The pounding at the door made this the second time in a row that Zelina was forced awake after spending most of her night rolling in the sheets with her mates. She was lucky enough that she worked from home as a translator, or she would be fired. She just couldn’t bring herself to care. Her mates were the Alpha and Beta of the South Texas clan, and if she understood correctly, there was no reason for her to work unless she wanted to. Be still her beating heart, it just kept getting better and better.
Continued pounding on the door took her out of her thoughts and dragged her out of bed. The “Open this door for the VPD!” stopped her. Her crazy-ass friend had actually called the fricking cops! Was that woman out of her damn mind?
Stalking to the door, Zelina wrenched it open to blast the cops to the moon. When she saw Ethan and Jake standing there, her ire spiked. No, Jezzie had done much worse. She’d brought the two guards from her building in cop costumes. She was standing in between them with her jaw hanging open. When Zelina realized that Ethan and Jake were doing the same and looking her up and down, she got the eerie sensation that she’d forgotten to grab a shirt. Looking down confirmed it.
With a yelp, Zelina slammed the door, rushing to grab Rion’s T-shirt and Quin’s button-up. Her underwear was nowhere to be found, and she wasn’t putting those nasty things back on anyway. They probably had blood on them from her attack. Improvising, she grabbed a pair of tighty-whities and cuffed them at the top. So armored, she went back to the Three Stooges at the door.
“What the hell are you doing here?”
“That’s a great way to accept friends who came here worried about you,” Jezzie huffed. “And who the fuck did that!” she yelled, pointing at the mate bites, one on each shoulder that would never heal for the rest of her life, which her shirts now hid. They didn’t hurt or bleed. They were more like tattoos now, to mark her as a mate. Zelina decided to ignore that question. Jezzie pushed past still-staring Doofus One and Doofus Two and pulled Zelina into a breathtaking hug. “I thought I was going to lose you, Z.”
“I told you I was okay, J. I wouldn’t lie to you about that.” Zelina sighed, hugging her friend back to her chest. The reassuring scent of papaya from Jezzie’s hair was like coming home. Some people thought of Grandma’s baked cookies. Others thought of Mama’s home cooking. For Zelina, home had always been Jezzie and her papaya-scented hair cream. That is, until she found her mates. Now they would also be home to her, and Jezzie would have to become a part of that.
“But you wouldn’t give me an address. You know I would worry until I actually saw you.”
Growls at the door, behind Ethan and Jake, stopped Zelina from asking how the hell they had found her as she popped around Jezzie and into the hall. Standing there were her two mates, bristling with anger and staring at the two men in uniforms at their bedroom door. Zelina was sure someone had summoned them when the cops came. The shifters of the compound were trying to pass themselves off as human, and no one would have touched them for fear of exposing their secret. Zelina also knew that Jezzie would have sprouted off about her, and those who knew she was the Lunar of the clan would have let them through. Coming here had been a stupid mistake the three of them hadn’t even known they’d been making.
“Rion, Quin, this is Jezzie, Ethan, and Jake. Remember I told you about Jezzie.”
Rion never took his eyes off his brother, but when Quin looked over at him, relaxing marginally, she knew that he had told him about the phone conversation that had started the most amazing experience of all their lives.
“Ah, Jezzie, Zelina’s best friend. I apologize. We were worried something was wrong when we saw two men at our door and not you. Forgive us. I am Quin.” Quin bowed gracefully to her, and her friend had the nerve to giggle. She actually giggled.
“So you must be Rion, Z’s boyfriend,” Jezzie said to Rion, removing her eyes from Quin for only a second.
Zelina felt herself get hot before she realized it. She walked over to her mates and stood between them, grasping a hand in each of hers.
“Part right, J. But, they are both my boyfriends. Welcome to our home.”
“Well, I think this is our cue to leave. Everything looks all right here, J. See you all later. Um, you guys have a safe night, and don’t hesitate to call if you need something.” Ending with that, Jake and Ethan hightailed it out of there like cartoon characters.