Romantic Mates

Randall Meechum’s POV

DFW Airport

My girl and the others were landing in ten minutes. I sat in the line at baggage claim, every few minutes sending out a message to my mate and hoping her plane was close enough. I hated being away from her; after so many years alone, I didn’t like being that way now. I wanted to see her smile, feel her skin against mine, and fall asleep tangled up in her after another fantastic night of sex.

Yeah, I had it bad, I thought to myself.

“Randall?”

I smiled as I heard her voice in my head. “Welcome home, baby. Good flight?”

“Not as satisfying as the island life,” she said. “In and out, very clean. Anything on this end?”

“Nothing yet, but the Vampires hit a slave training facility in Miami. I need to interview Tania officially, for the FBI investigation. I need to see if she can identify any of the dead men and women there.”

“Thank Luna. They rescued the girls?”

“Twenty-three rescued, all being processed. If it’s not the same one, it’s still a shutdown.” It was also the first real cooperation between Packs and Vampires. I had to wonder if some of the people there just disappeared, ending up in a basement as a Coven blood bank. I could only hope.

“What’s the plan?”

“I told the office that I have to go up to Sulphur River to interview Tania. I have everything I need already, but I think we need to eat and sleep before driving up there. After that I’m open.”

“I’ll ask the others. We’re just touching down now.”

“See you soon, love.” I changed my target to Bobby and told him my plan of visiting the jewelers and setting up a double wedding ceremony. “You in? We can stop on the way to my apartment.”

“Absolutely,” he said. “Is this going to be an issue with you and the FBI? Her being related to a witness?”

“Not as much as you marrying the witness. We met when I was back in Sulphur River and it was love at first sight.” Which was true. So amazingly true.

I let him go as he was leaving the plane; since they each had just the one carry-on bag, they were outside in ten minutes. I pulled up and they climbed in, quickly back on the road. “You guys tired from the flight,” I asked.

“Which one, there were three of them,” Erica teased. “Cramped cabins, airport food and the TSA, what could be finer?”

“Well, if you want, we can go back to my apartment and stay there overnight. Tania, I’m supposed to go up to Sulphur River tomorrow to interview you for the FBI since someone knocked off that training facility in Miami.”

“I’d like to run,” Tania said. “My wolf wants out.”

“Yeah, it’s only a few more hours and we can sleep on the way. I’d love to sleep in my own bed and eat Mom’s cooking,” Bobby added.

“I’m good with that,” Talia said as Erica nodded. “I’ve had enough of exhaust smells and humans. Let’s go home.”

“All right then,” I said as we pulled back onto the freeway. “We just need to make one stop on the way out of town if you don’t mind.”

“No problem, we’ll wait in the car,” Erica said. I just snickered as thirty minutes later we parked in front of Jewelry Magic.

“What are we doing here,” Talia asked as I ran around and opened the doors for her and Erica.

“Yeah, why is Bobby grinning like he knows something?” Tania moved next to her sister as they stared us down.

I looked over at Bobby, letting him start. “You know I love you so much, you’re my mate and that’s forever,” he said as he took Tania’s hands in his.

I took Talia's hands in mine. “But we live in a human world, and I want to be tied to you there as well. I want to let everyone who sees you know you are taken, that you are mine and I am yours.”

“So we want to get you engagement rings and choose wedding bands,” Bobby finished.

“This is how you ask me to marry you? No bended knee, no romantic dinner,” Talia said as she glared at me.

“No, this is how I get you to come in to the jeweler and pick out rings. If my lady wants romance, I’ll romance the hell out of her later,” I said.

“Whatever you want I’ll get you,” Bobby said. “We were thinking a fall wedding, a double wedding for us. Invite our friends, have a party and celebrate the amazing women we’ve fallen for.”

Tania broke first. “OK let’s go,” she said as she started pulling him to the door. Bobby knocked as the CLOSED sign was showing; the owner came and unlocked it, welcoming them in.

“I love you,” Talia said as she leaned in for a kiss. “Thank you for letting me pick out my own. I’m not a normal woman and I don’t want a normal ring,” she said.

“Come on in then,” I said as I took her hand. I held the door open for Erica.

“Wait, he’s a witch,” Talia said as she scented the older man.

“He will spell the rings so they only show when we are in human form,” I said.

“Come see some of your choices, I serve many supernatural customers and I have a wide selection. If you do not see what you need, I can have a custom design made for you.” The girls started looking at trays, and soon narrowed down on what they wanted. Tania wanted a solitaire ring/band combination made of white gold; both rings had a Celtic design, with a small stylized wolf’s head near the top of the band.

Talia surprised me, bypassing the normal gold and silver rings and finding a wider band of tungsten, a deep cobalt blue that matched her eyes. “I don’t like diamonds or gemstones, but I love this,” she said. The top of the blue band had a white circle like the moon, two wolves sitting facing each other and howling into the air.

“It’s beautiful,” I said. “Do you have it in our sizes?”

He just laughed. “I can make a ring disappear, making it fit is nothing,” he said. “I can even spell it to remain in place unless you say a word to release it, that way you never lose it.”

“I’ll never take it off,” I said.

Even Erica found something she liked, an antique filigree ring with a square-cut diamond and six rubies on each side as it wrapped around the sides. Since Eduardo wasn’t here, she took a picture and sent it to him and the owner gave her a card with the details. “We’ll have to come by sometime after dark,” she said. He didn’t skip a beat, finding the matching band for her and for him, both with rubies set around them.

When they were done, I asked them all to go wait in the Jeep. “Leave us a little mystery, maybe we will get what WE want or something,” I said.

“You are old enough to know the answer when given,” Talia said as she turned for the door. Erica took my key and they all walked out into the evening air.

We confirmed our order, and since he had sized them when we tried them on it was easy to pack them up. He gave each of us the total, and I pulled out my debit card and paid. “Cash all right,” Bobby asked.

“Always,” he said. He went into the back room to run my card. Bobby reached into his pocket, taking out a pack of hundred-dollar bills.

“What is that,” I asked.

“Straight cash, bro.”

“Where did you get it?”

He sighed. “The safe on the island, I kept a couple of these for myself, the rest we gave to the Pride.”

I started to fume. “Are you fucking stupid? Were you knocked on the head or something? That’s money from sex slavery, the same nightmare she lived for years. Do you think she’d want a ring bought with that money?” His face paled, he hadn’t thought of that. “Not to mention the risk you took bringing undeclared money into the country. You risked it all for some money?”

He looked down at it, now that he saw it was tainted, he shook his head. “You’re right. She’d throw it away if I bought it with this.”

“Let me buy them for you. I have plenty of money, or you can pay me back later?”

He nodded. “I… I’d appreciate that. What do I do with this?”

“Get rid of it. Donate it to a battered women’s shelter or a charity that helps women coming out of sex slavery. You can’t keep it, that money is cursed.” He put it back in his pocket as I told the owner to add Bobby’s order to my card. A few minutes later, jewelry boxes in our pockets, we rejoined our mates in my Jeep. With one more stop at an In-N-Out Burger for a late dinner and drinks, we were on the road and back home by three in the morning.

“My babies,” Mom said as she ran down to our car. Bypassing us completely, she hugged Talia, Tania and Erica before leading them into the house. “Get the bags, boys,” she said over her shoulder.

“Nice to see you too, Mom,” Bobby said.

“Oh, quit pouting and take those bags to your rooms, can’t you see these girls are exhausted?” We grabbed the bags out of the back as Mom talked to them about their ideas for a wedding.

“Mom, it’s late and we just want to take our mates to bed,” I said.

“Well, give me some pups while you’re at it,” she said before promising the girls they’d talk more tomorrow. I walked Talia back to my room, glad I had my own bathroom attached. After a quick shower, we fell asleep in each other’s arms and everything felt right again.

We woke about noon and walked down to the smell of bacon cooking. BLT’s were for lunch, and for us that meant a stack of bacon on sourdough with a leaf of lettuce and a big slice of tomato. We talked wedding over lunch, the girls agreeing that it should be held on Tomah Pack lands. “Have you thought more about taking over as Alphas there,” my father asked.

“I did, especially on the way home,” Tania said. “I’m not the scared human I was when I was found, not anymore. Taking out those men on the island was liberating; I survived, and they paid for what they did with their lives. My wolf is strong, and she wants her Pack.”

“We plan to visit there soon, the sooner the better,” Bobby said. “No one can move forward until we decide, and she’s ready as long as I’m by her side.” He leaned over and kissed her. “I’ll always be by your side,” he said in her ear.

“I need her statement, but I can get that after we’re done,” I said. “I can drive you back to Dallas later today so you can catch a flight.”

“I want to run with my mate tonight, can we leave in the morning? We’ll get an afternoon flight tomorrow,” she said.

We decided on an early evening hunt, then we’d leave late in the morning. Bobby went off to buy the tickets while I pulled out the information that my boss had emailed me from Miami. I went through the photos with her and wrote out a statement for her to sign. She was able to identify eight of the ten dead people as being part of the training facility she had been held at. I scanned the statement in and emailed it to my boss, informing her I’d be back at work in two days after spending another night at home.

Ten minutes later I got her answer in the form of a call. “Forget that, get to Miami now. The Colombian police got a tip and raided Sex Island, and everyone there is dead.”

“Dead? Oh my God, those poor girls!”

“The girls aren’t there,” she said. “All the staff and the guests were shot, and the girls just disappeared. Pack for a week and bring your passport, we’re heading down there.”