6. Island of the Blue Sequins

CHAPTER SIX

ISLAND OF THE BLUE SEQUINS

The Present: Trick in the San Andreas Pack Den, Sausalito

“Oh good, you’re home. Come here.” Colin waved Trick over as soon as he walked in the door. The smallest of the San Andreas werewolves was nested in one corner of the world’s biggest, puffiest couch doing something on his laptop, as usual.

Trick adored Colin but that couch messed with his head. It was a land mass in its own right. He had to cast himself into it, rather than sit down. If he perched on the edge he’d inevitably slide backwards and get eaten by the sheer squish of it all. It wasn’t a couch, it was a barge that had eaten too many soft furnishings, then floated into the pack house and taken up residence there.

Colin was adrift on a sea of leather, legs tucked under him, serious and focused.

Trick ignored Colin’s summons, hung up his bag and his favorite new coat with the furry leopard print collar (Marvin called it Trick’s slutty pimp puffer), and wandered into the kitchen to check on the dinner situation.

“What’s up, love muffin?” he sang back at Colin from there.

He didn’t wait for an answer, just turned to Lovejoy, who was bopping around the kitchen to some truly terrible music, played blessedly softly on a tiny speaker. “We having a proper sit-down this evening?”

Lovejoy shook his head. “Got a diplomatic thing later, after Alec gets home. No time for a pack gathering. Food is ready if you want. There’s rice in the cooker.”

Trick checked the huge simmering pot on the stovetop. It contained large hunks of flesh on the bone in a dark sauce with boiled eggs and smelled strongly of five-spice and white pepper. “Moo palo!” He bounced on the balls of his feet. It was one of his absolute favorites.

“Yay!” He hugged Lovejoy, hands full of silky material. His friend had a predilection for satin shirts with bold patterns unbuttoned nearly all the way. It was very mafia chic and slightly ridiculous. But Trick appreciated that the man put in some effort.

Lovejoy chuckled and ruffled his hair with a free hand that smelled strongly of garlic. “You always get so excited when it’s Asian food.”

“Told you, I was raised on Japanese.”

“So you say. Someday you’ll tell us why that is, when your accent is both Irish and Southern.”

Trick let go of Lovejoy and went to grab a bowl. He doubted he ever would tell the pack anything substantial about his upbringing or his family history, but it was nice that they were interested, even if other people’s curiosity made him uncomfortable. The San Andreas pack already knew too much about him for anyone’s safety – theirs or his.

He distracted everyone by doing a little dance and chanting, “Moo palo, moo palo, rah rah rah!”

Lovejoy was more sensitive than most to the way Trick shut down. The werewolf curved one hand over Trick’s shoulder, gentle against Trick’s freneticism. “I’ll make nikujaga for you once I learn how.”

Trick was touched, bounded a little from foot to foot. It hadn’t been one of Mr Sato’s dishes but he would still love to try it. “You’d do that for me, special?”

Lovejoy resumed dredging or coddling whatever magical thing he did to make food amazing. “Of course I will, cutie. Especially since you won’t request anything specific.”

“You know me. I eat anything.” Trick’s favorite was still takoyaki. He’d never ask Lovejoy for that – it required a special pan. More importantly, he hadn’t eaten it since then . Since Sato kissed with his sweetly salted mouth and they got sauce on his chest and crumbs on his bed. And ass.

Trick forced himself to miss the takoyaki so he would not miss Sato’s kisses. And that meant not asking for it or eating it. He’d relegated the rich salty-sweet taste of both into becoming nothing more than a tiny battered ball of fried memory.

Not that he would ever have the courage to request anything special from this pack. He didn’t want any pack member to go out of his way for Trick, ever! He was enough bother already, interloping and staying with them. Taking advantage of their generosity.

He also tried to be always kind and cheerful and upbeat. Pleasant to be around. Of course, he enjoyed the positive attention this garnered him, but he was well aware it was a survival mechanism.

Charming people didn’t get lonely. Charming people didn’t get left behind. If he were cute and funny enough and never any trouble at all, perhaps he’d get to keep this family. This time.

But in reality? Who knew how long he would be allowed to stay. How long he would be tolerated in their territory. In their home ! So he also made himself as useful as he could around the house, helping to clean and prepare for the near constant backyard parties. He paid a tiny amount of rent into the pack fund. Not a lot because he only had his cafe job. Alec said he didn’t have to pay anything. But Trick was already eating for free and felt he must contribute.

He certainly didn’t feel like he’d earned the right to request anything specifically. Especially not a dish that required a special pan to make and kisses to understand.

But he was also one to get enthusiastic over anything he truly loved and enjoyed. He was bouncy and excitable by nature. A hard life hadn’t beaten that aspect of his personality out of him. He was still an otter – playful and joyful and easygoing and maybe a little neurotic. So when Lovejoy, or any of the others, happened upon a dish or a snack that Trick particularly loved, Trick couldn’t stop himself from showing appreciation. Usually by clapping, and wiggling, and doing a little dance.

Lovejoy, at least, had figured this out and loved to see him happy. So now there were a couple of regular stews in the pack’s monthly meal rotation, like moo palo, that specifically catered to Trick’s preferences and happy claps. Trick found this awfully sweet and somewhat embarrassing, but it was too late now.

Trick served himself a bowlful of Lovejoy’s moo palo. Trick adored pretty much all Thai food – it had no discoloration from poisoned nostalgia like Japanese cuisine.

He didn’t bother with rice, just took his bowl to the huge dining table and plonked it down, splashing only a little. He could talk to Colin from there without having to shout. He tried to prove to them regularly that he was polite and house-trained. Mr Sato had seen to that, somewhat accidentally. The werewolves didn’t seem to care; they were a rowdy bunch.

Colin launched into conversation the moment Trick sat down. “Trick, baby-cakes, you know anything about this hot naked dude saving a kid from drowning this afternoon? Downtown?”

“I’ll play your erotic little game,” said Trick, chewing in a way he hoped conferred deep interest in the matter of all things hot, naked, and dudely.

“There is a wealth of photographic evidence, and I do mean wealth. Dude is smoking hot.”

“In our town, this town, Sausalito, and I missed it? Worse, no one told me? Emergency response systems must be reworked stat! In Sausalito it should be made abundantly clear to all residents that firemen respond to fires, paramedics to injuries, cops to crime, SBI to shifters, and me to naked dudes. Spot a random naked dude, send in Trick.”

“You’re like a birdwatcher, only for cock?”

“Exactly! After all, cock, technically, also a bird.”

“You know in England they call them twitchers?”

“Accurate.”

Colin laughed. “Birdwatchers, not cockwatchers.”

“Less accurate.” Trick waved an airy hand and continued his fake ranting between bites, “The downtown gossips at the very least should have told me about a naked dude. I mean, what good is Floyd if not to tell me when unfettered dick is hanging out in our vicinity? What’s my purpose on this earth if not to catch a smoking hot dude, as you so eloquently put it, when he is wandering around my neighborhood starkers, I ask you?”

“You’re frittering away your entire existence, and it’s obviously Floyd’s fault,” agreed Colin.

“You, however, were at school all day. How did you know when I didn’t?” Trick worked some pork off the bone with his spoon. “You got news alerts set up for Sausalito ?”

“Of course – it’s the pack’s hometown, after all.”

“Sometimes you’re more Big Brother than you are little brother,” said Kevin to his much smaller and younger brother, walking into the den. He was wearing a short yellow waffle robe and a smug expression. The waffle robe was new and clashed with his red hair, the expression was ubiquitous.

“I resemble that remark,” replied Colin, looking equally smug. Aside from coloring, they actually weren’t all that similar, except when they smiled or got smug.

Trick swallowed his mouthful of stew. “Colin, this news has me strangely intrigued. Was the cock in question over at the viewpoint past that new seafood place? You’re well aware I don’t have line of sight to any of the piers from my counter. A mermaid did visit my cafe this morning, though. That was weird.” He remembered the white socks and the tented old basketball shorts. “And kinda gross. Sometimes I really don’t get breeders.”

Silence met that rather obvious statement.

Colin said, “Mermaid? Really. Now that’s interesting because this hot naked dude was apparently a hot naked mer man .”

Trick’s stomach whooshed at that information. Sato? Of course not. What would Sato be doing in Sausalito? Still, Trick’s mind froze. He pushed down the impossible hope. Impossible because he’d thought he’d given it up. He scrabbled for a witty response. Reached for sarcasm. His voice dry and squeaky.

“The cock in question was fish-tangential? Did Marvin go for a swim and accidentally rescue a kid after he left my cafe this morning?” Trick suggested the most obvious answer. “No offense to Marvin but I’ve seen it all before, and like all the most discerning of cockwatchers I’m only interested in new specimens.”

Colin shook his head. “It wasn’t Marvin.”

Kevin was less smug, now wearing his none-of-your-nonsense enforcer expression. “What are you two squirts on about?”

Colin took mercy on his brother. “Apparently this dude plucks this kid out from the undertow, and then shoots himself up out of the water hard enough to clear the rail of that new pier – holding a six-year-old! Flops onto the lookout deck, gives the child CPR, saves his life, struts around naked for a bit, then swims away.”

“Sounds like a merman,” said Trick, because it did. Not much like Sato, though.

“He’s ripped too. Fantastic abs.”

“Who has fantastic abs?” asked Judd, coming in then. He was wearing a yellow waffle robe just like his fellow enforcer, only the color looked a lot better on him. He glared in mock jealousy at his mate.

Colin slapped his computer closed. “ You do, of course, love of my life.”

Judd pouted down at Colin. “What, you’re not gonna share the pretty?”

Colin made a face at him, crawled to the edge of the couch, escaped to standing, then made his way into the kitchen, probably only just realizing he was hungry. “Would it kill you to get a little jelly?”

“Gingersnap, you’ve been watching way too many K-dramas lately. Jealousy is a sign of insecurity at best and entitlement at worst. It has very little to do with affection.” Judd trailed after Colin into the kitchen. Draped his huge body over the smaller man while Colin stirred the stew.

“More importantly, it’s also a sign of immaturity. Judd is absolutely ancient, remember?” Kevin grinned cheerfully and headed for the kitchen as well.

Lovejoy intercepted the enforcer. “Too crowded already. Go sit down.”

Colin said, “Should I dish?”

“By all means, feed the ravening hordes,” said Lovejoy, standing with crossed arms and watching until Kevin was safely seated opposite Trick at the dining table.

Then Lovejoy unwound Judd from his mate and shoved the big man in the same direction. Judd pouted but lumbered over as well. No one argued with Lovejoy in the kitchen.

Colin didn’t need to ask if the enforcers wanted food. They always wanted food.

He dished out a small bowl for himself, and then two large bowls for the enforcers, plus rice and various condiments. He loaded up a tray and took it all to the big dining table. Joined the three already there.

Trick was almost done with his own serving. He looked up as Colin sat. “A strange merman and a strange mermaid in Sausalito at the same time? That can’t be a coincidence. And if it isn’t a coincidence, it’s super weird.” He ate the egg he’d saved for last.

“What do you mean?” asked Colin.

“Mermen are solitary and mermaids mostly travel in large groups. Such a pair traveling together would seem to be an anomaly.” Trick was probably revealing that he knew too much about the people of the sea. But he didn’t think the wolves were smart enough around delta dynamics to understand such nuances.

The pack regularly assumed that Trick would, as a water beast himself, know about all shifters who swam in water. As if the oceans weren’t more vast than the land. As if wolves kept tabs on bears or cats or any other shifter population not their own. Also, the pack had never quite figured out that while Trick regularly swam in the bay, technically his shifted form was that of a river otter, not a sea otter.

They had a lot to learn, poor things.

“Sounds like the start of a joke,” said Kevin. “A merman and mermaid walk into Sausalito.”

“Technically only one of them walked, the other one flopped,” pointed out Colin, having seen the footage.

Trick fidgeted in his chair, wondering yet again if it were Sato. Every time he heard mention of a merman, he wondered. Which, admittedly, wasn’t often. The sea people kept a low profile. But it had never been Sato, and Sato traveling with a mermaid? Sato traveling with anyone? Unlikely.

“One merman is a visitor, one mermaid is a hunter, two merfolk at once? That’s an aberration. I don’t like aberrations.” Colin liked things that fit neatly into charts and played well with statistical models and predictable patterns.

“Or an invasion,” grumbled Judd.

Marvin came waltzing in at that juncture. He’d been with the coast guard all afternoon for some secret operation, but he’d changed out of his uniform before returning home. The dress robe was still caught up in red tape. He refused to wear his adjunct’s uniform at any other time not strictly required by his contract because, as he put it, they wouldn’t let him write Rear Admiral in glittery puffy paint on the ass of the slacks.

“If you don’t like aberrations, sweetie pie, how do you tolerate me?” he asked.

“You’re not an aberration, you’re a delightful distraction,” replied Colin.

“The world’s best ravishing incongruity?” suggested Trick, grinning at his friend.

Marvin wiggled his blond eyebrows at them. “I like it! Good drag name too.”

“Did you hear about the merman saving the kid downtown this morning?” Judd asked Marvin.

“I was there, Captain Velcro,” Marvin shot back.

“So you met this visiting merman?” Trick tried not to sound as desperately curious as he was.

“Hm. Would we say met ? There were no formal introductions. In fact, he was awfully rude.” Marvin could be very, very evasive when he felt like it.

“And did you meet Trick’s mermaid?”

“Since when has Trick had a mermaid? You changing sides on me, biscuit whiskers?”

Trick got up to take his now empty bowl to the sink. “ Biscuit whiskers , my gay ass. She’s not my mermaid in any lifetime – in fact, she would appear to be some dude-bro’s mermaid. She went off with this tourist wearing white tube socks and a red baseball cap.” He checked to see if there was anything else he could do in the kitchen to help clean. Lovejoy had left it spotless, though. Trick wished they would let him be more useful.

“Tube socks? How absolutely revolting.” Marvin shuddered.

“Right!” Trick dished out a small bowl of moo palo for the merman, adding fish sauce and seaweed sprinkles to the top.

He carried it back to the table. “Come eat. And I’ll consider telling you about the man’s shorts.”

“ Shorts ? With tube socks! This is like walking roadkill. I’m utterly riveted.” Marvin scuttled over.

Trick pursed his lips. “ Orange basketball shorts and one of those stretched-out white tank tops. And for the sake of truth, I must report faithfully that he did not have the body for that.”

Marvin sat down and began eating, staring trancelike at Trick. “Does anyone? This is more fascinating and horrifying than that two-week-old body I fished out of Monterey Bay last month. Go on!”

Trick needled him. “You know, if you’d stayed a bit longer this morning, you would have seen the whole thing yourself.”

“True, but then I’d have missed the hot merman. I assure you, my scenery was better than yours – no shorts at all, and the body to pull it off. I also wouldn’t have known that we have a much bigger problem than just one merman and one mermaid with bad taste in humans.”

“Did you miss the bit about the tube socks?” Trick pressed, knowing Marvin.

“No no, you’re right, that is a serious problem. Have you considered posting a no tube socks sign on the cafe door?”

“I don’t think cafes should discriminate.” Trick wondered how he could get Marvin back onto the merman.

Marvin shook his head. “Trick, baby-doll, sometimes I think you’re too kind and generous. People take advantage of your good nature. You’re doomed to get your eyeballs seared by tourists.”

“I suffer,” agreed Trick.

“It’s a curse one must bear in the beverage industry.” Marvin took a bite of food.

“What could possibly be more of a problem than an arbitrarily benevolent merman and a bog-standard mermaid in town at the same time?” Colin attempted to get Marvin back on track. A daunting task.

Marvin sighed big and dramatic. “Try twelve mermaids.”

Trick let out a shaky breath. A whole pod? Definitely not Sato. Sato would never, in a million years, go around with a whole pod of mermaids.

Kevin looked up from his soup. “ Twelve , did you say?”

“Don’t look so hopeful, none of them will be interested in you, snookums. If I’ve told you once, I’ve told you a thousand times, mermaids only fuck humans,” said Marvin, merciless.

Kevin sighed. “Their loss.”

“If they all go into the city at once, there could be riots,” pointed out Colin, practically. “This weekend, for example, just imagine them at Fisherman’s Wharf.”

Trick shuddered. “I’d rather not.”

“What’s a group of mermaids called again?” asked Lovejoy, finally joining them with his own bowl of food.

“A migraine,” said Trick.

“What he said,” agreed Marvin, even though they were his people.

“A pod,” explained Colin, who was a nice person.

“ Twelve of them, you say?” That was Judd, who probably had a better idea than any other werewolf about what might be going on. Simply because he’d lived long enough to meet the occasional pod of mermaids before.

“What does it mean?” asked Lovejoy.

“We are well and truly fucked,” said Judd.

“Well, not us specifically, but probably lots of local human males,” said Colin.

“The ones wearing tube socks, most likely. Do you think tube socks are some kind of mermaid aphrodisiac?” wondered Trick.

“Enough with the tube socks, Trick,” said Marvin.

“I thought you were on my side.”

“Unfortunately, I am going to have to do something quite out of character at this juncture.”

“Oh no, don’t change!” wailed Trick, pushing into melodrama. He tucked his hands under the table edge. They were shaking.

“What’s that?” asked Colin.

“Get serious. Because there is something even worse going on.”

“What’s worse than twelve mermaids bobbing about the bay?” wondered Judd.

“Twelve mermaids and one merman?” suggested Lovejoy, who had been paying attention.

Marvin pointed two fingers at him, “Bing bing bing! Give the pretty boy a prize. It’s what twelve mermaids and one merman means . Too small for a proper pod and no spawn at all? A fully grown, protective, Alpha-type merman swimming with a dozen grown females and arbitrarily rescuing human children. That doesn’t seem weird to you? And you know I don’t use the term Alpha lightly.”

Trick said, “Sure seems weird to me.” If Sato had taught him nothing else about the people of the sea, it was that mermen preferred to be solitary, especially from their own kind. Marvin was the only apparent exception.

“Darlings all, the time has come for me to break silence on the matter of the merfolk.”

“Oh, must you?” said Kevin.

“Eat your soup, big guy, I must.” Marvin stood and struck an orator’s pose, hand over his chest. “Gentlefolk of the land-bound world – of beached, bleached, and dry. We are being honored beyond measure by a very austere and important visitor. Yes, my dearest fuzz-butts all, the San Francisco Bay is currently hosting one of the five Soteria of the Deep .”

“The what of the what now?” asked Colin.

Trick knew what the Soteria of the Deep meant. He should not know such a thing. He wasn’t a mermaid. But he did.

“One of their leaders is here ?” Apparently Judd also knew.

“I know, right? Isn’t it amazing?” Marvin was all sarcasm. “Aren’t we lucky?”

Trick felt his ears roar slightly. One of them . One of the ones who had called Sato away. One of the ones who had kept him. One of the thieves. One of the enemy.

One of those who, if given the right incentive, might be persuaded to tell Trick where Sato was. One of those who might actually know. Or at least have the resources to figure it out.

“Is this why Alec has a meeting tonight?” Trick asked, forcing himself to speak calmly.

“It is.”

“Do you want me to come?” Trick barely managed to keep his voice from shaking. Not sure if he was hopeful or terrified.

Suddenly he was a mess. Okay, not so suddenly. He’d started going messy the moment he’d found out about the strange merman.

A mess like the teenager he’d once been.

A mess over Sato. Or the possibility of Sato.

A hot mess, of course, but a mess nonetheless.

Because he did and didn’t want to know why he’d been abandoned. Why he’d been forgotten. Why the one fixed thing he had trusted in his ever-unstable life, Sato, hadn’t come back to him. Why the charm of otter-kind and his clever manipulative ways had failed the one time they’d really mattered. Failed because of a merman. Did anyone ever really want to know why they hadn’t been good enough?

“No thank you, Trick,” said a new voice from the front door.

Trick was relatively new to being around a werewolf pack. There was still a lot about it that confused him. But he always found the effect of the Alpha among them impressive . A little creepy but impressive.

There they all sat around the big table – at home, relaxed, eating delicious food, enjoying themselves.

Then Alec walked in the door.

The impact was immediately obvious in the body language of every werewolf there. Colin, Kevin, Judd, Lovejoy – their posture just melted slightly. Alec’s scent on the air (Trick assumed) and their shoulders were less tense. Alec within their line of sight, and they became a tiny bit less alert, less on their guard, softer. As if Alec were a nice bouquet of flowers, or a pretty sunset, his mere presence a gift to their senses but more importantly a gift to their psyches. A walking, talking antidepressant – that also turned into a raving beast regularly.

To Trick, who possessed very little capacity for relaxation (and never had – otters were notoriously high strung) this was almost magical to watch happen. He had yet to get tired of it, every time Alec walked into a room filled with pack. The way they all reveled in him, like cats basking in sunbeams.

When he let himself, Trick wondered if he’d been that way around Sato. Or if that had been love. Or youth. Or ignorance.

Certainly Alec was still very much Alpha . The attention of everyone in that room swiveled toward him, almost imperceptibly, but entirely. They were all his to command, and he knew it, never questioned that, but he was also clearly theirs. He belonged to the pack. And they knew that too.

Marvin, being Marvin the Merman, did not react that way. Instead, he shot up from the table and catapulted himself at his mate, launched himself into the air in a ballet leap, entirely convinced Alec would drop his computer bag and catch him. Alec was tall by Trick’s standards, but slight, not huge and beefy like his enforcers. Trick certainly wouldn’t have trusted Alec that way.

But Alec dropped his bag and caught his mate easily.

Alec may look like a nerdy lab scientist (which he basically was) but he was still werewolf strong, and he was better-than-werewolf fast.

Trick had had occasion to observe, over his admittedly brief time with the San Andreas pack, that Alpha werewolves were natural leaders, of course. But what made them Alpha was actually not that leadership ability, it was something less obvious. Judd had a greater aura of command and sheer feel of power about him. Kevin was better looking and more charismatic. Lovejoy was more charming. Bryan was more kind. Colin probably had a higher IQ. Tank was bigger than any of them. Tank was bigger than any werewolf Trick had ever seen. And Isaac was, well, Isaac was special.

But Alec? Alec was just… a better werewolf than any or all of them. Trick had asked Marvin once what it was that made Alec an Alpha.

Marvin, who loved bragging about his mate, replied, “Alec fights smart. He’s not just a human with a PhD, he’s a wolf with a PhD.”

“What does a wolf need a PhD for?” Trick joked.

“You know what I mean.”

“The shift doesn’t impact his brain meats?”

“Exactly. Grade A brain meats inside my man, at all times. He’s Alpha because of who he is, of course, but also what he is when he’s a wolf. Apparently it’s quite impressive. Particularly to other wolves. Particularly to the suckers who end up fighting him. Poor things.”

Trick had taken Marvin’s word for it because he’d yet to witness Alec really fight and he never felt any of the rest of Alec’s aura. Werewolf Alpha power didn’t seem to really affect Trick.

But the way all the other werewolves, and occasional other pack-oriented shifters, behaved around Alec? Even Trick could see that .

Trick’s non-responsiveness had confused Alec at first. Not worried, just confused. The Alpha was so accustomed to those living with him relaxing in his presence, accidentally obeying him without question. Trick never did that.

“Otters have little hierarchy built into their social structure. It’s just age and blood relations dictating interpersonal behaviors,” Judd had explained to Alec while also directing an inquiring look at Trick.

Trick had nodded. “Yeah, it’s just family dynamics and changeable allegiances. We don’t really fight for dominance,” he’d explained, so that the pack would understand he’d be no good for them in battle. He’d be of no help with Heavy Lifting or bodyguard duties either. He wanted to be useful, but couldn’t do that.

“We’re lovers, not fighters,” he’d added.

In reality, dratsie were tricksters and fraudsters. The dobhar-chú used weaponized charm and wit way more than claws or teeth. As a species, they were known to be clever, not tough. When they were known at all.

In reality Trick may never fully trust Alec because he was too scared to trust like that ever again. Because he’d only relaxed and fully trusted one other dominant Alpha type. And that hadn’t worked out so well.

Alec left his computer bag in the doorway, arms full of merman, and carried Marvin into the dining room, sat in a chair with the merman in his lap.

Lovejoy went and got him a bowl of moo palo.

Trick wondered how the Alpha was going to eat stew with a gorgeous blond draped atop him.

Alec continued talking to Trick. “Sweet of you to offer, but it would be better not to overwhelm them with numbers at this first meeting.”

Trick wasn’t sure what he felt about that, mostly relief. But also a little sad. Yet again, the pack didn’t actually seem to need him for anything. Which felt a little like they didn’t want him. He shook that off. “So they’re in this area for a while? Why?”

“I don’t know. I only know they’re here.” Marvin squirmed around in Alec’s lap to sit properly. Alec made a pained expression.

Oblivious to his mate’s discomfort, or possible arousal, the merman said, “I claimed Alec as singer for the seas in this area.”

Alec puffed out his cheeks. “So you texted. I don’t understand.”

Marvin explained. “Sort of like the leader of local allegiances. A liaison between sea and land who understands local politics. Technically it should not be a four-legger. It should be me, or a selkie, or Ms Trickle, or even Trick.”

“Fuck no,” said Trick, vehemently.

“But since you have water folk in your pack and number quite a few others as friends in this area, I think I can make the claim stick,” said Marvin. “Plus there is Max to consider.”

“Max?”

“Mermaids don’t respect humans at all. Not even slightly. Mostly they are just annoyed by them or use them for breeding. But mermaids do respect Magistars because they respect quintessence and anyone who has the power to harness it. They know what that kind of ability can do to existence, even theirs.”

Alec said, “Which is why I’ll be taking Marvin, Bryan, and Max with me tonight.” He glared at his enforcers. “No one else.”

Kevin and Judd exchanged apprehensive looks. “But there are thirteen of them!”

“At least take Isaac,” suggested Colin.

“Wouldn’t do any good,” said Trick and Marvin at the same time.

Marvin swiveled to stare at him. “And how would you know that?”

Trick only shrugged. “Omega wouldn’t work on dratsie. I’m assuming he wouldn’t work on merfolk either.”

Alec looked suddenly interested. It was just like Alec to be most concerned when his greatest peace-keeping tool was taken away from him. He had all the confidence of an Alpha in his fighting and in his command, but what he really loved to use the most in any political situation was his Omega. His greatest instrument of calm. “Not work?”

Marvin patted his mate’s head. “Did you never notice, honey? Isaac doesn’t work on me. Or Ms Trickle. Or, I’m thinking, Trick. Although we haven’t really tried yet.”

“Work?” Alec looked confused.

“His omega-fu-juice or whatever it is.”

“Must we say juice ?” Kevin made a face.

“Wait, Omega doesn’t work on you?” Alec was dumbfounded. “Or you?” He stared at Trick.

Marvin turned to look at his mate, clapped small hands to Alec’s cheeks, and pressed in, forcing their great leader to make a pouty face. “Aw, you’re so cute when you’re confused. How are you so cute? No, baby, it never has. Nor has your adorable highly concentrated Alpha-fu-juice either.”

“Could you please stop saying juice ?” begged Kevin.

“All water shifters?” Alec’s words were muffled by Marvin still squeezing his cheeks.

“Probably,” said Marvin, cheerfully unconcerned.

“Taking Max tonight makes sense then, doesn’t it? After all, no one’s immune to Magistars,” said Colin, looking at Judd, trying to forestall enforcer concern for pack safety. For Alec’s safety.

But neither enforcer protested. Max and Bryan were a great security detail. Probably the world’s best.

Alec grinned at his pack. “I also called and invited Ms Trickle.” His lovely hazel eyes crinkled when he smiled, which he did often. Trick loved that.

Marvin giggled. “Oh you did, did you? That’s my smartypants Alpha-poo.”

“Marvin, must you? Dignity of the rank and all,” growled Kevin.

Trick struggled not to laugh. He was on Marvin’s side; Ms Trickle was a smart call.

“She’ll be representing the local government’s interest, of course, but also…” Alec trailed off.

“She’s a kelpie,” crowed Marvin.

“And that matters, why?” wondered Lovejoy.

Marvin waggled his eyebrows. “Oh, mermaids hate kelpie. This is gonna be such fun.”

Trick remembered something then. Information that would do him no good to keep to himself and might actually help the pack. “About that mermaid I met.”

“Something I don’t know?” Alec’s focus was laser sharp and immediate.

Trick tilted his head, searching for the right way to phrase it. “Yeah, because Marvin left before it happened. At first I thought she was just hunting sperm. You know how they are. But she said, as she was leaving with her chosen bonk-fest, that she was actually in town for a conference .”

“A mermaid came to Sausalito for a business convention?”

“No single part of that statement makes any kind of sense.”

“But it might explain why the Paralia is here,” said Marvin.