Liam Takes Manhattan (6 page)

It was hard to tell from such a position, but her body was long and muscled, and she looked as though she might be as tall
as he was. Tawny hair curled down her back, as wild and untamed as a lion’s mane.

“No, I really can’t,” he told her, leaning his elbows on the gate. “I might be going away to college soon.”

“And you can’t have a puppy while you’re in college?”

Taken aback, he muttered, “Well, I—I guess I don’t know. I hadn’t really thought about it. I was sort of expecting that I might be staying in a dorm.
If I get to go at all. Right now, my whole life feels like a blank page.”

The woman picked up the puppy she had been petting. It wriggled happily in her hands, and she kissed its nose. “If your life is a blank page, that only means you have room to write your story. You have the power to tell that story the way you want to. I agree, staying in a dorm wouldn’t be possible with a puppy. But if
you stayed in an apartment, you could have one—that is, if you really wanted one. After all, young Cuelebre, it isn’t as though your family can’t afford to put you up in an apartment.”

The walls seemed to reverberate with her words.

Young Cuelebre, she had said. Somehow this strange woman knew who he was. His hackles rose. Compulsively he scanned her for magic, or any other hint of Power.

There was nothing. Sucking in a breath, he tried to catch her scent.

All he could smell was the overwhelming, earthy smell of puppies that were too young to be housebroken.

Staring at the stranger’s profile, he whispered, “How do you know to say that name?”

T
he woman didn’t
turn to face him. He watched the corner of her full mouth lift into a smile as the puppy in her cradling hands curled into a ball and fell asleep. “Everyone knows that name, young Cuelebre. Isn’t that why you are willing to travel halfway across the world to get away from it?”

He hissed, “
Who are you?
”

“That doesn’t matter,” she said, dismissing his question
with a shrug. “All that really matters is that everything does depend on what you want. If you want a puppy badly enough, you’ll do whatever it takes to have one, and you’ll fight to keep it.”

As she spoke, he looked around wildly for any clues as to her identity. His gaze fell to the border of her tunic. Lions were embroidered along the bottom.

His pulse pounded in his ears. Slowly, he said,
“You’re wearing lions. Inanna, the goddess of Love, always has lions.”

“Fitting, don’t you think?” She stroked the puppy’s forehead with a long, tapered forefinger. “So many people think love is an emotion. I love you, they say, and that is supposed to excuse all their bad behaviors and elevate them to a higher level just because they happen to feel something. That isn’t love; it’s an excuse.
Love is like a lion. It’s fierce and strong. It conquers fear and uncertainties, and it knows how to fight. Love fights to win and keep its mate, to do the right thing, to give to others in service, no matter what the cost. ‘Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.’”

The scene blurred as tears filled Liam’s eyes. He swiped at his nose. “That sounds like a quote.”

“It is a quote,” said the woman. “It’s attributed to the man whose birthday is celebrated all over the world every December. Your sentinel Constantine knew of it. That man might have been a mess, but he knew how to love.”

He whispered, “It also leaves a hole behind when they go.”

“Yes, it does, and that is when you know you had something worth having.” The woman turned to him. “If you really
want a puppy, I think you should pick this one. She isn’t the biggest in the litter, but she’ll grow to be a strong, fine dog. Her life will be much too short, and you’ll grieve when she’s gone, but while she lives that life, she will stand by you through all your uncertainties. She’ll comfort you when you are alone, even when you journey to a distant, strange place, and she’ll guard your back when
you need protection. And she will love you with all of her loyal, fierce heart. That, young Cuelebre, is a worthy companion to have.”

“But what if I take her, and the college won’t let me keep her?” he asked.

Anxiously, he thought, what if the college won’t take me in time?

Through the blur of his tears, he saw the woman smile.

“This is where you have a little faith that things will work out
all right,” she said. She offered the sleeping puppy to him, and without thinking, he reached out to receive it. The small, delicate body filled his hands.

The puppy stirred at the disruption, and it tried to open its eyes, but it was too sleepy. Showing its tongue in a wide, pink-tipped yawn, it sniffed at the air then snuggled into his palms.

As he looked down at the soft, warm body he cradled,
the constriction around his chest finally began to ease. Warmth stole in, and comfort.

Look at her little puppy head. And those little puppy ears. Gently, he rubbed one of her paws. She stretched out her short, stubby puppy legs with a sigh, and he lost his heart.

Blinking hard to clear his gaze, he lifted his head to get a better look at the woman.

She was gone. There wasn’t anybody in the
large room, except for him.

He trembled. “Okay, that was pretty weird,” he whispered to the puppy as he cradled her against his chest. “She was probably just another oddball New Yorker, right? Goddesses don’t talk to guys just because they’re having some kind of internal meltdown. Right?”

The glass door swung open, and he spun around to face it.

Pia and the older woman walked into the room,
and both were smiling.

“How did it go?” he asked his mom.

“For a first meeting, it went really well,” she said. She turned to the other woman. “Eileen, thank you for taking the time to meet with me on Christmas Eve.”

“It was entirely my pleasure, Lady Cuelebre,” Eileen said as she held out her hand to shake. “Again, on behalf of the shelter, I can’t thank you enough. I’ll set up a time for
the board to meet as soon after the New Year as I can.”

“And in the meantime,” Pia said with a pointed glance at Liam, “there will be no more animals euthanized unless medically you have no other option.”

“Absolutely. We’re still overcrowded, but with your very generous donation, we’ll be able to hire new staff and buy enough supplies to care for all the animals we do have.”

“Very good.” Pia
smiled.

The other woman gave Liam a curious glance, but other than that, she didn’t comment on his presence. “Well, if you’ll excuse me, I have a lot to attend to before we close this evening.”

“Please, go do what you need to do,” Pia told her. “I can see myself out.”

“Merry Christmas,” Eileen said, smiling at both of them.

“Merry Christmas,” Pia and Liam replied together.

As soon as the
other woman walked out of the room, Pia turned to look at Liam and the puppy.

“Your father texted to say he couldn’t get free, but he’s definitely going to be done by this evening, and he’s taking tomorrow off so that we can travel back home. We’ve got to get ready for Isalynn Lefevre’s niece to visit from the witches demesne in mid January. Then our part in that damn diplomatic pact made in
DC two months ago will be done.” Her smile turned indulgent. “That puppy is so darn cute, I can hardly stand it. She looks like a baby wolf, but I can’t imagine the shelter would have let wolf mixed breeds be available for general adoption.”

Liam listened with only half his attention. ‘Have a little faith’, the strange woman who was probably not a goddess had said. Still, it was good advice.

He bent his head over the sleeping puppy. “I want her.”

“Aw.” Pia’s voice softened sympathetically. “It’s hard to let go when puppy lust takes hold, isn’t it?”

“No, you don’t understand,” Liam said, looking up at his mom. “I really want her.”

Pia’s expression changed. “But honey—you’re going to college. Aren’t you? You were so adamant about Glenhaven yesterday.”

“Oh, I’m still going if they’ll
have me.” Smiling down at the dog, he stroked her small back. “I want to take the puppy with me. It will mean I can’t stay in any dorms.… But you know, after thinking about it, I don’t think I want to stay in a dorm anyway. I’m going to have to be on guard all the time about who I am and what my Wyr form is, and I think I really need to have a space where I can have some privacy to unwind.” He
added, “That is, if I can get in for the next term.”

He was trying to have a little faith, but at the moment, that didn’t take away any of his uncertainty.

Shifting her weight back onto one foot, Pia tilted her jaw as she thought about it. “You make a really good point about needing privacy,” she said slowly. “I don’t think any of us had gotten that far in our thinking yesterday. And I like
the idea of you having a pet with you. It’s really hard for me to think about you being off at school alone and cut off from us.”

“There, you see,” he crooned at his puppy.

“But Liam, she’s going to be a lot of work. You’ll have to potty train her, make sure she gets all her shots, and she will restrict your social life. You’ll always be running home to let her out at lunchtime, and you might
not get a full night’s sleep for a couple of months. And there’s other training to consider. By the size of those paws, she’s going to grow up to be a big dog. You’ll need to make sure she’s well behaved.”

“I don’t need a lot of sleep,” he told her. Bending farther, he pressed a kiss to the puppy’s soft, furry head. “And I’ll potty train her, and train her to be good, and I’ll spend lunchtimes
with her too. I want her badly enough, I’ll do whatever I have to in order to keep her. Okay?”

His mom took a deep breath. “Well,” she said. “I think that’s all any of us could ask you to do. As long as you’re sure.”

“I’m sure.” He grinned at her.

She grinned back at him. “Holy smokes, my son is going off to college, and I’m only twenty six years old.”

“Well, we
think
so,” he stressed. “I
hope
so.”

“Pfft!”
She waved that aside. “And you’re getting a dog too! Oh my God, we have so much stuff we need to buy. And we need to buy it right now, before the stores close for the night. What does a baby dog need? I have no idea.”

“A bed, and a crate, and chew toys, and a collar and leash,” he said. “Really good dog food. The best.”

She stared at him. “She’s going to piddle everywhere,
and the penthouse is seventy-nine floors away from ground level. How do people have puppies in high-rise apartments? Somehow, they do.”

While she spoke, the glass door opened again, and Eva strolled through. The other woman took one look at the puppy snoring in Liam’s arms and started to laugh.

“You know what to do for living with a puppy in a high-rise apartment, don’t you?” Liam asked her,
giving his best coaxing smile.

Eva snorted. “Are you joking? You’re not, are you? You’re really going to adopt that dog? Okay, well, as long as you’re staying in the penthouse, you’re going to want pee pads and a grass litter box that you can set up on the balcony. There’s plenty of room out there, so you can even tuck it out of sight if you want.”

“A grass litter box?” Pia said cautiously.

“It’s a square of real turf or artificial turf in a big fancy box with a sprinkler system and a drainage option,” Eva told her. She paused. “Since it’s the dead of winter right now, you’ll obviously want to get the artificial turf.”

Liam turned to his mom. “Do we need to get that if we’re going home tomorrow anyway?”

“Yes,” she said firmly. “You never know when we might need to come back to the
city, and as long as you have that puppy, it will be good to have on hand.”

“Perfect,” Liam said with satisfaction. Happiness buoyed his spirits so that he laughed with joy.

“What are you going to name her?” Eva asked with a grin.

“I haven’t decided yet.” The puppy lay like a dead weight in his arms, her body lax in complete trust. “I was thinking of naming her Marika, or maybe Rika for short.”

Pia raised her eyebrows. “After that little Dark Fae girl you went to school with in first grade?”

“Yup.” He rubbed the puppy’s round belly. “I have a feeling she’s going to be just as fierce as Marika was.”

“I like it,” Pia declared. “It’s a good name. Come on, we’ve got a lot to do. Let’s get you through the adoption process, so we can pick up everything we need.”

Liam reminded her, “You’ll
have to adopt her. Officially, I mean. Liam’s too young, remember?”

Pia threw up her hands.
“Oy vey.”

Later that evening,
everything was done. All the supplies had been bought and delivered, and Liam had even set up the fancy grass litter box out on the balcony.

Eva had been right. There was plenty of room for Liam to tuck the large litter box out of sight, at least from the living room, and
also against one of the concrete support pylons so that it was somewhat sheltered from the winter wind.

He was sprawled on the floor, playing tug of war with Rika while Pia cooked dinner, when his dad strode into the penthouse.