by Holley Trent
The woman worked on a ranch, and competently, according to those lovesick asshole ranch hands who spent their wasting hours at the town bar. She had to know how to tie knots.
“I don’t expect a thank-you from you,” she said. “I don’t expect anything from you. I think we established that a few weeks ago.”
He felt his cheeks tighten into a grimace.
So much for keeping a straight face.
They’d established a lot of things that night a few weeks ago. They’d discussed that there wasn’t going to be a baby. That it was probably for the best, with circumstances being what they were. And that there was no reason for them to be married.
He knew the odds, and the same thing would likely happen again and again if they were foolish enough to try to be a couple. He was a Coyote. She wasn’t. As far as he knew, fertility was a tricky enough thing for shifters without adding the variable of mixing species to the mix. He’d seen the troubles of his mother, a woman whose Coyote legacy stretched back a hundred and fifty years. She was built to bear Coyote children, but she only got one and so many heartbreaking false starts that she’d stopped counting.
Having children wasn’t so important to him that he’d put a woman through that, and certainly not a human one. He didn’t know if he’d be able to live with the guilt if something worse happened. The guilt was bad enough already.
Lily dropped his keys onto the counter and then leaned against it. “Where’s your phone? Need it in case Regina calls.”
“More likely Blue or Kenny’ll call, and I don’t know. The ladies took it when they tied me up.”
“I’ll get it.”
She stared at him for a moment as though she had something more to say or she was waiting for him to speak up, but he didn’t know what to add. Nothing seemed to matter.
She shook her head and left, leaving the door open.
He tipped his head back on the seat, slouched in resignation, and then remembered the ropes.
As he loosened his hands he considered his options.
Free or not, he didn’t think he had so many—not with those five odd cats probably waiting by the door.
CHAPTER FOUR
Lily had meant to secure Lance’s phone and return immediately to the trailer, but she’d been distracted by Blanca who’d wanted Lily to explain to her some of the lyrics in the song “Bodak Yellow.” Then, Lily had gotten pulled into Estela’s very enthusiastic lecture about the vagaries of Oaxacan ceramics, and shown—essentially—the woman’s entire portfolio. None of the women had any formal training in art, but they’d been working at it under their mothers’ and aunts’ tutelages since they were children and had all developed their own unique styles.
Lily thought they were underpricing their wares for the U.S. market, but she didn’t think she had room to opine.
It was nearly dark when Lily bounded up the step into the trailer and closed the door halfway behind her.
Most of the ladies had gone down to the beach to give French Fry some exercise, but a couple stayed back with Martha, tidying up and preparing for dinner. She suspected that they’d be paying attention to their Coyote problem, though not necessarily overtly.
Lance was sitting at the table with his fingers twined, glowering at her.
Clearing her throat, she slid him his phone and opened the shades next to the dining space. The table was on the side of the trailer that faced the lake. It was a pretty view, especially with the pastels of the dusky sky.
“I don’t think anyone called,” she said.
He raised a brow and unlocked his phone screen. “Guess not.”
“I’m trusting you not to do anything to escalate this situation.”
“Like calling Blue and telling him I’ve been semi-abducted?”
Lily sighed and opened the refrigerator for a bottle of water. “Exactly.”
“Want to catch me up a bit? You know. Since you were gone a while.”
“Maybe try to ask me questions without the burr of suspicion in your voice.”
“I’d be remiss not to be suspicious.”
“I don’t want to argue with you about the same things over and over.” She glanced toward the ajar door and tried to order the sounds from outside. Lily didn’t know if the ladies had hearing as good as the Cougars back in Maria, but she could use what she did know as a baseline. If the ladies were by their grill, at best, they’d only make out murmurs if Lily and Lance were speaking in normal tones. So, a little softer than that, she said, “Here’s what I could find out. Try to keep up, because I learned all of this in pieces and it’s sort of convoluted.”
She turned to him, and he nodded his assent.
“Oh. You can move freely, by the way.” She pretended to untie him in case one of the women was watching through the camper’s window. As long as they thought she was cooperating, she could keep them from focusing too much on Lance. “They decided that as long as there’s someone watching the door, you wouldn’t be able to get very far.”
“They’re that confident?”
“I guess so. I didn’t want to probe. I do know that they’re afraid of having their non-humanness sensed. To them, you’re a risk that needs to be handled.”
“Noted.” He got up and went immediately to the bathroom.
She waited the few minutes he was in there by sipping her water and gathering her thoughts. The situation was such a mess, and she was terrified she would slip up and say too much. She didn’t want to inadvertently lead those women to Maria. As nice as they were to her, she didn’t know what they wanted with Lola or what they were capable of.
Lance returned to the kitchen. He rooted out sandwich fixings, and said, “Go on.”
“Okay. They’re part of a goddess cult,” Lily said.
He paused his mustard-spreading and stared up at her from the little island. His trailer was appointed better than her dorm room had been back in college. Didn’t seem fair.
“Cult?” he asked.
“Yeah. I have pretty much the same sentiment about that. They say they’re descended from some shipwreck survivors. The story is that this boat full of African slaves mysteriously exploded somewhere off the eastern coast of Mexico and a handful of the women were pulled onto land.”
“By whom?”
“According to them, a certain goddess with a fondness for cats.”
The butter knife slipped from Lance’s fingers and clattered onto the countertop. She didn’t think she’d ever seen that shocked look on his face before. Working with Blue, there was probably very little that surprised Lance anymore. “Seriously?”
Lily nodded gravely and put a hand over the scar on the back of her neck. “I think you were probably right about this scar being an intentional mark. I don’t think Lola put it there for people to track her through it, though.”
“Probably put it there so other gods wouldn’t bother you.”
“As good a guess as any. She’s not the most forthcoming of higher beings. It’s just as likely she put it there to mark me as the first sacrifice should the need arise.”
“She wouldn’t want you as a sacrifice. You’re neither a child, a virgin, or a tribal warrior.”
Lily cocked a brow.
He shrugged and fitted the top of his sandwich onto the pile of meat and veggies. He gestured toward the fixings on the counter. She shook her head. After the spontaneous lunch she’d had, she didn’t think she had room for anything else.
“Been working for Blue for a long time,” Lance said. “He’s got a brain full of folkloric trivia. Can’t help but to have some of it rub off.” He grabbed a bottle of water from the fridge and sat across from her with his meal. “I take it that Lola used that symbol prolifically if folks an entire country away could recognize it.”
“Maybe not prolifically, but definitely enough for people to learn that it was an intentional symbol that was specific to Lola. Odd. From what I understand, she made a pretty concerted effort to fall off the planet a couple of hundred years
ago. There’s almost no evidence she ever existed. She doesn’t talk about her past.”
“She doesn’t talk about much of anything from what I’ve observed,” he said through a mouth full of sandwich.
“Except to her granddaughter, but her granddaughter is six, so I guess that doesn’t count.” Lily tilted her chair to stimulate her restless leg muscles and stared at the trailer’s ceiling. There wasn’t a nick of paint, hint of rust, or dent anywhere to be found in the space. Given the immaculate state, she would have thought that Lance never used it at all, if not for the fact she’d seen him leaving town towing the trailer numerous times. She’d never asked him where he went. Until now, she’d never been curious.
“Anyhow,” she said distractedly. “Their culture has been pretty isolated from the start. It’s not surprising that we wouldn’t have been aware there was a group like them down there.”
“Purposeful isolation is typical of shifter groups. When Americans were expanding westward, a lot of shifter groups purposefully went off the beaten path. Coyotes tended to follow other groups—Wolves or Bears and what-have-you—because they were opportunists and also because it was easier for them to let the larger predators pave the way a little.” Lance polished off the end of his sandwich and licked a bit of mayo off his thumb. That action stirred something untouchable in her memory that had her instinctively moving a hand to her tense lower belly and drawing in a breath.
What was that?
“Lots of pioneers disappeared and not all for the usual Oregon Trail game reasons, but because they got turned.”
“Turned?”
Grunting, he eased from behind the table and returned to the little prep island. He pried apart two more slices of bread and said, “Take a caravan of humans crossing paths with a group of desperate migrating Coyotes, and you end up with some humans getting nibbled on, and some getting turned into Coyotes.” He dug into the cheese package and carefully separated the squares. A comical sight. His big hands weren’t made for fussing with slivers of wax paper. Thick fingers, she mused, crossing her legs at the thighs wantonly, and mentally berating herself for even making the observation. That was probably how they’d gotten into trouble in the first place—her observing his various large parts. Too bad she couldn’t remember.
“That’s how my Coyote ancestors got turned,” he said. “They were on the way to California.”
She fixed her gaze safely above his neck. The things up there were sized normally enough. “And got mauled in Nevada?”
“Yep.” He folded a piece of meat into his mouth and finished piling things onto his second sandwich. His appetite wasn’t surprising. Aunt Glenda had always complained when Mason, Hank, and Sean were growing up that cooking for them was her part-time job. Their appetites were bottomless. Fortunately for her budget, Belle’s metabolism had been somewhat more human.
“Obviously, at that point,” Lance said, “all they could do was pretend they didn’t make it. They grabbed whatever was important then abandoned their wagons and never wrote home. Everyone back east thought they died.”
“That’s sad, but I would imagine that’s a common story for shifters.”
“The ones in the U.S. who obviously aren’t Native American, anyway. Aside from certain types of fae, the only shifters indigenous to Europe are Russian Bears.” He gave her a sidelong look as he lifted his sandwich to his mouth. “Don’t ever fuck with Bears unless you want to get eaten.”
“E-eaten?” Lily could feel her face heating on a delay of barely a second as word association triggered a hazy, drunken memory. She seemed to recall being in the dark walk-in closet of Blue Shapely’s guest bedroom with her legs wrapped around Lance’s neck. Big fingers. Thick, slippery tongue.
“Shit,” Lance murmured. His nostrils twitched and the corners of his lips tugged downward.
She covered her face with her hands and groaned into them. She couldn’t even begin to guess what her hormones were doing, but whatever they were up to, Lance could probably smell the shifts. Dominant Coyotes had powerful noses. He’d made that clear between shots number two and three of Mescal at Blue’s housewarming party. He’d sidled up beside her and drawled, “You look at me like you want to stab me. I guess that turns you on, huh? Smells like it.”
Oh God.
She hadn’t remembered that embarrassing tidbit before now. Mescal had truly done the devil’s work.
“Let’s move on, shall we?” She dropped her hands and pressed her thighs together tightly beneath the table. He had so many disturbing qualities. If only she could recall one or two of them…
“If that’s what you want.” He slid his thumb between his lips and sucked off another smear of condiment.
He’d done that before. Licked his finger and stared at her like she was the meal. She didn’t remember what happened after that, but he must have done something with that thumb.
Oh God.
Her ears were burning hot enough to melt wax.
She angled her chair toward the window as much as she could and stared pointedly outside it. “Uh. It is what I want. As I was saying, Estela’s group is very small. I believe I heard them say that there are only a few dozen of them left, likely because they don’t trust men. I don’t know why yet, but I do know that other than for procreative purposes, they feel they have no use for them.”
“Shit. What about their sons?”
“They don’t have any.”
“What do you mean? Are you saying they don’t have them or that they don’t keep them?”
“That they don’t keep them. I’m pretty sure that’s what I heard, but I didn’t delve all that deep into the history. I didn’t want them to feel like I was interrogating them. I didn’t want them to know I know as much as I do. If I had to speculate, though, I think on the rare occasion that they birth male children, the boys generally drift away when they get older and join other communities by choice. They know they don’t fit in.”
“Hmm. Not normal. Groups need balance.”
“I can’t judge whether or not it’s normal. Not my place.” Or his. She gave him a scolding glare. Mistake, because he was licking the corner of his mouth right then. She quickly faced the window, tittering nervously.
Get it together, chick.
“Did you figure out what they are?” he asked. “Their scent is definitely feline, but it ain’t Cougar.”
“No.” Lily risked another glance at him. He was fully committed to his sandwich and looking down, so she comfortably faced forward again. He was so laidback when he was eating. All the tension he usually had around his eyes and mouth had been melted away by the simple pleasure of white bread and cold cuts.
He was, unfortunately, attractive when he wasn’t snarly. She didn’t want to think of him as attractive because it shouldn’t have mattered to her if he was. Besides, she didn’t even like blonds.
But then again, neither did her mother, yet there Lily was, existing and proving the “Best-laid plans…” warning had some basis.
“I wasn’t sure if I was hearing them right,” she said on a sigh. “When they start talking really fast, they mix languages, and it’s hard for me to keep up. Maybe I misheard, but I thought I heard Estela say something about Jaguars. That can’t be right, can it?”
Sandwich paused midway to his mouth, Lance gaped.
She didn’t think that was a good sign.
“Um,” she continued, “my cousins told me in the past that there’d once been other big cats, but there aren’t any left.”
“That was my understanding as well.”
“Well, maybe the truth is actually that no one ever sees them because, for whatever reasons, they don’t want to be seen.”
“That’s what makes them dangerous. If they’re not tied in with other groups, they’re basically rogue. No checks and balances. I’d be the last person to suggest that Coyotes are an especially orderly bunch, but the more lawful groups do tend to try to limit the damage done by the more chaotic ones. We’re doing t
hat now with the Sparks and NorCal packs and I know the New York alpha keeps a close eye on the pack in Oklahoma. If those Cats are the only ones of their kind, there’s no one reining them in. Honestly, the smartest thing would be for us to get the hell out of here if we can. We don’t know what these women are capable of.” He threw down his sandwich and started toward the door, but Lily grabbed his sleeve.
“Sit, will you?”
He did, albeit slowly.
“We can’t leave. For one thing, they’re probably not going to let us leave here without tracking us. You know that.”
He conceded with a grunt and patted his sandwich back together.
“Secondly, Regina is coming here. While we can probably tell her to meet us somewhere else, we’ve still got issue number one to deal with. We go, the Jaguars follow to make sure we’re not creating trouble for them. We’ll get Regina and Gus mixed up in the mess. Third, and I hate to admit this, but I’m curious. We know so little about Lola, and if they’re really from a group she created, we have an opportunity here.”
“To find out about her, and then what?”
Lily shrugged. “Then nothing. It’s just curiosity, okay? She’s like this mysterious godmother to so many of the people attached to the Cougars, and I hate that I don’t understand her. I’m not even sure we’re capable of understanding her.”
For the longest time, Lance stared at her like what she was saying was complete gibberish and like she had a hole in her head.
That was nothing new. She’d gotten that look a lot from men back in college after they’d found out she’d intended to be a dance major. They thought her logic must have been corrupted in exchange for her having a better than average control over how her body moved. Obviously, they were the ones with the flawed thought processes. She didn’t get into college by doing split leaps and jazz hands past some admission officer’s open door. Her grades had done all the heavy lifting.
“If you have something constructive to say,” she said sweetly, “then, by all means, say it. If not, I heartily endorse you fixing your face.”