Irish Mist Read online

  Just take them off. No one is going to care, Ippy said, startling Caelum.

  “Take what off?” Caelum asked, looking between the two of them.

  Hannah’s fingers rested on the button of her jeans. “My pants. Normally I sleep in a t-shirt and boxers. I’ve got boxers on right now, actually. I like how they feel. It’s not weird.”

  Caelum smiled at her. “No, it’s not. I like boxers, too.”

  She smirked at him. “Yeah, but you’re a guy. You’re supposed to like them. I’m supposed to wear frilly pink underwear that’s all lacy and crap. Not blue boxers with little birds on them.”

  “Do they really have little birds?” Caelum asked her, getting interested now. He only had plain ones.

  In one quick motion Hannah had her pants off and was standing next to the bed showing off boxers that were blue and did have little cartoon birds on them. “Tada,” she grumbled.

  Caelum grabbed her wrist and pulled her into bed next to him. “They’re cute.”

  She thinks it makes her less of a girl to wear them, Ippy revealed, even though his eyes were closed as he put his head over Caelum’s chest.

  Hannah cringed. “It does, though. Kind of. I mean, not many girls wear stuff like this.”

  “I don’t care about what other girls do, only what makes you comfortable,” Caelum said as he wrapped an arm around her shoulders and held her close. With a little giggle she curled up against his side as well. As Caelum watched, Ippy put his hand on Caelum’s belly just above his navel and Hannah wrapped her fingers around Ippy’s. He liked that, that they were connected in this way. All three of them. He fell asleep shortly after that with Ippy snoring softly into his side and Hannah’s hair falling over his shoulder.

  It was sometime in the middle of the night that Caelum heard shouting followed by banging on the front door. Hannah was already awake when he sat up, quickly going for the flashlight that he kept beside his bed in case of power failures. When it came on he saw Hannah crouched down beside the bed, her right hand buried in the thick fur on the neck of a wolf.

  “Thanks,” he quickly shot to Ippy as he got out of bed, too, and moved in front of them. He was glad Ippy had shifted, and that he could shift into something useful. Unlike a seal. Caelum loved what he could turn into and enjoyed being able to swim for long distances and hold his breath underwater. There was a whole world under the waves that many people never got to see, especially not while in the body of something made for going through water like a bird through air. But a seal wouldn’t be much help against the men currently pounding on his front door.

  “What do you want?” Caelum shouted back at them, going to the front door and pushing Hannah and Ippy behind him. Though neither one of them went very far.

  There were muffled voices from the other side of the door and though he wished he could see these men, he wasn’t about to open up for them. Surprisingly he wasn’t afraid, though. He was annoyed that they had come to interrupt their sleep, but he wasn’t scared.

  “Give us the wolf and we’ll leave,” one of them called.

  Ippy growled from behind him and Caelum shook his head and waved at him, trying to get him to be quiet in case the men could hear him. “What wolf? I don’t have a wolf. They’re illegal as pets.”

  “Open the door, selkie, you can’t keep our brother captive,” a different man shouted.

  Well, that was twisted. He was about to tell them how absolutely crazy they were when Ippy stepped around him and pressed his big shoulder into Caelum’s leg. You’re wrong and I’m not going anywhere, Ippy growled at them. Hannah came around Caelum’s side as well, and their hands joined on the back of Ippy’s neck.

  “Let us come in. We can talk about this,” a man called.

  None of them budged at first, but then Hannah’s phone started ringing from where she’d left it in the living room. Caelum and Ippy moved back as she went to answer it. The muffled talking continued from the other side of the door and Caelum expected it would keep up until they opened the door for them. But now that he knew that the men on the other side wanted Ippy, he was even more against letting them anywhere near his wolf.

  “Hello?” he heard Hannah answer her phone from behind him. He wasn’t about to take his eyes off the door in case one of them tried something. Like breaking in.

  The windows were all open, his mistake and he should have known better, but the lights were still off so although he didn’t know how many of them were out there. He hoped that they didn’t know where they were in the house either. Especially since they were standing in front of mostly all windows that looked out onto the sea.

  “What do you mean, Dad?”

  Caelum glanced over his shoulder at her. Hannah didn’t sound okay. In fact she sounded pretty hysterical. Screw this. He went to the phone and took it from her hands, despite her protests.

  “This is Caelum and there are men, who I believe are wolves, banging on my front door. What’s going on?” he snapped.

  “I was talking to my daughter,” Liam growled at him.

  “Put it on speaker,” Hannah said as she held onto his arm. Reluctantly, since he didn’t want the men outside to possibly overhear this conversation, he did as she asked him to. It wasn’t his preference, but at least they could all hear what was being said now as they crouched down on the floor behind the couch, hopefully giving themselves some cover in case the men could see inside.

  “Dad, you’re on speaker. Tell us what you know,” Hannah said as she leaned forward and tried to keep her voice down. Caelum put an arm around her trembling shoulders and Ippy licked her face before sitting down next to her.

  “You three, that’s the Irish pack out there. Their alpha called me after his brat of a son decided to take off and come on some misguided attempt to rescue Phillip. They have orders not to come into the house. They will not try to break in. You’re safe as long as you don’t open the door or let them inside. Samson and I are getting on a plane now. We’ll be there by morning to get this thing settled. His son thinks that Phillip is there against his will.” Liam said a string of curses that Caelum largely ignored, though he would have liked to have said them as well.

  The pounding continued and Hannah shrieked. Liam was yelling orders at the men through the phone, but as far as Caelum could tell, none of them were listening to him and Caelum was not about to let a bunch of wolves scare his girlfriend, or his boyfriend. They’d been in Ireland less than twenty-four hours. This was insane.

  “Go away and leave us alone,” Caelum shouted at the wolves as he got as close to his front door as he dared.

  “Give us the wolf!” someone countered.

  Caelum shook his head. That wasn’t going to happen. But what could he possibly say to these people to make them understand that Ippy wasn’t there against his will? He went for the obvious and figured he’d work his way from there. “Ippy, Phillip, isn’t yours to take. He’s mine. I love him. And I love our girlfriend, too. And they love me. I’ve never dealt with you before, probably because I don’t associate with wolves much outside of Ippy. But you’ve got no reason to be here. No reason to worry about him. You’re freaking him out and scaring our girlfriend. Go away. We don’t want you here.”

  He could hear growls and shuffling outside and braced for something, though he had no idea what. It wasn’t as if he had ever really been in a fight. The closest he’d experienced so far had been when he, Hannah, and Ippy had escaped from the men that had been holding them. And though there had been quite a bit of running, the fighting hadn’t been there.

  He waited, expecting them to act, but hoping that they didn’t. Instead, though, he heard their footsteps slowly retreating away from his home. There were a few mumbled curses, but after a few minutes, when he didn’t hear them anymore, Caelum started to breathe again and returned to Hannah and Ippy.

  “Are they gone?” she asked Caelum as he sat down next to her behind the couch.

  He nodded. “I
think so. Ippy, can you smell them anymore?”

  The wolf shook his head and then Ippy was beside them again. He was naked and Caelum pulled the blanket off the back of the couch and tossed it over his lap.

  Thanks.

  Caelum gave him a nod.

  “Are you all okay?” Liam asked them, the worry clear in his voice.

  Caelum hadn’t realized that he was still on the phone and looked to Hannah. He was shaken up, Ippy looked paler than usual and he was sitting stiffly beside them. Hannah was still trembling and it was pretty obvious that no, she wasn’t okay.

  “Yeah, we’re good. Really, Dad you don’t have to come out here. I think Caelum and Ippy scared them off. They shouldn’t be bothering us again,” Hannah said quickly.

  Caelum frowned at her, wondering why she’d lied to her dad. She’d never refused his help before, so why should this time be any different? She met his gaze quickly and shook her head. He knew that gesture, he wasn’t supposed to say anything, which was just fine. He’d ask her in a bit when she was no longer on the phone.

  “I want to come up there,” Liam said, though Caelum could hear the hesitation in his voice.

  Hannah forced a smile and Caelum put an arm around her and stretched his legs out in front of him. Ippy mimicked his actions and put his legs out as well until the sides of their feet were touching on either side of Hannah’s shorter legs. “You don’t have to, Dad. We’re okay. Totally good. If we need help, we’ll call, okay? Nothing to worry about.”

  It took nearly twenty more minutes, but then Hannah ended the call and released a sigh.

  “You shouldn’t lie to your family,” Caelum told her as gently as he could.

  Hannah nodded and hung her head a bit before bringing her knees to her chest and hugging them close to her. “I know. But it’s like we came out here and we haven’t even been here for a full day and already there’s trouble and my dad wants to rush out here? And bring Samson? Uh huh. No way. When we left, we convinced them that we’re adults now. Old enough to go across an entire ocean and make a new life for ourselves here. I just want to prove it to them that I’m strong enough to do it.”

  It’s not weakness to ask for help, Ippy said, sounding much older than he was in that moment.

  Caelum nodded, easily agreeing with him. “And I’d rather you both be safe. Your dad is scary. Or, at least, he can be when he wants to. And Samson is the same way. I don’t remember him much, but I know what an alpha werewolf is like, and I wouldn’t want to mess with either of them.”

  She groaned and laid her head against Caelum’s shoulder. “This is a mess. I feel like I’m always getting you both into trouble. Just like when I ran away.”

  Caelum chuckled and rubbed her shoulder. “First of all, when you ran away it was to come rescue me. And—”

  “We were kidnapped,” she interrupted him, sounding miserable.

  But we did escape.

  Caelum gave Ippy a little grin over Hannah’s head and, though it was stiff, Ippy did return his smile after a few minutes. “And here? This wasn’t your fault. Couple of wolves that are completely wrong about what we’re doing here. That’s it. We’re fine. Nothing to it. I bet we never even see them again.” He didn’t believe the words, even as he said them, but knew that Hannah probably needed to hear them, and if it brought back her smile and made her feel safe, he’d say whatever he had to.

  “You think so?” Hannah asked him, her voice whisper quiet.

  Caelum was quick to nod and leaned over to kiss the top of her head. “Absolutely.” That single word brought out a little shudder of relief in her and he squeezed her even tighter.

  What time is it? Ippy asked them after a few silent moments.

  Hannah looked down at her phone. “Ugh. Just after three. Back to bed?”

  “Or we could watch some movies,” Caelum suggested.

  Together they looked to Ippy, waiting for him to make the decision. Movies.

  Smiling, Caelum got to his feet and quickly returned with the blankets and pillows from his bed. He spread them out, creating a place for the three of them on the floor in front of the TV. Once that was settled, Ippy went to the kitchen and, after a few minutes of fumbling around the unfamiliar cabinets, returned with cookies and pbj sandwiches for them along with some iced tea Caelum had made the morning before.

  Together they curled up on the blankets, their legs and arms over each other, and Caelum turned on the TV. There wasn’t much to see this time of night, but he had an action movie already in the player, so they watched that until it ran out. Hannah was the first to fall asleep, barely making it through the first movie, and Ippy was the second one to go. By the time the third one ended Caelum was asleep as well, as morning sunlight lit up the big room.

  “Do you see them?” Hannah asked Caelum late that morning as they walked hand in hand along the beach in search of the perfect shell to bring back to Ippy while he continued to sleep.

  Caelum nodded in the direction she’d pointed to. The wolves weren’t as invisible as they’d probably liked, though he didn’t know if they were trying to be, either. They were a good dozen yards away from the house, though, and so he let them go without thinking too much about them. “Yes. I guess we’ll have company for a while now until they figure out that Ippy isn’t in any danger from us.”

  Hannah rolled her eyes and bent down to pick up a shiny piece of worn glass. Though it wasn’t a shell, she still put it into her pocket before standing back up. “How long do you think that’ll take them? A few years?”

  She sounded angry and he didn’t blame her one bit. “Better not be that long.”

  Hannah sighed and stopped walking as she turned to stare out at the sea. Caelum released her hand so that he could come up and wrap his arms around her from behind. Her long hair tickled his face and neck, but he didn’t mind. “What are you thinking about?” He asked her after she’d been silent for a good five minutes straight.

  “It’s stupid.”

  “Tell me anyway.”

  With a groan that sounded like he was dragging it from her, she said, “I’m wondering if my dads have enough to buy us a little island. Nothing too big. Just enough for a house. We could have chickens for eggs and go fishing. I’d have a little garden and we could eat coconuts. Just the three of us all the time.”

  Caelum nodded against her shoulder and turned his head to kiss the side of her neck. “Think that would fix everything? That we could change people’s minds about us by hiding away?”

  “We shouldn’t have to do any of that. People should just accept that it’s the three of us and that’s how it’s going to be. End of story. I get it, Ippy gets it, you do, too. That’s all that we need.”

  Caelum wished that it was as easy as all that. Too bad he knew better than to believe in that kind of a fairy tale life. “It won’t ever be that simple, I don’t think.”

  “It should be,” she grumbled.

  Caelum nodded. He thought it should be, too. “What do you want? Where do you see in us in a few years?”

  “How many years?” she asked him, her voice going soft.

  Caelum shrugged. He hadn’t put a time frame on the fantasy. “Say, I dunno, five, maybe?”

  Hannah’s smile turned wistful and she leaned back against him. “I’d be done with university. I don’t know my major yet, but I’d be done, at least. So would Ippy. We’d all have a house. I’d be pregnant. Maybe even with our second child. It would be fantastic if we were all able to work from home, like my dads do. I think that did great things for their marriage.”

  Caelum lowered his hands to her stomach, trying to picture a child growing inside of her. His child, or Ippy’s, didn’t really matter. It would be theirs. He didn’t know if a half shifter child would be able to use that ability, but it didn’t really matter to him, either. They would be loved and cared for in the best way they could. An idea slowly started to form in his mind and he closed his eyes, realizing t
he truth of it.

  “We’d need a pack,” he whispered against her ear.

  “No way in hell am I going to those bastards. They tried to take Ippy from us,” she shot back.

  Caelum smirked. “Not saying them. But a pack is the best family type I’ve ever seen. I want our kids to grow up around one, to have that kind of protection. When you and Ippy ran away there was a rush of people that all cared about you coming to rescue you.”

  “Selkies have that, too,” she was quick to remind him.

  Shrugging, Caelum opened his eyes and looked out at the sea with her. Going to her pack would mean not living within walking distance to the ocean. He’d still have it when they took vacations, he was sure of it, but it wouldn’t be like this. “What I have with my family is different. It’s not worse, but it’s not the same either. It’s less a complete family unit and more of a pyramid. There’s a similar structure in the pack, but Samson is still there, still available, still a part of everyone’s lives. Selkies are largely solitary. There are months between times when I’ll see members of my family outside of my dreams. That doesn’t bother me. But being without you and Ippy for so many years was too hard. I won’t do it again.”

  “We won’t ask you to. I had him, so it was easier on me, but we still missed you all the time. We both did. And we talked about how great it would be to live together, just like this,” Hannah softly said, sounding like she was trying to reassure him.

  His mind made up, Caelum kissed her cheek. “Call your father. Tell him we’re all coming back there.”

  She turned in his arms and frowned up at him as she cupped his face between her hands. “Seriously? You’d give up freedom, a house by the sea, and your own country to go live with my dads?”