The Walls of Jericho

Lie Detector

I have to admit, what’s going on with this star sapphire confounds me.

In my head, it’s already become the Star of Fate—capitalized—because something that stirs up this kind of unruly ruckus generally deserves the capitalization.

In recognition of its impact.

Be that impact good or bad.

Still, I’m certain it’s going to wind up with a name of its own eventually. Kind of like my magic. Though nebulous and presently boundless, both my magic and the Star of Fate feel like singular entities that I, as Jericho, am taking along for the ride. Or maybe it’s the other way around and I’m in the passenger seat with these two clowns driving.

That’s a disturbing thought.

Having the two of them around now is a lot like abruptly finding yourself in a blended family. There’s that one step-sibling you totally vibe with, and then there’s another that you’d rather stick bamboo splinters under your fingernails than know they exist in the same house with you, let alone interact with them.

My magic, like me, is the archetypal introvert—content for long periods of time alone, perusing things going on at a distance or putzing around and reminiscing inside my well-organized boxes of mental me-history. You know, sewing little pajamas for baby goats and rearranging the silverware drawer, that kind of thing.

It’s silently active and never actually shuts off. When it speaks, it has a distinct and unmistakable internal voice, even if it doesn’t say much. 

Except when it's called out by Channing’s alpha voice, of course. Then it gets all starry-eyed and coos like we’re his b***h. The little sellout.

Not that I can wholly blame it. He is awfully pretty.

My magic also tends to be focused on musings from my past, particularly a whole big bunch of angry on the life I spent as a dragon’s captive. Which means it felt like it had found its Tribe with the Baltic amber ring.

It does not feel like Tribe with my new buddy, Star of Fate.

Star of Fate, the little devil, is ambitious. It has vision. It says: ‘what’s coming will be good for you’ when, to my magic and me, the future of my present circumstance looks an awful lot like one-hundred twenty-four car pile-up during rush hour in a massive thunderstorm and involving every lane on a six-lane highway—messy, violent, and adversely affecting a metric crap-ton of people.

It’s that insensitive family member that sings the glories of ‘you deserved better’, and ‘getting back out there’, and ‘having some fun’ when you just broke up with the love of your life and are presently crying your way to the bottom of a bottle of one-hundred-ninety proof booze while seriously contemplating throwing yourself off a bridge.

The Star of Fate pushes, it bullies and cajoles. It asks a bunch of probing, intrusive personal questions that are none of its business, besides just being outright awkward and uncomfortable. It wants to grab coffee. And lunch. Then dinner and after dinner cocktails, and hey, since we’re already out, let’s just make it a night on the town. Won't that be fun?

I will say, for being so annoyingly outgoing and prone to over-sharing, the Star of Fate is remarkably mum on the topic of Channing.

Aside from that fervently negative response to his question about marriage—which it blatantly called out as a lie— it’s quiet as a church mouse as he casually arranges with Python-woman to have the Baltic amber ring sized to fit my finger on my right-hand. 

“You’re looking a little shell-shocked, babydoll,” Channing says softly after he hands his credit card over the counter to the salesclerk. He looks like a lounging tiger draped against the glass display case next to me, sleek and powerful and ready to leap into action. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah, it’s just a lot. I didn’t expect—,” I glance down at the Star of Fate on my finger, “—them, you know? Their—resonance. It just surprised me.”

“’Surprise is an understatement’,” he replies wryly. “And you’re not the only one. Every time I turn around, you’re something—extra, Jericho.”

I have to admit, I feel somewhat insulted by that comment. How many other girls would have tolerated a first date that included a dragon attack, three cracked ribs and finding out her boyfriend was not just a werewolf, but the alpha in charge of an enormous, kind of sketchy global network of werewolves? “You’re not the only one,” I bite out.

Python-woman moseys around the counter our direction and there’s a bright, twinkly-tingling from my ring finger when she advises, “We’ll have the Baltic amber ring sized this afternoon. You can drop back by mid-afternoon and pick it up if you have availability.”

“Great. Thanks.” He smiles politely, but I can feel through the electrical flow between us that he’s stung by my response.

While Channing signs the credit card slip and gets the details from the salesclerk on all the gemstone certifications, I poke magically a little at the gem on my finger. I’m moderately certain the thing’s a lie detector, which sounds fantastic with the qualifier, I can’t figure out what part of the lie it is that triggers its response.

What he asked me was: ‘you are going to marry me, right?’. So is the lie that this ‘marriage’ is a farce? Or is the lie that regardless of whether it’s a sham, I have no intention of seeing it through? Or is it that Channing has no intention of seeing it through?

That would be kind of shoddy. Especially after all the prattling on he’s been doing about loving me for years and how we’re ‘mates’. It’s particularly rotten to do to me, since I’m already beat up over all the years of arm-candy girls he paraded past me at Esteban’s while I sat confused about his game. And why wouldn’t he see it through? Maybe I’m not Rebecca stylish or classy, but I’m smart. I’m easy to be around. I’m open-minded and pretty tolerant. And we do have some damn spectacular s*x together.

A tinge of twinkly-tingling on my finger from the Star of Fate.

Another twinkly-tingling 'yes'.

Great.

First, my own traitorous body falls under Channing’s spell. Then my magic gets alpha-ed. The Baltic amber was his as soon as it started sifting through my past life and found the tears that streaked his cheeks in my last seconds as Mia when I lay dying. Now, here’s the Star of Fate, jumping on the already crowded bandwagon with the rest of the Channing-groupies.

Figures.

“Ready, babydoll?” he asks, carefully folding all the jewelry paperwork together and tucking it inside his wallet. Then he stuffs that into the back pocket of his jeans. “If you’re hungry, we’ve got time for lunch before we meet the realtor. There’s a fantastic taco place not far from here.”

“Which is you-speak for you’re hungry, isn’t it?” Waving a white truce flag, I offer him a hand and an affectionate smile.

Strangely, he by-passes the hand I offer him, but collects the one wearing the Star of Fate. He laces his fingers with mine, then lifts the back of my hand to his lips as we head for the jewelry store’s entrance.

“Hmm.” Holding the door for me, he follows me out, then points us towards the parking garage and the waiting Ducati.

“What?”

He shakes his head, but the electric link between us sputters slightly. “Nothing. Tacos okay for lunch?”

I’m shocked to realize his feelings are hurt. “Don’t tell me that, Channing. I can feel it’s not ‘nothing’,” I push. “What’s bothering you?”

“Wait until we get off the street.”

The block or so walk to the parking structure is another harrowing experience. It’s as if all the sidewalk diamond hawkers in the district recognize they have another shot at ripping us off and the place becomes a high-pressure zone. Like the cloud-bearing winds in an anticyclone, shoppers on the street are fleeing the area toward the surrounding lower-pressure environments.

Not Channing and me.

No, when you’re with the werewolf equivalent of James Magnussen in ripped, toned build and power and the fluid grace of an alpha predator, you mow through. I can hardly believe the audacity of some of these vendors—when a six foot five, one-hundred ninety-eight pound wall of muscle says politely, ‘no’, my piece of unsolicited advice: don’t pursue.

Then again, I'm a cautious coward and these diamond sellers have probably watched guys just like Channing sign away a kidney to buy a ring for the girl on their arm. Maybe I should have held out for better.

The cloudy-sickening twinge from the Star of Fate makes me list into him, and Channing catches me easily.

The second time, it hits me with a cloudy-sickening wave that nearly sends me crashing to my knees.

“You need to eat something,” Channing says with a frown that morphs into an intimidating scowl as another vendor steps in front of us just before the parking structure entrance. The stunned man veers out of the way quickly.

“I’m fine. Really.”

This time, the Star of Fate offers me its twinkly-tingling compromise.

“You’re not fine,” he argues, wrapping a strong arm around my waist.

It’s kind of nice and I lean into him. “I am. It’s nothing with me. It’s the kooky ring. It has an attitude.”

“It’s alive?” He stops dead in the walkway into the parking structure. He doesn’t bother disguising the alarm in his voice or expression.

“Well, I don’t know. I don’t really speak its language.”

“Language!? It speaks to you?” He opens his palm flat and extends it to me. “Give it to me. I’m taking it back.”

Naturally, because I’m immature, I shove my hand behind my back. “No!”

“Jericho, whatever that is, it’s not safe. It's not normal. You need to take it off. Now.” Stepping in front of me, he wraps his arms around from the front, trying to capture my wrists and remove the ring himself.

“It’s not dangerous!” I squirm, keeping my hand and the ring out of his reach. “A half hour ago, you were insistent you were buying them because you said they resonate for me.”

“Them!? It’s both rings?”

“I told you it was.”

“You told me they were ‘special’!”

“Well, what did you think that meant?” I laugh, exasperated.

“That you liked them! Not that they were alive!” He tightens his arms around me, bending me backwards to increase his leverage. “Even stubborn as you are, you can’t possibly think there’s something ordinary about that.”

“Channing, stop! It’s not dangerous. It’s helpful. Will you let me show you?”

We lock eyes for a long minute, silently debating each other. While that’s happening, I’m scanning the ring with every technomage trick I’ve got, just in case. Whatever is entombed inside the stone defies my understanding, but it doesn’t scream ‘dangerous’.

“How?”

“The same way I did about the alternative energy sources for my magic.” I blush, remembering exactly how that bit of educating Channing had ended up with me being exceedingly pleasantly schooled in weird werewolf turn-ons.

That scarred brow of his flicks up and he starts giving off heat through the electric bond between us. Clearly, he remembers too. “Keep it subtle.”

Praying it’s not a ruse to get my hand where he can reach it, I lift them from behind my back and rest them lightly along his square jaw. Against my closed eyelids, the bond between us becomes visible, with the strange addition of the shimmery blue Star of Fate.

“Jesus,” Channing breathes. “I can see its presence.”

“Yeah,” I reply dryly. “It’s got an attitude too. Tell me a lie—something that I don’t know is a lie.”

“Um,” he inhales deeply, searching his mind. “My dad and I were like best friends.”

Well, I wasn't expecting that. Immediately, the cloudy-nauseating wave washes over me. Against my eyelids, it flares an icky brownish-yellow like bile that makes my stomach churn sickeningly. I waver where I stand and Channing steadies me.  

“Eeuuww. Gross.” He shudders, almost like he can feel it too. “That’s nasty.”

“You have no idea. Now tell me something true.”

To my surprise, he draws a faint but sharp breath, almost as if I’ve startled him. For a few long seconds, there’s no reply as he thinks of something to tell me, then he shocks me senseless when he whispers, “I love you, Jericho.”

Sometimes, he can be pretty clever for a beefcake.

The bright, twinkly-tingling is so fierce it sends goosebumps climbing over me, zapping a shiver out of Channing too. Against my eyelids, it looks exactly how it feels. Opening my eyes, I melt into his arms.

He catches one of my hands against his jaw, supporting me with the arm around my waist. His eyes when they meet mine are fierce. “Don’t stop. Say it back.” He closes his eyes, waiting.

My entire being erupts into utter pandemonium. My chest gets so tight, my heart struggles to beat and my breath comes in little hiccupping gasps. I stare up at Channing’s handsome face, every strong line and rugged angle branded onto my consciousness in my panic. It telegraphs bedlam frantically along the electric connection between us.

To his credit, his expression remains calm. Through our mate bond, he’s sending sure, steady acceptance. In the tornadic whirl of my frenzied mayhem, Channing is perfectly still. My shelter against any storm. The vice around my chest loosens and I draw a deep calming breath.

There’s no doubt that nothing about what’s happened between us is ‘normal’. Not me. Not him. Not the way we wound up with each other. Hell, we can’t even buy an engagement ring without having it turn into something wholly bizarre. It’s all strange, and it keeps getting stranger. He’s hurt me and gotten me hurt, then cared for me with the gentlest, loving hands. He bosses me around and treats me like a child, then makes love to me like the humblest supplicant at the foot of a goddess. Now, he surrenders his heart to an undeserving and untrustworthy fool and asks me to have the same confidence in him.

Why does this seem like such a huge step? It’s three genuinely little words. It should be easy, it should be simple. Instead, what it is, is stumblingly difficult and absolutely terrifying. Words have power. They hurt and they heal. Even the most basic life experience teaches that. Books, movies, even religion teaches that.

So if I do what he’s asked, whether my words are proven true or false, I’m granting him power.

Power he already has far more of than I ever expected he would.

Long seconds have ticked into the next minute while I’ve wrestled with the emotional chaos and personal demons inside my head. Yet, he waits, rock steady and prepared to face the fallout.

And to think he called me ‘brave’.

“I—.” The weighty words stick to my dry tongue. I swallow hard and close my tear-filled eyes. Let the chips fall as they may. Stumbling awkwardly over the words, I whisper, “I—love—love you.”

Bright, twinkly-tingling erupts from the Star of Fate and the supernova flare of it scorches against my eyelids. Beneath my hands, Channing’s tight jaw relaxes and I feel the muscles of his face pull into a smile. Warm waves of energy are rolling off him and into me and the response through the mate bond is sheer ecstasy.

“Say it again, with my name,” he says softly. His eyes must be open, because he wipes at the cold stinging tear streak on my face.

“I…love you, Channing.”