Under Her Skin (10 page)

Kade misread the wonder in my voice. “Yeah. It’s a lot of kids to raise.”

But I was thinking of the amazing possibilities of that many children in the same family. What would it have been like to play with all those other kids? Learn with them?

“Are you all close?” I asked.

“Yeah.” His smile turned inward. “Even when they drive me nuts. The triplets are all girls, and for the first several years of their life, I was convinced my parents had arranged to have them just to torture me. Everywhere I turned, there were dolls and dresses and three little girls wanting me to play dress-up with them.” He laughed. “I used to shift to try to hide from them under the furniture, but then they shifted and dragged me out.”

“Where did you grow up? Here in Texas?”

“There aren’t actually a lot of mongoose shifters here. We didn’t move to Texas until I was a teenager. No, I spent most of my childhood in Antigua.”

“The island?”

“I miss the Caribbean. The beaches and ocean, of course, but mostly I miss not having to hide from anyone but the tourists.”

“What do you mean? Did people there know what you are?”

“Absolutely. My parents were invited when a lamia clan moved in and started attacking locals. They had figured out that there weren’t any natural predators on the island, so they stepped in and took over. The Antiguans were terrified, many of them convinced that some voodoo queen had conjured monsters to destroy them.”

“Can people not fight against . . .” I paused, almost unable to say the word. “Against us?”

If Kade noticed my hesitation, he didn’t mention it. “Not easily, though of course it’s possible.”

“So how did your family find out about it?”

“There were some other shifters on the island, and they contacted the Council.”

“The same Council that the Bryants wanted to report me to?”

“A branch of it, anyway. So the Council sent out three mongoose families. Or rather, one extended family. Two of my uncles and their families, along with us.”

“And what happened?”

“Oh. It took a little while, but my parents and aunts and uncles took out the lamia tribe. Though they lost one of my uncles.”

“I’m sorry.”

“It’s part of the business.” Again that quirk of the lip. “Not a happy part, but there you have it.”

“Why do you grin every time you say ‘business’?” I asked.

“Oh. That.” The quirk turned to a full-blown smile. “Business is the collective noun for a group of mongooses. It’s something of a family joke.”

“And the collective noun for bobcats is clowder, right? The Bryants used the term several times this afternoon.” I shook my head, almost surprised to realize that my almost-disastrous lunch visit had been less than twelve hours earlier.

“Each group has its own term, but we often refer to one another as ‘clans’ to cut down on any confusion. Makes it easier when there are cross-marriages, too—someone could join the bobcat clan even if they’re not bobcats, and therefore not part of the clowder.”

“Cross-marriages?” I tilted my head as I stared at him. “How often do those actually happen?”

Kade lifted one hand, palm up, as he replied. “My grandmother was a rabbit shifter.”

I sat up straight and turned to face him directly. “You’re not serious, right?”

Kade shrugged. “Shifter children can take on the animal form of either parent. My father inherited the mongoose shape.”

“And if he’d been a rabbit?”

“Then grandmother would have taught dad how to be a rabbit shifter.”

“That’s not how genetics works.” I was certain of it, based on what I’d learned in Biology 101. Then again, my college bio professors would have said I was impossible, if I’d ever tried to convince them I was snake shifter.

Kade’s laugh echoed. “Sure it is. There are dominant genes and recessive ones.”

“You’re telling me that if you had a child with another mongoose who had a recessive rabbit gene, you could end up with a rabbit-shifting child?” My tone almost managed to reflect my disbelief.

“Exactly.”

“How would two mongooses even raise a rabbit?” I couldn’t believe I was having this conversation.

“How do two red-haired parents raise a brunette? How do two athletic parents raise a bookworm? With love and care.” He paused. “And if it were me, I’d probably be learning a lot about rabbits. But...” His voice trailed off.

“But what?”

“Rarely—very rarely—a child takes on both forms, becomes a chimera.”

“A chimera?”

“The animal form is a combination of both parents. It’s hard on the child, because they have to work particularly hard to avoid being seen by pure humans.” He shrugged again. “That’s what I’m told, anyway. I’ve never met one.”

“You’re telling me that I could have a ... a raccoon sibling out there and not even know it? Not be able to tell?”

“Honestly, it’s unlikely. There are probably a few lamia crosses out there, but not many. The lamias were pretty adamant about keeping the bloodlines pure. That means that they rarely reproduced with anyone but other lamias, and the occasional human. Maybe pureblood snakes, too, but I don’t know that for sure.”

I stared at him blankly for a long moment. “Great. I’m descended from the shifter version of the Third Reich.”

“Pretty much.”

This whole examination of my heritage business was really starting to bother me. “So what else don’t I want to know about the lamias? What else can you tell me about them?”

He dropped his feet to the floor and leaned forward. “For starters? I can tell you that I’ve never met one like you before.”

“Like me?”

“Kind. Smart. Interested in saving people rather than hurting them.”

“But you didn’t know any of that the first time you saw me in the hospital.”

“No.”

“So why did you kiss me?” It was question I had wanted to ask for days, ever since I had found out that we were supposed to be mortal enemies.

“That is an excellent question.” He leaned forward even further.

“What’s the answer?”

Rather than speaking, he slid out of his chair, landing on his knees in front of me. Placing one hand on either side of me, he pushed forward. I felt myself drawn to him, the heat of his body calling to me.

I opened my serpent senses, and as ever, the heat and scent of him washed over me. He moved slowly, giving me the opportunity to get away from him, but I didn’t try to escape.

Our lips met, gently at first, then more firmly.

Kade pushed himself up, sliding one knee onto the couch between my legs. Wrapping one arm around my back, he pulled me closer to him, then shifted us around so I was lying on the couch beneath him.

And then he deepened the kiss, his hand sliding down to my thigh and pulling my leg up to wrap around him.

I sank into his heat, allowing it to permeate me, pour into me. His tongue swept into my mouth, tangling with my own. The taste of him made me whimper, deep in my throat.

I was only barely aware of the sweep of headlights sliding over us from outside until Kade broke the kiss. “Damn,” he said. “I think your parents are home.”

Damn, indeed.

Twenty-eight years old and caught making out on the couch.

Well, almost caught.

By the time Mom and Dad came in, Kade and I were sitting decorously apart again. He was back on the chair, and I had slid to the far end of the couch. I’d even had time to pat my hair back into place.

I don’t know if they were fooled, but at least I didn’t have to try to explain anything to them.

Other than my friend. The mongoose shifter.

Not that I said as much, but Dad guessed. He blinked a couple of times when he realized who Kade was, but simply shook the doctor’s hand and asked if we were sure we needed to leave.

“Yeah. We just needed to stop by the herpetarium and snag some stuff.”
More or less
, I amended silently.

“Okay, then.” Dad’s tone was mild, but his sharp glance suggested that he would have questions for me later. “Feel free to stop by anytime, Dr. Nevala. Lindi’s friends are always welcome.”

“Thanks so much, Dr. Parker. And please, call me Kade.”

I appreciated Kade’s use of Dad’s title—an unnecessary courtesy, but one that showed the mongoose shifter’s sense of propriety.

Sense of propriety
? Oh, hell. I had to get us out of here before I let this turn into a full-blown
Meet the Parents
moment.

I ushered Kade out as quickly as I could, and we drove away with Mom and Dad standing in the doorstep, beaming after us.

It was as painfully adolescent as I could have imagined.

As we climbed into his truck, Kade stared at me thoughtfully for a long moment. He didn’t speak until we were pulling out of the driveway and turning onto the highway. “I think it might be time for you to meet the Council.”

I tried to ask questions, but Kade kept insisting that the Council was the next step.

We stopped by the hospital first, both to check on Kirstie and to make sure the first dose of antivenin hadn’t had any adverse effects. Her parents still watched me warily, but this time I kept my distance.

Kade called a nurse over to him and they conferred briefly. “Continue to watch for any signs of a reaction, and contact me if necessary,” he said to the dark-haired woman in scrubs. With a nod, she rolled a computer on a stand over to her and began entering the appropriate notes.

“How do you get away with it?” I asked as we left the hospital.

“Get away with what?”

“Having a hospital especially for shifters?” I pitched my voice low, trying to keep from being overheard.

He laughed. “It’s not only for shifters. There aren’t enough of us to warrant a whole hospital—and even if there were, we rarely get sick enough to need hospitalization.”

“That makes it even stranger. How do you get away with a hospital that caters to shifters but still has human patients? That nurse was making notes in Kirstie Bryant’s file. What if another doctor looked them up? Do all the doctors and nurses know about the shifters? How does this all work?”

Pulling his key-fob out of his pocket, he unlocked the truck. “I know you have a lot of questions. And I am more than willing to answer them. Just not all at once. And not until after you meet with the Council.”

* * *

When Kade said “the Council,” I could hear the capitalization in his voice, a respect echoing through his tone that caused me to expect a giant room with vaulted ceilings decorated in gold-leaf and a dais up at the front. In my mind, the Council members were dressed in long black robes—maybe even with white wigs. Like judges from some other country.

I was right about the vaulted ceiling. But it was over someone’s lovely living room in a nice, middle-class neighborhood. A short, pudgy woman with an upturned nose and gray streaks through her dark hair opened the door. She glanced at me curiously when Kade introduced me simply by name, her blue eyes glinting behind round-rimmed glasses, but she led us in without comment and invited us to take a seat on the couch. I found myself scooting closer to Kade as other people filed in.

With each new arrival, the level of the energy swirling through the room spiked higher and the muscles in my back grew tighter as I fought off the urge to shift.

“You’ll be fine,” Kade murmured, dropping his hand down to rest on my own. I hadn’t realized that I had grabbed the edge of the sofa cushion. I spread my fingers wide and smoothed down the brocade fabric.

I leaned in close to place my mouth almost directly to his ear, pointing my mouth down and toward the back of the couch in an effort to maintain privacy, all while knowing that some shifters’ enhanced hearing might render the attempt useless. “How many of these people will want me dead?” I whispered.

“Doesn’t matter. Council meetings are always peaceful. Everyone here has proven their ability to maintain control.” Kade shrugged. “They may want to kill you, but they won’t actually do it.”

How reassuring.

Our hostess appeared with glasses of water, and I took one with a murmur of thanks. Then I stared into it, trying to decide whether or not to take a drink.

“It’s not poisoned. Janice wouldn’t be that subtle.” Kade took a gulp from his, as if to prove his point.

“It’s not that. I don’t want to have to go pee in the middle of anything important.” I tilted the glass, watching the light from the recessed fixtures overhead filter through it.

A sputter from Kade turned into a laugh as he shook his head. “And that’s your biggest worry?”

“Hell, no. Not even close. But it’s the only one I can control right now.” Glancing up from my perusal of the glass, I saw one of the other shapeshifters watching me through narrowed eyes. Despite being slouched down into a chair in what should have been a relaxed pose, he radiated tension, from the way his stubbled jaw clenched to the constant tapping of his fingers on the armrest.

“Who’s that?” I tried to disguise my question again, but from the man’s sneer, I suspected he heard me. He definitely saw the little jerk of my head toward him, and when Kade glanced at him, he nodded, the kind of bare, almost imperceptible nods that gunfighters always give one another in Westerns just before someone gets gunned down in the middle of the street. Come to think of it, he looked a bit like a young Clint Eastwood.

At Kade’s whispered response brushing against my ear, a shiver ran down my arm. “That’s Eduardo Valencia. He’s one of the Council’s Shields. Think protector. Guardian. He’s the muscle.”

A Council of shapeshifters who needed protection.

I wasn’t prepared for that level of implied violence.

I might be a snake, but I wasn’t a killer.

But the thought of it sent chills racing across my skin. If I were honest with myself, they were as much from excitement as fear.

Still, no one here needed to know that a part of me was drawn to the idea of violence.

It took about another ten minutes for everyone to arrive. The Council Shield watched me the whole time through his squinty, Eastwood-lookalike eyes. If not for Kade at my side, projecting authority somehow
out
so that his presence took up more space than his actual body, I might have bolted.

When had Kade become the force of reassurance in my life?

Sometime between
you’re a lamia
and
everyone here wants to kill you
, apparently.

In any case, I was thankful for him.

“I think we’re all here now.” Janice’s voice carried farther than I would have expected it to. Maybe all shapeshifters’ auras exuded past their immediate physical bodies?

As if he were reading my mind, Kade leaned over and said, “She’s an elementary school teacher in her day job.”

“What is she here?” I whispered.

“On her home turf.” At my exasperated glance, he expanded. “Badger. Seriously, don’t fuck with her. She’s tough.”

I watched her as she gathered everyone into the room to take their seats. Someone had brought in dining-table chairs, but many of the twenty or so attendees sat on the floor in postures that seemed oddly informal for something that felt so much like a life-or-death concern.

“Okay, y’all,” Janice said. “Settle down. We’ve got an important issue to discuss tonight.”

“Nothing to discuss,” a male voice muttered from behind me. “Kill it and be done.”

The muscles in my shoulders rippled, and Kade ran a fingertip across the back of my hand. The shock of the delicate stroke distracted me from my own anxiety long enough to allow the shifting urge to pass, at least for the moment.

“That is one possibility, Hank,” Janice said, but her tone reminded me of my mother’s when she was leading a student to a different conclusion altogether. “But we need to consider all our options here.” She turned toward my place on the couch. “Toward that end, Kade Nevala has asked to address the Council.” With a wave of her hand, she ceded the floor to the mongoose shifter.

Kade’s hand trailed across mine as he stood up, a final supportive gesture before he moved away from me.

I hadn’t realized quite how much comfort I had been drawing from the physical connection until he stepped away. Cold air rushed in, and I steeled myself not to shiver again. Instinct told me that would be taken as weakness in this crowd. Taking a deep breath, I sat up straight and tried to look respectable.

When Kade reached the open center of the room, he took a moment to scan the faces around him, assessing, nodding to a few, sliding his eyes past others.

“You all know why we’re here tonight,” he said. “Both reasons.” With a jerk of his chin, he indicated me. My spine tingled, but I didn’t move, didn’t take my eyes off of Kade, whose own golden gaze held mine steadily for a few seconds. “First is the discovery of a lamia in Fort Worth. One who has been living here for years, living as a human, under human law and human rules. One who poses absolutely no threat to our community. Lindi Parker has no connection with lamia tradition.”

“But—” Someone started to interrupt Kade, maybe Hank from earlier, but the doctor held up a hand and the voice fell silent, another effect of Kade’s air of authority. I felt the power pouring out of him, holding everyone in place.

“The second reason, of course, is the death of several shifter children.” A low growl rumbled through the room at his words, and might have burst into a full-blown howl if Kade hadn’t held the room so completely at that moment. As he met each shifter’s eyes, though, the sound died out.

“We all know that the latest child has evidence of a lamia attack. And yes, there does seem to be a connection to Lindi—” Again, he held up a hand for silence. “But it’s not the connection you might expect.”

I didn’t dare look around, though I could feel eyes boring into me, burning into my skin as I kept my own gaze firmly on Kade.

“Lindi Parker is not a danger to us. Lindi is a counselor, a woman who spends her days working with hurt children, helping them heal.” His repetition of my name caught my attention, and I wondered if any of the other shifters in the room caught what he was doing. I often used the name-repetition technique in group counseling sessions to make the participants more real to one another, to humanize them.

Though maybe here the word would be
shifterize
.

In any case, in Kade’s words, I became not “the lamia,” but “Lindi,” a person, someone like everyone else in the room.

For an instant, I dared to glance around part of the room. Several of the Council members were leaning forward, nodding. But just as many were leaning away from Kade, and many of those with arms crossed defensively. Charismatic aura or no, Kade Nevala wasn’t convincing everyone in the room.

He talked a little longer, extolling my virtues until I almost didn’t recognize myself in his words. Was that really how he saw me? Kind, giving, caring, connected to the people around me, from a loving home with wonderful parents. A person with deep ties to the community.

The opposite of what they might think a lamia would be.

Then he dropped his bomb. “Lindi Parker is here tonight to request Council approval for entry into our community.”

I was? That was news to me, though not exactly unwelcome. Being part of the shifter world wasn’t high on my list of desires, but it might offer protection from whatever was going on. From whoever was really murdering children connected to me.

I just wished Kade had discussed it with me, first.

From the sudden roar of shouts around me, so did the Council members.

Kade held both hands up for silence. When the noise subsided, he turned in a complete circle to catch the eye of every shifter I had identified as disagreeing with him earlier, and a few I had missed. He settled his attention on the Clint Eastwood lookalike slouched in the armchair across from me. Kade’s voice grew hard, a buzz of something like anger threading through it. “Make no mistake. This is an official request, which means that until the Council makes its final determination, she is under the Shields’ protection.”

One corner of the Shield’s lip curled up in a cross between amusement and annoyance, but he nodded his acknowledgment of Kade’s point. Beside him, Janice looked thoughtful. “That would mean a full background check,” she said. “I’m assuming you want a complete intake analysis? That will take at least a month.” I couldn’t tell whether or not she approved of the ploy, but she wasn’t trying to veto it immediately.

“Let the lamia bitch speak for herself,” Hank the Heckler said from behind me.

Kade raised his eyebrows at me, and I nodded, rising slowly and making my way to stand next to him. Taking a deep breath, I tested the room. Kade’s scent tasted raw, and the heat rolling off of him nearly scorched me. The rest of the room was a boiling wave of emotion, most of it sharp and powerful.

With a conscious effort, I moved into my professional mode. I had talked suicidal teenagers off of literal, actual ledges.

I could do this.

“I know you have no reason to trust me now,” I began. “But you will. Dr. Nevala and I will help find the monster that is killing these children. And you’ll see that it’s not me. I know only a small part of lamia history, but I assure you, I am not what you fear.”

“So do you affirm the request for Council-approved membership?” Janice asked. The way she said the words sounded official, almost ceremonial.

“Yes,” I replied. “I do.”

She nodded. “Then there’s nothing further to discuss tonight.” When a grumble arose from the back of the room, she growled, baring her teeth. “Not in my house, Hank Cleveland.” She waited until he fell silent, then turned to me, her voice neutral—not unkind, but not especially encouraging. “Thank you, Lindi. You have given us quite a bit to discuss. You may go now.”

As I navigated my way through the now-silent room, the intensity of emotions flowed through my nose and mouth. A miasma of anger, hate, despair, swirled across the top of my mouth, feeding me information about the Council as I moved among them.

They definitely loathed lamias.