Wanted: Wild Thing

Chapter Twenty

And so it was all a lie,” I told the stone-faced primordials filling the Russells’ huge kitchen.

Savannah, Bath, and Beau stood in the back of the room, making piles of sandwiches. I sat at the head of the table on Hugh’s lap, straddling one of his enormous thighs.

The room was silent as they digested my words.

“So there were no females?” Artur asked, his ugly face pulled down in a frown. “It was all a ploy?”

Hugh nodded, expression grave. “He lied to get me to do what he wanted. There was never any intention of following through. It was all for nothing.”

“You made the right choice after all,” I told Hugh, patting him on the arm wrapped around my waist. I was transformed back to my changeling form, but I didn’t care. The primordials had seen me like this before. And if one or two of the Russells were staring really, really hard at me, well, they were bound to figure out my secret somehow.

“So we are to remain here,” Hugh said. “My place is at Ryder’s side.”

Just hearing him say that aloud gave me the warm fuzzies. “But you guys don’t have to stay here,” I added quickly before anyone could speak up. “I am sure that if you wished to go back to the primordial realm, you could. You just know what you are getting into now.”

Silence fell. There was no sound except the scrape of sandwich cutting in the background. What were they thinking?

“The women here,” Cahal began. “We can mate them?”

“Provided the women say yes,” I told him. “And, if they are human, provided you get the permission of your clan leader.” I was told that Beau and the other alphas were still working through the kinks of allowing human women to date shifters, considering the fact that the whole shifter thing was supposed to be a secret.

“But women are not a rarity here,” Cahal said, face serious. “We can take mates and not worry that our brothers will be without?”

I nodded. “There are just as many females here on earth as there are males. There are fewer shifter females, but you can always go human, I suppose.”

“Are all the females like Gracie?” one wanted to know.

“No, not many,” Bath said tartly. “And that’s something you should be thankful for.”

Bevan banged a flat hand on the table. “We wish to stay here and find women.”

“Are you all sure?” I asked.

“This world is full of opportunity,” Cahal said, rubbing his hands together.

“And pizza,” chimed in another.

Many of the primordials chortled, as if sharing an inside joke.

I groaned.