Page 8 of Briggs
“You can all go home for the day. You were gone for close to a week. Take a few days off, and then return here next Monday.”
You didn’t have to tell Dimitri or Raiden twice about that. They were both out of their chairs and most of the way to the door before I could even look over at Felix. He smiled and shook his head. “I am glad I don’t have a mate yet.”
“Yeah? Why is that?”
“Because I don’t think I’d enjoy leaving them behind all of the time.” He pointed toward the door. “They’re in a hurry to get home to them, and I understand why, but I don’t know if I’d be able to up and leave my mate and kids behind.”
“It gets easier with time,” Alpha Sergei said. “The council tries to be flexible when it comes to mates and children, especially for newly mated couples. In time, you will understand more, I believe.” Alpha Sergei placed his hand on Felix’s shoulder.
“Perhaps. I’m happy for them, but yeah, in our village, we didn’t leave our mate or children once we had them. I’m not saying it’s bad to have to go on assignments; it’s just not something I’ve ever seen.” Felix had a blank look for a moment. “Actually, there’s a lot that I’ve not ever seen. I’m really looking forward to exploring more things with my position here as an enforcer.”
“There will be plenty of opportunities for you to do just that,” Master Edison said.
We all left the conference room, and while walking down the hallway, Felix was called for by others. He smiled, then waved as he left to join the other fae enforcers. That left me alone to figure out what to do for the next several days while I was off. I would most likely come in because although I was on assignment, we’d not done anything. We weren’t able to access the pride’s lands toeven talk to them. They had the place locked down, and although there were houses around, nobody bothered to answer any of the doors, despite Carrington confirming there were auras inside them.
I checked out with Slater, then decided to head home. I got a whiff of something wonderful-smelling, and a quick glance toward the bakery showed a few coming out of the front door. If I didn’t have my bag with me, I’d go see if they had any pies, but the last thing I wanted was to have to try and carry both it and a pie home.
Instead, I opted for going straight home. I would need to head to the store at a minimum since I was supposed to be gone and didn’t have much by way of food in my place. Not that I ever did. I could cook, but most of my meals came from the council. I left early to eat breakfast there and stayed late to have supper.
Sure, I almost always had a snack later in the evening, but it wasn’t usually an entire meal. Maybe a frozen pizza or something easy like that. I sighed. Yeah, I was going to need to come out and hit the council store at a minimum. Most likely, I’d need to go down to Timber Valley and visit their store since it was bigger.
As I was walking down the pathway that would take me home, I had to wonder when I’d become the person who never wanted to go anywhere? When had that become me? Thinking back, I guess I’d always been a bit of a homebody, and that hadn’t changed.
I was between the omega clinic and the childcare center when I caught that enticing scent again. My wolf immediately perked up, and I wondered about it like I always did. It wasn’t a rabbit, nor something else that he’d enjoy chasing as far as I could tell. So what was it? I stared to the left, found nobody that way, before looking toward the right. There were a few little kidsplaying outside at the childcare center, but I knew it wasn’t any of them.
I shrugged before I went on home. Maybe eventually, I’d come across it when who or whatever it was that scented like that had been by more recently and I could track them. Until then, I’d have to simply deal with not knowing.
A few minutes later, I was standing in front of my house and wondering why it was so large for single enforcers. I dropped my bag just inside the door. I would need to pull out the dirty clothes later, but that could wait. My house looked the same as it had when I left, only it scented a bit stale. It was cool enough on the mountain today that I could open the windows and let some fresh air in, so that’s what I did before I left again. I needed to go do a bit of shopping, and I knew me. If I didn’t do it now, I would regret it later because I’d have to go down to Timber Valley because the council store would be closed.
Backtracking the way I’d just come from, I wondered if I’d pick up that scent again, or would it be gone by now? I got my answer soon enough when it suddenly hit me like a wave crashing into a rock cliff. And it wasn’t just any ordinary scent. My being so interested in it for these past several months finally made sense.Mate!Now to just track my mate down.
Chapter 4
Todd
It wasn’t unusual for me to run to the council building to grab to-go boxes for our lunch. What was though, was for Dr. King to join me. He’d done that all week, and I knew it was because of what I’d shared with him Monday morning. It was just so unusual to eat with my boss. It wasn’t that Dr. King wasn’t nice—he was. But he’d been a bit…I wouldn’t say clingy lately, but, well, more attentive? Was that it?
It didn’t matter. Well, it did, but it shouldn’t. Dr. King was my boss, and I knew he really just wanted me to stop messing things up so his office would go back to running smoothly. I knew he missed Cecil tremendously. Every time he’d been in here, Dr. King had asked about him and if he was ready to come back. Even after I’d started working in the clinic. And really, I couldn’t blame him. Cecil knew everything about computers. He was amazing with the customers, and Dr. King’s office had run smoothly when he’d been here. When it had been decided that I might be a fit, I was willing to give it a try. But I’d not realized just how much knowing all about computers the job entailed.
I pulled the back door of the clinic open and heard Dr. King on the phone. I didn’t know if it was a personal or work call, but it didn’t matter to me either way. I entered the clinic’s breakroom and set our boxes down on the table before I went to the refrigerator and grabbed a bottle of water. I was already eating my sandwich when Dr. King came into the break room. He glanced at the other box before looking over at the counter.
“You don’t have to eat with me. You didn’t use to before this week. I understand, and you shouldn’t feel obligated to have a meal with me.” It had been a bit uncomfortable at first, but I’d grown to relax a bit more around Dr. King.
“I was looking for tea,” he said. As he sat, a steaming mug of tea suddenly appeared on the table in front of him. It must be incredibly nice to be able to do magic such as that. If I’d had magical abilities as he did, I wouldn’t have been taken. Or even if I had, I would have been able to get away and rescue the others who had been there with me. Sadly, I didn’t, and we’d all endured terror for years.
“Your aura just turned blue. Why are you sad? Do you want to talk about it?”
My hand froze, the sandwich halfway to my mouth. “What do you mean?” I asked as I set the sandwich back in the to-go box.
“Your aura spends a lot of time orange, which indicates frustration and anger. That is understandable since you are often frustrated with the computer. Blue is a somewhat new color.”
“You can see my emotions?”
Dr. King tilted his head to the side. “Todd, I’m a warlock. An older one at that. Yes, I can see your emotions. I’m not a shifter and cannot scent the changes as you can.”
“Oh. I guess I’ve not ever thought about that.” That was interesting. A new thought occurred. “Can you see other things? Like, through walls?”
Dr. King chuckled. “I can see auras through them, yes. I don’t go walking through the neighborhoods and peek in on peoplethough. It is an unwritten rule to not abuse our power. That is one of them.”
