The Walls of Jericho

Morning versus Not-Morning People

“Jericho.”

Ignoring him, I curl into a spiteful pissed-off ball of hate. I snuggle into my established warm, cozy spot in bed, digging deeper under blankets and winging a sultry ‘come hither’ to blissful sleep while giving the bird to everything else.

“Jericho. Come on. Up and at ‘em, babydoll.”

Hearing my name at this hour, even in Channing’s butter-smooth melodic rumble, is bullshit. The fact that I’m sleeping in a literal cave a quarter mile beneath the surface of the earth like some kind of gnome doesn’t improve the situation either.

It’s dark. It’s cold. My eyes are sewed shut with crusty stitches. It feels like my exhausted body and the expanding cosmos joined malevolent forces to troll me before the sun comes up. In fact, I think it should be illegal to have to wake up before noon. 

Seriously. 

What’s the point? Why the hell is everyone so elated about sleep deprivation?

Plus, I don’t like overenthusiastic morning people. I don't even like enthusiastic morning people. They’re all kinds of annoyingly positive and ingratiatingly chipper good morning-y. Like the chorus of birds warbling away with a princess in some stupid fairy tale production. What do they have to be so happy about anyway? They’re birds. The only thing lower on the food chain is mice.

Color me unimpressed.

And do it somewhere else.

The bed jiggles as Channing lays down beside me.

Good. It’s about time we put a stop to this nonsense. He curls that deliciously warm body of his around me and I happily prepare to sail off into dreamland.

Then he starts chafing my arm and shoulder like he’s going to rub life into me. “Jericho, you need to get up.”

Idiot. Everbody knows it takes voodoo to raise the dead.

“Did somebody die?” I growl from deep beneath the covers, busily channeling my seething hate and rallying my allies from the Dark Side.

The chafing stops abruptly. “What?” he asks, confused. “No. Why?”

“Then you’ve chosen death.”

Against my back, he chuckles—with genuine amusement—as if he doesn’t understand how serious I am. Burrowing his face in the covers with that unerring nose of his, he finds the back of my neck and nuzzles it through the blankets playfully. “Let’s get you a shower. Then I’ll fix you some coffee and something to eat and—”

Ooh. That. Is. It.

Thrashing around, I poke my head out of the top of the covers like one of those blind mole rats and snarl, “I don’t want a shower. I don’t want coffee. I don’t want food. And I definitely don’t want to get up. Go do some push-ups or something and leave me alone.”

Through the merest slits I’ve allowed my eyes to open, I see Channing’s face morph from playful and perky to resigned and tolerant during my biting litany, but my sleep-deprived brain isn’t processing nearly as fast as my smart-mouth is.

With lethal speed, he yanks the blankets down. Before I’ve finished voicing my displeasure at the cold shock in a high-pitched squeal, he’s tossed me over his shoulder like an errant toddler and gives me a stinging smack on my posterior. “Stop kicking, Jericho.”

He marches across the bedroom to the bathroom and closes the door. For as lavish as the bedroom is, the bathroom is as utilitarian as it can be. Boring white tile, single sink, the clear vinyl shower curtain hung over a chrome rod by ugly metal hooks in a standard size tub and shower combo. Even the bathroom in my hospital room had been nicer than this.

There’s a hiss of water as he turns on the spigot. He pulls the valve to send the water through the showerhead, holding one large hand palm up in the spray. I thrash and kick and some more at the cold mist that lands on my still bed-warm skin, snarling incoherently. Channing gives my backside another, harder swat with a hand wet and cold from the water. “You’re behaving like a brat. Stop it,” he commands, growling. “Or I’ll give you something to thrash about.”

My infuriated shriek at my ignominy and his audacity rings painfully off the bathroom tile. The super-pissed-off grumpy monster dangling over his shoulder mutates into a Tasmanian she-devil, flailing wildly with about as much chance of affecting this humongous werewolf as dandelion fluff, but with a real go-getter attitude about the entire project..

Which is a grave miscalculation on my part.

I actually do have a significant impact on him because he gives a muffled curse, pivots fast enough to make me dizzy, and in the next instant, he’s taken a seat on the lid of the closed toilet and pulled me over his knees, belly down.

“Don’t you dare!” I snarl, scratching with my nails and seeking purchase against whatever I can reach to pull myself off his lap. I feel more humiliated draped naked over his rock-hard thighs than I ever have in my life.

“Then act like a reasonable adult and stop kicking. Right now.”

He doesn’t give me more than a couple seconds to decide and his hand falls so fast that I don’t sense it coming. The echo of his heavy, warm hand popping my backside is lost immediately when I wail like a cat. I scramble harder and his other hand presses on my back, firm but gentle.

He cracks me again, harder this time, making me hiss through clenched teeth at the sting. Despite how many times they’ve been all over me, I hadn’t really processed how large Channing’s hands are. After another few spanks, now alternating between stinging cheeks, the mounting heat is beginning to seep in and tingle hard.

He’s ignoring my futile struggles completely but pauses to brush his fingertips lightly over my hot flesh. “That creamy complexion of yours is already bright pink.” I squirm, then flinch when he gives one stinging cheek a deliberate squeeze. “I thought it would bother me, but it doesn’t.”

“Channing, I swear, if you don’t let me go—.” I never get to finish my threat.

To my already smarting backside, he layers on a series of harder, faster smacks. He focuses on first one cheek, then the other, until both of them are glowing with pain and I’m absolutely certain his handprint is burned there like a brand. My whole body tenses against the blistering agony and I’m starting to feel light-headed and flushed.

As he paints my posterior, not missing a single spot from the mounded curves at my lower back to the backs of my thighs, the aching heat is melting into a steady throb that scares me more than his hulking werewolf did.

Managing to catch a hold on the edge of the bathroom console, I drag myself with one hand towards it. It’s another gross overestimation on my part.

Instead of freeing me like I hope it will, it shifts my weight forward on his lap. It puts my upturned burning bottom dead center for him.

Channing splays the fingers of the restraining hand on my back, preventing me from moving further, then he whacks my backside harder and with a cruel rhythm that fries the circuits in my brain. Everything in my head is reduced to sizzling pain and red-hot need. My legs flail and my fingers grasp the cabinet so tightly that my knuckles go white.

All I can think is how much I want him right now.

He pauses and inhales deeply, rubbing his hand over my burning cheeks. Tenderly, and with a low growling ‘mmm’.

Taking the only opportunity I can imagine, I fling my palms up, shielding my glowing flesh. The move makes Channing chuckle, genuinely entertained. Then his forearms scoop under my chest and lap and he dumps me unceremoniously under the cold pitter-pattering shower.

For the record, the water in Siberia in January is warmer than this shower is.

“Nope. You stay in there.” He pins me against the bottom of the tub with one arm as I try to scramble out.

I sputter and shiver under the bitterly cold spray until he’s satisfied that I’m under control. As his hand lifts, I squeal and scramble for the drier end of the tub.

Channing chuckles again, shaking his head, then twists the spigot handle to warm and steps over the rim, then pulls the cheap vinyl curtain across. He gives me a self-satisfied smirk—clearly pleased with himself— as the hot water cascades over those divine abs of his, then he reaches for the soap.

“That,” he says smugly, lathering his hands, “was good for my ego.”

With an inhuman snarl, I bolt for the side of the tub. Naturally, he catches me.

The hot water eases my shivers as he draws me under it, but it tingles painfully on my swat-heated backside, reminding me that his life expectancy should be about thirty-two seconds right now.

I get to work immediately on plotting his humiliating demise.

“Stay there.” He squats, then kneels. Setting the bar of soap back on the tray, he starts washing me with his hands. He massages as he goes—my feet, my calves, then moves to my thighs. His hands caress unhurriedly, leisurely and thoroughly bathing me. My eyes close as he meticulously cleans every inch of me, his large soapy hands gliding over my belly and breasts, my shoulders and back.

Cupping my neck with both hands, he pauses, lingering there. Then he withdraws, and when he returns, lifts the dripping weight of my hair off my shoulders and works a nice smelling shampoo into it, starting at the back of my head. 

He kisses my mouth tenderly as he’s lathering the shampoo through my hair, teasing at the seam between my lips until I grant him entrance. The kiss deepens as he seeks my tongue. He steps closer, his hard, water-slick body pressed against mine and God! it's so sexy. His massaging fingers close in my hair, pulling my head back so he can continue exploring my mouth while my hair rinses under the water.

“Mmmm,” he purrs, releasing my mouth and staring down into my eyes, “tastes like hate.” A grin cracks his face. “Aren’t you going to wash me?”

“You should consider yourself fortunate I haven’t electrocuted you in here.”

Channing laughs outright, reaching for the bar of soap again. “You’d kill yourself too if you did that.”

“Totally worth it.” I fix him with a fully committed glare.

Shaking his head and laughing, he runs the bar over his chest and shoulders, thoroughly washing under his arms. “Jesus, Jericho, you are so vindictive.”

“Don’t piss me off and you won’t have that problem.”

“We have stuff we have to do today, babydoll,” he coos, turning me to the side so he can rinse under the water with me. “I had to wake you.”

“What ‘stuff’!?” I snap. “You got somebody else to take over my waitressing job at Esteban’s. You’ve got Ferdi babysitting Mr. Adriani. And you had your werewolf goons pack up my whole world, including my tablet, so I can’t work on my schoolwork. Maybe you have ‘stuff’,” I poke him in the chest, “but I don’t have ‘stuff’. Not any.”

“You do today.”

“Murder is too good for you.” Moodily, I yank the vinyl curtain aside on its screeching metal hooks and step out of the tub onto the cold floor. “Would it kill you to put down some bathmats?”

“If you want bathmats, I’ll take you to pick out bathmats.”

I tug a towel that’s the size of a small country free of the towel rack and start drying off. I don’t even know what to pick for bathmats and that irks me more. Behind me, the water shuts off and the shower curtain slides all the way open.

“What do you want for breakfast?”

I’m tempted—sorely tempted—to tell him I want his head on a platter, but I’m kind of done with his crap for this morning. “Nothing. My appetite is non-existent in the morning.”

He takes the towel from me and finishes drying me off, then uses it to dry himself. “Maybe that’s why you’re such a grumpy monster in the mornings.”

“Are you trying to die? Because you're doing a bang-up job of it.”

He gives me one of his best knock-out smiles. “No,” he replies softly. “Mostly I’m trying to come to grips with the fact that a spanking turned you on and decide what I’m going to do about that.”

Damn him.

I flush hot and bolt out of the bathroom.

There are two walk-in closets off Channing’s bedroom. Big, fancy affairs with cedar shelving on either side and a floor to ceiling tri-fold mirror in a beautifully hand-carved frame at the back between them. My borrowed battered suitcase looks like a toy in this gigantic empty room. It brings another question to mind.

Channing is out in the kitchen by the time I emerge, dressed, my teeth brushed, and my damp hair braided. All business, he sets a mug of hot coffee on a saucer before me, then tucks a spoon alongside. A second later he puts a cute little matched sugar and creamer set before me, then gets back to work on whatever he’s fixing on the back counter.

“I remember you said your dad was killed by the dragon. What happened to your mom?”

A heavy sinking feeling settles in the pit of my stomach when he stops what he’s doing and stiffens. The long minute that stretches between us really sets my nerves on edge and by the time he pivots to look at me, I’m nearly sick with anxiety.

“Wolves mate for life, Jericho.”

My sharp inhalation as I comprehend what he’s telling me is loud in the quiet room.

“She was dead before we got back to Avernus.”

My chest feels tight like I’m caught in a vice. My head hangs and I fight the sadness pouring through me. “She never saw it coming. She didn’t even get to say goodbye.”

“She knew,” he says softly. “We feel it. We feel the bond fray. Can’t live on half a heart, and I wouldn’t want to.”

I lift my tear-filled eyes and try to focus on his wavering image. “Channing, I’m only human.”

“You’re lots more than human.” He shrugs. “But I don’t care. You’re my One, Jericho. There’s no undoing it. I wouldn’t want to. If I have forever with you, it won’t be enough. Even when you call me ‘dogbreath’.”

“But you’ll die when I do.”

He gives me a weak smile that doesn’t touch his beautiful blue eyes. “I’m okay with that. I don’t want to be one of those people, like Mr. Adriani, that has to live on for years without his mate. I can make you a wolf and lengthen your lifespan, but that’s something for you to choose.”

“What?” My brows draw together. “What does that mean? Make me a wolf. A werewolf? How do you do that?”

Channing pauses a long time before answering, as if he doesn’t want to. I’m about to prompt him again when he finally replies. “Werewolves make a venom. It—catalyzes the change in a human. It’s delivered through a bite.”

Well, that sits in the room between us like the biggest lumbering elephant that’s ever lived. It sits between us for a long time too. I have no idea what to say. I feel like an i***t and a jackass both. All at the same time. The more I know about this vow of Channing’s—this vow he gave to me— the more I feel like I’ve done him a terrible disservice. Robbed him of something essential he should have had.

God, I’m a horrible person.

“Listen, Jericho, this has gotten a little intense. I didn’t mean for it to, so I’m sorry.” He inhales deeply, rubbing the back of his neck with one hand. “Today’s supposed to be fun. Let’s just have fun.”

“What fun?”

He grins, the real kind of smile that touches his eyes and makes my heart skip a beat that gets added in. “I’m taking you shopping.”

My mouth falls open and my lip curls up in disgust. “Shopping? Do I look like the kind of girl who likes shopping?”

“You will for this, trust me.”

I roll my eyes and sigh heavily. “What are we shopping for?”

Channing picks up the bowl he’d been working on before I blurted out the whole stupid question about his mother. He sets it on the kitchen island across from me and starts stirring a sweet smelling batter with a whisk. “Wedding rings.”