“I remember you told me that.” I worried my lip between my teeth. “I just want to be double sure.”
“All right,” she agreed and faced forward. “I trust you.”
A smile tugged at the corners of my lips. “You were wrong, you know.”
She leaned back, canting her head toward me. “About what?”
“I like fae, and I like you.” I reached over and tickled her ribs, earning a squeak of startled laughter. “Did you know the Lorimar alpha is a fae?”
“He is?” Awe rang through her voice.
“No,” I corrected. “She is.”
“Your alpha’s a girl? Wow. That’s so cool.”
Laughing under my breath, I admitted, “We have a male alpha too. His name is Cord Graeson. He’s a warg like me, but he mated a Gemini named Camille Ellis. Do you know what she can do?”
Flo shook her head.
“Cam uses magic to turn into whatever she wants.” I stopped the car. “Sometimes she even turns into a half-wolf and runs with us.”
“Whoa,” she breathed. “Can I meet her?”
“She’s not here right now, but I promise I’ll bring her to visit when she gets home.”
Flo rubbed her chin. “Do you think she can teach me how to turn into a wolf too?”
“I don’t think it works that way, but I bet she can show you a few tricks.”
She scrunched up her face. “Like what?”
“I bet you one whole dollar she can tell what type of fae you are just by holding your hand.”
She scoffed at me and pointed to her eyes. “Everyone knows what kind of fae we are ’cause of these.”
“She’ll do it…” I leaned across the console for dramatic effect, “…while you’re wearing glamour.”
“Really?” She perked up. “I can’t wait to meet her. Remember your promise.” She slid out of the car and danced under the moon, practicing her howl as she twirled up the walkway.
Something told me Flo’s pack was about to get its alpha.
Mrs. O’Malley came to the door wearing an apron and one oven mitt, half-dragging a preschooler. Her expression fell when she spotted me, emotions flickering across her face before she shooed her children inside and stepped out to join me.
“I thought we agreed to meet at the Cantina.” She scrubbed her face with the mitt, blushed and then removed it. “I must have gotten confused. I’ve had so much on my mind…”
“No, you’re right. I’m early and in the wrong place.” I stuffed my hands into my pockets. “I wanted to check the area around the house if you don’t mind. We’re working from the assumption he never left work, that whatever happened occurred there, but I wanted to be sure.”
“Whatever you think is best.” She gestured toward the house. “Would you like to come in for some tea? I’m baking bread pudding if you’ve a mind to stay and eat dessert with us.”
Always ready to eat thanks to my warg metabolism, my stomach made interested noises. “I wish I could, but I need to get started while the scents are still fresh.”
“Of course.” She clutched the mitt to her breast. “What do you need from me?”
“This will work best if I can shift and scent the property. Will that be all right?” I patted my loaner car, which was Nathalie’s compact Chevy Sonic. “Would you mind if I left my car here until we finish?”
Frown lines scored her forehead. “Not at all, but how…?”
“I was hoping you could drive yourself to the shop and I could go there on all fours.”
“That’s a fine idea.” She nodded. “My sister’s here to watch the children. I’ll let her finish the pudding for me. Do you need a place to change?”
Shifting was never fun. Shifting in front of non-wargs was torture. Seven pudgy faces, ranging from Flo, the oldest, down to the baby on her hip wearing diapers, pressed to the window, peering out at me with an air of expectation. “What did you have in mind?”
“We used to keep our own cows.” She pointed toward a low hill. “There’s a barn on the other side. You can leave your clothes in the tack room. You’ll have plenty of privacy there.”
“Great. Th—” I caught myself halfway to a thank you. Gah. Fae social niceties made life so much harder than it had to be. “That was very thoughtful of you. I’ll take you up on that offer.”
With a short wave, she headed inside to tie up her loose ends while I took the narrow path over the rise. Forks of dry lightning streaked the sky. Dark clouds hung low, but I couldn’t tell if they were swollen with rain or simply gloomy from the absence of the moon.
As it turned out, the O’Malley barn was more of a lean-to, and it appeared to be leaning heavily to one side. Calling the partitioned area barely wide enough for me to turn in a tack room was being generous, but the structure appeared solid enough. I could do worse. I might have had to perform a striptease in front of a live audience of hob toddlers.
I tugged off my clothes and folded them, leaving them stacked on a low wooden shelf. I placed my shoes beneath it and swung my arms across my body, loosening my shoulders, relishing the cool air sliding over my bare skin. The wolf, who preferred the wind in her fur, leapt to the forefront and initiated the change. Bones snapped, muscles stretched to the breaking point, and fur pierced my skin. I was panting hard, moaning and rolling on the ground when a child’s tiny gasp broke through the haze. Too late to stop, too far gone to come back, I let the change finish reshaping me. Fifteen minutes from that first pang, I rose on four legs and shook off the dull hurts to find Flo standing in the entryway of the barn with a hand over her mouth and tears streaming down her cheeks.
“Are you okay?” she whispered.
I trotted over, ignoring the residual aches, and nuzzled her throat, blasting wolfy breath into her ear. Her giggle was reward enough for me. As much as I liked kids, I couldn’t play with one tonight. I had a job to do. After dragging my tongue from chin to hairline, getting her good and drooly, I flicked my tail and trotted off to start my search. Thank God, she turned and ran toward the house instead of following me.
To be a warg is to be a walking dichotomy. Life is a blend of thoughts and sensations that are I/me and she/her and sometimes we/us. Sometimes I’m just Dell. Sometimes I’m just a wolf. Most often, because she’s such an engrained part of my psyche, we’re both present to a degree at all times.
Sharing your body and soul with a wild animal lends you a certain fluidity when it comes to personal identity.
Tim’s thyme-and-paprika scent covered all the surfaces in the barn, and fading traces lingered along the paths. Exposure would wipe those away in a matter of days. I had to follow all the leads I could sniff out before a good rain washed them away. Dry lightning had been flickering all afternoon. Between that and the deep-throated rumbles in the clear sky, I half-expected a sneak attack from a thunderstorm at any minute. But there was no storm damage out here, meaning the worst damage was isolated in town. Whatever that meant.
I spent a good hour crisscrossing the property with my nose to the ground, but found no smells unassociated with the family, no blood and no signs of a struggle. Whatever happened to Tim didn’t occur here.
Afraid I might be followed by well-meaning kidlets, I doubled back several times in an effort to throw them off my tracks. Clearing the O’Malley property line meant I was free to drop into a comfortable lope that ate up the miles. Rustling in the tall grass piqued my interest once or twice, and I might have stalked a rabbit into the weeds for a quick snack before continuing on my way.
Wolves kind of suck at time management.
Mrs. O’Malley had the store open, the rear door propped wide, and the lights burning when I arrived. She sat at one of the booths with a cup of coffee in her hands, the pot at her elbow telling me it wasn’t her first or even her third. A whine prickled my throat. I shouldn’t have chased after that cottontail and left her waiting.
Her tired eyes brightened at the sight of me. “Would you like to help me finish the pot?”
<
br /> Pushing my wolf brain down a bit, I shook my head. I might love coffee, but the wolf was not a fan.
“All right.” She topped off her mug. “I’ll just wait here then.”
Leaving her in the booth, I focused on the familiar scents of the Cantina. Lasagna. Enchiladas. Double Dutch cupcakes. Beneath the mouthwatering aromas I picked out Tim and his wife’s individual scents as well as those of the kids. One booth in particular was saturated with faint traces of crayon wax, peanut butter and chocolate milk. That must be where they parked the kids during business hours or at night when they closed shop.
I walked a circuit of the restaurant twice before conceding defeat. Here there were too many tangled signatures to pick them apart. The Cantina did steady business, and no one scent stood out among the others to cry “Me! I belong to the kidnapper!” which was a damn shame. A few drops of blood marred the kitchen floor, hardly indicative of a life-threatening wound, and the bleach used in the cleaners made identifying its owner impossible. A whiff of charred plastic and ozone caused me to sneeze as I passed the trash compactor. Another electrical burnout? I would have to wait until after I shifted to ask.
Resisting the urge to tuck my tail, I padded my way back to Mrs. O’Malley and sat until she acknowledged me.
“Finished so soon?” Her bleary gaze lit on her wristwatch, and she rubbed her eyes. “Not so soon then.”
I bobbed my head in an exaggerated manner that left my inner wolf rolling her eyes.
“Will you speak to me before you leave?” She rose with her dishes in hand. “Once you change back, I mean?”
Another nod for confirmation, and I trotted out the back door. The run to her place invigorated me, the temptation to wade into the grass hard to resist. But she would be hurrying home because of the late hour, and I was hoping that meant the kiddos would be sound asleep by the time I arrived.
Sneaking back onto the property proved easier this time around, now that I knew the lay of the land. I ducked into the lean-to and scouted the area for Flo before allowing the human in me to rise. The shift back to two legs always hurt worse. I don’t know why, and I’d never asked if it was the same for everyone else.
I sat on the dirt floor of the barn, getting grit in my unmentionables, while I caught my breath. Another downside to reverting back to humanity was waiting out the residual sensitivity from the change. The wolf didn’t need clothes to start exploring. The human did. Among wargs, I could walk around naked until the nerves under my skin stopped smarting. Public nudity was as taboo for most fae as it was for humans. Out of respect for Mrs. O’Malley, I sat there until the thought of dressing didn’t make me queasy.
Once the sweat had dried on my skin, I mustered up the gumption to pull on my clothes and tie up my shoes. The walk to the cabin went slower than my trek to the barn. Most wargs shift a few times a week to run with their pack and burn off the wildness coursing through our veins. The last few months, that had tripled. I shifted nightly, sometimes more than that, and the wear and tear was exhausting my human self.
The first graduate class of Stoners would be ready for action in another week or so. I could hold it together until then. All I needed was for the alphas to come home and bind them. Then they would be part of the pack bond and able to communicate with the rest of us in the field.
Mrs. O’Malley was waiting at Nathalie’s car by the time I hauled myself across the yard. Hope brightened her eyes, and she worried her hands the way I did when applying lotion. “Tell me you found something.”
“No one has been on your property.” I reached the car and leaned against the driver-side door. “All the scents belong to your family.”
“That’s a small blessing.” Her gaze touched on the house, no doubt thinking of the children within its walls.
“The Cantina was muddled. It’s a popular restaurant, and there were too many scents competing in a small area. Nothing stood out as strange. There was no blood—” except what I found in the kitchen, a discovery I wasn’t ready to share, “—and no other indication of foul play.”
“Where does that leave us?” she asked on a quiet breath.
“I’m not sure,” I admitted. “One of my alphas works for the Earthen Conclave. I’ll call her tonight and see if there’s anything they can do.”
“The conclave won’t have time for us. Not here, not with the world falling down around our ears.”
More than likely she was right. “I’m not giving up on finding him.”
“You’re a kind one to try.” She bowed her head. “I should get inside, and you should go home.”
“Oh. One more thing before I leave.” I had almost forgotten. “Did you guys suffer any storm damage recently?”
“Yes.” Fresh tears leaked down her cheeks. “The trash compactor is a charred heap. It worked fine that last night. I used it myself.” She wiped her face. “One of those pop-up storms must have swept through later. We’ve had so many this past month.”
“Yeah.” The baby-fine hairs on my nape prickled. The wolf didn’t like the sound of that either. “So I’m hearing.” After fishing the key from my pocket, I froze with it plugged into the lock. “What about your husband’s vehicle?”
“It must have slipped my mind.” A frown marred her forehead. “It was parked in back of the store yesterday. Did you see it?”
“No.” I played back my memory of the darkened lot. There had been one car, and it sat in this yard beside my loaner. “I didn’t.” I opened my door. “I’ll drive past the Cantina on my way home and double-check.” A creeping suspicion wormed over my skin. “Maybe we just didn’t notice.”
The wrinkling of her brow worried me, and her lapse in memory appeared to concern her too. Wolves don’t think much about cars or other modes of transportation. Unless my human mind was riding high in the wolf, I doubt the notion of searching the vehicle would have registered. At least not without the visual clue that would have given me an aha moment and reminded me the transportation angle ought to be explored too.
That didn’t happen, and I got the feeling when I got to that lot it would be empty.
“I’ll be in touch as soon as I have something to report.” I waved and got behind the wheel. I waited until she was safely inside before cranking the engine and returning to the Cantina.
As predicted, the lot stood vacant. I got out and walked around only to find myself standing back at my car with the key in my hand. “Weird.” I tried again with the same result. “Double weird.”
Now that I thought about it, I hadn’t so much as sniffed a bush on my way to the back door. How could a wolf unable to forgo chasing a bunny resist the temptation to flush the bushes for cats feeding on scraps in the dumpsters? Simple. She wouldn’t. And yet I had trotted in and then out again. My scent trail, as detected by my human nose, was linear.
Curiosity piqued, I sniffed around those areas but came up empty. Unable to shift again so soon, I made a mental note to come back and sweep the area on four legs since two wasn’t getting me answers.
Pondering the implications of this latest development, I got in the car and pointed it toward home. Not that I expected a miracle, but it would be nice if Cam could reach through the phone and magically solve this case for me. Though I wouldn’t hold my breath.
Chapter 6
“There’s a message waiting for you at the office.” Nathalie greeted me from beneath a pair of scraggly pines as I crunched my way across the parking lot at the RV park. “Did my car make it back in one piece?”
“Not a scratch on her,” I assured the wolf craning her neck to look around me. “I even put five bucks in the tank for your trouble.”
“Sweet.” Her tongue lolled. “You’re my favorite beta. You know that?”
I snorted. “I’m the only beta.”
A pair of golden eyes blinked at us from deeper in the woods.
“Hey, Aisha.” Yet another use for my fledgling diplomacy skills. “How’s it hanging?”
“Sorry, but I don’
t have a dick.” Her reflective gaze narrowed. “I’d think someone like you could tell the difference.”
Nathalie whirled toward the darkness, teeth snapping, and a shrill yelp erupted from Aisha’s vicinity.
“She’s our beta.” Nathalie switched to an open line. No one conference calls like wargs. “Disrespect her, and she’ll snap your neck like a twig.”
“The alphas—”
“—left her in charge, because they trust her.” A snarl wrinkled Nathalie’s muzzle. “Dell fought us, all of us, and she won. You missed out on getting your shaggy ass handed to you, but I’m sure the beta’s up for an encore.”
Aisha bared her teeth. “I was an alpha—”
“Yeah, was an alpha. You earned your rank flat on your back. Bessemer was the real power behind the Chandler pack. You were just arm candy.” Nathalie snorted. “P.S., if you throw Dell’s past in her face, then I’m going to rip yours off. Got me?”
The former alpha flopped onto the ground and exposed her belly and throat to me.
“Sometimes I don’t know why I bother,” Nathalie said.
I wondered the same thing, but each of us was broken in our own way. If she was showing mercy to Aisha, she had good reason for sponsoring the woman’s recovery. Their arrangement was alpha-approved, so no matter how mouthy or annoying Aisha got, no matter what names she called me or her attempts at shaming me, until she got violent or threatened the safety of a pack member, I couldn’t lay a finger on her, not even if she asked me pretty please with sugar on top for the smackdown she had coming.
I crossed to Aisha and knelt, cupping my hand around her throat until her eyes widened with panic she was smart enough to swallow. Fighting me was a bad idea, and she had survived too long to have those very often.
“You’re eating our food, sleeping in our park and generally not being made some other pack’s bitch because Cam gave you a second chance. Going lone wolf is tough.” I got in her face. “I’ve been packless. Baxter Crosby, my father’s alpha, kicked me to the curb after Momma died, said having me around was bad for the pack’s morale.” In reality, he had been itching to evict us from the Crosby pack for years, ever since my dad passed and he got stuck with caring for the two of us. “It took six months for Bessemer to accept me into the Chandler pack, and I had family vouching for me.” Even now my wolf shied away from the memories of her dominant personality being forced to submit. “Trust me, princess. You wouldn’t last a day out there on your own. Not once the males caught scent of you.”
Promise the Moon (Lorimar Pack Book 1) Page 6