Page 23 of Charisma
“No!” The entire gang roars from his wonderment.
“Why can’t she bring brownies? I like brownies,” Baldwin rumbles in protest, patting his belly as his tongue swipes across his lip. My man has a sweet tooth and his favorite dessert happens to be the sugary chocolate treat.
“These brownies are, shall we say special,” Maizy giggles, a look passing between her and Drakko. Both of their lips are tilted upward making me wonder what’s so special about them.
“Are they tainted or something?” Landry asks, her question having me leaning forward in anticipation of the answer.
“Um, not tainted as such but they’re laced with homegrown herbs,” Bell finally explains.
“What’s wrong with herbs? Do they make it sweeter or something?” Baldwin asks.
“No, you nincompoop, they make you high,” Beast responds with a roll of his eyes.
“What type of herbs does she use to accomplish that?” My poor sheltered mate asks. Never having been exposed to the green leaf that’ll make you feel like you’re floating.
“Marijuana you idiot,” Paxton sighs, shaking his head in disappointment.
“Well excuse the holy hell outta me, jackass. That shit doesn’t grow where I come from so I’ve never been exposed to it.” Baldwin reprimands Pax, crossing his arms across his chest as he pouts. Me, not liking my mate being made fun of lets my fangs drop from my gums as I send Paxton a ferocious hiss.
Pax throws his hands up in the air as Landry smacks his thigh. “Fine, I relent. I won’t make fun of his lack of knowledge.”
“We weren’t all raised with drugs at our disposal, Pax,” Beast says, sticking up for his brother even though he too was dressing his brother down not long ago. But as the saying goes, just because a brother can give his sibling shit doesn’t mean anyone outside of them can do it without suffering some form of repercussion.
“I don’t thinkenhancedbrownies are a good idea with the threat we’re facing,” Esmerelda advises with a twinkle in her eye. I happen to know she too has made some “special” brownies before. She and I had a batch once and we laughed at everything that crossed our sights. “We all need to be on our A game, so to speak.”
“Okay, so the plan is you four will go take a nap while the rest of us check the perimeter once again to ensure we’re as ready as we can be,” Maverick decrees.
I find it amusing sometimes that he and Paxton seem to take turns for lack of a better word being the Alpha over our misfit group. They come by it naturally, too, because despite the variety of shifters we have in our midst, there’s never an issue or anyone trying to push the envelope with them. As for me, I tend to go with the flow, doing whatever is needed.
“Okay, girls. Let’s go before we ruffle anymore feathers,” Esme announces as she stands up and leads the girls away.
“I don’t have feathers to ruffle.” Baldwin insinuates, waving his hand up and down his form. He’s still very pouty from feeling attacked even if it was all intended to be playful. The guys are always messing with one another’s minds and putting one another down. It’s the way they do things, but as usual, someone always gets their feelings hurt.
“I’ll go give the old geezer a call,” Airvyd reports, standing from his perch and walking into the field with a phone glued to his ear.
“Does he call their grandmother that to her face?” I ask, directing the question toward Drakko.
“No,” he answers, shaking his head. “She’d zip his lips. Last time, he literally had a zipper for lips and Mari had to unzip them every time she wanted to hear what he had to say.”
“How long did she keep him like that?” Baldwin asks, his curiosity piqued.
“Two long sufferable days,” Buvor groans. “When he got his lips back, he talked for two days straight. I nearly lost my sanity.”
“He was making up for lost time,” Drakko sighs, pinching the bridge of his nose between two fingers. “I thought for sure I was going to commit brothercide.”
“Brothercide? Is that a real thing?” Beast questions.
“Yep,” Drakko remarks with one simple worded response.
“It’s actually fratricide if you want the proper term,” Landry advises.
“Brothercide sounds better,” Buvor insists, grinning at her.
“While that may be true, you should use the correct word,” she haughtily taunts. “You don’t want people to think you’re ill-read or anything do you?”
Her playful banter is lost on the large beast. “Are you calling me stupid?” Buvor inquires, huffing a bit which has smoke pluming around him.
“Far from it! No one knows every single thing, Buvor. That’s why it’s important to use the proper term for things. So much slang is going around these days, you may unintentionally hurt someone else with the word you chose to use.”