Deceptions: A Collection (34 page)

In rut
—

Hell. I needed to figure out what in the world that meant. I pulled my phone out and sent Colleen a message.

Hey. What’s it mean when somebody says a shifter cat is in rut
?

Her response was almost immediate. And I couldn’t decide if it was comical or freaked out. It was two ‘
O
’s side by side, like she was bug-eyed. I glanced around and put my back to a display of soft drinks. The last thing I wanted was for him to come up behind me, the sneak.

What does that mean
? I demanded. If she’d been there, I might have shaken her.

Has he said he’s in rut
?

Grumbling under my breath, I tapped back,
Would you just answer the damn question? No. He hasn’t said a damn thing and this isn’t about anything he has said. I heard somebody else say it while I was working the case
.

And that was absolutely not a lie.

Oh. Good. That’s good. Rut’s crazy. It’s basically their emotional commitment. It sounds like going into heat, but it’s more than that. It’s an emotional connection, it’s physical…and they have to want it, too. It’s like Mother Nature gives them a choice in the matter. Not fair, if you ask me. Do we ever get a choice who we fall for
?
But I’ve heard it’s supposed to be really intense
.

My head felt a little weird. Okay. A lot weird. Swallowing, I tapped back,
Thanks
.

She sent me back a smiley.
Hey, don’t let the sexy asshole bite you. I think that’s kind of their sign they’ve accepted it. And if you let him…well, you’re telling him you’ve accepted it
.

I was still trying to wrap my mind around that when two things happened.

I sensed a shift in that weird energy that was Damon’s presence.

And my instincts started to scream a red alert.

Ducking around the display, I moved. My hand itched. I wasn’t scared. I was furious—didn’t even know why.

And then Damon was there.

“Do that disappearing act,” he growled in my ear.

I shook my head, staring toward the front of the store. “No.”

“Do it,” he ordered. “
Now
”

“Heads up, genius. In a store. Security cameras and scanners. That’s one of the few things I can do that can save my ass from a major jam and I prefer not to let that secret get out to the masses. I said
no
.” I shot him a dark glare over my shoulder and then went back to staring at the door as my heart pumped harder and harder.

When they came through the door, I wasn’t even that surprised.

“Fuck, Kit, I don’t want them seeing you!”

I sighed and turned around. “
You
are more likely to make them notice me than I am,” I pointed out. Without looking, I snagged the basket and headed down the aisle. “Come on.”

He was still snarling at my back, all but stepping on my heels.

“You can make yourself seem more human than this,” I said quietly. “If you don’t want us catching attention…
blend
.”

“I don’t give a flying fuck if they notice me.”

“Yeah, well, I’m standing two feet away.” Reaching inside my vest, I tugged out a black bandana and quickly tied it over my hair. We passed a display of reading glasses and I snagged a pair, tugging off the tags and sliding them on. Immediately, my vision went blurry but I could handle that. Inside another pocket, I had a rolled up skull cap. I pulled it out and shoved it at Damon. “Take it. And damn it, tone it down.”

Bit by bit, the heated wave of his energy melted away until I couldn’t feel any of it.

The warning sirens in my brain were still going off, though.

“You can work around the front of the store,” he said softly. “Get outside, wait in the car. They are moving over to the refrigerator section—you’ll have a few minutes.”

“Bad idea. They’ve got dogs. The dogs smelled me yesterday and will probably be outside—they’d catch my scent in a second.” I saw the aisle I needed and smiled. Perfect. I pointed. “You. Right there.”

He stopped and looked around and then gave me a pained glance. “You have got to be shitting me.”

“No.” With a pleased smile, I moved further away. He could study the tampons and pads, and the panicked, glazed look in his eyes was ideal. Me? I parked myself right in front of the remedies for yeast infections, about ten feet away. As I did so, I casually slipped out of my vest, untucked my shirt. I held the vest over my arm. I couldn’t get to my weapons as easily, but I wasn’t going to need them.

“This is stupid,” Damon muttered, his voice drifting to me across the distance between us.

I snickered, shooting a look at him.

He was crouched on the floor, and if I wasn’t mistaken, there was a dull red flush on his golden skin. Oh, yes. Perfect, indeed. He had a hand on the back of his neck and he looked about as self-conscious as I thought he could ever look.

An employee came down the aisle. Just as she was going to pass me up, my ears caught something—Damon had tensed as well. I caught the employee’s attention and spoke, making my voice about as high-pitched as I could without sounding like I trying to alter my voice as I said, “Um, can you help me a little?”

The lady paused. Her nametag read,
Marie, Pharmacy Tech
.

A blush settled over her cheeks as she glanced at the box I held.

Monistat 7
.

“Um, you might be better off—”

The group of men trailed by. I felt the gaze of one them cut my way. Linger on Damon, then brush to me. I stood with my back them—they wouldn’t see much, just my height, body type. “Will a generic help with a yeast infection as good as this will? Cuz this thing is
killing
me…I haven’t been able to have sex in like a week and I’m
dying
…”

Poor Marie went red.

The men disappeared.

Two minutes later, as Damon came prowling my way, I smiled at him. “Did you find what you needed? I can always ask Marie to offer some advice.”

The storm clouds in his eyes glittered. If I wasn’t mistaken, something that
might
have been a smile almost appeared on his face. Almost. It was gone so quick, I couldn’t quite tell.

“You’re lucky that worked.” His voice was flat.

Rolling my eyes, I dropped the box Marie had all but shoved into my hands back on the shelf. “Pal, that wasn’t luck. Regardless of your race, men tend to still be
men
and you all freak out at certain things. And I’m damn good at not getting noticed.”

My hand was still itching. Even though I couldn’t see them, I knew they were still in the store. “They aren’t gone yet,” I murmured.

“No. They are up front now—at the cashier. They should be out of here in a few minutes,” he drawled. He moved around me, curling one hand around my wrist and commandeering the cart with the other hand. “Come on. I’d rather not continue to lurk in the feminine hygiene area.”

“But you do it so very well…”

We didn’t leave for twenty more minutes.

I think we had every employee watching us for signs we were shoplifting by the time we headed out. I made sure to pay for the reading glasses I’d used, even though I dumped them in the trash on my way out.

While we killed time in the store, Damon added more to the cart—protein shakes. About twenty of them. I eyed them narrowly. “Those are going to fun to haul around with the water.”

“I’m hauling them. You’re drinking them.”

“Wow. All twenty of them?”

He didn’t respond as he added a couple of boxes of those meal bars designed to help with a weight loss program to the cart. “Are you trying to tell me I need some help to maintain my girlish figure?”

“They’ve got calories and protein and they’ll serve well enough if you start to crash. Hopefully you won’t have to hide the way you did yesterday, but if you do…” He shrugged.

“If I had my damned bow, I wouldn’t have been hiding at all,” I muttered, more to myself than anybody else. I would have taken those men out, one by one. Just for the sheer fun of it.

Hunting
—

Rage choked me and I had to swallow it back down as the itching returned to my palm and I could hear the sweet, sweet melody of the sword’s call at the back of my mind.
I am here, I am here
—

Yes. She was there, and I wanted her so badly—

As we stepped out of the store, I pulled my sunglasses out of my vest and slid them on, following Damon across the parking lot.

“Just how good are you with the bow?” he asked.

I stared at his back. “Is that a rhetorical question?”

“No. It’s the question kind of question…as in, I ask it and I want you to answer.” He popped open the trunk and gave me a narrow look.

Rolling my eyes, I snagged a couple of the bags and dumped them into the trunk of my car. “I’m good.”

“How good? As much as you are with your sword?”

A faint smile curved my lips. “You know, you’ve never really seen me with my sword, so you don’t really know if I’m any good or not.”

He shrugged, tossing a couple of cases of water into the trunk like he was throwing around pillows. “I watched you practice.”

“Practice is easy. Almost anybody can learn to hold a sword if they put their mind to it.”

“So are you telling me you’re no good with it?” He started breaking into the supplies. “Grab the backpacks.”

I hauled them out of the trunk and dumped them in front of him. “No. I’m damn good with it.”

“Yes. I imagine you are. Besides, you’ve managed to get it in between you and me a few times. That’s not something an amateur would be able to do. So…back to the main question. How good are you with a bow?”

“Better than I am with my sword.” I shrugged and reached out to the touch the blade in question. “The sword…she’s mine. She’s part of me.”
She came to me
— I wasn’t going to tell him that, but she was mine. “I’m a talented swordswoman, and I’ll get better. But I’ve got a gift for the bow. Always did. Swordplay, I learned through trial and error, sweat, blood…”

Broken bones, pain
—I paused, swallowing as I shoved all of that back in the tight box where I’d fought to keep those memories confined. They didn’t belong out here, in the light of day, in the present. I’d left that horror behind. I wanted it lost, in the depths of memory, not out here taunting me. “But I was always good with my bow. Much to the disgust of my aunts, I was actually one of the best they’d ever worked with.”

A hand touched my cheek.

As he guided my face around to his, I blanked my expression.

He said nothing. The pad of his thumb stroked over my lip.

I felt naked standing there. Stripped bare.

And I was having a very hard time thinking of him as the asshole I needed him to be.

But I needed my head clear.

Pressing my hand to his chest, I backed away. “We’re wasting daylight,” I murmured.

“Yeah.” Tugging the bandana off my head, he pushed his fingers through my hair. “We’ve got one more stop to make, but it should be quick.”

Bait and Camping Gear
.

That was all the sign said.

Arching a brow at him, I asked, “Are we going fishing?”

“Sure. I’ll catch it. You clean it.”

Wrinkling my nose at him, I said, “You wish. I only clean what I catch.”

That wicked grin curved his lips again as he parked in front of the long, low building.

“Why are we here?”

As he climbed out, he looked at me over the hood of the car. “Can you shoot any bow? Or is it something like your sword?”

“I can use any damn sword I want,” I said dryly. “Needs to be suited to my body type, but just because I
prefer
my sword that doesn’t mean she’s the only one I can use.”

“I’ll take that as a yes.” He headed toward the building. When I didn’t fall into step behind him, he paused and looked back at me. “Either you come in or I pick it out on my own.”

No. I don’t think so.

I didn’t see a single bow in sight.

Staring at him, I crossed my arms over my chest. “Wow. Quite a selection.”

“Just wait a minute, baby girl.” He laid his hand on the small of my back and guided me to the far end of the store where a skinny guy with skin the color of dark chocolate, worn as faded leather, and creased from years under the sun sat behind the counter.

The guy looked up at us and smiled.

“My boy down at the cash register will check you out, son.”

Damon didn’t move.

“We are looking for some extra supplies. Of the special variety.”

“Are you now?” He just stared at us.

“Yes. Looking for a bow.”

The man shook his head. “We just have bait and camping gear here, son.”

Damon arched a brow. “I heard otherwise. And we’re in a hurry. If you let us see what you have, I’ll pay double.”

“Oh, really…”

And that was all it took.

As he led us into a narrow back room, the man said, “You need to be aware it’s illegal to hunt in the park. If you get caught, I didn’t sell you anything. If you say otherwise, you won’t ever buy anything from me again, son.”

“Not a problem.”

Something a lot of people don’t know about the aneira. Weapons sing to us. They whisper. They talk. Even modern weapons do it, although it’s muted, almost like a radio station that’s gone all static-filled. Most of the weapons in there spoke to me in that muffled sort of voice, although there was a compound bow that wasn’t bad.

But there was something else—

I followed the sound of it while Damon paced along at my back.

“So, son, what are you looking for? Big guy like you might like this one…” He touched a big piece of work. I recognized it. Overpriced, but the manufacturer made them well. However, I wouldn’t be able to draw the damn thing. Its main feature was that it was made for big guys. I wasn’t big.

I kept walking and paused by the one bow that did seem to whisper to me. It wasn’t the one singing—I still couldn’t see, but this one…I touched a hand to him.

“That’s an awfully strong bow for a girl your size, sweetheart,” the man said, glancing at me dismissively.

“Really?” I picked it up.

Made by Athens. I hadn’t used them before. But when I touched the bow, his whisper grew to a steady stream, one I decided I liked, even as the song in the back of my head grew louder. Smiling, I drew back on the bow. “I like him,” I murmured.

“We’ll take it,” Damon said.

I released and lowered the bow, held onto it as I kept walking. There was a cabinet the end. The singing came from there. “What’s in here?”

“Ah…”

Damon said quietly, “Remember I pay double.”

“Handmade. Traditional bows. The compound would suit you fine and it’s a lot cheaper, especially since you have to pay double. Despite what people think, if you know how to shoot, the compound is no more or less accurate than a recurve bow.” The man was standing at my elbow now, although he was actually talking to
me
now, instead of Damon.

“I know.” I smiled. I had to see what was in that cabinet. Had to.

“The cheapest bow in there is fifteen hundred dollars. That means it will cost you three thousand. You got that on you?” he asked, his voice edging into belligerence.

I looked at Damon, deflating a little. I didn’t, damn it. But I had to have what was singing to me…singing so sweetly, I almost wanted to cry.

“I got it,” he said.

I couldn’t stop the smile that spread over my face.

When he opened the cabinet, I saw her.

Oh, sweetheart…come to mama…

“Oh.” Blindly, I shoved the compound at Damon and greedily reached for her. She was…oh. “She’s lovely.”

Long and elegant, carved by hand. I touched her and listened to her song for a moment. I half-expected to hear the tribal flutes and drums of Native America, but that wasn’t what I heard. It was tribal, all right, but this sounded of Africa.

“She wasn’t made by Native Americans.”

“No.” That was all he said.

It didn’t matter. I didn’t need to know the story behind her. She was mine. “How much?”

“Two thousand dollars.”

I grimaced. Damn, this was getting to be a costly shopping trip. This beauty wasn’t going into the park with me. I wanted to get to know her better before I did anything with her. Wooden, carved with pride, by knowing hands…I could feel it.

Stroking a finger down the carved surface, listening to the beat of her song, I smiled for a moment, just enjoying the music of her. Finally, I pulled myself away and then turned to Damon. “I could use both,” I said quietly. “We can take it out of my fee.”

“I got it.”

By the time we were done, the total was almost six thousand, including the arrows. Fiberglass for the compound, but the traditional bow had wooden arrows to go with her as well. They were almost as pretty to hold as she was. I thought I might try my hand at carving my own sometime.

The man tried to charge a few hundred for sales tax, but Damon stared him down. “You and I both know you’re not reporting these sales to the IRS, so why bother?”

A beatific smile curved the man’s weathered face. “True, true…you sure the steel tips will work for you? I’ve got others.”

“Others?” I asked absently, still stroking the bow. Next to my blade, I’d never had a weapon talk to me so sweetly. Never.

“Silver tipped. Hollow and solid. Iron. Copper. In case something other than steel is your preference.”

He said it casually, so very casually.

But there was no way on earth those words had a casual meaning.

Next to me, I felt Damon tense. Blood crashed in my ears. Roared. Rage thundered and I tasted the fury as it climbed up my throat.
Silver—silver for shifters. Iron—iron hurts witches, weakens them and affects their ability to cast magic, heal themselves…copper
?
What is affected by copper
? And I couldn’t ignore the very simple weapon of a wooden arrow—wood through the heart of a vampire.

“No.” I gave him a smile. “We’re good with the steel. I just want to get in some target practice.”

I prayed I wouldn’t have to drag Damon out of there.

I stashed my lovely new toy away even though what I wanted to do was use her for the very first time on the man with his kind smile, liquid eyes…and black heart.

He knew what he’d been offering.

If he’d known what Damon was, he wouldn’t have made that offer.

Good thing Damon had throttled back in the store and hadn’t let it loose yet, but damn.

I could feel the intensity of it lurking, though. He was furious and I was almost afraid of what was going to come boiling out of him. After I’d hid the bow, I left the other one in the trunk in plain sight and shut the trunk. Not meeting his eyes, I stared down the road. “Who drives?” I asked, keeping my voice level.

Careful, careful
…

“I will.”

I nodded and started for the passenger side, but he stopped me, caging me in at the trunk, one arm on either side. “You’re afraid,” he whispered, ducking his head and burying it against my neck.

I shivered a little and then my mind went blank as I felt the scrape of his teeth against my neck.

Colleen’s message rushed through my mind.

Hey, don’t let the sexy asshole bite you. I think that’s kind of their sign they’ve accepted it
.

Hitching up my shoulder, I shrank away from him a little. “I’m not…shit. Look, we don’t have time for this. You feel like a time bomb in my head and I understand why, but it’s still an unpleasant feeling.”

“Kit.” Big hands cupped my face. “You ever going to get the fact that I don’t want to hurt you?”

I stared up at him. “I’m processing it. Doesn’t mean I entirely believe it. And right now, it doesn’t even matter. There’s a job to do.”

A muscle pulsed in his jaw. He nodded slowly. Then he reached up and tugged my sunglasses off.

When he lowered his head, I felt my heart practically jump up into my throat, but it wasn’t fear this time.

His mouth slanted over mine and I groaned, opening for him even as sanity tried to rear its ugly, stupid head. Slow, easy…like he was trying to coax me into believing every word he said. And the crazy thing was…I was almost ready to do just that. His tongue stroked over my lips, teased its way into my mouth. Over and over, such a gentle, easy seduction, belying the anger I could still feel beating inside him.

When he broke away—too soon, way too soon—my heart raced, my body ached and throbbed and screamed for more. “I can be madder than hell and still control myself. Any time I’ve ever done anything, it was for a reason. Maybe it was a stupid reason, and I’m sorrier than you’re ever going to know, but I am
not
going to hurt you,” he whispered against my lips.

As he walked away, I let myself lean against the car while I tried to will some strength into my legs, some sanity into my brain.

This had become a hell of a lot more than just a job.

Getting the bow into the park wasn’t hard. I just faded out and walked right past the park rangers with it.

Now, two hours later, I had the bow in one hand and I was ready for a target, any target, just to alleviate some of the frustration.

“What was the deal with you and that bow earlier?”

I didn’t pretend not to understand what he was talking about. There wasn’t much point.

It was hot, I was sweaty, cranky already and more than a little freaked out. So far, we’d seen more gators than I’d really rather
ever
see in my life.

Gators scare me. I can’t help it.

There were also snakes and while they didn’t scare me so much, I wasn’t overly pleased to know they were slithering around out there. I could
hear
them. The same way I heard the slow, lumbering crawl of the gators…sometimes I wish I had the hearing of humans. Would make this easier.

Stroking a thumb down the fiberglass of the compound bow I’d brought with me, I debated on what to tell him.

“Well?” he asked, shooting a look at me.

“What kind of shifter are you?”

He stopped in the middle of the path and turned, staring at me. “Why?”

I shrugged. “You’re asking something that has to do with what
I
am. I figure it’s fair play.”

“I’m just asking what the deal is with the bow.” The black slashes of his brows dropped low over his storm-cloud eyes.

“Yes…and the deal has to do with what I am.” The compound bow murmured in the back of my mind, a soft pleasant little stream of nonsense that I couldn’t pick apart, but it was nice. I liked it. Background music, I decided. “What you change into is what you are. Sooo…”

He continued to stand there, hands planted on his hips as he studied me. Sweat had dampened the collar of the olive green shirt he wore, but while I suspected I look like I’d been ridden hard and put away wet, he looked like he had just been out for a jog around the block. At dawn. “I might tell you,” he finally said. “But you have to answer a question first.”

I rolled my eyes and went to edge around him. “Sheesh. Forget I asked.”

“No. I want the answer.” He blocked my path simply by placing his body in front of me. Too big. Too…
there
. And he wasn’t holding back that wild energy of his anymore, either. It was almost as hot as the sun beating down on my head, but its heat was different. I could feel it licking at me from under my skin and it drove me nuts. “It’s an easy enough question. I just want to know whether or not your word is important to you.”

“What?”

“Your word. Does it matter?”

“Oh, for crying out loud.” I elbowed him in the gut, determined to get past him this time. I managed by wedging between him and a tree, scraping my arm against it in the process. The endless tangle of the Everglades spread out in front of me and my gut crawled as I studied the terrain. Just off to the left, I saw the glint of water…and a long, reptilian form. Another gator.