Wyvern Protection Unit - Chapter 94: Chapter 94

“What’s going on?” Jennifer stepped cautiously inside Jasper and Carolina’s sitting room.
With three pregnant mates, the Wessex boys, Medjed included, had hightailed it out of there like their asses were on fire once their women started having cravings. Oddly enough, one of their cravings, for lack of a better word, was to see Jennifer immediately. Daeja had delivered the message personally, and Jennifer could hardly say no to the woman. Especially not after she’d offered to help her in getting the other Drakein assimilated to Earth culture—the sooner the better for everyone.
“There you are,” Caro exclaimed, tears pooling in her enormous eyes.
“I was here the whole time,” Jennifer said, moving to sit next to her extremely preggo bestie.
She’d known Caro and Kim for years, in fact, it was kind of her fault the two women had gotten involved with Jasper and Larimar. After certain circumstances, they’d each required a bodyguard and, as luck would have it, they wound up being fated mates to the Wessex brothers who’d been assigned their cases.
Of course, Candy met Medjed after Jennifer had sent him to the North Pole on assignment. And Daeja only ran into Heliodore after Jennifer had brought her to the hospital when she went to check on Carolina. Fuck. It looked like she was, at least in part, responsible for all of them pairing up! Ironic, since she couldn’t do a damn thing about her own love life.
“Yeah, but you were busy with everyone else instead of being here with your best friends who love you,” Kim added, rubbing her own protruding stomach.
“There, there, I have taken care of you, have I not?” Daeja asked, and both women immediately reassured the pink haired Drakein.
“Don’t be silly, Daeja, we wouldn’t know anything about the little Wyvernlings we were having if not for you,” Kim said, and she was right.
She was telling the truth, of course. Daeja had provided the brothers, as well as the DPCA, with invaluable information concerning the physiological aspects of the Drakein, and the potential complications and advantages of human and Drakein young. One complication turned out to be an increased gestation period, which Caro and Kim had accepted far more gracefully than Jennifer thought possible.
No one knew enough about Christmas elves and Ancient Demons/Demigods to hazard a guess at what kind of pregnancy Candy was looking at, but she’d seemed to double in size overnight. In fact, Jennifer had to work hard not to stare at the female, since it seemed her belly was growing by the minute.
Holy cow.
“Of course you have, Daeja,” Caro began, bringing Jennifer’s attention back to the small gathering of women. “But we’ve known Jenn for ages, and well, I wanted you all here because I think it’s time for an intervention!”
“A what now?” Jenn asked, jaw wide open.
“An in-ter-ven-tion,” Caro replied, enunciating each syllable like Jennifer was hard of hearing or something.
“That’s it, I’m leaving,” Jennifer stood up, shaking her head.
No way was she going to listen to another one of Carolina’s just give him a chance speeches. Caro and Kim knew why she would never allow herself to be claimed. They’d heard the fights between Jennifer’s mother and father. They’d seen what happened to her mom after her mate had abandoned her and were witness to the horrible aftermath.
That was not going to be her fate. Jennifer could never allow someone to have that much control over her. That’s all mating was, really. Giving someone total dominion over your entire being, body, heart, mind, and soul. Just thinking about it caused Jennifer to panic. Hell, it made her want to run and hide.
No, thank you.
She couldn’t stand the idea of depending on someone else for something as simple as happiness. The pursuit of which was a constitutional right. Mated pairs were not always happy. She knew that from her parents.
Trust came hard, and as far as she was concerned, it was better not to love. It was safer to be alone. The women around her might have found their happily ever afters, but that was not Jennifer’s future. She’d tried to explain it to them before. But they just didn’t get it. Of course, not. They’d grown up strong and brave, believing in themselves. But Jennifer knew deep down she could never be enough for anyone.
“Oh no, you don’t, Jennifer Dylluan.! Now, you just sit your fluffy ass right down there and listen to what I have to say,” Carolina demanded.
“Caro, please don’t go there. Just do not do this,” she said.
“We just wanna help, Jenn,” Kim replied. “We know Zircon is carrying a torch for you⁠—”
“This isn’t your business. None of you have the right to pry,” Jennifer said. “Look, my job is difficult and demanding.”
“But work isn’t everything⁠—”
“Isn’t it? I am responsible for teaching a group of powerful Wyverns how to blend in so they don’t out the rest of us! That is pretty damn important. What with Shifters going missing, it is more important than ever now to keep our secret⁠—”
“Missing? Who is missing?” Caro asked, eyes wide with fear.
Fuck. She shouldn’t have said that. Jennifer gritted her teeth and shook her head.
“I love you, girls, but I can’t talk about this with you. You’re safe and your men are safe. But if we want to keep all Shifters safe, then the Drakeins need to learn how to blend in with normals. It’s the only way.”
Caro narrowed her eyes, and she knew the woman was just getting started. Daeja looked on worried. And Jennifer tried to keep her friends’ conditions in her head before she did something stupid, like to tell them the truth about why she could never be with anyone. Not even him.
“I get that, Jenn, and I appreciate what the boys do for the supernatural world. But you are our business. This thing between you and Con, it is our business, Jenn. He is our brother-in-law, and you are like a sister to me. I want you to be happy. We want you to be happy. Something is wrong, and we want to help⁠—”
“You can’t help! My goodness, can’t you just leave it alone? Can’t you see how hard I am struggling here to keep it together? I can’t have a mate!” Jennifer snapped, regretting it instantly when she saw the look on her best friends’ faces.
“We are what we are, Jennifer. No man will ever want to keep us. Love isn’t for the birds. Not for us. Not for Owls. Now, you’ll live with Nana, and it will be okay. Just mind my words after I’m gone. Never give yourself to any man. Be your own Owl. Never take a mate. Promise me. Never! Promisssscreeeeech!”
Her mother’s voice echoed in her brain right before it was replaced by an ear-piercing cry. The sound of an arrow flying through the air and the abrupt end of her mother’s screech had told young Jennifer all she’d needed to know. Shifted into her Owl, Cynthia Dylluan had committed suicide. She nosedived from a perilous height right into a target range used by humans. An arrow pierced her heart, and a human hunter, some stranger thinking the poor wild creature was in too much pain, shot her right through the head, ending her life.
She’d left Jennifer sitting in the car, where her grandmother found her hours later. Nana was so distraught, full of tears and pain. But not Jennifer. She’d been numb. She didn’t cry then. Cynthia had explained it all. Her fated mate had broken their bond, and she was no better than the walking dead. What her mother had done was unthinkable, but she made sure Jennifer knew the reason.
Love had killed her mother. Not the arrow. Not the hunter. Love.
So, instead of crying, little Jennifer spoke the two words she hadn’t had the voice to say when her mother had demanded them. Before stripping off her human clothes and shifting to her bird, Cynthia had grabbed Jennifer by the arms and shook her, demanding she promise to stay away from men, and from love.
“I promise,” young Jennifer said as her grandmother collected her mother’s Owl from the humans at the range, claiming the creature was a pet. And that was all she said for those first few months after her mother died.
Slowly, with Nana’s help, Jennifer came out of her shell. She went to school, threw herself into learning, and managed to renew her friendship with Carolina. Later, she became a determined career woman, headhunted by the secret government organization, the DPCA or Department of Paranormal Creatures and Activity, and after that, she’d earned a position as handler to the WPU.
It was everything she worked for, and yeah, there were problems with the job. What government group didn’t have its problems? Even secret ones. But she did her duty, and at the end of the day—she was still alone.
That was simply a fact. But at least she was safe. Alone meant safe. That trumped happy, right? It might be boring. Might be lonely. But it was safe.
“Oh my God, Jennifer, I didn’t know. I thought your mom died in an accident,” Carolina said softly.
Jennifer felt hands on her shoulders and soon she was being embraced by all the women there. Shit. She hadn’t even realized she’d told them her story out loud. Sighing, she removed herself from their arms and gave them a tight smile. Their faces looked so sad, and she didn’t want that. Nor did she want their pity. She straightened her shoulders and looked each of them in the eye.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to be mean about this. Please, I just, I can’t talk about Zircon right now.”
“I know it’s hard, Jenn, but you can’t believe your mother wanted you to keep that promise if it meant breaking your own heart, can you?” Kim asked.
“I made a promise, Kim. But what’s more important, I think, is that my mother was right. Look at me. I’m not cut out to be a mate.”
“I don’t know what the heck you’re looking at, but you look fine to me,” Caro replied, and Jennifer rolled her eyes.
She was not talking about her body. Jennifer was full of curves, and she loved that about herself. Typically, flight Shifters were thin and fine-boned, but not Owls. They were fierce, large, and aggressive predators. She liked her size just fine. That was not the issue.
“What happened with your sire?” Daeja asked, and Jennifer cringed.
“Um, I never saw my father again after he left us.”
“I see,” the Drakein replied softly.
“But Zircon isn’t your father, Jennifer,” Caro said, and it was that statement that shook her the most.
“Duh. Of course not,” Kim added and scrunched her nose.
Zircon was just so intense. He was so sure they were meant to be, but what did he know? She had more only slightly more experience. Hell, she never even had an actual boyfriend. Not for more than a few dates, anyway. How could she when all the men she met only paled in comparison to him? But she knew better than to believe in that pipe dream. So, she ignored it. For years.
Her Owl was mad as fuck at her, but Jennifer reined in the creature. She buried herself in her work. It helped that she liked her job and was good at it. Jennifer enjoyed the challenge of managing the WPU and she felt duty bound to the Shifter species as a whole to do what she could to keep their secret from the human world.
“Forgive me for intruding, I know I am not one of you yet⁠—”
“Of course you are, Candy!” Carolina said, interrupting the sweet Christmas Elf.
Jennifer tried to hide her smile, but it was impossible. Candy was the cutest thing she’d ever seen. And with her expecting the Ancient Egyptian Demon/Demigod’s—no one had ever quite agreed on what exactly Medjed was—offspring, well, she was even cuter.
“Thank you,” Candy blushed, then cleared her throat before continuing, “but it occurred to me with all the female Drakein in residence, perhaps Zircon can break the bond he began with Jennifer by forging one with another of his own species⁠—”
“Screeeeeech!”
“Ohmygawd!”
“Jennifer Dylluan, you stop that right now!”
The second she understood what Candy was insinuating, her Owl wrestled her for control. She’d started to shift, holding it before she went full on Owl. It was a rare thing to be able to stop mid-Shift, but Jennifer was stronger than she looked. Her wings had ripped straight through her blouse.
She craned her neck to the side, her eyes bleeding to black as she pinned the female with her angry stare. Her heart hammered inside her chest. The animal inside her was incensed at the idea of Zircon bonding to any other female. And didn’t that make her asshole of the year?
Shit. Her bird screeched again, and Daeja covered her ears to mute the sheer volume of Jennifer’s rage. She closed her eyes, shaking her head and pinning down her Owl inside her mind’s eye. When she opened them again, she was completely human again, and the other females in the room were staring at her wide-eyed.
“I’m sorry,” she murmured, still trembling from changing back and forth so rapidly.
Everyone simply stared, and Jennifer had never felt quite so low. What the hell was she doing with her life? She should really just leave. Sure, Carolina and Kimberley were her friends, but here they were more than that. They were the mates of Jasper and Larimar, important women here.
That was another thing Jennifer had to wrap her head around. The Wessex brothers were not just Wyverns anymore. Not simply the WPU. They were princes of the Flamebound Clan. Heirs to actual motherfucking thrones of power, destined to rule over their group of Wyverns Shifters, er, Drakeins.
She’d already fucked up by sleeping with Zircon once. She couldn’t afford to do it again. Maybe Daeja was right. Maybe he would find a true mate in the single Drakein females in residence, and then Jennifer could—she could what, exactly?
Her heart squeezed inside her chest, and no matter how much she wished for the pain to cease, it wouldn’t. She couldn’t do this. But what else was left for her? If she left her job, what then? Maybe she could simply ask for reassignment. That might work, she thought, trying to fix her hopelessly ruined outfit.
“Well, I guess that clears one question up,” Carolina said, interrupting her thoughts.
“What does it clear up?”
“No matter what you will or will not admit to, Jenn. Your Owl already sees Zircon as hers. I think you better get your human side on board before your beastie takes the decision away from you.”
The second she made sense of Caro’s words, her Owl loosed a long cry that echoed inside her mind’s eye. Her best friend wasn’t wrong. Her beast was becoming quite possessive of Zircon. And Jennifer could not have that.
Nope.
There was only one thing left to do. Jennifer had to get the hell out of there.