“I’m home!” Adora called from downstairs.
I went down into the basement. Fully finished, it had been converted into a makeshift hospital room, with Yu Fong resting in a hospital bed. An IV stretched from his arm. Next to him, in a large plush chair, Adora curled up with a book. Lean, hard, with her dark hair falling to her shoulders, from the back she looked familiar. My shoulders were broader, my frame larger, and I had a couple of inches of height on her. Other than that, replace her katana with Sarrat, and she might be the younger, teenage me.
“How is he?”
“The same,” she said.
Yu Fong showed no signs of life. I leaned close to him and put the back of my hand to his nose. A faint puff of air touched my skin. Still breathing.
“He’s pretty,” Adora observed.
“That he is.” He looked like a beautiful painting. “I wouldn’t try kissing him. He isn’t Sleeping Beauty.”
She wrinkled her nose at me. “Wasn’t planning on it.”
“Do you want to be paid from Cutting Edge or through the Guild for the gig?”
She tilted her chin. “I’m working pro bono.”
“Since when?”
“This is a family matter,” she said. “I’ll take care of him because you and Curran are family and you need help.”
“Who are you and what have you done with Adora?”
She grinned at me. “You’re not as funny as you think.”
“I’m funny enough. Come and get me if he wakes up.”
“You killed one of my sisters today,” she said.
News traveled fast. “I did. She wanted to kill Conlan and eat him.”
“Did she suffer?”
“Yes.”
“Good.” Adora winked at me. “I put Curran’s sweatpants on the stairs. I’m not going up to your love nest.”
“Love nest?”
“Your bedroom where you have sex.”
Oh boy.
“I haven’t had sex,” Adora volunteered. “But I’ve decided to try it.”
“Is there a particular person you want to try it with?”
“No. I’m thinking about it.”
“Sex is about trust,” I told her. “You’ll be at your most vulnerable. Try to choose well.”
She wrinkled her nose at me again.
I went up the stairs. A big paper bag sat on the first landing. I looked inside. Gray Pack sweatpants. Curran had grown up in them, and he kept wearing them despite us no longer being part of the Pack. One, two . . . Five pairs? Odd. He had two stacks of sweatpants in the closet.
“Hey,” I called down to the basement. “Who brought the sweatpants?”
“Some Pack werewolf.”
I walked upstairs and opened the closet doors. All of the old sweatpants were gone. Weird. I emptied the bag on the bathroom floor and sorted through the new sweatpants, checking the waistband and the elastic on the bottom of each pant leg for any hidden items. Nothing.
Okay. I folded the sweatpants and put them back into the bag. Where did his other sweatpants go?
A search of the hamper turned up nothing. Now I was invested in the mystery. I went downstairs and checked the laundry room, the washing machine, and the dryer. Nothing.
That left the trash can outside. I went out and threw the lid open. A large trash bag sat on top, stretched out like someone had folded a blanket and stuffed it inside. I fished it out and pulled the strings open. Sweatpants. Still clean and folded. Well, and that wasn’t weird. Not at all. Why would he throw away all of his sweatpants and get new ones? Did they smell bad? I sniffed the sweatpants. Smelled like cotton to me.
I grabbed a pair of old sweatpants and went down into the basement.
“Do these smell odd to you?”
“You want me to sniff Curran’s sweatpants?”
“They’re clean. I got them out of the garbage can.”
Adora blinked at me and held up one finger. “No.”
“Fine.” I took the old sweatpants upstairs, pulled the new ones out of the bag, arranged them on the shelf, and laid a lone pair of old clean sweats on the bed next to the empty bag and a clean white T-shirt. Trap baited. Now I just had to wait for the lion to come home.
It took him another twenty minutes. He walked through the door, carrying Conlan. Conlan saw me, scooted out of his arms, and charged up the stairs at breakneck speed. I had a split-second decision: to move or to take the hit. I took the hit. My back slapped the wooden floor. Ouch. He hugged me. “Mama!”
I rolled to my feet. “This sudden love is suspicious.”
“He got in trouble for trying to eat scented candles.” Curran came up the stairs.
“Where did he get the scented candles?”
“In the Guild’s supply closet. Corinna bought a stack of them. She burns them in the locker room. Says it helps her with the wet-dog smell.”
Corinna worked for the Guild as a merc, but she was also a werejackal and she was obsessed with her scent.
I carried Conlan to the bedroom. “Did you talk to Martha?”
“Not yet.”
“The Pack delivered some sweatpants for you. I put them in the closet. What happened to the old ones?”
“I wore them out.”
Bullshit. Coming from the man who resorted to using his alpha stare over keeping an ancient T-shirt, it wasn’t just bullshit, it stank to high heaven.
I nodded.
“How did it go with the witches?”
Curran stripped off his T-shirt and I got a view of the world’s best chest, all golden and muscled. Mmm.
“Big battle, fire, human bones, blood, more fire.”
“That’s it?” He put on the white T-shirt and took off his jeans. Mmmm.
“Yep. Not very illuminating. But good news, Maria still hates me.”
He pulled the sweatpants on. They ended midway up his shin. What the heck?
“Hold on, baby. Mommy needs to do something.” I set Conlan down, turned sideways, raised my leg, bending it at the knee, and extended. I’d done this hundreds of times to tap Curran on the throat when we were sparring. Usually I failed to connect, but the high kick was so automatic, I did it on autopilot. My foot came up short.
“Ooo, foreplay.” Curran caught my ankle.
I pulled my leg out of his hand. “Stand straight.”
“What is this?” He spread his arms.
I stepped close to him. My nose touched his chest. In his human form, Curran topped me by two and a half inches. I was five-seven and he was close to five-ten. I was looking up at him now.
“You are taller.”
“I hate to break it to you, but I’m done growing.”
“You’re taller and you know you’re taller. I found your sweatpants in the garbage.” I dropped back and snapped a fast kick, aiming at his head. He leaned back, letting my kick fly by.
“You’re at least six-two.”
“You measured me with your kick?”
“Yes. And your hair is an inch longer than it was this morning. What’s happening?”
“Nothing I understand.”
“Why is this happening?”
He raised his arms. “I’m trying to get stronger.”
He did work out every chance he got.
“I’m not trying to work on being taller. The hair thing is weird, I agree.”
“Is this normal? Is this some sort of First shapeshifter stage of life that you’re going through?”
“My father isn’t around, so we can’t exactly ask him.”
“Have you talked to Doolittle about it?”
He smiled at me. “Would you like me to?”
“Yes. I would. What the hell is so funny?”
“You’re worrying about my health.”
“You scare me.” I sat on the bed. I was suddenly very tired.
He crouched on the floor in front of me. “I’m okay.”
“I was thinking today about what it was like before.”
“Before . . . ?”
“Before the flare.”
He grinned. “You mean before I broke into your house and made you coffee for the first time?”
“You didn’t break into my house. I left the door unlocked.”
“Details.”
“Ghastek asked In-Shinar for forgiveness today. He didn’t know about the sahanu, and he took it personally. He didn’t want the whole me. He wanted the In-Shinar part of me. Raphael told me I was the In-Shinar. Some people will never see me as anything else.”
“I want the whole you,” he told me. “The merc, the In-Shinar, my wife, all of it. My Kate.”