The Cougar's Pawn (26 page)

“I’m at the gas station. You wanna bring me Nicky?”

“No, I
don’t
particularly want to bring you Nick.”

“Too busy?”

“Not so busy that I couldn’t bring him, I just don’t want to. He’s only been here a few days.”

“Long enough.” She sighed. “Mason … ”

“I don’t want to argue with you, Jill. I really don’t. I’m just not in the mood with everything going on here. I need to see him more than a few days here and there on your whims. It’s not enough. You had to know at some point I would put my foot down about it.”

Too many Cougars said he never put his foot down about anything. They were right. He didn’t even have his own house in order and he was supposed to be the boss of everyone else? Why the fuck was he Alpha, anyway? If he hadn’t inherited the title, he wouldn’t have wanted it. He fought to keep it, yeah, but sometimes he felt like the only reason he bothered was because he didn’t want anyone
worse
to have the job. Was that enough? He could step down. Let Hank take over. He had the more calculating personality. Or even Sean. He was by far the least misanthropic of the three of them.

“Well, I miss him,” she said. “So, either you bring him, or I’ll come get him.”

“Come get him, then.” Mason ended the call without saying goodbye and tapped in his mother’s number.

“Make it quick, Mason. Hannah’s trying to abscond and thinks I can’t see her. Tell your brothers to get their mess together and figure out which mate is whose.”

He cringed. “Sorry. Not to heap more on you, but Jill may be on the way out here to fetch Nick.”

“For God’s sake, you just got him.”

“That’s what I told her.”

“You two need to sit down and hash this thing out, in front of a judge if you have to.”

“You know what kind of mess that would make?”

“I know exactly what kind. I saw it time and time again when your father was Alpha. You hook up with someone who’s not meant to be your mate and have a kid, you’re probably going to have some custody issues. It always gets messy, but the sooner you—Hannah, sit your skinny bottom on the sofa right now, or so help me I will—get it over with, the sooner you can try to mold some sort of stability in your life and Nick’s.”

It took a moment to untangle her jumble of sentences. “Messy is an understatement, Mom. I’m convinced I should have him full-time, and if
she
doesn’t respect me as the Cougar Alpha, what makes you think I can get some human judge to take an infant away from his mother?”

“It’s your own damn fault she doesn’t respect you. You can learn to become a less forgiving alpha and keep folks from taking advantage of your kindness—”

“With Ellery’s help, you mean.”

Mom was silent for a long moment. That never boded well. She was likely tamping down the torrent of tough love she wanted to spew out. Finally, she sighed. “That’s neither here nor there. She’ll just boost what you already have, so find her something to boost.”

He cringed, knowing she was right. He needed to do what needed to be done. Ellery would make his job easier, but he had to want to do it. He could make things better, but he needed to get out of his own way. He
wanted
to.

“From a custody determination standpoint, there are plenty of facts that weigh heavily in your favor,” Mom said. “Don’t get the supernatural crap mixed up in it. Person to person, you’re the better parent. You’ve got a better support structure and more stable home life.”

It’d be more stable with the witchy nurse.

“Now, I’m gonna go. I’m gonna put the girls in the Mule and meet Jill at the road. Maybe I can confuse her enough that she’ll drive away and forget why she came out here in the first place.”

“I’m sorry, Mom.”

“Don’t say sorry. Just fix it. When things go sideways around here, you
fix
them. You hear me, Alpha?”

“I will.”

“Good. I swear, I pity any woman who has to talk sense into an alpha on a daily basis. I wouldn’t wish it on my worst enemy. Poor Ellery. Hope she comes back, you pitiful feline puffball.” Mom hung up.

Groaning, he tucked his phone back into his pocket and returned to the shop.

Darnell was still hovering around at the front, peering at Sean who was on the business phone.

Hank looked up. “’S'up?”

“Jill wants Nick.”

“You taking him?”

“No. Mom’s going to try to head her off if she comes out here.”

Hank took off his safety glasses and set them on the nearby table. “You remember what happened the last time you had her do that?”

Mason pressed his palms to the table in front of his clamped mahogany pieces and stared at a particularly interesting pattern in the wood grain. “Yeah. I remember. It wasn’t all that long ago.”

Nine months.

Nick had been just a bitty thing, a few weeks old, and it was the first time Mason had gotten to spend time with him alone. Jill had come back after a day, and Mason had snapped. He hadn’t wanted to give up Nick so soon—had barely started bonding with him.

Jill had called in her Coyotes for reinforcement, and that showdown had lasted three days. In the end, Mason had given up because the damned dogs were starting to tear up the property and they just couldn’t afford it.

He hadn’t done what an alpha should have back then, but he’d do it now. He had to do what was right, even if it meant folks got hurt and he made enemies with the Coyotes. If words didn’t work, his claws or fangs would.

“I’ll get some Cougars on standby in case you need them,” Hank said. “I rounded up a couple of reliable ones so we wouldn’t have a repeat of the last time when no one came.”

“If they don’t come, cut them loose. I’m not going to have people reaping benefits of glaring membership if they’re not going to pitch in.”

Hank chuckled and palmed his phone. “That’s the spirit, Alpha. And by the way, needing help from other strong shifters in your group isn’t a sign of weakness. It means you leverage what you have to use it when it’s needed.”

“Dad was much better at that—at making them respect him.”

“Because Mom made him better at it. Made him delegate. Kept him straight. One man can’t do everything. Can’t
be
everything and everywhere at once. Remember when he was coaching peewee football? He always said the most important thing was to have a third string in place, even if you didn’t think you’d need them. You’re first string, right? Me and Mom and Sean—we’re your second string. You need to know who’s in the third and be ready to send them out to play when it’s their time.”

“I don’t feel like a very good first string right now, but I’m fucking trying. I’m a quarterback without a receiver.”

The truth was, Ellery would probably handle the Jill thing on her own. She’d probably make the other woman skitter away with her coyote tail between her legs using nothing but her hands on her hips and that authoritative nurse tone. She probably wouldn’t even stoop to insulting the woman. She’d just make Jill think that her idea, whatever it was, was the best for all of them, and Jill wouldn’t argue it.

Mason didn’t even want to argue with Ellery. Not about anything. Arguing got in the way of affection, and he couldn’t help but feel they had a lot of lost time to make up for. Why couldn’t Nick have been hers? She would make an incredible mother. Her learning curve would be short.

He groaned again. Somewhere in the mess, there was a lesson. Questioning The Fates was always a waste of energy he couldn’t spare.

Hank squeezed his shoulder on the way toward the side door. “She’ll be back, man. But wouldn’t you prefer her to come back to a small mess instead of a big one? You don’t want to scare her off.”

Yeah, there was still a chance for that. He thought she’d been wanting to tell him yes—that she’d
stay
—but she hadn’t said the words. If she was on the fence, the last thing he wanted was for her to return to a mess.

“I’ll fix it.”

“
We’ll
fix it,” Hank said, leaning on the door. “And don’t worry about the favor. I’m sure I’ll be needing you to do one for me soon enough.”

Ellery shook the tingling sensation out of her hands and backed away from the bed along with Gail and Millie.

Three times.

They’d tried to revive the ex-demon known as Gulielmus three times, but still, he didn’t wake. He moved, though. He’d clasped his hand around Claude’s wrist and let out a long, rattling exhale. It was more than he’d done in a year.

He’d been tended around the clock by a woman named Clarissa Morton who was related to Ellery through Gail, who was related to her through Claude whose brother was married to her granddaughter Ariel. Convoluted, but typical for their little community. Family was something they acquired, not necessarily were born into.

Millie rubbed her hands together as if she’d caught a chill. Maybe she had. The magic Claude had pushed through them had a stripping effect. It took what they offered and honed it into one great tool. One large dose of medicine. It hadn’t been enough this time.

“I’ve been called in to energy work before,” Millie said, “but nothing like this. The girls aren’t going to believe it. I’ve never heard of anyone getting close to folks like you all.”

“People around you know what you are?” Gail asked.

Millie nodded. “Yep. I think folks around those parts foster it because we keep other kinds of undesirables out of town. Hell, ask Mason. He and his daddy helped us chase out a motorcycle gang years ago. We try to be tolerant, but there’s only so much disturbance folks can take. Floyd Foye was a hell of a guy. Community pillar, and so strong. Bad heart got him when Cougar challengers couldn’t. Oh, and they tried. They always try if they sniff the slightest bit of weakness. Sometimes even when they don’t.”

Ellery gulped.

Millie gave her a pat. “Oh, don’t worry. He can take care of himself. Mason’s a lot like his daddy in some ways. Easy to like, when they want to be. Hardworking. Would give you the shirts off their backs. But then, they’re hugely different in some others. I think Mason’s got a more organized brain. He thinks more than he acts, which isn’t always the best thing when you’re in a shifter group. Sometimes you’ve got to fight and sort out what’s what later.”

Yeah, that sounded like Mason. Gentle when it wasn’t expected of him and regretful when he wasn’t.

“Mason sounds interesting,” Gail said. Her eyes were on her husband who was conferring quietly with two extremely large and extremely gorgeous men at the bedside.

Ellery wouldn’t have known they’d once been angels from the looks of them. Maybe it was the waist-length dreadlocks on one and the nasty-looking katana strapped to the other. She’d learned his damned sword’s name before she learned the man’s. The sword was called
Sasayaku
. The man was called Tamotsu. His friend was Tarik, and apparently his mouthpiece. Tamotsu had hardly said a word in four hours. Grunted a lot, though.

Ellery took her gaze off the visual feast in front of her. They were nice to look at, sure, but they couldn’t wear a pair of blue jeans as well as Mason.

She smiled. “Yeah, Mason’s interesting. Pretty sure I have Agatha to blame for the whole scenario. I think she coordinated the match.”

“That’s totally something she’d do. I think she’s getting impatient. Not enough babies around for her liking.”

“You and Claude could give her one.”

“Eh. We’re not in a hurry. We have forever, after all.”

Ellery groaned. “Perk of being immortal, I guess. I have no such luxury.”

Gail being eternally bound to an immortal meant that she was one, too.
Lucky bitch.

“I’ll miss you when you’re gone,” Gail said.

“I hate you, heifer.”

“Hate you too, strumpet.” Gail sighed and wrapped her in a tight hug. “I already miss you. You’re not coming back, are you?”

Ellery gave her head a slow shake and inhaled her sister’s pound cake-and-too-damn-much-coffee scent. She drank so much of the stuff it had practically become a perfume. “What makes you ask that?”

“I know my sister. You’re like me in all the ways that matter, and I … I wouldn’t come back if I were you.”

The tightness Ellery had been holding into her chest since arriving released as her constricted around Gail. Gail’s opinion mattered. “I think I’ll keep him.”

Gail giggled. “I think it was supposed to be the other way around.”

“Maybe, but when does
supposed to
ever really apply to us? We were supposed to be good, quiet witches.”

Claude snorted. He was probably quite happy he was out of reach of one of Gail’s elbows.

Gail let go of her and Claude sauntered over.

“I don’t believe it was a complete waste of effort,” he said. “Tarik thinks we should try again next month. The magic may need to aggregate.”

Millie pulled a small, plastic-covered organizer—the checkbook-sized kind that Avon ladies sometimes gave to clients at the end of the year—and held it up to her face. She nudged her glasses up and squinted some more.

Would probably help if she cleaned the lenses.

“What day?” she asked.

“Twenty-eight from now.”

She cringed. “Coven meeting that day. Already moved it three times because of work schedules.”

Claude shrugged. “Bring the coven. A boost couldn’t hurt. Even if the magic isn’t quite the same, it’ll help seal in the kind we need.”

Millie licked the end of a small pencil she had in her chambray shirt’s pocket and scribbled on the calendar. “Girls might like a field trip. How are we getting here?”

“Angel escorts.”

She cringed again. “Drat. I was hoping you’d just do it the old-fashioned way and send us some plane tickets. I don’t think I like teleporting. My old brain doesn’t like being whisked through time and space.”

“You’ll get used to it,” Gail said. “I promise.”

Gail walked Ellery and Millie to the living room, still clutching Ellery’s hand tightly. John waited nearby to whisk them back.

Claude eased around them, pried Gail’s fingers off of Ellery’s, and gave his wife’s shoulder a placating pat. “We’ll keep working on the hellmouth situation. Tamotsu and Tarik will put out some feelers and see if they can find another with the same ability willing to help. Otherwise, we’ll have to wait for
Papa
to wake and see what happens.