Pack, page 15
“While I was doing her, more than likely.” Paris corrects me. I look at him, wondering if he’s trying to subtly tell me something. “I’m just you know, saying, guessing, theorizing. But yes, I kind of figure the same thing.”
“Oh.” I say disappointed with myself.
“When I told you and Addison that I thought it might be an ex-sexual partner because of the things that were said to me, I was lying. I thought it because of that; not the talking that was done at me. That was rather generic.”
“Oh.” I feel my voice going on me again. Kind feel like I’ve been sucker punched. Paris lied to me. Me. How could he do that?
“Sweetheart I’m sorry for lying to you. Last night was just so god damn crazy and I was trying to hold on to you and get through all that other stuff.” I nod my head feeling a little dazed. Lying is a gate way to mistrust and needless doubt.
There is a soft buzzing noise in the room and we both turn our heads to look for the cell phone. The same time, there is a knock at the door. We both look at the door while the buzzing noise continues. Paris springs up to a standing position.
“Our supplies.” He says and heads over to the door. I push up and crawl around on the mattress and pat down the couch around my handbag for the phone which has slid in behind a cushion.
I watch Paris pay off the delivery girl and scoop up all the parcels of our food, two brown bags and a box with our alcohol in it. I glance down at the phone, it’s a text from Addison.
“Fuck.”
Paris looks at me immediately and places the groceries down on the kitchen bench. “What is it?” He asks coming over to me. I hand over the cell phone to him, so he can read the screen.
It says that the pain killer tablet I gave Addison was laced with traces of silver and aconitum.
“Oh fuck.” Paris mutters and looks over at me gravelly. It also says all Addison had to do to analyse it was break the seal and the smell hit him instantly. He is a great tracker for this reason, combined with his ability to decipher animal or human feet, paw and hand prints etc, it makes Addison the best tracker in the entire Manhattan Maen pack. I don’t need to question Addison’s ability to decipher smell from anything. If he says it’s aconitum and silver, then you can bet money on it, that it is.
My heart is racing at this news. Silver is bad. Bad enough. But it’s the aconitum that has me worried. It’s more commonly known as wolfs bane I’m worried about. That shit is like night fucking shade to werewolves. It kills us in the right dosage. I should know this; it’s what fucking murdered my father, former pack leader of the Breukelen.
“Who would know about wolfs bane?” Paris asks me even as I’m thinking it. It’s not widely known that wolfs bane will actually kill us. Kill us slowly, painfully and all too humanly. It’s not something werewolf packs want their packs to know. Because of panic I would suppose. Or because, there are some werewolves who would try and use it on others. My father’s death is proof of that.
I shrug my shoulders. “ And getting wolfs bane is hard. That shit is rare, from what I’m told. So where would you even begin to look at getting it in New York City?”
Paris stares at me, like he’s just had a light bulb moment. “Plum Island. Makes sense doesn’t it?”
I feel my knees knock together suddenly and I reach a hand out for the kitchen counter’s open plan bench top. Paris catches me before my legs give way. He scoops me up, kisses me and carries me back over to our fireside mattress.
“It makes sense if that’s the place where you weaponzie werewolves or do experimental tests on them. It’s fucking biological.” I mutter as he places me down on the mattress again.
We look at each other silently. There is another set of questions here that neither of us wants to ask. How much is enough to kill me? Did I take enough? Can it be leeched from my system?
The phone buzzes again and Paris looks at the new text message. He looks over at me. “Jules gave Addison the name of the woman who gave you the tablets.” Paris pauses. “Her name is Siobhan. She’s a Manhattan Maen beta werewolf that I used to regularly have relations with.”
My eyes go wide. “I need a drink. A big glass of wine.” Paris pushes off the mattress while I sit there and goes back to the kitchen.
“Out of all the women whom I’d expect to fuck with me, like, you know this,” Paris says trying to correct himself. “Sabelle isn’t one who would even enter my thought radar. She seemed so nice and, well, level headed by comparison to the others.”
“Always the quiet ones.” I mutter. “Always.” Paris pours me a large glass of white wine and walks back over, delivering it to me. Before returning to the kitchen and opening up the grocery bags.
“Addison’s got Bohm and Jules looking for Sabelle now.”
“So Sabelle, how long were you with her?” I ask taking a big sip of wine.
“I wasn’t with her B,”
“You know what I mean. Like, how often was she rostered on with you.” Paris sighs and starts plating up an antipasto plate of goodies for us.
“Um, I dunno. I was never really with anyone that long, unless they seemed to be incredibly good at sex or didn’t get all…clingy and needy. Wanting a relationship I was never going to give.”
“Give or take, here.” I fire at him, downing another mouthful.
“I guess for partners I liked, for lack of a better word, maybe three lunar weeks. For those I wasn’t that interested in, it’d just be irregular calls in non-lunar week times. A quick fuck here and there. A blowjob on demand. That kind of thing. Whoever was willing and around, could meet my needs.” Paris finishes with the platter of cheeses, cold meats, cocktail onions, pickles; olives and other assorted items and pours himself a wine too.
“I’m sorry to sound so crude, but you have to understand.” He says grabbing the platter and his wine glass. “I was a different guy before I met you. That was just the way my life had been playing out, how most of us males were players.”
“Gimme.” I say picking cheese off the platter and popping it in my mouth. “So good.”
Paris smiles as he sits down beside me, in front of our roaring fire and picks up a couple of items off the platter and eats them, before polishing them down with his wine.
“Does Sabelle know about this place, here in the Hampton’s?” I ask Paris suddenly.
“No. Definitely not. I never took any females up here ever. Never would have mentioned it to them.”
“Oh, well, good.” I reply feeling not good at all. I sip some more wine. Maybe if I drink enough I can numb my brain down into not making me think anymore about any of this stuff. It’s so overwhelming with its continual progress to punch me.
29
Paris feeds me the last of the rolled up cold meat on the platter and smiles as he as he watches me eat it.
“I want to call a doctor.” He says once I’ve finished eating.
“What?”
“A friendly of course Get you checked out, draw some blood.” He goes on.
“No.” I reply automatically. Not that it isn’t actually a smart idea or anything.
“Cadey, you were unknowingly taken wolfsbane. We have to know how much and wether it’s still in your system. I have to know.” He states firmly. “I am not going to let you go easily and if there is something I can do to prevent any kind of harm from coming to you, then I will, damn it.”
“Only if you get blood work too.”
“What?” Paris actually seems surprised by this suggestion. I wouldn’t have thought it was such a giant leap to make.
“Given all you’ve been through, I think a, once a year physical and blood work isn’t out of the question for you either. So if you agree, I’ll agree.”
Paris nails me with a hard stare. “You’re negotiation tactics are impressive little wolf.”
“Got ‘em off my father. He was cluey.”
“All the more reason for us to go ahead with this then.” He says picking up the phone and making a call.
The good Doctor Megan Marasini turns up within twenty minutes of the phone call. It never ceases to amaze me that when Paris wants something or commands someone, they jump to attention and give him their time or skills without question. He’s not really used to anything else, but still, I find it always surprising to see it.
Dr Marasini is quietly efficient, and does as Paris requests of her when she arrives. For me it’s just about checking my eyes, mouth, blood pressure for obvious symptoms form the wolfsbane before drawing blood from me for later testing.
She is about my height and has dyed green hair and hazel eyes that are tinted with green. She reminds me of a cat. I wonder if she’s a shape shifter. She is slim and dressed like some funky, alternative chick from Soho or wherever the hipsters hang out these days.
“All done for you.” She says, getting me to hold my elbow up and trap the cotton swab she has over the injection point on my arm. She turns to look at Paris
“You’re up.”
“We’ll just do it here.” He says looking at me. Dr Marasini looks across at me and back at Paris. “Anything I say then is between all parties here, yes?”
“Yes. I don’t need to be confidential around my pack mate Doctor. She has as much right to know of anything of note with me, as I do of her.”
“Okay then. Let’s get to it, strip.” Doctor Marasini says factually. Paris doesn’t hesitate; he pulls off his top and t-shirt.
I glance across at Doctor Marasini. She’s fiddling around in her Doctor’s bag as Paris removes his jeans. I turn back to watching the Paris strip show as I talk back to Dr Marisini.
“So do you know actually, uh, know Paris outside of your professional calling I mean.” Paris stands before us both, utterly naked and waiting. His cock is not erect, he is not turned on. There is nothing sexual in this for him. But he doesn’t have a captive audience in the both of us. I guess the Doctor is being professional.
“Yeah, our groups of friends used to hang out together up here, when his family would come up for the holidays when we were both teenagers.”
He’s just standing there, butt naked in his living room, waiting to be told to cough or something. He’s looking around the room.
Dr Marisini puts on latex gloves and turns her attention back to Paris. “Since I am aware of what you’ve just come back from,” She says looking Paris in the eyes “Word travels fast by the way, I’m going to do an outward physical examination of your body to begin with.”
Paris nods his head and stands there silently waiting for her to do her Doctor thing.
“So you two knew each other as teenagers. Tell me anything shocking about teenage Paris Doc?” I smirk up at Paris as she starts her customary examination, along his hands and arms.
“Have you showered since you got back?” She asks him.
“Yes.”
“Hmm, might have been more useful not to, but let’s go on.” She says more to herself than to him and checks his arm out. To me she then says “Well, back then he wasn’t Paris. “ Of course not, Paris isn’t his real name it’s a pack totem nickname. He earned it when he became the leader of the Manhattan Maen. And it’s really not as nice and romantic as it sounds. The meaning behind him being named Paris is far more gothic and yet worthy of a pack leader.
“I know.”
“But believe me, he had all the making of the Paris we know today.” She chuckled working her way up to his shoulder and pushing lightly along the top of it to his collarbone.
“Anything feel out of place here?” She ask him.
“No.”
“It’s tight.” She replies back at him.
“You know, you were no better back in the day either Doc. You were just as bad ass as me.”
“Oh do tell.” I say sitting cross-legged on the mattress and drinking more wine. Dr Marisini looks up at Paris and waves a gloved finger at his face. “Don’t even think about it D’arenberg or I’ll give you a prostate check, here and now.” She mutters at him.
Paris chuckles and smiles back at me. “She was kind of the like the female version of teenage me, but on the girls.” He says as She checks his other pectoral muscles out and moves to his left arm.
“I have no idea what the means.” I mutter watching her flipping his hand over and gain check his palm and fingers and fingernails.
“And that’s a good thing.” Dr Marisini comments back at me as she moves around his body. “So far, I’m not seeing any obvious scaring, bruising or cuts. Which I wouldn’t expect to see from you if you’ve shape shifted.”
“Uh yeah, I’ve shifted since I got back. One of the best shifts ever.” He mutters his voice going low and husky as he looks down at me and his eyes darken to dark pools of navy blue. I sip my wine and try not to squirm around in my seated position from the heat that is pooling in my body from what that gaze means. I can’t help it, my eyes drop to his cock and I notice it’s now started to pay attention to my presence again. It’s semi hard.
“So you had any obvious problems since then that you want to mention to me?” Dr Marisini asks Paris whose hand is brushing against the side of his cock until he remembers what’s going on and he moves his hand away again.
“No.”
“No problem with digesting food?”
“No.”
“Sleeping okay.”
“Sleeping okay.” Paris repeats back at her still staring heatedly at me.
“Any unusual aches or pains? Do we know if you were exposed to wolfsbane also?” She asks him from behind him.
“No, I wasn’t exposed to it.” He replies, still looking at me, his gaze softening.
“Are you sure?”
“Yes.” He replies firmly. “We only just found out about that tonight, even though Bg was exposed to it, ingesting it, over a week ago.”
“Well if you haven’t been showing any unusual symptoms since taking it over a week ago, I’d say there is a fair chance it’s out of your system or there wasn’t enough in there to do any real damage to you.” The Dr walks back around to the front of Paris and produces a small flashlight that she signs into his eyes. Happy with what she sees, she produces a flat wooden finger length paddle.
“Open.” She commands and Paris opens his mouth and she presses the paddle down on his tongue. And turns the light on again. “Close.” She says removing both and then checking his ears out.
“How am I looking?” Paris asks when she switches sides.
“Utterly normal. I can’t see any evidence of bruising, contusions, cuts, or silver scaring, you say you’ve had no symptoms that would happen from exposure to wolfsbane and you look for all intents and purposes to be in great physical health. I’m just going to check your temperature.” She said producing a thermometer and putting it in his mouth. “And take your blood pressure and then draw blood from you and we’re all done.”
Ten minutes later, Paris’s blood is drawn and Dr Marsini is on her way out the front door.
“Thanks for coming and doing this, Megan.”
“Wait till I send you my bill before you thank me. I’ll get a rush on the blood work see what we can uncover.” She replies with a smile and is gone as Paris now back in jeans, with the fly undone and showing a bit of tantalizing hair that trails down to a happy place that is out of sight, thanks to his jeans, closes the door.
“Now.” He says turning to face me. “Can we start this romantic get-away off properly?”
“How do we do that?” I ask all innocence before him.
“We forget about the rest of the world for awhile,” He says stalking towards me. “And we don’t mention the A word,” He says kneeling down onto the mattress “And we don’t talk about the kidnapping,” he continues crawling across the mattress toward me. “And we make love, by our open fire, while it still is puttering along, and then in after glow, we roast marshmallows over the embers and feed each other.”
“Nice.” His kiss is tender and full of longing and I cave in to every part of it and him.
30
There are hands on me. Ghosting over my rump, moving my leg up as I feel a familiar hardness press against me. “Addison, no.” I mumble tiredly. But the warm male body behind me feels so good, so comforting. His lips kiss me behind my ear and then I hear Paris’s voice say, “I’m so glad to hear you say that. Sweetheart.” And as my eyes open and I realise I’m not in Addison’s house, or bed, Paris pushes into me thickly.
“Good morning,” He mutters from behind me as he starts thrusting slowly, shallow thrusts at first, as he kisses my shoulder, neck, back. I sigh lightly and blink a few times. Remembering that we are up in the Hampton’s, just the two of us without a care in the world except each other.
Oh and the mysterious kidnappers who are out to do what exactly, kill us, poison me, kidnap Paris, fuck Paris. None of it makes sense or is clear to me so I brush those thoughts aside and move against Paris.
“Very good morning.” I murmur back at him, and he thrusts deep into me.
“Oh yes.” He hisses as he plunges into me and pulls back again. “I love feeling you around me, like this sweetheart. So tight and perfect for me.”
“Love me.” I murmur back at him as his hands skim up my sides to grip my breasts. And he increases his pace and kisses on my body while we move together. His fingers pinch my nipples until they hard and extended in his hands and I’m making little noises of appreciation again. Paris’s head rests on my shoulder, watching his handy work.
“Beautiful.” He mutters. “I have a good mind to flip you over so I can suck on them and fuck you at the same time.”
“Yes, please.” Paris pulls out of me and I roll onto my back and open my legs wide for him, he lifts my hips up and slides back into me again, we both sigh.
“That feeling of connection, that never gets old.” He says with a smile and now I find places for my hands to be as they skim over his powerful legs, cupping his taunt behind, helping him thrust deeply into me. My fingers run down the inside of his behind, until I find a sensitive spot.
“Oh now sweetheart if you do that, then you better be prepared for the consequences.” He says leaning over down towards my breasts.
