Chapter 20

"So,you're like non-verbal or something?" Sterling asks as he leans up against the counter while I pull out ingredients for pancakes.

That shiny diamond ring is mocking me.

I eye my phone, but decide to think at Fox since my hands are busy.

Is this the Jethro that stole my ring? Is my ring currently sitting on this beautiful twink's finger?

Fox's head snaps toward me so fast, it breaks the sound barrier. There's a crack of thunder in the house, so it could be his thunderbird magic making an appearance, but we've already established that Fox doesn't accidentally surge like that according to Dakota, so it's got to be the breaking of the sound barrier, right?

"Show me," he demands, garnering the attention of every person in the room.

I drop the pancake ingredients, grab Sterling's wrist, and lift his hand, showing Fox his ring. I point to it with emphasis, and my son, my beloved son, gasps. His beautiful lavender eyes widen and he—makes a weird noise. He couldn't possibly be laughing at this situation. He wouldn't do that.

Fox spins on Jethro, picks up the closest table, and throws it at the giant man.

"Hey!" Sterling protests. It's a weak protest because Jethro catches the table just before it hits and transforms into a wolfman, tossing the table aside.

I'm not into hairy men, but even I can admit that the ripped wolfman is hot. Not as hot as Fox, of course, but there's no comparison when it"s the love of your life versus the love of someone else's. I'm sure Sterling thinks his man is the hottest of the two; that makes sense even if it's objectively wrong. Listen, Fox cleans up nice, but he isn't the most handsome man on the planet, but he's definitely hotter than a wolfman, who is objectively ugly (but also really fucking hot too).

"First blood and not a drop more!" Bellamy interjects and points toward the stairs to the basement. "And we have a sparring room for a reason."

Fox sort of ripples with power and points to the door that leads downstairs. I couldn't guess Fox's motivation for pursuing violence against Jethro, but it may be out of frustration because that ring would have looked so good on my finger.

Tomorrow.

Fox said he would get the new ring tomorrow.

Jethro makes a huffing sound, and then that fucker talks through the muzzle of a wolfman, and he doesn't sound like you'd think, growly and slurry. Look, I know "slurry" isn't a language description, but let's just go with it this time.

"This is stupid," Jethro announces, pointing to Sterling. "He needed a ring; I contacted the only person I knew who could do it on short notice."

Sterling wiggles his fingers, admiring his ring. "I do deserve the best things in life. Jethro treats me the way I deserve, and I do the same for him. We're fated mates, you know?" he says to me.

I have no doubt. There's a strange surplus of those in my life right now considering that humans don't have fated mates.

I push Sterling toward the basement, following our men down there. I don't think Sterling has figured out that he's wearing a ring that was meant for me. It's huge, by the way. In case you don't remember that Fox was like, gimme the biggest rock you can find, when he ordered it. It's big enough to dwarf a Ring Pop. Ok, maybe that's a small exaggeration. It's only slightly bigger than a Ring Pop, and it's a better cut. Don't ask me what the cut is. It's round with a lot of pretty sparkles.

I really don't need to be jealous. That ring was ordered specifically for me, and Fox assures me that he has a better one coming. Ugh. Jealousy isn't a good look for me, is it? Besides, that ring is used goods now, and I am worthy of brand new goods… or I would also accept diamonds of historical significance, if I'm being honest about used goods.

Bellamy stands to the side of the sparring mat, watching like he's going to referee, and Hennessey joins him, standing there with a smug little smirk on his lips. Sterling and I sit on the chairs I've set up down here for when I want to watch my men spar. I put him in the chair I haven't cleaned up since the last time Fox and I got a little spicy after practice. Out of respect for Bellamy, we only ever use that chair for when Fox gets aggressive down here, so he knows the one I'm sitting on is safe for him.

Sterling doesn't need to know any of that, and I'm not sure he'd care considering he's openly touching his dick (over his clothes) while watching our men circle each other.

Admittedly, my pajama bottoms aren't going to hide my own hard-on when Fox gets moving, so I have very little room to judge.

Sterling leans over. "You never answered me. Are you non-verbal? Should I not talk to you? I've got this little nubbin and people get awkward around it, and as fun as that is, when I meet someone else with a disability, I prefer to know how they want me to interact with them."

There is literally no way I could ever not like this adorable twink. He's my age, maybe a year or two younger, and clearly of my tribe.

I type the answer out and hold it out to him to read. I'm mute because my stepfather mutilated me when I was a baby. I don't have a voice, and my main form of communication is text message. Put your number in the To line and send this message to yourself.

Fox suddenly darts forward, and my attention is drawn to the fight. Fox moves fast, faster than my eye can truly track, especially when he's up against an opponent who's obviously physically superior. Jethro in wolfman form isn't clumsy like I would expect. He's just hairy, bulky, and weaponized. He moves with Fox, though not as quickly, and while I'm no expert in hand to hand combat, I think maybe Fox is winning. Which we expected, right? Because Fox is a Reaper, and it's literally his job to kill people. I don't know what Jethro does for a job, but if he was a Reaper like my Fox, someone would have mentioned it.

Also, can we all just be in awe that my Fox is fighting a wolfman right now? A. Wolfman. My life is amazing. If I'd known that having the luck of being in the wrong place at the massacre time would get me to this point, I probably would have gone seeking out the crazies. I know that would put me firmly in the category of insane, but c'mon: werewolves.

Not to mention cherubs, Avatars, Reapers, immortals, thunderbirds, elves, demons…

My life is amazing.

"So why are our men fighting over my ring?" Sterling asks, holding his phone now that I have his number.

Fox ordered that ring, it was stolen, and the fence that sold it to you gave him Jethro's name. Fox is just avenging my romantic engagement story that never happened.

Sterling reads that, looks at the shiny on his finger, and smiles. "Yeah, I don"t blame him. It's a great ring. He should get a replacement, though I don't know how easy it's going to be to find a diamond this large again."

He assures me he's already ordered a custom ring with a bigger diamond.

"Hopefully that one doesn't get stolen too."

He says that in such a way that he expects it to get stolen, and I swear if it does, I will take vengeance into my own hands. Well, I might get my family involved so that it's not just Fox beating up a werewolf.

Fox darts under Jethro's claws, comes up behind him, jumps on Jethro's back, and then Jethro's on his knees with a broken, bleeding nose, and I have no idea how that happened.

"Match!" Bellamy shouts, jumping into the fray and pulling Fox off Jethro.

"Woah. That's hot. I've never seen anyone put Jethro on his knees. I've got to try that." Sterling stands up, completely unbothered by the way his pants hide nothing at all. In fact…

A zipper on the back of his pants catches my attention. That's a sex zipper. 100% a BDSM zipper.

"Love of my life, my lil' smokey has some baby-cue sauce for you!" Sterling announces, marching straight to Jethro and stopping with his bulge millimeters from the end of Jethro's snout.

"You are not getting a BJ while I'm in the same room," Bellamy insists.

Sterling turns a devastated pout on Bellamy. "You know I like being watched."

"I know you're completely insane if you think I want to see my baby cousin's dick." Bellamy narrows his eyes at Sterling. "Do you remember when I found you with that coal miner?"

Sterling gets a nostalgic smile. "You cut his fingers off one knuckle at a time and then made him eat his own dick."

I widen my eyes at Bellamy. What did the coal miner do to deserve that?

Bellamy meets my gaze. "Sterling was a precocious kid." That's all he says before he moves his eyes to Jethro. "I told you something very important, Sterling."

Sterling freezes for a second, then takes a step back from Jethro. "Right. Sorry, husband, we have to wait."

Now I want to know what Bellamy said.

Bellamy makes sure that Fox isn't going to keep fighting Jethro, and Jethro shifts to his human form, fully clothed. Oooh, look at that! Another shifter whose clothes shift with him. Poor Fox, doomed to naked shifting for all eternity.

"What did he tell you," Hennessey asks. He's clearly on the same page as me, and once he forgives me for the hurting knuckles, we're going to be friends.

Sterling eyes Bellamy and takes another step away from Jethro. "He said if he ever saw my dick again, he'd feed it to me like he did poor Bill."

Jethro growls, takes two intentional steps to Sterling, and pulls him into his arms. "I wouldn't let that happen," he promises, and to be fair, I don't think any of us would let Bellamy do that either.

It's a good threat though.

Sterling shakes his head. "Not risking it," he replies seriously. "Bellamy's sneaky. Do not trust him with your pogo stick."

Jethro snorts a very animalistic sound, then he turns his attention to Fox, who's wiping up Jethro's blood with a rag. Bellamy will clean it with bleach later. Fox is less bothered by blood spatter than Bellamy is, but he still tries to be conscientious about Bellamy's preferences.

"You done?" Jethro asks.

Fox looks at him without replying, but that's his affirmative stare, not his I-will-kill-you glare.

I clap and point up the stairs. Breakfast, then we need to meet everyone at the cherub warehouse to go to Arktis to free the neutral Avatar. Don't know what we're doing with Sterling and Co. while we do that, but we can discuss that over food.