by Holley Trent
Grasping Willa’s hand to shake, Noelle narrowed her eyes. “Hmm? What am I? I don’t follow.”
Her eyes used to get a shade darker when she told little white lies.
Tamatsu strolled over, hunched, and peered into her face. Less blue. More gray.
Fib.
She blinked. “What are you doing?” she whispered.
Seeing who you are now, woman.
He retreated to the table, watching her watch him. He liked her being a little off-kilter. If he was going to be, he wanted her to be, too.
Willa sighed. “Jeez. No one can ever tell I’m not human. I guess that’s not always such a bad thing. I’m a demigoddess.”
A 'huh,’ sound fell out of Noelle’s open mouth.
“Nothing? Can’t sense anything at all? I can tell something’s off about you, that’s why I ask.”
“Sorry.”
Willa shrugged and then poked Tamatsu’s shoulder. “And that is why I can’t run the pack.”
Tarik chuckled. “Noelle, this is Willa. She’s the Coyote pack’s reluctant patron.”
“Huh,” Noelle repeated. “Well, then. I’m an elf. And … I might know a guy.”
Willa’s eyes went wide. “Yeah? You think that guy knows a guy or a gal who’d like to adopt some dogs? I don’t mind telling you this, lady, but we’re kinda screwed up.”
Noelle cringed. “That’s not good. I’ll call him as soon as I get back to Vegas.”
“Really?”
“Sure. Why not?”
“Seems like a hell of a favor to do for a stranger.”
“Hardly. We’re talking about a phone call, dear.”
“You know how things go in our world. People never let you forget a favor until it’s been repaid. Even after it’s been, they want to lord what they did over you because the fact you had a moment of weakness makes them feel more powerful.”
“I assure you, I’m not that petty.”
Tamatsu looked pointedly at Noelle.
“I stand by my statement. If you want to argue, let’s do that in private. Make sure you have plenty of ink and lots of pieces of paper to ball up and toss at me. We could probably go all night.” She winked provocatively and twirled a pen between her fingers. “Just like we used to.”
Impudent wretch.
That wink had been the opening salvo to many sensually erotic nights. The woman had no inhibitions.
But then, neither did he.
His balls gave a most unwelcome “hello” throb and, fortunately, she looked away before he could figure out how to discreetly adjust himself.
“Well, I’d appreciate any help.” Willa gestured to the house and, ostensibly, to the contents within. “I’ve been searching for any information I could find about the pack network, but there’s nothing here. Maybe the old alpha didn’t keep records.”
Tamatsu tapped the table in front of her shoulder and shook his head. He made a slashing gesture.
“What? You don’t think he wanted the pack in the network?”
He nodded.
“Hey. You could be right. I think in the past five years, the only contact the pack has had has been with groups the transplants have come from, and that’s only been two. We don’t have formal relationships with anyone. I’m not sure that’s normal.”
“It’s not,” Noelle said. “In my experience, unless a pack is intentionally trying to isolate itself, every member has some awareness of who the closest neighboring packs are. At the very least, they know which group to call during a pack emergency.”
Willa shook her head slowly in fits and starts as if she were hearing the information for the first time, and the words weren’t settling into the right gaps in her brain. “Apparently, you know more about shapeshifter group management than I do.”
“Live as long as I have, and you pick up a few things.”
“And maybe I have. I’m not gonna ask you your age to confirm either way, though.”
“I appreciate you not doing so.” Noelle grinned. “I don’t need any reminders.”
Willa sighed and turned to Tamatsu and Tarik. “Well. I guess you guys can call it quits for today. Let’s not waste energy looking for something if Noelle can get us the same information by making a couple of phone calls.” She retreated to the end of the table and peered into one of the bags. “You staying for dinner, Noelle?”
Noelle’s lips twitched. “Dinner?” she asked. “I don’t know. Should I?”
Tamatsu wasn’t quite sure what to make of the fancy Noelle yet. He shouldn’t have cared one way or another that the thief had discovered high heels and red lipstick. Unfortunately, his cock reminded him that his morals didn’t have a say in the matter. The fact she was a blackguard didn’t make her any less tempting. If anything, she was more bewitching.
He was truly fucked up.
“You see, I had a coupon,” Willa said, cringing. “Lot of food in here. The angel with the appetite can probably put most of it away, but there’s still going to be some left for those of us with normal-sized stomachs.”
“Mmm. Yes, well. He’s …” Noelle studied her nails and muttered, “always been good at eating.”
So she remembers.
She dropped her hand and shrugged. “Sure. Why not? I haven’t had a meal in a day.” Noelle set her ruined shoes down near the corner, strode to the bags, and pulled a white parcel with a *4 sticker out of a bag. The number four, unless the deli had rearranged its menu offerings in the past three days, was roast beef on rye. One of his favorites.
She sashayed past the table and extended her arm. At the end of it, gripped in a hand with a ruined manicure and a few scrapes that probably hadn’t been there before her trip to the desert, was the *4.
“Do you eat beef now?”
He stared at the damned thing as if she’d magicked it out of thin air instead of pulling it from the bag.
“Am I remembering that right?” She gave her wrist a tantalizing twist. “Beef wasn’t eaten in Japan when I was with you? I may have … gotten some things confused about that winter.”
She had, but not that. He took the sandwich, wondering.
In the short time they were together, she’d managed to completely rock his world, and he still hadn’t recovered after eight hundred years. He’d probably need another eight thousand to get her out of his system for good.
She retreated to the bag and peered into it, gnawing on her lush bottom lip once more.
He set the sandwich down, his hunger suppressed for the moment by old emotions that hadn’t been banked enough, buried deep enough.
Not anger, but something that left ice in his veins.
Fear.
Nothing else scared him like her.
He didn’t want her out of his system, because if he could manage such a feat, then she could do the same with him. Like hell if he was ever going to let her forget him after the hell she’d put him through.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
“Oh, that’s not fair,” Noelle said, giving Tarik’s shoulder a scolding poke. “I’d venture to guess that there hasn’t ever been a major war that supernatural beings weren’t involved in. That doesn’t make us meddlers. In fact, I’d say the sides were all pretty equally weighted since everyone had the same sorts of creatures fighting on all sides.”
Noelle really needed to get to Lola’s to pack up her things, but one debate kept turning into another. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d had such a rousing discussion with anyone except Jenny. Jenny found the assertive debating wearying. Noelle couldn’t blame her. She was too gentle to talk back and preferred to be on the sidelines of most action, but when Noelle got in certain moods, Jenny sucked it up and tolerated the discussion well enough.
“Maybe so,” Tarik said, creasing the wax paper wrapper of the sandwich he’d half-eaten. “Though I suspect that some sides were weighted more than others. Western Europe has always been a hotbed of fae. The population there would have been extraordinary high in comparison to the beings that populate other p
arts of the globe.”
“Fair point,” Willa said, “but remember World War II. I worked as a nurse with the Allied Forces, and my brother marched with the Axis Powers. I think Noelle is right that it was a wash.”
“Are you still on speaking terms with your brother?”
Willa scoffed. “No. I don’t know if that’s so unusual for long-lived sorts like me, though. I know some demigods who’ve gone centuries without checking in on their families, and for the most part, everyone expects to not hear from each other. Same happened during the Civil War. I wasn’t in the States quite yet, but a couple of my brothers were. One fought for blue, one fought for gray, and every time their battalions engaged, they specifically gunned for each other.”
Noelle cringed.
“Do you communicate with your family still, Noelle?” Tarik asked and then, following a thud beneath the table, jerked himself upright and narrowed his golden eyes at Tamatsu.
Tamatsu sat, calm as he pleased, at Tarik’s right hand. His arms were folded over his chest, his gaze neutral, and there were six sandwich wrappers wadded comically in front of him.
“Apologies if the question was insensitive,” Tarik demurred through clenched teeth. “I forget, often, what having family means. Angels of our sort don’t tend to have them unless they make them.”
Sighing, she put her hands up. “It’s all right,” she said for Tamatsu’s benefit. He didn’t need to protect her from the subject, though she found the fact that he had to be kind.
Olive branch, maybe?
Carefully, she folded the wrapper over the ends of her dill pickle and then slowly rolled the partially eaten log into the paper. “I don’t have any family left.”
“I’m sorry to hear that,” Willa said.
Noelle shrugged. When she’d been in the court, family wasn’t something she discussed, and for the most part, everyone knew not to broach the subject. But then again, everyone back there had known what had happened.
She’d been eighteen or nineteen, hardly a child in those days, and had been working with Clarissa for years in some capacity or other by then.
“I wasn’t the only one,” she said. She pressed the tape over the pickle wrapper’s seam. “Several of us in the court were targeted.”
“Workers for both the king and queen?” Tarik asked.
Noelle snorted. “Hell no. No one touched his wicked bastards. Who would be so reckless?” She looked up at him.
He turned his hands over in concession.
Tamatsu was looking straight ahead at some spot that didn’t quite seem to be at Willa. He’d already heard the story. He’d heard most of her stories, long and short, and she’d known all but the most important ones of his.
Angels didn’t like to talk about why they’d Fallen. She’d never relinquished her curiosity on the matter, but she had stopped asking him to tell her.
Another mistake, probably.
“What would have been the point of attacking Clarissa’s entourage?” Willa asked.
“A weak queen makes a compliant queen,” Noelle said absently. Thinking was difficult with her mate being so near, and yet them being so useless as a pair. They were supposed to complement each other but they were out of sync.
Willa’s mouth shaped a silent 'Oh.’
“I suppose that arrogant fool wasn’t bold enough to attack Clarissa’s family directly. Instead, he tried to cut her down by targeting her support staff. I was the first up. I didn’t have warning. I couldn’t do anything to try to stop them. I was so humiliated. I’d trained with some of those assholes, and they’d walked out of my parents’ home with their swords bloody and didn’t even look my way as they passed. And then I had to live under the same roof as them.” She scoffed. “People accuse me of being vengeful, but believe it or not, I still haven’t given those fools their due. Clarissa stilled my hand on the matter.”
“But that was back then,” Tarik said.
“Yes. That was back then. I don’t know if her opinion would change any now if I were to ask her, though maybe I will. If they’re still alive, I’ll confront them. I’d like to ask them why they wouldn’t have resisted doing such a foul thing to one of their comrades. They may have worked for the king and me for the queen, but was the household of the monarchs really so divided? Shouldn’t we have cooperated?”
“They were cowards,” Tarik said. “They could have and should have said no.”
She smirked and pushed her chair back from the table. “Easy for you to see the higher moral ground, I bet.”
“Surprisingly more difficult than you’d believe, Miss Flint. I’d like to meet whatever mortal started the rumor that my kind is so imperturbable and so impossible to sully.”
“Mmm. Sully.” The word left a sour taste in her mouth. “Sully” was a word she’d been friends with hundreds of years ago. Every time she’d touched Tamatsu, she’d worried she was committing some grave sin, but she’d never been able to work up enough guilt to stop touching him. She’d never wanted to stop, even after …
She drew in a breath and passed a hand through her hair. There’d been a wide mirror mounted on the living room wall, but she’d avoided glancing at her reflection on her way in, suspecting she looked a fright. Back when she’d been “on duty,” she hadn’t been able to care less about her appearance, and that was by design. Why would anyone want to look at her when they could look at Clarissa instead? Eyes always traveled to the queen, no matter what Clarissa did to hide or what she wore. The same would probably hold true with the woman in her holey T-shirt and garden clogs. She was still lovelier than any woman had the right to be.
“Jenny hasn’t sent me a text about whether or not there were plane tickets available tonight, so I’d better go check on that. She’s probably busy with Clarissa again. I don’t want to distract her.”
“Don’t you need her?” Willa asked. “For work, I mean.”
Noelle picked up her ruined shoes and her tote, and hooked them by the heels over the top of her bag. “Can I live without her? Of course. She makes my work life exponentially easier, though. She’s more patient with people than I am and she keeps me on task. Her memory is better. Still, I imagine I’ll be fine for a few days.”
She grimaced as she passed into the living room, fearing the worse.
Maybe longer.
If Jenny found a place nearer Clarissa, and was comfortable there and felt productive there, Noelle certainly wasn’t going to guilt the woman into returning. In fact, Noelle might have done the same thing if she felt welcome.
As Noelle stepped outside into the cool air of twilight, she tapped the speed dial programming for Jenny’s number and immediately looked to the sky.
She didn’t see any partially corporeal beings hurtling from some other realm toward her, nor did she see any threats of a more mundane sort … except for the sheriff’s deputy who slowed upon seeing her.
She blew a raspberry.
Tito parked across the street and rolled his window down.
“Oh my goodness!” came Jenny’s rocket-propelled apology. “I’m so sorry. I meant to call you, but I went back to Clarissa’s thinking I’d just be there for a little while, and I got so distracted.”
“I imagine that’s easy to do there. Are you having fun catching up?” Noelle looked both ways and crossed the street to the deputy.
He raised his chin at her.
“A lot of fun,” Jenny said, “though what passes for fun for me would probably be considered pretty tame for most other people.”
“There’s nothing wrong with that, darling.”
“No need to fib. Listen, I’ll get Bill or his son John to bring me back.”
“I’m serious. Stay, if you want to, Jenny. I would if I were you.” Noelle leaned against the car, but not before spotting the reflections of a couple of angels in the glass behind her.
They’d donned their coats once more. Tamatsu had once explained to her that concealing his wings was easier when he wore certain magically en
chanted objects. He didn’t have to use so much of his own energy to glamour them. They probably didn’t want to scare the locals.
“Hang out there if you think Clarissa needs the help. I’m going to go to Vegas, put some fires out, and then come back. I had a question for you, though. Do you remember where we filed away that information about Blue Shapely?”
“Blue … Blue …”
Noelle could imagine Jenny tapping her chin as she tried to recall the name.
“That Coyote, you mean?” Jenny always remembered, if given enough time.
“The very one.”
“What in the world do you need that for?”
“The Maria Coyote pack doesn’t have an alpha. There’s a lady here I’m making inquiries for.”
“Oh! Well, I put that double-confidential stuff in a special folder in my computer. On the desktop, there’s a file labeled ‘Cat Pictures.’”
Noelle snorted. “Seriously, darling?”
“What? There are cat pictures in there, but there’s also a folder way down in the list. You’ll see what I mean. The directory is password-protected on two levels, but you know all my passwords.”
“I do. Thanks.”
“Do you want me to check on your flight or ask someone to teleport you?” Jenny asked hesitantly. “I’m sorry I lost track of time.”
“I’ll take you,” Tarik said.
Noelle shot him a rude look over her shoulder.
He shrugged, unchastened. “Angels hear better than most.”
“I guess I have myself a ride,” Noelle said into her phone. “But thank you, anyway.”
“You’ll call me and let me know if you get into the file?”
“Or text you.” Noelle rolled her eyes. “Assuming I don’t get bogged down by inane client interactions before I can leave the office again. I swear that office is cursed. Every time I step into the place, I become a target for the ridiculous.”
“Maybe we should find a new line of work,” Jenny said.
“Like what? You could probably find a job anywhere because you’re likable. I’m only good at wheedling people into submission.”
“Professional dominatrix?”
Noelle snorted. “Goodbye.” She disconnected, dropped her phone into her tote, and gave the demigod deputy a pointed look.
