Tales Of The Sazi 05 - Moon's Fury (3 page)

"I saw him tonight. Will, that is." Cara concentrated on her human form and felt the transformation begin. It was never easy for her, even after so many years. Some alphas could shift from form to form without a second thought. Boy, not her. Shifting into wolf form wasn't too bad— mostly it made her jaw pop for a few minutes and her toes tingle where the nails turned to claws. But the shift back to human became like the deep ache of old joints on a cold wet day, combined with a sinus headache from a slender muzzle shortening to her normal nose. She had to take a deep breath and blink a few times before she could concentrate enough to complete her thought. She knew Ten Bears would wait for her to finish. He always did. "But you probably already know that.”

She coughed to clear her throat and stretched her arms high over her head to ease the muscle spasms. She heard the slow clinking of a silver teaspoon against the ceramic mugs and smiled. The real silver was one of the few luxuries Ten Bears allowed himself. The thought was pleasant and soothing after the mad rush to get here.

"There are disturbing things going on in both the Sazi and human worlds, Carlotta. It's true I've had many visions lately, and know of your encounter with my grandson. I didn't call you here tonight merely to share your company over tea.”

She paused, her hands still behind her back hooking her bra, trying to imagine what things the Sazi police force would need to be involved with in her state. There were only a dozen Sazi families in the entire state of Texas, and a mere eight members of her far-flung pack shifted with the moon. "Do these
disturbing things
involve my pack? Is one of us in danger?”

The old Comanche didn't answer. He just kept stirring, apparently waiting for her to finish dressing so he could look her in the face. Her mother had always said being around Ten Bears was like trying to watch the blossom on a flower unfold. It always did, but you never saw it happen. Since he was fully human, he couldn't rely on scents to tell him what she was feeling or thinking, and he kept his own emotions enough in check that Cara couldn't smell anything over the strong scent of his homemade wild rose hip and clover tea.

She hopped out from behind the screen, still putting on the last moccasin, her curiosity strong enough that it should be visible in the air. Ten Bears held out a box of tissues as she approached the small wooden table. She gratefully took one. A few snorts and sneezes cleared her sinuses and she carefully folded the tissue and tucked it in her pocket. He didn't have trash pickup and there was still a burn ban in effect.

Next to the steaming, oversize pottery mug on the table was a small bag of mixed dried herbs and she smiled in relief. The bag smelled strongly of sage and pepper, along with things she couldn't easily identify. She'd never been foolish enough to question the contents for fear of insulting him. Clutching it to her chest briefly like the lifeline it was, she tucked it in her pocket. "Thank you, Ten Bears! I don't know that it'll last for a full month, but I'm grateful for even this small amount. Are you out of supplies? Do you need some money for more? I know you've always made my tea for free, but I don't mind paying—

really. I'd pay nearly anything to keep getting it. This is the first remedy that's actually
worked
on my condition.”

Ten Bears pulled the spoon from his mug and tapped the liquid off on the rim before setting it carefully on a folded piece of paper towel. He fixed her with a piercing gaze. His dark eyes were a little more cloudy than the last time she'd visited. He really needed to visit an eye doctor to get those cataracts checked. "You were very merciful to save that woman, Carlotta. While I may not say why or how, your kindness will be returned tenfold in the near future.”

Cara breathed a sigh of relief. If Ten Bears said it, that's what would happen. While he wasn't a Sazi seer in truth, because he was full human, his gifts had served her pack well for many years. "Thank God! Could you maybe tell Will that when you see him next? I'm pretty sure he was ready to put me down on the spot.”

His head cocked slightly, and the thick, sweet scent of his confusion and curiosity slapped her nose just as a roll of thunder sounded overhead. In seconds she understood why he was bewildered.

"And how would my vision help you avoid your punishment, Sheriff? You made a choice, knowing the consequences. Wrong done for pure motives is still wrong. Does the
reason
for a crime matter when you're arresting a suspect?”

A leaden feeling in the pit of her stomach began to grow. She hadn't received a Wolven punishment since …well, since she began training to become a Wolven agent. She still had to cover the scars when she wore shorts. "Are you saying I'm still going to be punished? Will I—" She coughed and took a sip of tea before continuing, her fingertips tapping on the rim. "Will it be bad?”

He shrugged. "My visions haven't included any image of you where you didn't look whole. They have been of larger events. But that doesn't mean you weren't in pain." He picked up the silver spoon again and stirred for no apparent reason. "Pain is something we all must face—young and old, Sazi and human. There is pain that can kill, and some we only
wish
would kill us.”

She frowned and leaned back in her chair with her arms crossed over her chest. Another flash of lightning was followed by the dull thumping of rain on the grass roof. "You're being unusually obtuse tonight, Ten Bears. Why don't you just say whatever you're going to? What are the larger events that involve me and my pack?”

He fixed her with a stare that seemed to bore through her, and his scent was the hot metal of determination, which blended with the dusty rain from outside. "I will be going away for a time, Cara. I've been invited to be the head dancer at the All Nations Powwow. It is a great honor…one I'm not certain I'm worthy of." His nervousness was evident in his scent, which was unusual. A laugh boiled up out of her, easing the creeping dread that had been threatening to overwhelm her. "So all these predictions of doom are just because you're going away for a few days and won't be around to tell me the future? I'm a big girl, Sam. I can run my pack until you get back. When do you leave? Do you need a ride to the airport?”

He shook his head, but his mood didn't lighten. "As my fathers did before me, I will walk to the great gathering. It has been many years since I've undertaken such a journey, but my totem has made it clear that such a vision quest is necessary. I will gather more herbs for your remedy while I'm there, as well, so it will be many weeks before I return.”

"You're
walking?
Where is this powwow?”

"It will be held in Albuquerque this year and it will take several weeks to make the journey each way. Will bought a map for me with the route marked. But because I will be gone for so long, I felt I should tell you—" He paused, his emotions chasing and crawling over each other for prominence in her nose. A wistful sort of sorrow finally won, which made her rear back a little in surprise. "I have come to care for you during the many meals you have shared with me, Cara. You remind me much of my daughter when she was young. I often found it difficult to bear the knowledge of her…
pain
in a murky, possible future—especially if I knew it would happen in
any
possible future. I made many journeys when I was younger.”

The lead was back in her stomach and had been joined by flutters that made bile rise in her throat. "So, you're telling me you accepted the invitation to the powwow because something bad is going to happen here…to me? Something you don't want to watch?”

He nodded and a buzzing filled her ears. "Something I cannot stop. Still, great pain can blossom into great joy, if you allow it." A warm smile eased the years from his face, and he reached across the table to pat her suddenly clammy hand. "You, and your pack, will be tested in the coming days, Cara. I believe you're strong enough to bear this challenge, or I wouldn't leave. But true strength is sometimes marked by knowing when to let go—and that will be
your
greatest challenge. You live for your pack, and they for you, as it should be. But very soon, your vision will have to expand to encompass the whole of your kind, rather than just your own pack.”

Cara shook her head, trying to wrap her head around the strange, cryptic words. "I don't understand, Ten Bears. Expand how? If not my pack, then …
who?”

"That, I cannot say. But from now until I return, you must always consider the consequences to the whole of your people. You must not fail when the danger makes itself known. You must not fail, and
you
must not fall.”

She rested her elbows on the table and leaned forward with a strangled sound that was close to a scream of frustration and rising panic. "Please, Ten Bears. If I mean anything at all to you,
please
just tell me. What's going to happen?”

He sighed. It was a rasping, tired sound that made her wonder if he would ever return from his journey. She'd never seen him look so worried, and
defeated.
Lightning flashed outside the window and the skies opened to flood water down on the roof so loudly it hurt her ears. Nothing could have prepared her for what came out of his mouth next. Thunder and lightning arrived as one in a cacophony of sound and motion, but it was his words that made her heart nearly stop in her chest. "In the coming weeks, Cara, several of your pack, your
family,
will die in terrible, bloody agony—and you must be the one to knowingly send them to their deaths."
3

The air rushing past the truck window was too laden with wetness to dry Adam's sticky skin. But the scents of clean air, wildflowers, and trees were so intense it was worth enduring the summerlike heat

—well, at least to
him.

"Can we
please
roll up the windows and turn on the AC? This humidity is ruining my hair." He glanced over at his passenger. As usual, Vivian looked model perfect, without a honeyed blonde hair out of place, much less
ruined.
But that was probably because of the copious amounts of mousse and hair spray she slathered on.

"I'm getting accustomed to the sights and scents down here, Viv. That's sort of the purpose of this early recon, don'tcha know. I need to be able to describe it to the pack when we get back to Minneapolis. I'm not even sure why you wanted to come with. I can't imagine you'll be one of those volunteering to move to Texas.”

She lowered her sun visor and removed an imaginary spot of lipstick from the corner of her mouth before turning her head and replying in a sultry manner. "It seemed a good way to spend a little …

alone
time with our newest pack leader.”

The absurdity of the statement struck him and, despite his intended goal not to offend her on the trip, he barked out a surprised laugh. "My god, is
that
what all this has been about? The dozen phone calls over the last week, telling me how much you
needed to get away?
The barely there shirts you're about to fall out of? You're bucking to be the alpha female of a new pack!" He shook his head with mixed amazement and annoyance. "I've spent three days on the road with you, trying to figure out your angle. But this …this one didn't occur to me." Adam tapped one finger on the steering wheel and shook his head in tiny little movements. He had no doubt she could smell his annoyance and couldn't help himself—he had to raise his sunglasses onto his head to see her reaction. Although a consummate actress, he'd taken her by surprise with the blunt assessment, and she reacted with more honesty than she'd planned to in scent and body language. She wasn't nearly as offended as embarrassed to have been found out. "Well, you certainly don't have to make it sound so …

conniving.
What's so horrible about wanting to spend time with you? We used to spend a
lot
of time together.”

His chuckle was bitter, and he hoped it cut her as deep as she'd cut him two years before. "Oh yah. We did. Right until the day you realized I wasn't going to challenge Josef for his position, no matter how hard you pushed me. It grated on you every single day that I was happy to remain his second in the pack, didn't it? So what—you think now that I've been told to lead a dozen families down here by the council, I'm going to be the new alpha?”

Her voice was smug, and her peppery, sickly sweet scent said conniving wasn't too far a stretch from the truth. "You
are
the new alpha down here. That's what Josef announced to the pack.”

"Well, Josef can say whatever he wants. But the reality is that there's already an alpha in place down here. We're joining an existing pack of red wolves, and I can't see any reason to upset the applecart. And after what happened last fall…Well, let's say I'm in no hurry to run the show
anywhere.”

For a moment, her voice took on a trace of the old warmth and she reached out to touch his hand. But the power that tingled his skin no longer stirred him. It was just ordinary Sazi magic—without the intoxicating sensuality it once held. He was almost sad about that.

"It wasn't your fault, Adam. Tyr wasn't right in the mind. You couldn't have predicted he'd take such a small thing so far.”

He yanked away from her touch hard enough that he had to overcorrect to put the truck back in the lane. Right now, he didn't want anyone to touch him, because there was no point in trying to make his life, and his choices, all better. It was hard enough for him to imagine running a pack again, after screwing up so bad. "Not so small a thing. There's no point denying it, Viv. I'm the only reason my pack leader's son is dead, a dozen families are being sent out of Minnesota in exile, and the humans might discover the secret of the Sazi."

The pungent scent of gasoline overpowered even the fragrant bush near the pumps as Adam filled the second tank of the truck. He tried not to watch the dials spinning as another hundred dollars drained from his wallet. He'd hoped the prices would be better closer to the gulf coast, but no such luck. Viv was still sulking with her arms crossed and her foot tapping hard enough to put a permanent dent in the floor mat. The lavender flowers highlighted by the late morning sun were a pleasant respite from her icy glare. He wasn't sure why he expected anything different from her, and wondered what had compelled him to ignore his first instinct to travel alone. But hey—if he wanted to punish himself, he couldn't think of a better way to do it. Her transition from whining to sullen and back again since their little conversation a few hours back was punishment enough for five men.