Page 26 of Witchwolf

“Just don’t kill my driver.”

Dakota’s face screwed up like he was caught between laughing and being ill. “I’ll do my best.”

11

Dakota

Magic.

I was magic.

Jax was a werewolf. I’d have still been laughing about the very idea, but he’d fucking changed, right there in front of my eyes. I hadn’t been popping hallucinogens, so there was no reason for me to have seen a werewolf who wasn’t there.

But that meant that Jillian was a werewolf too.

Alpha. Maia and Jillian had been going on about Jax being an alpha. They hadn’t been talking about some chinless brony red-pill crap. They’d been talking about a real-life alpha wolf. Were werewolf packs actually organized like that? I seemed to remember hearing that real wolf packs didn’t have an alpha and all that, but what the hell did I know? I hadn’t even known werewolves were real six hours earlier.

I dutifully stuffed all the paperwork and my notes into my attaché case before heading down to meet Charles at the car. He gave me a game smile, nodding as he opened the door for me.

The divider in the back of the limo was down, so when he got into the driver’s seat, I moved up near him. “So. Not to be nosy, but... you’re really a fae?”

He looked back at me, eyes twinkling with something that looked like mirth. “Yup. Not like one of those fancy court fae or anything. I’m just a delivery boy. Me and Jax hammered out the deal for my people to work for his, because we’ve known each other forever.”

“Your... people? Work for Crescent?”

His smile turned into a grin. “Universal Fairy Delivery, you know? The whole business was my sister’s idea. She’s a genius. An entrepreneur. The high courts always said we were useless, we lesser fae. But you know what we’re bloody good at? Running the hell away from those overpowered bastards. We’re fucking fast. So if you want something delivered ten minutes ago, we’re your people.”

He was so proud, I couldn’t tell him that I didn’t know a thing about fae hierarchy. I hadn’t even known fae existed until Jax had said Charles was fae, and I wouldn’t have believed it if Jax hadn’t proven beyond all doubt that werewolves were real already.

To say nothing of the disaster of my office supplies deciding to take flight. My poor pen was ruined, and I could only hope I didn’t end up with a replay of the same disaster at home. I could have hurt someone with a projectile like that, since it had gone all the way into the drywall in my office, leaving a neat round hole in the wall next to my door.

“It sounds like you getting together with the werewolves worked out well for both of your people,” I said.

He rolled his eyes, nodding. “Yep. They’re just like us among the earth-native magic folk. Treated like rubbish just because they are magic, rather than controlling magic.” He leaned toward me, lowering his voice conspiratorially. “I think it’s because the others are afraid of them, personally. Not like us fae. The high fae could kill us dead. They’re more powerful than us, period. But the wolves? One good bite and any mage isn’t a mage anymore. Scares the hell out of them. Most of them won’t even look at a wolf, let alone get any closer.” He stopped, cocked his head, then nodded to me. “Yourself excepted, of course, Mr. Morris. You must have nerves of steel, compared to other mages.”

Nerves of steel.

Because being bitten by a werewolf would make me... make me a werewolf. And this “controlling magic versus controlled by magic” thing seemed to be a big deal to everyone. Well, maybe not Charles, but it sounded like he knew class power struggles all too well and didn’t have a lot of patience for people who held themselves above others.

So I nodded to him. Then I rolled my eyes. “Seriously, what’s the worst thing that happens? I end up a werewolf? Oh how awful, what with the fangs and flashing eyes and the fact that they’re all incredibly hot.”

He laughed at that, nodding. “Well said. Seen a fair few ugly mages in my life, but never an ugly wolf. That super-fast healing of theirs means no acne, no scars, no diseases. Plus they live halfway to forever, and they’ve got strength. Most are so damn fast they could give me a run for my money. Pretty sweet life for a near-human if you ask me.”

It sounded like a lot of classism, pure and simple. I was sure there were other reasons for the attitudes that I didn’t know yet, but that didn’t mean any of them were valid. After all, I’d spent my entire life with everyone assuming I was good at math just because I was Asian, and I’d barely managed to get through college calculus, and that only because I had to do it to graduate. Plus a tutor had helped. Stereotypes were obnoxious, and I wasn’t going to fall for them in this new universe I’d stumbled into.

Charles got me home in record time, which I supposed wasn’t a surprise. Fae.

And he’d called himself a lesser fae, but that was... well, it was kind of a shitty thing to call a whole race, wasn’t it? Lesser? I was going to have to learn more about that situation before I made any decisions, but I suspected I was never going to be comfortable calling a whole people “lesser.”

“Thanks for the ride, Charles. I appreciate it.”

His eyes widened minutely at the thanks, but then he smiled at me. “Anytime, Mr. Morris. Happy to help out. Though I must say, I’ve never met a mage with good manners before. It’s nice to know they can do that.”

“There’s never an excuse not to have good manners,” I answered. It was something my childhood nanny had said all the time, and I quite agreed with her even now. There had also been comments about how strangers hadn’t created your bad mood, so they shouldn’t be subjected to it, and well... Sato-san had practically raised me. She’d been the only Japanese influence in my early life, and while she hadn’t taught me Japanese or anything about active culture, I thought maybe I’d learned subtler things about what it meant to be Japanese from her. Or maybe just about what it meant to be Sato Akari. Either way, I thought she’d taught me well, and I was comfortable with who I’d become under her influence.

She’d died in a car accident when I was twelve, and I still missed her constantly. More than I’d ever missed my parents after moving out of the house.

When I finally got up to the apartment, Donnie was sitting at the dining room table eating something from a foil container. It smelled of tomato sauce, so I assumed it was from his favorite Italian restaurant. I’d only been there once, and it was out of my budget, so I never ordered it with him.

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