He stomped over and began shoveling some more while Josh’s voice rang clearly over the car alarms.
“Did you set fire to the barn?”
Nero cut him off, proving that he was the more experienced first responder. “What do you need? Where?”
Bruce held up his hand, still searching every nook and cranny. But he didn’t see anything, and even better, he didn’t smell anything except his own rancid sweat and the dirt he’d been shoveling.
Meanwhile, Laddin turned off a car alarm—thank heaven—and the second abruptly shut off as well. In the pounding silence, Nero barked his question again.
“What do you need?”
Laddin looked at him, and Bruce took a deep breath. “I think it’s out. We need to watch for a few minutes just in case, but Laddin needs burn treatment.”
“Me?” Laddin snorted. “You look like you were thrown on a griddle and covered with hot coals.”
Did he? He really didn’t want to look… or feel. Because once the adrenaline wore off, he knew it was going to hurt like hell.
“Can you shift?” Nero asked.
Laddin nodded. “I can, though I was trying to save it.”
“Not with that arm. Was someone playing tic-tac-toe on your back?”
“Yeah,” Bruce muttered. “Pixie chicks.”
Laddin snorted a laugh. “You were waiting to say that, weren’t you?”
Bruce shrugged. That pun had slipped out, but it wasn’t bad. Meanwhile, Nero snapped his fingers at Laddin. “Get furry.” Then he looked at Bruce. “What about you? Got control of your wolf?”
Hell no, and it burned his pride to admit it. “I’ll use the burn cream.”
Meanwhile, Bing and Yordan appeared, both looking haggard. They were running, and Yordan set a hand on the barn door as he took in deep breaths. “What do you need?” he gasped while Bing surveyed everything with dark, serious eyes.
“Faster responders,” Nero muttered while Josh found a switch and flicked it on. The barn was suddenly flooded with electric light, enough to illuminate Laddin, who padded forward as a red wolf with short cinnamon fur and a smile that showed he was fully healed.
Bruce exhaled in relief when he came close and buried his hands in the warm fur. “Can you sniff around? Find anything smoking and let me know.”
Laddin nodded and set off to do a tour of the barn. Meanwhile, Nero was watching Yordan.
“You look like shit,” he said, and Yordan bristled. He was in shorts and boots, which gave them a good look at his gray skin, where every cut and bruise stood out in livid relief.
“Talk to me after you fight a lich. What happened to you?”
That was a good question. Josh was walking stiffly back from the light switch. His clothing looked good—his skin too—but he looked bone-tired. Nero did too, and one of his eyes was swollen, and there was blood on his pants.
“Phantom kangaroos,” Nero said.
“What?” Yordan barked.
“You heard me. We were holding a perimeter while some witches tried a demon locator spell and got attacked by ghost kangaroos.”
Josh took up the tale. “It was easier to herd them away than figure out how to kill them, but one got Nero in the face with his tail. I thought he was dead, but he shifted while still in the air. That bruise is from the landing.” There was a tremor in his voice that Bruce recognized as true emotion—likely fear and relief mixed with adrenaline letdown. He’d heard it a thousand times, and it was more proof that Nero meant a great deal to Josh. That gave him a twinge of jealousy that was unworthy of him. If his brother had found true love, then good for him.
Assuming Nero returned the emotion.
“It’ll heal,” Nero said.
Meanwhile, Yordan pushed off the doorframe. “I wasn’t questioning you. I want to know why kangaroo ghosts are showing up in Wisconsin.”
A female voice answered from the door. “Because the demon wants them here.” She spoke in a tone that reminded Bruce of bells, with a haunting melody in every note. But the sound only reflected a fraction of the beauty of the woman. She was small, a brunet, and had skin that glowed beneath the electrical light. Her eyes were mahogany with a strange light behind them. And though her lips and body curved in a way to tempt any man, there was a mystical innocence in the way she moved and in the high tenor of her voice. Bruce remembered her as Wulfric’s mother, the same woman who had dragged him outside to sit on the porch all afternoon.
“Lady Kinstead,” Nero said as he straightened to attention. “I’m sorry we disturbed you.”
“Barn fires are deadly,” she said as she looked straight at Bruce. Then her lips curved. “Aren’t you a pretty one?”
Bruce flushed, realizing belatedly that he was still standing there in his birthday suit. He moved his hand and shovel to cover the important parts, but a moment later he realized he hadn’t needed to. The woman was smiling and talking to wolf Laddin as she stepped around Bruce to pet Laddin’s coat and press a kiss to his forehead.
“You’re so sweet,” she cooed.
Well, that pricked his pride. He couldn’t remember a woman preferring a dog to him. Then he realized what a ridiculous thought that was. He crossed to the van to find something to wear. Weren’t there extra clothes in there? Even though he knew it wasn’t good to cover up his burns—hell, moving was sending bolts of fire across his skin—he wasn’t going to stand naked in front of a woman while covered in grime and seeping welts. Especially a woman who preferred a wolf to him.
Except the moment he’d managed to pull on a pair of sweatpants, she left Laddin to look straight at him. He flushed—again—because damn it, at that moment he wanted a shower and some painkillers, not to be the center of attention. And he
