was looking for the focus had occurred to me—either wanting to confirm that it was truly gone, or use it to buy his way back into Walter's good graces if it wasn't—but I didn't think so. It looked like he was going loner when he dropped his cap on the Mackinac Bridge and walked away. But he was just watching now. David had done the same for months before he finally made his presence known. When unsure of their rank, Weres were patient and wary. He'd come to me when he was ready.
And I was in far too good a mood to worry about it. I was so glad to be home. My stitches were out and the scars were thin lines easily hidden. My limp was fading, and thanks to that curse I used to Were, I had absolutely no freckles. The soft air slipped easily in and out of my lungs as I walked, and I felt sassy. Sassy and badass in my vamp-made boots and Jenks's aviator jacket. I was wearing the cap Jenks had stolen from the island Weres, and it added a nice bit of bad girl. The guy behind the counter at the corner store had thought I was cute.
I passed my covered car in the open garage and my mood faltered. The I.S. had suspended my license. It just wasn't fair. I had saved them a dump truck of political hassle, and did I get even a thank-you? No. They took my license.
Not wanting to lose my good mood, I forced my brow smooth. The I.S. had publicly announced on the back page of the Community Section of the paper that I was cleared of all suspicion of any wrongdoing in the accidental deaths that had taken place on the bridge. But behind closed doors some undead vamp had given me a hard time for trying to handle such a powerful artifact instead of bringing it to them. He didn't back off until Jenks threatened to cut off his balls and give them to me to make a magic bola. You gotta love friends like that.
The undead vampire didn't get me to confess that I'd meant to kill Peter, and that cheesed him off to no end. He had been beautifully dangerous, with snow-white hair and sharp features, and even though he whipped me up to the point where I would have had his baby, he couldn't scare me into forgetting I had rights. Not after I'd survived Piscary—who didn't care about them. The entire nationwide I.S. was pissed at me, believing the focus had gone over the edge with Nick instead of being turned over to them.
There was a continuous twenty-four-hour search going on for the artifact on the bottom of the straits. The locals thought they were stupid since the current had put it in Lake Huron shortly after the truck hit the water, and I thought they were stupid because the real artifact was hidden in Jenks's living room. With their official stand being what it was, the I.S. couldn't lock me up, but with the added points after the accident with Peter, they could suspend my license. My choices were riding the bus for six months or gritting my teeth and taking driver's ed. God no. I'd be the oldest one in the class.
My mood tarnishing, I took the church's stairs two at a time, and felt my leg protest. I pulled the heavy wooden door open, slipped inside and breathed deeply, relishing the scent of tomato paste and bacon. The pizza dough was probably ready, and Kisten's sauce had been simmering for the better part of the day. He had kept me company in the kitchen all afternoon while I finished restocking my charm cupboard. Even helped me clean my mess.
I shut the door with hardly a thump. All the windows in the church were open to let in the moist night. I couldn't wait to get into the garden tomorrow, and even had a few seeds I wanted to try out. Ivy was laughing at me and the stack of seed catalogs that somehow found me despite my address change, but I'd caught her looking at one.
Tucking a stray curl behind my ear, I wondered if I might splurge for the ten-dollar-a-seed packet of black orchids she'd been eyeing. They were wickedly hard to get and even more difficult to grow, but with Jenks's help, who knew?
Slipping off my wet boots and coat, I left them by the door and padded in my socks through the peaceful sanctuary. The hush of a passing car came in through the high transom windows above the stained-glass windows. The pixies had worked for hours chiseling the old paint off and oiling the hinges so I could open them with the long pole I'd found in the belfry stairway. There were no screens, which was why the lights were off. There were no pixies either. My desk was again my desk. Thank all that was holy.
My wandering attention touched on the potted plants Jenks had left behind on my desk, and I jerked to a halt, seeing a pair of green eyes under the chair, catching the light. Slowly my breath slipped from me. 'Darn cat,' I whispered, thinking Rex was going to scare the life out of me if she didn't break my heart first. I crouched to try to coax her to me, but Rex didn't move, didn't blink, didn't even twitch her beautiful tail.
Rex didn't like me much. She liked Ivy just fine. She loved the garden, the graveyard, and the pixies that lived in it, but not me. The little ball of orange fluff would sleep on Ivy's bed, purr under her chair during breakfast for tidbits, and sit on her lap, but she only stared at me with large, unblinking eyes. I couldn't help but feel hurt. I think she was still waiting for me to turn back into a wolf. The sound of Kisten and Ivy's voices intruded over the slow jazz. Hiking the canvas bag higher, I awkwardly inched closer to Rex, hand held out.
Ivy and I had been home a week, and we were all still in emotional limbo. Three seconds after Ivy and I walked in the door, Kisten looked at my dental floss stitches, breathed deeply, and knew what had happened. In an instant, Ivy had gone from happy-to-be-home to depressed. Her face full of an aching emptiness, she'd dropped her bags and took off on her bike to get it 'checked over.'
Just as well. Kisten and I had a long, painful discussion where he both sorrowed after and admired my new scars. It felt good to confess to someone that Ivy had scared the crap out of me, and even better when he agreed that in time she might forget her own fear and try to find a blood balance with me.
Since then he'd been his usual self. Almost. There was a sly hesitancy in his touch now, as if he was holding himself to a limit of action to see if I would change it. The unhappy result was the mix of danger and security that I loved in him was gone. Not wanting to interfere in anything Ivy and I might find, he had put me in charge of moving our relationship forward.
I didn't like being in charge. I liked the heart pounding rush of being lured into making decisions that might turn bad on me. Realizing as much was depressing. It seemed that Ivy and Jenks were right that not only was I an adrenaline junkie, but I needed a sensation of danger to get turned on.
Thinking about it now, my mood thoroughly soured, I crouched beside my desk, arm extended to try to get the stupid cat to like me. Her neck stretched out and she sniffed my fingers, but wouldn't bump her head under my hand as she would Ivy's. Giving up, I stood and headed for the back of the church, following the sound of Kisten's masculine rumble. I took a breath to call out and tell them I was there, but my feet stilled when I realized they were talking about me.
'Well, you did bite her,' Kisten said, his voice both lightly accusing and coaxing.
'I bit her,' Ivy admitted, her voice a whisper.
'And you didn't bind her,' he prompted.
'No.' I heard the creak of her chair as she repositioned herself, guilt making her shift.
'She wants to know what comes next,' Kisten said with a rude laugh. 'Hell, I want to know myself.'
'Nothing,' Ivy said shortly. 'It's not going to happen again.'
I licked my lips, thinking I should back out of the hallway and come in making more noise, but I couldn't move, staring at the worn wood by the archway to the living room.
Kisten sighed. 'That's not fair. You strung her along until she called your bluff, and now you won't go forward, and she can't go back. Look at her,' he said, and I imagined him gesturing at nothing. 'She wants to find a blood balance. God, Ivy, isn't that what you wanted?'
Ivy's breath came harsh. 'I could have killed her!' she exclaimed, and I jumped. 'I lost control just like always and almost killed her. She let me do it because she trusted me.' Her words were now muffled. 'She understood everything and she didn't stop me.'
'You're scared,' Kisten accused, and my eyes widened at his gall.
But Ivy took it in stride as she laughed sarcastically. 'You think?'
'No,' he insisted, 'I mean you're scared. You're afraid to try to find a balance you can both live with, because if you try and can't, she leaves and you've got nothing.'
'That's not it,' she said flatly, and I nodded. That was part of it, but not all.
Kisten leaned forward; I could hear the chair creak. 'You think you don't deserve anything good,' he said, and my face went cold, wondering if there was more to this than I had thought. 'Afraid you're going to ruin every decent thing you get, so you're going to stick with this shitty half relationship instead of seeing where it might go.'
'It's not a half relationship,' Ivy protested.
He touched the truth, I thought. But that's not what keeps her silent.
'Compared to what you might have, it is,' he said, and I heard someone get up and move. 'She's straight,
