In the immediate vicinity, I could sense Rafe, a burning light that confirmed he was indeed more than mere wolf. But past him, I could sense another.
Papa Cocodril.
Humming to myself happily, I followed my magical senses closer and closer, until I felt I was practically on top of him. Rafe was loping along the banks of the water, darting between trees in flashes of silver, but I knew he had almost caught up to me.
“Hello?” I called out, treading water and sweeping my dark, wet mane off my face, “Papa Cocodril?”
He was here … somewhere. I could feel him watching me. Watching us.
“Rafe,” I said in a careful voice, knowing his wolf ears would hear me, “I need you to back off. The Sage said he would not reveal himself to anyone but me.”
From the trees there was a snuffling and then the Alpha of the Louisiana Wolves let out a howl, before doing my bidding.
“Papa Cocodril?” I tried again, looking all around me. “It's just the two of us now. Just you … and the Veil Keeper.”
For what felt like a long time, the bayou was still. Quiet. Then I felt movement in the water and something scaly brushed my legs. My breath hitched, but I reminded myself this was no ordinary gator. This was a fae-blooded voodoo priest in a gator’s form. He wouldn't eat people … would he?
A chirping noise sounded near the banks of the bayou, and bubbles rose to the surface as Papa Cocodril emerged. First his eyes, then his snout, then slowly, with his gaze locked on me, his enormous gator form exited the water and staggered up the muddy incline. All the while … chirping.
“Papa Cocodril,” I breathed with a healthy level of apprehension. Ciarah's human life had been here in Louisiana, and a sensible level of respect for the deadly beasts was ingrained in my soul, so to see this mighty creature … “Are you … laughing?”
The chirps grew louder, and his jaws opened in the semblance of a grin while his massive tail swished back and forth behind him.
“Yea, girl,” a deep and powerful voice rumbled from the reptile, “I be laughing at you. Veil Keeper, p’shaw.”
“Well, that's not kind,” I scolded with a frown, “what have I done to deserve your laughter, Papa Cocodril?”
“It's of none importance, young one,” he chuckled, his scaled head swinging back and forth in a hypnotising rhythm. “Are you gettin' out, now? De moon be almost at it's zenith an' Papa Cocodril been cravin' som rum somet’ing fierce, no?”
“Rum?” I repeated, feeling like a bit of an idiot. I wasn't totally sure what I'd expected from Papa Cocodril but … it wasn't this.
Swimming over to the edge of the water, I took a moment to inspect him a little more closely. Even if I hadn't known he were a magical being, it'd be clear just by looking at him. Normal American alligators grew to a maximum of around fourteen feet—how I knew that, I had no idea—but this guy … he was an easy twenty-five or thirty feet long and wore a necklace made of what seemed to be gator teeth.
“Dis way, girl,” the gator ordered, swinging his massive body around and leading the way through the cypress trees and deeper into the darkness.
In near total silence, I followed the talking gator for some time, my naked skin glistening and shimmering in the moonlight without my glamour on, until we reached a run-down old shack on stilts with a burning kerosene lantern hanging from the eaves.
“Ah, bon,” Papa Cocodril nodded his huge gator head, “she be 'ere already. One moment, young one.”
Curious, I stepped back and watched as he stepped his stumpy, reptilian legs onto a circle of symbols that looked freshly scratched into the dirt. He paused there, looking up at the full moon, then as the cloud moved and the silvery light bathed his brown and green body, he shifted into a man.
“Much bettah,” he sighed, grinning at me with teeth as white as rice against skin as black as coal. “Now, let us see what my woman 'as prepared fo' us. Come see, come ‘side, girl.”
He nodded his head to the shack and I raised my eyebrows, thoroughly intrigued.
“Your woman?” I asked, and he laughed a hearty belly laugh.
“Yea, cher. My queen, my lover, my jailer, Rosinée.” The way he said her name was like he spoke of a fine wine, or perfectly aged cheese that he craved.
“I heard that!” a woman's voice snapped from inside.
I stayed where I was, near the waters of the bayou. It was dark out, the silver moon casting her long arms across the surface of the water, but it was far from quiet. I could feel little bugs skimming across my skin, mosquitoes swarming in buzzing circles around my head, unable to bite my enchanted skin or drink my magicked blood.
“I didn't expect you to have a visitor,” I said, adding silently in my head, and most especially not the Swamp Witch. Lover? Jailor? How could a person be both one in the same? I could never be around my jailors again, not without trying to kill what I wasn’t positive could even be killed. But sharing a bed with someone willing to steal another's freedom? I couldn’t wrap my head around it.
“Yeah, well,” Papa Cocodril said, his irises gleaming yellow in the darkness. I wasn't sure if that was from the enchantment, his magic, a failed glamour, or something else. “I only get one night a month, girly, and I ain't about to waste it if you know what I mean.” He flashed me another grin and a wink, reaching up to tug on the gold ring threaded through the center of his nose. “Get outta dat swamp and come on in.”
He gestured at me with a hand covered in rings and then started off toward the wooden shack, perched on stilts and hovering above the soft, mossy ground. The man was nude and erect, but I didn't sense that his hard cock had anything to do with me—no, he was clearly very interested in seeing Rosinée.
I waited until his bare butt disappeared into the house and then started across the wooden platform toward the front door, wondering why he was nude but still wearing jewelry. Interesting. I added that mental note to my index of questions to ask Rafe later. And trust me, I had a lot of them. I should invite the man out for beignets and coffee and pick his brain. There were so many things I wanted to know about the wolves, their customs and culture, their shifting abilities (especially the whole clothes/no clothes thing), their relationship to the fae and the Veil Keeper.
The night air kissed my skin, along with the hot burn of Rafe's red eyes, watching me from the shadows.