by Hattie Hunt
The padfoot reared up his head, growling inside Ripley’s mind. She went rigid.
Faith stepped away, one hand still on Ripley’s shoulder. “What’s wrong?”
Dark shadows surged from the ground all around her, arms and legs reaching blindly through space. Growls rumbled from anonymous shadow faces. Some howled, heads tilted back. Piercing. Dangerous.
What the hell?
Ripley jerked as one of the shadow people brushed a black hand through her arm. Her heart raced, adrenaline spiking in a burst of terror.
“Ripley.” Faith’s alpha voice echoed around the clearing and resonated in Ripley’s mind.
Then, her padfoot turned and stilled. Ripley had seen how an alpha command affected shapeshifters, but she was not a shapeshifter. Fuck. Her padfoot had never been this alert before. And he’d never shown her something like this before, either, but if he was showing her anything, it had to be death. Why had he turned?
“What’s going on?” Faith asked slowly, taking Ripley’s other shoulder with a little shake.
Ripley couldn’t tear her eyes off the shadows that continued to rise out of the earth. Even with her padfoot calmed, her hands trembled. Breaths came in ragged bursts. The shadows were on the move. Some meandered into the trees, but the meadow was filling fast, thick with shadows dense as smoke.
“What do you see?” Faith took in a deep breath and squeezed Ripley’s shoulders.
“Death.”
Faith reached a finger to Ripley’s chin and turned her until their eyes met. The proclamation hadn’t phased Faith at all. Her eyes were intense, determined. “What exactly do you see?”
Faith had been the one person who had listened to Ripley before the dam broke, years ago. Because of her, they’d been able to get most everyone away from the river and out of danger. Ripley wasn’t afraid Faith wouldn’t believe her. She just didn’t understand what she was seeing. “Shadows.”
“Are they hurting?”
Ripley screwed her face up in concentration, watching the shadows again. No. If anything, they seemed to be at peace. And they seemed to be talking to one another. She couldn’t swear it. Not really, but some of the black shadow people walked up to each other, and it looked like two people talking without faces or mouths. “No. I don’t think so.”
“What color are they?”
“Black.”
Faith flattened her lips and nodded, releasing Ripley and taking a step back. “That would probably be Leah.”
What? All of this was one person? “Leah?”
“Leah Whiskey.” Faith walked at a slow pace toward the group of kids. “She’s one of the Whiskey Witches.”
“And she’s here.”
Faith nodded.
“On a shift night.”
Faith lifted one shoulder. “She’s a good kid. They all are. Her best friend is going to shift for the first time tonight and wanted Leah to be there for it. Ashlynn is nervous.”
“But…” Without the call of attention from the alpha, Ripley’s padfoot tugged her toward the girl again. “She’s a witch.”
“You’re very astute.”
Ripley blinked as she saw several of the shadows following the girl in a wide circle of black.
“But I never knew you to be a prude, Ripley.”
Ripley recoiled slowly under the cool reprisal.
“You were always the person who accepted people for who they were.”
“She’s a witch.”
“And you’re a padfoot.”
“There is death all around her.”
“She’s…” Faith leaned in, speaking slowly and clearly, “…a necromancer.”
As the words settled around her, Ripley’s padfoot withdrew. His warning still tugged at her, but he had relaxed. Be cautious. Be aware.
“Did you foresee death before you saw her?”
No. She hadn’t. “Only after my padfoot did.”
Faith shrugged. “He’s likely reacting to the death that hangs around her.”
“All those people?”
“She can reach through the doors of death and bring people back to life.” Faith watched the kids with narrowed eyes, folding her arms over her chest. “I’d be surprised if you didn’t see death all around her. She’s a damned bridge between life and death.”
Ripley still felt uneasy in the girl’s presence, but now it was more like she had hold of a live wire or something. “I’m going to patrol around you, but I’ll keep my distance.”
“Sounds like a good idea.” Faith gave her a hard look. “I’ll protect my kids, Rip, even if I’m protecting them from you.”
And she would. Ripley knew that full well.
Faith raised her nose to the wind. “And I believe that’s for you.”
Frowning, Ripley sniffed the air as well.
Bear.
She groaned. She wasn’t ready for that conversation.
“Get out of here.” Faith hugged her. “It’s good to see you again.”
Yeah. Just like that, Faith had a reason to not want her around anymore, just like everyone else.
That wasn’t fair. Faith was looking out for the kids under her protection like she always did. It wasn’t her fault that Ripley had reacted poorly to one of them.
And the girl was just a kid.
What did Ripley know about witches anyway? Nothing. Maybe the whole witch fear thing was a bunch of B.S. Tuck had said the Whiskeys were all right. Faith claimed that girl as one of hers. So, maybe Ripley just needed to keep her earrings on and not pick a fight.
Ripley nodded and followed Joe’s scent.
He didn’t just smell like bear, as much as she wished he would. He smelled like juniper and pine. She hadn’t noticed the difference between them as a human, but as soon as her padfoot had chosen her, she’d discovered otherwise.
Joe stood a few feet inside the wood line. That man looked pretty much the same as she remembered. Tall, dark, handsome. The stiff drink her soul craved, just like it had in high school. He was older now. His body had filled in with muscle, shoulders massively powerful from a lot of bear walking. He stood shirtless, hands in his pockets as he watched her, brown eyes dark and brooding.
Ripley stopped, sucking in a sharp breath. The last time they’d seen each other, she told him to leave her alone and stop trying to follow her. She’d pushed him away because she couldn’t bear to see the look on his face when she told him she was a padfoot. Everyone had assumed it would go to her brother, and when it didn’t, they assumed the padfoot had chosen someone outside the city. Only a handful of people knew the truth. No, not even a handful. Three. Tuck, Faith, and Faith’s mate. That was it.
Ripley’s padfoot sniffed at Joe and turned away, tucking himself into her consciousness, his snout pointed in the direction of the necromancer. Leah. The girl’s name was Leah.
Fine. Her padfoot was going to let her deal with the bear. That, at least, was a relief.
“Hey, Joe.” She hoped he didn’t notice the slight tremor to her voice.
He raised his chin, his eyes avoiding hers.
Well, this wasn’t going to be awkward or anything. Good grief. She wished this was over already.
“I didn’t know you were coming back,” he finally said.
His voice hummed along her nerves like fingertips across guitar strings. “I didn’t realize I was coming back until I booked the flight.”
“You flew in?”
“To Portland.” Troutdale didn’t have an airport.
“How long are you staying?”
She had been there too long already. Just seeing him drew out the memories of all the good times they’d had. She’d left after losing her family, but she didn’t have the grief anymore. She still had the stigma of being the padfoot, but that wasn’t enough of a boundary anymore. There weren’t any walls to throw up between them anymore.
If she spent any real time with him, she wouldn’t be able to leave Troutdale. She needed her freedom. She craved it. Her feet itched t
o wander, her soul to see new things and places. She couldn’t do that with Joe. Sure, he’d claimed he’d go anywhere with her. But he’d been a kid at the time.
And he really loved his home, his family.
“I heard about your brother,” she said.
Joe finally met her eyes. He stared at her for a long moment before he shrugged. “I’m glad for him.”
Yeah. Right. “Is she at least nice?”
“Juliet?”
“If that’s her name.”
He nodded and dropped his gaze. “Where’d you go, Rip?”
The question threw her off. It sounded casual enough, but there was an edge to it. “When?”
“When you left.”
So he was going there. Already. “Well, at first, I went to Florida.”
He grimaced and looked up. “What were you doing down there?”
“Fishing.” It hadn’t been a bad gig, really. You could practically live anywhere, unlike Oregon where you had to be careful of the elements. Not to say Florida didn’t have its fair share of weather. “It was good.”
His gaze flitted around the woods behind her. He was hedging. Maybe he’d found someone. Maybe he’d moved on. One of them had to. Ripley plowed on, trying to ignore the questions she couldn’t ask. “After Florida, I went to New Orleans. Then, I got my passport, and I’ve been traveling the world since.”
He didn’t react, which meant he was thinking. Loudly.
“Been to Israel. It’s really pretty. To Europe. I just flew in from Russia.”
He met her gaze, and the look in his eyes said he probably hadn’t heard anything she’d just said. “Why?”
“Why what?”
“You know what.”
She wanted to think he was asking why she went to so many different places, but she knew better. He wanted to know why she’d left.
“And don’t tell me it was because you lost your parents.”
“I did.”
“I know, but that’s not what destroyed you. You disappeared from me before that.”
Joe had been more than just her high school lover. He’d been her best friend. The best friend she hadn’t been able to tell anyone about for fear of how his family would react. It hurt her thinking of how he would have reacted. But now? Now, she was a full-grown woman and in control of the bond between her and her padfoot.
Her padfoot raised his head and growled.
Okay, so maybe not in control, but she had a better feel for how things were supposed to work. She understood what he was trying to tell her.
“You can tell me,” he said softly, his voice a mix of desperation and gentle caress.
The kind of caress she missed. And those hands of his. They had been able to do more than simply touch her skin. He’d touched her soul. She took in a deep breath and studied his face, memorizing it, the way he looked at her right then in the moment before he knew. She met his eyes.
“I’m the padfoot.”
His silence dropped between them like a dead weight, crushing the momentum of her truth in a heart-wrenching pang of fear and regret.
Then, in a blink, he closed the distance. Warmth surrounded Ripley as her face pressed into his warm chest, wrapping her in the fresh scent of him. He squeezed her tight, rocking her back and forth. “You idiot,” he murmured into her hair.
“I know.” She wrapped her arms around him, and in that moment, she did know.
She was home.
Chapter Four
Ripley pulled away and studied his face, relieved and feeling stupid for being so. Nothing in her life was ever this easy. “Just like that. You’re okay with this.”
He released a breath of a chuckle, maintaining his hold on her arms. “All these years, I thought you left because of me, my family. I didn’t know. You just closed me out.”
She had.
“Why? You and I shared everything with each other.”
They had, but this? She shook her head. “Remember when my dad had his heart attack?”
“Yeah.” He took a step back, his brown eyes searching hers.
“Well, he died. Just for a moment, but he died, and the padfoot left him.”
“And chose you.”
“In the middle of class.”
Joe tipped his head to the side, understanding. “That day in the library.”
Ripley nodded. She didn’t remember a lot of what happened that day. She just remembered waking up behind the Fox Hole the next morning, smelling like she’d spent the day in a trash dumpster. “I guess.”
He took in a breath, his brow furrowed. Then, he shook his head and guided her to a fallen tree. “You don’t remember.”
“I don’t remember anything about that day.” She settled on the rough bark. The tree hadn’t been down for long, so the bark wasn’t brittle.
“Well,” he said, perching next to her, “I do. Everything was normal, and then after lunch, we went to the library. You wanted to study for trig.”
Trigonometry. Wow. That was right. Ripley’d forgotten that, at one point in her life, she’d enjoyed math. She’d enjoyed school.
“And then you just freaked out.” Joe shook his head. “You started screaming. Threw all of your books. You stared at the librarian for a long time, still screaming. And then you ran out without a word.”
Ripley took in a deep breath. “I woke up behind The Fox Hole the next day. Smells, sounds, everything was just overwhelming. And…” The death.
Joe took her fingertips in his hand. “What’s it like?”
She didn’t know how even to tell him, where to begin.
“I mean, being the padfoot.”
“What’s it like being a bear?” The question was like asking what it meant to be alive or human or a woman or white or whatever.
“Well, it’s interesting.” He smiled, his eyes dancing. He had read her mind. “You know, bears are very close. Our families are always around, so we don’t get a lot of alone time. Everyone’s in everyone else’s business.”
That part she knew. “And your bear?”
“She’s like, I don’t know, a second skin, another opinion, a warning system. She’s quite helpful.”
“So you like her.”
“I love her.”
Ripley cringed. Well, that’s where they differed. She feared her padfoot. Maybe it was because she hadn’t been born as a padfoot. Maybe it was the fact that after he’d shown up, both her parents died.
“Mmm.” He bit his lips and looked away. “I’m sorry.”
She shrugged.
“Does he make you do horrible things?”
What? “No.”
“Then…” He raised one shoulder in question.
She closed her eyes, drawing in a deep breath. Then she shook her head and met his gaze. “Soon after he arrived, my dad died, and I saw that my mother had cancer.”
“Saw.”
“Yeah.” Well, kinda. “Sometimes, the padfoot lets me see death or coming death. I’ll see splotchy colors where death is going to strike. Sometimes it’s in the form of smell. In Mom’s case, her skin was orange, blistered orange with large, black spots. It looked like pictures of the sun.”
“Oh.”
Yeah. “And she smelled.” Ripley pulled away, recalling the smell of death that she had almost grown accustomed to.
Joe tightened his grip on her fingertips, not allowing her to retreat. He did that every time she tried to retreat, even when they’d been dating in school. “Smell is the first thing I can remember.”
She knew what he was doing, trying to make her remember the connection they’d had, to draw her back in. It couldn’t work. She couldn’t let it.
“I couldn’t see for the first three years of my life.”
“What?” She looked at him startled. She’d known him practically her whole life, or at least it felt that way. They hadn’t met, really, until school. Her family had always been forced to live on the outskirts of society. She sometimes forgot how much they wouldn’t or co
uldn’t know about one another.
“Yeah. Something to do with my animal spirit. They said that it happens with twins sometimes. Something about having too many spirits in the womb.”
“That…” Had to be what? Awful? He’d been a baby.
“It was just the way it was. I didn’t know any different. I loved the way my mother smelled, and I could always tell when Dad got sick.”
“I don’t remember you telling me any of this.”
“That’s because Dad was already dead by the time you and I were together.”
She nodded slowly. “Smells don’t comfort me.”
“Sights were dangerously distracting for me.” He gave her a tight smile. “To this day, when I’m feeling overwhelmed, I bind my eyes and use the senses I was originally born with.”
She shook her head. “I wish I could do that.”
“You can.” He grabbed a sprig of mint growing next to them. “Keep some mint oil handy and some rags. Dip the rags in the mint and shove them up your nose. Guaranteed to wipe out the scent. Every time.”
She smiled and shook her head. “How do you know that?”
“I was born without sight. Brett was born without smell.”
Well, today was just very enlightening.
The conversation stalled out, and Joe pulled his hands away from Ripley. He rubbed them on his knees like suddenly he had forgotten what to do with them. “Well, at least now I know.”
Yeah. He did. Ripley stretched out her fingers, and they cracked. She was glad to have them back, but part of her still wished he hadn’t pulled away.
“Why did you leave?”
Ripley chewed the inside of her lip. There hadn’t been a lot of solid reasoning. “My brother received all the training to be the next padfoot. No one ever dreamed it would be me, so I never learned what it meant.”
Joe shook his head, commiserating.
“There are things you need to do in order maintain control. Meditation, mental self-discipline, rituals.”
“And you didn’t know any of them.”
“My padfoot took control more often than I’d like to admit.”
