Head Above Water (Gemini: A Black Dog #2) (16 page)

“The Garzas.”

After a long draw on her brew, she offered to pour some for me. I declined. I wasn’t much for alcohol…or coffee. Meemaw didn’t strike me as the type to sip chai, so I decided my thirst could keep until I got back home.

Sinking into a battered recliner, she peered at me over the steaming expanse of her mug. “What do you need with them?”

“I have a few questions about the incident at Sardis Lake.” I touched my bracelet. “I’m also hoping they might be able to help me locate someone the way they tracked the movements of Marie’s killer.”

Her eyebrows drifted upward. “Can you afford them?”

Money wasn’t the problem. This was worth splurging for. I was more hesitant to leave a paper trail with
me
at its head. “Will they charge for a consultation?”

Laughter sloshed coffee down the front of her shirt.
“Ha.”
She wiped tears. “Witches practically bill you to answer the phone. They might as well set up hotlines that charge by the minute.”

I stood, realized I didn’t know where anything was to get her a towel, and she waved off the spill. I sank down and crossed my ankles. “Dell’s been keeping an ear to the ground for me, but she hasn’t heard anything yet, and I can’t afford to keep waiting on them to grant me an audience.”

“She’s the only one outside of Bessemer or Graeson who deals with them. The young one, Enzo, is smitten with her.” Still hooting softly under her breath, she wiped tears from her eyes. “Witches consulting for free. That’s the best joke I’ve heard in weeks.”

A loud thud rattled the floorboards, and I started to rise.

“I’m okay,” Dell’s muffled voice called from deeper in the house. “That body-butter crap is slicker than a greased pig.”

“That’ll be her getting out of the shower.” Meemaw set her mug aside with a shake of her head. “She said something about shaving her legs for tonight.” A nest of wrinkles gathered on her forehead. “What are you girls up to?” Her gaze dropped to Graeson. “And are there men involved?”

Interested for the first time since arriving at Meemaw’s, the wolf slanted cool hazel eyes at me.

“No,” I spluttered, defensive.

More quiet laughter overcame my embarrassment.

“Oh.
Oh
.” It hit me. “There will be a guy there. A man, I guess. Isaac.”

Twinkles lit her eyes. “The same mighty fine specimen who delivered her to my doorstep?”

“Yes.” I linked my fingers in my lap. “He’s a good guy.”

The spark in her dimmed. “But?”

“He doesn’t stay in one place for long” seemed the least painful explanation.

“Neither do you.” She made it both question and accusation. “Yet there you are with a wolf at your feet.”

Sweat dampened my palms where they rubbed together. “We’re an accident of circumstance.”

An untethered wanderer who met a man with roots that anchored him to a past with the power to destroy him.

“That’s generally how love works,” she agreed.

Heavy and solid, Graeson rested his head on my lap, ears swiveled forward like my response might be the most interesting thing he’d ever heard.

“Uh, sure.” I fidgeted. “I guess it does.”

“I thought I heard voices.” Dell bounded into the living room, wet hair French braided away from her face, wearing cutoff shorts and an oversized T-shirt knotted at her hip with a hairband, and smiled at me. “I wasn’t expecting to see you until tonight. What’s up?”

Hating to keep pressuring her, I forced myself to ask, “Do you know if the Garzas are home yet?”

“Sorry, I haven’t gotten a response yet, and I can’t go the usual route. Miguel’s wife—Isabella—her cousin lives at their compound. Bessemer uses her like a two-way radio since mental contact with Isabella is strictly forbidden due to her health.” Dell tapped her temple. “Normally I could ring up Janice and get Miguel’s attention that way but...”

“No, Dell, it’s fine.” The weight of the favor I’d asked hit me, and I wilted. “I would never ask you to hurt yourself that way on my account. I was thinking of a more direct approach.”

“I don’t see the harm in it,” Meemaw ventured. “They’re familiar with the three of you, and Dell is one of the few who knows the way.”

Dropping into a chair, Dell tied on sneakers. “Miguel isn’t big on uninvited guests.”

“He’ll make an exception for Cord.” Meemaw leaned over to pat the wolf’s silver head. “If for no other reason than curiosity.”

I bristled without knowing why. “What do you mean?”

“Isabella is…not well. She’s frail, and changes only when the moon demands it.” Her fingers went to her throat. “He’s convinced that if not for the stress of the changes, she would recover from her illness. He’s been searching for a cure for as long as I’ve known him.”

“A cure?” Wargism was biology, not a curse. They were born, not made. “Bessemer allows it?”

“An alliance with the Garza coven is no small thing.” Her chuckle was deep, sad. “Bessemer knows as well as you and I there is no cure, so he doesn’t see the harm. It puts the most powerful coven of witches in the southeastern United States at his beck and call in exchange for a few tests run on the stronger pack members each month during the full moon.”

“That’s why he would do the favor for Graeson?” I pieced it together. “He’s volunteered before and might again in exchange for the information?”

“Graeson was opposed to the deal, and he hasn’t changed his mind.” Her wrinkled lips pursed. “The testing is brutal, and we lost a wolf to a misfired spell last year.”

My confusion must have been obvious, because Dell stepped in to clarify.

“Cord plays guinea pig every other month. He lets the Garzas cast spells on him, drinks their concoctions, gives blood, takes injections. He’s had twice the magical exposure as the other wolves, but Miguel allows it because his wife has also been frequently exposed by his attempts to cure her, and he figures Graeson is a much safer bet for surviving his tests than Isabella.”

“Of course he has.” I glared at the wolf. “Do you have any sense of self-preservation?”

He swiveled an ear toward me.

“I’ll take that as a
no
.” I raked my hands through my hair. “Why didn’t you stop him?”

“Cam.” Dell laughed my name. “He’s the
beta
. No one stops him. No one tells him no. No one tells him he can’t do a thing he wants to do.”

“Until you,” Meemaw added.

“Until you,” Dell agreed.

Unable to resist, I massaged one of his silky ears between my fingers. “Maybe that’s the appeal.”

“That’s not it at all. What I should have said—” Meemaw rubbed her jaw, “—is that he never listened. There have been plenty of females who sought to tame him, and all of them failed. He didn’t respect them, didn’t acknowledge their opinions or heed their warnings.”

“He listens to you.” Dell shook her head. “You can’t know how weird it is—was—to have him in my head day in and day out and feel his hesitation, his uncertainty where you’re concerned. He’s a good guy, but he acts like a big brother who thinks he knows best about everything. The pack is like a gaggle of younger siblings that he protects the best way he knows how, even if it means stomping on their opinions and rights as he goes.”

I found myself nodding along. “The last part is him to a T.”

The wolf snapped at me, sliding teeth over my skin without drawing blood.

“Don’t take it out on me.” I smoothed my smarting fingers together. “I can’t help it if Dell’s got your number.” Ears pinned back, he managed to look unamused. “He’s a lot more aware in there than I gave him credit for at first.”

“Graeson sees and hears everything, but it’s far away, like a dream.” Meemaw sipped her last then scratched the lip of her mug with her thumbnail. “The wolf is a simple creature. He hungers, he eats. He tires, he sleeps. He mourns, he heals. He accepts loss as natural. Even if he sings his grief in the nights, he walks in sunlight too.”

That made sense. “That’s why Graeson defaulted to wolf when the bond broke.”

“Yes.” Dell studied him. “What Bessemer did wasn’t right. Cord held on to the end. He was the last link broken. That means all that rebounded emotion—his and ours—slammed into his psyche and KO’d him.”

“Are the others recovering as well as you are?” It shamed me that I hadn’t asked after them sooner.

“Mostly.” She held out a hand and wobbled it. “It’s better than it ought to be, and I think that pisses Bessemer off too.”

“You were out of your mind for more than twenty-four hours,” I protested.

“The depth and length of the bond Graeson sustained with the others would have driven them mad if he had surrendered the burden of connection first. Only by waiting until the last did he manage to preserve their sanity.” Watery eyes met mine as Meemaw exhaled. “It was a foolish thing he did. I’ve never seen a warg come back from where he went, not even soul-mated ones.”

A bitter taste rose up the back of my throat and with it the certainty that Bessemer didn’t hate me as I first suspected. He probably
loved
me, fae nature and all. I was the perfect weapon, a scalpel for him to excise the troublesome wolves from his pack, starting with those who obeyed Graeson. I was the choice Graeson had made, even if I fought him at first, and the repercussions of that decision were ours to face.

Uppity beta mates a fae? Kick-start the selection and hope it kills her. Upstart beta shanghais six wargs? Snap the bond and hope their minds break too. Usurper stuck in warg form? Initiate vague ceremonial proceedings and hope he commits the faux pas of appearing wearing his fur suit instead, qualifying him for an automatic banishment.

All this back-patting was well and good, but it didn’t change the facts. “But he’s not back, is he? Not really.”

“Not yet.” Dell pushed from her chair and crossed to me. “He just needs some time.”

Thanks to Bessemer’s latest proclamation, time was the one thing he didn’t have. That none of us had.

“Give the Garzas my best.” Meemaw scowled into her empty mug before setting it aside. “Be careful. Both of you.” She waggled a finger at me. “Never accept a first offer, understand? Witches will respect you more if you haggle.”

“We won’t bargain away our firstborns,” Dell promised. “Seconds and thirds though…”

Her grandmother swatted her bottom, and I laughed, an easy sound that once would have been confined to my own living room and my own family’s shenanigans.

Strange days when I had a serial killer to thank for bringing me back to life.

F
ur brushed
the back of my hand, a silent
hello
from the sterling wolf trotting at my side. I took the hint when his wet nose bumped my knuckles a second time and rubbed between his ears. Ahead of us, to the left, loped a golden-furred wolf who entertained herself by snapping at pesky mosquitos while guiding us to the Garza homestead.

As luck would have it, they lived within hiking distance of Silverback Lane.
Luck
and
hiking distance
being relative since each time Dell had ventured to the witches’ lair, she had been sent to fetch Graeson and gone on wolf paws there and back. The only person who might have offered his opinion on her route was more concerned with me itching the base of his left ear, which I had discovered was his favorite spot for me to scratch with my nails.

Being on two legs made each fumble, every heavy breath from exertion, that much louder and the trek that much lonelier. I wasn’t sure which I longed for more—for them to join me or for me to join them.

What would it be like to dissolve into a sleek wolf’s form? To shake out my fur and chase the horizon as seen through the pines guarding my home? To catch my own dinners and bump cold noses with a comrade? To hear the night’s song whispered in my blood?

Such wildness in their hearts. Such freedom under their paws. Such boundless joy they found in nature and in themselves.

As glorious as the wargs were in their wolves’ skins, all I could manage was a pale echo of their majesty. The sting of energy racing up my arm didn’t surprise me. Without meaning to, I had tapped into the mysterious reservoir of recalled magic brimming with lupine attributes that somehow had cobbled themselves together to create the fine black-tipped pelt of my warg aspect.

Sniffing me fingertips to palm, Graeson sighed happily at the change in me. He licked my wrist, leaving a cowlick set by drying wolf drool, and grinned wide, bearing lots of teeth.

Mate
, he seemed to say,
join us in the hunt
.
Good eats roam these hills, and their scents are freshest near the earth
.

A shiver wracked my soul, and the prickling rose higher. My cheeks itched and forehead stung with emerging hairs. A panicked gasp caught in my throat that sounded eerily like the birth of a howl.

I swallowed hard and sank to my knees. “What’s happening to me?”

Graeson gave no answer.

Breathe in. Breathe out. In. Out.

A cold nose edged under my jaw. Dell. I wrapped my arms around myself and rocked while the wolves shared a commiserating glance.

Time passed. The sun shifted lower in the sky. The sensation of being swept through the change abated, leaving me hairless and declawed. My skin passed smooth under my palms. I was me again, the wild rattle of something
other
locked behind my ribs.

A damp tongue swiped over my lips, and I spat Graeson’s kiss off while rubbing my mouth with the back of my wrist.

“Are you okay?” Standing over me, Dell chewed her thumbnail. “I didn’t know what to do.”

“Something’s wrong.” I tested my face, my neck, my arms and hands. “I shouldn’t be able to shift without blood. You’ve seen me. My recall isn’t this good.”

“Should we turn back?”

“How far is it?” Trees all looked the same after a while. “Is the trip back worse than the one forward?”

“Ten minutes. Maybe twenty.” She hesitated. “I don’t know if visiting the Garzas while you’re vulnerable is a good idea.”

As close as Bessemer watched me, I doubted I’d get a second chance to cozy up to his witches. There was nothing for it. We had to push ahead and hope for the best. “I’ll be fine. Don’t worry about me.”

“Stay close.” A firm note entered her voice. “Give me a heads-up if you start feeling puny, okay?”

I stood on wobbly legs and lurched into motion after her. “You’re not changing?”

“I can’t shift back for a while.” Her bare feet made no sound in passing. “Besides, I can help you better in this form, and I know where we’re going without my super sniffer, if that’s got you worried.”

The hike became even more surreal as I followed the curve of Dell’s spine down the shadowy trail. “Is it kosher if you show up naked?”

“They’re used to it,” she assured me. “Miguel is married to one of us, remember?”

Based on Meemaw’s cautionary tale, Miguel spent so much time attempting to suppress his wife’s nature that I wondered if witches shared the same prejudices as fae toward wargs. Most shifters were healed by the change. What was wrong with his wife that she was deteriorated by it?

Exhaustion weighted my ankles by the time we crested a short rise and encountered the first
No Trespassing
sign. The trail turned to a dirt road leading toward a house. I set foot on the path, and Dell tackled me. My back slapped the ground.
“Oof.”

“When they say no trespassing, they mean
no
trespassing.”

A scorched earth smell had me craning my neck to peer past her. Black smoke rose from the spot still marked by my boot print in the loose dirt. “They hexed the perimeter.”

“Yes, they did.” Dell poked me in the shoulder. “You’ve got to be more careful.”

“They must really not want the pack on their property.”

“They live near us out of necessity.” She lifted her head, flared her nostrils. “They bought this parcel of land for the express purpose of being able to tell Bessemer where to stick it when he tries to lord over them. They aren’t pack, they don’t live on pack lands or partake of pack supplies. All they want from us is our blood in their vials and our bodies primed for spellwork.”

A grimace twisted my face. “What happens if his wife dies before he finds a cure?”

“Then we’ve armed our pissed-off, grief-stricken witchy next-door neighbors with all the ammo they need to take us out with spells, hexes and charms.” She shrugged. “Assuming they don’t hire another coven to take us out for them.”

“Well—” I shoved her back, “—as much as I enjoy having a naked woman sprawled on top of me, do you think you can let me up now?”

A sly expression flittered across her face. “What’s the matter?” She walked her fingers over her hips, up her sides and over her rib cage until she cupped her breasts. “Scared of a little jiggle?”

On another woman it might have played out as seductive. On Dell, who must be picturing tassel-tipped pasties on her nipples, judging by the way she was swinging them in circles, I had to laugh.

My snorted chuckles drew Graeson’s attention, who made a point of ignoring Dell’s antics, which only made me suck in air harder.

“It’s all right, girls.” She gave them one last grope. “One day you’ll find someone who appreciates you.”

“You’re insane.” I bucked my hips. “Get off me.”

“Don’t stop on my account,” an easy voice drawled.

I bolted upright, knocking Dell onto the ground. I rose on my knees and flung out my arms to cover her nudity from…an invisible man?

“It’s nothing I haven’t seen before,” he assured us. “Wargs aren’t big on keeping their clothes on.” Seeming to realize how that sounded, he cleared his throat and backtracked. “I meant that as a statement of fact. Not as a slur.”

“Show yourself,” I ordered.

“You have no jurisdiction here, Agent Ellis. This is my family’s property, and I’m free to do as I wish.”

The fact he remembered my name was a good sign, right? There he held the advantage. The Garzas had erupted into frequent shouting matches while casting their divinations. His conversational voice—and no face to match it to—stumped me. I had no idea which witch stood before us. “Are you Miguel?”

“No, I’m Enzo.” A huffed sigh, as if the mix-up happened often. “You should have remembered me as the younger, more handsome brother.”

“Ah.” I relaxed my posture. “Yes. Enzo.” The one with a sweet spot for Dell.

“What brings you to our door?” The voice moved closer. “We weren’t expecting Graeson for another week. Unless… Does he have another job for us?”

“No, but I do.”

“Okay, I’ll bite.” The air shimmered in front of me. “What do you want?”

“Information on Charybdis’s whereabouts.”

“Hmm.” The magic shielding him from view dropped altogether, revealing the dark-chocolate eyes and tousled black hair I remembered. He wore a pair of faded jeans well, and his vintage T-shirt defined his torso. “I thought the kelpie died.”

“It did.” My lips tingled as the blood oath let itself be known. “But we have reason to believe the kelpie was an avatar, that the real killer is still out there.”

He rubbed his jaw. “Do you have a fresh sample?”

“No.”

“Then I don’t see how you expect us to help.” He spread his hands wide. “Without fresh biological material or a personal item of his or his current avatar’s, we can’t pinpoint him.”

“What about Harlow—the mermaid girl? Can you cast for her?” I lifted my wrist and exposed the shell bracelet. Hours of her life were sunk into those pearls. Sweat certainly. Blood, possibly. “She made this and gave it to me. Will it work as a focus?”

His arms dropped. “The mermaid is missing?”

Not trusting my voice, I nodded until my throat loosened. “She was taken from the scene of the last crime.”

“Let me see it.” He held his palm out flat. “I’ll be careful.”

For the first time since she gifted me the bracelet, I removed it and set it in his hand.

Fingers closed over the pearls, he moved his lips in a soft incantation. Threads of light bled through the cracks in his fist, and his eyes, when he lifted them, swirled milky white.

“Yes.” Magic distorted his voice until it echoed in many layers. “This will do.”

A shiver skipped down my arms, and Dell pressed closer. Graeson, whose absence at my side I hadn’t yet noticed, appeared behind Enzo. The wolf’s posture remained calm and nonthreatening, but his eyes were sharp and focused, his body taut with the promise of violence.

Blinking away the haze, Enzo swallowed a few times. It didn’t help. He still sounded raw. “Call off your wolf.”

“He’s not my wolf” popped out of my mouth on reflex, but the truth was I had won Graeson. He really was mine. A wriggling tendril of panic wormed through my chest when it hit me. By that logic, I was his too. Having never belonged to another person, I battled my instinctive response to shove the thought—and the person attached to it—away. But my resistance didn’t make it far. A tilt of the silvery wolf’s head, as if he read my distress or understood my words and rebuked them, had me ready to call him to my side and stroke his silky ears while I whispered nonsense into them.

The sad fact was that Graeson-as-wolf was more of a danger to my heart than the man had been. Holding the man at arm’s length was easy when I recalled his betrayal. The wolf, though, was honest. I couldn’t hold my grudge when I peered into that wild face and glimpsed the simple animal happiness he experienced when I was near. A contentedness, if I were being honest, that mirrored in me.

If—
when
—I got the man back, I was in real danger of transferring that easy affection onto him.

“I see,” Enzo said at last. “Well, call
the
wolf off then.” He glanced over his shoulder. “Graeson, man, I thought we were tight.”

The wolf chuffed.

Dell laughed, a pealing-bell sound that captivated the witch.

“When are you going to let me take you out?” His eyes softened when they lit on her and, through no small miracle, he didn’t glance lower than her chin. “I’m not all bad.”

I whipped my head toward Dell, who flushed ten shades of red. “It’s nothing personal.”

He rubbed the spot over his chest. “Tell that to my achy-breaky heart.”

“Sorry,” she murmured, eyes downcast.

“Never be sorry that you’re being true to yourself.” Enzo placed his palm over his heart, a pledge. “I’ll be sorry enough for the both of us. Trust me.”

The slight curl of Dell’s lips in my periphery told me she wasn’t immune to the witch’s charms. Enzo wasn’t the only one holding a torch for unrequited like, and I had to wonder if her answer might have been different had she not met Isaac.

To clear the air, I stood and brought his attention with me. “Are you willing to help?”

A negligent roll of his shoulder. “For a price.”

“Name it.”

“It’s up to Miguel. I’m still an apprentice.” He gestured toward the dirt road. “If you’re willing to gamble, follow me.”

The deck was stacked in his favor, but a chance to know where Harlow was urged my feet forward.

Finally I was making progress.

* * *

A
stern-faced
man with eyes a shade lighter than Enzo’s awaited us on the porch of a pale-blue clapboard house. His crisp slacks defied humidity, and he wore a button-down shirt fastened at the wrists despite the heat. The house itself was the centerpiece of a bizarre garden divided into four distinct quadrants.

Decorative flowering plants adorned the area to my right, their zone tidy and pruned. Herbs grew wild on the left but managed to be at once inviting and forbidden. The rear of the house boasted a vegetable garden sprawling lush and plump. Its opposite was a massive square pond overflowing with water lilies, hyacinths and cabbage-like pistia plants.