5 Relax and Breathe …Not!

5: Relax and Breathe … Or Not!

Wyatt

Because he"d pissed Mason off more than me, Ash was stuck on incinerator duty. Sure, there were plenty of guards to make sure King Julian"s prisoner did the job properly, but we wouldn"t have peace of mind about it without one of us there.

If you wanted a job done right, you did it yourself.

Period.

So the king told one of the guards to give Ash a ride back to the palace once the witch"s remains were burned, and the rest of us swung by the guest house, cleaned up, and changed. We grabbed clean clothes for Ash, then rejoined Posy for the last twenty minutes of the queen"s tea.

I wasn"t impressed. I didn"t like tea, and I would have had to eat about a hundred of those little tiny sandwiches and petit fours to make a dent in my appetite.

Thank the Goddess we"re going to Grandma"s for dinner, I muttered.

Grandma! Granite hooted. So nice to have a grandma!

I smiled at him. He"d never known any of our grandparents. They"d all died either before I got him or soon after I did.

Once Ash joined us at the palace, we pried a tearful Posy away from her friends, then we piled back into the SUV and headed for the Everleighs. On the way, Lark very excitedly showed us how Posy got Jay to spit water all over himself.

We laughed, but Posy didn"t, and a bad feeling settled in my gut.

"Weren"t so sneaky as we thought we were, huh, cutie?" I murmured while my brothers shuffled uncomfortably in their seats.

"I don"t like you keeping things from me," she said, still not smiling. "I don"t like you thinking I"m too fragile to handle it or too slow to pick up on it."

"Neither of those was the reason," Mase said for all of us. "We didn"t want to trigger Lark, and we wanted you to enjoy your time with the queen, not ruin it with worry or a panic attack. And you are not slow. Do not say that about yourself again."

She squinted her eyes as she studied his face, then nodded curtly, and we all held our breath to hear how she responded to that.

"Thank you. I appreciate your thoughtfulness. I know you"re coming from a good place." Just as we were about to heave out a sigh of relief, though, she added, "Next time, please have enough faith in me to tell me the truth. Especially if you"re going to be that bad at being sneaky."

"We can up our sneaky game," I boasted.

"Oh, really?" Posy crooked one eyebrow up. "Then I guess I"ll up mine, too."

I broke out into peals of laughter, Cole choked himself holding back his chuckles, and Ash snorted.

"Princess, you don"t have any game, sneaky or otherwise."

Mase and Jay frantically linked us to stop, but we ignored them.

"If you think that, then I guess my sneaky game has been sneaky enough to fool you all this time." Posy"s lips curled up in a smile that had nothing to do with amusement.

That shut Ash up and left me stunned.

She"s duped us before? Ash asked in the alpha link. When? Where?

Naw, she"s bluffing, I said with supreme confidence.

Our girl doesn"t know how to bluff, Ash disagreed.

Well, the only time I can think of is when she wanted to play that prank on Emerson before we left to go to Tall Pines, Cole huffed.

I remember, but there"s no way she"s tricked us other than that, Ash argued. Mase? Jay?Is she bluffing? Has she tricked us before?

Jay and Mase looked at each other, then shook their heads and rolled their eyes.

She"s tricking you right now, suckers, Jay said with a smirk.

"Are you tricking us right now, Posy?" I demanded, and my brothers dropped their faces in their palms with low groans.

Really, Wyatt? Cole growled. I mean, really?

What? I linked back. I want to know!

"You just said I don"t have a sneaky game," Posy purred. "How could I trick you?"

I narrowed my eyes at her in suspicion, but she only blinked her big baby blues back at me.

Oh, damn! I whispered in a reverent tone. She is. She really is!

Grinning with pride, I unbuckled her seat belt and pulled her into my lap.

"Goddess, I love you!" I muttered.

Then I kissed the hell out of her.

#

Posy

I had a lot of fun hanging out with my family and learned so much about them, including the fact that my cousin Eden was the queen of pranks in the house.

How did I find that out?

Evan came into the living room with pink glitter in his hair and glinting off his skin.

"Dude! Who got you?" Wyatt cackled as he pointed and laughed.

"Glitter bomb!" Ash shouted and earned a stern look from Grandma. "Sorry, Grandma, but Mase accidentally glitter-bombed Jay while we were making sorry cards for Posy and that shiiii—" He caught himself in time. "Uh, shiny stuff went everywhere! Our sister Peri"s still vacuuming it out of her rug!"

I need to see that memory, I linked Mason with a mischievous smile.

Later, baby, he promised, winking at me.

"I thought I forbid any more glitter-based pranks in this house, young lady!" Grandma scolded her.

"It wasn"t in the house, Grandma. It was in his car," Eden protested. "And he deserved it! He said I was the human version of a headache!"

"You are," Evan rumbled as he plopped down in an armchair. "You should have come with a warning sign when you were born."

"See, Grandma!" Eden pouted and crossed her arms over her waist. "He"s so mean to me, and I didn"t do anything to earn it!"

"You glitter bombed my car!" her twin yipped.

"Only after you said mean things to me!"

"Enough, you two!" Aunt Aye, Uncle Lincoln, and Grandma all said at the same time.

"Wait. How do you glitter bomb a car?" I asked in the sudden silence.

"You put glitter in the vents and when they turn the air on, it goes everywhere." Her smile was not a nice one.

"Everywhere is right," Evan griped. "That stuff should be illegal!"

As everyone chuckled and the conversation turned to other topics, I tugged on Eden"s sleeve.

"Can you help me with something?" I whispered when she leaned closer.

"Sure!" she whispered back. "Let"s go to my room!"

She stood and grabbed my hand, pulling me off Mason"s lap and toward the stairs.

"You have a room here?" I asked as I trotted along in her wake.

"We live here. After Grandpa died, Grandma was lonely, and the house was too big for her to keep up." Eden shrugged as we reached the top of the stairs. "It worked out great. We all get along well and can divide up chores and stuff. Win-win."

She threw open the door to her room and led me over to the bed, where she plopped down and patted a space next to her.

"So you want to prank your mates, huh?" she asked with a smirk.

Wide-eyed, I stared at her. How had she guessed?!

"Your face is so easy to read," Eden giggled, then got serious. "Okay, what are we talking about here? Pranks in general, or is there a specific reason?"

"My friend Angelo said their egos need to be checked once in a while," I said as I sat next to her. "And they think I can"t be sneaky."

Then I shared the conversation we"d had on the way over here.

"Bwahaha! An old tactic! Get them on edge, then do nothing!" she chuckled. "You need to wait at least a day before you attempt a prank, or they"ll know right away that it"s you."

"What do you mean? Of course they"ll know it"s me. Who else would it be?"

"My dear cousin, you are so cute! Being underestimated is the greatest advantage you can have. Embrace it!" She sat up and squished me in a hug. "And besides, you never interrupt your enemy when he"s making a mistake."

"What does all that mean?"

"If you can make your victim think it was someone else who played the prank, do it."

"That sounds like good advice!" I grinned. "You"re so smart!"

"I didn"t make it up." She rolled her eyes. "It"s from TheArt of War by Sun Tzu. You should try reading it sometime."

"It"s still smart to remember something you read and quote it at the right time." I smiled at her, then asked, "So how do I do that? I"m not any good at lying or keeping a secret."

"Girl, you just give them those innocent blue eyes you"re giving me right now and tell them so-and-so did it. For example, one time I asked Ethan to hand me a bottle of soda from the fridge. Then I shook it up reallll good before carrying it outside to Evan. When it exploded all over him, I told him that Ethan gave it to me. See? No secrets and not even lying!"

"Oh, I see." I nodded. "I can set up Wyatt or Ash or even Jayden, if the prank"s on Wyatt or Ash. No one will even doubt that."

"Now," she said, "have you ever played a prank on them before? Like, will they suspect it"s you?"

"No. I bribed them with kisses to help me prank Beta Emerson once, but he deserved it. Oh, and I said something on purpose to make Jayden spit water all over himself today during tea with the queen. Maybe a couple of other little things like that."

"Very good, my padawan."

With a serious face, Eden put her hands together and bowed at me. When she straightened up and saw my confused face, she explained it was a Star Wars reference that meant an apprentice. I felt too awkward to tell her I had no idea what Star Wars was, so I just nodded.

"All right, now let"s talk about ideas." She tapped her chin with her fingers as she thought. "Some pranks take time and supplies to set up. I can give you some basic gear to get started with, but I need to know a little bit about your mates. Are they super smart? Gullible? Do they have fears? Weaknesses?"

"They"re all intelligent, but Mason and Jayden are the most observant." I gnawed on my bottom lip as I thought. "Let"s see. Jayden"s afraid of vampires. Wyatt doesn"t like small, closed spaces. Cole won"t admit it, but I"ve seen him leave a room rather than kill a spider. As for Ash, he"s super easy to get distracted and off topic and is obsessed with his hair."

"And Mason?" Eden asked when I paused. "He"s the quiet one with gray eyes, right?"

"Yeah. He doesn"t have too many weaknesses, and none I"m comfortable using for a joke," I admitted, thinking of his relationship with his dad. No way was I going there just for a laugh. "The only one I can think of is, when he was little, he was afraid to poop."

"Poop? I can work with poop, but I think he"ll be the hardest one to prank," she said, and I nodded in agreement. "Does he sleep like the dead? My dad does. Once he"s out, he"s out. Evan and I duct-taped him to the couch one time, and he never woke up while we were doing it."

"Not Mason, but Ash is!" Excited, I bounced on the bed. "Once he crashes, that"s it for a solid eight hours."

"Perfect. We"ll start there. I know two really good ones for him. He"s the super tall one, right?"

"Yep! My waffle!" I giggled, then explained when she stared at me. "His mate scent is maple syrup."

"Aww! What are the others" scents? And what do you smell like to them?"

"Wyatt vanilla, Mason campfire, Cole pine, and Jayden roses. They said I smell like freshly baked chocolate chip cookies."

"I can"t wait to find my mate!" she squealed and pressed a hand to her heart. "That sounds so beautiful."

"How much longer until you"re eighteen?"

"February seventeenth," she pouted. "Months and months away, and even then, it could be years until I find her!"

I blinked, then blinked again.

Did Eden like girls like Emerson and Angelo liked boys? Was she gay, too?

"Um, does that bother you?" she asked as she tucked a piece of her long, dark hair behind her ear. "That I like girls?"

"Oh! No! Not at all!" This time it was my turn to squish her in a hug. "One of my best friends is gay. My beta Emerson. I was just surprised, that"s all. You don"t hear of too many gay female shifters."

"There are never very many, which is going to make it super hard for me to find my mate." Her shoulders dropped as a glum look crossed her face. "It"s all about making pups. There are thirty to thirty-five percent more male shifters than females at any given time. That"s why identical male twins and triplets usually share a mate, but female twins almost always have separate mates. Got to spread the birth-givers around, you know?"

"No, I didn"t know." My forehead scrunched up as I thought. "What about if there"s a boy and girl twin, like you and Evan, or a mix of genders in triplets? Mason had a twin sister, Willow. Although she died in the sickness, I kind of wondered how that would have worked with their mates."

"Fraternal multiples are very rare, and mixed genders even more so, but we never share a mate. Like our dads. They each had their own mate, right?" She made an icky face. "And it would be weird for a brother and sister to share a mate, don"t you think?"

"Unless they"re— Um, what"s the word? To be into both boys and girls?"

Mason had told me the term when Gamma Reuben made a comment about liking both genders, but I"d forgotten it.

"Bisexual. Still, I think it would be ... uncomfortable. I wouldn"t want to be with Evan while he and our mate were, um, together, or see him like that, you know? He"s my brother! Who wants to see that naked?"

I laughed as I wrinkled my nose.

"Yeah, I can"t see myself wanting to do that with Aiden or James, either. Brothers and sisters are never mates, right?"

"Eww, girl! Never! That"s called incest. Not only is it illegal in shifter and human societies, but both also see it as immoral." She made a face. "Human history is full of ancient people who inter-married brothers and sisters and all kinds of crazy deformities came from it, so obviously even nature is against it."

"Makes sense," I agreed, then got back on topic. "Anyway, did I give you enough information to help you come up with prank ideas for me?"

"Oh, yeah! I have loads of ideas!"

She leapt off the bed and ran to her closet, pulled out a clear plastic container and hustled back. After flipping off the lid, she plunked it down between us and started going through it, showing me items and explaining how to use them. As for me, I paid close attention, wanting to be a good student for the master.

"Perfect!" I grinned at her when she was done. "My mates are in for it now!"

"That"s right, girl. Keep "em on their toes." She high-fived me. "Mom always says that the couple who plays together, stays together."

#

Cole

As Ash drove us to the guest house that evening, Posy fell asleep, and Wyatt decided that was the exact moment to share the information his research had uncovered.

Why he didn"t just link us while she was awake, I had no idea. Boy had no sense sometimes.

"So I went to the pharmacy this morning," he began, "and learned that condoms mainly come in boxes of three, ten, twelve, twenty-four, and thirty-six, although you can get them in bulk. They come in size regular, large, and extra large. There"s a variety of textures and thicknesses as well as different lubes."

"Sounds more complicated than I"d anticipated," Mase muttered, looking out his window.

"Yeah, but don"t worry! I bought us some to test drive."

"Test drive?" Jay snickered.

"I don"t know about you, dickhead, but I"ve never rolled one on before!" Wyatt snarled.

I quickly shushed him, not wanting him to wake our girl, and he nodded.

"And I don"t want to be fumbling around when Posy"s in need," he continued in a whisper.

"I get it. It was just funny you called it that," Jay said. "Not like we can return them if we don"t like them."

"Get on with it, Wyatt," I grumped.

"Okay, I got three of the three-pack boxes. One in regular, one in large and one in extra large. I figured we can get the size right before we experiment with the other stuff."

"They didn"t have anything bigger than extra large?" Ash scratched the back of his neck. "You know nothing ever fits me. I can"t imagine condoms are any different."

"Sorry, Bigfoot, extra large was it. At least at the pharmacy I stopped at, but I"ll look online."

"But they"re really stretchy, right?" Jay threw in his two cents. "I saw a picture online of a girl with her whole fist in one, so—"

"Then extra large should be big enough for even Ash"s giant zing-zong," Wyatt sneered.

"Flattered as I am, I"m not so sure I like you looking at my zing-zong to know how gigantic it is," Ash smirked.

"How could he miss seeing it after this morning?" I snarled. "Your zing-zong was all but dropping out of the leg of those stupidly short shorts you slept in!"

"I can"t help that Pumice didn"t realize how well hung I was when he grabbed clothes for Sid."

I rolled my eyes, Jay snickered, and Mase sighed and rubbed one hand over his face.

"Anyway," Wyatt said, determined to finish his report, "like I said, we can try them on and see how they fit and go from there. That"s why I only bought a few three packs until we get the sizing right."

"Good job, Wy," Mase said, "and good thinking to get some for us to practice with."

As Wyatt basked in his role model"s praise, I glanced at our girl, who was stretched out in the back row with her head on Mase"s thigh. I could have sworn I saw a sliver of silver glinting under her thick eyelashes, but I blinked and when I looked again, there was nothing.

Lark? I linked her. Are you awake?

No answer.

Not trusting her, I asked Topaz to check on her.

Mate sleeping. I was asleep, too, boss, he mumbled and yawned.

I frowned. After all our talk about being sneaky, playing pranks, and pulling tricks today, I wasn"t so trusting.

Wyatt, I said in the alpha link, hide them somewhere Posy and Lark can"t find them, okay?

Why? They"re not going to know what they are even if they see them.

Just do it, I scowled.

Sure, he sighed. I guess she might be embarrassed to know what they are and what they"re for.

She"d find out about them eventually, so I wasn"t worried about that. I was, however, concerned that Lark - or Posy instigated by Lark - might be tempted to play a joke on us with them.

While the mischief those two got into was cute, I seriously wanted to have the condom issue solved before she went into heat. Whatever trick they might think of, Wyatt hiding the boxes would nip it in the bud.

At least you hope so, boss, Topaz grinned, more awake now.

I had to admit he was right. There was only so much damage control I could do when I didn"t fully know what our mate and her wolf were capable of.

You will never know, Topaz smirked. They will always surprise us.

And I smiled, perfectly okay with that.