Blade Song

chapter Sixteen

I made him drive.

He glared at me and started to argue.

I just threw the keys at him. He didn’t catch them so they hit his chest and then the ground. I shrugged and walked around to the other side of the car, flopping in the passenger’s seat. He had it shoved way back and I had to move it forward in order to not feel like I was sitting in the back seat.

Resting my head on the padded headrest, I started to talk.

I’d been ruminating out loud for a minute before he finally climbed in and shoved the seat back enough for his long legs.

“Anybody ever told you that you’re a pain in the ass?” he asked conversationally.

“All the time.” I rooted through the cloth bag Kori had shoved into my hands on the way out the door. She’d mentioned the little black pot would help with mosquitoes. My only hope was that it didn’t smell like piss or something even more vile.

To my delight, it smelled rather pleasant. Herbal, certainly, but nothing unpleasant.

“We should get a map of the park,” I said. “You have an idea of where all we covered yesterday?”

“Yes.” He stretched out an arm.

When he started toying with my hair, I tensed up.

It didn’t stop him.

Closing my eyes, I told myself to concentrate. That was what I needed to do. Concentrate.

“Good. So we mark where we covered and then find another section—”

“We need to backtrack, actually,” he said, rubbing his thumb down my neck.

I batted his hand away. “Backtrack?”

“Yes. You saw the hunters. I didn’t have to time to go over their back trail, but we need to. So that’s where we start. We’ll grab some food—and you’re taking more than granola bars, damn it.”

“Bitch, bitch, bitch.” I’d already come to that decision, thank you very much.

“I’m serious, kitten.”

“You’re always serious.”

His hand spread open over my neck and despite my intention to ignore it, I almost groaned at how good that felt. I was tempted to lean into—

And then I realized I was—

“Damn it,” I snapped. “Would you stop? I thought I made it clear, I’m a little freaked out by the fact that you keep touching me even though just an hour or so ago, your Alpha was telling you that you might be killing me soon.”

“Nice opening into that talk we need to have,” he said, his mouth firming out into a hard, flat line. “Thanks for that.”

And his hand didn’t move.

“I made it clear—I am not going to kill you. Got it?” He shot me a glowering look that oddly enough didn’t leave me with the urge to cringe in my seat. “Even when you do make me want to do something violent. I’m not going to hurt you. Period. Ever.”

“Uh-huh.”

He snapped his jaws shut with an audible crack, like he wanted to bite something. “You’re so f*cking difficult.”

“That’s funny coming from you. Really.”

“Would you shut up, and listen?” he growled, the low, pulsing sound echoing through the car. “You present a problem to her if you don’t find the kid. Since she said she’d kill you, she’s going to feel like she has to. But I’ll tell you this. It’s not love that’s motivating her. She doesn’t give a damn about Doyle. Never has, never will.”

“That’s a shock. Poor kid. Does he have anybody who cares about him?”

A tense silence stretched out and finally, Damon sighed. “Yeah. Me.”

It was the very last thing I expected to hear.

Gaping at him, I said, “What?”

“You heard me.” He dragged a hand down over his face. “The boy has been living with me since he was five. He was a mess after his dad died—acting out the way a kid will. Had a tantrum and the Lady belted him in the mouth. If he wasn’t a shifter, it would have killed him. He spent two days in the Lair’s medical ward as it was. I offered to take him home with me to let her have some time to adjust to the loss of her brother before taking on the hardships of raising a child…and he just never went home. He’s more my kid than anybody else’s.”

“Your kid.” I slammed my head against the headrest. Or I tried to. His hand was still behind my head and kept getting in the way. “So tell me something…did she send you here to help me, watch over me, or are you helping look for the kid?”

“All of the above.” He shrugged. “I’d heard you were good at this sort of shit and I wasn’t having any luck on my own. So I got her to thinking we needed outside help. Then I sort of suggested to her that you’d be likely to cause trouble so maybe I should make sure you stayed on task.” A smile tugged at his lips. “Probably some of my best work there. Subtle as hell, and you have to be subtle with the Lady.”

“You’ve basically been working this from the get-go, haven’t you?”

“I’ve been doing what I can to find the kid,” he said shortly. “You’ve been everything from a shortcut to the biggest complication imaginable.”

“Yeah?” I twitched as his fingers threaded through my hair.

“Yeah.” He sighed. “At first I thought I’d f*cked it up, because we were spinning our wheels, but then you started untangling all these knots, things I didn’t even think to look for.”

“Sure as hell doesn’t seem like I’ve managed to untangle any knots. All I’m doing is hitting dead ends.”

“The witch, Keeli. The wolf kid.” Strong fingers dug into my neck, working the tense muscles there. “I don’t know if I would have bothered reaching out to Banner. You did. You also reached out to your connections with the witches, so we see a pattern—non-human kids getting grabbed. Although it’s weird that the Alpha’s nephew would have been, too.”

“I don’t think he was grabbed. I think he ran.” I closed my eyes. “At least that’s what I thought. I’m going to assume he was better off living with you than he would be with the Queen Bitch.” I smirked as I said it but he didn’t say anything. “Was he happy with you?”

Damon was quiet for a long moment. “Yeah. Mostly. But word got back to her that he was getting close to his spike. She started making noises about him coming home and he hated the idea. He was terrified of her. She’s his monster under the bed.”

“Gee. Imagine that.”

A short sigh burst out of him. “Why do you have to keep doing that? Are you trying to piss me off?”

“Do I have to try?” I groaned as his fingers hit a tight spot on my neck. “I’m almost tempted to just shut up. I’m afraid you might stop doing that.”

He laughed. “Your neck is a mess.”

“I’m a mess,” I pointed out.

“You also didn’t answer me.”

“Shit. What do you want me to say? You work for and obey a cruel, insane bitch who doesn’t have the soul to care for her own nephew. You’re her enforcer and from what it sounds like to me, she points you in a direction and says kill and you do it. She’s a crazy, murderous bitch and you’re her yes boy.”

I closed my eyes and wondered if maybe that wasn’t a dumb thing to say, considering he already had his hand gripping my neck.

“Would you stop looking like you expect me to break your neck or slit your throat or something?” he snapped.

I clenched my right hand, frowning a little. It itched. But not much. “Well, if I really felt like you were going to do that, I’d have my sword in hand. If I’m certain I’m that close to death, I plan on going down fighting.”

Silence fell.

After a few minutes, he murmured, “I guess that’s a start.”

A start to what?

“She’ll want to kill you just because she said would and it will look better in her eyes to do what she said, despite the fact that it doesn’t make any sense,” he said finally. He stroked a hand down my shoulder, my arm, then rested his elbow on the console. His hand curled into a loose fist as he drummed it on the molded plastic. “Everything is about appearances, power and what pleases her. So the way to work it is to make it unpleasant, work against her power, and cast an air of impropriety—that’s all it takes to make her decide it’s not worth following through. She doesn’t give a damn about keeping her word if it doesn’t suit her. So if it’s more trouble to kill you than not, then she won’t lay a hand on you.”

“Okay…and you’re telling me this…why?”

“Several reasons.” That dark, glowering look, the one that spoke of storms and anger, rolled across his face. “Pay attention, kitten. You’re learning shit about the Alpha that some people have tried for years to learn.”

“And you’re telling me why?”

“Knowledge is power. Haven’t you heard how important is it to know your enemy?”

“Sure.” I smiled at him serenely. “So…what’s your sign?”

“Cute.” He folded his hand over mine and twined our fingers. “You need to know this shit.”

“I never considered her my enemy. She’s an obstacle at the moment,” I muttered.

“She wants you dead.”

“No. She’ll want me dead if I don’t succeed.” I looked out the window and saw the sign for the small town near the entrance of the park coming up. “That doesn’t make her an enemy yet. I know my enemies.”

Brooding, I fought not to fall back into those memories.

Useless waste—

“Your grandmother.”

Closing my eyes, I shook my head. “Please don’t.”

“Your demons,” he said, shrugging. “They’re not the problem right now. Neither is the Alpha. You need to focus on your allies. Who wants you alive…and I guess your family isn’t among them?”

“Nope. They’d send chocolate, raw chunks of meat or fresh blood to whichever entity was to rid the world of the problem of my existence.”

His hand tightened. “I think I dislike them already.”

I jerked a shoulder in a shrug. It was a fact of my life. One I was used to.

“So…allies?” He stroked his thumb across my skin. Nothing so simple should feel that good. “Is safe to say that witch back in Orlando is one?”

I clenched my jaw.

“Yes. But I don’t want to draw the Orlando House into this.”

“You may have no choice.” He ran his tongue over his teeth and then added, “Although I’m reluctant to consider it, it seems that big bastard in Wolf Haven was fond of you. Can you count on them? Goliath and…”

“Her name is TJ.” I stared out the window. “She won’t leave Wolf Haven. No matter what. Goliath?” I shrugged. “He might do some damage in my name, but he’ll always go back to her.”

“You’re not making this easy,” he muttered. His voice thickened with disgust as his hand shifted up and curled around my wrist, his thumb pressing in on the area near where Jude had bitten me. “The vampire is one, I’m going to assume.”

“Jude may or may not be.” I glanced down at my wrist, frowning at the possessive hold he had on me. “Nobody understands how his mind works.”

“Did he bite you?”

“Why are you so determined to hear that answer?”

“Because believe it or not, it matters to what’s going on here.”

Rolling my eyes, I muttered, “Not entirely sure I’m buying that.” Then I sighed. “Yes.”

“How many times?”

“Once.” I twisted my hand out of his grasp and glanced outside, a little surprised to see we were at the little Walgreens where we’d stopped before. He pushed the car into park, but before I could climb out he hit the locks. “Shit. What, damn it?”

“Just once?”

“Yes.” I decided not to mention anything about the fact that I’d owe Jude another bite if he had to help me out of a jam. My plan was not to need him. Then it wouldn’t be an issue.

“He can get into your dreams, now.”

“He’s always been able to force his way inside them. But he doesn’t have any control over me, despite what some of the myths out there say.” I smiled a little. “And that annoys the hell out of him.”

Another one of the endless silences. Nobody could do eerie, unsettling silence like a shapeshifter. Nobody.

The only sound was the quiet little snick of the locks. I climbed out. I was halfway to the store when I sensed him behind me. Keep on walking. That was the plan.

I kept right on walking into the store.

Bottled water, energy bars—nasty things, but I figured they’d do the trick. I thought about buying some chocolate to stash in the bag, but it wouldn’t hold up under the heat. Trail mix might…okay. A bag of that. I did grab a candy bar to eat on the way. Nothing bolstered the mood like chocolate.

“Done.”

He wasn’t behind me anymore. I’d lost him somewhere between grabbing the energy bars and finding my trail mix but I figured he’d hear me anyway. I was aware of him—too aware. Like a warmth hovering just above my skin and it was the craziest damn thing.

In rut—

Hell. I needed to figure out what in the world that meant. I pulled my phone out and sent Colleen a message.

Hey. What’s it mean when somebody says a shifter cat is in rut?

Her response was almost immediate. And I couldn’t decide if it was comical or freaked out. It was two ‘O’s side by side, like she was bug-eyed. I glanced around and put my back to the display of soft drinks at my back. The last thing I wanted was for him to come up behind me, the sneak.

What does that mean? I demanded. If she’d been there, I might have shaken her.

Has he said he’s in rut?

Grumbling under my breath, I tapped back, Would you just answer the damn question? No. He hasn’t said a damn thing and this isn’t about anything he has said. I heard somebody else say it while I was working the case.

And that was absolutely not a lie.

Oh. Good. That’s good. Rut’s crazy. It’s basically their emotional commitment. It sounds like going into heat, but it’s more than that. It’s an emotional connection, it’s physical…and they have to want it, too. It’s like Mother Nature gives them a choice in the matter. Not fair, if you ask me. Do we ever get a choice who we fall for? But I’ve heard it’s supposed to be really intense.

My head felt a little weird. Okay. A lot weird. Swallowing, I tapped back, Thanks.

She sent me back a smiley. Hey, don’t let the sexy a*shole bite you. I think that’s kind of their sign they’ve accepted it. And if you let him…well, you’re telling him you’ve accepted it.

I was still trying to wrap my mind around that when two things happened.

I sensed a shift in that weird energy that was Damon’s presence.

And my instincts started to scream a red alert.

Ducking around the display, I moved. My hand itched. I wasn’t scared. I was furious—didn’t even know why.

And then Damon was there.

“Do that disappearing act,” he growled in my ear.

I shook my head, staring toward the front of the store. “No.”

“Do it,” he ordered. “Now”

“Heads up, genius. In a store. Security cameras and scanners. That’s one of the few things I can do that can save my ass from a major jam and I prefer not to let that secret get out to the masses. I said no.” I shot him a dark glare over my shoulder and then went back to staring at the door as my heart pumped harder and harder.

When they came through the door, I wasn’t even that surprised.

“Damn it, Kit, I don’t want them seeing you!”

I sighed and turned around. “You are more likely to make them notice me than I am,” I pointed out. Without looking, I snagged the basket and headed down the aisle. “Come on.”

He was still snarling at my back, all but stepping on my heels.

“You can make yourself seem more human than this,” I said quietly. “If you don’t want us catching attention…blend.”

“I don’t give a flying f*ck if they notice me.”

“Yeah, well, I’m standing two feet away.” Reaching inside my vest, I tugged out a black bandana and quickly tied it over my hair. We passed a display of reading glasses and I snagged a pair, tugging off the tags and sliding them on. Immediately, my vision went blurry but I could handle that. Inside another pocket, I had a rolled up skull cap. I pulled it out and shoved it at Damon. “Take it. And damn it, tone it down.”

Bit by bit, the heated wave of his energy melted away until I couldn’t feel any of it.

The warning sirens in my brain were still going off, though.

“You can work around the front of the store,” he said softly. “Get outside, wait in the car. They are moving over to the refrigerator section—you’ll have a few minutes.”

“Bad idea. They’ve got dogs. The dogs smelled me yesterday and will probably be outside—they’d catch my scent in a second.” I saw the aisle I needed and smiled. Perfect. I pointed. “You. Right there.”

He stopped and looked around and then gave me a pained glance. “You have got to be shitting me.”

“No.” With a pleased smile, I moved further away. He could study the tampons and pads, and the panicked, glazed look in his eyes was ideal. Me? I parked myself right in front of the remedies for yeast infections, about ten feet away. As I did so, I casually slipped out of my vest, untucked my shirt. I held the vest over my arm. I couldn’t get to my weapons as easily, but I wasn’t going to need them.

“This is stupid,” Damon muttered, his voice drifting to me across the distance between us.

I snickered, shooting a look at him.

He was crouched on the floor, and if I wasn’t mistaken, there was a dull red flush on his golden skin. Oh, yes. Perfect, indeed. He had a hand on the back of his neck and he looked about as self-conscious as I thought he could ever look.

An employee came down the aisle. Just as she was going to pass me up, my ears caught something—Damon had tensed as well. I caught the employee’s attention and spoke, making my voice about as high-pitched as I could without sounding like I trying to alter my voice as I said, “Um, can you help me a little?”

The lady paused. Her nametag read, Marie, Pharmacy Tech.

A blush settled over her cheeks as she glanced at the box I held.

Monistat 7.

“Um, you might be better off—”

The group of men trailed by. I felt the gaze of one them cut my way. Linger on Damon, then brush to me. I stood with my back them—they wouldn’t see much, just my height, body type. “Will a generic help with a yeast infection as good as this will? Cuz this thing is killing me…I haven’t been able to have sex in like a week and I’m dying…”

Poor Marie went red.

The men disappeared.

Two minutes later, as Damon came prowling my way, I smiled at him. “Did you find what you needed? I can always ask Marie to offer some advice.”

The storm clouds in his eyes glittered. If I wasn’t mistaken, something that might have been a smile almost appeared on his face. Almost. It was gone so quick, I couldn’t quite tell.

“You’re lucky that worked.” His voice was flat.

Rolling my eyes, I dropped the box Marie had all but shoved into my hands back on the shelf. “Pal, that wasn’t luck. Regardless of your race, men tend to still be men and you all freak out at certain things. And I’m damn good at not getting noticed.”

My hand was still itching. Even though I couldn’t see them, I knew they were still in the store. “They aren’t gone yet,” I murmured.

“No. They are up front now—at the cashier. They should be out of here in a few minutes,” he drawled. He moved around me, curling one hand around my wrist and commandeering the cart with the other hand. “Come on. I’d rather not continue to lurk in the feminine hygiene area.”

“But you do it so very well…”


We didn’t leave for twenty more minutes.

I think we had every employee watching us for signs we were shoplifting by the time we headed out. I made sure to pay for the reading glasses I’d used, even though I dumped them in the trash on my way out.

While we killed time in the store, Damon added more to the cart—protein shakes. About twenty of them. I eyed them narrowly. “Those are going to fun to haul around with the water.”

“I’m hauling them. You’re drinking them.”

“Wow. All twenty of them?”

He didn’t respond as he added a couple of boxes of those meal bars designed to help with a weight loss program to the cart. “Are you trying to tell me I need some help to maintain my girlish figure?”

“They’ve got calories and protein and they’ll serve well enough if you start to crash. Hopefully you won’t have to hide the way you did yesterday, but if you do…” He shrugged.

“If I had my damned bow, I wouldn’t have been hiding at all,” I muttered, more to myself than anybody else. I would have taken those men out, one by one. Just for the sheer fun of it.

Hunting—

Rage choked me and I had to swallow it back down as the itching returned to my palm and I could hear the sweet, sweet melody of the sword’s call at the back of my mind. I am here, I am here—

Yes. She was there, and I wanted her so badly—

As we stepped out of the store, I pulled my sunglasses out of my vest and slid them on, following Damon across the parking lot.

“Just how good are you with the bow?” he asked.

I stared at his back. “Is that a rhetorical question?”

“No. It’s the question kind of question…as in, I ask it and I want you to answer.” He popped open the trunk and gave me a narrow look.

Rolling my eyes, I snagged a couple of the bags and dumped them into the trunk of my car. “I’m good.”

“How good? As much as you are with your sword?”

A faint smile curved my lips. “You know, you’ve never really seen me with my sword, so you don’t really know if I’m any good or not.”

He shrugged, tossing a couple of cases of water into the trunk like he was throwing around pillows. “I watched you practice.”

“Practice is easy. Almost anybody can learn to hold a sword if they put their mind to it.”

“So are you telling me you’re no good with it?” He started breaking into the supplies. “Grab the backpacks.”

I hauled them out of the trunk and dumped them in front of him. “No. I’m damn good with it.”

“Yes. I imagine you are. Besides, you’ve managed to get it in between you and me a few times. That’s not something an amateur would be able to do. So…back to the main question. How good are you with a bow?”

“Better than I am with my sword.” I shrugged and reached out to the touch the blade in question. “The sword…she’s mine. She’s part of me.” She came to me— I wasn’t going to tell him that, but she was mine. “I’m a talented swordswoman, and I’ll get better. But I’ve got a gift for the bow. Always did. Swordplay, I learned through trial and error, sweat, blood…”

Broken bones, pain—I paused, swallowing as I shoved all of that back in the tight box where I’d fought to keep those memories confined. They didn’t belong out here, in the light of day, in the present. I’d left that horror behind. I wanted it lost, in the depths of memory, not out here taunting me. “But I was always good with my bow. Much to the disgust of my aunts, I was actually one of the best they’d ever worked with.”

A hand touched my cheek.

As he guided my face around to his, I blanked my face.

He said nothing. The pad of his thumb stroked over my lip.

I felt naked standing there. Stripped bare.

And I was having a very hard time thinking of him as the a*shole I needed him to be.

But I needed my head clear, damn it.

Pressing my hand to his chest, I backed away. “We’re wasting daylight,” I murmured.

“Yeah.” Tugging the bandana off my head, he pushed his fingers through my hair. “We’ve got one more stop to make, but it should be quick.”