Cougar's Courage (Duals and Donovans: The Different)

by Teresa Noelle Roberts

  She thought about apologizing.

  Lynx butted her leg with her hard, round head. At the same instant, Coyote, who was crouched next to Sam looking for all the world like a scruffy family dog, raised his head and stared at Cara, then at Jack, then at Cara again, this time with disturbing human eyes in his canine face.

  “He’s hiding something,” Lynx said.

  Jack? Impossible. Oh, not impossible that he was hiding something, but impossible that he’d be involved with the sorcerers.

  “Perhaps it’s as simple as trying to cover up how much your quarrel this morning rattled him. Males are likely to hide what they should share, yet shout what they should keep quiet.”

  Lynx had a point. Jack being hurt or pissed off or just plain confused seemed more plausible than him being in league with the bad guys. Powers knew she was messed up on his account.

  She wanted to go to him, put her arms around him, try to ease some of the tension in his body, but she held back. She didn’t think he owed her an apology, exactly, but certainly an explanation.

  “Nineteenth century?” Elissa asked. “That just sank in. What do you mean nineteenth century?”

  Cara tried to remember what she’d seen in those brief, vivid seconds. “Frock coat. Bowler hat. White shirt with a high collar and a tie. All the other men were dressed more normally, jeans and sweaters or flannel shirts.”

  “Are you sure you were seeing the present day?” Jack asked. “Grand-mère says this conflict with the sorcerers and skinwalkers has gone on for a long time. Maybe this was a scene from when it started.”

  “Good point,” Jude agreed. “Did you see anything definitely modern? A TV, a computer, a cell phone?”

  “Nothing that obvious, but if you were dropped here, it might take a little while to figure out it wasn’t 1915, or even longer ago, if you landed in one of the traditional houses.” She thought hard. “It was so quick. I didn’t notice iPhones and logo T-shirts or anything like that, but I wasn’t looking for them. And no one had a hairstyle to speak of, except for bowler-hat guy. I saw a lot of generic scruff and shag and five o’clock shadow and toques indoors.”

  “Could be today, could be 1862,” Gramps said.

  “I’m sure it was going on at the exact time Jocelyn and I saw it. And I’m sure they’re planning something, something big and ugly.” She looked at the baby, who was suckling contentedly at Elissa’s freckled breast. “Right, kid?”

  It half surprised her not to get an answer, but the baby, enthralled by nursing, didn’t glance in her direction, let alone impart some milk-flavored wisdom.

  Jack moved uncomfortably close. “I’m not saying you’re wrong. But even if you’re right, what do we do about it? We don’t know who they are or where. It’s good to be alerted something big may be coming, but we already figured it probably was.”

  “We’re in good shape. You guys turned this village into a magical Fort Knox,” Jude said. “Nothing can get in that isn’t invited.” He clapped Rafe on the back as he said it, obviously knowing Rafe had used his combined skills as a shaman and an ex-cop to make the defenses as tight as possible. “And anything that does, I’ll eat.”

  “It’s not that simple.” Everyone turned toward Elissa as she spoke. “Jude, you of all people should know. There are always holes in defenses, because people like us can’t imagine all the ways a truly evil person can be evil or all the ways they can turn your friends against you.”

  “No one here would…”

  “Remember Anthony Hage, and Maggie, and that woman who worked with Rafe? All good people who got suckered into helping the Agency. Sooner or later, something will get through our defenses, probably because someone in the village relaxes at just the wrong time.”

  Cara found herself nodding, though it was more like twitching with frustration. They needed a plan, dammit, but before they could come up with a plan that was anything other than defensive, they needed more information. Information hidden in the past or in Grand-mère’s heart, information concealed by their enemies’ own magic, the mental defenses sorcerers were so good at establishing in themselves and defeating in others.

  Mental defenses that most adult magic-users couldn’t penetrate—but apparently an infant could.

  “Elissa,” Cara volunteered, “let me hold Jocelyn again.”

  Elissa clutched the baby closer. “I think I know what you’re thinking, and it’s a bad idea. Jocelyn may be a seer, but we don’t want to encourage it. Witches don’t consider being a strong seer to be a gift. It’s a curse.”

  Cara raised her eyebrows. “Seems like it could be useful to get hints of the future. Back to those winning lottery numbers.”

  “It would be if you could control it, but you can’t. One of my psychic cousins can’t leave Donovan’s Cove. She can’t handle being around normies. Being a seer is worse. You sense all of everyone’s future possibilities. And you know what? Everyone’s future ends in death. We all know that, but most of us can ignore it. Seers can’t. Can you imagine what it must be like?”

  “No, I can’t,” Cara conceded. “But it’s probably easier now than it will be when she’s older and understands more.”

  Jude stroked his daughter’s hair with one huge hand. “Good point. Right now, it probably scares us more than it does her.” Elissa turned away even from Jude, as if trying to shield her daughter with her own body from the whole world.

  “If the poor cub has to suffer visions, shouldn’t they at least be useful?”

  Everyone turned to stare at Gramps, then realized it was actually Coyote who spoke.

  “That baby got dealt a bad hand,” Coyote said, his voice gruff but compassionate. “No one likes having visions. Okay, I think visions are funny, but everyone knows I’m crazy.” He laughed the classic cartoon crazy-guy hoot. “But if she’s stuck with them and can’t tell us what she’s seeing, she’s scared for no purpose. At least if she shares them with Cara, we might learn something and Cara can do something more useful than impotently want to knock heads together, seeing she’s about ready to start knocking ours if she can’t get the ones she really wants. Am I right, Cara?” He turned his shaggy head toward Cara and looked at her with human eyes.

  Cara nodded, shivering. Someday, she might get used to hanging out with witches, shamans and divine avatars with fur—but not anytime soon.

  Elissa kissed Jocelyn and handed her over. “Here goes nothing,” she said and dropped her shields.

  Chapter Thirty

  Cara jumped back to reality, her head full of racing images. She didn’t know the area well enough to place them, but they were definitely contemporary. She’d seen a digital clock, a flat-screen TV showing the news, a guy fiddling with an iPod. She’d heard a snowmobile.

  And the details were precise enough that someone from around here should be able to track them down. How many bars called the Moose-Butt Saloon were there likely to be, at least with the door painted safety orange and the back end of a moose, rather than the more usual head, mounted over the bar?

  Cara handed the baby over to her parents. Jocelyn didn’t seem especially disturbed by this vision. Then again, nothing seemed bad on the surface. Just a bunch of guys hanging out in a bar. One wore a weird outfit, and they seemed cranky, but they could have been arguing politics or debating the relative merits of their favorite hockey teams.

  They weren’t, though. They were plotting the destruction of Couguar-Caché, calmly, quietly and in oblique enough terms that the people around them didn’t decide they were a bunch of crazy terrorists and put in a call to the RCMP or simply knock them, hog-tie them and leave them for the bears.

  Breathlessly, she told what she’d seen and heard.

  “I know where that dive is,” Jack said, rising with a fluid grace that made Cara ache.

  Trying to ignore that ache, Cara sprang to her own feet and said, “Let’s go. The town-run Jeep and my truck should be big enough for all of us, and they’re parked at the trailhead.”

  “L
et’s think this through,” Jack said. “What do we do when we get there? Other than the general kicking of ass that I know Jude will suggest.”

  As he spoke, his head full of nebulous plans, Jack paced up and down the crowded room and right into Cara’s personal space. She smelled of honey and uncertainty and, underneath it all, of feline. No fear, though.

  Lord and Lady love Trickster, she was beautiful. Strong and radiant and lovely, all hard muscle and soft curves and challenge. Every cell in his body yearned to take her in his arms, or just to take her, simply and brutally and beautifully, one cougar to another. Now his cougarside woke up and butted in, but his messages, usually so clear and direct, were boggling.

  An image of his wordside as the cougar saw him—all arms and legs and looking like he’d been skinned for the stew pot—bombarded with paper and whirling words, bleeding from a thousand paper cuts, being buried alive by what he realized were pages from a dictionary. Drowning.

  Cara diving into the sea of words to rescue him, but getting caught as well.

  And a dark, dapper man in an old-fashioned suit, a man who looked familiar, though Jack couldn’t say why, laughing and laughing.

  The cougar cuffed him. If you were a normal dual, your animalside couldn’t literally smack you when you were in wordy form, but there was nothing normal about being a dual shaman.

  Clutching his hand to his throbbing ear, which was bleeding even though he doubted anyone else could see what hit him, Jack reeled right into Cara.

  They both froze.

  Her hands burned where she gripped his arms. The heat of her body surrounded him. She glared at him, and the challenge of that glare was the most erotic thing he’d ever seen, because he knew he could break her, make her yield to his challenge. A weak mate was no fun, not to mention useless if things got dicey, but a strong mate who yielded to you because she wanted to was hot. And she did want to. He could smell it. She was probably still too mad to admit it, but maybe he could find the right persuasion.

  He cupped her face, not gently, moved to kiss her.

  She twisted out of his grip. He smelled desire and regret, but also determination.

  “What was that all about?” Cara asked, her voice seeming to come from somewhere farther away than it was.

  “Cat thing,” Jack and Jude said simultaneously.

  “Jack and Cara are on the outs and his cougarside can’t decide whether they should fight or fuck, or fight and then fuck. And for a second the wordy side forgot he’s supposed to have his mind on something other than his dick. Right?” Jude clapped him on the back hard enough to make him reel, a not so subtle reminder that Jack wasn’t the biggest feline around.

  “Embarrassing but true.” Close enough, anyway. Even his cougarside knew an angry female needed time to cool down or your skin would pay the price. And the cougarside knew that while a female might enjoy yielding sexually, that didn’t mean a guy could pull a caveman act on her outside the bedroom and not wind up with woman trouble that he thoroughly deserved. Even more than he’d already brought on himself, that is. Good thing for him Cara didn’t have claws and couldn’t do any really nasty spells on the fly yet. “Sorry, Cara.”

  She glanced around at the others, then turned her attention to Jack, her eyes fierce. Jack smelled anger on her, but as part of a complicated mix of emotion. “Jack and I need a couple of minutes before we go anywhere.” She pointed at Jack. “You, outside. Now.”

  He obeyed, not sure if they were going to talk or if she was going to go all Hong Kong cinema on his ass.

  As they left the building, he heard Elissa say drily, “I don’t recall you or Rafe acting quite so brainless when we’ve had problems.”

  “We’re smarter than Jack,” Jude countered. “And you’re scarier than Cara, unless she’s got her gun, and even Jack’s not stupid enough to provoke her then.”

  This exchange didn’t make Jack feel better.

  Though the day had been warm for late March, the temperature had plummeted with the sun, and they had to huddle against the side of the cabin to stay out of the wind. At least, Jack thought ruefully, maybe that way no one would notice him getting beaten up by a girl.

  Luckily for his tawny hide, her attack was verbal. “They may have bought that lame excuse, but your cougarside thought you were being a jerk too. So why?”

  “Once I bumped into you, all the blood went to my little head. Which isn’t much of an excuse but it’s the truth. I stopped thinking about anything except how good you felt and how I wished I hadn’t gotten you so mad earlier.” He shrugged, knowing he hadn’t come close to explaining how out of control he felt. “So now I’ve done it again. I’ve got a bad case of stupid where you’re concerned.”

  She glared, but there was a bit of humor underneath her annoyance. “The stupid must be mutual. I didn’t slug you.” She sighed. “Instead, I was about that close”—she held up her thumb and index finger, about a centimeter apart—”from kissing you back.”

  He stepped closer, knowing he shouldn’t, but pulled to her irresistibly. This time, the cougarside cooperated.

  She stepped back with just enough hesitation that he could tell she felt the pull too. “Whenever I get within three feet of you, all I can think about is sex. We don’t have time be distracted. Knowing that makes me mad, and that’s distracting too. Even without spirit guides and enemy sorcerers and my dead fiancé and your dead brother, you and I would be complicated. With the situation we’re in, it’s damn near impossible.” She seemed to draw a deep breath. Then she continued. “Which doesn’t mean we shouldn’t see if it can work. Hell, we’re shamans. Crazy is where we live, so maybe it’s a sign we’re meant for each other, and damn the spirit guide problem and everything else. But we’ve got to take it slowly so we can figure out what’s real, what’s our magic and our guides butting in, and what’s potentially an outsider fucking with us.”

  “I like you and I want you. That part’s real.”

  “Ditto. The need and the affection and the anger and the sense of connection are all real. And maybe the rest is just details, but we can’t afford to assume that.” She stepped forward again, close enough that he could smell the regret and the desire and the anger, all as mingled in her as they were in him. Keeping a little distance between their bodies, she leaned forward and brushed his lips with hers. Then she pulled away before he could wrap her in his arms. “Let me set the pace, and don’t be an asshole again,” she said, “or I’ll put antlers on the cougarside—with superglue, not magic.”

  Don’t tease me like that and it’ll be easier, he wanted to say.

  But he understood she was teasing herself as much as him, her way of being an asshole. As a shaman, he should call her on it. But she was a shaman too. She knew what she was doing.

  That little kiss and the knowledge that she was just as conflicted as he was, even if she was being more sensible about it, gave him enough hope to fight off the sorcerers’ mind-attacks.

  She’d said damn near impossible, not impossible. Since, strictly speaking, his existence was impossible, improbable would hardly be a challenge once they’d dealt with these pesky sorcerers.

  He watched her do the mud-season stomp back into the house, thinking it was sexier than any model’s catwalk slink.

  At the last second, she turned and said, “Well? Are you going to help get this party on the road, since you’re the one who says he knows where he’s going? Or are you going to stare at my ass?”

  He couldn’t think of any reason why he couldn’t do both.

  But saying so was just wasting time, and they’d wasted enough already.

  Cara reluctantly gave her keys to Jack, since he knew where he was going. She ended up sandwiched between Jack and her grandfather.

  Which, under the circumstances, was curiously reassuring.

  Jack peeled out, splattering mud in his wake.

  “We need to prepare,” Gramps said.

  Jack didn’t take his eyes off the road. “I’m plenty p
repared.”

  “We’re not. At least I’m not, and I don’t think either you or Cara is either.”

  “Magically, I know I’m not prepared.” Cara patted her holster. “On the other hand, these guys hit the ground just as fast as anyone else if you blow off their kneecaps.” The thought didn’t make her feel as safe as it should. Her gut told her that her still-flaky powers were what she needed now, not the gun.

  But she knew how to use the gun.

  Jack said, “You need to stop relying on the gun. Until you learn to trust your magic and your guides, to know they’ll be there for you, they won’t be there for you.”

  Her grandfather didn’t say anything. He made a small, sly gesture, though, and time did something funny in Cara’s immediate vicinity. How else could she explain that Gramps simply reached over, took the gun out of the holster and tossed it out the window before she could react?

  “What the fuck?” She scrambled over the old man, realizing as she did that she couldn’t dive out the window after the gun, especially since Jack was showing no sign of slowing down.

  Not to mention the little fact that the window was shut, though it hadn’t stopped the gun from passing through it.

  “Give me back my gun.”

  “Now you will rely on your powers, as a shaman should.”

  Oh, she wanted to smack the old coot.

  She suspected that, by his light, what he’d done was more logical than her reliance on a factory-built metal object. And she couldn’t bring herself to hit the old man anyway. But she still wanted to.

  “What did you do with it? It looked like you threw it away, but I know you didn’t.”

  If nothing else, she’d learn a handy trick.

  “Don’t worry,” he said calmly. “The gun will pop back to the village. At least that’s what I told Coyote to do with it. I don’t think he’ll lose it, and he doesn’t have time to gamble it away, since he’s meeting us at the Moose-Butt.” Gramps scratched his head. “Unless he goes to another dimension for the game, of course. But he won’t. He has a crush on you.”