Witch Interrupted (24 page)

“Heal-all? How bad do you feel?” she asked. “Shall I drive?”

“I can drive.”

With a little smile he didn’t trust—but which he still liked, for some reason—she handed him the keys and followed him to the car. Once they were on the road, he struck up a conversation. If he kept her mind busy, perhaps she’d relent on the matter of the rendezvous. The local pack, the coven and any number of elders might be combing the Birmingham territory by now, keepers or no keepers. Unnecessary risks weren’t on his agenda.

“Tell me about your permabrands,” he encouraged. Magical tattoo artists like Katie were extremely exclusive. Rare to begin with and crazy expensive, they worked through agents and concealed their identities, else they’d be constantly bombarded. “Could you create one that was a mask?”

“With some effort.” As much as she was fidgeting in her seat, tapping her fingers and rearranging herself, he thought she might be closer to flush than she’d let on. “They’re not simple spells. It wipes me so completely I get a dry socket in my brain, and the components aren’t always easy to come by.”

“And a witch can only sport one brand at a time?” He considered the possibilities. The mask he wore right now would wear off in approximately three hours. To be free of the daily need to mask would be a relief.

“That’s right,” she said. “I’d go for 20/20 vision, but I can’t tattoo myself. And if you’re thinking of asking for a brand—”

“I’d choose a mask.” Heal-all wasn’t necessary—or hadn’t been before today. “Are your brands as attractive as your dragons?” he asked, trying to get another smile out of her.

The corner of her lip twitched. That was close enough. “Unfair comparison. I don’t want to get rid of my permabrand customers.”

The conversation paused as they hit a drive-through. Katie indicated she wanted him to park with their food, and he did, assuming she needed to avail herself of the facilities. He unbuckled his seatbelt. He’d have to stand guard so she didn’t give him the slip.

Instead of getting out, she turned toward him. “I want to check the rendezvous point.”

He leaned against the seat, slumping a little. This again. “Not safe.”

“You have a mask already. I brought my mask. We’ll drive by the post office, and you can use your wolf senses to see if there are any suspicious characters hanging around before I go in. I really doubt Vernon gave us up, but we can take precautions.”

“My nose doesn’t seem to be working,” he reminded her. “For example, this smells delicious.” He held up the bag of biscuits. “I know what goes in fast food. It shouldn’t smell delicious.”

“We have to do something. We can’t pretend my family isn’t in trouble.”

“We are doing something. The experiments will give us a huge edge in bargaining for what we want.” With the region elders, if not the keepers. “Patience.”

“I just want to find out what’s happening outside the Airstream. If we check the post office, I promise I’ll—”

“No, you won’t.” Sighing, he tore open the biscuit bag and arranged it on the seat between them like a platter. “I know your priorities, Katie, and whatever you’re about to tell me isn’t your priority. You’ll break that promise and any others that interfere with your goals.”

Though their discussion was contentious, she didn’t raise her voice. “Like you’re any different? What if there was a chance your sister would be waiting for you?”

“My sister’s dead. Checking the rendezvous point is an unwarranted gamble, even with masks.” He dumped extra sugar in his coffee, not looking at Katie. He understood why she kept misleading him. If there was anything she could do for her family, she meant to do it, at the cost of her own life—or his.

That didn’t mean he was willing to make that choice.

“Well, my family isn’t dead. We both know I’m never going to let this go. Stay in the car and I’ll go in. My face would mean nothing to anyone but the keepers, and they—”

“We aren’t separating again. I’m not saying this to be cruel, but I believe Lars caught your family. The likelihood of a message being at the post office that wasn’t there yesterday isn’t sufficient payoff.”

“It is to me.” She crumpled a biscuit wrapper, her expression mulish. “This question has to be answered.”

“Not immediately, it doesn’t.” Her loyalty and tenaciousness were admirable. But barreling into a situation wasn’t the best way to succeed. If they were going to mount a rescue, she had to heed him. He wasn’t the one overwhelmed by loss. He had perspective.

If he’d had Katie’s assistance when Elisa had turned, could her perspective have resulted in success? Could Elisa and the child have survived?

He’d had no one then and had placed his trust in the wrong people. The sympathizers and Tonya Applebaum had meant well but performed poorly.

So had he.

“I didn’t go when I could have,” Katie reminded him. Her discretion did evidence an improvement in her behavior. “I waited until we could discuss it. I want to agree.”

“You want my assistance.”

“I want your help.” She bit angrily into another biscuit, chewed, swallowed. “And you want mine.”

He wanted more than her help. He wanted her trust. He wanted to trust her. He wanted their façade of teamwork to be real teamwork. If he negotiated here, would that build a bridge between them?

“Yes, I do,” he said. “I want to believe you won’t trick me anymore.”

“Twice now, I could have disappeared. But I’ve stuck with you.” Unexpectedly, she scooted toward him, biscuit forgotten. She caught his shoulder. “Please, if you don’t feel safe going to the rendezvous point, can I go alone? I’ll come back to you, Marcus.”

He needed more than that. “Will you?”

“Why wouldn’t I? You’re my best bet.” She stared straight at him. “And I like the sex.”

“The tests have been successful, except for the one,” he acknowledged. They’d been so intent on their conversation, he’d forgotten the fact his wolf was on the fritz.

She clarified. “I don’t like the tests. I don’t like the charts. I don’t like the science.”

“Then what do you—”

“I like the sex. With you.”

Her words seemed heavier than a factual statement. “Because I’m a wolf and you possessed a certain curiosity.” Wolf lust. He’d smelled it on her from the first and known what the keepers had done to her because of it.

“That I did. But no.” She touched his jaw, lightly, as if confirming the length of his stubble. He hadn’t taken the time to shave in days. “I realized last night if you were someone else, I would not be okay with this. I would not help someone else, and I would not ask someone else to help me. I would not come back to someone else.”

“Since you haven’t done this with anyone else,” he said, nonplussed by her intensity, “you can’t be sure of that.”

“No?” She regarded him with wide, bright eyes and that same faint smile that mystified him. Her lips had a tiny dimple in one corner, an indention he only noticed when she wasn’t…angry. It was a precursor to the dimple in her cheek that appeared when she was amused. “Would you do this with anyone else, Marcus?”

For some reason, she was leaning into him, close enough to kiss. His gaze dropped to her lips. “My experiments? I approached a former colleague I suspected of being alpha, but she notified the elders who notified the keepers, and I—”

“Yeah, I don’t actually want to know that.” She backed off and shoved both hands under her legs. A shutter closed over her expression, rendering it neutral. “I want to go to the rendezvous.”

Marcus had never been great with women. People, actually. People’s behavior, human or shifter, didn’t abide by formulae. He suspected he’d just stomped on Katie’s feelings, or her toes, or her plans to wheedle him. Something. He’d driven away her smile, the one that did funny things to his insides.

Would she really come back to him?

Did he really want her out there alone?

“All right,” he said, going against logic. This wasn’t safe. This wasn’t smart. But confirming there was no message might help Katie settle. “Put your mask on. No other detours.”

* * *

After they cruised the post office, Marcus’s confiscated ball cap tugged low over his eyes, Katie directed him to a lot several blocks from the rendezvous point. They would cut through a well-populated area—a public playground and a kitschy shopping district—to reach their destination.

They left the car in the large, crowded lot, taking a few essentials in case of emergency. His chattiness had disappeared. The farther they’d driven into Birmingham territory, the twitchier he’d gotten. At this point he practically jangled with nerves. Whatever her magic had done to his wolf senses, he wasn’t adjusting to their loss well.

But that was a puzzle for later. Right now, Katie was just relieved he’d agreed to come. She was growing more and more reluctant to be at odds with him. They needed each other.

“Relax,” she told him. Her scientist had only been living incognito for a year and hadn’t perfected the art of nonchalance. Not only was he jumpy enough to attract attention, but she was responsible for making him this way. “The coven and the pack might be searching the Birmingham territory to figure out what the hell happened at the tattoo shop—”

“There’s no ‘might be.’ They are.” Marcus jammed his hands in his pockets. In one he had his beloved bay capsules, and in the other he had a few spell pods—formulated for throwing, in the event skin contact wasn’t feasible. They’d do a wolf no good because they weren’t primed, but he’d insisted on a weapon of some sort. They’d left the gun in the Airstream, and the tire iron would have been conspicuous. “We could be walking into a trap.”

“I avoided capture for twenty years. Give me some credit. Covert is my middle name.” She had spell capsules and packets stashed on her too—and enough power to use all of them. She’d forgotten how convenient the combat bonus was. The magic boosted her confidence and sharpened her determination.

Marcus muttered something.

“What’s that?” she asked.

“I assumed your middle name was Chaos.”

“Ha, ha.” She took his arm, slowing his pace so they’d look like a typical couple out shopping. “Before you, there was no chaos. A couple relocations, the occasional biker gang or drunken fraternity group trying to talk us into giving them tattoos. You brought the chaos.”

“I feel like shit.”

“Because you brought the chaos?” They strolled past a bistro with several outdoor tables full of coffee drinkers. The scents floating past—pastry and coffee beans—were delicious despite the fact they’d had sausage biscuits an hour ago.

Marcus inhaled, his nostrils flaring. “Because of what you did. I could use more caffeine.”

She gestured. “You want to—”

“No.”

Grump. Not that she had anything to smile about in the grand scheme of things, but a grin tugged at her lips. “We’re nearly there.”

The busy postal building sat between a bank and a historic home converted into offices. Birds chirped, and the sun shone warmly. Nothing pinged Katie’s radar. It looked exactly like yesterday. The parking lot had no cars she recognized, though Vern would have parked elsewhere.

Correction—Vern would have parked elsewhere if Dad wasn’t with him. Dad would have demanded the handicapped spot, which was empty. Katie doubted the amnesia spell had erased that part of her father’s character. She swallowed a touch of disappointment that he wasn’t there, cane in hand, waiting on the bench. He wouldn’t remember why she was important to him unless Vern had worked a miracle in the past couple of days, but it wouldn’t matter.

He’d be safe.

“I don’t see anybody suspicious,” she told Marcus. “No rental cars. No keeper minivans.”

She, Dad and Tonya had become familiar with the names and appearances of Birmingham’s adult coven members, and wolves tended to stand out regardless. In her time, keepers had been trained to blend in, but the keepers who’d chased them out of the tattoo shop had made zero effort to look like civilians. She certainly didn’t see any black-ops types lurking behind vehicles. An older model Cadillac and a red SUV were parallel parked in two street slots, while the side lot was full.

Marcus froze next to the Cadillac. His eyes narrowed. “That’s out of place.”

“A land barge? Why?”

“Out of state tags.” A lady and two children exited the glass front doors of the post office. He growled quietly and it thrummed through his body into her.

California tags would have been noteworthy. West Virginia tags, not so much. Katie pinched the inside of his arm. “Hush. Alabama does get some tourists.”

“At a post office?”

His tension was rubbing off on her. Her stomach tightened. Would Tonya, Dad or Vern be inside? Humans—she assumed they were humans—came and went on the sidewalk and street. Inside the glass frontage of the post office, a long line waited. All keeper, pack and coven protocol prohibited discernible use of powers in such a populated area. The crowd should be a buffer against overt actions against Katie and Marcus.

Despite that, he wouldn’t budge any closer to the post office Nostrils flared, he stared at the Cadillac. “I don’t like this. Vern drove from West Virginia. The keepers tracked him.”

“Do you see any keepers?” He’d have a better chance at recognizing them than she would, since he’d been there six years ago. The ones with Lars had seemed young to her.

“No. But I didn’t know everyone. I wasn’t in the main stronghold.”

“If that Caddy belongs to the keepers, they wouldn’t have parked out front. Stand guard. I’ll check the box.” She released his arm and headed for the front door.

He pounced on her before she’d gone three steps.

“We stay together.”

“There’s no back door. I’m not going to sneak off.” He was so openly paranoid, the lady with the children, a man on a cell phone and an older couple were all giving him the stink eye. Katie raised herself onto tiptoes and brushed her lips across his cheek en route to his ear, where she whispered. “Chill out. You’re attracting attention.”

He caught the back of her neck and kissed her. A hard, high-handed kiss that let her know he’d listened when she’d admitted she liked the sex. He grabbed her hip, possessive. She let him. Right there, in front of several children.