Somewhere between pancakes and coffee, Devin called. I hadn’t talked to my better human half in ages. “How is my favoritest pediatrician in the world?”
“Still kicking. How is my favorite super hero in the world?”
“Still purring.”
Devin laughed. I closed my eyes and leaned forward to hold my head in my hands. His voice soothed me, only slightly revived by the hot coffee and hot cakes.
“Haven’t heard from you in a while.”
“I’ve been swamped.” I looked up at Lexie and paid close attention to my nouns. “Turns out that I wasn’t exactly prepared for my new job.”
“How could you be prepared?”
A few months ago, I’d told Devin everything over several bottles of wine. He knew about the Wanderers. He knew about my curse and knew about the pack. And he still stuck around. Didn’t mean I was ready to go public with all this. Devin was special and knew the importance of keeping secrets between friends.
“And because of that, I’ve been a sucky friend.”
“You’ve had a lot on your plate.”
“Doesn’t excuse the suckiness. Want to meet me for coffee?”
“Got a little time this afternoon?”
I had to get up from the breakfast table to find my planner. When I finally found it and then the date, I moaned. “Crap.”
“If today’s not good, that’s okay.” Devin was too understanding and frankly too good for me.
“No, I missed an appointment last night.”
“What?”
The question echoed from the phone and from across the dining area. I reached across the table and handed Chaz my planner so he could see what I’d missed. Just a checkup with one of my pack members about a job.
“I missed an appointment with a . . .” My eyes fell to Lexie. “With a student.”
“Why are you being weird?” Devin asked.
“My niece is with me.”
“Your niece? I thought you were an only child.”
“This might be one of those coffee conversations.”
“Noted. When is a good time?”
I reached back out for my planner and Chaz frowned as he handed it back. I scanned the pages. “Saturday around ten?”
“As you wish, fearless leader.”
I smiled as I hung up.
“Who was that?” Lexie asked.
I sat back down at the table with my planner. My day was packed and I was about to miss another meeting with LA about the TV show.
“My friend Devin. He’s a doctor.”
“You have two boyfriends?”
I laughed. “No, I have one fiancé and one boy who happens to be a friend.”
“And Tucker? What’s Tucker?”
I looked up to Chaz, who just shrugged. Note to self: not good lying on his feet. “Tucker is a co-worker.”
“Is he a writer too?”
I sighed. “Actually he’s a police officer, but he helps me research police business to make my writing more real.”
“And the others?”
“Tucker’s family.”
When Lexie finally looked back at her pancakes, I sunk my head, exhausted. It was all becoming too clear. The Haverty rule of not consorting with humans and not letting them know the truth about Wanderers would never work for me because lying was exhausting. That was what, five lies to Lexie in a matter of minutes?
I wasn’t winning the aunt of the year award. Maybe next year.
“I KNOW THAT I’ve been a little incommunicado, but I’ve given you gold, you just have to spin it, Rumpelstiltskin.” I ran my fingers through my hair and rested my head on the desk.
Five minutes into my conversation with Drew, my boss in LA, about the story arcs for MoonBlood, and everything ached. It was more than just a bad breakup that landed me in Dallas. I needed space from Drew. He thought about every detail every time and had to be on top of all of us to make sure that we toed the company line. Hence the reason that I developed a wicked coffee addiction while working for him
“I’m not paying me to spin it, princess. I’m paying you to spin it.”
I sighed. “What if I just gave you all the rights to do with it what you wanted?”
The line was silent, and in that silence, my eyes closed and the warmth of my office surrounded me like the universe wrapping a warm blanket around my shoulders. The white buzz of my computer stopped as the screen faded to black and took a little nap as well.
“I don’t want the rights to MoonBlood.”
“You paid me to write it. I wrote it. Technically, it’s already yours.”
“Do you even hear what you are saying, Violet?”
The concern in his voice drew me from the darkness behind my eyelids. Drew didn’t show concern often. I slowly sat up. What was I saying? I would never give up one of my characters. Especially one that hit so very particularly close to home. “I’m sorry, Drew. I don’t want to give up MoonBlood. I’m just tired.”
“Well if you lived in LA, I could . . .”
“I will never live in LA again, scumbag old boyfriend or not.”
“I just worry about you, Violet. I know you’re not the intern I hired all those years ago, but I still worry. How about you send me some season-long arcs and I’ll have Violet Four see what she can do with them, and then you can rip them apart and make them brilliant before we give it to the Write Pack.”
“Violet Four?”
“There’s just no replacing you.”
My eyes watered. It was the nicest thing Drew had ever said to me. Between that and the concern, I’d think he was a completely different person.
“Now, I need to go. I think I just heard a click on the line.”
He hung up quickly. I laughed as I set the phone down. Good to know that his paranoid ways had not changed.
The floor creaked behind me and I sniffed. I still hadn’t gotten used to Lexie’s smell yet. I turned to face her in the doorway of my office.
“Chaz wanted to know if you wanted to drop me off.”
“Do I have to?”
Her shoulders fell and her gaze hit the floor. “I’m sure I could call Dad.”
Crap. I stood. “No, sweetheart. I meant I’m kinda getting used to having you around. Not sure I want you to go home.”
Lexie smiled up at me—an ear-to-ear grin, and if I wasn’t sure she had psychic blood running through her veins, I would have said it was something almost fey-like beaming in her eyes.
“Let me get dressed.”
CHAZ HAD GOTTEN a phone call from his modeling agency, so I let him off the hook of dropping off Lexie. I adjusted the charm at my throat and waited for Waylon to answer the door. Lexie hadn’t remembered to pack the hotel key in her haste to run away.
When the door opened, I experienced something that only solidified why I needed them in my life.
Waylon’s eyes filled with water as her threw his arms around Lexie. She hugged him back with the same vigor, and one would think each was trying to squeeze the air out of the other.
“I’m sorry, Dad.”
“I promise the tyrant has left the building,” he whispered back.
I smiled. Seemed it wasn’t a Violet way with words, it was a Jordan thing.
When the two broke and I wiped my eyes too, Waylon hugged me. There was a warmth there that I only vaguely remembered, a baked-cookie sort of feeling as I hugged him back.
“This is why I need you, Violet. To rescue us.”
He let go and pulled me into their suite. I went a little reluctantly, knowing the two of them needed to have a conversation. Lexie slipped her shoes off where there was a pile of shoes and tossed her bag on the chair.
“Lexie?” Waylon said as he walked to the kitchen.
“Tyrant,” she shot back as she picked up the backpack and headed to what was probably her room on the other side of the suite.
“You have no idea what this means to me, Violet.” Waylon poured me a cup of coffee and splashed in milk and two suga
rs. It was just what I needed.
I took the warm mug and stirred. “She’s kind of awesome.”
“She really is. I don’t know what I’d do if I lost her.” Waylon put his hand on his hip and looked at me.
I felt that familiar feeling, cool stones running down my back. I was starting to think that my dampening charm was on the fritz. Have to talk to Nash about that.
“Wish you could spend the day with us.” Waylon sighed before he went to fix himself another cup of coffee.
“Something keeping you from asking?” I took a sip of coffee. It wasn’t the best but the sentiment made it sweeter.
Waylon frowned. “I’m sure you have a busy day ahead of you.”
“Nonsense.” I dug around in my cavernous bag and pulled out the infamous planner. “I’m sure that I can—”
My day was still packed and there was no moving anything around to tomorrow. “I’m booked. But . . .” I flipped through the next few days. “I can do dinner on Tuesday?”
Waylon smiled. “I’ll give you a call on Monday.”
My shoulders sank and I looked at my watch. I had just enough time to get over to the coffee shop for the next meeting. I chugged his coffee as quickly as I could. “Thanks for the java.”
“Lexie. Aunt Violet is leaving,” Waylon called across the suite.
The girl ran back across the apartment and threw her arms around my middle. Every cell in my being wanted to cancel all the appointments to spend the day with her, but there was no rest for the wicked.
“Thank you, Aunt Violet.”
“You are very welcome and I’ll see you on Tuesday for dinner.”
Lexie gave one more squeeze before she abandoned me for her father’s side. His large arm rested on her shoulder. They were going to be fine, despite the burden of their last name. I was going to see to that.
HANNAH AND EVAN needed only one word to describe them: nervous. Their noses twitched under their horn-rimmed glasses. Their eyes shifted from their clasped hands to mine wrapped tightly around my coffee mug. It all made me twitch.
This was my second meeting with this couple and I still had a hard time getting over their furrier sides: rabbits. But with my history with the furry creatures, I was proud I was sitting fairly still before them.
“How is the housing situation working out? You said you were looking to move in together now that you didn’t have to be messengers.”
Hannah nodded, brown curls falling in her face. She didn’t bother to brush them away or try to meet my eyes.
“So does that mean you found a place?”
She nodded again. And she was the talkative one of the couple. The small amount of information I had pulled out of them was that Hannah was the rabbit first, and Evan followed just a few months into their dating. Haverty was using them as messengers to deliver his dirty dealings and Hannah still bore the scars of some of the responses, which is why, though the spring was hot upon us, she was always wearing a sweater.
“So you’ve found jobs as well? Evan, weren’t you looking into working at Sprouts?”
He nodded. “They hired me. I’m stocking for them.”
“Good. At least I know that you’re eating.”
They both nodded.
“Did you remember to get off the full moon?”
Both jumped and looked at each other. There was a quiet little conversation in their eyes and I couldn’t help but smile at their silent dialogue. Chaz and I didn’t have a secret language. We’d have to be in the same room at the same time for that.
Hannah looked back at me. “No, but I’ll call in right now.”
“How can you forget the full moon? I set one rule to be followed.”
I didn’t hear how harsh my voice was, but I saw it in their entire being, felt in it the soft spider thread ties between us. They were scared. I closed my eyes and dropped my head. It was more than that, something more subtle than fear with an edge of disappointment. Who was the tyrant now?
“I’m sorry.” I sighed. “But seriously. How can you forget something that I’ve been reminding you about for weeks?”
“We’ve been trying to do what you said. Find a house. Get jobs. Open bank accounts. We’re doing our best.”
I bit my lower lip before I snapped that their best wasn’t good enough. Lately, my best had been fair. Maybe it was their good enough and I needed to work at making their best better.
I watched as Evan squeezed Hannah’s hand. They’d gotten that part right. Find someone to be better with.
I licked my lips. “Please remember to get the time off for the full moon. We are carpooling from Riverchon Park. Do you know where that is?”
“Yes, Prima,” they answered in unison.
There was something in their tone that made me feel even worse about my leadership style.
“We did have a question for you,” Evan said.
Hannah knocked his knee with hers and gave him a wicked frowning.
“Yes, Evan?”
“Are you going to be able to do something about this?” Evan lifted up his sleeve and the dark Demon Lock stared up at me from under his plastic watchband.
I gulped and had to stop my hand from reaching out to it. “I didn’t know.”
I couldn’t feel it like I had with Tucker and Tyler. But if anyone fit Haverty’s need for prey, this one did. Haverty only marked the weakest of his pack as tributes to the demon Jovan.
“What about you?” I asked Hannah.
She shook her head. “He knew one of us having it was as good as both of us having it.”
My heart hurt for a moment and I had a feeling it was their pain and not mine. “Do you guys remember Nash?”
They both nodded.
“I’ve got him trying to figure out how to break it.”
Evan nodded and rolled his shirt sleeve back down.
I reached for my planner. “Keep looking for an apartment. Hannah, let me know how the job thing is working out, and I will see you in . . .” I flipped open to the monthly calendar and tried to calculate the days until the full moon. “Five days? The full moon is in five days?”
A furrow appeared between Hannah’s brown eyes.
I leaned back in my chair and stared down at the planner. Five days? Five days to prepare the farm for the invasion of twenty shifters. I was pretty sure Iris knew we were invading, but I should probably call her to get a pep talk about how she wasn’t going to help me out with this.
“Okay. I’ll see you guys in five days.”
The two nodded and fled the table. There wasn’t another verb for it. Evan grabbed Hannah’s hand and they bounded away in record time.
I leaned forward and rested my head in my hands. What the hell was I doing? An unplanned full moon, scared pack members, ghouls.
I didn’t think there was even a hand basket for where this city was heading.
WHEN I STORMED into the library like I usually did, the head librarian just rolled her eyes and let me go back to special collections with my twenty ounces of coffee and bad attitude.
It got a little worse when I saw Nash and Kandice canoodling over a book. How could he be flirting when he was still researching the elementals for me and still hadn’t given me an answer to breaking the Demon Lock without binding more souls? If I didn’t have time for romance, neither should he.
But then Nash laughed and the feeling of it echoed in the golden thread that bound his magic to mine. Nash was happy. His energy was warm and steady. And Kandice—her silken silver strand was smooth, without the constant thrum of fear that usually ran through it.
Maybe this was Nash’s person. The hound dog and the hawk. There was a certain poetry in it. I almost wished I didn’t need to bring my doom and gloom, but just call me a little black rain cloud.
“You two look comfy,” I said as I walked into the special collections area.
The two jumped away from each other and stared at me like I was going to yell. Their bodies flinched, waiting for it.
First Hannah and Evan, and now Nash? I really was doing something wrong.
I slunk over to the table and pulled out a chair.
“Violet. We were just looking into elemental lore,” Nash said quickly.
“You were flirting, but as long as the research is getting done, I don’t mind it.” I smiled and leaned back in my chair. “How done is the research?”
Nash looked at Kandice and they both relaxed. Another couple with a secret language? Chaz and I were missing the boat on this trend.
“We’ve found out how to hurt them?” Kandice squeaked. Her voice was tight and she was so very unsure of herself.
I focused in on her strand and enhanced it. She and smiled. “We found that if you can completely disconnect them from their element you can hurt them.”
“So if she’s a fire elemental, I just have to douse her in water?”
“It’s not quite as Wizard of Oz as that,” Nash said. “But yes.”
“Bummer.”
“But,” Kandice chimed in, “you could wrap her in wet cloth and she wouldn’t be able to call on her element.”
I nodded.
“And then you could go in for the kill.”
I winced. “Not really ready for the killing part, but if she comes at me, I’d like to be able to stop her long enough to run.”
“You running?” Kandice asked.
“It happens. Not in my shining moments, but it happens.” I turned to Nash. “Ready for the doom and gloom part of this afternoon?”
Nash gulped.
“I’ve still got four with the Demon Lock. I’d like to be able to break it by the full moon.”
“That’s five days away,” he said quickly, sitting up in his chair.
“Apparently.”
Nash reached up and pinched the bridge of his already thin nose. “I’ll try. I mean, without the grimoire, I don’t know how much else is out there about that.”
“Well, it looks like you have a helper now. Twice the brain power should mean half the time.”
Kandice brushed a strand of blonde hair behind her ear, revealing flushed cheeks. “Thank you, Prima.”
“For what?”
Nine Lives of an Urban Panther Page 10