The Cougar's Wish (Desert Guards)

by Holley Trent

  “At the kids’ table?”

  “For Pete’s sake, there’s only one child at it, and that’s Jamie. The other two kids are in the kitchen with me.”

  Jamie was Glenda’s foster daughter. She and her little brother had been living with Glenda for a couple of months. Before her husband had died, Glenda had taken in Cougar fosters all the time, but had gotten out of the program during the aftermath. The upheaval had been too much.

  “I think it’d be more accurate to say most of us old folks are in the kitchen.”

  Steven stepped out of the utility room and scanned the faces at the table. Many he didn’t recognize, but he knew Lola and Tito. And he knew Ellery’s great-great-grand-goddess Agatha. Mason was there with Nick, but not Ellery. And there were three huge giants taking up a lot of space along the sides.

  Glenda chuckled, obviously guessing the reason for his confusion. “I’ll introduce you and then you can go sit.” She waved him out to the table and motioned for Belle to come, too.

  “All right. Let’s see if I can remember all the names, because lord knows, it’s been a long day.” She pointed to Belle and then Steven. “This is my only daughter, Belle.”

  “And the pain in your ass,” Belle muttered.

  Glenda ignored her. “And this is Steven. He’s Hannah’s brother.”

  The big guy at the end of the table with the long dreadlocks squinted at him like Steven was a bug that needed squashing.

  Steven somehow stopped himself from squinting right back at him.

  “And I’ll just go around the circle, because that’s easiest.” She started at Lola. “Of course you know Lola and Agatha. This is Clarissa.”

  Clarissa gave a little wave. “I’m related to Ellery through marriage. Don’t ask how. It’s complicated.”

  Steven guessed she must have been from the contingent of witches.

  “No,” she said.

  “Huh?”

  She gave her head a small shake. “Sorry. I don’t mean to intrude, but you’ve got a loud head.”

  He pointed to himself. “I do?”

  “You and Hannah. So you must be the one who was assaulted overseas.”

  “I wasn’t aware word about that had gotten around so quickly.”

  The lady cringed. “I’m sorry. I didn’t realize your predicament wasn’t commonly known. Sometimes I forget what I’ve been told versus what I’ve accidentally overheard.”

  Well, at least that’s one problem I don’t have. “Don’t worry about it. I’d like to hear a little more about my loud head, though.”

  “I don’t know what it means that I can hear what you’re thinking. There’s a very limited number of people I can hear the thoughts of, and they’re all weird. You’re weird, but not like me. You’re probably just a little psychic. Hannah had asked for my son-in-law’s help in helping you figure out what kind, but he’s not here today.”

  “If you’re not a witch, then what are you?”

  She brushed some crumbs from the table into her hand and deposited them onto a napkin. Her grin was her only response.

  Belle leaned in and whispered, “That’s always a good sign.”

  “No kidding.”

  “If you’re not curious, I am.”

  “Screw that. I’ve got too much on my mind already. I can’t deal with any more demands on me.”

  “Any more—oh. Okay.”

  There was the briefest flinch to Belle’s eyes—gone in a blink, but concerning. She wasn’t a woman who flinched. He must have said something to get her hackles up, but he had no clue what it might have been.

  “Hey—”

  “And next ...” Glenda interjected, moving to the next person at the table, one of the giants. A blond one in a plaid shirt who didn’t seem to be very interested in what was on his plate. He was too busy staring at Clarissa.

  “That’s Bill,” Glenda said. “One of the guys who’s going to close that portal.”

  “So you all say,” came the deep rumble from the big guy. He turned to look at the folks behind him, and Belle sucked in some air.

  His eyes were bright blue and bottomless. Apparently, women named Belle liked that.

  Super. Apparently, Steven was competing for the attention of a woman he wasn’t sure he should try to keep with a man who was probably as old as the universe.

  Belle whispered, “He looks just like John. It’s ... a little frightening.”

  Oh. Steven liked the idea of fright a little more than attraction. “Who’s John?”

  “One of his sons. Clarissa’s grandson-in-law and Claude’s brother. He’s probably around here somewhere. You’ll see what I mean.”

  “If you say so, cream puff.”

  “Settle on one name, would you?” she said dryly.

  There should have been at the very least a sigh or a quarter of a smile with that, but she gave him nothing.

  Obviously, he’d pissed her off, and not by calling her cream puff.

  He bumped her side with his so she’d at least look at him, but she didn’t. “I gotta get my chuckles somehow,” he said.

  “Yeah, that’s what a lady likes to hear,” she said quietly through clenched teeth. “That she’s good for chuckles.”

  Steven drew in a bolstering breath and fixed his gaze on the ceiling. Lord, tell me what variety of shit I stepped into.

  Beside Bill was Tito, who seemed to be having a very heated text message exchange given the furious movements of his thumbs over his phone screen.

  Then there was an empty seat—probably Glenda’s as her foster son Travis was right next to it and Nick beside him on Mason’s lap—and then came the big guy with long dreadlocks, eyes that could maybe be called brown but kinda looked gold from where Steven was standing, and brown skin that seemed to reflect light.

  “This is Tarik,” Glenda said.

  “Fallen angel,” Belle muttered. “I’m sensing a theme here. Damn.”

  “Uh-huh,” Steven returned through clenched teeth.

  Glenda moved on to the guy at Tarik’s left—the one with a sword strapped to his back and a half-cleared plate in front of him.

  He kept shoveling food into his mouth and didn’t even look up at them.

  “This is Tamatsu,” Glenda said.

  The guy stopped eating long enough to cut a look in their direction and then returned to his meal. He seemed to be the only one eating. Everyone else’s plate besides Mason’s seemed to be untouched.

  “He, Tarik, and Bill go way back,” Agatha said.

  Bill opened his mouth as if to refute that, and Clarissa put a hand over it. “You don’t remember it, but just believe it’s true. There’s no reason for us to lie about it.”

  Bill furrowed his brow, and Clarissa dropped her hand.

  Steven clucked his tongue. That’s right. Hannah said one of the guys had been in a coma.

  “I’d appreciate if you didn’t bring it up,” a mental voice that must have been Clarissa’s—given the way she was staring at him at the moment—sounded in his mind. “Take my word for it that it’s not necessarily a completely bad thing that he can’t remember who he was, but for the moment, I’d like to keep him from asking too many questions about what he doesn’t know. His road back will be a long one.”

  “Uh ...” Steven swallowed, not sure how to respond—if he should just think the thoughts or point them to her or what.

  She chuckled quietly. “Yes, just point them at me.”

  “I won’t bring it up, then. That doesn’t mean I’m not curious.”

  “You should be. Just be discreet in who you question and when.”

  “Got it.”

  And he had all kinds of questions.

  Belle gave him another nudge.

  “Yes?”

  “You all right? I was starting to worry something had ... gotten into you,” she said flatly.

  “Just thinking. Go fix your salad, little harpy.”

  She rolled her eyes and carried her plate to the counter, and he carrie
d the chairs to the living room where the “kids” were gathered.

  Hannah immediately stood and pushed an armchair aside so Steven could fit the folding chairs at the corner of the coffee table. As he flattened one seat, she leaned in and whispered, “Did you get the Clarissa Morton mental whammy?”

  “Yep.”

  “I wonder what that means.”

  “Probably that we’re the mutant freaks of the Welch family, but I suspect we both knew that already. Maybe if we tell Mom, she’ll tell us it’s caused by some experimental antinausea drug she took when she was pregnant.”

  “Right before she calls the preacher, right? I hope that trick doesn’t work between the two of us. I don’t really want to hear what’s in your head.”

  “Ditto, little sister. You keep your scary dreams to yourself. Don’t open up any sort of psychic pipeline and send that mess my way.”

  “Sharing means caring, bro.”

  “Nah, I’m good. You can keep ’em.”

  A chuckling lady leaned forward from the other side of the coffee table with a hand extended. “I’m Gail.”

  Steven shook it and gave her an assessing look. She was pretty and looked a little wild—barely contained, unlike the lady sitting to the side of her who did such a good job of buttoning herself up. “Gail. Mm-hmm. Yes, you are.”

  Hannah pounded his back.

  “What? I’m just sayin’ she looks like Ellery.”

  Ellery snickered.

  “Shit. I’m not gonna come on to the lady. I assumed she belonged to the guy next to her.”

  Claude wriggled his eyebrows. “Good assumption. I imagine, however, that isn’t the only reason you wouldn’t come on to her.”

  Probably not. “You know something I don’t know?” Because if Claude’s assumption was that Belle was Steven’s, Steven wasn’t sure he was right. Or wrong.

  “About the subject at hand?” Claude raised one shoulder in a shrug. “I imagine I know approximately the same thing you know.”

  “Let’s compare notes.”

  “We’ll compare notes later,” Claude said. “On to another subject, do we want to talk about Belle with or without her present?”

  Steven shook his head. “No, no. Don’t cut her out like that. Whatever it is can’t be that bad that you need to warn me in advance.”

  “It’s not a warning so much as a plan of action. Would she feel blindsided?”

  “By what?” Sean asked. “Something going on you haven’t let us in on?”

  “How about we see if Belle wants to let y’all in on it,” Steven said.

  At that moment, Belle stepped into the room with a plate and a glass of tea with her mother following at her heels. Glenda handed Steven a plate and a drink and returned to the kitchen.

  Belle took the empty seat beside Steven and looked at each person in the room. “It’s never a good sign when a room goes quiet when you walk in.”

  Steven let out a breath and set his plate on the table. “Listen. Are you okay with Claude saying what he has to say to everyone in this room, or do you want to conference in private?”

  She tightened her fingers around her fork and looked from Claude to Steven. “I guess everyone knows there’s something wrong with me.”

  “Not all of it,” Steven whispered.

  Hand shaking, she stabbed her fork into her potatoes, failing to get much onto the tines.

  He wrapped his fingers around her wrist to still her frenetic motions. “Do this however you want. It’s up to you.”

  She looked around, seeming to be studying the faces in the room. Counting them. “Where’s Miles?”

  “She and Hank had to go out of town to check on Jamie and Travis’s mom,” Sean said.

  Belle fiddled with her food some more, and they all watched. She had to know they were all watching, and that probably made it worse.

  What the hell had Claude been thinking broaching the subject in front of everyone like that? The guy either had a plan he wasn’t sharing, or he needed a swift kick in the ass.

  Steven didn’t think he could kick Claude’s ass—gut feeling—but he’d try if Belle needed him to.

  “Go ahead. I feel like I can tell ... some of you.” Belle’s gaze tracked to Jamie.

  Jamie’s expression of wide-eyed curiosity gave way to squinting and pouting.

  Claude leaned a bit sideways, peered through the open door into the kitchen, then straightened up. Then he looked to Jamie. “My sweet, could you perhaps run a little errand for me?”

  Jamie groaned. “In other words, you want me to walk away and find something else to do for a while.”

  “Just a little while. Fifteen minutes.”

  Jamie sighed, picked up her plate, and muttered, “You owe me,” as she passed through the screen door.

  “Sending the kid away. Well, that’s not a good sign,” Sean said.

  Claude shrugged. “I assumed you’d want to keep this somewhat quiet.”

  “We’ve already got a whole football team’s worth of folks in here, so what’s a little more?” Steven asked.

  “I don’t think the others should be involved. You keep people like them away from portals as much as you can because their proximity will incite whatever’s waiting on the other side. Those things waiting will want to come out and fight. We need to be a bit stealthier.”

  “What are we being stealthy about and what does it have to do with Belle?”

  “Not much, anymore. Her little escort has disengaged now that she’s said what she’s needed to, but she’s waiting around for someone to act.”

  “Rewind,” Hannah said. “What escort? You said she, so you’re not talking about Steven.”

  Groaning, Belle rubbed her eyes. “Gods, someone explain it so I don’t have to.”

  Steven gave her knee a squeeze and reached for his plate. He understood probably better than anyone how tiring it got to be talking about things he didn’t have all the right words for. “She picked up a spiritual hitchhiker that was messing her up for a while. We asked Claude why.”

  Sean narrowed his eyes at Belle. “Why didn’t you say something?”

  “It wasn’t any of your business. I was going to deal with it.”

  “How’s that working out for you? And is that why you were running to the hellmouth?”

  “Not completely.”

  “Actually, completely,” Claude interjected, “and please, I have enough siblings of my own that I know where this discussion would go if I didn’t interrupt. You can have a rousing argument later.”

  The two Foyes muttered their concessions, but Steven knew damn well they’d pick up the fussing again at the first opportunity.

  “Anyhow, the spirit entered Belle because Belle was convenient and already a bit confused because of ...”

  “Going into heat,” Belle said. “Don’t dance around it and make it sound shameful. I have enough of my own already.”

  Steven squeezed her knee again, but she didn’t look at him. “Belle?”

  She kept on picking at her food.

  “Apologies,” Claude said.

  “What did she want?” Ellery asked.

  “She wanted help for a friend,” Claude said.

  “Pardon?” Steven said.

  Claude leaned back against the couch’s cushions and put his arm around his wife’s shoulders. “In a nutshell, there’s someone on the other side of the portal who doesn’t belong there and who can’t get out on her own.”

  Belle set down her fork. “That’s who’s been calling me. My personal mission. Time to share, I guess.”

  “Wait,” Steven said. “If she’s there, she’s probably there for a good reason, right? People don’t volunteer to go to hell.”

  Claude grunted. “Generally, no, but there are entities who are tasked with carrying messages between one realm and the next, and they’re not all strong like my father or his brethren. Usually they do their jobs proficiently until there’s some sort of catastrophic disturbance, and then they may need
a little bit of assistance.”

  “So, she got stuck there while doing her job?” Belle asked. “I thought she was a child. She sounded like a child.”

  “Might just be aural interference. Regardless, she was a friend to your spirit.”

  “And the spirit won’t go away until her friend is free.”

  Claude nodded.

  “You’re not sending Belle in there,” Steven said. “If that was your plan, think of another one.”

  “I second that,” Sean said.

  “It’s not up to you.” Belle set her plate onto the table with more force than was strictly necessary. “Give me all the information, and let me make a decision on my own. I’m not a child, so don’t treat me like one.”

  Steven opened his mouth to make some rebuttal, but before he could get it out, Claude put up his hands.

  “I wouldn’t send Belle in. She’d be too easily possessed, and we don’t want to inadvertently bring her back out with something even worse clinging to her.”

  “So in that vein, you couldn’t send me in either,” Sean said. “Cougars are more attuned to the disturbances.”

  Claude nodded. “Probably not as much as Belle, but I suspect none of you Cougars would be a safe bet. Including you, Hannah. Don’t want to risk it.”

  “She wasn’t going to volunteer, anyway,” Sean said.

  “I wasn’t?” Hannah asked.

  “Sure fuckin’ weren’t.”

  “I’m the glaring’s avenger, you know. If it’s anyone’s job, I’d say I’d be the best candidate.”

  “Nope.”

  “I don’t like where this is heading,” Ellery said. “Who can we send in? And for that matter, who’s willing to go in?”

  “I can’t get closer than I already have for the same reason the people in the kitchen shouldn’t,” Claude said. “Otherwise, I would go.”

  “So, that pretty much leaves Me, Steven, and Gail,” Ellery said.

  “Not quite,” Claude said. “Gail is psychically bonded to me. I’m penetrable through her.”

  “Which leaves ...” Belle whispered.

  “Am I supposed to stand up and volunteer as tribute now?” Steven asked dryly.

  “You can’t go in there,” Hannah said. “Do we perhaps want to stop here and make sure everyone in the room knows you have PTSD that’ll probably get triggered if you get close to that portal, or nah?”