Taken by the Blood God (Devil Springs #4)

Epilogue

Poppy

I was tipsy and heading toward drunk.

As a wolf shifter, it was a difficult state to achieve, but my best friend, Zeke Marshall, and I had plenty of practice at reaching it.

At least once a week, we got together to watch movies or play poker at my house. Booze was always involved, and Zeke either picked up a couple of pizzas or I cooked something for us to eat. Tonight, we started out playing cards and eventually moved into watching movies. I’d suckered him into watching a romcom with me.

That was when Zeke told me what his father was up to.

Zeke was the son of the local cat alpha. His father had all kinds of expectations regarding his only son. Expectations about who he should be, what sort of job he should have, and who he should mate.

Expectations that Zeke had been fighting against his entire life.

The regional meeting for the cat clans was next month and his father was pressuring him to attend and sign up for the mate search.

“Why don’t you want to do it?” I asked, ignoring the twinge in my chest when I voiced the question. Most shifters were eager to find their mate. Especially shifters well into their prime. Like Zeke.

And like me.

So far, neither of us had been in any hurry to go looking, but I kept expecting that to change any day now.

Zeke shot me a knowing look. “I’d prefer to find my own mate, not allow my father to pimp me out to half the cat clans in Texas.”

“Who says you wouldn’t find your own mate?” I asked.

Another knowing look came my way. “You know that my father thinks he can control my mate.”

“He wants you to settle?” I asked.

Settling was what shifters called it when we marked someone other than our fated mate. While fate rarely made mistakes, there were a few fated couples who couldn’t stand each other. Or shifters who never found their true mate. In those cases, they often settled for someone because loneliness could drive us to madness. Or death.

Zeke shrugged. “He hasn’t said that, but I think it’s only a matter of time before the subject comes up.”

I shook my head. “You’re kidding me! Your mother is his fated mate. How can he expect you to accept anything less?”

“Now you understand why I’m not so eager to go to this regional meeting.”

Without another word, I went to my liquor cabinet and pulled out two bottles of tequila.

“Well, this calls for more than getting tipsy,” I said, handing him a bottle. “One for you, and one for me. If we chug’em back quickly enough, we’ll be drunk.”

He grinned at me, his blue eyes twinkling. “This is why we’re friends. You understand what I need.”

I tugged the cork off the top of my bottle, holding out toward him, neck first. He opened his and clinked the neck of his tequila bottle against mine.

“To pushy relatives,” I said.

Zeke lowered the bottle. “I refuse to drink to that.”

I sighed. “Fine. To best friends.”

His grin returned as glass clinked again. Together, we lifted our bottles and took a couple big swallows each.

An hour later, we weren’t just drunk. We were smashed.

I was sprawled across my couch, my head resting on Zeke’s shoulder. His body was angled in the opposite direction of mine, and his head rested against the back of my skull. I’d been thinking about his dilemma since we started drinking, and a brilliant idea suddenly came to me.

“Zeke!” I cried, jerking into a sitting position.

He jumped up behind me, grabbing my shoulders to pull me back from the edge of the couch. “Jeezus, Poppy. Ya scared the shi’ outta me. Wha’s tha matter?”

I twisted so that I faced him. My eyes struggled to focus because his nose was only an inch from mine. I leaned back just a bit so I could see him clearly.

“I ha’ an idea. A brillian’ idea.”

“Oh, fuck. For the las’ time, skinny dipping while drunk isn’t a brillian’ idea. Issa cliché,” he retorted.

I snorted. “No! I mean an actual brillian’ idea, not jus’ an excuse to check out your ass.”

He blinked at me. “Ya check out mah ass?”

I smacked his abdomen with the back of my hand. “Focus, Zeke!”

“Okay, okay,” he said, rubbing his stomach. “No nee’ to get violent. Wha’s your idea?”

“I know how to get your dad off your back!”

He waited, staring at me while I grinned at him. “Okaaaay, are ya going to tell me what tha’ idea is?”

“Oh, yeah,” I answered, my smiled growing wider. “I’ll date you,” I said, pointing my thumb at my chest.

Then, I realized what I said and went on to clarify. “Wha’ I mean is, we’ll preten’ to date for the next couple of months so your dad stops pressuring you to go to tha meeting. It’ll give ya time to figure out how to find your actual fated mate instead of settling for whoever he tries to shove at ya.”

Zeke cocked his head, which made him go out of focus again.

I swatted his arm. “Stop moving. I can’t see you when you move.”

A crooked grin tugged up one corner of his mouth, revealing the dimple in his left cheek.

“I dunno if that’ll work, Poppy,” he drawled. “Anyone who knows us also knows that we’ve been friend—only friends—for a lon’ time.”

I waved a hand. “All we hafta do is say that we fought our attraction so we didn’t ruin our frien’ship until we couldn’t resis’ anymore. It’ll work. I swear.”

Zeke blinked at me some more before he finally said, “Okay, tha’ might work. Shifters are nothing more than a bunch of gossiping busybodies anyway. They’ll probably believe it because it’s such a ‘romantic story’.”

He said the last two words while making air quotes, which struck me as funny for some reason.

I started giggling and asked, “Why are we making air quotes?”

The entire sentence, I used the first two fingers of each hand to make actual air quotes.

Zeke ignored my teasing and rubbed his chin. “But wha’ would ya get out of it?”

I rolled my eyes, picking up my bottle of tequila. There was one teeny tiny swallow left in the bottom, and it would be a shame to waste it. I tilted it back, letting the smooth, smoky liquor slide down my throat. Licking my lips, I lowered the bottle and looked at Zeke. His gaze was locked on my mouth.

“I keep telling ya that our relationship doesn’t hafta be transhacshunal.” My tongue didn’t want to form the last word, so I repeated it slowly. “Trans-ac-tion-al.”

It was something I said at least once a week. I never understood why Zeke thought he owed me any time I tried to do something nice for him. It was weird.

Those bright blue eyes were making my lips tingle, so I ran my tongue across the bottom one to try to make it stop. Finally, Zeke’s attention moved up to meet my gaze.

“And I keep tellin’ ya that I don’ like it when you do things for me and won’ let me do things for you.”

This was an old argument, and I was tired of it.

Waving a hand, I said, “Fine. You can han’le my household chores. Washing tha dishes. Doing tha laundry. Vacuuming.” I chuckled. “Well, you might have to fix them all first. I think tha only appliance I own that does i’s job is mah vibrator, and even tha’s hit or miss.”

Silence fell between us like a stone sinking into a lake.

Oops, I’d made it awkward.

Before I could backpedal, Zeke straightened up on the couch, bringing his hands back to my shoulders so he could hold me still.

“Tha’s it. I’ll take care of your house and you,” he said.

“My house and me ?” My voice cracked on the last word.

He nodded, his expression serious. “I’ll fix your appliances, clean your house once a week, and be better at giving you orgasms than any vibrator you’ve ever ha’.”

I was pretty sure my mouth was hanging open as I stared at him. “I was joking, Z.”

“I know, but I’m not. If you’ll help keep my dad off my back, and keep some she-cat from getting her claws into my ass, your house will be clean the entire time, and I’ll make you come so hard that your eyes roll back in your head and you pass out.”

I had to scoff. “Oh, please. You’re no’ the first one to talk a big game, bestie. But everyone who’s ever said tha’ to me has barely even made my toes curl.” I laughed again. Damn, tequila made the craziest conversations funny. “But I’ll tell ya what, if you can do that, I’ll fake date ya for the next two months. And if your dad won’t let ya out of the regional meeting, I’ll go with you and pee on the shoes of any female shifter who even looks at ya a second too long.”

Getting to his feet, Zeke held out his hand for me. I took it to shake, but he used his grip to pull me to my feet as well. Then, he stood there, looking into my eyes while he held my hand.

“Issa deal,” he rumbled.

I’d never heard him sound like that before. The deep growl of his voice made goosebumps erupt all over my body. The wolf inside me whined with pleasure. She liked the sound.

I gave his hand a shake and tried to release it, but he wouldn’t let me. His grip tightened, holding me in place.

“So, when do we start?” I asked, trying to change the subject and to distract myself from his big, rough hand cradling mine.

His gaze moved over my face, down over the thin t-shirt I wore with skimpy cut-offs, and my bare legs and feet. There was a look in his eyes I’d never seen before—hot and intense.

Using his grip on my hand, Zeke pulled me closer until my body was pressed against his, one of his thighs between mine and his other arm looping around my hips to hold me tightly against him. Then, he answered me.

“Right fuckin’ now.”