“So, tell me about yourself, boy,” Maverik said while he drove toward Vince’s Place, intentionally driving as slow as he could to give himself more time to talk to the gator-shifter who claimed to be Hellen’s mate.
“I’m an alligator shifter. I’m usually alone by choice. Not much else to say.”
“Heard tell the big gators tend to stay alone.”
“Yep. Either that or bite the other in half.”
Maverik laughed. “That’d be convenient when somebody irritates you. Except you’d feel bad later.”
“Or not,” Lucien said.
Maverik nodded thoughtfully as he glanced over at Lucien. “Tell me why the hell you’re here. I want the whole story. Not the bullshit you’re feeding everybody else. I want to know how Hellen found you. Why you were left for dead and by whom, and why you followed her here if you’re not fully sure you want a mate.”
Lucien turned his head toward Maverik, surprised that he’d read him so well. “Who says there is any other story?”
“Lucien, let me be straight with you. You bring your trouble to my daughter’s door and get her or anybody else I love in the crossfire meant for you, I’ll kill you. Slowly. Do not fuck with the safety of my people. Not to mention, if what you’ve managed to survive once finds you again, especially before you’re strong enough to fight them off on your own, you might appreciate a little support. Tell me exactly what the fuck you’ve selfishly exposed my daughter to.”
Lucien opened his mouth to deny he’d exposed her to anything, but then realized he most likely had. And suddenly,he didn’t have the will power to play games anymore. “I didn’t mean to expose her to anything, and didn’t realize I might have until just this minute.”
“Let’s start with why you’re here at all,” Maverik said.
“Couldn’t not be here. Can’t get her out of my head. And I’ve tried. Don’t want a mate. Was never part of my plan, but can’t let anybody else have her either.”
“So what’s your plan about that?”
“Stay until I get her out of my system, then disappear.”
Maverik smirked at him before focusing his eyes back on the road. “How’s that working for you?”
“Not worth a fuck,” Lucien said, shaking his head. “The more I’m around her, the more I need to be around her. Thought maybe meeting her people and putting myself in the cross-hairs might be enough to make me want to make a break for it. But damned if I don’t like you people.”
“Us? You like us?” Maverik teased.
Lucien chuckled. “You’re… colorful,” he finally settled on for a description. “Ain’t that some shit?”
“To say the least.”
“So, Harley informed me you’re Poppy,” Lucien said with a genuine smile.
“Yep. That’d be me. For a while when Cristie was little, they thought she was saying puppy,” Maverik said fondly.
“Which is funny because you’re a Wolf,” Lucien said with a rich bout of laughter.
Maverik laughed with him. “That it is,” he agreed. “Val, though, is just Val, but it’s more special than a Poppy.”
“What do you mean?” Lucien asked.
“Grandmothers are Grandmomma, or Mamaw, or something, right? She’s Val. Everybody calls her Valerie except me. I call her Val. When Harley was a little bitty thing, she heard me call Valerie ‘my Val’. And piped right up with, ‘no, hersmy Val’. Naturally, I had to antagonize her and we had about a fifteen minute no-my-Val back and forth kinda thing before I finally conceded. I tried explaining that I called her Val because it was my special name for her. And I could have a special name for her because only I would ever love her like I do, and Harley said she loved Val even more than that. Eventually I gave in as long as Harley agreed that I could continue to call Val, Val, and now Val will ever after be known by her grandchildren as Val, rather than Memaw or some such thing because Val means that they love her more than everybody else.”
Lucien smiled, nodding thoughtfully. “I love that. It’s just a shortened version of her name, but it means so much more than her name. It means pure unmatched love.”
“That it does. It’s not the name boy, it’s what it means,” Maverik said. “If you watch Val, each time Harley calls her that, she about tears up because it touches her so deep.”
“Goals,” Lucien said.
“If you last that long. Not sure you’re gonna last long enough to get grandbabies from this clan. You don’t trust enough. Not sure you can give enough of you to make it.”
“I’m here, aren’t I?”
