Chapter Text
"Where are you?"
A simple question, spoken in a gentle voice by a man of few words. Followed, of course, by the bellow of a southern drawl in the background. "Is that Jamie? Tell her to get her ass over here! The twins are askin' for her...for some reason."
Taking a deep breath, I sighed into the cell phone. "Tell Clay I said hi."
Jeremy just chuckled. "Answer?" I could practically see his eyebrow raising, gently demanding an answer to the question he'd asked before Clay had come in, all bluff and bluster. Those two were a balancing act of epic proportions. I often wondered how they didn't kill - no, that wasn't true. I knew that Jeremy's unending patience was why he'd never killed Clay. And Clay's fierce loyalty explained the opposite. Add Elena and her strong will and sleek strategies, and the twins with their combination of all of the strengths and one could wonder how the energies in Stonehaven weren't downright explosive. Must be the love of good family that doused the occasional flames.
"Take a deep breath in through your nose," I answered with a grin. "Open up your ears and you tell me where I am."
A huff on the other end of the cell phone. Followed by a flash of movement. And the door I was standing in front of opened to reveal Jeremy, long black, silver-threaded hair dropping into dark, almond shaped eyes unfortunately surrounded by dark circles. His face was covered in stubble that slightly obscured the slight upturn of his lips which I knew to be about as big a smile as he would give - at least unless there were some seriously extenuating circumstances.
"Hello."
I breathed a deliberately exasperated sigh. "Took you long enough," I teased and for a second there, I saw a flash of humor in his eyes, but it died just as quickly. I examined him. "You look tired."
He didn't miss a beat. "Flatterer."
"Please, you know I think you're drop-dead gorgeous, but if I was rocking the dark circles you were and tried to play it off like I was fine you would bite my head off."
His eyebrows raised in disbelief. Damn, I missed that look.
"Fine," I acknowledged the inaccuracy in my statement. "You would give me a stern talking to."
He nodded. "Better. Will you be taking up residence on the front steps or would you like to come in?" That flicker of humor was back.
I narrowed my eyes at him and he stepped aside. As I made my way into the house, he leaned over to take my suitcases and for a minute his warm breath tickled my ear as he whispered, "It's really good to see you." I closed my eyes against the feeling. God, how did he do that? One gesture and my body was raring to go. I idly wondered if it was simply how little he tried to be sexy that made him so damned irresistible to me. Either way...
"Jamie!" I heard Kate shout from across the room as she came barreling toward me, blonde curls bouncing around on her little 7 year old head. "Jamie, Jamie Jamie! How was your flight Jamie? Was your airplane fun? We're about to go on an airplane! They have a TV and..."
I laughed. It was not the way one expected to be greeted upon entering the home of a werewolf pack Alpha when one heard about it in theory, but in practice, this was par for the course.
"Ok!" I heard Elena's voice as she sped around the corner. "No knocking Jamie over on the way in the door." She laughed, striding into the room quickly as she pulled her white-blonde hair back into a ponytail. She paused in front of me, giving me a quick hug. "Hi Jamie." She said the words innocuously enough, but followed them up with a mouthed "We need to talk."
"Hello Jamie," Logan, Kate's twin brother, said with a quiet smile. He was ushered in by his father, Clay, who ruffled Kate's hair as he passed.
When Clay's eyes lit on me, I expected to see the quiet recognition, the smile and the nod and the huffed, "Jamie" that my presence normally received - a quiet acceptance that, though he didn't like me much, his father, his Alpha, had chosen me, and he couldn't avoid the simple fact that I was good for him. Instead, when Clay looked at me today, I swore I saw relief flit across his face...tempered by the tiniest bit of a smile. "Hi Jamie. Can I get you anything?"
As soon as the words were out, the expression on my face told me he would slap his palm to his forehead if it wouldn't be too obvious. Whatever his hand had been, he had tipped it when he had offered to serve me. Elena rolled her eyes and Jeremy huffed impatiently. I wasn't sure what was going on here, but knowing the participants in this little game, I'd venture that Clay was worried about Jeremy for some reason. Elena had been trying to deal with it subtly. Clay lacked subtlety.
I tried to answer like I hadn't got it - an attempt to spare Jeremy the embarrassment so I could quietly needle Elena for an answer later. "No thanks. I'm good." Clay nodded before sending an appreciative smile my way.
Okay. Now I was worried.
"Alright," Clay clapped his hands together to call the attention of his kids. "It's time for us to hit the road."
"Awww," Kate whined, "but I haven't even gotten the chance to talk to Jamie yet!"
I smiled, kneeling down in front of her. I pulled her into a big hug and made her a promise. "I'm going to be here for two whole weeks. You'll only be in Vermont for one. When you get back, we'll have so much more to talk about. I want to hear every single thing that happens out there."
Kate lit up. "I'll write it all down!" She hopped in place.
Jeremy shot me a look that told me I had no idea what I had just gotten myself into. I was okay with it. I really did love those kids.
Logan patiently waited for his sister to leave before giving me a gentle hug. "I've been reading a book on airplanes. I think they are so cool." He told me, his face lighting up with a much more contained excitement. "Have you ever been on one with turbulence?"
I grinned. This kid and his penchant for science. "A bunch of times."
"Wow." Logan gazed up at me with wide-eyed wonder, like I'd just admitted I had wrestled a bear once. If only he was ready to know that that was something his parents had actually done once. Well...it wasn't a bear exactly...
"C'mon guys," Elena commanded. "Say goodbye to Jeremy. We've got to go if we're going to make our flight."
Each kid took their turn saying goodbye to Jeremy before they headed over to their father who was fidgeting by the doorway. Clay would be excited by going to Vermont in the middle of the winter. All that outdoor space. I could practically see him itching to Change and run with Elena. Good thing Savannah and Adam were going along. They could watch the kids while their parents got a little bit of wolfy exercise.
As Clay ushered them out the door, I could hear Logan as he proclaimed, "I hope our flight has turbulence."
Clay closed his eyes against the words and turned to look at Jeremy, Elena and I. "God help us."
The door closed behind Clay and the kids. Jeremy looked at Elena, expecting her to leave. When she didn't, he stood up a little straighter, looking every bit like the Alpha he was, challenging her to do anything he didn't sanction. She huffed a laugh. It wasn't that she didn't respect Jeremy. It was that Jeremy had named her as his successor and that had shifted the balance of power ever-so-slightly.
Elena grinned at him. "Should I be taking notes?" When Jeremy didn't answer and didn't back down, she turned to me. "Let me get you some coffee while Jeremy brings your bags upstairs."
"Wait, I have something for the kids!" I rushed to the smaller bag and pulled out a bag of sweets, handing them to Elena. "The best in New Orleans."
"Great, thanks!" Elena smiled. "This should make Clay cringe."
"The reminder of his...where he was from?" I asked, wanting to smack myself in the head. Clay's childhood hadn't been good. Being turned into a werewolf at the age of six alone would do that to you...but all signs said his life hadn't been any better before that.
"No," Jeremy shook his head. "The sugar. On a flight."
I frowned. "Hmph…he always seems so indulgent of Kate's flights of crazy." I winked at Elena.
"Oh, he is," Jeremy nodded. "It's the other people on the flight that won't enjoy it. Then, Clay will get defensive…"
"In that case, hide those things until you're at a ski slope."
"That'll work," Elena laughed. "If they don't sniff 'em out. Jeremy? Her bags?"
"Am I the bellboy now?" He challenged, his voice taking on a surprising sharp edge. Now I knew I wasn't imagining the tension in the air at Stonehaven. Jeremy very rarely got sharp with anyone.
"No," Elena laughed, but it was strained. "But you're not exactly the barista either. We wouldn't want to burn her coffee, now would we? Besides, it's the gentlemanly thing to do." She acted innocent, but it was pretty clear she was full of it.
"Very funny," Jeremy leaned towards her and spoke in a low voice, obviously hoping I wouldn't hear. "I told you it's nothing."
"Uh-huh," she nodded. "Go be a nice boyfriend and take her bags upstairs or I'll just call her from the road."
Jeremy's jaw worked, hands clenched around the handles of my bags. He didn't budge, but muttered something about hiding or possibly breaking my cell phone.
Okay, enough of that.
"Jeremy," I said sweetly. "Could you please take my bags upstairs before I start to get insulted?"
He blinked hard, turned to look at me, and I could see I'd gotten him. Jeremy was big on propriety. The idea that he was being rude and hurting my feelings would be enough to snap him out of even the most heated situation.
"Sorry," Jeremy nodded. "I haven't been sleeping so well. It's making me..."
"Moody?" Elena supplied.
Jeremy looked about ready to growl at her. Then turned to face me. "It will be nice to have the house to ourselves for the week." His face was all innocence, but the not-so-hidden subtext in that sentence was that the sooner Clayton and Elena left, the better Jeremy would feel.
With that, Jeremy lifted my bags and hauled them up the stairs with ease. Elena had already started to put on a pot of coffee when I entered the kitchen just a moment later.
"You know, he's not going to take very long up there," I remarked. "Besides, he can probably hear you from up there anyway."
"I'm sure he can." Elena shrugged. "It doesn't matter. He knows what I plan to talk to you about and he knows he has no choice. The only reason I bothered kicking him out of the room was so he wouldn't kick up a fuss when I tried to talk."
I nodded.
"Jeremy isn't just 'not sleeping well'," She supplied. "Jeremy is having nightmares. Bad ones. Jump up in a cold sweat, scream bloody murder, nightmares. And he won't tell us why or what they're about."
"Nightmares? Or visions?"
"You know I wondered the same thing," Elena admitted. "But Clay says that if that was it, and he knew someone he cared for was in danger, Jeremy would never sit on his hands. By this point, he would have made a move to figure it out, to help. The fact that he refuses to talk about it after two weeks means...whatever it is, it's all in Jeremy's head. And it's making him...edgy. I've tried to get him to talk about it, but, you know how he can be."
Nobody talked about Jeremy's less wolfy abilities in any kind of depth. They were skimmed over. A fact of life, but one that nobody ever raised curiosity in. Only I had ever discussed them with him. What Clay knew he only learned from watching Jeremy's behavior for years. But there were wide gaps in even our combined knowledge where the visions were concerned. Clay could be wrong. Or Jeremy could be having some serious life stuff going on. How could anyone know? As open as Jeremy could be with me, there were still large chapters of his life that were a closed book.
I heard Jeremy start to head back down the stairs. "Alright," I nodded, my voice a hushed whisper. "I'll try to get to the bottom of it."
Elena smiled. "Coffee is almost ready," she spoke at full voice now. "Sorry I didn't have time to finish it." Then, silently, she mouthed, "Thank you."
I nodded, walking with her to the door. "Have a great trip, hon," I smiled warmly.
Jeremy walked over, stopping right behind me. "Have fun," he said, and I could tell he was taking great pains to eliminate the mood he'd been in when I got here. "Take pictures. I want to see those kids on skis."
Elena eyed him for a moment before rushing around me and giving him an unexpected, albeit hurried, hug. "Will do."
"I'm fine," he stressed, grabbing Elena's hand and giving it a gentle squeeze.
Her eyebrow raised warily. "Of course you are." And with that she headed out the door and I marched over to the kitchen to turn off the coffee. As soon as the door closed behind Elena, I heard Jeremy make his way in. He planted himself behind me, hands resting on the counter at either side of me, effectively boxing me in. His heat radiated towards me, and I could feel my throat go dry.
I stopped in my tracks, not bothering to turn around. "Yes?" I asked.
"Hello," he said mildly. Leaning in towards me, he nuzzled against the back of my neck, inhaling my scent deeply. "I've missed you."
Now, that was a rare but welcomed admission. Slowly, I turned around to face him. He looked alot better now, like he'd splashed some water on his face and woken himself up. He smiled. A real smile this time and I melted. "I missed you too."
His lips met mine, gently. Once. Twice. Soft sweet kisses that made me yearn for more. I smiled against his lips.
"The times apart...they're starting to feel...longer," he said, his arms winding around my waist.
I threw my arms around his neck in response. "I've been thinking the same thing."
"Almost time to start working full time for the council?" He asked. The question surprised me. We had always agreed that this was the way things would be for awhile. That we both had responsibilities and lives that meant we had limited time to spend on each other.
"Almost time to turn things over to Elena?" I countered.
His expression seemed to shift and then move right back. As if the question had taken him off guard, but he'd popped right back into his poker face. "That's a problem, isn't it? We miss each other but our lives..."
Well, that could just about ruin my night. A sudden fear cut through me. Had he called me all the way up here just to break things off? "Where are you going with this, Jeremy?"
He blinked hard. Gave his head a little shake. "Sorry. Nowhere. I'm just..."
"Off," I answered, "because of these nightmares you don't want to talk about."
He swallowed hard. As much of an answer as I was going to get. I could either let the topic of conversation get to me, or I could try to change the course of where it looked like this night was going.
Pulling him tighter, I moved my body against his, teasingly. He watched me, eyes glittering, predatory. He pulled me even tighter against him. Leaning forward, I kissed him - this time a real, deep kiss, with lips and teeth and tongue that forced a barely audible groan from him. When I pulled back, I smiled. "Well, let's see if we can't make you forget all about them, huh?"
His agreeing growl was accompanied by him lifting me up and onto the kitchen table. As he kissed me breathless, I decided this could turn out to be a very good night after all.