Crossroads Burning

by Nash, Layla

  I didn’t look over at him, and instead thought about why we didn’t have more rocking chairs on the porch. Or maybe a hammock big enough for two. “Yeah.”

  “I’ll talk to him tomorrow,” Lincoln said. He closed the book and handed it back to me, although he seemed a little reluctant to let his fingers lose contact with the leather cover. “Does he know anything about me? About what’s going on here?”

  “Not much, I don’t think,” I said. “Particularly since it was all about witches and beneath his notice. I only said that the other people in the yard meant to kill him, and we saved his life. I don’t think he cared much. Do all druids treat witches that way? What makes druids think they’re so much better?”

  Lincoln glanced at me, then back out at the yard. I wondered what time it was, and whether he’d had too much to drink to drive safely. I couldn’t put him in the guest room, clearly, but if he stayed in my room, there was no guarantee either of us would sleep it off.

  “Some druids view our longer traditions of holding power as an indication of the superiority of our practices and beliefs,” he said slowly, choosing each word carefully while not looking at me. “And we have female druids as well, called bandrui, in case you thought we were all misogynist assholes. We’ve managed to survive a great deal and evolve away from some of the practices that initially gained us power but went out of fashion.”

  “Like killing people for power?”

  “Human sacrifice is a regrettable part of our history, yes.” Lincoln, at least, didn’t dodge the sensitive topic, and he didn’t defend it as Ronan had. “Unfortunately, what is done is done and we cannot change the past.”

  Clearly we couldn’t. I touched the book’s cover, trying to absorb all of its information through osmosis alone so I didn’t have to read through every cramped scribble and delicate page. “So are you going to tell everyone?”

  “About this? No.” He rubbed his chin and frowned, shaking his head. “Since I’m still trying to sort through everything on my own first, I don’t want Hazel weighing in and confusing me more. It’s bad enough you’re messing with my professional judgment.” And he smiled to take the edge off it.

  “Would it be better if Ronan is the original werewolf?” Wistfulness crept into my voice, since things were never that easy. “I thought there was a legend where you could undo the curse if the original werewolf was killed or cured. Isn’t that how it works?”

  “I wish it were.” He squeezed my shoulder and started gathering up the bottles of whiskey. “We haven’t learned much about differences between cursed and bitten werewolves, but who knows. At least you’ve given us some new areas of research if this turns out to be true.”

  My eyelids dragged down as the whiskey and everything over the last few weeks caught up with me once and for all. Lincoln yawned and finger-combed his unruly hair, glancing over at me. “You look like you’re fading.”

  “I am,” I said, trying to smile. I didn’t mind if he noticed I wanted to crawl into bed, since at least half of me wanted to invite him along. “I think you drank too much to drive anywhere, hotshot.”

  “All part of my master plan,” he murmured, leaning forward, and before I could do more than smile stupidly back at him, Lincoln’s lips brushed mine.

  Chapter 46

  It started as a gentle pressure, a little tentative as if he waited for me to pull away, but when I rested my palm against his cheek, Lincoln smiled against my mouth and worked his fingers into my hair. He tasted like whiskey and I closed my eyes, shutting out every thought but being with him. The rest of the world could wait.

  I sighed and my lips parted and then he deepened the kiss, his tongue meeting mine and igniting a shivering warmth all through me. I linked my arms around his neck and leaned forward, kissing him back. Climbing into his lap, maybe straddling him, seemed like a great idea, with whiskey and lust running through my veins. Lincoln chuckled a soft grumble, and his hands slid around my sides and up my back. His arms tightened and then he dragged me over to his lap like he’d read my mind, and I wiggled around a bit so I wouldn’t fall off. But that broke our connection and Lincoln’s eyes flashed green and silver as he watched me, giving me a lazy look that made my thighs tighten against his.

  He brushed my hair back so he could nip and nibble his way up my throat, his strong hands kneading my butt through my thin pajama pants, and I tugged at the collar of his shirt. “You should stay over. For safety.”

  “Safety,” he said, agreeing, and I closed my eyes at the thrill of him kissing behind my ear. He took my earlobe in his teeth and murmured, “The only question is, how loud can we be without waking up the rest of the house?”

  “Not very,” I said. I bit my lower lip to keep from moaning as his rough palm slid under my shirt and ghosted over my bare skin. “Liv is a light sleeper. And we can’t use the shed.”

  He snorted, his laughter shaking me on his lap, and gave me a narrow-eyed look. “And whose fault is that?”

  “I blame Ronan,” I said. I couldn’t take being separated from him and took the opportunity as he pondered a response to capture his mouth once more. By the time I broke away, we both breathed a little raggedly and my hips started to rock against his. “And Heathrow.”

  Lincoln was still smiling as he toyed with the ends of my hair. “That leaves the truck. Not my first choice. Or calling someone to drive us back to the hotel.”

  “Not on your life,” I said. I shook my head, smooshing his face in my hands. “That’s like a reverse walk of shame. I’d never live it down.”

  “Great.” Lincoln wrapped his arms around me and turned his attention to my mouth once more. “In that case...”

  Something yipped in the yard and we both froze. I tried to see what the hell it was in the reflection of the windows behind the porch, and Lincoln leaned around me to peer into the darkness. “Is that…a coyote?”

  I half-turned on his lap, frowning and bracing for another dire wolf attack, and sighed in sheer relief when I saw the cinnamon-brown coyote with a notched ear and a disgruntled look on her face. “That’s Nona.”

  Lincoln opened his mouth but before he could ask the questions crowding his mind, the chair beneath us creaked. That was all the warning we got before it collapsed, dumping Lincoln backward while I grunted and fell across his middle. Nona the coyote yipped a laugh and trotted closer as the druid and I untangled our limbs and sat up. It gave Lincoln a few more opportunities to pat my ass and tickle my sides, and when I finally rolled free and staggered to my feet, trying to straighten my clothes, I wanted to cover my eyes as a familiar figure strolled out of the darkness.

  Luke’s dark eyebrow rose as he studied the two of us, and the faintest of smiles played across his lips. “Nona hopes she hasn’t interrupted anything, but she wanted to check on you.”

  “No, you’re not interrupting,” I said, my cheeks burning. I cleared my throat a few times before I looked at the coyote and dipped my head, wondering how I could thank her for saving me from that dream without drawing more attention from Luke or Lincoln. “Nona, it’s wonderful to see you. The fry bread was delicious; thank you for thinking of me.”

  Her golden eyes glimmered as her tongue lolled out in a coyote grin, and she sneezed before trotting off into the darkness.

  Luke carried a knapsack and a walking stick of gnarled wood, standing all hip-shot and assured in my front lawn as he studied me and Lincoln. “Sorry to bother you so late. Nona took off on a walkabout, so I followed to make sure nothing happened and to retrieve the truck you borrowed. And to make sure she didn’t start any trouble, since she’s been doing that lately. I should have known better when she headed this direction.”

  I looked around at the porch and then out into the darkness. “Is she coming back?”

  “Yeah,” he said. “She smelled something that worries her, so she’s investigating.”

  “You can speak telepathically?” Lincoln asked, leaning his arms on the porch railing as he studied the other man and t
he coyote searching in a zigzag near the shed. “Is it just within your family? Only in animal form?”

  Luke’s eyes went gold to match his grandmother’s, and the easy smile turned a little less easy. “We try to keep some things secret. It’s not speaking like you know speaking, but we manage to communicate.”

  I gestured at the remaining chairs and the whiskey. “Want a drink? I still need to thank you for sending these guys back to help me out. It was a close thing there for a bit, with the other agents.”

  Luke studied Lincoln for just a second, then meandered up to the porch to take a seat. I slid back inside to retrieve a clean glass; even after I got back, neither of them had moved. I rolled my eyes and splashed some of the eye-watering whiskey into the glass before handing it to Luke. As I went to the wicker chair that was questionably rickety even when sober, I ran my fingers across Lincoln’s back so I could tug on his belt. “Sit down.”

  He sprawled in the sturdier chair, though he did so carefully and with a glance at the legs when the wood creaked. Luke sipped his whiskey and gazed out at the darkness across the yard. “Something is different tonight.”

  My throat closed. Maybe Luke had something to say about me fooling around with a federal agent. Or maybe it was something else entirely. Why would Nona come out to our house when we were so far from the reservation? It must have taken them forever to walk over. I cleared my throat and tried not to sound like a guilty teenager who’d been caught sneaking into the house after curfew. “Anything in particular?”

  His dark eyebrows drew down. “I’m not sure. It’s more a general sense of trouble brewing. There was something here that isn’t good. Malevolent. Maybe it’s gone. Maybe it lurks nearby. Whatever it is, you should be careful, Sass.”

  “You know me, Luke.” I tried to smile, despite the queasiness in my stomach as I ran through all the malevolent beings that had moved near the house in the last few days, though he echoed Nona’s dream warning. “I’m always careful.”

  He snorted, shaking his head. “Bullshit, girl.”

  Lincoln propped one boot up on the coffee table, watching it wobble and the whiskey bottles shake. “Malevolent? Bad magic or bad beings? Luckett was keeping a werewolf in her shed, so that might explain some of it.”

  Luke looked at me like I’d grown a second head. “You were keeping a what where?”

  “Only for a short amount of time,” I said under my breath. “Less than a day, really. And we turned him back to human, so it’s not like there’s still a werewolf in my shed.”

  “You turned him back to human? I didn’t think that was possible.” Luke’s attention drifted to where Nona trotted from around the back of the house. She paused next to the shed, then began a careful survey of the broken-down wood and sheet metal.

  At least she didn’t pee on the holiday decorations that languished in the yard. I owed Olivia a chunk of change from whatever fee I earned for taking Lincoln and his team out to the Crossroads so she could buy new decorations. We needed a water-heater more, but I wouldn’t hear the end of it if Liv didn’t have pumpkins and shit to put out at Halloween. I sighed, tilting my head back as I rubbed my forehead. I’d reached the point where I either needed to stop drinking whiskey and change to water, or I needed to drink a hell of a lot more to keep things buzzing. “It’s just a curse. I took off the curse. He turned back to human. It’s not like it was that big of a deal.”

  “It’s not supposed to work like that,” Lincoln said quietly. He watched Luke, then offered the other man another few shots of the good stuff. “Regardless of what Luckett thinks, I don’t think we’ve got a single documented case in the U.S. of a bitten werewolf being changed back.”

  “Is that because it’s not possible, or because you guys killed them all before they had a chance to change back?” I shot back at him, eyebrows arched in challenge. I decided in favor of more whiskey and helped myself to the smooth stuff, though I also used it as an excuse not to look at him as I waited for his response. I wasn’t exactly a coward, but that didn’t mean I went looking for trouble.

  Lincoln and Luke shared a sideways look and I considered throwing a whole bottle at them. They sure as hell didn’t need to be doing the typical guy thing, rolling their eyes at my antics. Lincoln’s lips twitched but he didn’t smile as he went on. “They tried it frequently in Europe and had no success. We tried it here a few times but ended up with more people bitten, with no sign of the curse on them. At that point there’s nothing to do for them.”

  Luke frowned, leaning back to see where Nona still sniffed around the shed and trotted in another zigzag toward the barn. “This kind of magic is unfamiliar for me. Someone is cursed and that enables them to bite others, transmitting only part of the curse to the others?”

  “Yes,” I said. I pulled out the little book and opened it to the page with the curse on it, holding it out so he could see it. “This is the curse. Well, one variation of the curse. I haven’t looked for any other versions. I didn’t even think there could be other variations.”

  Luke didn’t take it, instead sniffing the book before studying the faded pages. He glanced at the spidery writing, head tilting exactly like a curious coyote. “What part of the curse is transmitted? The form and mentality only?”

  I sat back, swirling the whiskey around in my glass. “I don’t know. That’s a good question. I guess I didn’t think of it that way. That means there has to be two parts to the original curse, right? One that determines how the original target behaves, and a second part that makes them contagious. Right?”

  Lincoln leaned forward, his elbows on his knees. “It could theoretically all be one curse, but I think you’re probably right, Luckett. We’ve seen some witches layer curses on top of other curses. Then it becomes a matter of unraveling the curses in reverse order of how they were cast, otherwise it becomes a tangled mess and can’t be untangled. It’s very delicate work. Hazel might be able to talk you through how some of it would work.”

  Nona trotted up onto the porch and gave Luke a look that only he could interpret. He started to get up, then froze as she hopped forward and seized the little book in her teeth before I could think to hold onto it tighter. She shook it violently, almost tearing it apart, and I lurched upright. “Nona!”

  She spat out the book and sneezed on it, backing off the porch.

  Luke rose smoothly as I retrieved the book. “She says it doesn’t smell right. Be careful, Luckett.”

  “We’re having a sit-down tomorrow morning,” I said. I wiped the coyote slobber off the book’s cover, frowning at the dents to the old leather before looking back at my friend. “It would be nice if you and Nona could come. We’re trying to figure out what to do about the Crossroads and the dire wolves and stuff. Your insight would be useful as we’re talking through all of this.”

  A curious smile crossed his face, and he inclined his head before picking up his walking stick and wandering down the stairs to the yard as Nona disappeared into the dark. “I’ll do my best. And Nona said your horse is sulking in the thicket behind your house, rolling in the mud and eating the last blackberries.”

  I didn’t watch as he loped off, instead turning my attention back to Lincoln. The horse would keep for another night, but the barn door was open if she wanted to go in. He sprawled, legs akimbo, in the new chair, and started to grin as he watched me. “Should we pick up where we left off?”

  “So you’ve got a one-track mind, is what you’re saying?” I laughed and leaned down to pick up the glasses, tucking my book into my back pocket once more. “We need water, some snacks, and sleep. In that order.”

  He stoppered up the bottles and returned them to his bag, though he still sipped from his glass as he followed me into the kitchen. He stood close behind me as I left the glasses in the sink, and his hands slid to my waist and slowly down my hips. I closed my eyes as he kissed the side of my neck, pulling me back against his body, and his palm pressed low on my stomach. Lincoln grumbled a little and brushed my hair
out of the way so he could kiss the other side of my neck, just behind my ear so I shivered. “And where do you propose we sleep?”

  I loved that he said “we.”

  I turned inside the circle of his arms to face him, not even a little worried that we were nose-to-nose and hip-to-hip. I rested my hands on his chest, going up to my tiptoes to brush my lips against his. “That depends on you. You’re not going to get lucky tonight, Agent O’Connell. If you can behave yourself, I think snuggling up in my bed with me would be perfectly all right.”

  His nose bumped against mine as he leaned down, lifting me up so I sat on the counter and he stood between my knees. That put me at the perfect height to slide my hands into his hair and drag his mouth to mine before he could answer.

  Lincoln chuckled when he broke away, squeezing my ass and dragging me against him until my legs circled his waist. “And are you going to behave? So far you’re the handsy one.”

  I linked my arms around his neck and practically clung to him. “I haven’t heard any complaints.”

  “No, that definitely wasn’t a complaint,” he said. His expression turned just a touch more serious. “Not that I care even the tiniest bit, but how would your sisters react to finding me here in the morning?”

  “Olivia would be jealous,” I said, trying not to smile. “Since she’s apparently got her eyes on Nelson. Or Mason. Or both. And Lucia... I don’t know. She’s overprotective but not because she’s afraid I’ll get my feelings hurt. She doesn’t want me to leave Rattler’s Run, because then it would be just her and Liv, and I think she’s afraid of being the last one left. As long as all three of us are here, we’re all miserable together.”

  Lincoln wrapped those muscular arms around me and held me tight, nuzzling into my hair. “Since you have to live with them, I’ll defer to your judgment. I can sleep in my truck, on the porch, on the couch... wherever.”

  It would have been easier to make him sleep on the couch. I could explain that away pretty easily to my sisters as well as Ronan, and it gave us both plausible deniability if his team asked about why Lincoln stayed over. If he slept in my bed, though, everyone would just assume we’d taken things to the next level. I almost didn’t care whether anyone assumed that, although part of me worried that Heathrow would find out and it would get back to Lincoln’s supervisor and ruin his career. But that wasn’t my risk to worry about; if Lincoln didn’t mind the threat to his career, then I couldn’t mind it for him.