None of the Others would tell her what happened to Simon. Was he all right? Something had gone wrong. She had cut across twice as much skin as she should have even for a long cut, and she had cut too deep. The prophecies raged through her like water rushing to embrace the emptiness before the fall. She had tried to hold in the prophecies, tried not to speak so that she could see the visions since there was no one to listen. But she saw glimpses of things so terrible and terrifying, she had to speak, had to experience the euphoria that would veil what was revealed.
Then Simon appeared, pushing at the bathroom door, banging it against her legs hard enough to bruise her. She hadn’t known about the bruises and wouldn’t have cared. All that mattered was having a listener.
But he had licked the cut, cleaned off some of the blood, and something happened. Simon wasn’t really Simon anymore. He wasn’t the leader; he wasn’t the Wolf with snarling intelligence. He was … taffy. All soft and gooey.
But the feel of his tongue on her skin, licking her as if she was the most wonderful thing in the world. Combined with the euphoria that flowed with her words, his tongue pleased her and pleasured her and made her want …
“Meg?” Jester urgently whispered in her ear. “Meg? Please stop thinking about whatever you’re thinking about.”
Blinking, she pulled her thoughts back to her surroundings.
The Coyote eased away from her while also leaning toward her and sniffing. When Nathan growled a warning, Jester moved as far away from her as he could without falling off the sofa.
Puzzled, Meg looked at Nathan—who blushed and whined softly before looking away. He shifted in his chair as if he couldn’t get comfortable.
Jake Crowgard, the only other individual in Henry’s living room, watched her with bright-eyed intensity.
Her panties were damp. She’d been thinking about Simon, and now her panties were damp.
And at least two of the males in the room could smell the arousal and need.
“Sorry,” she mumbled.
“It’s all right.” Jester gave her shoulder a cautious pat. “It’s just … confusing.”
Her appetite gone, Meg set the rest of the pizza slice on her plate and wiped her fingers on a napkin. In Wolf form, Simon would have licked her fingers clean.
Can’t think about Simon.
Nothing else she could think about right now. He’d been fine when he entered her bathroom. Then he wasn’t fine. Wasn’t Simon. Simon would have understood the importance of remembering the prophecy. Simon would have listened, wouldn’t have gotten distracted.
She had seen words written on the bathroom mirror when Henry carried her out. Was that all she’d said? So little for so much skin used? Or had there been more that was now lost?
Tess, Henry, and Vlad had told her Simon was all right, but she didn’t believe them. They wanted Simon to be all right. That wasn’t the same thing.
“Jester?” She chose her questions carefully. The Coyote was friendly but inclined toward dosing helpfulness with mischief. “Where is Simon?”
“He’s in that meeting with Lieutenant Montgomery,” Jester replied, glancing at Nathan. “The police came to the meeting. They brought the pizza.”
“Simon hasn’t been in meetings all day.” And even if he had been, why hadn’t he stopped by to check on her or call? Sam, who was still a puppy, had called, mostly to whine a little about having to stay at the Wolfgard Complex tonight even though they all knew he enjoyed playing with the other pups and had been sleeping with the other Wolves on the weekdays.
Meg studied the Coyote. “Would you tell me? If there was something wrong, would you tell me?”
Jester sighed. “Yes, Meg. If something was wrong with Simon, I would tell you.”
Simon didn’t like feeling scared. He didn’t like feeling sick or shaky. And he wanted this craving that made him feel distracted and hollow to go away.
Because he knew what would fill up the hollowness.
And he wished Lieutenant Crispin James Montgomery hadn’t been so helpful over the past few months, hadn’t shown concern for things that mattered to the terra indigene. Hadn’t become something more than a not-edible human.
If Montgomery had kept his distance, Simon wouldn’t feel some obligation to share information.
But they were gathered in the Business Association’s meeting room on the second floor of Howling Good Reads because there were decisions to be made—and not all of those decisions were about the Others. Even so, he didn’t think Montgomery found it comfortable to be the only human in a room with him, Vlad, Henry, Blair, Elliot, and Tess.
Henry, Blair, and Vlad had locked down the Courtyard after they realized something unexplained had happened to him. Henry had summoned Dr. Lorenzo and escorted the doctor to the Green Complex to tend to Meg. Vlad had called Heather and Lorne to tell them the stores would be closed, but they both chose to come to work. Elizabeth Bennefeld wasn’t scheduled to work in the Market Square office that day, but she called to see if anyone needed her skills as a massage therapist. Merri Lee …
“I appreciate you letting Ms. Lee stay in the efficiency apartment for the time being,” Montgomery said.
Always quiet, always courteous. No challenges or dominance games.
“We set aside one of those apartments for our female employees,” Simon said. “No reason for her not to use it.”
Of course, the Others had given their employees access to the apartments as a temporary place to stay during bad weather. But Tess and Vlad had seen the young woman when Officer Debany brought her from the emergency room, and they agreed that until the unrest was dealt with one way or another, Merri Lee was too vulnerable staying in her apartment near the university. And, according to Debany, the two women Merri Lee shared the apartment with were relieved to see her go because they didn’t want to be targeted for living with a Wolf lover.
“This is what Captain Burke and I know about Talulah Falls,” Montgomery said.
Simon listened, a little surprised that the situation had escalated so fast. Then again, when Meg had been injured and the Lakeside Courtyard had been under attack, the Elementals and their steeds had retaliated with a storm that could have destroyed the city if humans like Montgomery, Kowalski, and Lorenzo hadn’t made an effort to help.
He was surprised, but the rest of the Others nodded, indicating they were already aware of the situation in the Falls, as well as the way Great Island was cut off for the time being but prepared to wait out the fog on the river. No troubles there between humans and terra indigene.
Maybe that was one reason why the tension in Talulah Falls had reached the breaking point so quickly. The Others in the Falls Courtyard had voiced some resentment lately about the way the human community on Great Island cooperated with the terra indigene. And the Lakeside Courtyard’s more recent success at receiving cooperation from at least some of the humans they dealt with just added to the resentment.
If humans weren’t going to live up to their part of the agreements that allowed their cities to exist in the first place, the terra indigene saw no reason for those cities to continue existing.
He agreed with the leaders of the Talulah Falls Courtyard that this assumption humans made that they were entitled to whatever they wanted had to be crushed quickly and completely, but Simon sincerely hoped the humans in Lakeside would continue to help him avoid making that same decision.
“Mr. Ferryman asked me to convey his thanks for the warning this morning,” Montgomery said, giving Simon a look that was clearly asking What is wrong with you? “But he also wasn’t sure how much had been told to him in confidence and indicated that I should talk to you about it in case you thought any of it might be relevant to Lakeside.”
Simon unfolded the piece of paper and placed it on the low round table in the center of the ring of chairs. “You know about Meg being hurt this morning?” He waited for Montgomery’s nod. “I think some of the prophecy was lost. Maybe some of the visions weren’t written down in the right way. I was …” He shook his head. “This is what we told Ferryman.”
He watched Montgomery lean forward to read the list of what little he had written on the bathroom mirror.
Fin
Smiling shark
Falling water
Hide the children
Smoke and broken jars
Scars
Shaking basement
Falling jars
Shark
Hide the children