by Jody Wallace
“Blackmail.” He set the phone on the counter and rubbed his arms. “What now?”
After spot-cleaning her purse, June turned her attention to herself and her crawling skin. “We get out of these disgusting clothes.”
Harry quirked an eyebrow. “I took pictures too soon.”
“I’m going to barf again if I can’t get this off me.” No time for modesty. Or photographs. “If you touch that phone, I will hex you.”
“Can you do that?”
“Totally.” She peeled the flannel pants off her legs with a gross, sucking noise. Sludge had worked inside the pants at the waist and up to her knees, but her thighs were startlingly white. Then she tried unbuttoning her top. Her fingers were too chilled.
“Let me.” Harry’s toasty body closed in, and he released the buttons. Shifters did run hot. Their temperature hovered two degrees higher than a human’s, but witches, like young shifters, had more humanlike vitals.
“Thanks.” She shrugged her filthy shirt onto the floor and studied her torso. Not much of her had escaped the muck. Goddess, this was disgusting.
To his credit, Harry didn’t get fresh though she had on nothing but panties. The muck probably had as much to do with it as anything.
June turned back to the sink and uncapped a gallon of water, her back to him. She shivered and then had a good scratch. “There are spare clothes in the cellar. Would you get me something warm?”
“Just a sec.” Harry removed his boots and jeans. The denim had protected his legs more than her pajamas had protected hers. His boxers were clean. He twisted the knob on the door and peered into the root cellar. “I can’t believe I never noticed this door.”
“It’s not as soundproof out there,” she whispered. “Don’t let the door latch behind you, and don’t turn on the light.”
“Gotcha.”
While he rummaged in the root cellar, June sloshed muck off her arms and hands. The water was room temperature. Gradually she began to thaw. She scrubbed her hands with an old towel, wishing she had hot water, lots of soap, five gallons of antibacterial gel, a nail file, a pumice stone and an hour to spare. She couldn’t allow any trace of sludge to pollute her spell. That would foul things up mightily.
Harry reappeared with a bundle of clothes.
“You got more water?” He reached for one of her towels.
“You can have my last gallon. The room drains in the corner.” It would trickle back into the field line they’d just crawled through.
“On second thought, I could just pop into wolf form. Dirt won’t stick.”
“Better not. I don’t know if the spell is strong enough for that with Pete in the house.”
As quickly as possible, they dirtied her rag towels and emptied the water. The more sludge she wiped, the more she realized she was practically naked in the same room as Harry. June kept her back to him and focused on the grungy rags. Her ministrations worsened the briar scratches on her hands, but the slow ooze of blood would cleanse them. She used most of her water on her hands and face. The rest of her would have to wait.
At last she was satisfied her hands wouldn’t sully the spell. After slipping into her clothes, she turned to Harry, who looked particularly fetching in yellow sweatpants. For her, he’d unearthed red shorts and a wool sweater that had always had an odd lanolin smell. She welcomed the warmth, if not the odor.
As she shoved her crusty hair out of her face, June said, “Can you guard the trapdoor while I cast the protection spell?”
“Sure.” Harry held the door for her, his voice muted. “Are you going to dance around and light fires and stuff?”
“Hardly.” Magic began as a neutral energy within the self. It gained purpose depending on how it was used. Or, more specifically, what organic ingredients it funneled through. The occasional mineral like talc functioned as an inert base. During a spell, a substance’s natural properties were multiplied and transformed by the magic.
Protection spells involved forcing magic through preselected components and into boundary markers. Her markers were boxes of soapstone filled with herbs, scattered around her property in a precise circumference, with an internal set in the safe room walls. When cast properly, the magic shot into the components and out the other side infused with intent. The spell happened. A werewolf was calmed; a cut healed; her home space sheltered.
Magic, in fact, was about as showy as making potpourri.
When the door to the safe room closed, June allowed herself a deep, restorative breath. The low light in the cellar shouldn’t give them away to anyone above. She and Harry were going to get through this without her losing her magic, without him becoming a packer. Hopefully without the coven insisting he needed a memory adjustment.
Because, did she want him to forget? Perhaps it was time to retire Sandie and begin her second pass-through as Sandie’s granddaughter, June. Like hope, the familiar scents of old clothes, pickles, herbs and dusty potatoes overpowered the odor of the sludge.
Could this possibly work between her and Harry? Could they be together after this?
“Harry,” she began, but he shushed her.
He pointed at the trapdoor, the ladder to the upstairs folded against the ceiling.
A few thunks sounded above them. People in her stillroom? She’d left it in a mess.
Well, criminy. She hoped the police investigation didn’t cost her too much money replacing components. Or hiring a lawyer.
June blocked the vision of the police dumping her costly Spanish saffron, trying to figure out if it was an illegal substance. She settled into the room’s center and dug through her purse until she located her travel mortar and pestle. Cayenne from yesterday powdered the surface. Careful not to touch the specks, she cleaned the tools with a wet wipe. No telling how cayenne and poppy would alter her protection spell.
Satisfied it was sterile, she wiped her hands. To the mortar she added premeasured packets of chicory, salvia, bay, thistle and caraway, then sprinkled in black tea leaves so the police would experience a sudden desire to be elsewhere. All this she pulverized before meditating on her power reserves. Pieces of hair tickled her neck and face, courtesy of the sludge. Her nose itched. Twitched. The briar pricks on her hands stung.
Through it all, Harry watched her, his whiskey-brown eyes trained on her every move.
This wasn’t working. Thoughts of what she and Harry might do once they were alone—and clean—kept intruding. She could shelve the image of the cops costing her hundreds of dollars in saffron, but not the one of Harry kneeling between her legs.
“Stop watching me,” she whispered. “I can’t concentrate.”
He raised a finger to his lips.
She shut her eyes and imagined Harry. Naked. Looming over her and…
A much louder thunk rattled the trapdoor.
A muffled voice said, “Does Miss Sandie have a cellar? I think it’s hollow under here.”
The stomps of the policeman thundered through the cellar. “Definitely hollow. Where do you reckon the door is?”
Her heart racing, June poured the spell components into her hand. Powder escaped her fingers; she caught it in her other hand. Leaning so close to her doubled fists that her sludge-stiffened hair tumbled over them, she tightened her inner self…
And released.
It was like taking a deep breath to blow out a candle on the other side of the room. Magic rushed out of her. She reeled. Wow, either she was more drained than she’d realized or adding the black tea was going to make the policemen really quick-step out of here.
Footsteps trotted away from the trapdoor and faded, exiting the house. Another set followed. Another.
June straightened, dizzy, and shook her head to clear it. Dried sludge speckled her hands, falling from her hair like the world’s most disgusting dandruff. Her reserves seemed to be empty again—three depletions in less than twenty-four hours.
“They’re gone.” Harry watched her with intense speculation. “You did that?”
“Cool.” He scratched his arms. “Can I shift?”
“Now? You’ll be stuck in the cellar.” She’d never seen Harry up close as a wolf, only flashes in passing. He wasn’t gigantic—more fleet and rangy, with long legs, lots of creamy white on his underside.
“I can shift back and forth.” He indicated his side, where sludge fouled the reddened wound. “This hurts, and I’ve got a wicked headache.”
The injury marred his muscular torso. She’d seen more of Harry’s body in the past several hours than she had in eight years as Sandie. A definite perk. “Wait until we’re sure they aren’t coming back.”
They lingered five minutes, ten. Harry held his head cocked to the side, as if it helped him hear better. Her knees and behind began to ache on the hard concrete. It seemed the spell had worked.
“Anyone up there?” she asked.
“We’re clear.”
She rose, depositing the inert components in the wastebasket before dusting her hands. “Then I guess we can…”
Before she finished her sentence, Harry had lowered the ladder and disappeared upstairs in a flash of buttercup fleece.
Chapter Twelve
Harry shifted as soon as he got upstairs. The pain relief was instantaneous. Not only did it negate his wounds but his wolf form improved his energy and mood, like yoga or meditation. Cleansed and whole, he rolled blissfully on June’s rug in the den before prowling through the house.
With his wolf side engaged, he could trace the paths of humans and shifters here. He detected traces of Gavin and Maurice, the policemen. Pete’s marker was strongest in the stillroom and near the trapdoor, as if he’d been guarding June’s secrets. Good man.
Gavin had intruded into her bathroom, stillroom, kitchen. He’d been in her bedroom. Her underwear drawer was open.
Harry growled. Bad man.
His claws clicked on the kitchen tile as he stared out a window. The shifters had exited through this door. The police had too, at some point. Would the protection spell allow him to leave the house to inspect the property?
“Harry?” June’s voice drifted through the house. “Where are you?”
He padded down the hall until he found her, his snout wrinkling at the sludge still clinging to her. She was inspecting the garbage bags taped over her broken window, her purse slung over one shoulder. As far as he could see, nearly all the glass had been swept up. Her couch had a few glistening slivers and a tear on the headrest. A stone garden gnome with an evil expression lay on the coffee table, possibly the item that had broken the glass.
He gruffed out a small bark to let June know he was there.
She turned. When her gaze dropped to him, her face lit up. “There you are.”
He bumped his nose against her thigh, where her skin was cleaner. In wolf form, he retained memories and thoughts, as well as personality, though he was less able to resist primitive urges. Or communicate with two-legs. Or twist doorknobs.
Cautiously at first, June stroked his head and ears. His eyes closed halfway as he enjoyed her caress.
“Did you smell anything weird?” she asked, scratching his ruff.
Her stillroom and her house were filled with a myriad of scents. Even so, the weirdest thing he could smell was her. What was that crap in the escape tunnel, radioactive waste?
Harry bumped her toward the door of the living room with his head. He might be able to cleanse himself when he transformed, but nothing beat a good, hot shower—except for a good, hot shower with a woman in it.
When she didn’t budge, he brushed against her, wagging his tail. He hoped he wasn’t out of line assuming June would share suds with him. They were inside the house, safe and sound, and she hadn’t exactly been giving him the cold shoulder.
“What is it, boy?” she asked. “Did little Timmy fall down a well?”
Harry bonked her with his head again. Shifters were the size of regular wolves, though some were larger. He outweighed June by twenty pounds.
She fondled his ears. “As much as I appreciate you letting me see your better half, this would be a lot easier if you’d shift back.”
It might drain his abilities, but she had a point. He trotted into the hallway for a little privacy, rested on his haunches and allowed the tingle to fill his body.
Natural process—or magic?
Just like cowardice, it didn’t matter as long as it worked.
The tingling continued longer than usual as his lowered energy levels responded sluggishly. When he came out the other side, he was disturbed to realize he was nude.
Not because June was admiring him as if someone had given her a present. That part was good. He hadn’t lost his clothing between forms in years.
“Weren’t you dressed when you went upstairs?”
“Yeah.” Before he’d learned to relocate his possessions, he’d undressed first or squirmed out of his clothing post-shift. Good Lord. What had happened to the sweats?
“Does this mean I’m never getting my fat pants back?” June quipped, her eyes trained on his face. “Good thing I already lost my winter weight.”
“I don’t know.” He assessed his physical state. Were her trousers embedded somewhere in his DNA? “That was unexpected.”
“You’re tired.” She ducked into her bedroom and returned without her bag. “It’s okay.”
He’d worry about it later. Harry grabbed her hand and pulled her toward the bathroom. “I’m not that tired. Let’s take a shower.”
June followed him until they neared the bathroom door, where she balked. She inspected the rest of his body, lingering where he’d been wounded. He might have disappeared her fat pants, but at least he’d been able to heal himself.
“You’re already clean,” she said.
“You’re not.”
She chuckled. “This is true.”
“We’re housebound until you can cloak us or the Caddy, right? The pack can’t sense us, and anyone looking for us will think the house is empty.”
“The coven won’t be fooled as easily as the shifters. They’ll know about the 9-1-1 call.”
“Pete searched the house.” Harry snagged two towels out of the linen closet in the hallway. “He won’t come back that quickly. We have time for a shower.”
She crossed her arms, and her gaze cut to the half-open bathroom door, clearly tempted. “How can you be sure?”
She must be longing to bathe, as finicky about hygiene as she was. Why wasn’t she already scouring herself? He could help her scrub those hard-to-reach spots. “Because the police went to search the tea room. Won’t he stay with them?”
“It’s not open yet,” she said. “Well, no matter. He will be with them if they’re going there.”
“If anybody else shows up, we have the option of leaving the way we came in.” The door to June’s safe room was completely concealed by the wooden panels on the walls. He’d constructed the shelves down there and hadn’t even noticed.
“Ugh.”
“Don’t you want to wash the mud off?” he coaxed, careful not to exert his alpha now that he knew it affected her. His native charm and good looks would have to suffice. “I bet it’s flaking off on your carpet.”
“That’s horrible.” She eyed the floor around her feet. “But—”
“We’re here. We’re alone. We might as well get clean.”
And do a few other things. Even in a manky sweater and baggy shorts, surrounded by a miasma of muck, June turned him on. When his cock hardened, there was no hiding how he felt about the idea of getting naked with her.
Harry lowered the towels over his hard-on anyway. It seemed like the polite thing to do. Her cheeks pinkened, proving she wasn’t as unaffected as she was pretending to be.
“We can’t get too distracted.” She blushed more. They both knew what she meant by distracted.
“You’re wasting time arguing.” He couldn�
�t tell if her reluctance stemmed from shyness, the tense situation or fear she might wolf out.
She followed him into the yellow-and-white bathroom. Her tub and fixtures were new, but water usage caused a terrible banging in the pipes.
“It will conserve water if we shower together,” he said. June didn’t have the biggest hot water heater on the block.
“You go ahead, I—”
He grabbed her before she could exit. The towels dropped to the floor. A cold shower was not on their agenda. Not physically, not figuratively. But if she insisted… “Is something wrong? Are you not interested?”
“I’m interested.” She focused on his chin. “We just need to stay alert.”
“There’s nothing like a shower first thing in the morning to wake you up.” Harry shut the door behind her. “How hot do you like it?”
Her eyelashes fluttered down before she averted her face. “How hot?”
“The water.” He had a good idea how hot she liked the sex. God, he couldn’t wait to slide between those creamy thighs. His cock ached and she hadn’t so much as touched him. “Why don’t you adjust the temperature to your liking?”
June sidled past him, careful not to brush his body. She leaned over to twist the faucets, her shorts riding up her thighs. The muck coating her pale legs like grunge knee socks should have been a turnoff, but Harry’s hard-on seemed here to stay.
For the time being. He planned to rectify the situation after he sanitized his lady in a hot shower.
Water gushed. The pipes clonked. June cranked the shower and drew the curtain. Without asking permission, he slid her sweater over her head. The air puckered the tips of her breasts before she crossed her arms. But she stepped obediently out of her shorts and panties when he drew them down her hips, allowing him to appreciate her rounded curves along the way.
Once they were under the steaming shower, she loosened up. She was right about one thing—he was clean already, so he could concentrate on washing her. He sudsed her hair and scrubbed her back with one of those fluffy mesh things chicks always had in their bathrooms. He kneeled in front of her and worked on her legs, ankles and toes. When he rose, their wet bodies slid together. The glide of his cock across her stomach was excruciating.
