My brows went up. Hollow point rounds explode just after impact, and when they hit anything made of flesh, that explosion shreds everything in its expanding path. They are for killing, not stopping. And not something I ever expected an Everhart to own.
Amelia patted the shotgun, “Molly sent us to the guy who hand-loads your silvershot and this baby holds four of the silver fléchette rounds. That’s all we could afford.”
Regan said. “But we got plenty of regular ammo for robbers.”
“Rapists.”
“Kidnappers.”
“And drunken good ole boys.”
“We been robbed once,” Regan said, her eyes narrow. “Never again.”
Still laughing softly, I finished off the tea, debating whether to tell the humans about the predicament with their witch sisters. I decided against it for now, and stood, pulling on my boots. “Stay safe. Don’t shoot the good guys.” They turned the lock when I left the shop, and it fell with a clunky, defiant finality. Molly’s sisters were an interesting bunch. Dangerous as heck. But interesting. I was in the SUV, trying once again to get dry, when my cell beeped. I smiled when I saw Rick’s new number in it. “Hey there,” I said.
“You know where Henrii Thibodaux’s Bayou Queen is?”
“Yeah. I ate there once.”
“I have a gig playing here tonight. And I smell something familiar.”
I got a sick feeling in the pit of my stomach. “What?”
“Werewolves. Get over here.”
I walked in to Henrii Thibodaux’s restaurant, just off Highway 25, in the middle of the dinner hour. I smelled wolf instantly, even over the delicious aroma of fried seafood and grilled meat. I walked around the dining room, sniffing, checking out the men’s room, sticking my head into the kitchen just in case a wolf might be working as busboy, then made my way to the parking lot, where I lost them, their slightly sick-smelling scent hidden under the wood smoke billowing up from the cooking vents. They had been here, but they had been gone for a while. Standing alone in the lot, I made a couple of calls and went back inside.
I placed an order, joined Rick at a table and dug into beef ribs with Texas Two-Step sauce from Henrii’s sauce bar. Rick had already finished boudin balls with Black Voodoo sauce and two beers—Cajun food in the mountains. Only in America. All I’d done all day was eat. If I didn’t shift and hunt soon, I was gonna start gaining weight. I was also bruised, sore, and banged up, but the healing of a shift would have to wait.
“So.” He picked up a half-empty beer bottle and sipped. “Last time I saw you, you were half cat, half human.”
I paused, a rib halfway to my mouth.
“Kem calls you a Qora, or a Bouda. A shape-changer. He says only the most powerful ones can do the half shift.”
I sighed and bit all the meat off the rib in neat little nips, thinking. When I was done, I wiped my fingers and said, “You don’t look weirded out about this.”
Rick laughed, an incredulous note mixed with the humor. “I’m plenty weirded out, Babe. But you reach the point where your ability to react emotionally to all the new shit being tossed at you is gone.”
I ate another rib, watching him as he drank a third beer. He didn’t look inebriated. His shape-changer nature had affected his metabolism. Rick would find it hard to get a buzz. “I’ve never done that half-change thing before. What did it look like?”
Rick shook his head and drained the beer. The waitress brought him another, which he opened and sipped. “It was . . . bizarre. Grotesque and beautiful all at once. Wild and feral. It looked painful. The movies don’t do it justice.”
I nodded and finished another rib. The silence between us was far more comfortable than maybe it should have been. I was waiting for the other shoe to fall.
“The bikes were riding off when I got here,” Rick said, returning to business, “and the place reeked of wolf. Could you smell them?”
I nodded and licked my fingers; he pushed his food basket away and leaned back in the booth, stretching. He was wearing a T-shirt I’d seen before, a thin black weave of silk knit that revealed as much as it hid, when the light hit it just right. My eyes were drawn to the mass of white, slightly ridged scars on his shoulder and swiped across his abdomen, and then to the long play of muscles down his side and the ripple of abs.
He was watching me, a small smile on his lips. I closed my mouth and remembered to chew. But, Oh. My. Gosh. Fortunately, before I could react beyond a sinking, spreading heat, he said, “They’re chasing you to get even, chasing me to finish killing me. What else?”
“Trying to rebuild a pack. But they aren’t smart enough to do it in any kind of order. They’d be easier to catch if they
“In bed would be nice, but not with cops present.” I grinned at that and he went on, “I’ll say I saw them on their way out.” Rick was the only one in town, besides Grégoire and me, who had actually seen the wolves in person and not just in mug shots, so his strategy would work. I drained my Coke and watched the cops approach. Chandler had a mean look on his face. Easy to tell I wasn’t his favorite person.
“Spill it Yellowrock,” he said. “I don’t have time for your shit.”
“Maybe you got time for mine, Billy.” Rick slid farther down in the bench seat, almost lounging, and his eyes were slit like a lazy cat’s, revealing only the lower half of dark irises and a slit of pupil. His tone held a warning, as if telling the chief to be polite. To me. A different kind of warmth filled me. No one had ever tried to protect me. Not ever. With my height and muscle build, most men figured I could take care of myself. Which I could, but still . . .
I hid a grin, stood, and went for a refill. When I got back, I heard the tail end of the conversation. Rick said, “Henrii has security cameras. The manager pulled the footage and burned a copy.” One hand went to his shoulder and the scars there, faintly visible beneath the thin fabric of his shirt. “Without a warrant,” he added slowly. “And you can thank Jane for that.” He smiled slightly, watching Chandler. “You owe her.”
This was news to me. And everything about that statement was sooo unlike Rick. It was the kind of taunt a cat might make to a dog.
“Let’s see this security footage,” Billy said, voice gruff. It wasn’t a thank you, but it wasn’t an insult either. Rick and I unfolded ourselves from the seats and we all trooped upstairs into the small office. The manager had left the disc in the system, and Rick hit a button. I sent him a look questioning the readiness of the equipment and he shrugged slightly with one shoulder. I guessed that working as musical talent in a place like Henrii’s gave the help some leeway.
On the laptop we saw grainy images of two men entering the restaurant, shaved heads and faces, one in glasses. My heart thudded. It was the two wolves I had left unconscious and bound for the cops in the hotel room where the pack had held Rick prisoner. It was easy for my mountain lion self to accept their reality by scent alone, but my human half had a visceral reaction to the sight, electric, toxic. So did Rick, a faint reek of fear leaching from his pores, though his body posture didn’t tighten or appear to react. More and more like a cat.
I focused on the screen. One of the wolves was bigger than Big Evan and solid muscle. I’d nicknamed him Fire Truck. The other guy looked little next to him, but probably stood between five feet seven and five ten. It was hard to tell next to the mountain of Fire Truck. The smaller guy moved fast in the digital footage, seeming to jump through the intermittent progression of frames. He had squinty eyes and bulges under his hoodie that were likely weapons. He looked weaselly, which became his new name.
We watched Fire Truck and Weasel disappear inside, trailed later by a woman wearing a granny dress and
