by Dianna Love
For that, he finally got a real smile that kicked his heartbeat into high gear. But he wanted to return to where this discussion had been heading.
Maybe visiting Arizona and engaging with some of the locals would reignite Evalle’s interest in bonding. They wouldn’t be that far from the location where he’d wanted to perform the ceremony. He asked, “So you want to meet a medicine man, huh?”
“I guess. I mean he heals people on the inside, right?”
His heart did a nosedive to his feet.
A medicine man in Bidziil’s tribe had very likely never encountered someone with a missing gryphon. Storm had to keep their presence as nonhumans a secret for the benefit of his uncle’s clan.
But he also had to be careful to explain this in a way that didn’t result in Evalle saying never mind and shutting down on him. “Yes, the tribe’s medicine man’s form of healing is to bring a person’s body back in balance. That often includes healing songs.”
Concern lit in her eyes. “Will he know I’m not human?”
“He shouldn’t, because he is and my uncle wouldn’t have shared that I’m a Skinwalker with any of the tribe.”
“Your uncle knows that about you?”
“Yes. When I tried to repay him, he pushed for me to move there and join the tribe. I gave him a demonstration of how my eyes change and shared that I was an Ashaninka Skinwalker they wouldn’t want around. That’s all it took to drop the topic.”
“Does he think a Skinwalker is a demon like you said the South American people do?”
“Demon or a witch.” Storm shrugged. “Either is considered to be from the dark side. The Dine people honor the earth and all the bounty it offers.”
“The Dine?”
“Yes, many of the tribe prefer to be called that instead of Navajo.” He paused, thinking about what they’d encounter at the reservation. If the medicine man his father spoke of still performed healing for the tribe, he’d be much older by now and possibly less receptive to meeting with a woman who didn’t belong to the clan.
The last thing Storm would tolerate was anyone denying Evalle a simple request, but at the same time he had to respect his father’s people.
It dawned on him that he might have a way to make that easier to set up and also be better for Evalle.
Storm started, “Here’s how I think it works most of the time.” He clarified, “I’m not positive, because I’m not a member of my uncle’s tribe and only know what my father taught me.”
“Okay. I’m listening.” Evalle sounded eager to hear more.
“You should actually meet with the seer first, because he or she is the one who determines in what way your Hózhó is out of balance.”
“My what?”
He chuckled and moved back to the sofa where he could feel her close to him. “Think of Hózhó as your body and mind being in harmony. Once the seer has determined where the problem is, the person in question goes to the medicine man with what the seer has pinpointed. Then the medicine man uses that information to perform the healing.”
“Huh. So the seer is like a specialist giving a diagnosis?”
Her genuine interest encouraged him to tell her more. “In theory, yes, but if I can arrange for you to meet the seer, it won’t be like meeting a human doctor.”
“Good. I don’t like doctors.”
Storm curled his fingers into a fist then relaxed his digits before he set his power churning again. A man working under the pretense of being one visited Evalle as a teen while she lived locked in a basement and that bastard had abused her.
The aunt and pseudo-doctor were both dead or Storm’s jaguar would be roaring for a hunt.
Evalle almost shifted the first time in that basement, which scared the predator into a panic. He died upon impact in a single-car wreck.
Too nice of a death.
“A seer sounds more like you and Garwyli,” Evalle speculated, dragging him back to the present.
Storm said, “Sort of, with the exception of the healing, which is left to the medicine man. Those two don’t normally work together specifically as in the same location, but they do share the responsibility of keeping their clan healthy.”
She tapped her chin. “That makes sense.”
Now that Storm thought about it, he warmed to the idea of Evalle talking to a seer. Being a spiritual person, the seer might be open to a non-tribal member looking for help. His father had spoken of how the people he grew up around were compassionate and had an honest approach to healing.
Just talking to a seer could be beneficial for her psyche.
At this point, she had only two paths for moving forward. She either found a way to call up her gryphon or accepted that she’d never be able to again.
The latter possibility sickened him.
Storm made up his mind that Evalle would have her wish.
She asked for so little.
He suggested, “If you like the idea of meeting the seer first, I’ll find out about getting you an invitation. After that, if you still want to meet their medicine man, it will probably be easier than just asking out of the blue. Either way, I’ll gain an audience for you.”
“No, don’t ask the medicine man yet,” she hurried to say. “Meeting the seer sounds interesting.” Then she sat up. “But first, I’ll help you with whatever your uncle has going on.”
“We can do both. Bidziil will be waiting at the airport when we arrive. Once I determine what’s going on, I’ll have a better idea of our schedule. As soon as his problem is resolved, we could stay a couple days, maybe take a break from the Atlanta preternatural rat race.”
This would be the perfect chance to complete their bond. He hoped she considered it before the end of the trip.
“Sure, we could do that as long as Quinn or someone doesn’t need us back home,” Evalle said.
That hadn’t been an ecstatic reply, but one step at a time.
He drifted a finger over her hair. “Good. I’d like to see more of this part of the country myself.”
“We won’t see much at night,” she joked.
He leaned over and kissed her cheek. “I’ll get a vehicle and put a protective spell over it to block the sun’s rays like I did for my truck.”
“Okay, great. I can’t wait to see a new place with you.” This time, her voice had a lift of excitement.
His chest muscles eased at hearing her sound more like the Evalle he knew.
Maybe having her involved in whatever he had to do for his uncle would fuel her confidence, which had taken a hit at the loss of her gryphon. Using her sharp wit and ability to sort through a problem could show her how her value went deeper than telepathy and kinetics.
Just in case those powers continued to weaken.
If he had to leave her alone during the day for some reason, security around the casino would be tight. More than that, no one in the preternatural world would know her location while they were with his uncle’s clan.
He ran it all through his mind again.
Sounded simple and safe.
Why had a sliver of doubt burrowed into his conscience? He experienced that odd sensation again of questioning if he should be making this trip at all.
Evalle yawned and leaned over.
Storm closed his hands around her shoulders and moved her to his lap so she could stretch out. Her nocturnal schedule had been off since waking up in Treoir.
Once she drifted to sleep, Storm waved off the flight attendant heading his way, then dropped his head back and closed his eyes. With no idea what lay ahead of them, he could use a quick nap, too, evident by how quickly he fell asleep.
“Storm?” a soft female voice called from a distance.
Was that Kai?
Storm hadn’t tried to reach out to his spirit guide in a few weeks. They normally met when he had a private moment, which hadn’t been recently. When they did, he’d find himself in a pretty meadow with the sun shining, all composed by Kai.
She’d watched over S
torm his entire adult life.
“Kai, where are you?” His words sounded muted. Could she hear him?
“Storm, you must ... ”
“What, Kai?” Why couldn’t he open his eyes and see her? Why was it so hard to hear her?
Kai’s voice wobbled, “... her ... spirit ... ”
“What?” Raising his voice never went well with Kai. She tended to call up a thunderstorm. “Kai? I can’t see or hear you.”
“You ... find ... Evalle ... dying ... ”
Storm came awake, panting.
Evalle moved where she slept under his arm. She grumbled something unintelligible. He tucked a blanket over her the flight attendant must have spread across his mate.
He still couldn’t catch his breath. His heart battered his chest.
Why couldn’t he hear all of Kai’s words? He didn’t know, but he had definitely heard two.
Evalle dying.
What had he and Garwyli missed?
CHAPTER 10
Warm air much drier than her humid Georgia in June met Evalle as she stepped off the jet stairway at Page Municipal Airport in northern Arizona. Not a lot of activity here in the middle of the night.
Not night, but early in the morning on ... Sunday.
Hard to keep up with times and days when she’d started in a different realm less than twenty-four hours ago, teleported to Atlanta, and now flew to Arizona.
Storm joined her and led them toward a man standing by a large black sport-utility vehicle like the executive car services at home. Storm caught her hand in his, a simple contact that always gave her a little unexpected happy feeling.
Illumination from the airport offered more than enough light for Evalle to see through her special sunglasses. Storm’s natural night vision topped hers, but she believed he wore sunglasses to shield his eyes that sometimes glowed at an unexpected time.
Usually when someone had drawn his ire.
She needed eye protection for her sensitive vision and to shield her bright-nonhuman-green eyes from humans.
But wearing sunglasses at night around humans made her feel like some celebrity wannabe traveling incognito.
She’d hated the idea of flying out here until they were airborne, and she relaxed with Storm. He had a good idea about her meeting with the tribal seer.
Evalle would normally feel foolish making that request but leaving Atlanta had cut off her access to nonhuman friends. She had to find answers. Going to meet a Native seer might be a bust, but Evalle wouldn’t discount a tribal member with powers.
It sounded as if Storm’s father had been fairly powerful in his own right.
She hated living in limbo, not knowing definitively if she’d ever fully regain her powers or if her gryphon was gone forever.
No matter how hard she tried to accept that her beast wouldn’t return, her heart pleaded to cling to the idea of shifting again.
Even if the news was bad, give her the known over the unknown any day.
Shaking off negative thoughts, she looked for the potential in a new approach. If the seer could pinpoint how Evalle’s body lacked balance, that would be a start.
Fixing a problem began with understanding where to look.
Maybe someone here would surprise her and offer an insight others had missed.
“Thank you for coming out,” Storm’s uncle stepped forward with his hand extended, distracting Evalle from her thoughts. She compared him to the man whose face and body she knew so well.
His uncle shared the same teak skin tone and black hair as her mate though his uncle’s had silver feathering his temples. She found the similarity in their faces more interesting. For the first time, she had an idea of what Storm’s father might look like if he’d had a large frame with a little bulge of middle hidden beneath a nice-fitting dark suit.
She hadn’t expected her first impression of him to be positive, but it was.
Storm shook hands and introduced her. “Bidziil, please meet Evalle, my mate.”
His uncle offered her the same handshake, which she accepted with a smile, saying, “I’m sorry for the circumstances, but it’s nice to meet you.”
“It’s nice to meet you, too.” Then Bidziil turned to Storm. “I’ve arranged for private accommodations outside the casino, as you requested. I understand the intense noise and smells would disturb you, or ... would that be for both of you?”
Evalle picked up on a flash of irritation from Storm before he cleared up his uncle’s confusion. “She’s not a Skinwalker.”
She gave Storm points for skipping over her identity without having to lie and pay a price physically.
Bidziil quickly added, “I only ask so that I can make your stay as comfortable as possible.”
The negative energy dispersed then Storm moved on. “What’s going on out here?”
“There’s a privacy window between the driver and the rear passenger area. I’ll explain on the way.”
“The way where?” Storm asked.
“A makeshift morgue at our law enforcement center.”
Curiosity piqued, Evalle withheld questions to allow the uncle to explain.
Once they were moving, Bidziil explained about a dead tribal member named Sonny. Storm had to pick up how much Bidziil hurt for this young man, because Evalle could feel his pain.
After forty minutes of traveling south through dark roads with almost no highway lighting, they entered an area with streetlights. A six-story building stood as a centerpiece among mostly one-story structures. They passed a string of single-level buildings, which housed retail businesses and services from dentist offices to hair salons.
The driver pulled around to the back of what appeared to be a local police station with two cruisers, a truck, and sedan out front and a handful of private vehicles in back. He parked by a one-story dusty gray and brown building similar to other adobe structures she’d seen.
“We don’t run a morgue here since our clan is too small to support one,” Bidziil explained as they got out. “We needed a place to properly hold a body that’s not buried immediately, so this is our holding facility.”
Evalle and Storm met Bidziil at the rear of the vehicle where he cautioned, “Only a handful know about this death.”
Bidziil had not told them everything about the body, claiming he didn’t want to influence their first observations, but with no sign of foul play and no natural cause, it sounded like a suicide.
Why ask Storm to come out?
The more she listened to Storm’s uncle, the more she picked up on his academic background. He appeared to be in his fifties and had the poise of a business professional.
On their way to the entrance, a man who appeared older than Bidziil and dressed in jeans with a belted buckskin top exited where a security guard stood next to the front door.
Some people wore a welcoming look in their eyes.
This man’s gaze warned he shot trespassers.
Bidziil stopped abruptly and called to the man. “Why are you here, Nascha?”
The old guy didn’t answer until he reached the three of them. “I am here to see that Bird Woman does not interfere.”
“Haloke?” Storm’s uncle asked. “Why would she come here? She hates this place.”
“She thinks to know more than me.”
Bidziil looked as if he might pop a vein. “That tells me nothing about why either of you would come here, Nascha. You hate this place, too. Wait, did you see Sonny’s body?”
Medicine man lifted a bony chin at Bidziil. “I saw him. It’s time to take the body far from here in the old way on a horse. Bury both before Bird Woman interferes.”
Evalle asked Storm, “Is he talking about killing the horse?”
Storm said, “Yes. I’ll explain later. Has to do with not wanting the spirit to return.”
Her mate had sounded pained, which meant he wouldn’t agree with harming an innocent animal.
Evalle shook her head. “How is that the horse’s fault?”
Nascha must have caught their quiet exchange. He told Evalle in an angry voice, “Horse is honored.”
“Bet the horse doesn’t think so.”
Squinting his wrinkled eyes, he ordered, “Who are you? Why do you wear dark glasses at night?”
Evalle had been sensing patience from Storm until Nascha demanded her identity.
Before she could reply, her mate leaned in and spoke in a tone that made it clear he wanted no one addressing her that way. “She is my mate. We prefer dark sunglasses during day and at night. That’s all you need to know.” Her mate pushed a load of power out with those words.
Eyes wide in shock, Nascha stepped back. His desire to ask who, or what, Storm was stood out on his face.
Grabbing his head, Bidziil grumbled, “I don’t have the time or patience for this ongoing rift between you and Haloke.”
Jerking back to face Bidziil, Nascha said, “She calls herself seer. How many times must I tell you she is not our seer?”
Bidziil snuck a glance at Storm as Nascha stopped glaring at her mate. It became clear to Evalle that Bidziil had intentionally diverted the old guy’s attention from Storm and Evalle by bringing up the seer.
Waving a hand as if to be done with Nascha, Bidziil said, “Haloke is the best we’ve got. Everyone but you appreciates the time she spends with our people. She listens as much as she sees inside a person who is troubled, and you know she’s given you good information on many.”
Nascha harrumphed at that. “Not a healer.”
Frankly, even though Evalle hadn’t met the seer, she was already on Team Haloke.
“I didn’t say she was, but she’s been ours for years and still is,” Bidziil snapped. “You don’t like repeating yourself. Neither do I, but I seem to be doing more and more of it this past year. You need to let this go. There is no way I’ll consider asking the elders to bring in another seer who might be stronger just because you don’t like Haloke. You should appreciate that you had the benefit of training under a powerful medicine man while she had to scratch her own way.”
“Bird Woman your fault.”
“Fine.” Bidziil sounded spent. “Would you at least give it a break for now so I can find out what happened to Sonny?”
