Chapter 16
A week later, our time in Kfarkattan had come to a close. Miguel and Richie had talked again, and Miguel even introduced him to one of the humans responsible for selling off the Miancarem land. Apparently my mate had had other business dealings with this man and favors were owed. Hands were shaken, documents were signed, money changed hands, and by the end, my mate owned a good portion of our pack lands, along with hundreds of acres of abutting property, and the human had promised to sell the rest of Miancarem to a group of investors represented by Richie. Those investors, of course, were the pack members, but Miguel had explained which words the human would understand and which we should avoid using or risk causing confusion.
Though I wouldn’t go so far as to say that Richie liked Miguel, I think he had developed a measure of respect for my vampire. Not enough to smile at Miguel or thank him for what he’d done, mind you, but enough to swallow his pride and ask for help, or at least imply that he needed it. And that was what brought us back to the diner for a meeting with Richie.
“We can get close to all the money them humans is asking for the land we’re using, but not enough to buy all of it,” Richie said. His voice was strained and he was having trouble meeting Miguel’s eyes from across the table.
“And by the land you’re using,” Miguel said. “I take it you mean the land with your buildings but not the common areas or the roads, not the land on the outskirts of Miancarem that’ll give you a buffer from Kfarkattan.”
Richie grunted and gave a sharp nod, then he raised his gaze for a moment before dropping it again. He tapped on the table nervously with one hand and clenched and released the other. His foot seemed to be keeping time with his hand, moving rapidly underneath the table.
Miguel spoke again without waiting on Richie to say more, without forcing the man to grovel. “I’ll buy the land holding the shops and the school,” he said. “They’re adjacent to the common areas, which I already bought, so it’ll be just a matter of me taking on a bigger plot. Will that solve the issue?”
“It will,” Richie said, disbelief and gratitude both evident in his tone. “We can take care of the rest.” He picked up his coffee mug and then looked down and noticed it was empty. “Do either of y’all need a refill?” he asked. Then he looked over to my single cup and seemed to remember that what my mate drank wasn’t on a restaurant menu. “Uh, do you need a refill, Ethan?”
“Yes, please.” I handed him my mug. “Thank you.” I waited until Richie was at the counter, and then I put my hand on Miguel’s thigh and leaned close to him. “You’re a good man,” I said.
“I’m a soulless bloodsucker, remember? Isn’t that why Richie keeps meeting us on his own? You have noticed that, right?”
“I have,” I said evenly.
“And you realize that’s because he hasn’t told any of his pack members where he got the information about the land being sold? In fact, I’d guess they still don’t know a thing about the common areas because there isn’t enough money for the pack to buy them and no way is he going to tell them that a vampire is going to own part of what they consider their land.”
I sighed. “You’re a good man because even though you know all of this, you’re still helping them.”
“I’m helping you, Ethan. Not anybody else.”
“And I appreciate it. But you’re helping them too. And you didn’t make Richie beg. You’re not gloating.” I looked into his eyes. “You’re a good man, Miguel.”
“Here you go.” Richie slid the coffee mug in front of me and sat down.
“Listen, uh, Miguel.” He looked down at his mug and then back at my mate. “I just wanted to say that—”
“Richie?” an angry voice boomed from behind us. I recognized that voice. It was Richard Smith, Richie’s father. From the terrified look on Richie’s face, I knew he hadn’t told him about our meeting. This was an unfortunate and unexpected development.
I didn’t turn around, hoping I wouldn’t be noticed. Richie jumped to his feet, no doubt hoping to catch his father where he stood, rather than having the man walk over to us. Neither plan worked.
“I done thought that was you,” Mr. Smith said as he approached our table. “I was walking by and I seen you through the window. You didn’t tell me you were coming into town. And why are you in this here restaurant instead of home with your…” His eyes widened and he furrowed his brow in confusion. “Ethan?”
Well, all right, then. Apparently crouching low in my seat and gulping down scathing hot coffee in the hope that the mug would block my face hadn’t been enough to hide my presence. I set the mug down and looked up to meet the older shifter’s gaze. Though I tried to appear calm, I couldn’t help but squirm in my seat. That and the crack in my voice surely gave away my anxiety. “Hello, Mr. Smith,” I said.
Miguel, bless him, looked right at me, clearly concerned about my change in mood. Then he twisted his body so he was almost completely blocking me and glared up at Richie’s father. I knew he was about to speak, and though I wasn’t privy to his exact words, I had a strong sense of his emotions and they weren’t pretty.
Before the situation could go from bad to worse, I put my hand on Miguel’s shoulder and squeezed tight while trying to convey my own feelings to him—a desire for peace with Mr. Smith, with my pack. I didn’t rightly know whether it’d work, not ever having been able to communicate with anybody at that level. But I’d heard tale of true mates who could all but read each other’s minds, and I hoped that maybe my mate and I had started to develop some of those qualities and he’d be sensitive enough to hear my words without me speaking them aloud.
Though his posture tensed, Miguel held his tongue. I wondered whether that was in reaction to my silent plea.
“What in tarnation is going on here?” Richie’s father hissed. He cocked his chin toward Miguel but wouldn’t deign to rest his gaze on him. “That there’s a bloodsucker,” he added, as if that was information Richie and I somehow could have missed. It seemed being quiet didn’t make my vampire invisible, so it was too much to hope that Mr. Smith would pay him no mind.
Richie was already standing, so he needed only one step to be next to his father. He put his hand on the older man’s shoulder and tried to move him toward the door. “Let’s go, Papa,” he said.
Unfortunately, it wasn’t going to be as easy as leaving the diner and then forgetting what he’d seen.
“I asked you a question, boy,” he said as he glared at his son. “What are y’all doing here? And why are you sittin’ with a soulless vampire?” He spoke in a low voice, just loud enough for us to hear. For all that it was quiet, the tone was also shocked and angry and repulsed. It was impressive, really, that he’d been able to pack all that emotion into just a few barely audible words. Then, almost as an afterthought, he jerked his face toward me and added, “Get up!”
Richie was a big man, a strong man, and sharp as a tack. But to see him right then, he could have been a child being scolded for eating too many cookies. As sure as I knew my own name, I knew my brother-in-law was trying to find a way out of this mess, but it wasn’t easy to come up with cause for him to be gallivanting around a human town with a vampire. Not while unexpectedly facing his father, who was angrier than a wet hen.
“He’s here for me, sir,” I said, my voice shaking on the words that weren’t cracking. Add that to my trembling arms and chattering teeth, and I was a picture of masculine strength.
“He’s here for what, now?” Mr. Smith asked incredulously.
“He’s here for me, sir,” I repeated, sounding just as terrified the second go-round. “I asked him to meet me so I could tell my sister how I’ve been. She worries about me, and you know she can’t come into town none.”
Where I’d come up with that line of bull, I couldn’t rightly say, but it was out there now, and I reckoned it made enough sense to pass muster. Well, it would have made enough sense to pass muster if Mr. Smith had known thing one about me having mated a vampire or, at the very least, had an inkling that I’d moved off pack lands. Unfortunately, neither of those things was true.
“Why would Crissy need to come into town to talk to you?” Mr. Smith asked. “And why aren’t you standing up like I said? We’re going on home right now, and you can explain yourself on the way. Your father is going to be none too pleased when I tell him about this, boy.”
Right. Well, I reckoned my parents weren’t all that pleased about me having moved away. But I knew from Richie that Crissy had explained things to them, and though they didn’t truly understand, they were relieved I was hale and healthy. Truly, we’d all thought I would pass before the year was through, and I reckon they figured having a living son was better than having a dead one, even if he was living off pack lands. With a vampire. All right, then, so not all shifters would think that was a fate better than death, but my folks were good, and my sister was a gem at explaining things and getting her way.
Be that as it may, I was now faced with a man who was much ornerier than my father, and I didn’t have Crissy there to bridge the gap. I took a moment to think over my response, trying to choose words that would be least likely to infuriate the pack Beta, but in the end, I decided there was no way to sugarcoat the situation and I needed to just come out with it.
“I can’t go with you, sir,” I said. “My place is here now, with my mate.” I gulped. “Richard Smith.” I raised the hand that wasn’t still clutching my vampire’s shoulder and wished with all my might that it would stop its incessant shaking. “This here is Miguel Rodriguez.” I pointed at Miguel. “My true mate.”
Mr. Smith looked like he was fixin’ to catch flies the way his mouth dropped and hung open.
“Shit,” Richie said, finally speaking up. “Well, I reckon you just told him how the cow ate the cabbage.” He sighed deeply, looking like the weight of the world was on his shoulders. “Let’s go, Papa.”
“We ain’t goin’ nowhere without Ethan,” Mr. Smith said through his clenched teeth. He’d gone from being unable to close his mouth to being unable to open it, all in the span of a few seconds. “Ethan Abbatt, you get yourself on up out of that there chair before I tear you out of it myself.”
I still had my hand on Miguel’s shoulder, and though I wouldn’t have thought it possible, I could feel his muscles tightening further.
“I’m sorry, sir,” I said. “But I ain’t coming with you. I’m mated to Miguel, and a shifter’s place is with his true mate.”
Mr. Smith started to lean toward me, but Richie stopped him. “Papa,” he said, his voice taking on an urgent note. “Ethan is right, and the humans are starting to stare. We need to leave.”
The glare Richie received from his father would have taken a lesser man to his knees. “Ethan is right?” he asked incredulously. “He may be your wife’s baby brother, Richie, but that no ’count runt ain’t never been right for nothing but being put down and saving his kin some misery.”
It seemed that there comment was the last straw as far as my mate was concerned, because he leaped to his feet and grabbed Mr. Smith by the shirt collar, somehow twisting the fabric so it cut into the man’s neck. Then he lifted him up with just one arm until his toes barely touched the ground and leaned right into his face.
“Now you listen to me, you worthless piece of crap.” Miguel’s face was so full of rage that he was barely recognizable, and his voice teemed with danger. “You will never, and I do mean never, speak to Ethan that way again. Do I make myself clear?”
Oh, he was clear as day, no doubt about it. But seeing as how Mr. Smith’s shirt was now acting as a noose, he was in no position to answer the question.
“Hey,” Richie said as he started to reach for Miguel’s arm. “Let go of my—”
Faster than my eyes could track, Miguel shot his free arm out and gripped Richie’s throat, never once moving his eyes away from Mr. Smith.
“Do I make myself clear?” he asked again.
Mr. Smith nodded his now purple face, and Miguel released him, causing him to fall to his knees at our feet. He planted one hand on the floor to support himself and rubbed at his neck with the other as he coughed and gasped for air.
Still holding Richie’s throat, Miguel leaned forward and whispered in his ear, “He’s alive for one reason only—he’s your father and Ethan seems to have an affinity for family. But you need to understand that that’s a one-use-only pass. If he comes near Ethan again, relation or not, I will kill him.” Miguel pushed Richie away and grinned down at his father, somehow finding a way to make that expression much more frightening than the scowl he’d worn prior. “And you better believe that I’ll enjoy every last second of it.”
All the blood seemed to drain from Richie’s face, but he still had the presence of mind to nod.
“I’m glad we understand each other,” Miguel said, his voice as cold as ice. He turned around and cupped my nape with his big hand, then moved his thumb up and down the side of my neck in a soothing caress. I looked up and saw only warmth and affection aimed at me. “It’s time to go, baby,” he whispered.
I bobbed my head up and down and blinked rapidly, trying to process everything that had just taken place. It wasn’t a surprise to hear that Mr. Smith thought ill of me. I’d always been different, always been weak. But never had the taunts thrown my way been quite that harsh. At least not right to my face.
And hearing a shifter bad-mouth a vampire, well, that wasn’t new either. But somehow having that hatred directed at my vampire hurt in a way I hadn’t expected.
“Well, ah…” I looked from Richie to his father and back again as I stood up. “I, uh…”
“Ethan?” Richie said. I flicked my gaze to his. “I’ll make sure to let Crissy know you’re well and that you’re leavin’ town.”
His request came through loud and clear. Having me so close would be an ongoing source of conflict, which could only hurt my kin.
“Thank you, Richie,” I said as I blinked back tears and leaned into Miguel’s side. “I’m grateful.”
I clutched Miguel’s arm, needing his support, and he walked me past the nervous humans and out the door into the night.