Deceptions: A Collection (33 page)

Then I rose.

The mother was watching me with mild disapproval.

I shrugged. “Rage and fear kept me going for a long time. Sometimes it’s what you need to get you moving.” Glancing back at Lesil, I murmured, “She’s already choking on the fear. Maybe the rage can be a lifeline. Once she’s not drowning, we can give her another.”

Her lips pursed. “That’s not the witch’s way.”

“But neither of us are witches.”

Turning away, I strode to the wall. “I assume I just go out the way I came in?”

She didn’t answer.

I hoped it was a yes. I’d rather not walk right into a wall.

I made him drive.

He glared at me and started to argue.

I just threw the keys at him. He didn’t catch them so they hit his chest and then the ground. I shrugged and walked around to the other side of the car, flopping in the passenger’s seat. He had it shoved
way
back and I had to move it forward in order to not feel like I was sitting in the back seat.

Resting my head on the padded headrest, I started to talk.

I’d been ruminating out loud for a minute before he finally climbed in and shoved the seat back enough for his long legs.

“Anybody ever told you that you’re a pain in the ass?” he asked conversationally.

“All the time.” I rooted through the cloth bag Kori had shoved into my hands on the way out the door. She’d mentioned the little black pot would help with mosquitoes. My only hope was that it didn’t smell like piss or something even more vile.

To my delight, it smelled rather pleasant. Herbal, certainly, but nothing unpleasant.

“We should get a map of the park,” I said. “You have an idea of where all we covered yesterday?”

“Yes.” He stretched out an arm.

When he started toying with my hair, I tensed up.

It didn’t stop him.

Closing my eyes, I told myself to concentrate. That was what I needed to do. Concentrate.

“Good. So we mark where we covered and then find another section—”

“We need to backtrack, actually,” he said, rubbing his thumb down my neck.

I batted his hand away. “Backtrack?”

“Yes. You saw the hunters. I didn’t have to time to go over their back trail, but we need to. So that’s where we start. We’ll grab some food—and you’re taking more than granola bars.”

“Bitch, bitch, bitch.” I’d already come to that decision, thank you very much.

“I’m serious, kitten.”

“You’re always serious.”

His hand spread open over my neck and despite my intention to ignore it, I almost groaned at how good that felt. I was tempted to lean into—

And then I realized I
was
—

“Damn it,” I snapped. “Would you stop? I thought I made it clear, I’m a little freaked out by the fact that you keep touching me even though just an hour or so ago, your Alpha was telling you that you might be killing me soon.”

“Nice opening into that talk we need to have,” he said, his mouth firming out into a hard, flat line. “Thanks for that.”

And his hand didn’t move.

“
I
made it clear—I am
not
going to kill you. Got it?” He shot me a glowering look that oddly enough didn’t leave me with the urge to cringe in my seat. “Even when you do make me want to do something violent. I’m not going to hurt you. Period. Ever.”

“Uh-huh.”

He snapped his jaws shut with an audible crack, like he wanted to bite something. “You’re so fucking difficult.”

“That’s funny coming from you. Really.”

“Would you shut up, and listen?” he growled, the low, pulsing sound echoing through the car. “You present a problem to her if you don’t find the kid. Since she
said
she’d kill you, she’s going to feel like she has to. But I’ll tell you this. It’s
not
love that’s motivating her. She doesn’t give a damn about Doyle. Never has, never will.”

“That’s a shock. Poor kid. Does he have
anybody
who cares about him?”

A tense silence stretched out and finally, Damon sighed. “Yeah. Me.”

It was the very last thing I expected to hear.

Gaping at him, I said, “What?”

“You heard me.” He dragged a hand down over his face. “The boy has been living with me since he was five. He was a mess after his dad died—acting out the way a kid will. Had a tantrum and the Lady belted him in the mouth. If he wasn’t a shifter, it would have killed him. He spent two days in the Lair’s medical ward as it was. I offered to take him home with me to let her have some time to adjust to the loss of her brother before taking on the hardships of raising a child…and he just never went home. He’s more my kid than anybody else’s.”

“Your kid.” I slammed my head against the headrest. Or I tried to. His hand was still behind my head and kept getting in the way. “So tell me something…did she send you here to help me, watch over me, or are you helping look for the kid?”

“All of the above.” He shrugged. “I’d heard you were good at this sort of shit and I wasn’t having any luck on my own. So I got her to thinking we needed outside help. Then I sort of suggested to her that you’d be likely to cause trouble so maybe I should make sure you stayed on task.” A smile tugged at his lips. “Probably some of my best work there. Subtle as hell, and you have to be subtle with the Lady.”

“You’ve basically been working this from the get-go, haven’t you?”

“I’ve been doing what I can to find the kid,” he said shortly. “You’ve been everything from a shortcut to the biggest complication imaginable.”

“Yeah?” I twitched as his fingers threaded through my hair.

“Yeah.” He sighed. “At first I thought I’d fucked it up, because we were spinning our wheels, but then you started untangling all these knots, things I didn’t even think to look for.”

“Sure as hell doesn’t seem like I’ve managed to untangle any knots. All I’m doing is hitting dead ends.”

“The witch, Keeli. The wolf kid.” Strong fingers dug into my neck, working the tense muscles there. “I don’t know if I would have bothered reaching out to Banner. You did. You also reached out to your connections with the witches, so we see a pattern—non-human kids getting grabbed. Although it’s weird that the Alpha’s nephew would have been, too.”

“I don’t think he was grabbed. I think he ran.” I closed my eyes. “At least that’s what I thought. I’m going to assume he was better off living with you than he would be with the Queen Bitch.” I smirked as I said it but he didn’t say anything. “Was he happy with you?”

Damon was quiet for a long moment. “Yeah. Mostly. But word got back to her that he was getting close to his spike. She started making noises about him coming home and he hated the idea. He was terrified of her. She’s his monster under the bed.”

“Gee. Imagine that.”

A short sigh burst out of him. “Why do you have to keep doing that? Are you
trying
to piss me off?”

“Do I have to
try
?” I groaned as his fingers hit a tight spot on my neck. “I’m almost tempted to just shut up. I’m afraid you might stop doing that.”

He laughed. “Your neck is a mess.”

“
I’m
a mess,” I pointed out.

“You also didn’t answer me.”

“Shit. What do you want me to say? You work for and obey a cruel,
insane
bitch who doesn’t have the soul to care for her own nephew. You’re her enforcer and from what it sounds like to me, she points you in a direction and says
kill
and you do it. She’s a crazy, murderous bitch and you’re her
yes
boy.”

I closed my eyes and wondered if maybe that wasn’t a dumb thing to say, considering he already had his hand gripping my neck.

“Would you stop looking like you expect me to break your neck or slit your throat or something?” he snapped.

I clenched my right hand, frowning a little. It itched. But not much. “Well, if I really felt like you were going to do that, I’d have my sword in hand. If I’m certain I’m that close to death, I plan on going down fighting.”

Silence fell.

After a few minutes, he murmured, “I guess that’s a start.”

A start to what?

“She’ll want to kill you just because she said she would and it will look better in her eyes to do what she said, despite the fact that it doesn’t make any sense,” he said finally. He stroked a hand down my shoulder, my arm, then rested his elbow on the console. His hand curled into a loose fist as he drummed it on the molded plastic. “Everything is about appearances, power and what pleases her. So the way to work it is to make it
unpleasant
, work
against
her power, and cast an air of impropriety—that’s all it takes to make her decide it’s not worth following through. She doesn’t give a damn about keeping her word if it doesn’t suit her. So if it’s more trouble to kill you than not, then she won’t lay a hand on you.”

“Okay…and you’re telling me this…why?”

“Several reasons.” That dark, glowering look, the one that spoke of storms and anger, rolled across his face. “Pay attention, kitten. You’re learning shit about the Alpha that some people have tried for years to learn.”

“And you’re telling me
why
?”

“Knowledge is power. Haven’t you heard how important is it to know your enemy?”

“Sure.” I smiled at him serenely. “So…what’s your sign?”

“Cute.” He folded his hand over mine and twined our fingers. “You need to know this shit.”

“I never considered her my enemy. She’s an obstacle at the moment,” I muttered.

“She wants you dead.”

“No. She’ll want me dead if I don’t succeed.” I looked out the window and saw the sign for the small town near the entrance of the park coming up. “That doesn’t make her an enemy
yet
. I know my enemies.”

Brooding, I fought not to fall back into those memories.

Useless waste
—

“Your grandmother.”

Closing my eyes, I shook my head. “Please don’t.”

“Your demons,” he said, shrugging. “They’re not the problem right now. Neither is the Alpha. You need to focus on your allies. Who wants you alive…and I guess your family isn’t among them?”

“Nope. They’d send chocolate, raw chunks of meat or fresh blood to whichever entity was to rid the world of the problem of my existence.”

His hand tightened. “I think I dislike them already.”

I jerked a shoulder in a shrug. It was a fact of my life. One I was used to.

“So…allies?” He stroked his thumb across my skin. Nothing so simple should feel that good. “Is safe to say that witch back in Orlando is one?”

I clenched my jaw.

“Yes. But I don’t want to draw the Orlando House into this.”

“You may have no choice.” He ran his tongue over his teeth and then added, “Although I’m reluctant to consider it, it seems that big bastard in Wolf Haven was fond of you. Can you count on them? Goliath and…”

“Her name is TJ.” I stared out the window. “She won’t leave Wolf Haven. No matter what. Goliath?” I shrugged. “He might do some damage in my name, but he’ll always go back to her.”

“You’re not making this easy,” he muttered. His voice thickened with disgust as his hand shifted up and curled around my wrist, his thumb pressing in on the area near where Jude had bitten me. “The vampire is one, I’m going to assume.”

“Jude may or may not be.” I glanced down at my wrist, frowning at the possessive hold he had on me. “Nobody understands how his mind works.”

“Did he bite you?”

“Why are you so determined to hear that answer?”

“Because believe it or not, it matters to what’s going on here.”

Rolling my eyes, I muttered, “Not entirely sure I’m buying that.” Then I sighed. “Yes.”

“How many times?”

“Once.” I twisted my hand out of his grasp and glanced outside, a little surprised to see we were at the little Walgreens where we’d stopped before. He pushed the car into park, but before I could climb out he hit the locks. “Shit. What?”

“Just once?”

“Yes.” I decided not to mention anything about the fact that I’d owe Jude another bite if he had to help me out of a jam. My plan was not to need him. Then it wouldn’t be an issue.

“He can get into your dreams, now.”

“He’s always been able to force his way inside them. But he doesn’t have any control over me, despite what some of the myths out there say.” I smiled a little. “And that annoys the hell out of him.”

Another one of the endless silences. Nobody could do eerie, unsettling silence like a shapeshifter. Nobody.

The only sound was the quiet little snick of the locks. I climbed out. I was halfway to the store when I sensed him behind me.
Keep on walking
. That was the plan.

I kept right on walking into the store.

Bottled water, energy bars—nasty things, but I figured they’d do the trick. I thought about buying some chocolate to stash in the bag, but it wouldn’t hold up under the heat. Trail mix might…okay. A bag of that. I did grab a candy bar to eat on the way. Nothing bolstered the mood like chocolate.

“Done.”

He wasn’t behind me anymore. I’d lost him somewhere between grabbing the energy bars and finding my trail mix but I figured he’d hear me anyway. I was aware of him—
too
aware. Like a warmth hovering just above my skin and it was the craziest damn thing.