AN: Bouda pronounced (bough-i-dah) nickname Bou is pronounced Bough not boo

Malik pronounced (ma leak)

qli ylchaw' (Klingon) = Grab the blade.

Djellaba – a traditional robe in Morocco that is worn by both men and women.

The nasab is the patronymic and starts with bin or ibn, which means "son of", or bint, which means "daughter of".

. ͽϿ Ѻ Ͼͼ .

CHAPTER 1

Sleep and Teeth

Lips, cool but soft, ghosted across his chest and paused to nibble along the edge of his collarbone. There was more sensation than could be accounted for from the lips, and hands, and weight resting across his belly. The lips moved farther up, and breath tickled across the side of his neck. The mouth opened and the tip of her tongue flitted across his skin. Suddenly pain shot through him, and he could feel her pointed fingernails pierce the skin over his ribs as her fangs sank into the side of his neck….

Quinn woke with a gasp.

He'd sweated through the sheets leaving them clammy and clinging to him. He pulled the sheets away and got up. The room was dark and unfamiliar. He clicked on the bedside lamp, and it did enough to eliminate the darkness that had filled the corners. He hadn't been scared of the dark since he was a child, and he felt a little disgusted with himself when he realized that was why he'd turned on the light. But he couldn't make himself turn the lamp off when he could still feel Jussilla's breath on his skin and…

With a little shake to try and settle his nerves and his wolf, he decided to head downstairs. Maybe getting up for a minute would help. He stepped into the hall and listened for a moment. He couldn't hear anything, and his pack bonds told him that Hardison and Parker were still asleep. He still couldn't find Nate and Sophie in the pack, but the others assured him that they were there. Eliot was awake and Quinn wondered if it had been his nightmare that had woken the Alpha or if it was something else.

He slipped down the stairs and stopped at the kitchen island. He'd watched Eliot prepare dinner last night, but he couldn't remember where the glasses were. He wondered if it would bother Eliot if he looked through the cupboards until he found the glasses. He'd just approached the first door when he heard a door upstairs open. He turned and watched Eliot come down the stairs.

Eliot's hair was mussed from sleeping and he had a tired scowl on his face. He pulled a little at the neck of the t-shirt he was wearing and hiked at the waistband of his pajama pants. Quinn was wearing a tank and boxers and somehow felt a little underdressed despite it being the middle of the night.

Without a word Eliot went to the cupboards and pulled down a couple of mugs and a tin. Next was a kettle and then a bottle of single malt. Quinn slid up onto one of the stools and watched as Eliot put the kettle on and poured a shot into each mug.

"I'm sorry if I woke you." Quinn offered as Eliot leaned with his arms braced against the nearby counter.

Eliot shrugged and rubbed a hand over his face. " 's fine." He mumbled.

When the water boiled Eliot poured it into a nearby tea pot and a moment later the sweet scent of chamomile and elderberry perfumed the air. Eliot tilted his head back just a little as he enjoyed the scent.

When he opened his eyes and looked at Quinn, his eyes were yellow. "Nightmares?"

Quinn nodded.

Eliot's eyes melted back to their human blue. "About the vampires?"

Quinn shrugged a shoulder and looked away.

Eliot nodded as he poured the tea into the mugs. "Do you want to talk about it?"

"Not really." Quinn accepted the mug Eliot handed him.

Eliot tilted his head in a 'follow me' gesture and headed for the living room couch. Quinn slid from the stool and took his mug with him. Eliot settled into the middle of the couch and Quinn took the armchair. The silence stretched while they sipped at their mugs.

"So why'd you put whiskey in the tea?" Quinn still enjoyed the flavors of different alcohols, but his werewolf metabolism processed it too fast to let him get much else out of it.

Eliot shrugged one shoulder as he took a sip. "My grandma used to put a little in my tea when I was sick or if I'd had a nightmare. Guess it's just the habit of it. I think the memory of it does more to settle my nightmares than the whiskey does."

"Huh." Quinn blew across his tea. He hadn't expected Eliot to share something like that with him. It felt personal, something that made him seem human and not the invincible Alpha.

Eliot relaxed into the couch with his eyes closed. "Yer wolf still feels on edge."

"I guess." Quinn sipped at his tea. "I'm sure the tea will help."

Eliot snorted. "Not likely. Wolves don't care about tea. Wolves need pack." He waved Quinn over to join him on the couch.

Quinn narrowed his eyes for a moment, but he could feel how much his wolf wanted to comply. So far Eliot had been insistent about giving him a choice in things and he could tell this was his choice. With a sigh he moved from the armchair to the couch.

Eliot set his left hand on Quinn's shoulder but made no move to pull him closer. Eliot let his wolf come to the fore and extend comfort and security. He felt Quinn relax a little.

A moment later Eliot heard the door to Parker and Hardison's room open. Parker, wearing one of Hardison's tanks and her pink bunny pajama bottoms, appeared at the top of the stairs. She slouched her way down the stairs and shuffled her way in front of the couch. She stood there for a moment and Eliot handed his tea to Quinn so that he could extend a hand to Parker.

Parker took his hand and leaned forward until her forehead bumped against Eliot's. She let her head rest there. He gave a little tug to her hand, and she gave him a little growl. After a moment she moved to the couch and curled herself into Eliot's side with her toes tucked under his leg. He wrapped his arm around her shoulders holding her close.

"This a common occurrence?" Quinn asked as he set Eliot's mug on the side table.

"Now and again." Eliot gave him a half smile. "Hardison'll be down in a minute." Eliot could feel the sense in the bonds that Hardison was nearly done with his shift, and he knew that as soon as Hardison was done shifting to his wolf he'd come in search of Parker and pack.

Quinn finished his tea and set his mug to the side. "Will didn't…" He looked at the peaceful looks on Parker's and Eliot's faces. "This is nice." Quinn readjusted sinking deeper into the couch cushions.

Hardison padded down the stairs and stood for a moment looking at the three on the couch. Before Quinn, he would have climbed onto the couch and settled in next to Eliot. But with Parker on one side and Quinn on the other Hardison didn't think there was room for three adults and a giant wolf. His wolf had picked up on how on edge Quinn's wolf was and Hardison knew it would be easier for him to deal with things if he was in his wolf shape. It hadn't occurred to him that there would be logistics issues. With a sigh he settled onto the floor so that he was leaning up against Eliot's and Quinn's legs. Hardison's wolf needed to be close to his Alpha and he wanted to comfort Quinn's wolf as well, so this seemed like the best option.

Quinn groaned a little at the comfort and security coming from his pack. His wolf settled and the nagging sense of dread left from his nightmares faded away. In no time he was asleep.

Eliot was drifting on the edge of sleep and couldn't help a small smile as Parker snuggled into him on one side and Quinn leaned against him on the other side. With Hardison's wolf pinning his feet and legs he should have felt trapped, hemmed in on all sides. Instead, his wolf practically wallowed in the joy of having his pack close. The only niggling worry left, was Nate and Sophie. If they were here, then all really would be right with his world. He comforted himself with the fact that the bonds said they weren't hurt or scared. Tomorrow he would sort out the rest and bring them home.

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(Two months before Quinn crawls onto Ms. Teo's porch in Louisiana)

"You won't believe it, but I met the most beautiful girl today." Bouda flopped down on his cot. He looked over at his little brother. "Malik? Did you hear me?"

Malik rolled his eyes. He was sewing a button back onto his uniform shirt. The hotel manager had warned him that it needed to be fixed before the next shift. "Of course I heard you."

"So?"

"So what? So you met a girl." Malik shrugged. He envied his brother a little bit, although he would never tell him. He imagined that it must be so much more exciting to wander the streets selling tea and talking with people. So much more exciting than his job, which mostly involved scrubbing toilets and making beds.

"Not just any girl though…" Bouda sighed. He stretched his neck and shoulders where he lay. Carrying the heavy yoke, that had gallons of hot tea and all the things needed to serve it throughout the hot dusty streets, always left his shoulders sore and his neck stiff. At least his brother was able to work in the hotel where it was clean and cool. Between the two of them they might be able to save enough money to get their own place and move out of the hotel basement.

"Don't you sell tea to dozens of girls every day?" Malik tied the knot in the thread and bit through the trailing end.

"Yes. But this one… She's been buying tea every day for a while and today she bought a second cup and stayed to talk. I think she was late to her classes, we talked so long." Bouda settle a little deeper into his thin pillow.

"Classes? Like college classes?" Malik set his uniform shirt to the side. "What are you thinking? We can barely afford to rent this storage cupboard. And you want to get involved with some girl, whose family has so much money that they can waste it sending a girl to college?" Malik groaned.

Bouda could feel his eyelids getting heavier as a nap started to pull him under. "I think she might be my mate. I can feel it in my teeth."

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(Present)

They'd flown from Portland to JFK and were on their way to Lisbon. Parker and Hardison were practically curled up together in the seats behind Quinn and Eliot. Eliot checked the time on his watch, it was only six p.m. Portland time but that made it about two a.m. in Marrakesh.

He could hear their slow even breathing and feel their somnolent state in the bonds that confirmed they were deeply asleep. He kind of wished he could sleep too since he was sure they'd have to hit the ground running, but he knew it wasn't a good idea. He never felt safe enough to sleep on a plane, too many people he didn't know and no way to identify the source of scents or emotions. The few times exhaustion had forced him to sleep on a plane had always resulted in nightmares. Usually the kind of nightmares that left him screaming and thrashing.

The soft flick of a page caught his attention and he glanced over to see Quinn seemingly engrossed in a book.

"You can ask." Quinn muttered

"What?"

"What I'm reading. You can ask." Quinn stuck his finger in the book as he turned his attention more directly to Eliot.

Eliot smirked. "Okay. So, what are you reading?"

"The Pirate Queen. Romance on the high seas." Quinn waggled his eyebrows.

Eliot snorted and tried not to laugh. "You can't be serious?"

"Yep. Totally serious." Quinn turned the book so that Eliot could see the front of it. There was a ragged edge where the cover used to be and the corner of the page with a bold header of 'Chapter 1' was dog-eared and torn. "You always want to look for the ones with the missing covers."

"Why?"

"That's how you know it's a good one. Usually there's some picture on the front that most people find embarrassing so if the book is good enough that you can't resist reading it while you're traveling or something, the stupid cover always gets torn off."

"How? Why?" Eliot just shook his head.

"A nurse I dated once, told me about the cover thing."

"Romance novels though? Really?"

"It's a great way to kill time." Quinn shrugged and flipped back to the page he'd been on.

Silence settled between them, and Eliot went back to the bonds. He could feel Nate and Sophie sleeping which was what he expected since it was probably the middle of the night wherever they were. He kept thinking back over the last couple of weeks trying to remember if there was anything in the bonds that should have alerted him. Granted the last week he'd been too caught up in what was going on to notice anything outside of Gemma….Vampires. The vampires had been an all-consuming problem. But Hardison had checked the logs and found that Nate and Sophie's earbuds had been destroyed nearly three days before Quinn had crawled onto Ms. Teo's porch.

He had to admit to himself he often tuned out what he was getting from Nate and Sophie in the bonds. So he must have tuned out any change in their emotions that would have tipped him off. He felt a little guilty knowing that it was his own fault that his friends, his pack, had been left in trouble for this long.

A little thrum of anxiety started to course through the bonds and it refocused Eliot on the present. Parker and Hardison were both still sleeping peacefully. It was Quinn. Eliot looked over and could see the upset look on Quinn's face and the grip he had on the book that was threatening to tear the old paperback in half. Eliot let calm and security roll out from him but it didn't seem to be making a difference. He looked over to see what Quinn was reading and it was more or less what Eliot would expect from a tawdry romance novel. 'Brabantio nibbled along her collar bones as he…' Eliot rolled his eyes. He figured it had to be something else bothering Quinn, something in the man's mind. The anxiety Quinn was feeling was beginning to build to the point that Eliot thought it might wake Hardison and Parker. He tried to radiate a little more calm, and set a hand on the back of Quinn's neck.

With a cry Quinn dropped the book and stood as much as was possible with his back pressed against the wall near his seat.

Eliot put both hands up and leaned away from Quinn. "It's okay man. You're okay."

"Do we have a problem here?" A flight attendant had come down the aisle and stopped a little past arms reach.

"No. No problem here." Eliot assured her while he kept an eye on Quinn. "My friend just had a nightmare. Everything is okay." He kept an eye on Quinn who'd sat back down.

"Let me know if you need anything." She turned and started making her way back to her jump seat.

Parker and Hardison were both awake and Eliot could feel concern coming through the bonds. He was kind of surprised that neither of them had started talking yet.

"I'm okay." Quinn said with a sigh.

"You will be." Eliot agreed. "For now though, I think you're better off not reading any more horror novels." Eliot had discounted the romance novel as the source of Quinn's anxiety at first, but the bonds and his own intuition made him think of Quinn's recent experiences with the vampires, and he decided that it probably was the scene in the book that had freaked Quinn out.

"Right." Quinn shoved the novel in the pouch of the seat in front of him. "I think you're right."

Eliot had known what was likely to happen when he'd been caught by the vampires this last time, but it had taken him a long time to deal with the aftermath the first time he'd been captured by vampires. What little Quinn had told them made Eliot think that Quinn would have a lot to deal with for a while. Eliot leaned a little closer to Quinn but didn't try to touch him. "You can talk to me if you want. I'll understand."

"Maybe, sometime, but not yet." Quinn gave him a half smile.

"Why don't you try to get some sleep if you can. I'll keep watch."

Quinn nodded and slouched down in his seat.

Eliot watched as Quinn closed his eyes and worked on slowing his breathing. He continued to lean a little toward Quinn, but he kept his eyes on the rest of the passengers just like he'd promised and he was unsurprised to feel Quinn's head on his shoulder a few minutes later.

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(Weeks before Quinn crawls onto Ms. Teo's porch)

Koré smiled as she pushed her bag across the backseat of her father's baby limo. The window between the front and back was open and Kassem was watching her in the mirror.

"You seem especially happy today." Kassem commented as he pulled away from the curb.

"It was a good day." Koré smiled. If her father ever found out that she had missed an entire class because she stood around talking to the young man that sold her tea every day, well if he ever found out that would be a bad day.

Even the thought of her father's ire couldn't erase the smile that bloomed on her face as she thought about Bouda, with his quick wit and beautiful smile. Her teeth ached at the thought of him, and that gave her pause. Her mother used to tell her romantic tales where the women, who were always the heroes, could tell when they met the love of their life by the aching in their teeth.

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(Five days before Quinn crawls onto Ms. Teo's porch)

Sophie had finally talked Nate into a vacation in Marrakesh. The hotel in this corner of the Jemaa El-Fnaa was one of her favorites in all of the Middle East. It wasn't the biggest or the flashiest but something about its style, its mystique, always made her feel a little like Shahrazad.

"So this is the place huh?" Nate cast a calculating eye over the lobby.

"I know that look. We aren't running a job here." She walked her fingers across his chest and gave him a charming smile. "Relax, enjoy the atmosphere." She breathed deeply.

"Of course. The atmosphere." Nate looked around again.

"Everything is fine. We are on vacation, not a job, so there should be no catastrophes of any kind. Unless of course room service is slow."

Nate snorted. Of course Sophie would categorize slow room service as a catastrophe.

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(Present)

It was nearly one in the afternoon by the time they made their way out of the airport in Marrakesh. The first stop would be the hotel that Nate and Sophie had been staying in. Hardison had found the hotel deep in the south side of the Medina and had been able to confirm that Nate and Sophie had left on their own nine days before and had not been back since.

Eliot checked out the roofline of the hotel and neighboring buildings and had taken note of the people on the street. The hotel sat within sight of the wide market space of the world famous Jemaa El-Fnaa. Just a few yards from the front of the hotel was an alley way or a very narrow street that meandered crookedly into another part of the Medina. There was a shop on one side that had tea sets and pottery pieces set out in the hundreds. On the other side of the hotel was a narrow salon squeezed in between the hotel and the entrance to the alley. The hotel's entrance featured golden doors with an intricate pattern and several flags set above the doorway.

Eliot took a deep breath scenting the people, spices, and dusty heat of Morocco and followed his pack into the hotel. The golden doors had hinted at the kind of hotel one would find beyond those doors, but they really were only a hint that didn't quite prepare someone for the upscale interior. The floor was primarily white tile that reflected the sun that was shining through the glass ceiling above the third floor. Red curtains swept back to the corners of the second-floor walkway added a touch of drama to the architecture. The second-floor walkway was walled with a series of miniature pointed arches and included colored glass panes between each arch. An antique chandelier hung from the center of the glass ceiling at a level with the third-floor walkway. Eliot wasn't absolutely sure, but the architecture looked to him like a combination of Art Nouveau and Arabian Nights. The elegance and drama of the place confirmed for him that Sophie had picked this hotel.