22: It Pours

Quincy St. Martin

My legs are shaky as I make my way back to the counter. So, is he really going to sit there and wait for me to finish work?

“Wait!” says Cat, clasping my arm as I grab a cleaning solution and a cleaning cloth to wipe a table. “You ~know~ him? You never told me that you knew him!”

“Uh, I don’t really know him,” I say. I really don’t want to tell Cat anything. I like Cat just fine. I mean, she is cool and all, but she’s also nosy and loves to gossip.

Telling Cat anything is like announcing it to the whole campus.

“Really? It sure doesn’t look like it. Is he waiting for you?” she digs.

“We just need to…uh, talk.” I’m not lying. We do need to talk, but if anything else happens…

“Talk? Suuure. Or is that what they call it these days?”

“Cat!” I half whisper, half yell at her. I quickly glance at him to make sure that he’s not listening, but then I remember just how sensitive a werewolf’s hearing is, and his hearing is probably stronger. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Sure.” She winks. “Talking. I get it. He’s sitting there staring at you like he wants to eat you for breakfast, lunch, ~and~ dinner, and he’s waiting just to talk. Totally.”

I can think of nothing to say.

She pats my hand gently. “I believe you. Millions wouldn’t, but I believe you.” She winks again. I’m sure he can hear her loud and clear. Oh, my God!

I move around, trying to do my job while acutely aware of him watching me. It’s hard to concentrate. I’m a pro waitress, an expert at making smoothies, a master at clearing and cleaning tables.

It’s his fault that I can’t take a few steps without tripping over my own feet. Walking gets tricky when someone is watching you. I am not clumsy. Cat, Alex, and Jenna are also watching. Cat, with amusement, Jenna not.

Once in a while, Cat looks from Caspian to me then back again and not so subtly wiggles her eyebrows suggestively. Ughh!! There’s no cure for Cat. Alex just watches me quietly. I don’t really know what she’s thinking.

Jenna keeps going over to Caspian’s table and trying to strike up a conversation with him. She’s very persistent. I don’t even try to hide a smirk every time she stomps away in frustration when he firmly, but politely tells her to leave him alone, because I’m petty like that.

It’s also obvious that he’s losing his patience with her because his responses get shorter and terser. Is it bad that I feel smug about it? Maybe it is, but do I care? Not at all.

Three hours. Three of the longest hours of my life. The longest three hours in history!

It’s funny that I’m impatient for my shift to be over, but at the same time, I’m nervous as hell.

Prince Caspian Romanov

Ever heard of the English idiomatic expression ~When it rains, it pours~? It couldn’t have described this week better for me. In other words, this week sucks. My plan for my erasthai was simple. I wanted to wine and dine and woo my princess the old-fashioned way.

I wanted to dazzle her with my extraordinary good looks, extremely witty and clever conversational skills, and my utterly magnificent sense of humor. Not to mention my downright charming, not to mention captivating, personality and charisma.

I want to make her drool over my sexiness. I want to make her fall helplessly in love with me so that she has no chance of leaving me when I reveal to her what I really am. See? Simple.

Only nothing is simple when it comes to my erasthai. Why won’t she fall at my feet like other women? It drives me crazy. She won’t even agree to a date with me. One date, that’s all I asked.

I have never had to work so hard to get just one single date from a woman. Every attempt I have tried she has shot down without a second thought.

The last time I tried, she told me to leave her alone. That hurt. Knowing that your erasthai, the one that you’ve been waiting for all your life, wants nothing to do with you, hurts. A lot.

I was hurt, angry, and miserable for days. I vowed to give her some distance. Time for her to realize that she needed me.

I wanted her to miss me… Like I miss her. I have been as miserable as hell these last few days. On top of that, I had to deal with Penny and Darius’s drama. Darius is one of the top commanders, one of the best warriors in the Royal Army.

Penny, or Beany as I call her, is a werewolf, and she is Darius’s erasthai. He has refused to mark her and make her his for years. A few days ago, he finally told us the reason why.

Darius is in charge of a very classified operation that only a select few in the Army know of. It’s an investigation involving the royal family.

One of us is working with the rebels to gain power. We have enemies from the inside. The mates of the previous commanders before him were killed brutally to stop the investigation. In our world, if you destroy the mate, you destroy the lycan.

Once the mate is killed brutally, you have to destroy the other before they go on a rampage or killing spree. Darius knows that they wouldn’t hesitate to kill Beany if they knew she was his. He’s been carrying the burden for years.

He also cautioned that I, myself, and the future queen would be in danger as well, but right now, the direct threat would be to Beany.

To complicate matters, Beany found her human mate a couple of weeks ago. If she chooses to be with the human, she’ll be lost to us forever. Great, right? I have to worry about my princess’s safety on top of her not wanting me.

Just as I was wallowing in my self-pity, feeling sorry for myself, Beany was taken. She was at the park with her human mate when they were taken. She was about to end it with him to be with Darius when they took her.

Those sons of bitches stabbed her with a silver knife. A wound like that, made by silver, would have been fatal to werewolves. We’re lucky that Darius had already marked her scent and she had already accepted him.

That means she’s already turning into a lycan.

At least she’s now alive and truly has become one of us. She and her smart-ass mouth will live to torment us for centuries to come. If we manage to keep her alive that long.

Penny’s human mate, Matthew, saw the whole thing—the werewolf phasing, Beany being stabbed and turning into her lycan.

The chicken shit became hysterical. His mind couldn’t accept what he saw. The reality of his world shifted, and he couldn’t take it.

That brings me back to my own problem. My erasthai is a human. What would she do if she knew what I am? If she knew about me, the monster? She might already know about werewolves, but we lycans are another level of craziness. We’re not beautiful to look at. We kill brutally and without remorse.

We’re like your worst nightmare come to life.

Would she be able to accept me? What if she acts just like Matthew did? Screaming and cowering, yelling incoherent words one moment and crying about vicious, frightening, abhorrent monsters the next?

What if she hates me? Worse, what if she’s scared of me?

That would destroy me.

I’m thankful that Beany didn’t get to see Matthew like that. Even though she might have accepted Darius as her mate, it would still hurt her terribly if she saw how scared he was and heard the things that he said about her and about us.

I slapped the guy so hard that he passed out so she didn’t have to see it. And also because I had been wanting to do that since I first saw him. Enough of his hysteria.

Darius seems to accept that there is no way he can keep her safe at a distance now. I have no doubt they will mate and mark each other soon.

My work here as a meddling cupid is done. There, pat yourself on your fucking shoulder, Prince Caspian Romanov! If only my own life weren’t such a fucking mess right now. I’ve been sitting at this café for over two hours.

I swipe the screen of my phone to read a message from Lazarus. He’s scolding me for ditching my security detail. I ignore his message. I do pretty much what I want. All the time. This time I don’t want them with me. I don’t want any of them around when I’m groveling at my erasthai’s feet.

Begging her just to talk to me.

I’ve enough shit to deal with. Having my men and my pack mates laughing at me? Fuck that. Not going to happen. I check the time again. Two hours and forty minutes. Not that I’m bored or complaining. I’m having fun watching my princess. Mostly.

I love watching her move, the way she walks, trying to pretend that she’s not aware of me watching her every move.

The darkness of her hair, a stark contrast to her pale skin. Her green eyes, bright and brilliant, surrounded by thick, black lashes. Her lips, so red. Everything about her is in rich, vivid color. Striking. She makes everything and everyone else pale in comparison. Black and white. Insignificant.

I love the way she tilts her head and clicks her pen in a nervous gesture when she waits for her customers to make up their minds. I love how she watches me from the corner of her eye or steals a glance when she thinks I’m not watching.

I love the way strands of her jet-black hair escape from the hair tie and fall over her face.

I hate watching men looking at her, checking her out. I hate how some of them talk about her when they think she’s out of hearing range.

I could wring their necks for even looking at her. I can’t stand that the other server keeps coming over to ask me if I need anything or just to chat. I don’t need that. I’m just here to wait for my girl. She really doesn’t need to come over to ask me the same question every five minutes.

If I need anything, I will call. That’s how it works.

Quincy. Queen Quincy. My queen. Right now, the future queen of all lycans and werewolves is wiping tables at a café.

I have billions of Euros and countless properties scattered across the globe, yet she’s working a job that pays minimum wage. The fucking irony. Her friend with purple hair keeps saying things to embarrass my princess. I think I like her; she’s hilarious.

I almost laugh at the mortified expression on Quincy’s face when her friend insinuates that we’re going to do more than just talk. When she quickly glances at me, I just pretend to be fascinated with the wall art. A huge imitation of an Andy Warhol, a cup of cappuccino printed in six panels in different colors.

***

“Hey,” she says, standing in front of me, fidgeting with the strap of her bag. Finally.

“Hey,” I reply as I get to my feet. “Ready to go?”