Page 22 of To Teleport, or Not to Teleport?
“Where are you?” Cami asked through her car’s microphone, sounding breathless.
“At your bakery, where I thought you—”
“I’m right around the corner. Get ready to hop in,” she said, tires squealing in the distance.
As soon as her hot-pink sedan rounded the corner, I ran to meet it. My butt hit the seat, and she took off before I’d even shut the door. “You better start talking before I teleport to Abu Dhabi!”
Cami glanced from the road to me. “Grayson’s truck lost control and was spotted wrapped around a tree.”
“Kaleb,” I whispered.
Cami slowed to a stop when we reached a crowd at the edge of the tree line. I jumped out, not bothering to close the door, and pushed past friends and acquaintances. When I spotted the truck twisted unnaturally, my eyes welled with tears and my fingers curled into my palms. As if sensing Grayson, I moved closer to where a few people were hovering. His beautiful eyes found mine, and I sucked in a breath. I knew he hadn’t been in the truck, but somehow my insides had still twisted as if it had been him behind the wheel.
Zelda giggled, her hands over a bear’s head. “He must have really wanted thebare necessitiesto be speeding out of town.”
As the Shifter Whisperer, or Shifter Wanker like she called herself, Zelda used her healing powers on the Shifter community. I’d not seen her in action before, and contrary to her amusement, Mac’s serious expression mirrored Grayson’s.
“I told him to jump, but the asshole wouldn’t listen,” Kaleb said, concern coating the coiled-up python’s words.
Skirting the group, I ambled up to Grayson. He was kneeling at the bear’s side, blood matting his black fur. Someone had given Grayson a pair of gray sweatpants. Even with the gravity of the situation, my greedy gaze lingered for a second too long, taking in every inch of smooth muscle on display. His fingers threaded mine and squeezed.
“I still don’t understand how you lost control,” he said to Kaleb.
Kaleb’s forked tongue slipped free with a humanlike sigh. “G, it was like the truck had a mind of its own. It started accelerating, so I took my foot off the pedal, but it didn’t change anything. I pressed the brakes, and I swear it lurched forward, going faster.”
“Now will you tell him?” I hissed and nodded in the direction of Mac.
“Tell me what?” Mac asked, his attention on Zelda.
I looked around the curious group of Shifters and witches. “Never mind, maybe now’s not the time.”
Mac raised his sapphire-blue eyes to Grayson, and I couldn’t help but stare at his long lashes. His wavy dark-chocolate hair was in direct contrast to Zelda’s curly auburn hair, yet they made a beautiful pair. In the short time I spent admiring the power couple, Mac and Grayson had communicated telepathically, and the bear had begun to stir.
“He’ll be fine. Now I need Twinkies,” Zelda muttered to Mac as she curled into her mate. “And the Fendi bag too.”
“I second Twinkies,” grumbled the bear.
Grayson released a relieved sigh and clasped the bear’s shoulder. “Next time, jump out of the fucking truck.”
“Didn’t want you to have to get a new one so when Kaleb jumped, I took the wheel.”
Grayson chuckled, and the fist around my heart released. “One thing about Assjacket, there are plenty of witches who can fix it.”
“Next time jump, or you owe me a shipping container’s worth of Twinkies,” Zelda said over her shoulder. With a flick of her wrist and a spell riddled with curse words, Grayson’s truck disentangled itself from the tree and parked itself on the dirt path thirty yards away.
The bear raised his head as the crowd teleported or walked toward their cars. “Well, shit.”
“Yeah, there better not be a next time, period,” I snapped.
The bear rolled into a sitting position faster than someone who’d just nearly died should. “Well, hello…”
Grayson hauled me onto his lap, and a growl vibrated against my back. “She’s mine.”
I rolled my eyes. “What he meant to say was ‘this is Aileen.’”
“Right. Hi, Aileen. I’m Bear.”
“You mean you’re a bear. What’s your name?”
