Deceptions: A Collection

by Shiloh Walker

  “Handmade. Traditional bows. The compound would suit you fine and it’s a lot cheaper, especially since you have to pay double. Despite what people think, if you know how to shoot, the compound is no more or less accurate than a recurve bow.” The man was standing at my elbow now, although he was actually talking to me now, instead of Damon.

  “I know.” I smiled. I had to see what was in that cabinet. Had to.

  “The cheapest bow in there is fifteen hundred dollars. That means it will cost you three thousand. You got that on you?” he asked, his voice edging into belligerence.

  I looked at Damon, deflating a little. I didn’t, damn it. But I had to have what was singing to me…singing so sweetly, I almost wanted to cry.

  “I got it,” he said.

  I couldn’t stop the smile that spread over my face.

  When he opened the cabinet, I saw her.

  Oh, sweetheart…come to mama…

  “Oh.” Blindly, I shoved the compound at Damon and greedily reached for her. She was…oh. “She’s lovely.”

  Long and elegant, carved by hand. I touched her and listened to her song for a moment. I half-expected to hear the tribal flutes and drums of Native America, but that wasn’t what I heard. It was tribal, all right, but this sounded of Africa.

  “She wasn’t made by Native Americans.”

  “No.” That was all he said.

  It didn’t matter. I didn’t need to know the story behind her. She was mine. “How much?”

  “Two thousand dollars.”

  I grimaced. Damn, this was getting to be a costly shopping trip. This beauty wasn’t going into the park with me. I wanted to get to know her better before I did anything with her. Wooden, carved with pride, by knowing hands…I could feel it.

  Stroking a finger down the carved surface, listening to the beat of her song, I smiled for a moment, just enjoying the music of her. Finally, I pulled myself away and then turned to Damon. “I could use both,” I said quietly. “We can take it out of my fee.”

  “I got it.”

  By the time we were done, the total was almost six thousand, including the arrows. Fiberglass for the compound, but the traditional bow had wooden arrows to go with her as well. They were almost as pretty to hold as she was. I thought I might try my hand at carving my own sometime.

  The man tried to charge a few hundred for sales tax, but Damon stared him down. “You and I both know you’re not reporting these sales to the IRS, so why bother?”

  A beatific smile curved the man’s weathered face. “True, true…you sure the steel tips will work for you? I’ve got others.”

  “Others?” I asked absently, still stroking the bow. Next to my blade, I’d never had a weapon talk to me so sweetly. Never.

  “Silver tipped. Hollow and solid. Iron. Copper. In case something other than steel is your preference.”

  He said it casually, so very casually.

  But there was no way on earth those words had a casual meaning.

  Next to me, I felt Damon tense. Blood crashed in my ears. Roared. Rage thundered and I tasted the fury as it climbed up my throat. Silver—silver for shifters. Iron—iron hurts witches, weakens them and affects their ability to cast magic, heal themselves…copper? What is affected by copper? And I couldn’t ignore the very simple weapon of a wooden arrow—wood through the heart of a vampire.

  “No.” I gave him a smile. “We’re good with the steel. I just want to get in some target practice.”

  I prayed I wouldn’t have to drag Damon out of there.

  I stashed my lovely new toy away even though what I wanted to do was use her for the very first time on the man with his kind smile, liquid eyes…and black heart.

  He knew what he’d been offering.

  If he’d known what Damon was, he wouldn’t have made that offer.

  Good thing Damon had throttled back in the store and hadn’t let it loose yet, but damn.

  I could feel the intensity of it lurking, though. He was furious and I was almost afraid of what was going to come boiling out of him. After I’d hid the bow, I left the other one in the trunk in plain sight and shut the trunk. Not meeting his eyes, I stared down the road. “Who drives?” I asked, keeping my voice level.

  Careful, careful…

  “I will.”

  I nodded and started for the passenger side, but he stopped me, caging me in at the trunk, one arm on either side. “You’re afraid,” he whispered, ducking his head and burying it against my neck.

  I shivered a little and then my mind went blank as I felt the scrape of his teeth against my neck.

  Colleen’s message rushed through my mind.

  Hey, don’t let the sexy asshole bite you. I think that’s kind of their sign they’ve accepted it.

  Hitching up my shoulder, I shrank away from him a little. “I’m not…shit. Look, we don’t have time for this. You feel like a time bomb in my head and I understand why, but it’s still an unpleasant feeling.”

  “Kit.” Big hands cupped my face. “You ever going to get the fact that I don’t want to hurt you?”

  I stared up at him. “I’m processing it. Doesn’t mean I entirely believe it. And right now, it doesn’t even matter. There’s a job to do.”

  A muscle pulsed in his jaw. He nodded slowly. Then he reached up and tugged my sunglasses off.

  When he lowered his head, I felt my heart practically jump up into my throat, but it wasn’t fear this time.

  His mouth slanted over mine and I groaned, opening for him even as sanity tried to rear its ugly, stupid head. Slow, easy…like he was trying to coax me into believing every word he said. And the crazy thing was…I was almost ready to do just that. His tongue stroked over my lips, teased its way into my mouth. Over and over, such a gentle, easy seduction, belying the anger I could still feel beating inside him.

  When he broke away—too soon, way too soon—my heart raced, my body ached and throbbed and screamed for more. “I can be madder than hell and still control myself. Any time I’ve ever done anything, it was for a reason. Maybe it was a stupid reason, and I’m sorrier than you’re ever going to know, but I am not going to hurt you,” he whispered against my lips.

  As he walked away, I let myself lean against the car while I tried to will some strength into my legs, some sanity into my brain.

  This had become a hell of a lot more than just a job.

  Getting the bow into the park wasn’t hard. I just faded out and walked right past the park rangers with it.

  Now, two hours later, I had the bow in one hand and I was ready for a target, any target, just to alleviate some of the frustration.

  “What was the deal with you and that bow earlier?”

  I didn’t pretend not to understand what he was talking about. There wasn’t much point.

  It was hot, I was sweaty, cranky already and more than a little freaked out. So far, we’d seen more gators than I’d really rather ever see in my life.

  Gators scare me. I can’t help it.

  There were also snakes and while they didn’t scare me so much, I wasn’t overly pleased to know they were slithering around out there. I could hear them. The same way I heard the slow, lumbering crawl of the gators…sometimes I wish I had the hearing of humans. Would make this easier.

  Stroking a thumb down the fiberglass of the compound bow I’d brought with me, I debated on what to tell him.

  “Well?” he asked, shooting a look at me.

  “What kind of shifter are you?”

  He stopped in the middle of the path and turned, staring at me. “Why?”

  I shrugged. “You’re asking something that has to do with what I am. I figure it’s fair play.”

  “I’m just asking what the deal is with the bow.” The black slashes of his brows dropped low over his storm-cloud eyes.

  “Yes…and the deal has to do with what I am.” The compound bow murmured in the back of my mind, a soft pleasant little stream of nonsense that I couldn’t pick apart, but it was nice. I liked
it. Background music, I decided. “What you change into is what you are. Sooo…”

  He continued to stand there, hands planted on his hips as he studied me. Sweat had dampened the collar of the olive green shirt he wore, but while I suspected I look like I’d been ridden hard and put away wet, he looked like he had just been out for a jog around the block. At dawn. “I might tell you,” he finally said. “But you have to answer a question first.”

  I rolled my eyes and went to edge around him. “Sheesh. Forget I asked.”

  “No. I want the answer.” He blocked my path simply by placing his body in front of me. Too big. Too…there. And he wasn’t holding back that wild energy of his anymore, either. It was almost as hot as the sun beating down on my head, but its heat was different. I could feel it licking at me from under my skin and it drove me nuts. “It’s an easy enough question. I just want to know whether or not your word is important to you.”

  “What?”

  “Your word. Does it matter?”

  “Oh, for crying out loud.” I elbowed him in the gut, determined to get past him this time. I managed by wedging between him and a tree, scraping my arm against it in the process. The endless tangle of the Everglades spread out in front of me and my gut crawled as I studied the terrain. Just off to the left, I saw the glint of water…and a long, reptilian form. Another gator.

  “So you’re a liar, then?”

  I spun on my heel.

  “No,” I snapped. I don’t lie. Even though the aneira had never bothered to teach me many of their more honored traditions, it seemed as though some of those traditions had come to me simply through my blood.

  My heart is strong. My blood is noble—Once upon a time, honor had been everything to the aneira, or so the legends said.

  I didn’t lie.

  And when I gave my word, I felt honor-bound to keep it. If I thought I couldn’t keep a promise, I simply didn’t make it.

  In the quiet, white-hot heat of the day, I glared at him. “Are you happy?” As I went to turn, I shot another look to the water and suppressed a shudder. The gator was still there. If it moved, I’d hear it, but the fear was still twisting inside me and shutting it off would be about as easy as stopping the flow of the St. Johns River.

  A big arm came around my waist. “The gators aren’t going to bother you.” His hand spread wide over my belly. “I’ll tell you what I am, but you can’t tell anybody…not until I say it’s okay. Nobody in the clan knows what I really am. They made an assumption when I came to them and I let them think it.”

  “Why do that?”

  “Because I’m one of just a few…” He turned his face into my hair and I had the weirdest sensation he was breathing it in. “I was orphaned. Like Doyle. When I was a kid. I’m hunting down the fuck who killed my parents, and one day I’ll end that bastard’s miserable existence. But until then, nobody can know. If I tell you, I have to trust you won’t share it with anybody.”

  “Why would you tell me?”

  “Why wouldn’t I?”

  The hard, heavy thud of my heart against my ribs left me breathless and it was a few seconds before I could breathe. “The thing with the bow isn’t quite that personal, Damon. Not much of a trade. Look… it’s just a…”

  “Leopard,” he murmured against my neck before I could say another word. “Clouded leopard out of Borneo. There is only a handful of my kind left. My father came from Borneo and I took after him. My mother was human, lived in New Zealand. Everybody assumed I came from one of the Himalayan packs. A lot of them interbreed with humans and when they made the assumption, I let them…it suited my purposes.”

  Leopard. As the puzzle of that settled into my brain, my lids drifted down. “Didn’t I just tell that you didn’t have to tell me?” It was a heavy weight. He’d kept it secret for a reason, and whatever that reason was, I wasn’t sure I wanted to carry the burden.

  “I wanted to. I want you to know what I am. Now…the bow.”

  “It sings.”

  Off in the distance, I heard the slight shift as the gator moved around. He had noticed us, I thought. Shivering a bit, I took a breath and blew it out. “Weapons…we hear them. The modern weapons are just static and noise mostly, although this bow, there’s craftsmanship in him. Somebody worked on him—cared,” I murmured, stroking the compound bow and smiling a little as I sensed a small pause, almost like pleasure, in its music at the back of my mind. “Every weapon I own, I picked because it spoke to me in some way. I could hear something singing to me the minute we went through the door in the back room. And the minute he opened that cabinet and I saw her…”

  “Her. You talk about them as though they live.”

  “For me, they do.” Rustling in the grass drew my attention and I looked over. The spot on the bank where the gator had been lying was empty. “Now…you can stand here and chat all you want, but I want to move.”

  He laughed a little. “Okay, baby girl. But you ought to know…I could have that gator for lunch if I wanted.”

  “I’m not worried about you.”

  An hour later, we got into a fight.

  He insisted we head to the east.

  But something tugged me west.

  “Damn it, I can fucking smell their back trail,” he growled. “If your ears were any better, you could even hear their damn dogs.”

  “My ears are just fine.” I sneered at him. “I can hear them.”

  But that wasn’t where I needed to go. Gripping my bow, I pointed to the west. “You go on wherever in the hell you want. I’m going this way.”

  West was wet. West had next to no path and I could also hear the slither of snakes and the rustle of gators.

  As much as I’d like to pretend it didn’t matter…it did.

  I didn’t want to go that way.

  But I had to.

  Something pulled me—

  I couldn’t even define what it was. The cloying stink of wet earth, water, smells I just wasn’t used to flooding my head, but I wasn’t going east.

  While he stood there glaring at me, I started through the undergrowth. A snake slithered over the toe of my boot. I managed to keep my hiss behind my teeth. Barely. Grass snake. Harmless. Fast. Still, a snake and not anything I wanted crawling across my damn boot.

  A hand closed over my elbow and jerked me to a halt before I took another step.

  “Why?”

  Still staring at the tail I could make out in the grass, I thought absently, Because why would I want a snake on my boots…?

  “Damn it, Kit…”

  I lifted my head and stared into Damon’s eyes. Abruptly, I lifted my hand, touched his cheek. “You’ve got the most amazing eyes,” I murmured. A split second later, I realized what I’d done and went to jerk away while blood rushed up to stain my cheeks red.

  He covered my hand with his, lowering his head and pressing his brow to mine. “I’d ask if that was your way of changing the subject, but considering you look like you just bit a lemon, I don’t think you mean to say that.”

  “Ah…”

  He nipped my lower lip. “Why this way, baby girl? Just answer me.”

  Just answer. He made it sound so easy. But it wasn’t. I eased away and stared out into the distance. “Something’s calling me. I have to go this way.”

  It was getting late.

  The sun still blistered the sky.

  We’d gone through half the supplies in our packs.

  I was holding up a hell of a lot better than I had last time, but we hadn’t found anything.

  I could still feel that odd tugging, drawing on me like a thread had been wrapped around my insides and it twanged every time I tried to stray from this path.

  But it was getting late and we weren’t exactly equipped to camp in the Everglades.

  “How long have we been out here?” I asked as Damon came striding back through the undergrowth after answering the call of nature. Men had it so easy. I lived in fear of a snake biting me in areas no snake should ever see.<
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  “Six hours.” He glanced at the sun. “We have maybe an hour before we have to head back, if you’re up to walking. I can get you there faster if you need me to carry you.”

  “I’m good. Today was easier.”

  A grin split his face. “You hiked all damn day. Yesterday you sat in a tree.”

  “Yeah. Unable to move, balancing in ways I’m not meant to balance.” An hour. Not much time. Brooding, I started to walk.

  I hadn’t taken two steps when I was jerked up and whirled around. My head was still spinning, or at least it felt that way, because what I saw in front of me just didn’t make sense for a minute.

  “What…” I licked my lips and shook my head. “What the hell is that?”

  “We triggered something,” he whispered against my cheek. “I saw it just as you hit it. I’m sorry, kitten.”

  Heart still racing, I stared down into the gaping, dark hole and felt my mind spinning away into the darkness of memories. Dark, awful memories.

  “Let me out…”

  Even though I knew I couldn’t climb the slick rock walls, it didn’t stop me from trying. Pain sang through my back from the latest whipping and every inch of me hurt, but that didn’t stop me, either. I had to get out of that pit. I had to. “Let me out!”

  Rana stood over my head, staring down at me with eyes so like my own. Her face wasn’t creased with that smile that Grandmother so often wore. No, I couldn’t read anything on Rana’s face and sometimes, that made her scarier.

  “You will stay here until our return,” Rana said. She glanced at the guards at her sides and then back at me. “The Dominari is not for weaklings or halfbreeds, Kitasa. You shouldn’t have asked.”

  I didn’t hear her words. Didn’t notice the guards.

  I only saw the walls of the pit as I struggled to climb out. “Let me out!” I screamed, trying to scramble my way up.

  My nails, already ragged, broke. I tried to climb until my fingers bled and my arms ached.

  It was hours before I admitted the futility of it. My throat ached from my screams.