Plans Get Highjacked

             “You and I are going to talk now, Emily. This has been a long time coming.”

             “Talk about what? James, you aren’t making sense. One minute you show up at my place drunk out of your skull asking questions that make little sense. Now you’re standing there a few hours later telling me we need to talk. You started this evening barely looking at me or saying anything beyond hello. Then you take over my going away dinner with some crazy mistake you did nothing to fix but left me, too.” He didn’t bother listening to this. He guilted her to say this as she followed him back to the Lake House.

             “I think we’ll both need a drink to have this conversation. Come on.” He disappeared into the house, expecting her to follow him. Flustered and more than a little frustrated at his actions, she followed him to say her thoughts and then leave again.

             “What do you mean, another drink? Didn’t you have enough to before this?” She couldn’t believe he was drinking again, and how’d he get sober so fast? Even shifters took longer than that to sober up.

             “One more drink won’t hurt.” She watched his back as he poured two drinks. She wasn’t sure what he was making, but it wasn’t the whiskey she’d found all over the lake house when she search.

             James turned, holding two low ball glasses in his hands, and held one out to her, waiting for her to take it from him. “Fine, thank you.” Emily accepted the drink and looked at him suspiciously in the eye. “Now, what have you got to say for yourself? I’m curious. Since I thought we were friends all these years, I’ll give you a chance to say your peace.” She took several large sips of her drink as she waited for him to say his piece.

             “Thank you. I’d like to say first, I hope you like your drink.” It was a minty, oddly sweet thing, but nothing she’d drunk before when out in a human bar. The fruit and sweets in their drinks could get overpowering for a shifter’s palette. Their tastes ran more for savoury and spicy.

             “I’m afraid I’ve had better. Now, what did you want to talk about that we didn’t cover the first time we spoke about two hours ago.”

             James felt tongued now. He wasn’t sure how he would pull this off. Emily was never this short-tempered with him before this. He’d trained her better than this, and he had higher expectations for her. James knew how she acted when she was angry, but this wasn’t just anger. However, he couldn’t figure out what the elusive emotion was. It wasn’t irritation, though it presented like that. He couldn’t even tell if she knew this elusive emotion existed, or that it presented itself. But one thing he knew. He didn’t want to lose her. If he kept her here, he wasn’t sure how he’d do that or how he’d explain it away. But he knew he needed to tell her, she had to say. How to do that without her walking out, never to be seen again. He’d honestly believed that she wouldn’t follow through with this. That she’d back out in the end if he just gave her enough time to think about it. “I want to talk about why you aren’t leaving.”

             Emily felt forced to swallow the sip she’d just taken. “What?! We’ve been over this many times in the last few weeks. You’ve said nothing about not allowing it. Also, I quit. I gave you notice which I did out of respect. But never once did you object. No, never mind about that. This is over and I’m leaving.” Emily swallowed the last of her drink and slammed it down on the side table beside her. “How could you pull this stunt now of all the times you could? I have twenty hours before my flight. I’m leaving in sixteen hours. I have made promises and when I get there, I’ll sign the contracts and take an oath to a new alpha. You can’t embarrass me like this. No. I’m sorry. I’ll always care for you as the friend I grew up with. But I can’t respect you anymore. Goodnight. Morning, whatever it is right now.” She spun on her foot and moved toward the door to leave. But she didn’t quite make it out of the sunken living room before the world shifted under her feet and Emily stumbled, almost falling.

             James was there in an instant, catching her before she could fall and hurt herself on a piece of furniture. They decorated the room with hand-crafted furniture made from local forest trees. So many pieces were rough with bark and twisted into unique shapes.

             He set her down on a sofa with her feet up. “What’s going on?” Her speech slurred and her thoughts slowed like she was suffering from brain fog. This wasn’t like her at all. Concerned, she looked at James in horror.

             “You’re fine. Everything will be fine. You just aren’t going anywhere until we hash this out between the two of us. You rest and we’ll talk when you feel more like yourself.”

             “Asshole. You did this deliberately, didn’t you?” Her words were slowing down because it was getting harder to talk. “You drugged me!”

             “Emily, I did what I had to do. Just sleep and we’ll talk later. Mother was right. We avoided speaking about so many things, and those things stayed as elephants in the room. Now rest up and we’ll talk more later.”

             Emily couldn’t speak anymore, and her mind couldn’t get through the fog and betrayal she felt right at that moment. She couldn’t find the words to express herself, and her mind slowed down like a weighted object held in place. Now her eyes couldn’t stay open, and her limbs grew heavy. She couldn’t move them to stand or push him away from her. Then she lost the fight to stay awake.