The Walls of Jericho

Budding

Fia’s already downstairs in the restaurant, chatting with her grandfather and Brianna, waiting, when I finally drag myself out of bed the next morning. The pretend 'make-up' s*x was an epic adventure but one that cut well into both our sleeping hours. I can't imagine what Channing looked like dragging ass out of here with Damien and Ferdi.

Unwilling to interrupt Fia's impromptu family get-together, I take a seat at the corner table that Finn typically occupies and wonder where the sort of strange, unintelligible man is today. Nora’s ‘regulars’ as Channing and Damien call them never miss Belfast baps for breakfast.

Mercifully, Nora bustles over with coffee almost as soon as I take a seat. “I’ll get you a breakfast bap as soon as it's out of the oven,” she tells me. “You want fruit with it this morning too? Got a lovely batch of breakfast salad this morning so.” When I nod, even though it's not really caring, she hurries back to the kitchen happily.

The dark, bitter, life-giving liquid begins to work its magic, raising me from the dead, as soon as I begin the ritual of preparing it. Sugar. Stir. Sugar. Stir. Cream. Stir. Tiny taste. More cream. Stir. Sip. Ahh, delightful. Wrap my hands around the warm mug and stare blankly into the distance as the caffeine seeps into my veins with each sip, suffusing my tissues and giving me life.  

It takes another few minutes before Fia leaves her grandfather’s table, some gravelly comment of his in Irish making both of them laugh uproariously. Surprisingly, without invitation, she pulls out the second chair across from me. I’m uncertain I’m properly prepared and sufficiently caffeinated when she starts using words and wanting things from me, but I try to be polite. The Irish people all over Belfast have gone out of their way to be friendly and establish connections with me, often apologizing profusely for the slightest mishap, and Kieran’s granddaughter is no different. It's the least I can do.

“Strange things happened among you four yesterday,” she begins, and I can already tell this is going to get complicated. “Things such as that never happened before when those men have come alone.”

I rub one tired eye and take another sip from my mug. “Weird things probably have happened with them before. They’re just better in control of them.”

“Aye, so it’s true. You have the Sight so.”

I’m not certain if that’s a prompt and I’m supposed to elaborate. Or whether Fia’s curiosity lies somewhere else. Fortunately, I’m spared trying to figure it out when Kieran and Brianna get up to leave. The old man’s shuffling gait and his detour across the restaurant to pat his granddaughter on the shoulder as a good-bye give me another infusion of a quarter of my coffee cup. I don't waste the opportunity to collect myself some more.

Fia’s nowhere near so obtuse once the restaurant clears and we’re alone. “What are you? A mage, as I heard them say? And them? I’ve never met men like them. Big. Strong and fast. More so than other men, handsome.” She shrugs as if disinterested when she makes the last comment, but the faintest color pinks her heavily freckled cheeks. It’s as glaring as a streetlight on her fair complexion.

Frankly, ‘handsome’ is only a word I’d apply to Channing, and I offer that as a wholly unbiased opinion. The tattooed and shave-headed Ferdi’s just downright scary, especially with the impenetrable blankness behind his icy-cold stare, and Damien’s appeal falls more in the boyishly adorable and non-threatening realm.

At least to me.

If I’m any guess, Fia’s feeling all fluttery butterfly-y inside every time Damien’s around her. Briefly, I wonder if she gets the staticky sparking along her nerves around him as I did with Channing. I wonder if that was a mate thing.

Or a mage thing.

I hope the former, because when that electricity between Channing and I smooths out into a rolling rhythmic hum, good God, is it ever incredible. Still, knowing Fia and Damien are predestined sort of opts me out of needing to interfere.

“You should probably ask these questions of Damien,” I deflect, hoping she’ll take the direction. “That’s really what your concern is, isn’t it? Whether or not you ought to get involved with him. Especially after what you witnessed yesterday.”

“I can’t ask him. I’ve tried,” she says quickly, and I’m stupefied to hear frustration in her lilting Irish brogue. “Soon as he opens his mouth, all I can think about is putting some part of me into it.”

Her panicked confusion over the magnetic charm of a werewolf, especially to his mate, might have been funny to me if I didn’t utterly sympathize—I can’t count the number of daydreams and wet dreams I had over Channing, damn him.

“You have to tell me. Did you bring a dragon back to these lands?”

Stunned, I shore up my polite social mask as Nora reappears with my vegetarian breakfast bap and a pleasant cup of cubed apples and sliced strawberries sprinkled with finely chopped hazelnuts. I assume that it must be the ‘breakfast salad’ she was talking about. She refills my coffee cup and delivers a second fresh cup for Fia, then buzzes away, chattering happily to the latest customers who’ve come through the door.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Fia fixes me with a hard stare. “I know you do. It’s been many years of the Troubles in this country. Some always coincides with the presence of dragons. The plagues, droughts and famines, bitter winters. Strikes and unrest. But the good too. The coming of the railroads and industrialization. Money. Same’s true of the wolves. They bring war and unrest, but also peaceful treaties. Families. Children. Stable growth.”

Well, she’s not wrong, but I can’t tell her that everything she’s noted is largely the physical manifestation of the change of power between dragon and wolf, not actually something either one is more likely to bring. I stare at her, but don’t know how to answer.

“I have to know,” she demands. “Before— before something more happens.”

‘More’? My brows arch and my lips pull into a round ‘O’. I remember all too well what it felt like laying on my bed, attempting to study with Channing. The constant flush of heat. The wild sparking every time we so much as brushed up against one another or he said something provocative. That hotter than hell open-mouthed kiss, brushing my hypersensitized belly with his tongue and the gentle suction of his lips. God, just thinking about it makes me want to track him down right now and maul him.

“I really think this is a conversation you should have with Damien, Fia,” I insist. “Listen, I know it can be a little—,” my not yet fully caffeinated brain searches for the best descriptor, “—distracting trying to ask them questions, but you’re in control. Trust me. He’ll do anything you say.”

Agonized, she leans across the table, wrapping her hand around mine around my coffee mug. “Please. Just answer this one thing then. Be he wolf? Or dragon?”

“Does it matter? Would you reject him?”

“You know I can’t.” The resigned words are tainted with a host of emotions I understand without defining. Poor Fia’s had that moment already, when she’s seen the writing on the wall. The minute Damien steps up—however long it takes before he gets over himself and comes to claim her— her defenses will crumble and fall just as quickly as mine did. “At least I can try to protect my family.”

That puts a wide grin on my face. Releasing my mug, I hold her hand. “You’ll make a good wolf then.”

Fia’s soft half-laugh, half-whimper of relief is accompanied by a bright smile.

On the one hand, I can’t help but feel happy for her—I have no doubt Damien will be no less attentive to her than Channing is to me. On the other hand, there’s a secret part of me that hurts for how maligned the dragons are. Maybe not all of them are like Drake, but the same is true of the wolves. Not all of them are like Channing or Damien. In fact, Ferdi stands as a shaved-headed, tattooed, towering monument of sleazing around by contrast.

Something about that keeps prodding at me, whispering a quiet alarm.

“Is it back to the museum today then?” she asks.

Finishing the last of my bap, I slide the plate aside and move the cup of fruit salad in front of me. “Maybe. If there’s time. I’d like to start at the Botanic Gardens first. If you don’t mind.”

The generous smattering of dark freckles over her fair complexion almost seems to smile when Fia does. “Aye.It's a good day for it.” She nods, draining her cup of black coffee and I flinch, watching her do it. “I’ll wait for you outside.”

**

The Botanic Garden is a public garden and conservatory that was founded by the Belfast Botanic and Horticultural Society in 1828. It’s located right in the middle of the city in Queen’s Quarter, not too far from Queen’s University and next door to the Ulster Museum. Despite that, it feels like it’s miles from town.

Originally, it was a private garden, but was sold to the city council and opened as a public garden in 1895. There are two humongous greenhouses here, and that's where I opt to start. The first is the Palm House, which was built in 1840, with a glass dome added in 1852. Fia wanders along beside me through the peaceful, fragrant wonderland and seems more relaxed and able to enjoy herself than she did when we were talking at the restaurant.

“Does your Sight show you what it means? About the wolves returning?” she asks, stopping in her tracks as a little boy darts in front of her, chasing a butterfly.

“I don’t think they ever left, Fia.”

She seems surprised by my answer. “But there’s been little enough trouble. Nearly thirty years.”

“I’m not sure how to explain it.” There’s very little in my newbie werewolf understanding that can speak to it, but there’s enough in my understanding of predator animals that I think I can at least help. “Most apex predators don’t encroach upon humans deliberately. They can’t risk the injury or exposure. They can’t protect their families if they’re hurt or hunted, and they can’t provide if they’re starving. So unless they’re provoked, cornered or threatened, in general, I think they regard humans as not worth the risk.”

“Och! How’d I provoke Damien then, I wonder.”

I chuckle. “Well. If there are four basic survival instincts to consider, then, it’s not for the fight. And it’s not for the chase—you didn’t flee him. I suppose there’s a case to be made that you’re feeding him, but that’s not at a basic need level. At least not in my opinion. Which leaves only the last one.”

Fia stares at me blankly, and I hate the thought of actually having to voice this for her to make her understand. “Fight. Flight. Food—.” I let my eyes drop from her face to the buttons on her jeans, then flick them back and forth a few times. God, please don’t make me say it out loud.

“Oh!” Her smokey gray eyes go wide. “You mean he’s wanting to feck me!”  

Why? I curse myself. Why didn’t I just say aloud that he’s attracted to her? Hell, even that he wants in her pants would have been less awkward than what just happened in the middle of the Palm House where if feels like everything is amplified and bouncing off the glass for anyone in here with us to overhear. 

It's especially awkward since Damien’s so brotherly to me. It’s just weird thinking of him having s*x. Like pretty much ever.

“Um. Yeah. That’s the provocation I was getting at.” Taking a deep breath, I try to calmly stroll past her and she lets me.

Outside, she catches up as I wander through the sun-dappled bowling green amid the vast beds of flowers. Here and there, gardeners dot the grounds, caring for the plants and lawns, raking fallen leaves and hauling away debris.

The place seems to transcend generation and population. Locals like Fia mix with the tourists like me. Elderly couples hold hands and wander among the shaded paths of the woodland area and read the plaques on the cultural monuments with their grandchildren. Single students from the nearby university occupy benches during breaks from their studies and chat peacefully with picnicking families on blankets on the lawns. Others lounge against tree trunks sipping their ‘cuppa’—or tea— from Thermoses and reading novels.

“He’s not like Ferdi, is he?” Fia pipes up again as we enter the second greenhouse, the Tropical Ravine.

“Who? Damien?” Stunned she’d even think such a thing—that anyone could think such a thing of Damien—I gawk at her. “God, no. Ferdi is a breed all to himself.”

“Aye, good.”

The Tropical Ravine was built originally in the 1880s, but not enclosed in a greenhouse until one hundred years later. Meandering through the warm humid air and tropical plants, Belfast seems as peaceful as any other part of Ireland, especially considering it was once as definite of a no-go zone as Crossroads is now. It stirs up conflicting emotions in me knowing this might well be because the last dragon resides in my home and the wolves bring this kind of subdued calm. Or at least it seems like they do. 

Normally, the gardens are open late into the evenings, but we’re warned shortly after we get through the Tropical Ravine that they’ll close early today because of a concert this evening. 

"It's for The High Kings concert," Fia says. "The concert you'll be attending this evening here."

"Good to know. Now I won't feel bad that Channing didn't get to come." I make a beeline for the rose gardens, the last section of the Botanic Gardens, which was added in 1920. It’s a spectacular place, with the rose beds finished with herbaceous borders. The long curving hedge roses covered in brightly colored blooms are set against vining rose-covered pergolas with lawn paths in between, and the occasional blossom draped tree rose popping up among the scenery.

“Will he leave and not come back?” Fia asks as we pass the Gift of Life monument, a tribute to those who’ve donated organs so others might live, on our way to the entrance.

“He’ll leave,” I admit, “but only because he has to. And nothing will keep him from coming back, if this is where you stay.”

"And you?" she asks. "If you had to do it again with the big lad, Channing—the one in charge— would you?"

I can’t help my grin. “If I’d known then what I know now, I’d have given Channing his shot a lot sooner,” I confess, then realize how much I’ve enjoyed the last few days and Fia’s easy-going manner. It’s a significant contrast to the hot and mostly cold tense relationship I have with Rebecca. 

The thought of Her Royal Rudeness Rebecca puts a crimp in my mood and starts that annoying little alarm up in the quiet corner of my brain. Reluctant to ruin an otherwise great day, I force it out of my mind. I’m world’s away from Crossroads. Today, I’ll celebrate budding relationships—whatever form that they may take. 

"I'm glad we met, Fia," I tell her over the roof of her sedan in the car park. "And I hope we'll get to know each other better in the near future."