I chewed on my lip. Maybe when I got to him, I should just go right up and tell him that I fancied the pants off of him and that it was time we stopped wasting time playing around. He’d probably think I was joking. No, I should tell him that I really admired the way he’d taken on the role of Lord Alpha and that he was a doing an amazing job. Then he’d realise that I liked him too and…no. If I said that then he’d think that I was being sarcastic. Maybe I could comment on how good he looked in that suit as some kind of opener? I rolled my eyes at myself. That was completely inane. Butterflies scooted nervously round my belly. I had to say something to him.
I stopped dead in my tracks. Actually, I didn’t have to speak. I could just grab him by the lapels and kiss him. For a very long time. I gave myself a little grin and an inner high five. He’d know how I felt and there wouldn’t be the pesky problem of having to articulate any words. Perfect. I started to jog towards the area where the ward had been. The faster I got there, then the less chance there would be that I’d lose my nerve.
I was so focused on my destination and what I was going to do when I got there, that I didn’t even notice Aubrey coming up on my right to join me.
“Hey, Mack.”
I barely paid him any attention, just lifted up a hand in brief acknowledgement and continued on my path.
“So, there’s no sign of the Batibat.”
I grunted.
Aubrey peered at me. “Are you okay? You look a bit pale.”
“Not now, Aubrey, please. Go find something to do and make yourself useful.”
He stopped jogging alongside me, falling back as I continued on.
“Fuck off then! Just fuck off! I don’t have to do this you know! I’m risking my now, thanks to you, considerably shortened and less charmed life to help you, and all you can do is dismiss me out of hand!” He shouted with a high pitched and angry voice.
Damn it. If the pizza had induced any sense of well-being and calm into him, then clearly the effects had now worn off. He was right, however: he deserved better than that. At least now, anyway. I stopped and turned back towards him.
“I’m sorry, Aubrey. The humans are here and I need to talk to Corrigan.” Now. I licked my lips nervously. “I’m not trying to dismiss you, I’m just busy.”
“I’m trying, Mack!” he shouted again. “I know I was a prick before and I did horrible things, but I am trying to be a better person. A better human. Why can’t you see that?”
My stomach lurched as he said that. Was I so constantly self-absorbed and inward looking that I could never see what was happening in front of my face? I walked over to him.
“I’m sorry,” I repeated. I reached out towards him to put my hand on his shoulder, but drew back when he visibly flinched. I sighed.
“Aubrey, I do see how you’re trying. I really do. In fact, I’m so impressed at the turn around you’ve made. It’s really brave of you to volunteer to keep the Batibat in check as well.”
“I just want to feel needed,” he sniffed.
I stared at him for a moment, emotions conflicting inside of me. Then I had an idea. “You know what you could do to really help me out right now? Because it was such a good idea of yours in the first place?”
His unhappy eyes looked up at me with hope lighting them from deep within. “What?”
“Pizza.”
He looked confused.
“Pizza,” I repeated. “Order me some pizza. You’ll need to go down to the road to collect it, because I don’t want any of the humans seeing where we are and getting too curious, but if you could get that guy from before to deliver a large pizza, you have no idea how much you’ll be helping me out.”
He nodded several times. “Pizza, yes, I can do that. What kind do you want?”
“You know what? I trust your judgment. You choose.”
“Really? You’d trust me that much?”
To choose toppings for a fucking pizza? “Yes,” I said soothingly.
“Okay, okay, I’ll do it right now.”
“Don’t tell Corrigan though, okay? It’ll be our secret.”
“Whatever you say, Mack.”
I patted him on the back.
“Should I go now?” he asked anxiously.
I smiled at him. “That would be perfect.”
He saluted me with a puppy dog grin and ran off. I watched him go and then, when he’d vanished from sight, squared my shoulders and returned to the matter in hand. Kissing Corrigan to show him that I had indeed ‘come around’.
When I rounded the bend, the Lord Alpha was there, waiting in front of where I knew the concealed area with the dead – and now destroyed – tree to be. He had taken off his suit jacket and laid it on the ground, and his sleeves were rolled up, displaying strong tanned forearms. My mouth went dry. You can do this, I told myself. You’ve killed an unkillable wraith, you’ve gone up against a demi-goddess, you’ve climbed fifteen stories down the outside of a building. This is easy in comparison. Unfortunately, my nerves didn’t seem to be getting the same message. Tendrils of heated anticipation were sneaking their way along every vein and every artery. I could have sworn that I could hear my heart beating. When I got closer, Corrigan looked up, his emerald green eyes tracking my progress. I took a deep breath and walked up to him. Should I hold him by the shoulders? Or cup his face? Maybe it would better not to touch him at all, and just dive straight in. Come on, Mack.
I went right up in front of his lean, muscular body and he straightened, looking at me quizzically. It was now or never. I leaned in and…Corrigan immediately tensed and his head whipped round away from me. Aaargh.
“There you are. All the humans are down at the campsite area.” It was Beltran.
Fuck off, I screamed at him in my head. It didn’t work.
He nodded at Corrigan and bowed. “Lord Alpha, I am Beltran of the Seelie Fae.”
Corrigan gave a bow back. Despite myself, I was rather impressed by the cool show of cordiality. Beltran turned to me.
“Lord Sol Apollinarius told me that you have some photos of potential suspects.”
Corrigan frowned at me. “You didn’t tell me that.”
Irritated at the turn of events, I scowled slightly, then realised the way I was acting would just make me appear ‘prickly’ so I tried to smooth my features back into a smile. It was a struggle. “They’re just customers who’ve been visiting a weapons shop in London. It’s run by a Batibat called Wold and we think the two might be linked somehow.”
“We?” Corrigan’s eyes narrowed dangerously and a streak of gold flashed across them.
“Okay, me, I guess.”
“If you give me the photos,” said Beltran, “then I can check them against the humans who are here. Just in case.”
It was a sound idea. I nodded, before suddenly stopping and frowning. Oops. “Actually the photos are on Aubrey’s phone.”
“So find Aubrey and get it from him,” said Corrigan.
“I can’t,” I responded. “He’s, er, he’s…not here.”
Beltran shrugged. “That’s okay. You saw the photos and I assume you can remember what they looked like.”
I murmured in affirmation.
“Then come with me and you can check through all the humans yourself.”
I looked at Corrigan. He had a vaguely bored expression on his face.
“But…”
“What?”
“Well, Solus saw them too. Can’t he go instead?”
“You told him to stay by the entrance,” Corrigan reminded me. “Given that’s where your big bad dryad killer will arrive.”
Oh yeah.
“But if he’s already here, then he’ll come to check out his ward, and if Corrigan’s on his own, then…”
“I think, kitten, I can look after myself.” He was throwing the argument that I was always making to him back in my face. Fuckity fuck fuck.
I squared my shoulders. Okay. It would be better to get this done and out of the way as quickly as possible so I could get back to my original plan. I nodded at Beltran.
“Alright then,” I sighed, “lead the way.”
Beltran began gracefully gliding back in the direction that he’d arrived. I sneaked a quick peek at Corrigan. He was watching me with a bemused expression on his face.
“Are you okay?” he inquired.
No. “I’m fine,” I snapped, then immediately regretted it. “I’ll be back as soon as I can.”
“I’ll be waiting here with bated breath,” he commented, with just the tiniest hint of sarcasm.
Perhaps not, but I will be, I thought sourly, then stomped frustratedly after the Fae.
Forcing myself to put Corrigan out of my head, and focus on the matter in hand, I stared with some degree of astonishment at the encampment. There must have been over forty people, and all of them were already busy putting up tents and getting little fires going. One man, who appeared quite a bit older than all the others, was striding around, shouting out orders.
“Don’t you dare cut down any branches!” He called out with an imperious tone. “Just use what is already on the ground and what nature has provided.”
A dread-locked girl wearing a tie-dyed skirt went past, hissing under teeth. “Idiot.”
I grinned, then sniffed the air. “What is that?”
“A most interesting mixure of patchouli, hemp and the unwashed,” stated Max from behind my shoulder. “Unpleasant, isn’t it?”
He moved on before I could answer, ostensibly to help a girl begin to hammer in pegs for her rather threadbare looking tent. It seemed to me that he was hovering around her more so that he could check out her bottom when she bent over than help. I had to bite my tongue to avoid snapping at him and drawing undue attention to us, and instead began casting around, trying to glimpse the features of all the male protestors.
There were more women than men, so it wasn’t hard to pick each one out. The vast majority had the same long dreadlocked hair, as if they were buying into some kind of pack uniform all of their own. I watched them thoughtfully. That was what it was all about, really. Feeling like you belonged somewhere and being part of a group or a family. It might be a coven of vampires, or the Ministry of Mages, or a shifter pack or even a band of hippy protestors. But what mattered was feeling connected. And I didn’t have that. Sure, there was Mrs. Alcoon, but I didn’t think that two people necessarily counted. Maybe the reason that I was always so bad-tempered wasn’t anything to do with my freaky genetics, maybe it was, as Corrigan had essentially intimated, that I was just fucking lonely. I had the weirdest sensation that the clouds in the sky were parting and a dawning ray of light was shining down on me in acknowledgement of my sudden epiphany.