by Holley Trent
He was right about that. Marcella’s hips felt as though she’d been on a bike with too wide a seat and had dared to cycle fifty miles on it. She’d be waiting a long while before risking putting her legs around him again.
“How does one prepare for such things, anyway?” she murmured to herself as she put her feet on the floor. “Squats? Lunges?”
“What are you going on about, draga mea?”
“Never mind me. I’m thinking aloud.”
She grabbed her phone from the dresser along with the charger cord and plugged it in next to the bed. “Text message from Dana,” she said. “That must be what woke me up. Just came in.”
“What did she send?”
“Looks like a doc link.” Marcella tapped the message and was taken to a PDF that she realized after about three seconds of staring was phone records. “Huh.”
She put the phone on the nightstand and fetched her laptop. “I wonder what she’s doing working so late. She sent the phone records already.”
“Ask her.”
“I will, as soon as I get my computer booted up.” She typed in her password, then opened the file in the Shrew cloud drive. He immediately lifted the device from her lap.
“Here, let me do that. I’ve developed a knack for knowing what to look for in these things.”
She didn’t bother arguing with him. She had to pee, and she was reasonably certain he’d be giving her a lesson in phone record forensics soon enough.
She yanked her phone from the cord and carried the cell with her into the bathroom. Bad habit, scrolling while she was on the toilet, but she was descended from a long line of multitasking women, and couldn’t shake the compulsion.
Most of the messages in her personal email account were benign and didn’t require immediate action. Her mother asking her to pick up some specific herbs from a shop in Carrboro and ship them to her. A couple of clients inquiring about blessed candles and such. One of Maria’s typically meandering messages that made Marcella snort with good humor. A sister, trying to be a good friend, which Marcella needed so badly. Maria thought Dana was pregnant and that was why she was working nights. The lady couldn’t sleep. If she were right, Dana wouldn’t say anything until she had no choice but to come clean. She and Patrick had been quite open about their fertility struggles.
Marcella said a prayer for them, willing that if they had been successful after trying so long, that there would be a healthy birth at the end. And if they weren’t successful, she wanted them to know peace anyway.
The last new message made her heart seize. The “From” line indicated the correspondence had come from Joseph Ursu. The subject line was “Local Wildlife.”
“Oh God, what is that?” she whispered, tapping the message open. She already knew, though, what he wanted. She’d spoken to him at the restaurant, and she’d listened to him only because she’d already told Soren she’d help him with his problem. But Soren didn’t want her to.
She wiped, flushed, and washed her hands while peering down at the screen. At the address listed on it and at the surveillance details.
The subject was probably at home, though he made a habit of leaving each morning at ten. He was alone most nights. She could be in and out.
Soren was right to refuse, Joseph had typed. He can’t get close. Local cops are dirty. They’d grab him on sight, and Dana wouldn’t be able to talk him out of this one. They’d get rid of him before she had a chance to fly down.
That was all he’d typed, but he’d attached some criminal records and surveillance footage, clearly marked with the sources in case she didn’t believe him and needed to verify.
She believed him.
She believed that Bear could make a lot of trouble for the shifters he’d fucked over and that he was an enemy to the Ursus, the Ridges, and other Bears.
He’d been dismissed, and so he’d make their lives hell in revenge. He knew too much. He ensured that Peter and Soren could never show their faces in public again to anyone but the SWAT teams assigned to collect them.
That wasn’t fair.
Soren tapped gently on the door. “Are you well, pet?”
“Fine.” She typed, Okay, in response to Joseph’s message, put her phone to sleep, and opened the door. She managed to put on a smile, phony though it felt. “Twitter. So distracting.”
“Ah.”
She squeezed past him and made a beeline for the bed, trying to muster up at least a superficial interest in the phone records, even though her mind was a chaotic blur.
He pressed his palms to the bed and started talking, and then scrolling and pointing, and she nodded by rote at all the right times. Listened for the pauses in his speech, or the lifts of pitch indicative of questions being asked.
“I…trust you,” she said finally, pressing down the lid of the computer.
“What are you doing?”
“I’ll forward the access link to you if you want to take a look. I’m going to dart over to my room now.”
“Why?”
He leaned against the wall near the bed and crossed his arms over his chest, smiling like the beautiful brute he was and making her belly quiver with possibilities.
She could be spending the night in his bed, and liking the circumstances.
Or she could handle business to ensure that their future nights together were safe and uninterrupted. She’d always known that Soren was a dangerous man, but she hadn’t really conceptualized how hazardous his life was. She could make life a little safer for him in a few mere hours.
“Because no one will see me if I go now.” She pushed up onto her tiptoes and bussed his stubbly chin.
Texture.
She’d never considered texture on a man to be so appealing before. She’d never had a good reason to dwell on the details. Now, she wanted to know every single one of his, including why the left side of his bottom lip didn’t curve all the way up when he smiled.
She put an index finger against the edge and nudged it up.
He kissed her hand. “Don’t pick on me.”
“I’m not. I just noticed the side doesn’t always move. What happened? Nerve damage from a bad fight?”
“No. Born like that. Bell’s Palsy. One of my grandfathers had the condition, too, not that he was much for smiling. I didn’t know he had it until I was twenty-three and going through some old pictures.”
“Oh.” She let him kiss her hand again, and then reluctantly pulled away to search for her clothes. “Less chance of me getting spotted looking like I’ve been ravished this way.”
“Who cares?”
“I care.”
“You’ll never see any of these people again.”
“I know, but…” She slid her pants up and used more attention than was necessary to fit the button through the hole. “You’ve got to give me time to get used to this new way of being. A girl can’t turn over a new leaf overnight.”
“No, I suppose she can’t.”
She bent to scoop up her shirt, and when she was erect once more, his lips found the top of her spine and his hands found her hipbones.
She sighed. “Soren…”
He was going to make her not want to leave, and she had to. She’d never let herself get distracted before. She’d never wanted to be distracted by anyone.
“We’ll never get anything done at this rate.” She took a couple of steps forward and tugged her shirt over her head. “One of us needs to be responsible. The sooner we finish this job, the sooner we can go home.”
“We.” That crooked grin again.
“Maybe I’m tired of arguing with you.”
“Yes, I’m sure that’s all it is.”
He watched her put all of her junk into her bag and push her feet into her shoes. Then he followed her to the door, shamelessly nude.
She put her hand on the knob, feeling too much like she was saying goodbye when they’d barely gotten started with hello.
You’re paranoid.
Everything was new to her.
That was all. Of course she was anxious. She didn’t know what was supposed to happen next.
She turned around and pressed a quick kiss onto his chest before opening the door and fleeing.
Looking back would have been foolish, so she didn’t, even if she could sense his gaze on her back as she retreated.
If she looked over her shoulder, she’d be back in his bed, her plans would be screwed, and Joseph would have to find some other way to handle his problem.
Marcella didn’t like messy things, and she was going to clean up the mess—even if the mess wasn’t hers.
Then, maybe, she could be still.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
“Marcie.”
Christ, she was gray.
Marcella had shown up exactly when she said, at seven on the dot for them to get started for the day, but she seemed to have left her mojo in her room.
He pulled out of the drive-through line he’d been waiting in and slung the SUV into a parking spot. “Marcie.”
She had her head propped against the window and her eyes closed. She twined her fingers primly atop her lap. “Only my granny gets to call me that.”
“Make an exception.”
She sighed.
Seriously? Just a sigh?
That wasn’t right.
“Who are you and what did you do with Marcella Bailey?” he asked.
“Hmm?”
“You sighed. Where’s the smart-ass response?”
“Give me a few minutes to come up with something good. Do you want something mean or something funny?”
“What’s with you?”
“Nothing. Where’s the coffee?”
“I pulled out of the line.”
“Huh?” She reached blindly for the armrest and pushed herself a bit more upright. The movement seemed more than a chore than it should have.
“Did you not sleep last night after you left my room?”
“Mmm. I dunno. Maybe?”
“That’s a yes or no question. You’d know if you slept.”
“Maybe I did for a few minutes.”
“Perhaps you should go back and get some. You’re no good going into a mission if you haven’t slept. You look gray. I don’t want you turning into a puddle in the middle of a conflict.”
She pouted, eyes still closed. “I won’t.”
“Marcie, open your eyes.”
“I’d rather sleep.” She put her head against the window again.
He grabbed her arm, righted her posture, and then took her face in his hands. “Look at me.”
She sighed again, and if he wasn’t suspicious before, the feeling ramped up in him like a rocket trying to climb out of the atmosphere.
“Open them. Now.”
“Bastard.” She raised the lids slowly, one then the other.
No dark brown irises. No whites.
No eyes at all—only the appearance of water.
“Fuck.” He pressed her lids back down.
“I’d really like that coffee.”
“And I’d really like to know why you’re in this state right now. Were you up working spells all night or something?”
“No.”
“Then what?”
“Nothing for you to worry about.”
“Bullshit.”
“I’m fine. In a couple of hours, I’ll be good as new. Trust me.”
“I’d trust you more if you were honest with me.”
“I haven’t lied to you.”
“You’re withholding the truth. Same thing.”
“Hardly.”
Gritting his teeth, he drummed his fingertips against his thigh and stared through the windshield. There was nothing out there but fields. They were at the edge of a town in the middle of nowhere. They were lucky there was a restaurant with a drive-through at all.
“Marcie—”
“I don’t see the point of having a share-all right now,” she interjected with frustration. “You’re going to get angry, and anger isn’t always the most productive emotion to be carrying around.”
“You’re preaching about anger to a Bear?”
“Seemed an appropriate time.”
“Trust me. I know better than almost anyone how to channel anger into something I can use to get shit done.”
“Perhaps you can teach me to do that someday. Seems like a useful skill.”
“What were you doing last night? Tell me.”
“What did you do after I left?”
“Classic deflection. You think I wouldn’t notice a subject change?”
“Because my activities don’t matter. We have a job to do, and before we can do it, I need a coffee, and maybe a sausage biscuit or something. The morning calls for pork.”
“Unbelievable.” He pulled back into the line and put an order in at the box. As he inched the SUV toward the window to wait, he stared at the side of her face.
He didn’t like seeing her that color. He didn’t like having to speculate wildly about what she’d done to get that way. If she were trying to earn her Shrew & Company secrecy merit badge, she had probably already qualified for one three times over.
The car behind him tapped on the horn and, snarling, Soren moved up a space.
She was distracting him, and he the distraction wouldn’t stop until he found out what the hell had happened to her. They couldn’t work like that.
“Believe it or not,” he grumbled, “when I’m forced to work with Peter, we do actually talk. I imagined you’d be better at that than him.”
“Because I’m a woman?”
“No, because Peter’s preferred method of communicating is with grunts and pokes.”
She made a scrunched face at that.
“If I’m truly your mate, I imagine we’re supposed to be more efficient working as a duo,” she said.
“That’s the theory.” He moved the SUV up to the payment window and handed the clerk a twenty. When he’d received his change, and the teen had shut his window, Soren said to Marcella in a whisper, “Whatever the problem is, you can tell me. I’ve made a fortune from assassinating people who needed killing. If there’s anyone you can unburden yourself to, it’s me.”
She opened her eyes and looked forward. Some of the solidness had returned, though the color hadn’t. The fact she could see at all was a marvel to him. Doc would probably be breathless with excitement when she finally got her hands on Marcella. Advanced crossword puzzles and Shrews were her favorite things to mull over.
“What were you doing last night?” He moved the car up one more slot. He’d be glad when they were finally away from that blasted building, and he didn’t have to watch his words or his volume. “Tell me, or I swear, I’ll call Dana right now and have her pull you from this case. You can’t work like this.”
“You wouldn’t.”
“So help me God, I fucking would.”
“Fine,” she spat, but she didn’t put much heart into the word. She sighed again and swallowed. “After I left, I…I didn’t go back to my room,” she said haltingly. “I mean, I did, but, I didn’t stay. I dropped off my computer and then crept back out.”
Knew I should have fucking followed her.
The one time he’d given his mate the slightest bit of leeway, she’d absconded and had apparently nearly gotten herself splashed. He drummed his fingers on the steering wheel with impatience. “Where’d you go?” He grabbed the bag and the drink carrier from the clerk at the second window and didn’t bother checking the contents before peeling off.
He thrust them onto her lap and barked, “Talk.”
“I did you a favor.”
“Me?” What kind of favor could you possibly have done for me by going out and nearly liquefying yourself? I would have told you in very succinct language not to. In case I haven’t made the point perfectly obvious, I prefer for my mate to be healthy and intact.”
She rolled her eyes, or at least, he thought she did. He couldn’t easily tell with her lack of irises. The fact they hadn’t re
turned yet unsettled him a bit. He knew next to nothing about the kind of creature she was, but he knew a little something about wind-walkers, and wind-walkers worried about losing permanent cohesion. If they shifted too often or for too long, they could get trapped in their air state. They could become witnesses to the life happening around them but no longer able to participate in it.
The Castillos were exceedingly careful about when they chose to take that shape, but apparently, Marcella didn’t always have a choice.
That worried him. He didn’t want to lose Marcella to some shit she had no control over. There had to be a solution—a fix for her.
“Yes, you,” she said drily. “You were put off by having to do the work, so I handled things for you. You should thank me.”
“The work?” He turned onto the road and headed toward the wildlife rehab center. Pamela had apparently done some late-night brainstorming with one of the Bears in her group, and he ended up calling Wes to arrange for a meeting. He’d been so compliant up to that point that Wes hadn’t suspected anything of him, and believed that he simply had something to show him.
Soren programmed his GPS machine. “What work, Marcella? The only work I’ve refused in the past several months was a job from my parents.”
“We’re talking about the same one.”
“I don’t follow your line of thought. Why would you have anything to do with Bear business?”
“It became my business when your parents made it my business. In case you weren’t aware, they have an uncanny ability to find phone numbers and email addresses.”
“They contacted you?”
“Indeed.”
I’m going to kill them.
As soon as they’d close the case, he was going to find a sturdy bed to tie his reckless mate to, and then he was going to fly to Romania. Apparently, his parents were long overdue to see his fangs.
“And they told you, what? To convince me to do the job? I’d already refused them numerous times. I wasn’t going to change my mind.”
“You don’t understand. Your parents didn’t want me to play advocate. They asked me to do the work since you couldn’t.”
That didn’t make sense. Soren couldn’t keep driving—not and be able to stay in his lane. He pulled over as soon as there was a shoulder wide enough to perch the SUV on and yanked up the parking brake.