Blood's Shadow: The Lycanthropy Files, Book 3 (16 page)

By the time she got back, the live music had started, so we had to yell to hear each other or text. We ate with minimal conversation, and after I paid, we walked into the night air toward the old part of town with its square. When our feet met cobblestones, I couldn’t help but become more alert to every shadow and dark space, particularly as we passed the West Port Inn. I caught her looking at the alley as well.

Chapter Seventeen

“Is everything all right?” I asked.

She looked up at me. “I guess. You know, that green shirt makes your eyes look more hazel than brown. It’s a good color on you.”

“You’re good at changing the subject. What’s going on?”

“I don’t know.” She rubbed her arms in spite of the air being warm. “I guess it’s Solstice energy plus the full moon being tomorrow night. It all makes my hair stand on end. Don’t you feel it?”

Of course I suspected her discomfort came from being constantly watched by Scarface and his crew, and I resisted the urge to bare my teeth at every shadow to show I protected her. The most convincing lies had an element of truth, and she seemed to need information, so I went with her little deception. “I’ve been dealing with it for so long I’m aware of it about as much as a sailor notices the rocking of the deck under his feet. If I think about it, yes, I cannot help but feel it. Generally I note it and move on. How long have you had CLS?”

“About two years. I had just gotten infected when the Cabal-Hippocrates story broke.”

“So you’ve had a few seasons.”

“Yes, but it all feels very raw still. What about you? How long have you been living with it? Lonna said you have the hereditary version of CLS, so you must have grown up with it.”

“Our symptoms manifest around adolescence.”

“That’s a tough time. And your parents helped you through it?”

Her curiosity seemed genuine, and anyone who knew me had the information, so I didn’t see the harm in sharing. “My father had died by then, and my mother was human. I was lucky to have the support of the community, especially the Council, to help me adjust to it.”

“Right, because untutored male adolescent lycanthropes can be very destructive to themselves and their families.” There was no mistaking the bitterness in her tone.

“You’ve met one?” I asked.

She didn’t answer for a few seconds. Then she said, “I’m sorry, I was thinking about something else. Tell me about the square. It all seems very old.”

“You’re making me remember my history. I haven’t been in school for a long time. Most of the Scottish towns that started in the Middle Ages have a Market Square like this one, where farmers and artisans from the surrounding areas would bring their goods to sell on Market Day.”

“What’s that stone thing in the middle?”

The square was so packed with people I could barely make out the Market Cross, a six foot high cylindrical structure in the center. Lycan Village had a particularly nice one carved with wolves and lambs together, like a stone prayer for peace between the two halves of our nature.

“It’s called a Market Cross. It marked the square, and it’s where the town crier would stand to make announcements. We don’t know much about the village since little was written down, and a fire destroyed that in the eighteenth century. We do know that lycanthropes have been here as long as anyone could remember.”

This time when she shook her head, it was the slow undulation of disbelief. “And the humans… They were okay with it? Or did they even know?”

“We’re good at keeping our secrets.” I glanced sideways at her. “As you’ve found. If you need to hide something about yourself to survive, you do it, no matter what else the cost. Wizards, us… The ones who didn’t succeed were burned at the stake or worse.”

“That’s fascinating.” She ran a finger over the weathered stone of the building we stood beside. “If these stones could talk…”

“They probably wouldn’t have the patience for us,” I finished for her. “They’d tell us to leave them in peace, we have no idea of the passage of time and how all fades away, so what does it matter?”

She rewarded me with her quick smile, and for the first time all evening, it illuminated her entire face. “True. Rocks wouldn’t make great therapists, would they?”

We wandered into the square and picked up a couple of beers from a vendor. The aromas of a festival swirled around us—people, fried and sugary food, spilled beer, and the indefinable scent that comes with a summer day that’s been neither too hot nor too cold.

“So a ceilidh is a festival?” Selene asked.

“Not exactly. They just have the pre-ceilidh gathering here. It’s more of a big party where people get up and share their talents, whether it’s music or storytelling, with each other.”

“Oh, right. There were always optional ones to go to with the Games in the States, but I never knew exactly what they were. And there’s always booze.”

I toasted her beer cup with my own. “Always.”

She took a big swig, and I wondered at her alcohol consumption—she made good time through that big beer, and that after two cocktails, which I knew Troy didn’t mix with a light hand. Did she always drink like this? Granted, I’d never seen her in a social setting. I hoped I wouldn’t end up with a passed out redhead on my hands. If she were to end up in my bed, I wanted her to be fully aware and wanting to. On the other hand, she was under a lot of pressure, and I had no doubt Scarface and his ilk hid among the crowd and watched us. The thought made me want to put my arm over her shoulders, but I held back. There was no point in antagonizing them until I got more information.

“You and your brother never attended a ceilidh here?” I asked.

“We haven’t been here that long,” she said. “Curtis only started at Stirling in the Spring. I guess there was maybe one at the university for Burns Night at the end of January.” She sounded like she was trying to figure it out herself. “We’ve been so busy setting up the Institute and getting things ready we haven’t had a lot of time for recreational or cultural activities.”

Yet she’d met a group of fellow ex-pats to go clubbing with. Not that I knew how long they’d been going or how frequently. She seemed mostly relaxed, likely due to the alcohol, but I felt myself treading the line between friendly “getting to know you” inquiry and interrogation, and I had to bite my tongue over most of the follow-up questions that came to mind.

My entire body tingled, and I saw a familiar curly white-blonde head of hair moving toward me. The awkward moment when Selene had caught me kissing Reine—or Reine kissing me, rather—came to mind, and I steered her away from the possible confrontation. The sensation of a drop of cold water trickling from the base of my skull down my back and into the crack of my buttocks made me clench my teeth against a shiver, and the Fey’s bell-like laughter wove under and around the crowd noise. So she’d spotted me, but I hoped she wouldn’t pursue, particularly as she’d warned me not to trust her or anyone.

Selene seemed not to notice, and we paused in front of the dance stage, where a group of little girls did the traditional arm-up hopping dance while judges with clipboards looked on.

“Did you dance as a child?” I asked.

Her smile slipped, but she held on to a grim grin. “No, I didn’t have the opportunity. Money was tight and went to other things.”

She moved on toward the Market Cross, and I followed her.

“Oh, that’s beautiful,” Selene said. “I never really looked at it before.”

She took out her phone to snap a picture of one well-preserved lamb and wolf pair toward the top where the stone flowed up and flattened out to make a podium-like structure for the town crier. When she held it up, a blur snatched it from her hand.

“Thief!” she yelled. “My phone!”

I took off after him. He was fast, but obviously human. It had been too long since I’d been on a real hunt, and I had to quell the urge to change and go after him as a wolf. He ducked and wove through the crowd, me right behind him, until we reached the edge of the square, and he darted into an alley. I followed him and saw Selene’s phone on a crate but no thief. My heart hadn’t sped up during the chase, but now it thudded in my chest. Why would anyone steal the phone except to…

…to separate me from Selene. I grabbed the phone, and a piece of paper fluttered to the ground.

We warned you to stay out of our business. Now you and the young lady will pay for your mistake.
At the bottom was a crudely drawn arrow.

I rushed back to where I’d left her by the Market Cross, but she was gone.

“Did you see where the young woman who got her phone stolen went?” I asked a teenager I thought I’d seen there before.

“Yeah, she talked to a policeman, or I guess that’s who he was, and went off with him.”

“Was he in uniform?”

“Nah, but they’re always undercover here. Had a nasty scar on one cheek. Don’t think I’ve seen him before.”

“Thanks.” I wandered around and hoped to catch her scent, but it was elusive with all the other ones, and I couldn’t exactly close my eyes and activate my wolf senses while walking. I’d probably get taken in for public intoxication. I found a spot at the edge of the crowd and leaned against the stone of the building we’d commented on earlier. Her scent floated around me, but I couldn’t tell if it was because she’d been here earlier with me or again.

“Trouble, Romeo?”

I straightened up. Even in jeans and a stylish ice blue canvas jacket over a white T-shirt, Reine looked otherworldly.

“I don’t suppose you saw where my friend went?”

“Perhaps I did or didn’t, Wolf-man.” She leaned against the wall beside me with crossed arms that pushed up her breasts and showed she didn’t wear a bra under her shirt.

I directed my gaze to her eyes. “If you did, I’d appreciate you sharing any information. I feel she’s in danger.”

“Oh, you have no idea the extent of trouble that girl is in. Her brother too.”

I had to stop myself from taking that informational bait. I didn’t have time for a tale. “Do you know where she went?”

“You know the rules, Wolf-man. I demand a price for my help.” She leaned closer so our lips almost touched, and every little hair on my body reached toward her in spite of my best efforts not to respond to her enchantment. “Giving it away for free isn’t fun for anyone.”

“What do you want? My firstborn is out of the question.”

“Ah, a pity since you’ll make beautiful babies once you get around to it. No, I want something different from you, Wolf-man. I want your name.”

Her words trickled over me like a bucket of cold water, and I stepped back. “It’s pretty widely known and available to anyone who wants to look for it.”

“Right, but it gives me more power if you give it to me.”

“What do you want it for?”

She studied her nails. “You never know when I might have need of an Investigator, and I want to be able to call you.”

“I’ll give you my phone number.”

“Not like that.” She gave me a stern look. “Do you want my help or not?”

“How do I know I can trust you, especially if I give you my name? You’ve warned me and gotten me in trouble before.”

“You do learn!” She clapped her hands. “Good doggie. Now go back to the West Port Inn and follow your nose from there. This is your last freebie.”

She tapped me on the nose, and the shock went to my core and spread out in the urge to change. I staggered along the sidewalk and willed myself to remain human, at least until I could get away from the square and to somewhere private.

“Gabriel?” David Lachlan put a hand on my arm. He took one look at my face, nodded once, and tugged me into an open doorway.

The sharp smell of lemon-based cleaner and cool scent of Freon from a window air conditioner anchored me in my skin, and I blinked in the dim light.

“Just breathe through it, boy. The alpha in you wants to get out. What happened?”

I gasped out the story of Selene’s phone and her getting kidnapped, although it sounded like she’d gone with the guy willingly. What did he hold over her? And then Reine’s interference.

“That one wants you to grow into who you are quickly,” he said. “Otherwise she wouldn’t bother so much with you.”

“Why? And what about this?” I pulled the paper I’d found under Selene’s phone out of my pocket, and he squinted at it.

“I should’ve known they’d be involved,” he said. “Go ahead and change, see if you can find her. I need to go into my family archives and do some research. But when you do find her, don’t let her out of your sight.”

“Right. What is this place, by the way?”

“An old chapel converted to an office. But I remember it as it was, and the owners let me have a key since I still know more of the history than they do.” He turned away. “Now do what you need to.”

The spiritual pressure rose from where my feet met the ground, through my legs to my stomach and torso and down my limbs. My head snapped back, my neck shortening, vertebrae shrinking, and I fell to all fours. Whereas before, I’d felt like external hands molded and shaped me, now it happened from the inside and more gently so I could observe with curiosity as my body rearranged itself. When my mind changed from man to wolf mode, the confusion only lasted for a second.

“It does get easier for some,” David murmured. “One of the benefits if you’re lucky enough to come fully into your power. It shouldn’t be taking you so long, though.”

I shook myself to unlock any remaining tense muscles and align bones and ligaments.
“Maybe it was whatever they gave me at the pub last night.”

“That’s a story for another time. Go find your female.”

He opened the door for me, and I slipped into the shadows. Although werewolf legends abounded in our little corner of Scotland—for obvious reasons—I didn’t want anyone to get enough of a look at me to identify me as more than a strangely large wolf-like dog. Without feeling like I’d just been through a meat grinder, my senses sharpened faster, and I found myself catching intriguing whiffs as I followed my and Selene’s trail from earlier back toward the West Port Inn. My scent weakened while hers strengthened, so I knew the fairy had steered me correctly, although I still didn’t know why. Selene’s companion’s, however, wasn’t what I expected. I’d hoped he would smell of pipe smoke and kerosene like whoever had murdered LeConte, but forest and earth predominated—like Reine’s was of snow and honeysuckle.

The reason for her involvement seemed clearer—she was interested in the scarfaced man.