The Cougar's Trade

by Holley Trent

  “Don’t apologize, sweetie. What do you need?”

  The woman would probably track down the grave digger and apologize to him for the inconvenience before drawing her last breath. That had to get wearying for the people around her.

  “Do you know how Edgar got his hands on the tranquilizer he injected Ellery with? Did he steal it from the clinic himself, or did Dr. Sheehan give it to him?”

  Now it was Hank’s turn to stare. Who does she think she is? He’d already asked all those questions, only to have them responded to with hostility.

  Katrine pursed her lips and shook her head. “I wish I could tell you one way or the other.”

  Hank threw up his hands. “Obviously, the goddess hasn’t finished punishing me.”

  “You all right, Hank? You sound like you’ve been hanging around Darnell too much. I think Exam Room Two is empty if you need to lie down, but there might be some sheltie hair on the table.”

  He rolled his eyes.

  She rolled hers right back.

  Miles gave them both a mildly chastising look that Hank hadn’t seen the likes of since tenth grade. Cougar girls were always getting him into trouble in English class. The rookie teacher had no idea that all the fuss came down to shapeshifter hormones. Cougar teens bickered, even over the pettiest shit. It had something to do with territorialism, supposedly. The teacher had found out later there wasn’t a damn thing different she could have done, though. She’d unknowingly married into the glaring and had a crash course about supernatural shenanigans.

  Apparently, Miles needed to have one, too.

  “Answer the question, will you?” he said.

  Katrine glared at him. “I really don’t know, Miles. Does it matter, though? What’s that phrase?” She narrowed her eyes as she thought. “Perception of guilt, I think. Whether Doc gave it to him or not doesn’t matter. We’re all going to assume his hands are unclean because he’s gone. They’re all gone.”

  Miles nodded. “Thank you.”

  “Any time.”

  Any time. No one had ever said that to Hank, not even his own mother.

  “’Bye, Fabio.” Katrine snapped her wrist in his general direction as if he were a dead fly she wanted off her desk.

  “A little respect wouldn’t kill you, Katrine.”

  “Probably wouldn’t, but you know how we women are. You walk in here throwing around all that testosterone, and our brains go douche alert! Douche alert! If you want to blame anyone, blame the goddess. She’s the one who wired us women to give you fools a hard time.” She waggled her eyebrows and picked up the phone’s receiver.

  He ground his back molars, and followed Miles outside. Katrine might have been right about the female Cougar’s propensity to continuously punish the male of the race, but Miles wasn’t a Cougar. That didn’t make her disregard of protocols any more forgivable. There was an order and structure to the glaring for a reason, and if his own mate was going to subvert it, how could he expect anyone else to get in line?

  He moved her a bit past the veterinary office’s glass door so Katrine couldn’t read their lips. “We need to have a discussion about the glaring hierarchy.”

  “The chain of command, you mean.”

  “Yes.”

  “What about it?”

  “Specifically your place in it.”

  She turned her earring, and her guileless gaze moved to the street at her right, and then back to him. She swallowed. “I didn’t think I was in it at all.”

  “Everyone’s in it.”

  Her gaze tracked to the right again, and this time he followed it.

  She looked across the street to where a woman tried to wrest a flailing child into the backseat of a county car. Had to be a caseworker, given they were right in front of the social services building.

  “Poor little thing.” Miles started across the street, whether to assist the woman or the child, he couldn’t tell. It seemed to Hank the lady was worthy of more pity at the moment. She’d sweated out her suit jacket, and one of the attached ties at the neck of her blouse hung down in tatters.

  Shit. Kid’s one of ours.

  Of course a Cougar child would fight harder, and that’s what Jamie Fitz was. Miles wouldn’t have known that, though. She wouldn’t recognize many Cougars on sight or be able to feel their auras the way Ellery did. She was just a tenderhearted stranger who saw a struggle and wanted to help.

  Where the hell is Jamie’s mother?

  Hank didn’t bother stopping Miles because he suspected she was going to intercede anyway. They could argue about it later—when they weren’t in front of someone who didn’t know what he and Jamie were, and when he was certain Jamie was in the best possible care. He and Mason likely would have intervened anyway as soon as they’d gotten word about the child’s whereabouts, but apparently, because of Miles, he’d have to be more proactive.

  She quickened her pace to a sprint as Jamie’s shrieks became louder, her wrenching more violent. Miles got as close as she dared, keeping her hands in her pockets and moving as the child did so she could see her.

  “You’re going to get so tired,” she said sweetly to Jamie, who stopped flailing long enough to look at Miles. Had it been Hank, she probably wouldn’t have stopped. Curse of the male Cougar.

  The social worker used that moment of calm to try to get her into the backseat again, but once more, she started to thrash.

  “I’ve been wrestling with her all morning,” the social worker said, and set the child on the ground next to the back tire as if to rethink her strategy.

  “I’m a hospital nurse,” Miles whispered, “so I know the system pretty well, and I know you can’t tell me anything specific. I just…understand.”

  Judging by the tender catch in her voice, Hank didn’t think she meant the child-wrestling part. She’d probably witnessed plenty of heartrending scenes during her shifts.

  The social worker nodded.

  “Do you mind if I say hello?”

  “If she’ll let you.”

  Hank pulled his phone out of his back pocket and pulled up his text-messaging menu as she knelt.

  “You don’t like the car?” Miles asked the child.

  The girl gave her head a hard shake.

  Hank typed to Mason, “Marta Fitz’s little girl is in custody of social services.”

  Miles held out a hand, palm-up. “Is it all right if I touch you? I’d like to get your hair out of your eyes so I can see who I’m talking with.”

  After a long moment, Jamie nodded. Miles tucked her hair behind her ears.

  Mason returned, “Any idea what happened to Marta?”

  “Give me a minute. I’ll see what I can find out.”

  “Thanks. A lot of the kids in the glaring have Foyes listed as backup guardians in case something happens to their parents. I don’t know if Jamie Fitz is one of them.”

  It’d make life easier if she was, otherwise they’d have to scramble to find her suitable care. Cougar adolescents were unpredictable. There was no telling when they might shift for the first time, and the last place they needed to be was in a home with people who didn’t even know shapeshifters existed.

  “Why don’t you want to get in?” Miles asked.

  “I want my mom.”

  “I explained this to you, sweetie,” the social worker said. “Your mom can’t take of you right now.”

  “She’ll be back.”

  “Hey, maybe she will.”

  “She will!”

  Miles let out a breath and took Jamie’s hands in hers. “She’s only trying to make sure you have a safe place to sleep and that someone is looking after you until your mom is back.”

  “They’re going to be mean to me.”

  She said it so matter-of-factly, Hank couldn’t help but wonder just how many times she’d been through this same song and dance. He couldn’t guess. Marta was a relative newcomer to the glaring, only arriving in town in the past couple of years.

  “How do you know that?” Mil
es asked.

  “Been there before. They don’t like me.”

  Hank texted to Mason, “MARTA IS GONE. I DON’T KNOW IF THAT MEANS SHE LEFT OR IF SHE’S IN JAIL OR IN REHAB OR SOMETHING, BUT APPARENTLY JAMIE’S BEEN IN FOSTER CARE BEFORE.”

  “Let me ping Mom and see if her foster care credentials are still active. She might have asked to be taken off the list when Dad died. There was so much happening then.”

  Miles cut her gaze up to the social worker.

  The social worker gave her head a slight shake. “There’s no one else, and that’s one of our best homes.”

  “Perhaps not the best one for her?”

  The woman turned her hands over in obvious concession.

  Mason texted, “ACTIVE LICENSE, BUT SHE ASKED NOT TO BE CALLED UNTIL FURTHER NOTICE. HAVE THE SOCIAL WORKER CALL HER.”

  “WILL DO.” Hank turned to her, and watched her watch Miles for a moment. He understood why the woman would be stunned. Her job was to handle children like Jamie, and she’d likely encountered many who put up a fight, but she’d probably never had a stranger off the street step in and calm a child with just a few whispered words.

  The cougar part of his brain seemed to believe that was signal enough for Hank to get the woman on her back as soon as possible and try to make a cub. Do it. Right now, it said. Look how pretty and sweet she is. The more ordered part of his brain, however, while impressed, wasn’t as swayed. Falling for her was an impractical luxury he couldn’t afford.

  “Listen, there might be one other option,” he said. “I think Jamie knows my mother, and she’d take her for the time being. She’s licensed. Her notes probably say not to call, but they’re old. She might take one child.”

  The social worker furrowed her brow and turned to Jamie. “Do you know him?”

  Jamie gave the tiniest nod. “Kinda. That’s Fabio.”

  Hank pinched the bridge of his nose. For fuck’s sake. He’d grown out his hair after high school to cover a scar on the back of his head, and then he’d just gotten used to not cutting it. He wasn’t sure who’d started the “Fabio” barb, but he had a sneaking suspicion the perpetrator had the last name “Foye.”

  “Let’s go inside, out of the heat, and work it out,” the social worker said. “If we can avoid putting so many kids in one home, we try to do it.”

  “Unavoidable sometimes,” Miles said, and now he knew for sure from the catch in her voice she wasn’t just speaking in hypotheticals. She was drawing on something else.

  He hoped it wasn’t what he thought, but he really didn’t know anything about her at all. He’d been spending the last month doing all he could to not even look at her. Now he didn’t have a choice. She’d already stuck her nose into glaring business, and he wouldn’t be able to pull her back without damaging relationships. They needed stronger relationships in the glaring, not more strain. He’d deal with the strain in his own relationship later, if that was what it even was.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  By the time they returned to the ranch and got Jamie settled in with Glenda, it was dark. Quiet. Blessedly quiet. If they were lucky, there wouldn’t be any demons flying up out of the hellmouth and they could all get a good night’s sleep. Not that Miles thought she’d be getting much sleep, and when she saw Ellery streaking across the yards with her arms thrown open and a big grin on her face, Miles couldn’t help but find her second wind.

  Ellery pulled her into a hug that all but knocked the wind out of her.

  “I’m okay,” Miles said with a laugh.

  “How’s freedom feeling?”

  Miles cut her gaze to the looming Cougar at her left and shrugged the best she could inside Ellery’s grip.

  “Hank, don’t you have someplace to be?” Ellery propped her hands on her hips and narrowed her eyes.

  “At the moment, no. I was just about to take Miles to my house.”

  “She’ll meet you there.”

  Hank folded his arms over his chest.

  “Mason! Come get your brother,” Ellery shouted through Glenda’s screen door. Mason had been peppering Jamie with questions when Miles had been informed by broody Hank that it was time for them to go. Miles hadn’t been looking forward to leaving, not only because she’d wanted to see Ellery before bed, but also because she wasn’t particularly looking forward to hearing whatever Hank had on the tip of his tongue to say. She had the feeling he was holding something in waiting and simply needed the right time and place to spit it out.

  “That’s cold,” Hank muttered.

  “I play dirty,” Ellery said. “You should know that by now.”

  Mason stepped into the doorway with Nick on his hip. “Hello, witchy love of mine. How was work?”

  Ellery pressed her palms to the small of her back and cracked her spine. “Grueling. No easy first day for this chick. Listen, didn’t you have something you needed to confer with Hank about?” Her gaze flitted pointedly toward Woodworks, which Sean probably couldn’t see from his position.

  Miles stifled a laugh.

  “Oh. Yeah, actually, I did.” Mason descended the porch stairs, gave his mate a kiss, and handed her the kid. “Come on,” he said to Hank. “We need to see how much Cory’s cabinet repair and installation could possibly fuck up our production schedule.”

  “The easy answer is a lot.”

  Mason cringed. “Well, let’s figure out specifics. I’ve been wanting to promote one of the installation guys to supervisor, so this might be a chance to see if he can step up.” He waved Hank toward the large, corrugated-metal building Woodworks called its headquarters.

  Hank cut his gaze to Miles, and as always, she couldn’t read anything in it. She couldn’t tell if he was angry or sad or just aloof.

  Not knowing made her look away.

  “She’ll be fine with me,” Ellery said. “I’ve been looking out for her for a very long time. A decade before you came along. If you can’t trust me to keep her from absconding, take that shit up with your brother.”

  On that note, Hank walked away.

  As soon as he was out of a Cougar’s earshot, Miles whispered, “I’m not going to abscond. I told him I’d stay.”

  “What? Hold on. I need to sit down for this.” Ellery plopped onto the second-to-bottom stair step and set Nick beside her. She patted the space right next to him. “Sit.”

  Miles did.

  “Explain.”

  “It seemed practical. If it doesn’t hurt, why not help?”

  “You always say that,” Ellery said softly. It was that voice she always used right before she dug into her purse for a handkerchief, and if she cried, Miles would cry, and in the end, they’d have no idea what they were blubbering about.

  “No crying allowed. I’m too exhausted for it. And it’s true. I told him I’d trade him something. I don’t know what, but hey—” She gave Ellery’s shoulder a little nudge. “This way I get a little freedom to come and go. I won’t leave you high and dry. I can keep Hannah from doing anything rash, and Glenda has one less son to worry about losing to a curse. No one should have to deal with what she does.”

  “Even when the poor woman’s sons are professionally irritating. Oh honey.” Ellery pulled her into an embrace, squashing poor Nick between the two of them. He took it all in good fun, though, and giggled from between their torsos.

  “Can I stay with you?”

  “Of course you can.” Ellery chuckled and rubbed her eyes with the heels of her palms. Her eyelids were heavy. She had to be as tired as Miles, just for a different reason. “You know, Mason and I were pretty certain the pairs would sort out the way they did.”

  “Why?”

  “Because it took them so long. If the obvious choices had felt right to them from the beginning, it wouldn’t have taken them a month to claim you and Hannah. I think they knew something wasn’t right with the obvious, and they just couldn’t digest it.”

  “Do you think she’s wrong?”

  “Who? La Bella Dama?”

  Mile
s nodded.

  “Well, she’s not my goddess, honey. I’m like you—just an outsider mate. We’re caught up in her whims, but I think in general, she knows what she’s doing. Mason is coming around to accepting that. I’m sure Hank and Sean need more convincing.”

  “I could use a little convincing, too.”

  “It’s Hank’s job to do that, unfortunately. And you can still go. You may have told him you’d stay, but there’s no reason you can’t leave when you want if he’s not treating you the way you deserve. I mean, the fairy-tale romance would be nice if you could get it, right?” Ellery gave her a bump with her shoulder.

  “Maybe, it would be, but what kind of fairy tale? Like, an original Grimm, or the modern cartoon movie version where everyone’s happy and only the villains die at the end?”

  “For you? Only the happy kind.”

  “And what about Hannah?”

  Ellery didn’t have to respond. Her grimace confirmed the same thing Miles was feeling. “Do you think it would help if we talked to her?”

  Ellery shook her head. “She won’t talk to me. I keep trying, and she tells me I’m a traitor and turns her back when I try to get her to understand.”

  “She can’t.”

  “I know. Trying to explain falling for someone unexpected to a person who’s never been in love before is probably a futile endeavor, but I’ll keep trying. You can sleep at our place for as long as you want, or until you figure out how you’re going to negotiate this thing. Do you think you’ll go home once things settle down?”

  Miles turned her hands over. “Probably. Maybe I’ll ask for that in exchange for the favor. I don’t see why I wouldn’t go home, especially since Hank thinks I’m a liability here.”

  Ellery grimaced. “I don’t think he’s going to go for that.”

  “Why not?”

  “From what I’ve learned, Cougar men aren’t so inclined to let their mates stray, even if they’re not a couple.”

  “That doesn’t make sense.”

  “Says the lady to her witch BFF? Why do you keep expecting things to make sense here?”