by Beth Dranoff
I didn’t answer, hoping silence was enough of a response. I calculated the distances between me, the voice and my truck.
Maybe.
The snow crunched directly to my left, just a few feet away. Now or never. I counted the distance under my breath as I ran. One Mississippi...two Mississippi...on three Mississippi my keys were in the door and unlocking it. On four Mississippi I was in with the door slammed shut behind me. Five Mississippi smashed the lock in place with my elbow as I turned my key in the ignition.
Nothing happened.
No! C’mon c’mon c’mon. I was muttering under my breath like a madwoman now but I didn’t care. This creature was after me. All of the slaughter, the pools of blood, was on me. All my fault.
No. Couldn’t be. Why? Come on, stupid engine, turn over. Turn on. I jammed my foot onto the gas pedal, careful not to flood the engine, just enough to give it the push it needed, and tried one more time.
Success. The engine revved.
I shifted into reverse and floored it. Heard a satisfying thud as I backed into what I thought—hoped—was the slurpy creature with a thing for the Stones. Then I put the truck into drive and steered, hard, out of the spot. Heard another thud, but this was in the back bed of the truck, scrabbling at the rear window.
I veered, hard, shifting to the right this time. I could hear its chuckle behind me; feel its hot breath against the back of my ear. An illusion. The glass held. I resisted the urge to stare at the rearview mirror.
Something else dangled in front of me. A man-sized cat, draped over the passenger portion of my windshield, eviscerated. The trail left by its intestines smeared along my passenger side window with a flop flop flop as I bounced over the uneven ground. I couldn’t allow myself to get distracted here. I was almost absolutely positive it wasn’t Anshell or Sam, but also almost just as certain I couldn’t be certain, and muttered another small prayer to whomever or whatever to get me out of here. There was way too much blood on my hands.
Shit.
Anshell had told me something about a signal, something the pack let loose when they hit danger. In this case, I was going to go with my hunch that dangling eviscerated feline equaled a need for a quadruple paws up that Bad Stuff was here and having a bit of fun at the clan’s expense. But I couldn’t remember what I was supposed to do or say.
I knew it was goading me. Didn’t matter. The blood smears and bits of steaming excrement on my windshield had the desired effect, elevating this scary asshole from nuisance to Big Bad To Be Taken Seriously.
Right now, I had to seriously get it off my truck. I swerved sharply to the right and then to the left again, but the strange beast-like thing kept on laughing and tap tap tapping at my back window.
There was a screech as a large pile of fur shot over the edge of the truck bed. I braked, hard. Hadn’t even seen the cat coming. I looked around to find my truck surrounded by sleekly furred creatures, some feline, some...other. Fluidity of fur and feathers and patchy scales flowing into and around each other. I spared a moment to wonder what kind of pack the Moon with Seven Faces was. And another to wonder how they had gotten here so fast. And then I was out of time.
The same moonlight that had mocked me so viciously earlier tonight now illuminated rivulets and rivers of viscous juices. One nasty creature against so many shifters. And the cackling thing was still going, laughing and dancing and swaying in one of the scariest dances I think I’ve ever seen. Wherever it touched, blood spurted. Never mind that it was outnumbered. I could see the shifters were going to lose. It was time to run. Those cats and whatever else was out there fighting—they didn’t deserve to die for me.
I eased open the driver’s side door, keeping my feet inside until the last possible moment, when I swung up and over onto the hood. I yelled “Hey!” and was roundly ignored by everyone out there who was now fighting for his or her life. I reached back around, ass in the air, and whacked my horn once, twice, three times. Still nobody bothered to quirk more than a partial ear in my direction. I was going to have to do better than that.
Back behind the wheel, I checked the rearview mirror for friendly obstacles before reversing. Then I floored it. That got the rest of the pack’s attention as they dove out of the way to escape my spinning tires. I bore down on the killing machine directly in my path. Sure, maybe this was suicidal. But if I was going, I was taking this thing with me.
Five. Four. I made myself count down what were likely my last few seconds of life. Three. I hoped my mother would be able to recover from the loss of both her husband and her daughter. Two. Considered that dying might get me out of ever having to choose between Jon and Sam. One. Time to say goodbye world. Oh shiiiit...
Blinding white light, like the moon had suddenly exploded. I expected to hit something. Expected to hit It. Instead, the light, and then I just kept going until I ended up embedded in a snowbank.
I think I passed out. Or blacked out. Or whited out. In between clicks of in/out consciousness, I saw blood. Heard screams. The sounds of a fight that got farther away, fragments of conversation. Words like: it’s gone and I don’t know if it’s dead and what the fuck was that anyway?
I opened my eyes to one of the sweetest sights I think I’ve ever seen. Naked Sam, flanked by Naked Anshell, opening the side door and leaning in to make sure I was still breathing. I knew these men were no angels, but damned if they didn’t feel like my own personal guardian variant of celestial beings right about now.
I felt Sam’s mouth on my lips. Checking for breath? Anshell’s hand was on Sam’s shoulder, squeezing slightly. Damsel in distress yet again.
My head came up so quickly it whacked Sam on the chin, clacking his teeth together and eliciting a groan from my sometime lover.
* * *
“What the hell?” I blinked furiously, squinting into the darkness beyond the white, trying to find the Big Nasty who had been making entrails jam out of our pack mates just moments before. Or was it moments? Nobody seemed to be fighting anymore. And from the gathering around my truck, it looked like there were survivors as well. “Did I pass out? How long? What did I miss?”
“I think she’s fine,” Sam called back to Anshell over his shoulder, wry half-smile twisting his lips. But attempted humor didn’t soften the tension around his eyes. “You can walk, right? Lean on me,” he said, holding out his arm for me to use, a stabilizing force as I extracted myself from behind the steering wheel. “Try not to show weakness,” he whispered in my ear, the concerned lover to anyone watching from farther away. “They’ll be watching for that. I’ll explain later.”
I nodded, once, almost imperceptibly. Time to put on a show.
I inhaled and willed myself to stand. Scanning the crowd of wet-fur-smelling people, I saw lots of blood but couldn’t tell how bad the body count was. Wasn’t sure I wanted to know. All of this was happening because of me.
If only I knew why.
In the meantime, I had to pretend to be worthy of the pack’s attention. With effort, I shoved down all the thoughts that distracted me and made me weak. Like the claws I’d forced back into my skin because I willed it to be so. Like the past I thought I’d left behind, had moved beyond, until it insisted on catching up with me.
Too bad Ezra was dead. Otherwise, I’d have a few urgent questions for him.
A hush fell over the crowd as we stepped away from the truck. Sam’s nakedness glowed in the moonlight, a contrast to my fully clothed self, wearing a red-and-orange-striped toque with a multi-colored pom-pom that bobbed with each step I took. We were all lucky I hadn’t gone with my green Kermit the Frog toque, or maybe the one with the cherry-chewing toucan. What can I say? The way I look at it is this—if you’ve got to wear a hat, you may as well have some fun with it.
Besides, red and orange hid the bloodstains better. Who knew I’d have to start planning ahead like this. Again.
I looked out over the crowd, huddled together in clusters of flesh and fur. Some had shifted back to human; others were in the form they’d started the night in, unable or unwilling to end the fun early no matter what happened.
“Uh, thanks,” I said to the assembled many. “I appreciate you saving my butt tonight. I’m pretty sure I couldn’t have survived much longer without you back there.”
There was some general shuffling of feet, nodding. A couple of people I didn’t know smiled encouragingly.
“You are very lucky to be part of such a fierce pack,” I said, hoping it was true, hoping it was the appropriate thing to say. Where did I put that etiquette book on oration politesse following a bloodbath with a Monster of Unspecified Origin and a collection of adrenaline-pumped shifters who’d lost a number of their own in order to save you? There was a flower arrangement for that. Right?
Anshell rescued me. Again. This time, he stepped up beside me, then in front of me, shielding me with his body. For a change, I didn’t think it was such a bad thing that Anshell wanted to put himself between all that anger and emotion and me. Human me, as far as we could tell, albeit a human who could sprout claws.
Anshell was doing something now that involved sweeping his arm across the gathered masses—okay, sparsely clumped gathered shifters—his palm upturned as though holding a goblet of crystal-encased liquid. On anyone else it would look ridiculous. Anshell somehow made it seem majestic. Naked butt quiver and all. Maybe I was the only one looking at his butt. Maybe I should stop. Someone was trying to get my attention. Definitely time to look elsewhere.
Sam. Also naked. On my arm. Yeah, that worked for the throat-catching alternatives. Especially since it covered the reality that said arm was the only thing holding me upright. Truly, I appreciated the fact that my butt was not firmly wedged in the snow given that I lacked the strength to continue standing much longer without Sam’s support.
I focused on my Knight in Shining Now.
“Ever seen anything like Mr. Big Bad and Blood Smeary before?” I angled my head to Sam’s ear, hoping he could hear my voice rustling the quiet of his hair. Inhaling his scent; his earlobe close enough to leave its salty-sweet aftertaste on my tongue. I resisted the urge to climb into his lap.
“No,” Sam said. Anshell continued with his rousing oration.
“What about you?” I directed the question this time at Vine Tattoo Girl.
“Nope, never seen nothing like that,” she said, shaking her head. “That thing was nasty.” She pronounced it nay-stay. Sam tightened his grip on my arm and eased me back to sit on the embankment. Apparently the need for projected strength had passed now that Anshell had taken the oratorical floor.
I couldn’t help it. The sound of Anshell’s voice washed over me, ebbing away all the tension and negativity hovering over me since the last night I spent in the dark and the blood—the night Ezra’s head had rolled from his body in a building I hoped never to return to. The last time Sir Beast of the Nasty and I met up.
Ezra. His assistant Cybele and her alter-ego Alina. The Monster Who Refused To Stay Under The Bed. It couldn’t be coincidence that they’d been in the same place and time at least once before. Right?
There was something I was missing here. Time to figure it out.
Chapter Twenty-Six
I woke up in Sam’s bed.
His scent wrapped itself around me the way Anshell’s voice had the night before, but instead of being soothing it was the sandpaper-rough touch of a cat’s lick, brushing against my skin. I could still taste him mixed with me on my tongue. That lingering ache, deep inside. A man who’d seen me naked, who I’d seen naked.
A man who I’d never realized slept with a blanket covered in teeny-tiny hand-embroidered purple and yellow cornflowers, on a bed of similarly-patterned floral printed sheets complete with dust ruffle and matching armchair. No wonder he’d found ways until now to wake up with me elsewhere.
The arms of the chair were almost completely worn through, and the blanket looked aged into discoloration. I’m not sure what I was expecting—maybe the rough ruggedness of a scratchy grey-with-red-stripe army-issue wool blanket, or even just a comforter in a faded denim color.
Either way this bed of whimsy, accompanied by canary-yellow lace doily on the side table, was definitely not it.
“Good morning,” Sam said, leaning against the door frame. Shirtless, top button of his jeans open, a mug of steaming cinnamon something in his hand. I wanted to drink him from here. His eyes twinkled. Damn. He’d figured out the effect he had on me already.
Who was I kidding. Sam had probably realized the effect he had on women by the time he’d hit puberty.
“‘Morning,” I managed.
His grin widened as the sight of him sent a message of wetness low into my gut. Damn, that’s right—heightened shifter senses. He could smell exactly the effect he was having. But then his eyes swept over me, nestled into his bed, and they seemed to crumple a bit around the edges.
“What’s wrong?”
He shook his head, schooling his face into the expression I’d expected rather than the one I knew now lurked beneath that surface. Somehow, faked enthusiasm wasn’t quite the turn-on you’d think it might be. Go figure.
Sam sighed heavily as he realized I wasn’t buying his act and came over to the bed. The mattress was so soft that when he sat on the edge I had to lean against the bars of the headboard to keep from sliding into him. For some reason, that kind of intimate touching felt like too much now, like an invasion of his personal space.
And then I knew.
“Who was she?”
Sam’s jaw clenched and he looked away for a moment, eyes shiny. I laid my hand on his arm. “It’s okay. If you don’t want to tell me,” I said.
He paused so long I thought he wasn’t going to say anything. Or that he’d changed his mind.
“She was my wife,” Sam said finally, meeting my gaze; he spoke so softly I almost missed it.
“I’m so sorry,” I said, meaning it.
Sam gave me a half-smile, weak but determined. This was not a new pain. I wondered how long it had been.
“Five years,” he replied. Had I asked out loud? “It’s been more than five years since...” His voice faltered.
I gave him a moment to try and compose himself.
“The flowers, the doilies, the armchair...?”
“All hers,” he replied. “I couldn’t bear to get rid of it. Even now.” More quietly. “I can still smell her. A bit. But not like before.”
“Why did you bring me here?” I sat up and started looking for the clothes I wasn’t currently wearing. I had on an oversized white T-shirt that smelled of Sam, but the scent of him and us was closing in around me, suffocating, too much emotion and not enough space to escape it. What was Sam looking for from me? A replacement wife? A little something something to pass the time?
“Why wouldn’t I?” If Sam noticed my sudden agitation, he chose to ignore it. “I live here. I like you. You’re temporarily homeless. Where else would we go?”
“I don’t know.” Because I didn’t.
Crap. This was all getting way more complicated than I wanted to deal with. What happened to a good old no-strings-attached fuck anyway? There are always strings, a traitorous voice whispered in my head.
Why did I even care about Sam’s past? We both had them.
I’d come to rely on this man, just a bit, over the last few days and now that he was showing a bit of vulnerability, look at me, I couldn’t get out of there fast enough.
What was wrong with me?
More than one way to take that question. I sat down. Too tired to move, too tired to run. Who was I to complain about a little vulnerability in a guy? I didn’t even know what I was at this point. And here I was, trying to run away fr
om the one place, the one group of people who might have a hope in hell in figuring it out, giving me a place to call home. Oh gods, I was losing my mind.
“So what did you decide,” Sam’s deep voice rumbled from the edge of the bed. “Are you running or are you going to stick around for a bit?”
I sighed heavily. So much for stealthy poker face Dana. In the keeping-emotions-from-showing-on-face department, I suspected I’d failed mightily.
“Honestly?”
“That’s usually preferable,” Sam commented dryly, the man I’d met between the snowbanks flitting briefly across his face as he watched me.
“I’m worried about what you might want from me—or not want from me,” I blurted out in a surprising—to me—burst of truth-serum-like honesty. “I’m worried about what I might be. I don’t know how you’re going to feel about me once we figure all this stuff out.”
Sam grabbed a couple of pillows and leaned back into the bed, propped up against the backdrop of the wrought-iron bars.
“Who knows anything for sure? Stop worrying,” he said. “Just because I told you something personal, don’t go thinking I’ve turned all chick flick on you. I’m still me and you’re still you. Personally, I’m going with shifter if that makes a difference here at all.”
“And if I’m not?”
“Then you’re not,” Sam replied.
I mulled that over a moment, watching the man stretched across an improbably feminine bed. Damn. There he was, lying there, all delicious and...and I wasn’t supposed to look at him like that now, because he was vulnerable, and sad, and missing his wife from five years ago.
“Stop it,” he said, eyes closed. “Just come here. Close the door first.”
