Maybe I like you, shaman.
“But.” He stuffed his hands in his pockets, his shoulders slumping, and though he was much bigger than her, he seemed to be trying to make himself smaller. “This is your town, and they’ve killed your friend, and I haven’t made things any easier on you. So I guess it’s up to you what we do.”
Oh, God, not another decision. Who made me responsible for you?
He must have read her face. “Come on. We should get to the pickup point just in time.”
“Carcajou.” Cullen looked like he was ready to say something else, but Zach just turned his head, not quite looking back over his shoulder. “She needs training, and you—”
“If the Tribes won’t deal with this, why should we stay and risk her?” He pitched his voice just loud enough to carry. “She’ll decide what to do. In the meantime, you can tell the air—and Armitage—that if he comes after her I’m going to personally reach down his throat and tear his diseased little heart out. Nobody messes with her from now on.”
Chapter 20
It wasn’t much, just a two-story fake Tudor on a quiet, depressed street, but Eric was visibly proud of himself for scrambling a rental on short notice. “It’s good,” Zach said, and hoped Sophie would catch the hint. She’d been quiet since the bar, the kind of quiet he was beginning to think spelled trouble.
And he didn’t want to break the news that all the trouble might’ve been wasted if they had to get her out of town because the upir here were getting too big for their britches.
“It’s nice.” She stood in the empty living room, looking at the fake fireplace; the gas wouldn’t be turned on until Brun or Eric could get down to pay a deposit, but there was electricity, the place came with a fridge and a stove, and Julia had already hung up her clothes in one of the bedrooms—not the biggest one, for once.
That one belonged to the shaman. And, not so incidentally, to Zach. But he’d cross that bridge when he came to it.
Assuming they stayed here.
“It’s really nice,” she said, pushing her hair back. A thin thread of her musk reached him. She even smelled pleased, and Eric drew himself up a little straighter, grinning. “You did all this just in a few hours?”
His leather jacket creaked as he shrugged. Was he actually blushing? Wonders never ceased. “The hardest part was finding mattresses. But we’re champion scroungers.”
She was actually smiling, her eyes damn near sparkling and the corners of her mouth pulling up. The smile did something funny to Zach’s head, even though he thought he was pretty prepared for how goddamn attractive she was.
That smile made him want to do something, anything, to keep it on her face. Maybe make her laugh. She didn’t just smell good, she was smart and capable and soft in all the right places, and—
The smile waned. She gave the living room another critical glance, and slid her purse off her shoulder. “We might not be here for long, though. We found some things out.”
Which brought Eric’s eyes around to rest on him, speculatively, and he found himself wondering if his cousin was having second thoughts.
There was going to be a short, sharp fight if that was happening.
“Like what?” Eric made a restless movement, the pale stripe in his hair gleaming under the ceiling fixture’s flood of gold.
Zach kept his hands loose with an effort. “Like why the upir are after our shaman. What’s for dinner?”
“Julia and Brun are at the store, should be back in a little while. Julia said she’d do steaks.” Eric studied Zach’s face, his forehead wrinkling. He looked younger when he did that, a ghost of the gangly kid he used to be. “What’s up?”
“Steak? Wow.” Sophie looked relieved. That smile peeped out again, a shadow of its former self.
Still, he almost lost track of what he needed to say, looking at that shadow. “Seems like our shaman’s ex-husband wants her as a sacrifice. And the upir in these parts are getting uppity, in bed with the police and the local gentry. Met a shaman of the Bear Tribe who doesn’t think anyone will stand up to them.”
“So it’s simple.” Eric folded his arms, his leather jacket creaking. “We slap them around a bit, show them who’s boss, crack ’em like a nut, and be home in time for breakfast. Right?”
If something so simple can fix it, I’ll be relieved. “It’s up to the shaman.” Zach clumped over to the window, his boots squelching. He’d be lucky if she didn’t catch a cold after being dragged around through the rain all day. No wonder the Tribes were so hard to find in this city, if they were lying low, scared of upir.
Scared of upir. What next? They were dangerous, true, but Tribe—especially Carcajou—were well-equipped to handle them. Right?
Unless there’s so many of them they can swarm a Family and take out a shaman. It was an uncomfortable thought. Cullen said they’d already lost two. Are pigs gonna start flying next? Jesus.
The street lay under a heavy gray pall, night already mostly fallen. Streetlamps struggled into life, pale yellow dots on the canvas of winter dusk. The house was full of disused stale air, but the musk was already beginning to seep in and make it smell like home.
“What are we going to do?” Eric sounded as young as Brun, and for a moment Zach was glad nobody was asking him. He was having a difficult time keeping his temper down, thinking of upir stalking a helpless woman.
Stalking this helpless woman.
“I don’t know.” There was a sound of movement, and a sudden drift of her almost-perfume. “You’re angry.” Soft, tentative.
He forced himself to stand still. “Of course I’m angry.” They’re threatening our shaman. My mate. But you don’t have a clue, do you?
“Well, what should we do?” Still, that cautious tone, as if she wasn’t sure if he was going to explode.
He just might. Even the ice and moonlight hanging on her wasn’t enough to smooth his nerves. “What I want to do is go find this motherfucker and tear his spleen out. Because I can smell how afraid you are every time you think about him. Then I want to find his happy little handler, this Armitage, and tear him apart, too. And all their little helpers.”
The touch startled him. She had her hand on his shoulder, a light pressure through his damp jacket. Both of them had been rained on all day, and for what? To find out the upir had a lock on this town so tight the other Tribes were afraid instead of proud.
“Why are they afraid of Carcajou?” She pronounced the name slightly wrong, but he thought he detected a little bit of high-school French. “And what does that mean, anyway?”
“They’re afraid of us because that’s our specialization, hunting upir. And because we don’t back down—that’s why there’re so few of us. We breed slow and we fight hard.” Our Family was an exception, but Dad had three mates. The first left him after two stillborn, the second had me and died giving birth to Kyle. Then the shaman threw twins, and that was a Big Event. Every Tribe Dad knew came to pay their regards.
His hands had turned into fists. He felt more than heard Eric withdrawing, probably spooked by the high-level bloodlust pouring out of his glands.
“Well. That answers that.” Did she sound amused? Did she not have any idea what was going on?
He glanced down at her. Yes, that was her hand on his shoulder. Yes, she was smiling. It was an odd, wry smile, and her glasses glinted wickedly at him. She’d unbuttoned Kyle’s jacket, and the rain had slid in, plastering a triangle of shirt to her chest.