You’ve done it now. You might as well have told him you planned your wedding on Pinterest and picked out names for your forthcoming children, Teds. Jesus, girl.
Teddy winced as silence pervaded the room. Silence and shock. Mouths fell open, eyes widened, and there was a snort from the appointed queen of snark.
That had come out all wrong. Way faster than she’d planned. She’d wanted to do a bit of warm-up to the subject. Maybe explain where she came from, and a bit about her background, her family, before making such an outlandish statement; hopefully get Wanda of The Schoolmarm Gaze of Death off her back.
But no, much like everything else in her life, relationships, bungee jumping, hotdog-eating contests, she’d hurtled headlong into the fire.
“Have you spent too much time watching Lifetime movies and tending your brood of cats?” Cormac asked in disbelief, leaning away from Teddy as though she’d just told him she was from the planet Pluto.
Which might be easier to process at this point.
Teddy shook her head and inhaled, feeling a headache forming right between her eyes. “No. Please, let me explain.”
Nina dragged a bag of cheese popcorn from her backpack and ripped it open, stuffing a handful in her mouth. “Yeah. Explain, Theodora.”
She smiled at Teddy. Beautiful, damn near perfect in fact, and maniacal, as though she enjoyed the most awkward of situations.
“So is it your habit to shoot all your life mates with dart guns and carry them out of the forest like sacks of potatoes? Some kind of ritualistic hunt for anything with a penis I missed the memo on?” Wanda asked, suspicion written all over her classically gorgeous features.
Teddy frowned and winced. “No. That was…it was an accident. I was just…just practicing while I…”
“So you could get it right when the time came to knock out your unwitting, very unwilling life mate?” Cormac asked, disbelief still heavy in his tone.
She paused at the way in which he used the words life mate. He didn’t sound surprised by the term, only that she’d claimed he was hers.
“No! Look, I’m sorry. I was target practicing, I still had some darts in my backpack. I just didn’t realize they were tranquilizer darts.”
Liar, liar, pants on so much fire!
Nina popped her lips while pushing her way out of the heavy parka she wore, kernels of cheese popcorn falling to her crossed legs. “Ya know, I gotta give it to her. That’s a pretty good line of bullshit. Very creative. Two thumbs up.”
Teddy licked her dry lips, digging herself in deeper. “I work at a wildlife preservation called Sanctuary, in Denver. You can look it up on your vast array of computers if you’d like. Sometimes we have to tranquilize an injured animal and it’s important to get it right the first time you take a shot. I was just killing time while I looked for Cormac…I’m sorry.”
Ugh.
Marty’s brow furrowed. “But you said you were here because Cormac is your um, life something or other, right? What does that mean?”
Ah. Now Teddy had the upper hand. Marty was a crappy liar. She damn well knew what a life mate was because she came from a circle of people who thrived on them. However, they didn’t know she knew.
And Teddy knew they were all paranormal, from all the fighting they did as she’d tracked them. She just didn’t know exactly what kind of paranormal. The word vampire had been used, but she didn’t know how to identify scents of paranormal species other than that of her own kind.
One thing she definitely knew? The reason Cormac had covered his scent—because he was a bear.
Just like her.
Rather than stay on the floor where she felt small and overpowered, a feeling she didn’t relish, Teddy rose with caution, keeping her palms facing outward.
“Okay, so let’s just be honest here. It means that I know you’re all paranormal—and Nina was once paranormal.”
“Ohhh!” Nina squealed her delight, pounding her fist on her backpack. “Boom, baby! Shit just got real!”
Wow, this woman really did take extreme pleasure in the awkward.
Wanda’s eyes flashed angry and bright as she approached. “And you know this how, Teddy?”
Teddy folded her hands in front of her and edged backward. Wanda’s wrath was real, and she didn’t want to invoke any more than was necessary.
“I don’t mean to be disrespectful, but you guys were really loud out there in the forest. So, I sort of heard bits of your conversations about vampires and all. But I’m still not sure what you are.”
Marty rasped a sigh and shook her head in obvious understanding. She swiped her index finger in the air. “That’s what that smell is. It’s you!” She pointed at Teddy. “I don’t mean to offend. I mean, I honestly thought you’d just neglected to shower or use deodorant or whatever. I kept getting whiffs of damp fur and mud mixed in with Nina’s bite-sized Snickers.”