by Faith Hunter
I wanted to say I was sorry, but that might have been offensive as well as disingenuous. I had a similar relationship with the vamps. I killed them when they got out of line, much like the grindy did the weres. Of course I didn’t lick Leo’s hand afterward. The thought’s accompanying mental picture made me grin, which I hid behind the Coke as I drank. My sense of humor was gonna get me killed one day. “How is he?” I asked from behind the can, changing the subject.
Kem raised his head at that one, his black eyes wide, showing above the hammock edge, trying to focus in my direction. His face was darker in the shadows beneath the trees, but his eyes were vibrant. “He is alive. He is unchanged. He is frightened about the full moon, which comes again soon. He is lonely. As lonely as I am.”
The he is lonely was directed at me for not coming to visit. Asheville is only sixty miles from Hartford. A nice ride. One I hadn’t made, even though I’d brought Kem and Rick here in the first place. I’d hoped the black were-leopard could ease Rick through his first shift, teach him something about being a were-cat. The International Association of Weres had agreed, and insisted Kem help the newbie. For a lot of really good reasons, Kem had been less than enthusiastic. “Still no shift?”
“He will not try again until the full moon. His pain is too great.”
That got me. I’d seen Rick try to shift on his first full moon. It had been agonizing. Like watching a man try to turn himself inside out. “So where is he?”
“He likes to fish.”
I smiled at that one and stood. I rinsed the can and crushed it, tucking it in the sealed, bear-resistant recycle basket. “Tell him I said hi.” I turned and stopped. Dead. As still as a vamp.
“Tell him yourself,” Rick growled.
My breath caught. Kem chuckled. He’d seen Rick approach behind me, quiet as a cat. Rick was unshaven and shirtless, his jeans hanging low on his hips, chest hair sparse and straight and forming a line pointing into the top of the jeans. His black hair had grown, the ends curling at his nape and over his ears. His eyes were shadowed, black as night, steely, pinning me to the path. His torso and shoulders were a mass of scars from big-cats and werewolves, the scarring ripping through his tattoos, nearly obscuring the bobcat and the mountain lion. Except for the cats’ golden-amber eyes and the blood on their claws. There was something about that naked chest and the scars that begged to be touched. I curled my fingers under. Rick’s eyes dropped to them, then back up in a leisurely perusal that made me acutely aware of myself. My breath hitched slightly, and I tightened all over, warming from a lot more than the heat. Boyfriend? Oh my.
Rick LaFleur was a pretty-boy when wearing city clothes. Half-naked, in the wooded site, ungroomed and feral-looking, he was gorgeous. He smiled then, exposing white teeth, one bottom tooth slightly crooked, and I realized I’d said part of that aloud. Crap.
“I’ve missed you too,” he said, amused. He moved past me, and only then did I catch the smell of fresh fish. Even the breeze had been hiding the man. He carried a bait bucket, two rods, a tackle box, and a string of fish. They looked like smallmouth bass, about eleven to sixteen inches long. One still flapped. Rick stowed his gear away and carried a long curved knife and the fish to a board set up between two trees; there were traces of blood on the wood, and part of the dead-fish smell I had attributed to the grindy actually came from the fish-cleaning station.
Movements economical, almost graceful, Rick hung the fish chain from a nail and slid the hook from the gills of the top fish. It moved weakly when he sliced through below the gills and cut off its head. I wondered if Rick thought I’d run at the sight of the casual cruelty, but Beast sometimes ate her food still kicking. I figured she could outdo him in the gross-factor if I wanted. Of course, Rick didn’t know about Beast. Rick didn’t know a lot of things. I hadn’t found a way to tell him most of them. Others were complicated.
Okay. I was lying. I was a coward, that’s why Rick didn’t know a lot of things.
The knife moving with swift, sure strokes, he scaled the fish, the iridescent scales flying everywhere. I thought fishermen scaled fish before they beheaded them, but I wasn’t a fisherman trying to gross out an old girlfriend.
“Beer,” Kem said from behind me. Rick stopped, wiped his hands on a towel hanging in the tree, and walked to the cooler. He took out a beer, opened the top and handed it to Kem without meeting his eyes. It was the action of a submissive animal to an aggressive alpha. Beast hissed quietly inside, the hair of her pelt rising, stiff, the phantom reaction tight inside my skin.
Wordless, Rick returned to the fish. I narrowed my eyes, putting things together. I walked to the hammock, placing my feet without care, so that Kem would know I was coming, if he wasn’t too drunk to notice. I stood over the hammock, seeing his body, lithe and fit, wearing baggy shorts and a sheen of sweat. He smelled of bug spray and old beer. He was watching me with savage glee on his face. Expectant. Eager. “You want a fight, don’t you. Fine.”
Drawing on Beast-speed, faster than he could see, faster than he could react, I flipped the hammock. Rode him down to the ground. He landed on his stomach. Face in the dirt. My knee in his back, pressing him down. I grabbed his short hair and yanked back. Bowing his spine, arching his neck. Shoved the stake I had found under his chin. The hammock spun and settled. The sound of fish scales flying stopped. The beer bottle landed, spilling in a froth. Everything stopped.
“I am your alpha,” I said. “Listen. Or I’ll make you my dead beta.” Kem growled softly, but after a long moment, relaxed into submission under my hands. “Two of the werewolves I fought in New Orleans got away because they were in jail when I helped kill the rest of the pack. A big guy and a little scrawny guy. They followed me here, looking for the same thing you want. A fight. To get my attention, they attacked and tried to turn a young woman and her boyfriend last night. They left this silver-tipped stake, my silver-tipped stake, for me to find.
“Your grindy knows about them and is hunting them. I’m hunting them. When I call you, you will get off your drunken ass, get sober, and hunt them too.” I dropped his head. His face bounced on the ground. I stood and walked away. I caught a glimpse of Rick’s face as I did. He was smiling slightly. His eyes were too warm to be remembering me making Kemnebi my beta, so maybe Rick was remembering the first time I took him down. It was our first date, walking along the Mississippi waterfront after a good meal—a great meal—in a New Orleans dive. Rick said something, I don’t remember what, and it ticked me off. I dropped him, but he’d been face up for it. I tilted my head on the way past, letting a half smile touch my lips.
“You fight dirty,” he murmured. “Like you do everything.”
I stopped. He was talking about sex. My face heated. He leaned across the fish-cleaning board, blood and fish and fish heads between us, and breathed in, his nose only inches from my neck. Beast reared up and took me over, faster than I could think. She sniffed, pressing her face, my face, into the soft tissue of his throat. His scent filled my nose, my head, and reached right into the center of me. I/we rubbed my jaw along his, his bristles far softer than they looked.
Pelt, Beast thought. Good mate. Mine.
I wrenched away. Moments later I was down the path and keying on Fang. And sooo outta there. Tears would have made the narrow road hard to follow, but I wasn’t crying. I was mad. And not sure why. Halfway down the park road, my cell vibrated in my pocket. I pulled onto the narrow shoulder and flipped it open, looked at the display. It was Rick’s number, his picture in the small screen. I heaved a breath that hurt my throat. “Yeah?”
“The grindy smells weird,” Rick said, “and he’s not hanging around much.”
“Maybe the grindylow is tired of Kemnebi’s drunken anger.”
Rick laughed softly. “The grindy and I would agree on that one.”
I thought about how I might get the little green-golem-Yoda to partner with me. Beast rumbled, Would taste like dead fish. Good eating. Big meal for winter food. I pushed her away
as Rick spoke again.
“Kem says he smelled wolf last night. He’ll hunt with you when you call.” His voice dropped an octave, soft as the pelt on a big-cat’s stomach, “So will I.” I laughed, the sound hoarse in my aching throat. “I’ve been given the rest of the day off,” he said. “Wanna do lunch?”
“Yeah,” I said. “Not raw fish.”
“Wait for me at the crossroads. I’ll be there in fifteen.”
CHAPTER FOUR
If the Vamp-Poo Became Airborne
We stopped for a late lunch at a little mom-and-pop store that sold local produce, local honey, jellies and jams, chutney, molasses, homemade breads, used books, and local arts and crafts: leather belts, handbags, handmade quilts. They also had a lunch bar and sold the best egg salad sandwiches I’d ever tasted. Between us we ate six sandwiches, out under the shade tree, sitting silently at a heavy cement table on hard, cool benches. The view between the trees, straight down the mountain, into the gorge, was entertainment.
In the middle of a bite, I noticed Rick’s new key chain and lifted it, letting one corner of my lips curl up as I swallowed. He mirrored the expression and added a little shrug, laughter in his eyes. The old key chain to his red crotch-rocket Kawasaki hadn’t been seen since he was captured and tortured in a hotel room in New Orleans. The new one was a growling, enameled, black leopard on a silver base. Were-humor. Beast hacked with amusement. I pulled out my own and set them together, my Leo key chain with the female African lion and a stylized sun at one paw, next to his black leopard. I left them there, side by side, wondering if now was the time for the Big Talk.
I finished off a chocolate Yoo-Hoo with the last sandwich and ate a banana MoonPie for dessert. They were food I remembered from my youth and brought back memories I didn’t have time to think about just now. Not with Rick suddenly turning his attention from the view to me.
“We gonna talk?” he asked. Yep. Time. His voice was smooth, calm, not at all accusatory. Even pleasant. There was no reason for me to cringe inside, but I did. “Talking’s overrated,” he added, searching my face, “but there’re things between us that need to be said.”
I crumpled up the papers and carried them to the garbage can, knowing I was dithering and not knowing how to stop.
“Jane.”
I halted with my back to him. Not seeing the view. Not seeing anything. My eyes filling with unwanted, stupid tears. There was so much gentleness in the sound of my name on his lips.
“I cheated on you with the were-bitch.”
My shoulders tensed. I raised a hand and brushed away the tears. I took a breath that shuddered through me. But I didn’t turn around, keeping my back to him. Coward.
“You and me, we weren’t . . . going steady, or whatever. And I didn’t have any choice in the matter, once I was infected with the were-taint, but I cheated on you. I knew it even when I was sick. I was used to talking my way into women’s good graces and beds for information. It was easy; always had been. And I paid the price for it. I lost my humanity—”
“Maybe,” I interrupted.
“Maybe,” he conceded. “Probably, if the pain of the last full moon was an indication. But I also lost you. And that’s the part I can’t stop thinking about. I cheated on you, and yet you came and got me out. You saved my life.”
“Maybe,” I said again.
He chuckled, the tone mocking, and I hitched a shoulder. The were-bitch’s dead body had been crumpled at Rick’s feet when I found him. If the werewolves had found her, they’d have killed him without a second thought, holding him responsible. I found her, and Rick, first.
“But you don’t have the wolf-taint. You’re infected with black were-leopard,” I said. And that was the sticking point. The were-bitch had raped him. I knew that from the smell on the mattress in the hotel room where he had been tortured. But Safia had—
“I was infected, but not by sex. We didn’t—” He stopped. “It never went that far. Safia bit me.”
I blinked, letting my eyes go unfocused, putting the timeline together. It fit. It was possible. My mouth opened slightly. I inhaled, feeling the air move through me. Tension, anger, jealousy, and something even more primitive, lifted off me, as if a rotting, uncured pelt had been resting on my shoulders, and had then fallen away. Deep inside, my Beast began to purr. She smelled the truth of his words. “Rape isn’t cheating,” I whispered. “And were-taint makes humans crave sex.” I turned and met his eyes. “Not your fault. Not your guilt.”
He shrugged, clearly holding himself responsible still. “Your turn,” he said.
I came back to the table, and sat on the edge of the hard, concrete seat. I was as far from him as I could get and still be at the table. “What do you want to know?” I hedged.
He laughed, the sound free and easy. He looked so good sitting there, the black T-shirt accenting his olive skin, the tips of the cat-claw tats and scars peeking beneath the sleeve of one bicep, the white and jagged scars marring the flesh on his other arm. He bent up a knee and clasped his hands around it. “I’ll likely turn furry eventually, into a black were-leopard, maybe one with a wolf tail or wolf ears. I’m not human. Neither are you. What are you? Start there.”
I opened my mouth. Closed it when nothing came out. Opened it again. Blinked slowly. The Big Talk. “Uhhh . . .” Rick chuckled again. I smiled and shook my head, looking away from him to the view. It wasn’t often that I said the words aloud. I took a breath and said, experimentally, “What do I smell like?”
Rick shook his head. “I knew you weren’t gonna be easy, not you.” When I didn’t reply, he said, “I haven’t turned yet. My sense of smell is heightened but not what it will be. Maybe,” he said, beating me to the equivocation. “But you smell like big-cat. Mostly. Like Kem, but not like him. Like a bird. And like a dog. Just a whiff. But mostly like big-cat. You’re not a were.”
“No,” I said. My mouth went dry. “I need something to drink.” Before he replied, I was up and inside, my head in the drink cooler. I stayed there too long, cooling off, but eventually, the sales lady called out to me. I made my purchases and came back out with two colas. I put his on the table and opened mine. Drank half of it and still felt dry-mouthed. I took a breath and blew it out. “I’m a”—the words were raspy, and I had to stop in the middle and take a breath—“a skinwalker.”
Rick nodded, sitting there, looking calmly at me. “Did you try to turn me,” he asked, “when we had sex?” There was no accusation in the words, just honest questioning.
I thought about being offended, but I had sex with him without telling him anything about me, which was a form of lying. I’d lied once so I might lie again, right? “I can’t turn anyone. I was born this way.”
“Okay. I’ll buy that. Black magic practitioner?”
“No!” I stood fast. Inside, however, Beast hacked with derision. Stole my body. Stole my soul. Jane is killer. Worked black magic. I forced her down, and myself back to the seat. I put my hands on the table, fingers splayed, staring at them instead of the man I had lied to. And who had lied to me. Things were so screwed up.
“My kind were the protectors and the warrior leaders of the Cherokee for a thousand years, until the white man came. The word Cherokee once meant people of the caves, or people who came from out of the ground. Something like that. They were cave dwellers; skinwalkers kept them safe. Then the early Spanish came, and, I think, brought some contagion, maybe. My kind started to die out. Started to turn to the dark arts. But we don’t have to do evil. I don’t have to.” Beast didn’t respond to my claim this time; she was too tightly focused on Rick.
“Can you shift into any animal? Tiger, sparrow, catfish?” He hesitated. “Mountain lion?”
“I need bones or skin to change. I use DNA to adopt the shape I want. I can’t change mass very well. It’s dangerous. So I stay with animals of my mass most of the time.” He wasn’t looking at me like I was an escapee from a supernat zoo. That did happy weird things to my insides, and I clenched my
hands into fists before relaxing them again. “I’ve never tried water animals. Only land mammals. Rarely birds. We were protectors so predators are easier.”
I stopped. He’d asked about mountain lions. Though he’d been on the brink of death, Rick had seen me in my Beast-form once, the first time I’d saved his life; I’d made a habit of that lately, in between occasions of leaving him in danger. I knew what he was asking.
I drained the rest of my drink. “I usually choose mountain lion. And yes, that was me you saw when the sabertooth attacked you.” I’d been at a larger mass than my own, thanks to a glitch in the shifting process. That was what I was calling it, a glitch. Not a Beast-took-control-and-forced-a-mass-change-to-the-top-of-the-genetic-range-situation, which was
closer to the truth.
Rick nodded, which I saw in my peripheral vision. I risked a direct look at him. His eyes were steady, calm, nonreactionary. “Have you been in counseling or something?” I blurted.
He laughed and said, “No. Not unless you count Kemnebi’s drunken ramblings. Not since I woke up sick, in pain, and bleeding, with the Mercy Blade. Gee DiMercy talks a lot, and I was too sick to push him out of the room, so I listened.” He waved that away, wry, self-deprecating. “But I’ve had time to do a lot of thinking.” He bent over the table and rested his weight on his elbows, chin in hand, holding my gaze. “Time to get over the anger. Time to remember. So that was you.”
