The Walls of Jericho

Wonder

Jospers Steakhouse is located a few feet off the back door of Belfast’s historic City Hall which is situated in the center of Donegall Square. The restaurant itself is in the innovative boutique Ten Square Hotel which, ironically, was once a linen warehouse. It takes its current design inspiration from English colonial rule in China. Its decor is a mixed Anglo-Asian opulence, reminiscent of when Shanghai was a playground for the English elite and being seen was de rigueur.

The steakhouse restaurant occupies an entire floor of the hotel. Unlike many of the higher end restaurants and even a few of the pubs in Belfast, casual dining is acceptable, which means once I’ve managed to get the snarls out of my hair, we dress and go.

As soon as we step foot inside, Channing’s stomach starts up loudly with its approval. Inhaling deeply of the savory scents, I have to admit, he has a point. While I read over the brief historical blurb about the restaurant, the hotel and Donegall Square, he orders drinks for us and Dundrum Bay prawn cocktail.

“Did you look at the menu at all?” I ask, watching as his nose works overtime taking in all the smells here.

“Don’t have to. I can smell it. What’d you learn?” He nods towards the historical detail still visible on my unopened menu.

Skimming it again, I throw out the key words that I expect will interest him. “Serves only the finest quality foods. Northern Ireland-reared prime-aged beef. Fresh fish and seafood. Hand-picked produce—oh, you won’t care about that. The secret to the super-tender flavorful steaks is the preparation on a Josper grill. It’s a style of Spanish charcoal oven that gives the steaks the unique smoky grill-style taste.”

“Best get to making your selection,” Channing warns, his sharp eyes watching as our waiter makes his way towards our table with the appetizer and drinks.

I end up ordering the smallest filet mignon available on the menu, but strongly suspect Channing will wind up finishing it, despite the fact that he’s already ordered the biggest plate on the menu, with half a slow-roasted duck and a twelve ounce sirloin. Between the second course chicken Caesar salad and cup of seafood bisque, and the generous sides of steamed vegetables and au gratin potatoes, it’s a lot of food.

“So what was your takeaway from the dragon panels on the tapestry?” he asks after the second course is cleared and before the waiter arrives with our main course.

“You’re not going to like it.” I fix him with a direct and challenging stare across the table.

All I get is one of his GQ cover model smiles that make me melty. He leans forward, resting his elbows on his knees and hunching over the table, his eyes still meeting mine. “Gimme your foot,” he orders, clapping his hands lightly under the table, “and tell me anyway.”

I shake my head, rolling my eyes and extend my leg. Immediately, he catches my heel, cradling it in one large paw so he can caress my ankle with the other. Dragging my phone out of my pocket, I open the photo gallery and scroll to the first image of interest from the Ulster Museum’s ridiculously long tapestry. It depicts several dragons of various sizes, some with wings, some with fins, some with only legs. Each is shown in various behaviors I assume must be innate characteristics of the species.

“I think this one speaks to dragon abilities and attributes.” Pinching open my fingers on my phone’s touchscreen, I zero in on certain parts. “See here? Bringing thunderstorms and rain for crops. And here, causing weather on the ocean. This one wrapped around a city, protecting the walls.”

“We’ve had this discussion, babydoll. They’re not all benevolent. Individually, they’re not benevolent all the time either.”

“You asked me what I’m getting out of the tapestry, Channing. Do you want to know? Or do you want to argue?” I challenge. “Because one of them I’m willing to do, the other is totally not happening. Got it?”

His blue eyes light with amusement. Either of those will happen if I say so.>

The alpha compulsion in his wolfspeak comment is turned up full blast, just so he can exert his dominance. It earns him a glare and a zap of static shocks off my ankle that are strong enough to make him jerk and flinch away from me.

“Alright, alright,” he concedes. You do know it turns me on when you resist, don’t you?>

“Ungh,” I groan in disgust, then scroll the image to another part of the tapestry that shows a fire-breathing, multi-headed dragon with a jet-black hide leaving destruction and darkness in its wake. “Here’s your chaos dragon.” I turn the phone so he can see.

Channing casts barely a glance at it, then meets my eyes with solemnity in his, but he doesn’t waver. “This is old news. What was in the other panels?”

Scrolling to the next image, I pinch to zoom and focus on what I assume is the important piece of information. This panel is one of the ones that features both dragons and wolves. “Shape-shifting, from both species to blend in with the human population.”

The hand massaging my ankle stills, and he lifts it over the table to move the centered image around on the zoomed photo. He arches a brow, at one section. When I look, it shows both a shifted wolf and a shifted dragon in flagrante delicto with humans.

“You knew that too,” I comment dryly. I scroll to the next panel, which shows wolves in battle with the dragons and the destruction they wreak upon the human population, then turn it towards him. “And you knew this.”

The fourth image is one that interests me in particular. It’s similar to the first one of the dragons but focused on the wolves. It shows the wolves having both benevolent and malevolent impacts on the human population and the world.

“Jericho—.” There’s a subtle warning in Channing’s tone and his eye as he reviews it, then looks back at me.

I arch my brows. “If you truly intend to the be objective and wise Alpha you say you do, then you’re going to have to take this at face value the same way you do the ones about the dragons. This tapestry was started five hundred years ago, Channing. By humans. It’s not just you and me having a difference of opinion. It’s how multiple people over a great deal of time interpreted wolf behavior too.”

“I don’t recall ever mentioning I intend to be objective,” he counters, stirring me to stinging ire. Immediately, he soothes, “Your point is taken, babydoll. Be patient. You’re not going to change anyone’s long-standing beliefs with one hit.”

I snort, but swallow my retort and move to the fifth panel. It also shows embattled wolves and dragons, with human populations around them suffering the bulk of the consequences. It’s the first that shows a unicorn too. I turn it to him, focused on the pair of silvery-horned horses.

“This is what you think represents the mages,” he confirms, scrolling slowly. “Hidden among the human population.” His brows draw together. “What’s this?”

Taking a peek, I turn the screen back to him and answer. “I think it’s a weird representation of second sight.”

“Ah.” He examines the image a little more, then comments wryly. “Oh now this looks familiar.”

When I look at the image again, he’s centered the screen on a unicorn using lightning to zap both a wolf and a dragon. “Not too bright, beefcake. Never poke a bear with a stick.”

Channing chuckles, in that warm smooth tenor that’s like ear candy. “What else have you got?”

Turning the phone, I scroll to the sixth image, then show him. His eyes go wide and his brows arch, then his gaze flicks to me.

This panel is particularly impactful—both for the incredible detail in the embroidery and for the information it conveys. It shows both wolves and dragons as fearsome creatures. The dragon is depicted in a dark, jewel and gold rich cave, its eyes giving off a glowing light, and its surrounded by a cloud of red smoke. Opposite it, is a wolf, also with glowing eyes and looking dangerous. Between the two adversaries is a unicorn that subdues them both.

“A female mage and conqueror.” There’s no mistaking the woman’s long wildly blowing hair, the hourglass figure or the billowing skirts.

I nod, turning the phone to me and adjusting the zoomed section to the last panel. “Then there’s this.”

The final panel from the tapestry depicts a wolf king opposed by a dragon king. Between them, the unicorn-mage selects and sends a mate to each king. “A male mage. We’ve both been looking for the wrong mage.”

Closing the image, I set my phone on the seat beside me, then cross my arms over my chest. “’Two warriors. Two mates. Two who shape the world’, I quote. “There’s a balance, Channing. Every action that’s been taken by either side is only tipping that balance towards chaos. There’s a reason both dragons and wolves have convergence with humans. If you haven’t figured out what that is, I’d suggest you might need to hold off on knocking out apex predator species."

It’s abundantly clear from Channing’s expression that my comment doesn’t sit well with him.

"I told you you weren't going to like it.”

Before he has a chance to bite back, our main course is delivered. The rest of our meal passes in tense silence. Which stirs up just about every one of my insecurities and in the end, I wind up doing little more than picking at my food.

Like anybody else, I don’t want to be pigeon-holed into a character or role. I want to feel like I control my own destiny. I get the distinct impression from my mate that’s not going to be an option though—it won’t be a matter of choice for me, because it won’t be a choice that either Channing or Drake will make of their own volition.

I’m also worried that I’ve further unbalanced things by sharing what I believe the tapestry reveals with Channing while Drake’s still in the dark back in Crossroads. By the time the waiter arrives with the generous slices of elegant bitter chocolate truffle cake for dessert, I’ve worked myself into such a tizzy that I not only can I not eat it, I’m starting to wonder if I’ll be able to keep down what I’ve already eaten.

“Let’s go for a walk,” he says when we exit the Ten Square hotel. He takes my hand in his and leads me into Donegall Square.

It’s one of the things that astounds me about Belfast, that it surrenders no indication of the factious war zone it once was, with terrorist bombings willfully ripping apart lives and destroying neighborhoods. Now, it’s just a hub of activity. During business hours, bankers conduct business in the dozen different headquarters and branches around the square while buses shuttle citizens and visitors to and fro, and pedestrians crowd Donegall Place, the main shopping street of the square.

The Baroque Revival City Hall constructed from white-gray Portland stone with its central copper dome turned verdigris, corner towers, columns and balustrades, porte cochère, and ornate pediment crowded with sculpture is the centerpiece of Donegall Square, and as we stroll, Channing steers us so I can ogle each side of it. Completely surrounding City Hall and open to the public is statue garden set in lush lawns and manicured landscape. As if there’s no escape from it, many of the figures represent Belfast’s chief industries at the turn of the 20th century— weaving and shipbuilding. Northern Ireland’s main war memorial, with a Garden of Remembrance and cenotaph, occupies a good stretch of the grounds along one side.

We wander past the Scottish Temperance Building, a massive pile of dark red sandstone built in the baronial style with towering turrets and crow-stepped gables, and it feels as if we’ve slipped backwards in time again to wander ‘Old Smoke,’ which was Belfast’s Victorian nickname when it emerged as the leading industrial city in all of Ireland.

Though there’s much more to see, Channing leads me to a bench in the park surrounding City Hall. It’s tucked unobtrusively against a neatly manicured row of hedges and draped in the growing shadows of late evening. It reminds me vaguely of Eric the park bench all those long miles away in Crossroads. As I sit, he takes a seat beside me.

I cross my arms over my non-existent breasts and stare ahead of me. My insides feel like they’re shredding and the sensation that I’m disintegrating into unwanted and useless tatters is more than I can bear. “Tell me nothing changed between us,” I demand softly. “Tell me that choosing each other as mates isn’t going to destroy us and the rest of the world.”

Slowly, as if he’s reticent to touch me, he wraps his arm about my hunched shoulders, then curls me into his chest. “Stop panicking, babydoll. I don’t know what’s going to happen in the future—seems like that’s kind of your purview, whether I wish it was or not. I can promise you the same things I have already.”

He dips his head, nuzzling in my hair and inhales deeply. “I can tell you that I love you. No matter what happens and no matter what you do. I can tell you that I’ll defend you—even against my own if I must.”

I lose track of the minutes we sit there cuddled like this, silent witnesses to nightfall and the automatic lighting that picks out the architecture of the buildings, highlighting the sentinel statues around us and them. Eventually, Channing bends, scooping my knees and pulling me onto his lap. He cups my cheek with one warm paw, then plies me with drugging kisses.

“I’m afraid I know what will happen,” I murmur against his fine lips.

Catching my mouth, he kisses me gently, again and again, until I’m breathless and pliable against him.

“Channing, I—.”

“Shut up.” He punctuates the words with more demanding kisses. His tongue delves into my mouth, seeking mine and he swallows each breathless gasp and moan. He doesn’t stop until I’m limp and soft against him.

Into the silence that stretches between us, I whisper, “I know where the dragon is.”

He pulls us apart, but there’s no condemnation in his gorgeous blue eyes as he meets mine. “I know.”

My brows draw together in a hard frown and I stare at him aghast. Oh God. Have I no privacy as a werewolf and mate of the alpha? And if he knows that, what else does he know? “How did you know?”

“We’re pair bonded, Jericho. Fully. Ever since you asked me for the werewolf venom.” Channing runs his hand along my throat, caresses out across my shoulder and down my arm, twining my fingers with his. “You wouldn’t have done that if you weren’t afraid and I’ve never seen anything else scare you. I knew if I gave you time, you’d tell me on your own.”

He huffs a bittersweet laugh, shaking his head in resignation, and I stare at his handsome face. “There’s no forcing you, Jinks. If seven years’ worth of my best flirting and my tightest jeans wouldn’t get me into your pants, nothing else is going to be easy with you either.”

A flicker of a smile crosses my face. Beefcake or otherwise, even I’m sure he’s got that much right. Whatever winds up happening is going to go down like wreckage in dragonflame, scorching and devastating the earth wherever it hits, and somehow, I have to figure out how to stop it.

But my mate is going to be there with me, right up to the end, if that’s when it happens. Channing might not be perfect, but he’s the perfect mate for me, and that’s all I can ask for.

He scoops me up, then rises, setting me gently on my feet. The white-blue whorls are spinning slowly in his blue eyes. In the darkness, they bathe me with their faint glow. “Why don’t we go back to the hostel?” he suggests in a low seductive growl. “We can have make-up sex.”

“Make-up s*x?” I challenge. “We weren’t fighting. Or at least I wasn’t fighting with you.”

That scarred brow of his flicks up and stays perched up high in warning. “Jericho, you little brat.” He catches me at the wrist and yanks me into his chest, restraining me despite my feigned struggles. “Don’t think for one minute that I won’t sit back down on this bench and paddle your bare bottom right here in public until you’re too sore to sit down and your own slick is coating the inside of your thighs.”

“You can’t even say that without grinning,” I accuse, but I love the way his eyelids crinkle when he smiles, and my stomach does a flip-flop. I wonder if it always will—if we’ll always come together like this.

I wonder, and I hope.