24

PLEASE DON’T SQUEEZE THE CHARMING.

Oh, hell.” I was looking through a pair of binoculars though I could just as well have been using a telescope. My left eye was still bandaged. Regrowing an entire eye was turning out to be a real pain in the… socket. The orb ached and itched and apparently didn’t grow a protective lens until the last stage.

“What is it? Do you recognize those guys?” Mayte was sitting next to me on a boulder overlooking our base camp. Bernard had sent us out on picket duty so that we could work out the awkwardness between us. The cynical part of me noted that he couldn’t keep using her well-being as leverage otherwise.

We were east of a rock face that we were pretty sure hid the bakaak’s lair. Cell phones had started working again, and several high-riding Jeeps with thick tires had arrived, transporting goods and clan members. Mayte and several others were going back to our paw in one of them. I was not.

I handed her the field glasses. “Look at the guy with the walking stick. I’ll bet you a hundred to one he’s the expert Bernard’s been waiting for.”

The man she was looking at had waist-length brown hair that was totally impractical for any kind of fight, and even from a distance, it had a kind of greasy sheen. He was short and gaunt and hollow-cheeked despite the light beard, and he was wearing a dark T-shirt and combat boots that I doubted had ever seen combat. More tellingly, he carried a thorny walking stick made out of stained black hawthorn, and runes and sigils were carved in it. A large golden icon that looked like a T with elephantiasis dangled from his neck.

“Jesus,” Mayte said.

“Probably not.” I took the binoculars back from her. “That’s a Tau cross he’s wearing. Although the actual crucifixes Romans used often looked more—”

Mayte’s head dropped as she pretended to fall asleep.

“Fine,” I grumbled.

Mayte’s head popped up again. “So, what’s your problem with him? Other than his fashion sense.”

“He’s a cunning man,” I said.

Her brow furrowed. “How can you tell?”

“No, I mean he’s a…” I hesitated. “Cunning folk is an old term. I guess you’d call him a wizard, but knights don’t like to use that word because it comes with too many misconceptions. But cunning folk study magic. And this one is a werewolf.”

“Why is that so bad?”

I went back to observing him. “Because cunning folk go around poking magic hornets’ nests with sticks, and werewolves don’t age much. Trust me, the last thing this world needs is a cunning man with a lot of extra time on his hands. It’s why liches are so dangerous.”

“Like Lord Voldemort,” she said pensively.

I would have made fun of her, but I love those damn books.

“No wonder Gabriel is so jumpy.” Mayte laughed. “He was already freaking out.”

“I noticed that,” I admitted. “What’s up?”

“Gabriel and his sister grew up in a Catholic orphanage. He’s an all-around atheist now. God or the Great Spirit, it doesn’t make much difference to him.” Mayte shook her head. I don’t know if she was condemning Catholic orphanages or Gabriel. “Being around all of this spirit stuff is getting to him.”

“How do you know all this?”

She stared at me. “Gabriel’s sister is Bernard’s mate. We’ve been with these people for three days. How do you not know all of this?”

“Nobody’s going to tell me anything personal with Nikolai hanging around giving me the stinkeye,” I grumbled.

Her lips made a raspberry. “Maybe you’re just not good at small talk.”

“Maybe,” I admitted. “I sure as hell didn’t find whatever water cooler you’ve been hanging around.”

The fact that she was pretty and surrounded by males probably didn’t hurt, either.

Mayte let it go. “The way I hear it, Gabriel’s sister really got into exploring her heritage. She joined an Anishinaabe werewolf pack and became like an adopted daughter to their leader, Ben Lafontaine. That’s why Bernard courted her.”

This was getting interesting. “Big Ben didn’t trust the white man with the forked tongue?”

Mayte gave me a look that was considering being irritated. “Maybe you ought to be respectful. We’re on Native American land with pissed-off spirits running around.”

“Good point,” I acknowledged. “So this Catherine sealed a contract or something? She and Bernard got married for political reasons?”

Her look became something that twitched between fond and scornful and sad. “Most women don’t find their Prince Charming, you know.”

“Lucky for them,” I muttered. She was starting to smell like arousal again, and I was starting to respond to it.

“I just get the impression that Bernard wouldn’t volunteer to lead a dangerous mission so that his mate wouldn’t have to.” She stared into my eyes. “Most men wouldn’t do that for a woman unless they wanted to sleep with her. But you don’t want to sleep with me, do you?”

I cleared my throat. “No.”

She put a palm flat on my chest, flexed her fingers around the muscle there. “Yes, you do. But you don’t want to want to sleep with me. What’s that about?”

“Look, I’ve kind of been through an emotional roller coaster lately,” I said. “And there’s a woman I need to see. I think she just tossed me out of her life, but I need more time or I need to see her before I move on. Something. I can’t explain why.”

Mayte sounded amused. “I’m not asking for your class ring.”

I smiled wryly. “That’s good. My school didn’t encourage us to wear things that identified where we came from.”

She ignored this and adjusted her position so that she could regard me steadily. “And sex can be healing, you know? It doesn’t have to mess everything up.”

“Look.” I fumbled for the right words. “If we get free and clear of this place and I have time to talk to a woman you don’t know, and grieve, and get my head on straight, and know for sure you’re not out of your head with a second set of instincts you never asked for, then maybe at some point—”

“I guess we ought to go back.” Mayte made to stand up and I put a hand on her wrist.

“Wait…”

She shook my hand off. “If you tell me you just want to be friends, I’m going to shoot you in the balls.”

“Good to know sex wouldn’t have made things complicated.” I made to get up and she lunged into me and tried to knock me flat again. I flipped and pinned her from habit.

“You’re right. I’m not being fair,” Mayte breathed into my mouth.

What the hell? She was still learning how to deal with some high-octane feral emotions, but what the hell? She wrapped her legs around my waist. There was a look in her eyes as old and wild as time.

“You’re making this difficult,” I panted.

She gripped me with her legs and arched her back, forcing her pelvis against mine until the bulge in my pants pressed into her. I could feel the heat of her through the fabric of my jeans, and the pressure got tighter. “You mean I’m making it hard.”

I released her and pushed her knees apart with my elbows. “Did Bernard tell you to do this?”

“What?!?” She scrambled out from under me, crab-walking.

“Something’s not right here,” I said, groping for anger and confusion and truth to force the lust back. “I don’t know what it is, but something’s off. I’m not wrong about that.”

She stood up then, angrily smacking dust off of her pants. “Are you calling me a whore?”

“Are you going to keep answering my question with a question?” I rose to my feet too.

Mayte got a little too close, but then, boundaries weren’t exactly her thing. “I’m not used to having to work this hard for a guy. Maybe I’m not very good at it. But if I’d known you were a paranoid jackass, I wouldn’t have tried.”

“Well, now you know.” I turned and started walking back.

Mayte caught up with me. We trudged silently side by side for a time, both radiating anger, but gradually the tension started to wear off a little until she finally spoke again. “So, are you really in love with this woman?”

What was I supposed to say? That Sig had briefly carried the spark of a woman whom I’d loved and who had died, and that part of me had sensed it and responded way out of proportion? That Sig was the one who had broken through all the walls I’d put up and hid behind, and maybe she had assumed an almost mythical status in my imagination because of that?

I hesitated. “I barely know her. But whatever I am, I’m not over it yet.”

“So what’s your plan?” Mayte wondered.

“I have no plan,” I admitted. “I’m just trying to survive until I figure out what the hell is going on and what I should do about it.”

“I understand,” Mayte said gravely. “You’re a fool.”

I stayed quiet. What was I going to say? She was right.