Secrets at Midnight(2)

So had Bastien. Only to be stopped by their mother’s firm order to stay.

“Why is it”—Bastien folded his arms, mirroring his brother’s stance—“that though we’re the ones ostensibly doing the choosing, this feels like a two-man meat market?”

Sage bared his teeth at a tall human blonde who turned his way, her body angled in invitation. She hurriedly glanced in another direction, and Sage smirked . . . until he found himself on the receiving end of a patented maternal glare, Lia Smith’s petite body as stiff as a general’s.

Smirk wilting, he pushed off the wall, a big, tough leopard changeling with his metaphorical tail between his legs. “Crap, I have to go make nice now, or I might as well say good-bye to ever again tasting one of Mom’s brownies.” Shoulders hunched, he shot Bastien a pleading look. “Don’t abandon me, man.”

Bastien turned into a rock, feet glued to the floor and arms still folded. “Hell no. And don’t even think of bringing up the bro code,” he added when Sage went as if to open his mouth. “I’ve had to suffer through far more of these than you.”

As he watched his brother thrust his hands into the pockets of his jeans and slink off to join the lovely, perfumed mass of women who might as well have been a tank of ravenous sharks, Bastien fought the urge to simply shove open the door and leave. No matter how raw and trapped he felt right now, he knew his mother was only trying to help, because though he hadn’t said anything to her, Lia Smith knew her children.

She’d clearly sensed he was unhappy, even made the connection that it had to do with his single status. How could he explain the impossible to his mom? A changeling male never lost the scent of his mate once he’d caught it. He should’ve been able to stalk her through fire and hail, snow and rain, much less down city streets.

“Sweetheart.” His mother’s hand on his arm, the scent of her familiar and of home. “Come into the kitchen. I need you to grab some glasses from the top cabinet.”

He followed her without argument, avoiding even the glancing touch of other women. His leopard was in no mood to be touched by any unmated female but the one he couldn’t find; Bastien wasn’t certain he’d be able to control the urge to snarl if one of the women in the room dared attempt even minor skin privileges. Better to make certain the situation didn’t arise.

“I know which ones,” he said once he and his mom had reached the thankful emptiness of the kitchen. Opening the cabinet, he easily grabbed the spare set his mother would’ve had to use her step stool to access.

“Thank you, baby boy.”

Bastien didn’t protest her address. He’d long ago accepted the fact that no matter his age or maturity or position in the pack hierarchy, he’d always be her cub. Now, she cupped his face with gentle hands, her eyes searching his, the brown of her irises ringed by a rich yellow-green as her leopard rose to the surface of her mind. “I made a mistake today, didn’t I?”

Swamped by a wave of love for the woman who’d kissed countless scraped knees for him when he’d been a child, he closed his hands over her wrists. “Ignore me. I’m just in a bad mood.”

“No.” She straightened the collar of the white shirt he wore over black pants, having intended to go into the office to catch up on work after helping move the furniture. “Something’s wrong, and I’ve made it worse. I know I shouldn’t interfere”—a rueful cast to her expression—“but I love you all so much I can’t help myself.”

“I know.” Never had he questioned his parents’ love for him and his siblings, that love the foundation on which his life was built. It was why he hadn’t walked out when Lia ordered him and Sage to stay; hurting her would make neither the animal nor the human part of him feel good.

“Do you want to talk about it?”

“No, not yet.” He drew her into a tight hug, his leopard rubbing against his skin, akin to how he’d rubbed against Lia’s side as a cub when they’d both been in their leopard forms. “I have to handle this myself.”

Squeezing him with fierce affection, Lia drew back and brushed his hair off his forehead, Bastien leaning down instinctively to make it easier for her. “Go on,” she whispered with a conspiratorial smile, “you can escape out the back.”

“Oh good,” Vera Robbins said from the kitchen doorway, having appeared just as Lia spoke. “You can give me a ride, young Bastien.”

Bastien barely refrained from groaning. The elder was a vigorous and energetic hundred and twenty-five, a woman noted for her warmth and wisdom. She also delighted in reveling in Bastien’s past as a “ladies’ man.” Bastien didn’t deny he’d indulged in skin privileges enthusiastically in his early twenties, but so did most leopard changelings at that age, their sexuality an integral aspect of their nature.