Checking the time, I thought I should probably go ahead and pop another dose of the anti-inflammatories, so I headed into the small bathroom. I hit the light after I’d shut the door and stared at my reflection.
I don’t look like much. Light blonde hair that I kept short. Pale skin. Dark eyes.
Right now the circles under my eyes made them look bruised…rather matched the line of bruises along the left side of my throat where his forearm had smashed against me, the mottled discoloration on my cheek where my face had a close, personal encounter with the car.
Thanks to my sleepless nights, I was color-coordinated with my bruising.
Grimacing, I opened the cabinet and grabbed the bottle of Motrin, popped the cap and shook out triple the dose a human would take. Bad thing about my bloodline was that although I healed a little quicker than humans, it took more for human meds to affect me. I was hoping that would also mean it would take more for the meds to damage my liver, because at the rate I was going, I’d be tearing the hell out of it, otherwise.
I had to chew the damn things up and damn, were they nasty, but swallowing them whole just wasn’t an option. Swallowing felt like I was chugging down chopped-up razor blades. It would be better in a few days, I knew. Sadly, from experience. Until then, well, things were just going to suck while my body dealt with the damage. That’s all there was to it.
Once I’d dosed myself back up, I slid back out of the bathroom and found Damon standing just outside the doorway.
Those gray eyes dropped to linger on my throat. I turned away.
“I’m calling it a day,” I told him.
“About time.”
It had been five hours since we’d left the rec club. The contrite Damon from outside the club had disappeared, and his asshole side had returned, leaving me to deal with it all afternoon. I’d been able to think more clearly when he was quiet, but I was on more even ground when he was being an asshole. Didn’t know which was the better option yet.
“I’m starving,” he said, trailing after me and watching as I slid my sword into the sheath slung around my hips. “Wherever we go to eat, are they going to let you take that in?”
In the middle of slinging my bag onto my shoulder, I paused. “We?” Then I shook my head. “Sorry. You’re on your own.”
I headed to the door.
A long arm barred my way.
“You seem to forget, kitten…the job and me, we’re a package deal.” He dipped his head and whispered against my hair, “You’re stuck with me, around the clock, until we find the boy.”
No. Hell. No.
Clenching my jaw, I backed away from him. “No. I have to tolerate you at my back during the day, that’s fine. But I’m not putting up with you around the clock.” Each word was like forcing glass out, but there was no way I was doing this.
Damon shrugged. “You don’t have a choice. If you leave without me, I’ll just follow, and I warn you, I’ll be mad enough to do something nasty to that car of yours. If you try to lock me out of the house, I’ll bust the door down.”
While rage sounded an alarm in my ears, I flexed my hand. I didn’t need this job that badly. Did I? Shit. I needed this like I needed a damned hole in the head. “I’ll call the cops. Tell them you’re hassling me,” I said. “What then?”
“You can’t.” He winked at me.
The asshole winked at me.
“You see, you accepted the money. Remember that part where that’s pretty much just like signing a contract? You agreed to the terms…including the part where I’m a package deal. You call the cops, I’ll just explain that I was concerned for your safety and I was doing what I had to do to make sure you stayed under my direct supervision. Face it, kitten. You’re stuck with me.”
“Cyanide sounds so very appealing right now.”
“You can’t poison me with cyanide.” He shrugged. “Would take a tankload.”
“Not for you. For me. Probably the easiest way out of this mess.”
If he thought I was going to actually sit down in a fucking restaurant with him, he was out of his mind. As long as I was driving, he’d get what I damned well felt like feeding him. And it turned out to be Arby’s.
I sat in the drive-thru while he glared at me. “I’m fucking hungry,” he snarled. “You did fast food earlier and you didn’t eat a damn thing. We need a real meal.”
The Motrin had actually helped this time. I could speak a little easier.
“You want to eat, you get it here. I’m tired and I want to go home,” I said, leaning my head back and closing my eyes.
“I need real food.”
“Then you’re going to have to figure out some other way to get it. This is the only place I’m stopping.”
“And if I decide to haul you elsewhere?”
“Try it.” I smiled. “Please, try it. The only way you’ll get me into a restaurant with you is if you drag me in there kicking and screaming.”
I cracked one eye to look over at him. “I’m pretty sure your beloved Alpha frowns on that.”
I’d heard a couple of her cats had gotten a little tanked a year ago. Shifters couldn’t get drunk–they just burned through the alcohol. But they get high. The drugs had to be made specifically for their bloodline; do it right, though and it could work. These two had gotten very, very wasted.
It wasn’t the drugs that had been the problem. They’d behaved…badly.
Shifters didn’t like it when other shifters misbehaved in public. They could go as crazy as they wanted on their own turf—it didn’t matter if they tore each other to ribbons for looking at each other wrong, but in public? Even an argument wasn’t nice. These two hadn’t argued—they’d tried to get naked and horizontal.
Somehow, I didn’t think Damon wanted to drag me into a restaurant kicking and screaming.
“Fine,” he growled.
It was a low, angry sound that filled the entire car. If I hadn’t been so pleased about finally getting the better of him, I might have been a little scared. Okay, so what if my heart slammed up into my abused throat and I could all but taste the panic crashing through my veins?
I’d won something. So what if it was a piddly little pissing contest. It was something.
“Ma’am…I need your order…” a voice said uncertainly as several people behind us started to lay on their horns.
I said, “Diet Coke.”
Then I looked pointed at Damon. He glared at me. “You need to eat.”
I groaned and banged my head against the seat’s headrest again.
Snarling filled the car and then he finally growled out an order. One that would have probably fed about four humans. I wasn’t surprised. Shifters ate a lot. Earlier at Burger King, I’d watched as he’d wolfed down three Whoppers.
Even when my throat didn’t feel like it had been battered into bits, I couldn’t eat a quarter of what he did. And I’m not one of those wilting females who didn’t like to eat. I was actually pretty damned hungry, but there was nothing here I could eat and I wasn’t going to torture myself by trying.
Ten minutes later, we were pulling out of the driveway. He tore into the food and I sipped at my drink, wincing at the sting of it. Home. Maybe a drink laced with whiskey. That would feel good. Then bed.
I’d hide out in my bedroom with my files, maybe a book in case I couldn’t concentrate—
A foil-wrapped sandwich got dumped in my lap. “You need to eat.”
I lowered my drink to the cupholder. A red light was coming up. After I’d stopped, I unwrapped the gooey mess and dropped the foil onto the console. Then, once I’d taken off, I threw the sandwich out the window.
“Hey!”
I smiled. “Not interested in eating that, thanks.”
Yes. I needed to eat, but anything I ate right now would hurt and I wasn’t about to let this son-of-a-bitch see that.
“Are you always this immature?”
I shrugged and licked some of the cheddar cheese of my fingers. “Depends on the
company. When I’m around abusive, arrogant assholes, I tend to get very immature.” The pain in my throat was going to be an issue for a few days. It wasn’t anything I couldn’t deal with, I knew, but I also couldn’t keep avoiding eating for the next twenty-four or forty-eight hours, however long it took my body to deal with the swelling.
So I could either suffer and starve for the next couple of days…or I could hit up a friend. It seemed silly to suffer and starve when I had a friend who could do something about the pain.
Decision made, I headed out of town.
I hadn’t seen Colleen in a few months, but I figured she wouldn’t mind if I swung by this late in the evening.
“Where are you going?”
Drumming my nails on the steering wheel, I said, “You know…I’d really planned on being able to enjoy the silence tonight. After the shit day I’ve had, I’d really, really needed a quiet night.”
“Yeah, well, I’m not exactly enjoying your company, either.”
My friend was in her garden.
Colleen spent a lot of evenings there, and even more nights, especially since Mandy’s death.
Once upon a time, she’d tried to pretend to live a nice, mortal life, but after her daughter had passed away, Colleen Antrim had given up that pretense. Mortal medicine hadn’t saved her kid. Witchery wouldn’t have saved the girl, either, but at least witchery wouldn’t have made the suffering worse.
Mortal medicine had.
The poor girl had lost so much weight, her hair, her strength…everything. All because they kept holding out hope.
In the end, leukemia had gotten her anyway.
Colleen didn’t bother coming out to greet me and I wasn’t surprised.
I’d tried to convince the asshole bodyguard to wait in the car, but he didn’t. He was polishing up the fourth order of fries and standing three feet away as I lowered myself to sit in the dirt next to Colleen.
“Hi, sweetheart,” she said absently, stripping away the dead leaves from a plant I couldn’t name. I knew my way around herbs and such, but Colleen liked the really exotic ones. I thought maybe this one was some sort of poppy. I couldn’t be sure, but the leaves looked right.
“Hi, Leenie.”
She frowned at the sound of my voice. I reached over at touched her hand, focusing hard. Witches were as different from one to another as shifters were. Different abilities, different gifts. Colleen had a gift for healing and empathy—it had made it that much harder on her when she hadn’t been able to heal her daughter. She caught the intensity of my thoughts, though, thank God, and didn’t speak out loud.
What is wrong with your throat, Kitasa?
Her question came more in images and feelings than actual words, but I picked it up well enough.
Don’t ask right now. But can you help?
She went to reach up and I caught her wrist, shaking my head.
Sighing, she just stared into my eyes. There is a lot of damage. A lot of swelling. The bruising is just the beginning. I’m surprised you can talk. How is your breathing?
I shrugged. Hurts to swallow. Hurts to talk. Haven’t eaten a damn thing and it’s making me cranky.
A husky laugh escaped her. “Imagine that. Come along.”
As we walked by Damon, she gave him an ugly look.
He snarled at her only to have the sound trapped in his throat. Literally. I felt the prickle of Colleen’s magic and it made something inside me feel all warm and fuzzy.
I smiled. “Damon…this is Colleen Antrim. Of the Green Road Witches. She’s one of their Healers.”
They were one of the strongest witch houses in the country. And even an asshole shapeshifter wasn’t going to fuck with one of their healers.
I swept in front of her, letting myself smile a little.
And it turned into a full-fledged grin a few minutes later when Colleen locked him out of her house. The door alone wouldn’t have kept him out. But the magic did.
As she leaned back against it, the warmth of her wards settled around me and she folded her arms over her chest. “Okay. He can’t hear us now. Talk.”
“Can you fix this first?”
“There.” Her hands fell away and she studied my throat with critical eyes. “It’s the best I can do unless you want a full healing.”
“I can’t.” Shaking my head, I got up and went to the mirror. I swallowed tentatively and sighed in relief. It ached a little, but it was more like the injury was a week old instead of hours. Grimacing, I stared at the mottled line of bruises that lingered. They’d faded to a sickly yellow and green that wasn’t really any more appealing than the blue and black from earlier. “Can’t you do anything about those?”
“Not unless you want a full healing,” she said again.
“No.” A full-healing would drain me and leave me down for a good twenty-four hours. I didn’t know if the crazy cat-bitch would give me twenty-four hours. And…blowing out a sigh, I let myself acknowledge the fact that I wouldn’t take time away from the job. The boy needed help. I needed rest and I’d let myself take it, but I sure as hell wasn’t going go down for a day just because I had a sore throat. After another look at my neck, I explained what had happened and looked up to find her watching me with resignation in her eyes.
“Just what were you thinking, goading a cat-shifter that far?” Colleen asked.
I shrugged and prodded my throat again. Earlier, the flesh had felt hot to touch, inflamed, I guessed, but it was better now. This was definitely better. “I wasn’t trying to. He’s just an asshole.”
“Pity. He’s hotter than hell,” she murmured.
“All the good ones.”
We met each other’s gaze in the mirror and grinned. “The hot ones are either taken, one of the walking dead or not worth messing with.”
He definitely fell into the last category.
Flicking a glance at my watch, I said, “I need to go. He’s been out there fuming almost fifteen minutes now. If I push my luck, he’s probably going to try his hand at breaking your wards.”
“Let him try. He’ll end up hurting more than he can possibly imagine. It will serve him right.” She sniffed.
I shrugged. “Nah. Not worth you having to rebuild them.” I grabbed my things from the couch and stood up. “I…ah…I need a favor. It’s…”
Her eyes went dark.
There wasn’t much that would have me hesitating with Colleen and she knew it.
“What is it, sweetie?”
“The job I’m on. The boy.”
“The runaway.” She inclined her head.
“Yes.”
Her child had run away, too. Her sick child, the one she’d lost.
“Can you ask if anybody has heard anything about him? He’s close to spiking. He’ll probably set off alarms wherever he goes.”
Her face twisted in sympathy. “That’s a dangerous mess there, Kit. Why did they drag you into this? Don’t you know better than to take jobs like this from the cats?”
“Hell, yes. I…” I rubbed my hands over my face. “It was the boy.”
“The boy,” she murmured. “What did they do, show you a picture of him? Sing you a sad song about him?”
“Like a song would bother me.” I plucked a non-existent thread on my vest.
“A picture, then. Damn it, Kit. How do you land yourself in this kind of trouble?”
“Beats the hell out of me,” I muttered.
“Well, it looks like they are already working on that.” She reached up and touched my throat.
Truer words…
We made it to the car before Damon spoke.
I enjoyed the reprieve.
But the second the doors closed, he laid back into me. “You don’t seem to get this…you’re stuck with me, Kit.”
“Nope. Not quite getting it yet, sorry.”
He leaned in, staring at my face, then he cocked his head, studying my throat, craning his head to look at my face. When he went to push my hair back, I smacked his hand awa
y. Surprisingly, he let me.
“Your voice is different.”
“Allergies,” I lied. “Colleen’s a wonder. I didn’t have the tea I usually drink so I came by for a refill and had a cup while we chatted.”
“Liar.”
I didn’t respond.
“You had her heal your throat.”
I tapped my nails on the steering wheel and contemplated the night sky as I started the car.
“Shit. I…” The thick slashes of his brows dropped low over his eyes. “You’re weaker than I thought. You’re not human and…hell. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to do that much damage.”
Years of abuse had taught me how to hide my emotions. I hadn’t had to use it as much in recent years, but I was going to have to brush those skills back up, I suspected. Starting now.
Without responding, I put the car into drive and pulled off.
“How human are you?”
I turned on the radio.
He turned it back off. “I asked you a question, little girl.”
Sighing, I looked over at him. “Where exactly is it in your job description or in that so-called contract that you get to bully me? How much human blood I carry doesn’t affect the job I’ll do.”
He stared at me.
I could feel the weight of it as I sped back toward town.
But when I reached over and turned on the radio, this time, he was quiet.
Ah…finally. Silence.
Chapter Six
There was a time when the town had been called Winter Haven. Full of snowbirds and pretty little houses and condos.
Now it was a hell-hole for some of the wolves and cats and witches who didn’t want to fall in line with the local packs, and who wouldn’t pay the tithe to join the witch houses. The witch houses weren’t a bad thing, per se. They offered protection and the strength of numbers, but you had to live by their rules. Some of us didn’t do rules very well.
Those people often ended up in places like this.
I wouldn’t call it the slums, exactly, because plenty of people here had money.
Deceptions: A Collection Page 20
