by Renee George
I turned back to Billy Bob.
“Can you believe now?” He’d already put his pants back on.
“I believe.” I believed in werewolves. I’d seen one with my own two eyes. As to the part about me being there to help them solve some deep backwoods mystery? Well, that remained to be seen.
Chavvah Trimmel was my best friend. She had been my best friend for a lot of years. She knew everything there was to know about me, including the fact that I had a psychic gift. However, it was looking more and more likely that she had kept a secret from me. A really, really huge one. I wasn’t sure how I felt about her deceit. It didn’t change the fact that I wanted to find her, and I wanted her to be safe, but I wasn’t certain what the future would hold for us beyond that. How could she keep this from me? I trusted her, but apparently, in our friendship, trust was a one-way street.
Billy Bob cleared his throat. “It’s kind of cool, if you think about it.”
“Cool is finding a permanent cure for cancer. Cool is dating a millionaire. Cool is having perky tits when you’re sixty-five. This—” I pointed at him. “—is so not cool.” Okay, it was a little cool, but frankly, it also scared the crap out of me. I didn’t want to be this person. The bigot. The one who couldn’t get beyond someone’s idiosyncrasy, but shoot, this was BIG. I’d have to digest.
Billy Bob kept me in the tent one more night before giving me the A-OK to go back to my apartment. He’d explained more than once how were-animals existed, and even though I accepted paranormal creatures walked the earth and kept whole towns for themselves, it was still difficult to fathom.
Apparently, they could shift at will. It was part of their nature, but once a month, on the full moon, they were forced to shift into complete animal form without choice. Unfortunately, the full moon had happened my second night in town. The puzzle pieces were falling into place. They’d wanted me to leave for two reasons: my own safety and to prevent the exposure of who and what they were.
I couldn’t blame them. On either count. Damn Chavvah for not telling me.
Babel picked me up from Billy Bob’s and drove toward town. I had trouble looking at him. I felt humiliated and embarrassed. I’d slept with a man who wasn’t a man who could turn into what? I hadn’t even asked him. Though…I glanced over. His blue, blue eyes stared out at the road.
“You’re coyote?” Of course that made sense. Judah was a coyote. So, duh, why wouldn’t his brother be the same? For that matter, Chavvah too. “You saved me.”
He grunted uncomfortably. “Did I?”
“You don’t remember? You pulled the other coyote off me the night I was attacked. Unless there are more animals running around with your exact eye color.”
“I don’t remember.”
“How can you not remember? Shaman Billy Bob said you guys could think like humans when you were in animal form.” Was I really saying this out loud?
“What Doctor Smith didn’t tell you is that on the full moon, we become more animal than human.”
The way he’d said “Doctor Smith” gave me the impression I’d hit a sore spot. What didn’t Babel like about Billy Bob?
I thought the shaman was a little weird, but totally cool. I let Babel continue without asking what his beef was with the lycan. It could wait. Besides, after not seeing him for three days, I was trying hard to work on being angry with him, but failing miserably. He was just so delicious to look at.
I sighed softly as I took in his broad shoulders. He was wearing a dark-gold sleeveless tee shirt and a tight pair of jeans. His look was finished off with a baseball cap and a pair of cowboy boots.
God! My mind was drifting to farmhand fantasies.
The young stud out bucking hay. The farmer’s wife watches from the porch, waiting with an enticing pitcher of lemonade that will be the catalyst for her seduction. Sweat drips from his forehead as he stops work to stare across the yard at her. He lifts his shirts, exposing his tightly carved abs, as he wipes the sweat from his brow.
“Sunny,” Babel said, piercing my fantasy. “Where’d you go? Did you have another vision?”
Yes. “No.” I wished. I could stand to have that one come true. “I just got lost for a moment.” In your beautiful eyes and wonderful body. “Tell me again.”
“During the full moon, our minds,” he tapped his head, “go to a place of pure instinct. Although bits and pieces of the night do show up as broken memories, it’s more like pieces of a dream.” He popped the clutch on his old truck and shifted down a gear. “It’s why I think you shouldn’t be here, Sunny. We’re too dangerous for humans to be around full-time.”
Jeezus. I knew his secret. He knew mine. But he was still trying to get rid of me. “Fine. Take me to the nearest bus station.” I didn’t mean it. There was no way in the world these jerks were going to get me to leave before I found my friend, but I was mad enough to make an empty gesture.
He adjusted the speed again, making the pickup lurch forward. I braced myself against the dash.
“I’m afraid it’s too late for that,” he said reluctantly.
“What? Too late for what?” The way he said it made me nervous. What did these creatures have planned for me? Then something else that I should have considered popped into my head. “I was bitten.”
“Yeah.” He rubbed my back as I dropped down and put my head between my knees.
“Will I…”
“Be turned into one of us?” he finished for me.
“Oh, it’s too awful to think about.” I clutched my head, willing all the bad stuff to go away. Oh, no. I couldn’t be a werewolf or coyote or whatever. I could just imagine the amount of razors I would have to invest in. I hated to shave as it was, but if I was an animal, I’d probably get all hairy, and it was bad enough that I’d started to get chin hairs since I’d passed thirty-thre—Holy crap, what if I started growing a full beard? I didn’t want to get furry on the full moon.
I heard Babel’s soft chuckle.
“It’s not funny.” I hiccupped.
“No worries, Sunny darlin’. We aren’t made. Only born. The bite of a therianthrope won’t turn you.”
As the fear ebbed, again, anger was there to replace it. Asshole. “What are you guys planning on doing to me?”
“Doing to you?” He rubbed his palm against his jeans. “Absolutely nothing.”
Chapter 8
Visions of coyotes, bears, and rabid beavers tearing my body to shreds danced in my head. No, not a real vision. Just my own worries wreaking havoc on my emotions. With the town just up ahead, I rabbit-punched Babel in the kidney.
In a normal dude, he’d have doubled over breathless, I’m sure. Apparently, were-guys weren’t normal. He looked at me, annoyance plain on his face. “What’d you do that for?”
“Pull over.” I wanted out of this truck and out of it this instant. I had stumbled onto a long-held secret, and while the wacky shaman might think it was fate, I had a feeling the rest of the town would view me as a threat.
“Sunny, we’re almost in town.”
“Pull over!” I shouted. Grabbing the door handle, I tried to push the door open. Damn rusty piece of crap didn’t budge.
“What are you doing?”
I rolled down the window. “I’m getting out.” Unbuckling the seat belt, I climbed up into the open window. “You can pull over and let me out. Or I can jump.”
Who was I kidding? We were only going about twenty-five miles per hour, but even at that speed, the fall would probably kill me. If I managed to not get myself run over in the process.
Babel grabbed me by the shirt and yanked me back down into the seat. “Don’t be stupid.”
Stupid? He had not just called me stupid! “I feel sick. Babel, pull this truck over or I’m going to ralph all over you.”
The truck slammed to a stop and I flew forward. Babel’s arm was the only thing that kept me from banging my head into the windshield.
“You all right?”
I heard Babel ask.
“All right? All right? Am I all right?”
“That’s what I asked.”
“No, I am not all right! Are you an idiot?” My chest started to hurt, and I began to hyperventilate again. “I. Am. Freaking. Out.” I tried to get my breathing under control. Now was so not the time to have a panic attack. “I need air.”
“Maybe I should take you back to the doc?”
“No!” I didn’t want to go back to Billy Bob’s. Even with Chavvah still missing, I had the sudden urge to escape. I wanted to go home. And not Peculiar—San Diego home. “Just let me out. Let me out. Let me out.”
“Okay, okay.” I heard the panic rising in his voice. He reached over and pushed the door open on the passenger side.
I fell out onto the asphalt road and scrambled to my feet. I was never so glad to be wearing my tennis shoes. It was going to be a long walk.
Babel was out and on the other side next to me before I could get my bearings.
“The nearest town is thirty or so miles that way?” I pointed west.
“You’ll never make it.”
“What? You going to hunt me down like a dog?”
His chin jerked back as if I’d hit him. “I just meant, it’s a long, hard walk from here.”
“I’m sorry.” My chest still hurt, but my breathing eased. “I made a mistake. I shouldn’t have come here.” There was definitely a sorry-for-myself, verging-on-whiney factor going on.
“Sunny.” Babel’s voice was kind and gentle. It made me even more nervous, because it reminded me of how people talk when someone has just died. “You don’t know how much I hate that you’re in this position. Chavvie had no right to bring you into this world.”
A sharp bark drew my gaze. I sighed. “Not now, Judah. Go away.”
“What?” Babel asked wearily, then his voice became strained. “Judah?”
“Yeah.” Then. “Oh.” I realized Babel didn’t know his brother was among the deceased. The wind kicked dust up just as I inhaled. I coughed, covering my face with the collar of my T-shirt.
“Is it like one of your…episodes?”
“Uhmm, well, not really, but sort of.”
“Just now though.” He pulled me up, my face mere inches from his chest. “Did you have one now? About Judah? Do you know where he is?”
“No, no. Nothing like that,” I tried to explain, but how did I tell him that his brother’s ghost was stalking me in coyote form?
“You’re keeping something from me, Sunny.”
No shit. “I…” I didn’t feel right not telling Babel what I knew, even if it hurt him. “The coyote I’ve been seeing…”
“Yes.” His bright-blue eyes lanced my heart with their intensity.
I stroked his cheek then took his hand. His fingers felt so warm against mine. I hadn’t noticed before how much heat his skin gave off. I guess I’d just attributed the temperature to the fact that everything in Missouri was damned hot at the moment. I bit my lower lip and steeled my courage. “It’s Judah’s ghost. I’m sorry, Babel. I really am.”
He shook his head, his face grim. “Do you know what happened to him? Has he said anything?”
Sighing, I put my arms around him and rubbed my face against his chest. I fit perfectly against his body, as if he’d been made for me. “I’m sorry. He’s in coyote form, and while he barks and whines, I’ve got no idea what he wants from me.”
His thick fingers laced my hair at the nape. Tilting my head back, he closed his lips on mine. Heat moved thick like a living, breathing entity between us. There was no were-creatures, no ghost, and no Peculiar. Just Babel and myself locked into a moment of desire. I wanted to lick him from head to toe right there on the dusty road. Caution and common sense be damned.
A daunting howl sounded from behind me, snapping me back to reality.
Babel had been a one-off. Not lifetime-commitment material. If I allowed myself to fall, I knew I’d fall hard (and probably crack my head and break a few bones in the process). Besides, he wasn’t even human. On top of that, he could be the end of my friendship with Chav. She would not want me banging her brother. It went back to that girl code. Regardless of the physical chemistry between us, these issues seemed an insurmountable problem to overcome.
Reluctantly, I broke the kiss. “We can’t.”
“We already did.” Grief glittered in his eyes, but he forced a thin smile. Wow, he was trying to lighten the mood. Either that or lust was clouding his judgment.
Smacking Babel’s chest, I stepped away from him. I glanced at Judah’s ghost. “We have eyes on us right now, and I’m not into exhibitionism.”
“You really can see him?”
“Yeah. You don’t seem surprised that he’s, you know…”
He finger-combed his mussed mane of hair. “I’ve known for a while my brother was gone. Not just missing. He might not have wanted to live in the human world, but he always kept in contact with our folks and me. Judah wouldn’t have just run off.”
“I get that. But you believe me? I’m not used to that. Most people think I’m a crackpot.”
He lowered his eyes. “If your abilities are real, then there is a real chance we can find Chavvie. I couldn’t help Judah, but I don’t want to let my sister down.”
I didn’t want to let anyone down, but I’d lived with this wretched psychic curse for most my life, and it was nothing if not unreliable. I worried that I would fail Chavvah, especially now that I knew Judah was dead.
“I’m starving. Feed me and then we’ll see if I can justify some of this hope you have where I’m concerned.”
Chavvah’s cabin, where Babel was staying, surprised me. It was tidy and neat.
“Make yourself at home.” His voice was distant as he rummaged the cabinets of his kitchen.
I watched him put fettuccini noodles on the counter. He opened the freezer and pulled out a bundle wrapped in white butcher’s paper. “That’s not meat, is it?”
He held up the parcel. “Only the best. Prime Grade-A beef from the cattle ranch up the road.” Tossing the meat in his hand, he smiled. “Hope you’re real hungry.”
I shuddered. “I’m a vegetarian. So no beef for me.” Then another thought hit me. There were werecoyotes, wereopossums, wereraccoons, deer, squirrels, bears. Oh, holy hell! “Are there werecows?”
Babel’s eyes went wide, his jaw clenched for a moment. Then the corners of his eyes crinkled and he began laughing, and not just a chuckle. This laugh bordered on a guffaw with several snorts added in for good measure. “There’s no such things as werecows, Sunny,” he finally managed when he could once again breathe.
“Well, how in the hell am I supposed to know? Up until recently I would have said there’s no such creature as a were-anything.” I threw my hands up. “You people need to come up with a damn manual or at least a Werebeasts For Dummies book.”
“We’re not beasts.”
“Aw, I’m sorry. Did I hurt your hairy little feelings?” Big, dumb stupid-head. Teach him to laugh at me. Ha ha!
He growled, proving my beast point. “So, no beef?”
“Pretty much.” I grinned. I couldn’t help myself.
Babel, as it turned out, was a whiz in the kitchen. He made up a feast of pasta and veggies rivaling any of the meals I’d had at those fancy-schmancy vegan restaurants in California. Plus, all his kitchen wizardry had the added advantage of allowing me a private showing of his perfect ass. I was getting hungry, but not for food. Yum. When he was finished, and I’d managed to pick my tongue off the floor and put my eyeballs back in my head, he offered me a cold bottle of beer.
“Do you want a glass?” he asked as we walked out to the front porch to eat and take in the beautiful evening.
I sat on the swing, a two-seater, and marveled at the clear sky. I didn’t think I’d ever seen stars look so close and bright before. “Bottle’s fine.”
“My kind of gal.” He took up residen
ce on the other side of the porch swing.
I’d been thinking about Billy Bob’s transformation from human to half-beast to wolf. I wondered if they all could change so quickly and efficiently. He seemed like such a nice man. Why didn’t Babel like him? I didn’t know a delicate way to bring it up, so I asked point-blank. “What’s your problem with Billy Bob?”
“Other than his name?” Babel snorted. “Aw, Doc Smith is all right. He’s competent at what he does. It’s the whole Shaman-priest thing that bothers me.”
“Really? Why?”
He shrugged and took a swig from his beer. “I’m a Christian.”
Not what I was expecting. I was raised a neo-pagan, but spiritually I was bereft. “And Billy Bob?”
“He perpetrates the old religious customs that keep shapeshifters and others like us, you know, different from humans, in the dark ages.”
Others like us. What others? And did I really want to know? I shook my head. “What kinds of customs?”
“Worship of animal ancestry. Spirit walks. That sort of thing.”
“Oh.” Well, with everything I’d seen and been through, who was I to question Babel or Billy Bob’s faiths? To each their own and all.
“So, Judah’s ghost’s has just been hanging around? No rhyme or reason?” Babel changed the topic so abruptly, it startled me. He really didn’t want to talk about the shaman.
“Not that I can tell.” I felt weird talking about his dead brother. Especially, since Judah hadn’t left my side since he’d shown up on the road. It dawned on me though, the one place he’d led me had been to Sheila Murphy. “Do you think Sheila might’ve had something to do with your brother’s disappearance?”
He paused a moment, as if to think about the question carefully. Finally, he shook his head. “Sheila’s a lot of things. Spoiled, wild, a free-spirit, and often a bitch. But she’s no killer.”
A stab of jealousy went through me. He sounded as though he admired her. And, damn, I was a fool. He’d had sex with her two days before he’d had sex with me. Did Sheila think her and Babel had a relationship? I pushed the awful question away, and concentrated on more productive thoughts. Babel had said Sheila was no killer, but I had wounds on my shoulder that begged to differ. Or at least I was pretty certain it had been Sheila. Those eyes were too much like hers. She would have killed me and had me for dinner the night of the full moon if Babel hadn’t pulled her off.