Deva wasn’t done. “You stop this right now.” She strode forward, shouldering her way through the circle of shifters that had been advancing on us, and put her finger right in his face, and the enormous, towering man-child actually shrank back. “Your father would be ashamed of you, Nathan. Absolutely mortified. He never ran his pack like this. It’s not a party.”
She turned and looked at each of them, stacking her hands on her hips. No one escaped her glare. If she was my mom, her flip-flop would have been off and in her hand as an unspoken threat, but that may have been taking it a little too far with these shifters. “What do you have to say for yourselves?”
If I hadn’t been standing here watching it happen, I wouldn’t have believed it. I glanced at Carol just to make sure we were seeing the same thing, and she had a knowing smile on her face. They took off their hats, dropped their heads, displaying their epic hat hair, and from what I could tell, each of them mumbled apologies.
“Now,” Deva continued. “Get this bullshit cleaned up before I go find all of yall’s mamas. I can’t believe how badly you’re disrespecting nature. Get that paint off the trees. You think mother nature will put up with your shit forever? Don't make her have to tan your hides.”
All of the pack stood frozen until Deva pointed at two of them and snapped her fingers. “You two, clean the paint off the trees.” She pointed at two more. “You two, get all the trash up and in bags. Now. And make sure to sort out the recycling.”
Everyone ran into action, except for the alpha, Nathan. He stood as if waiting for further direction. “Go help,” Deva said, sounding exasperated. “You’re not above cleaning up your mess!”
The three of us moved to one side and sat on their yard chairs as we watched while they scurried around the clearing. The guys who had jumped off the cliff came up and saw all the hullabaloo, then immediately ducked their heads and got busy. It didn't matter that they were dripping wet, they just joined in and started cleaning.
When it looked quite a bit better, Deva sat up. “Nathan,” she called. “We have a question for you.”
He walked up, pulling his ball cap off once more and flexing his hand around the bill, curving it even more, looking all contrite. “Yes?”
One arched eyebrow from Deva was all it took. She was going to have to give me lessons. Apparently my arched eyebrow pissed people off while hers commanded respect. I must have been doing something wrong. He blinked rapidly. “Yes, ma’am?”
“Emma here has a question for you.”
The young alpha turned to face me, since I was sitting slightly off to the side from where Deva was. His gray eyes looked stormy, but the way his eyebrows pinched together told me that he truly regretted his earlier actions, or at least regretted being called on them.
“I’m looking for my brother,” I said. “Henry Foxx.”
His eyes widened dramatically, the gray circles of his irises perfectly visible. “Henry?" He dragged the hand not holding his ball cap over his mouth and the stubble that sporadically decorated his face. His eyes were full of apology as he said, "Man, that dude is in big trouble.”
10
Emma
“What are you talking about? What trouble?” I demanded as Nathan stumbled back slightly at the tone of my voice. He couldn’t talk fast enough to calm my racing heart.
This side of Henry was completely new to me. Getting in trouble? Gambling? Gambling with shifters and vamps? Lying to me? My brother had changed so much. Part of me wondered if Alice knew what he was up to and that was why they still hadn't moved in together. Or maybe they were just that quirky.
Nathan shifted on his feet, switching his weight from one side to the other and back again, as though he was physically uncomfortable with the conversation. “People thought Henry was counting cards. The other night he won a ton of money. Before he could leave, the whole club turned on him, shifters and vampires alike. Asking how he was winning so much and so on.”
“What happened?” I cried, bolting upright from where I'd been sitting on the edge of the lawn chair. “Where is he?”
“He tried to explain with a bunch of math jargon, but it was confusing and high-level. It only pissed everyone off worse. He would have been better off keeping his mouth shut.” Nathan shrugged.
I wasn't sure I believed that he shouldn't have said anything. If it was me and someone stayed silent in the face of accusations, I'd take that as an admission of guilt. I could understand why it only pissed them off even more when Henry started talking math at them. My brother wasn't exactly easy to understand when it came to that subject. His knowledge was just so in-depth and, if I was honest, overwhelming that I can understand them getting pissed off.
“Tell me where he is,” I demanded as I took a step toward the alpha, the fear leaving my voice and being replaced by anger.
“They’d gathered he was doing something like counting cards. Even convinced the owner of the club that he was. After he won big, he got a lot of threats, but the Vampire Mistress that runs the vampires wouldn’t let them hurt Henry. I think because he's human, or maybe she has a soft spot for him. I don't really know. Either way, she warned him about not coming back unless he wanted trouble. And we all know what vamps mean when they say trouble.”
“Then what? He’s not home, and there’s been an incident at the house. Would any of your shifters have gone after him even after the Vampire Mistress said not to?”
Nathan shook his head, swiping the air with his hand to emphasize his point. “We’ve all been here, goofing off and recovering after a big party last night. I'd be surprised if one of my guys went against the Vampire Mistress. But I wouldn’t put much past those vampires. There's some political bullshit mixed up in there that might make them want to do the opposite of what she ordered.”
Great. Political bullshit with the vampires had just been added to the list of things I needed to figure out about the supernatural world.
They should really make a handbook or something. So You've Become Karma. Or The Supernatural: The Real, the Fake, the Weird. I'd totally read both of those. It would be like the Handbook for the Recently Deceased but, you know, for the supernatural.
Deva stood and looked around. I followed her gaze and was surprised to find how much they'd accomplished while we'd been talking. The trees were clean of the paint splatters that had been covering them when we arrived, but the bark was still in place, which was good. I had been worried when Deva asked them to clean it that they'd choose a more destructive path to accomplish the goal.
All the beer cans, bottles, and general trash that had been around the area had been picked up and bagged. The overflowing trash can had even been emptied. I wasn't surprised when I noticed a stack of trash bags by the meeting house, but I was surprised to see a number of green bags as well. They'd followed their orders and separated out the recycling. They could be taught!
We couldn't do much to fix up the actual cottages, but the area had been vastly improved already. Even the grills around the fire pit had been cleaned, the silver bars shining in the light, and pushed back toward the cottages that I assumed they came from. The fire pit itself had been restocked with wood and a fire was just starting to glow within the stack of logs that had been placed within it. They had even moved extra over to the side where the grills had been sitting.
I would actually spend time here now. Maybe not stay in one of the cottages, but I'd come out for a bonfire or a cookout. When I looked over at Deva, she was smiling. It was a small, satisfied smile, but it was there nonetheless.
She took a deep breath and as she held out the box I’d seen her carrying earlier, she said, “Thank you, boys. Please don’t treat nature like this anymore. You’re better than this. Your father would have wanted better than this for the pack. Respect what our world has given you, understand?”
They all sort of lined up and nodded at her, contrite. There were a lot of muttered, “Yes, ma’am’s” through the crowd, even from Nathan himself.
&nbs
p; One guy, however, sighed softly under his breath and mumbled, “Old ladies always want everything cleaned.” Then he turned, heading toward the cliff.
I glared. Who was he to call us old? And then he tripped, epically, his hands flailing out around him before hitting the ground. Everyone turned to look at him. The guys started laughing. He turned and frowned down, as if searching for what could’ve tripped him. Except, there was nothing on the ground.
I felt Deva and Carol staring at me.
My cheeks felt hot as I looked at them. Oops. I really had to learn how to control this whole karma thing before someone figured out what I could do.
“Well, uh, thanks again for the info,” I said, giving an awkward wave.
Nathan was grinning at the guy on the ground. “No worries.” Then he shouted toward him, “Fall came a little early this year, huh?”
I rolled my eyes. Man, I did not miss being twenty sometimes. I liked to think I had never been so obnoxious, but the truth was I probably was.
We turned and began to walk back to Deva's car. It wasn't far, but we did have to weave through the trucks and cars once again. As we left I heard Nathan say, “Hell yeah, donuts!” I guess that answered the question of what was in the box.
“Are shifters normally clumsy?” I asked softly.
Deva snorted. “No. The opposite. That was all you.”
Darn. I was kind of hoping I was wrong, but I guess I should be growing accustomed to all these weird things being connected to me. I just wondered if I should feel bad about it or just accept that my powers knew what they were doing.
“That’s what he gets for calling us old,” Carol whispered.
I grinned. Okay, so this one I wouldn’t feel guilty about. “Glad my uncontrollable powers are funny to you.”
“Oh, they are,” Deva said, a twinkle in her eyes. “But you should’ve seen us when we were learning to use our powers. It was, well, it was a mess.”
I thought of them in high school and frowned, my thoughts combing over a thousand tiny moments. But I couldn’t think of a single moment that suggested they were somehow trying to balance being teens and being witches. I was going to have to ask them about it one day.
Just as we reached the sedan, a truck pulled up next to our car. An old blue pickup with peeling paint. And who should be in the truck? No one other than Daniel himself.
I hated that my pulse sped up a little. His arm was lying along his open window, and the breeze had ruffled his auburn hair. His tanned skin was a little flush, and his gaze locked with mine, his expression unreadable. He seemed so wild in that moment, almost like this was how he was meant to be, that my breath caught a little. My ex was never the kind of guy who left the windows down, even though I loved the feeling of the breeze on my face. Did Daniel feel free in the wind the way I did?
“Hey,” he called. “What are you doing here?”
I debated about not telling him, but the impulse was dumb. He knew why we were there. I just hoped that he didn’t think we didn’t trust him. Yeah, most of the reason I trusted him was some stupid instinct that said I could, but the feeling was still there. And it wasn’t something I could ignore. Nor could I pretend the idea of hurting him didn’t bother me.
“We had to look into it,” I said. “I’m sorry.”
I knew he'd said he would talk to them, but he wasn't moving fast enough for me. Then again, most people didn't. Something about burning the candle at both ends for years as I built my business had created this strange person inside of me that had to do everything myself, and right away. Some small part of me knew it was because if I waited on my ex to do anything, it wouldn’t get done. But this situation wasn’t just about my control issues, as toad-man had called them, it was about getting my brother home safely, at all costs.
Daniel smiled after a moment, and my gaze pulled to his soft-looking lips. “A guy stops for a few minutes to check out some police reports, and ends up running behind. I guess I should’ve expected that from Emma and the Private Psych crew.”
“Private Psych crew?” I asked, frowning.
He glanced toward Carol and Deva. “Didn’t they tell you that little shop of Beth’s is more than just catching cheaters? These ladies end up being involved in a lot of supernatural investigations, and they end up solving a lot of them too.”
I glanced at my friends. “Really? You guys acted like it was no big deal.”
Carol shrugged, a grin stretching her lips. “You know I’m not one to brag.”
Man, I was impressed. My friends really had done a lot since I was gone.
“For the record,” he said, drawing me from my thoughts. “I don’t think the shifters are involved, but we still need to talk.” He glanced over at where Nathan and the boys were still semi lined up, confused looks on their faces, and I could see the questions dancing in his eyes as he looked back at us.
Carol got a guilty look and headed for the car, as did Deva. So I followed them, wondering how typical it was for Deva to be able to command a bunch of unruly people to obey her.
"I agree. They don’t seem to know anything, but someone does," I said as I slid into the passenger seat of Deva's car. I automatically reached for the seatbelt with what should be my bum arm, but just as I’d thought when I got out of the car, it didn’t hurt any more. I silently rejoiced at having full functionality of both my arms once more.
"I'm not going to be able to stop you from looking into this, am I?" Daniel's voice sounded amused and exasperated at the same time.
I shook my head.
He was staring at me in a strange way. “You haven’t changed one bit.”
“How do you know?” I asked, truly curious.
He finally looked away. “I’m a shifter. I notice more than you think.”
I stiffened. Daniel was a shifter? So many things that hadn’t made sense clicked into place. “So shifters notice specific things about everyone?”
“Not everyone,” he said softly, then turned off his engine and started to climb out. “You ladies be careful out there. Not that you will.”
“I’ll do whatever I have to in order to get my brother back.” The words left my mouth before I could think, but I didn’t regret them. I meant them with every fiber of my being.
He shook his head and headed toward the guys.
No doubt he thought I was crazy. He may as well learn that I did my own thing, or at least that's who I was remembering to be, who I was before Rick. Before I was manipulated into being someone I wasn’t. Before I had to turn my personality down so I didn't overshadow my husband. The toad.
A vindictive part of me hoped he stayed like that forever.
I pushed the thought aside as I pictured Daniel sprouting hair and roaring at the moon. Or was it howling? Right now, I cared a little less about the old toad than the shifter thing.
My heart hammered as I closed my door. “I have a lot of questions.”
“About shifters or Daniel?” Deva asked, a smile in her voice.
Daniel glanced back toward us.
Darn it. Had he heard her? “About shifters, of course.”
Deva turned on the engine and pulled away. “Shoot.”
But before I started in on a subject I was sure was going to be complicated, I couldn’t help but ask, “Could we drive with the windows down?”
Deva nodded and smiled. “You always did love the windows down.”
“But somehow I forgot,” I said softly. “I forgot a lot about who I was and what I liked.”
“You’re remembering though. And soon you’ll not just remember who you were, but you’ll find out who you are now. It takes some time, but you will. It was like that with me for a while after my divorce.” Deva didn’t wait for a response, she just unrolled the windows.
Cool, crisp autumn air rushed in around us, and I closed my eyes. So much had changed, but I was happy to know not everything had. I still felt free like this. And maybe for the first time in a long time, it wasn’t just the wind that made m
e feel free; it was the sense that I was finding the life I was always meant to find. Of that I was certain.
I didn’t even care that it’d taken me forty-two years. I was just glad I wasn’t wasting anymore time being unhappy. Because no one was guaranteed a tomorrow.
Even with the bumpy road, that was the best drive I’d had in years.
11
Daniel
I’d always thought she was human.
As Emma, Carol, and Deva drove away, I shook my head. The woman was fascinating, and I would’ve laid down money she’d never known about this world before. What had changed in her life to give her the knowledge or some power of her own? And for that matter, what was she? What kind of powers did she have now? Or was she truly just a human in the know?
When she was human, or when I’d thought she was human, she’d been off limits. Did that mean she was within limits now? Did I want her to be an option? The thought itself was fine, but acting on it? I wasn't sure if I could do it.
Emma had always been a bit of an odd duck in high school. It didn't help that she fell in with the supernatural crowd without meaning to. Most humans could feel that we were different, that we were other, but it never bothered Emma. I'd go so far as to say that it was that otherness that made her feel connected to us. Perhaps that was one of the reasons I was so drawn to her, why I'd fallen for her so hard in high school even though we barely exchanged two words with each other.
She'd always been adorable, a little dorky, and the life of the party when she wanted to be. The woman I'd seen crash into a display of canned corn, though? That wasn't the Emma I knew in school and it tore at my heart that something had dimmed her light. I had to push the urge down to track down whoever had hurt her and pay them a visit.
The longer she was with her friends, though, the more the light seemed to be coming back, even if her brother was in trouble. I hoped Henry was okay. If he wasn't, then I was worried about what it might do to Emma. Her parents’ death had been brutal on both of them, I knew that. I also knew that he was everything to her, and I wasn't sure but I thought that he was the only family she had left.
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