the side.
“James,” Walt said. Nerves sparked through the connection between them, but it was the fear of a prankster called into the principal’s office, not the terror of a wolf staring down the barrel of a gun.
James sucked in an angry breath and shook a finger at him. “Destruction of property,” he said, his voice clipped. “Grand theft auto. Crossing state lines in a stolen vehicle. More destruction of property. And that’s not even getting into the wolf laws you’ve broken—oh. Hello.” He looked at Elysian for the first time, the anger on his face fading to confusion.
“Hello,” Elysian said, looking to Walt.
“Elysian,” Walt said, squeezing her hand. “This is James Parke. The alpha of my pack. James, this is Elysian. She’s my mate.”
“Absolutely not,” James said. “Walt, you’ve barely been gone for a weekend. I’m not approving you getting mated to someone you’ve known for three days.”
For some reason this cracked up the woman on the lawn. James looked over his shoulder at her, his face smoothing out into a look of such utter affection that Elysian felt like an intruder into their intimacy.
“I’m not asking for permission,” Walt said. “It’s done.”
“That’s not possible,” James said.
“James, I did six impossible things before breakfast. It’s done. How did you find me?”
James blinked, obviously thrown by Walt’s demeanor. He may have retrieved the memories she had stolen from him, but Elysian doubted the man at her side was the same Walt that had left James and his pack behind on Friday. “There’s a tracker on my truck.” He jerked his thumb over his shoulder. “I gave you a day to stew in your embarrassment, but when you still didn’t come back…” He sighed. “I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised you’ve destroyed it.”
“You couldn’t have showed up last night, when the hunters descended on us?” Walt asked.
That got James’ attention. “Hunters?”
“It’s a long story,” Elysian said. “Cup of tea?”
The woman turned out to be James’ mate Aspen, a wolf shifter not many years older than Elysian herself. She commandeered Elysian’s kitchen with the air of someone used to being in charge of things, and set about making the most amazing eggs Elysian had ever tasted, while Walt and James conferred in low voices on the back porch.
“So witches, huh,” Aspen said, as they stood side by side at the sink washing the dishes. “That’s new.”
“Wolf shifters are new to me,” Elysian countered.
“Makes you wonder, doesn’t it?” Aspen mused. “How many pockets of paranormals there are out there, hiding from each other as much as they’re hiding from humans. Maybe there are no humans.”
“If there were no humans there would be no hunters,” Elysian said.
“Good point,” Aspen said. “You’re smart. I’m glad, Walt needs someone sensible.”
Elysian stifled a laugh. She couldn’t believe someone could hear her story and still call her sensible.
The back door opened and closed, and Walt shuffled into the kitchen. His face was pale, but he wasn’t in handcuffs, so she supposed the talk had gone as well as could be expected.
Aspen put the plate she’d been wiping into the drying rack, swiped her hands with a clean dishcloth and slipped out of the room to join James on the porch.
“What’s the verdict?” Elysian asked, turning to lean her back against the sink.
Walt chuckled. “Guilty by reason of insanity. He’s willing to overlook me taking the truck out of state—and the damage—given that I was… uh…”
“Bewitched,” she said. It was a relief—to the both of them, Walt’s own sense of relief mingling with hers thanks to the mate bond—but also unnerving. How rich was James, to just shrug off the loss of a brand new truck if he heard a good enough excuse?
“Right. But I’m in trouble for what I did before you cast the spell.” Walt scrubbed a hand over the back of his neck. “As I was going to say before I got interrupted, there’s something I need to tell you.”
A thousand possibilities raced through Elysian’s mind. Now that he had his memories back it could be anything. Did he have children? A wife? Was he about to be deployed? Had he taken a vow of chastity that they’d broken, twice?
“I’ve spent this weekend giving you advice, acting like I’ve got some sort of wisdom to offer you. But actually I’m a complete fuck-up.”
Elysian stifled a laugh. Compared to the scenarios she’d been imagining, it was an anticlimax. But she doubted that would help. “In what way?”
“My brother and I—I’ve got a brother, by the way. Raph, he’s a year older and no wiser.” He smiled a little, the affection obvious even as his tone was mocking. “My brother and I have always been those kids. The ones who fail classes because they’re too busy cracking jokes. The ones who don’t hand their textbooks back at the end of the year because half of them mysteriously caught on fire. We blew up the odd tree stump, hid firecrackers under chairs, nothing terribly original.”
“Sounds mostly harmless,” Elysian said. A hum of melancholy came through the bond, and she reached out to soothe it away. She hooked her thumbs through the belt loops of his jeans and pulled him closer.
Walt chuckled. “That’s what my dad always said. Kids will be kids. There’ll be plenty of time to be a grownup when you’re grown up.” He wrapped his arms around Elysian’s shoulders, tucking her head against his chest. “But then he was always so busy with the ranch after Mom…”
Elysian let him be silent for as long as he needed to, but pressed herself into his chest, hoping he could feel the love coming from her as strongly as she could feel his sudden spike of grief.
“But I grew up, and it turns out that stuff follows you. I wanted to be an EMT. I did my first certification, but James has a rule that we can’t get our first jobs at home. The hospital in Jardin is run by a pack we’re allied to. Nepotism weakens a pack, so I needed to go somewhere that wouldn’t hand me a job if I didn’t deserve it.”
“Sensible rule,” Elysian said.
“So I started to apply to other hospitals in the territories of other packs. But I’ve learned that when a pair of teenage boys gets bored at a multipack conference and pours detergent into the fountain, that’s a couple of laughs for the boys and a four-figure clean up bill for the hosting pack.”
Multipack conference, Elysian thought. Wolf shifters hold conventions. She tried not to laugh, but the delightful absurdity of the idea tickled her.
“And then that pack remembers your name.” Walt sighed. “So I widened my search. And then widened it again. And finally James helped connect me with a pack in Seattle with open minds and an entry level opening. So the whole pack went on a road trip. I aced the interview, and we went back to the hotel to celebrate. Aspen and James bowed out after dinner because they’re old mateds, but Raph and I kept celebrating. We took some beers up to the hotel roof and then I ruined everything.”
Elysian braced herself for a terrible revelation, because the pure misery Walt was feeling had her heart thumping in her throat.
“Raph dared me to jump off the roof into the pool. He goaded me into—” Walt shook his head. “No. Scratch that. He barely nudged me and I went for it because I’m a complete and total idiot.”
“You jumped into the pool?” Elysian repeated. “And then after that you did the awful thing you’re ashamed of?”
A breathless, strained laugh escaped Walt. “I’m serious. I didn’t make it into the pool. I put a Walt-shaped dent into the tiles.”
Elysian gasped, and he squeezed her hip to comfort her. “It didn’t tickle, but I healed immediately. I couldn’t just wipe away the rest of the damage though. James heard the cracking and came back out of his room. So did several other guests. A good half a dozen humans saw me fall seven stories, hit the deck and walk away. Showing off a wolf power in front of the normals is one of the worst things we can do. So I panicked. Raph shouted at me to run, cracking up like an asshole, and I ran. James was distracted trying to smooth things over with the bystanders, so by the time he came after me I’d gotten the truck from the valet and taken off. And that’s when you come in.”
“What about Willa?”
“Just a bit of evil luck. I was a mess, letting my emotions get the best of me, and she saw me. If you hadn’t chosen the exact right moment to call me, I’d have walked into a trap.” He leaned forward, resting his forehead against hers, and closed his eyes.
“Then you’re welcome,” Elysian said.
“James says the Seattle pack withdrew the offer,” Walt said. “Of course. He’s leaving for Montana this afternoon. You don’t have to come with us. I don’t know how the mate bond is going to affect you—maybe it’s just me. Maybe you’d be free to live your own life.”
“I’m not going to Montana,” Elysian said firmly.