“What’s a pelote?”
“A single-use charm that will get them to whatever portal it’s built from.”
“Call Bas. He’s the temporary Keeper for one of the crabapple portals. I think he’s at the Pearmains’,” I said. “If you need me for anything, I’ll be in the root cellar.”
Crammed into the backseat of my tiny car was my sample collecting kit, the one I usually hauled between my office in town and the farms and orchards I visited. I hefted the bag to the wretched wooden door leading into the root cellar and set it on the new concrete slab. I needed better light.
Stomping into the house, because one orgasm and a few answers weren’t enough to render me love-struck to the extent I could ignore the danger my sons would be in when they went to work, I asked the guys if they’d bought any clip-on lamps.
They had. Christoph wordlessly handed me two, with bulbs, and said, “I’ll drop an extension cord out the window.”
Having the lights helped. I grabbed a hoodie on my way out again and clomped down the porch stairs.
In my kit was a camping headlamp and spare batteries. Every bit of light would help once I was inside the root cellar. I opened the door, clipped one lamp to the frame and the other farther in, pulled the hoodie over my head, and strapped on the headlamp.
The familiar rhythm of marking out a grid with stakes, attaching string until the entire area was mapped out, soothed the irritation, which was really just a mask for my fears.
“Would you like my help?” Tanner hunched by the door. His voice swept between my clothes and my skin, leaving imprints of his hands from my throat to my inner thighs.
“Aren’t you needed with making the portal thingy?” I asked.
“It’ll be another thirty minutes before River can extricate himself from whatever he’s doing.”
“I’ll hand the baggies to you, and you can write on the bag with that Sharpie.” I pointed to the pocket with the markers. “Repeat the number and letter I give you, back to me. Please.”
Settling into work-mode with Tanner as my helper wasn’t hard. Even with creepy memories whispering at the periphery of my awareness, I stuck to the simple ease of scooping up soil, dumping it into a baggie, handing the baggie to Tanner, and giving him the coordinates from the grid. With his help, I’d taken samples from the half closest to the door before Christoph knocked on one of the grimy, cracked windows and motioned for Tanner.
“You okay?” he asked. I nodded and waved him off.
Mold was beginning to irritate the insides of my nostrils. Work boots and rubber gloves kept my hands and feet from reading the soil as I might have liked. But the choice to put a layer between my bare skin and the ground under my house was deliberate. I was afraid the cold, slimy soil would send me hurtling backwards into memories that still choked me up.
Added to those memories was House’s certainty that Meribah’s blood was down here.
Fur ruffled across the back of my neck, even though the hood covered my head. I dropped the tongue depressor I was using into the next to the last square.
Bear. What are you doing here?
My hand shook as I picked up the piece of smooth wood, opened the baggie, added the soil, and marked the location. I fished a fresh depressor out of the hoodie’s pocket and went to lift the last sampling of soil. An invisible paw cradled my elbow and guided my arm to a specific spot close to the stone foundation. I dug there, adding three times as much soil to this final bag as I had to the others.
Is there anything else?
Silence inside the cellar was lightened by footsteps on the floorboards overhead and muffled, masculine laughter. I labelled the last bag, added an asterisk, and set it on top of the others. I was ready to get out of there.
Chapter 18
I left my mucky boots and my kit outside the front door, washed my hands in the kitchen sink, and went to greet Alabastair and River. Clustered nearby were Harper, Thatcher, and the others.
Tanner excused himself from the group. “Calli, can we talk a sec? As soon as I’m not needed for making the pelote, I’ve got to leave,” he said, taking both my hands in his. “I’ll portal to the Pearmains’ and go to France from there. I have to see Clifford and Abigail for myself.”
“Will you meet with your teacher?”
He interlaced his fingers through mine, wrapped our arms behind my back, and brought the fronts of our bodies together. “Oui. Et quand je vais te dévourer encore une fois.”
“I have no idea what you just said, but it sounded incredibly sexy. I’m going with that.”
“My wolf thinks you taste delicious,” he said, “and both of us desire more.” He waited before letting go of my hands and pulling the double cord over his head. Holding the leather in both hands, he asked me for permission before looping the cords over my head and nestling the pouch between my breasts. “Thank you for guarding this, Calliope. You won’t have to for much longer.”
I walked backwards until we were out of sight of my sons and wrapped my arms around Tanner’s neck. “I’m scared.”
“Shhh,” he murmured, pressing the side of his face against mine and drawing me up and in, sealing our chests together. “Harper and Thatcher are remarkable students. They don’t fully understand the risks of what’s happening around them, but they’re right. They deserve to live their lives as close to normal as we can create for them. And you,” he tapped my breastbone, “not only are you a loving, wonderful mother, you have a team of Magicals to guide and support you.”
I withdrew my arms and held Tanner’s face. “That sounds
