The Wolf's Mate Book 3: Callie & The Cats (22 page)

He could thank his lucky stars for that.
“I’ll talk to her about the statement. I don’t want to ruin her
mood tonight, but maybe it would be better for her to just get it
over with.”

He hung up with his father and went upstairs
to plan the food for the get together. It hadn’t escaped his memory
that she said her favorite food was Italian, so since he’d failed
to ask her if she’d liked his lasagna, he made baked ziti instead,
being as quiet as he could be in the kitchen.

By the time Eryx extracted himself from her
sleeping form on the couch and joined him in the kitchen, he’d made
good headway into preparing for their family to come over. They
quietly discussed her statement and what to do about Melania. In
the end, it was up to Callie. They wanted justice for her, but if
they went after Melania and killed her, there were so many humans
in the town that there was no way they’d escape it unharmed. They
just wouldn’t understand and would demand what they saw as justice
for her death. While Callie had told them about the pack justice
being handed down by her former alpha where they’d hunted and
slaughtered wolves from a rival pack that had kidnapped her friend,
it had only worked because the town was mostly wolf and it had been
well hidden. The females would never allow them to do that
unscathed; they’d make sure that they suffered publicly for
protecting their mate.

Eryx made a gesture with his knife as he
sliced apart a rotisserie chicken. “If she makes a statement,
they’ll hold Melania for a while; maybe even the three weeks until
we’re gone and she could call and drop the charges. That way we
wouldn’t have to bring her back here to testify.”

“That would only work if there was no bail.
No matter how high the bail is the females will pool their
resources to get her out. And then, well, she’ll be even more
pissed. And you know as well as I do that the human judge and D.A.
aren’t going to understand what the big deal was about pouring some
liquid on her when it didn’t hurt her physically.”

He handed over the prepared pizza crust so
Eryx could top it with the shredded meat, making a bbq chicken
pizza. “If she makes no statement?” He asked, washing his hands at
the sink with a sigh.

“I don’t know,” Ethan ran his hands through
his hair after he popped the pizza into the oven and tried to
reason both sides out. “If only there were a lion council or
something, where we could take her to be held accountable for her
actions. There’s never been any consequences to their actions, any
of them. And it’s partly our fault as males, because we’ve always
allowed them to get away with that behavior. They have all the
power for our kind because they hold the ability to carry
children.”

Eryx nodded. “You know what I kinda
hate?”

“What’s that?”

“Leaving dad behind. I wish he’d come with
us. I think he wants to, I know for sure he’s jealous of what we’ve
managed to fall into, but with Alek acting the way he is and the
rest of the family here, I don’t suppose it will happen.”

“Yeah. Me, too.”

They worked for another hour in silence
before Callie woke up. They walked around the couch as she made her
cute little waking-up noises when she stretched and because she was
tangled up in the blanket Eryx had wrapped her in, she rolled off
the couch with a squeak of alarm and landed hard on her butt. She
burst out laughing, kicking at the blankets until her legs were
free. At least her mood had improved with some rest. They helped
her up, and he offered to massage her butt to make up for it. She
smiled playfully and said that she was fairly sure he couldn’t just
keep his hands on her butt and not touch anything else in that
area, and he was pretty sure that was true, also.

She talked to their aunt Lisa on the phone
for a little while, helped them in the kitchen, supervised him
doing the laundry, and then followed him into the shower when he
went to clean up.

Her soapy hands were heavenly hot on his
skin. “I’d rather you not use your body wash, love,” he sighed,
closing his eyes as she rubbed vanilla scented lather all over
him.

“But we’ll match.” She laughed.

He wouldn’t argue that point. As if he would
deny her anyway. She could use baby powder scented body wash and
he’d wear the scent happily. They made love in the shower, slick
with soap and water, and when they rinsed and dried off, she sat on
the bed and let him brush her hair. It soothed her frayed nerves as
much as his.

When Eryx found them sometime later curled up
on the bed under a blanket and talking, she sat up and said, “I’ll
make a statement but I don’t think it’s wise to press charges. All
it will do is fuel the fire that’s already blazing in their minds
about me.”

Eryx sat down on the edge of the bed. “We’ll
support you either way, angel.”

“Do you want me to press charges?”

Ethan sat up and slid his hand up and down
her spine. “We want you to do what you feel comfortable doing. Our
hands are tied to an extent because of her public job and us being
former police officers plus all the humans that witnessed the
event. If she suddenly went missing, well,” he shrugged because he
didn’t want to finish the sentence and make her feel guilty.

“Then it’s for the best. Maybe we could put a
GPS chip on her, huh? Know where she is all the time?” She smiled,
but it was small and forced.

Damn females.

**Eryx**

Their dad was the first to arrive that night,
and after kissing her cheek, he took Callie into the kitchen and
took her statement. They stood behind her, each with a hand on her
shoulder, but kept their mouths closed. It was her statement to
give not theirs to influence.

She told the events with an unemotional
voice, and he worried a little over her detachment to the whole
thing, but he could tell that she was trying to get past it and for
her, that meant shoving the fear aside and moving on. He hoped she
would be able to sleep well tonight. He didn’t like her being
afraid in her sleep; when their arms were around her it should be a
safe haven for her.

“She’s been let go from the police
department,” their father said as he flipped the notebook shut and
laid the pen down on top of it. Eryx had expected some kind of
reprimand for her so he wasn’t surprised.

Callie put her head in her hands, “She’s
going to kill me.” He and Ethan both bristled and growled.

Eryx laid his palm on the table and leaned
over her, tipping her face up until she was forced to look into his
eyes. “She will not get close enough to you to hurt you again,
baby, we swear.”

Their dad patted her hand. “Honey, she had to
be disciplined and it was the only thing I could really do. She
assaulted you. She’s bound by a code of ethics at the department
and being that she was arrested I had no choice in the matter. And
even if I had a choice, I would have done it anyway. She’s
practically ruined the doc’s reputation. Already he’s had patients
cancel on him. He’ll probably have to leave town and start
somewhere fresh. But more than that is that she used the equivalent
of a drug to try to hurt you in a public place and completely
freaked out the humans.”

Eryx couldn’t care less about the doc’s
problems or the humans’ worries. He didn’t understand this whole
mating heat scent thing, but the doc tried to take their wife from
them and rape her. If Ethan hadn’t stayed with Callie, there’s no
telling the damage he could have done to her before someone helped
her.

“She’ll be released Monday evening. With this
statement, we’ll get a restraining order against her, and that’s
something at least.”

He snorted inwardly. It wasn’t anything to a
willful female like her, but it didn’t matter. He and Ethan had
already agreed to spend the next few weeks under self-imposed house
arrest with their kitten, and the only thing they were planning to
do was to go out separately in the next few days and buy rings for
her. They wanted no doubt in anyone’s mind that she belonged to
them. Because she did.

The tension in the kitchen rose by slow
degrees and he could feel that she was dancing on the edge of
breaking down again, and he hated that he’d been unable to keep
last night from happening.

The front door opened and she jumped up from
the chair. “Brian!” She laughed and met their cousin halfway
between the front door and kitchen in a big hug. She spun him in a
circle and kissed his tawny head. Putting him down, she knelt in
front of him and pushed his shirt sleeve up and inspected his arm
where he’d been injured. “How’s my sweet patient?”

Brian beamed and showed the gaping hole in
his mouth where two teeth had recently fallen out. “I’m all
healed.”

“Your teeth!” She held his little face in her
hands and his insides went mushy at the sight. She was such a
wonderful woman. “How much money did the tooth fairy bring
you?”

“You mean the lion fairy?” He quirked his
head at her and she laughed, and it was the laugh he loved most.
All the tension from giving her statement seemed to slide off her
shoulders and he was thrilled they’d not canceled their plans for
tonight.

“You’re right; I mean the
tooth-lion-fairy.”

“Two dollars. One for each toof.” They all
laughed at his lisp and he talked animatedly to her about losing
his teeth when the rest of their family came in, and while she
greeted their uncles warmly, she was most interested in the kids
and called them each by name and hugged and kissed them. Even
Henry, as old as he was, reveled in her affection and being lumped
in with the attention for cubs half his age.

While she sat on the floor in the family room
and talked to the cubs, their uncles joined them in the
kitchen.

“When’s your move date?”

“February 4.” He answered, dragging his gaze
from her. It was mesmerizing to watch her interact with the cubs.
He doubted that even human mothers compared to the affection she
was showing those cubs, and they drank it up like water to their
parched hearts. A pang of sadness slid through him. They were
taking her from the cubs. Even though it was necessary, the cubs
would be devastated. To have a taste of a mother’s love and have it
pulled away abruptly would hurt them all. And she was sensitive
enough herself that she’d certainly feel bad for leaving. He
sighed. No matter what they did, she suffered some. All he could
hope for was that they could be enough for her in their new home.
That she’d not regret anything they’d done to protect and love
her.

They talked about moving and packing, the
drive to their uncle’s farm, and what to do about the house. Their
family wanted to help them pack and also provide extra eyes during
the day. No one believed that Melania or any of the other females
would stand down.

“Will she need to shift on the full moon and
hunt or anything?” Grant interrupted his dark thoughts.

He and Ethan looked at each other and then he
said, “I’m not sure she can help herself.”

Ethan said, “We’ll just go with her. I’d like
to see her shift, anyway.”

The full moon was Friday and he was suddenly
very excited to see what the process of shifting from her beautiful
human self to her lovely wolf self would look like. She was a
gorgeous wolf. Gray, tan and snow white and her eyes were so
enchanting. And he’d loved hunting with her on Saturday, even
though he’d been completely freaked out that she’d gone out alone.
Graceful, she was a true predator and he’d never thought that blood
was all that erotic, but seeing her muzzle colored red from the
elk, he’d changed his mind quickly.

As the fight started, he couldn’t curb his
jealousy flaring as she spent nearly the entire time with the cubs.
While she talked to all of them, she sat with the cubs on the floor
and ate, sharing quiet, private jokes and showering them with
affection and they devoured it. The pangs of longing for his own
childhood, not to mention that she was his mate and not sitting
with him, ate at him while he sat in stony silence and tried to
watch the UFC fight they’d paid fifty bucks on pay-per-view for.
Normally, he’d be rooting for one of his favorites, they’d be
betting on who’d win and arguing about the fighters and moves they
used.

Pretty quickly he realized he wasn’t the only
one that was paying close attention to Callie and the cubs; every
man there was watching her with a mixture of emotions. Longing,
hope, happiness, and jealousy.

He felt Ethan look at him, and he turned his
gaze away from the television that he’d been forcing himself to
watch in the first place. “Someday that will be our cubs she’s
being so affectionate with.”

He half-smiled at the notion, an image of her
in his mind, belly stretched with his cub. It curbed the jealousy
for him in some ways. He’d never figured he would be jealous of his
own cousins over the casual attention of his mate, but it was so
foreign to him that he was having a hard time stopping his base
reactions. He knew they were no threat to them, but he wanted her
with him. Wedged between him and his brother, her laughter in his
ears, her eyes dancing at him.

She looked up suddenly and searched him with
her pretty eyes and then she stood fluidly and came to the couch to
sit between them. They both relaxed at the contact as she wriggled
herself between them until she was captured in the space they’d
left for her with every inch of her sides pressed to them. With a
contented sigh, she hooked her arms around both of theirs and
rested her head on his shoulder.

Now he could relax. She’d sensed their
unease, or felt something of their emotions, and she’d come to
comfort them. He kissed the top of her head, inhaling the sweet
vanilla scent from her shower earlier and said quietly, “I love
you, angel.”

She tipped her head up to look at him and
after a quiet moment said, “I love you, too.”