Page 47 of Lost Touch
“It’s five after seven, fucking chill,” Drew groused back in an undertone. “We’re here, aren’t we? And what the ever-loving fuck are youwearing?”
I hadn’t even noticed in my general state of fluster, but now that I paid attention…
“You look like you’re on the way to the Puritan fetish ball,” Drew went on. Okay, a little harsh, but the demure bun, the ribbon choker, and the corsetry on top of the long, flowing, floofy skirt with a slit up to her thigh… “Or maybe, like, you bought your dress in a package labeled ‘Slutty Laura Ingalls Wil—’”
“Shut the fuck up!” Alyssa’s cheeks had gone red enough that I could see it shining through her perfect make-up. “You’re welcome!” She bared her teeth at Drew in the most elegant snarl known to man, or to werewolf woman.You’re welcome?What did she expect thanks for, exactly? Drew looked as baffled as I felt, but she cut off whatever he might’ve said with, “Now move your asses. They’re all waiting. I snuck out of the room to tell you, I’ll handle Victoria. Just make your mate bond look as solid as you can for the parents and keep it together. And don’t let Blake get to you, Drew, you hear me? He’s in fine form tonight.”
Blake. I was pretty sure that was the alpha cousin, although I’d probably fail a quiz.
“I don’t need you to tell me how to handle Blake,” he gritted out.
“Right.” She rolled her eyes and flounced off, leaving us to follow in her pastel-floral-tightly-laced wake.
The short hallway leading off from the restaurant lobby led into a private banquet room, with more gold stuff and fewer columns, one large and beautifully laid table, a polished bar, and a window across the room looking out on the mountains to the east, the top halves lit as gold as the restaurant’s décor by the setting sun.
All of it would’ve intimidated me even without the dozen or so hostile, formally attired werewolves standing around holding cocktails.
Who all turned and looked right at us as we walked in the door. My head went light and floaty, and I might have turned metaphorical tail and run if not for Drew grabbing my hand and tucking it through his elbow, pressing it against his side. Comfort or making sure I couldn’t escape?
Column A and column B, I guessed.
“Showtime,” Drew muttered under his breath, pasting on a smile.
I did my best to follow suit, although mine probably just looked ghastly on my pale, terrified face.
And we stepped into the fray.
Despite how hard I’d tried to keep it together, I’d passed beyond panic into some kind of mental state I didn’t even have a word for. Both fight and flight being impossible, my sympathetic nervous system fell back on freezing me in place like a terrified rodent.
Only my death-grip on Drew’s arm kept me moving around the room.
Maybe luckily, almost none of them even bothered to acknowledge me beyond a grudging word or a nod when Drew introduced me. Jeanette looked down her nose at me like I was something she’d found on her designer shoe, while her husband, Drew’s dad, didn’t bother to leave the bar to speak to us at all. The dread Uncle Boyd, exactly as square-jawed and scary-eyed as I’d imagined him, only curled his lip at me, showing a frankly unnecessary amount of half-descended fang. With a few words under his voice to Drew, he led us over to a couple his own age, introducing them to Drew—and only Drew, not bothering with me at all—as John and Lillian Peterson, Victoria’s parents.
The conversation washed over me in little fits and starts, my heart pounding so hard my ears kept cutting out.
“…so glad to be able to introduce you to my mate,” Drew was saying, and chose that moment to tug his arm free and wrap it around me, pulling me close. “It’s good of you to come to visit to mark the occasion. We’re honored.”
Lillian’s hand clenched so tightly around her martini glass I thought she might shatter it.
“Human, eh?” John said, finally bothering to glance at me. “Unusual choice.”
“I’ve always believed in following my instincts,” Drew answered, more or less smoothly, before I could open my mouth. Thank God, because I wanted to get to the dinner table unmaimed. “You know how important following the old ways is to our family. The gods tell us our destiny, as long as we listen.”
I stared up at Drew, mouth agape. Where the hell had he gotten that unmitigated bullshit? I’d expected to find his eyes glowing and his fangs down, but somehow he’d kept it in check.
Silence fell.
Boyd’s face went purple, John raised his eyebrows, and Lillian made a sound like a wolf about to eat a human.
They didn’t seem to have an answer to that. Score one for Drew, even though the maiming now seemed a lot more imminent.
Rescue came from an unexpected source: a blond guy in nerdy wire-framed glasses, a few years older than me and maybe a little younger than Drew, who popped up at my elbow and said…something, maybe about the family company, which I still didn’t know anything about, maybe about Idaho or Virginia, but my head had started swimming.
The room blurred around me as Drew steered me away with a few polite words, maneuvering me across the room, past the dinner table, and behind one of the giant vase things, temporarily out of anyone’s sight.
As far as I could tell, at least. I couldn’t see more than a few inches beyond my nose, everything else lost in a haze of too much light and too much shiny stuff and too many werewolves, and…
Drew grabbed me by the shoulders, yanked me in, and kissed me, hard.
