Deceptions: A Collection (29 page)

Without looking at him, I snagged my bag. There was a door a few feet away. I was praying it was a bathroom. But even if it was the hallway or a closet, I didn’t care. I needed to get away from him.

Before I did something really, really stupid.

The last witch hadn’t been able to shed much light on the subject, other than the fact that yes, she’d seen another witch. One who was missing, in this general area.

It hadn’t been a black car, though.

It had been a busted-up, steel blue van.

Something about that niggled the back edge of my memory, but I couldn’t figure out what.

“Now where, baby girl?” Damon asked as he tossed our bags into the back of the car.

I ignored him as I pulled a map out of the glove box. He came up behind me as I was unfolding it. The wind kept grabbing at it and he leaned over, pinned it down on one side, while I held the other.

“What you looking for?”

“A sudden, blinding flash of insight,” I muttered. Since I wasn’t really expecting that to happen, I pulled a pen from inside my black vest. He’d referred to it earlier as combat gear. It wasn’t. It was just…useful. Very useful. I bent down and marked an X on the map. “First sighting.”

Finding the next was harder.

I marked it and put a tiny little two next to it.

The third and fourth had been practically on top of each other.

I starred the fourth—something about the van was still bugging me.

“Why the star?”

“The van.” I fisted a hand in my hair and stared at the map, although I wasn’t seeing it. In the back of my mind, I saw a dusty blue van. Where, though…where did I remember seeing it? In person? On the news? Hell, for all I know, it could have been one of the hundreds of MP reports I had to churn through. Shoving my hair back from my face, I stared at the starred X. “Something about the van is bugging me.”

His hand stroked up my back.

I was so busy concentrating for a minute, it didn’t occur to me to notice.

But as he rubbed his thumb over my nape, I tensed. Swallowing, I closed my eyes. “Damon…why in the hell are you touching me?”

“I think we’ve already established this,” he said, his voice low as he leaned in over the map, studying it with the same intent gaze I was. “I think you know, if you’d just let yourself think about it.”

I set my jaw. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“Uh-huh.” He tapped a point on the map. “We should go visit the park. Since we’re here. Take a hike or something.”

“A hike?” Shrugging away the hand at the nape of my neck, I started folding up the map. “I’m sort of in the middle of working a case that I need to solve unless I want the Alpha Cat to try and rip my throat out.”

He reached up. Laid a hand on said throat. “I’ll take care of your throat, Kit.”

“Uh-huh. So reassuring from the man who all but crushed it a week ago.”

That look darkened his eyes, the one I couldn’t quite comprehend. “I’ll take care of it,” he said again. “And we need to go on a hike. I caught weird smells on the wolf kid. Maybe I can track them.”

I trudged along behind him, swatting at mosquitoes, cursing the heat, still feeling too damned tired and wondering how long we’d be out here. We’d spent most of yesterday in the woods and had collapsed at a little roadside hotel only to get up at dawn and return.

He’d wanted to check out the northern part of the park, but my gut told me to go south. So here we were. And I was miserable.

Thirst nagged at me and I tugged the bottle from the pack I carried. I emptied it in three long drinks and added it to the small collection in my bag. Rummaging through the pack, I unearthed a granola bar, but before I could tear into it, I found myself trapped between Damon’s body and a bent, gnarled tree that felt rough against me, even through my T-shirt and the material of my vest.

Swearing, I jerked a look up at him. “L—”

A hand covered my mouth and he looked down at me, shaking his head.

Storm clouds swirled in his eyes and the pupils swirled. Flared. And as I watched, the bones in his face started to shift.

Swallowing, I nodded.

He backed away, lifting a finger to his mouth.

Yes, yes
. I get the point.

He held out the pack he’d slung on his back. His hand was human when he started the motion, but furred, clawed by the time I caught the pack. The damn pack was more than twice the weight of my own. I shifted my balance and swung it onto my back. He pointed to the tree and mouthed,
Stay
.

At least that was what I thought he said.

Hard to say…because the bones around his mouth, the shape of it…everything was changing.

Slowly.

I decided it was easier to watch a shift in full speed rather than this. Muscles appeared in places where they didn’t belong and bones broke, realigned, formed, as fur spread and flowed along his body.

He stripped out of his clothes as he changed, the slow shift giving him the time to get of them without them falling to shreds around him. And it was all so completely silent. Completely eerie.

I still couldn’t hear whatever had caught his attention.

Even when he turned his back, standing on two massive legs, more than double the width they’d been only minutes earlier and prowled forward, I couldn’t hear anything.

Dark golden fur, almost the same gold as his skin, spread across his body. There were spots of deep, dark gray, nearly the same shade as his eyes, all across his arms, shoulders and legs.

He almost looked like a wereleopard I’d seen once, but that didn’t seen quite right.

Cat. I could only think cat.

As he disappeared into the trees, I dealt with the bags. I managed to shove them into the branches of the tree, hooking the straps around another branch to keep them from tumbling out of place. Out of the way, off the ground, and I didn’t have to worry about tripping over them.

That done, I gathered up his clothes and wedged them on top of the bags. Once I’d done that, I drew my blade and faded.

There was no way I was standing here in this hot, oppressive forest for anybody to find me.

Especially when I didn’t know just what had sent him prowling off into the silence alone.

A breeze kicked up and that’s when I heard them.

Dogs. Baying.

Voices…

Backing up against the tree, I held my breath.

I could climb the damn tree if I had to get away from the dogs but then I could end up trapped. I didn’t know if they were coming—

So focused on the dogs, I didn’t notice the bigger, quieter problem.

She tore through the trees, naked and trembling, young and terrified. I can see the mantle of her energy hovering over her—an overgrown housecat, I thought, spine arched, hair on end, swiping out at anything that moved. Too terrified to fight well.

I dropped the invisibility and moved forward.

She saw me—briefly, I realized that something about her face seemed familiar. Very familiar…
blue van
, I thought dumbly.

Oh,
shit
—

This was the girl that had gone missing from Atlanta, I realized.
A month
ago. Son of a
bitch
—

But even as my brain processed that, she started to scream.

“Shhh.” I struck out and grabbed her wrist, whirling her around and slamming her against the tree. I caught her off guard, just enough to stun her, the only reason it worked. Mind whirling, I grabbed the shirt Damon had shed from the pile of clothing and shoved it at her.

It fell to her feet.

She just stood there. Trembling. Abruptly, she just collapsed, curled in on herself and moaning like a cornered animal. I guessed that wasn’t too far off.

And all the while, the baying of the dogs got closer.

This was bad.

Very bad…

When Damon sprang through the trees, I had never been so glad to see him. Glad enough to see him that I just might forgive him almost anything. He saw the girl, saw my sword. In his half-form, a weird look that might have been a smile split his monstrous face.

“Foolish enough to fight,” he rumbled.

I lifted a brow and then looked to the girl.

He picked her up, hefted her over his shoulder. “Just humans. The dogs are a problem, though. You hide,” he said shortly. “And be here when I come back.”

Just humans…nothing I couldn’t handle, I figured. But yeah, dogs are a problem. While I could outrun any human on earth, dogs were a different story. Sighing, I glanced up into the limbs spread out over my head. “Can you boost me?”

I’d barely gotten the question out before I was scrambling up through the branches. I hauled the bags as I went, stashing his as best as I could in foliage and slinging mine back into place. As long as I was wearing it, it would fade away when I did.

He stared at me for a long, hard moment and even after I faded from sight, he lingered for a moment. Then he was gone.

I calculated two minutes before the dogs burst into the clearing.

They paused, sniffing at the tree and tipping back their heads to howl like the devil.

Shoo
, I thought, glaring down at them.

A couple of them were staring right at me, but they couldn’t see me. They could smell me, yes, and hear me, most certainly, but they couldn’t see me.

When the humans stumbled out behind them, I clenched the blade even more tightly. Two, three, four…five.

I waited with bated breath for another one, but that was it.

They all gathered around the dogs, peering up at the tree. “What the hell’s the matter with them?”

Tall guy. Blond, dirty. Looked like he hadn’t bathed in a month. Stank like it, too.

“Maybe she hid up there, thinking to throw them off.”

Dirty-Blond sniggered. “Won’t work. I bet she tried the swamps next. Hope not, though. Gators don’t like cats being around them. If they get a bite of her…”

Another one, short and stumpy with stringy hair, shook his head. “She’s still too strong. She won’t get caught by a gator.” A smile split his face. “We’ll be looking for her for a while. And if we catch her before the other team…”

Teams.

I studied each face. Committed them to memory.

I didn’t mess with humans. I stayed away from them because they could bring too much trouble down on us.

But these weren’t humans. Not if they were hunting kids.

That made them monsters.

“Come on. We need to get moving. If somebody else finds her, we have to pony up the dough. Not this time.”

They moved off into the woods. I settled deeper into the tree and drew my knees to my chest. Part of me wanted to climb down and go after them. If it hadn’t been for the dogs, I might have.

I could take five humans.

But the dogs evened the odds in their favor just a little bit.

Too bad I hadn’t brought my bow and arrow.

I wouldn’t make that mistake again. Of course, if I’d realized we’d be dealing with something like
this
, I damn well
would
have brought it.

Live and learn, Kit. Live and learn
.

Night was falling by the time I saw the brush and branches swaying. It had been a couple of hours, easy.

If this wasn’t Damon, screw him—

Rising, I stared down as the trees parted and I found myself staring down into feline eyes that reflected the fading sunlight.

He was searching the tree for me. I faded back into sight with a sigh and groaned as a headache slammed into me. Swaying a little, I started to work my way down. “It’s about time,” I muttered.

Exhaustion made my hands clumsy but I determinedly kept on climbing. By the time I stood on firm ground, my muscles were trembling and my head was pounding in time with my heart.

“When you said wait, I didn’t think it would be for hours.” I shoved my blade into the sheath, staring at his alien face.

He was silent.

Not like him.

I couldn’t be a total bitch to him without him mouthing off right back.

“Ah…Damon?”

He took a step toward me.

I backed away.

Fur and muscle melted away and I found myself staring at a much more familiar face, into storm-cloud eyes.

“The girl is okay, right?”

He gave a short, single nod. “With the witches. Called Es—played up on her duty to the Assembly.”

Okay, so he’d spoken two sentences there. “Okay…so what’s with you?”

His hand shot out and I found myself plastered against him two seconds later. “You stayed.”

“Damn it,” I snapped, shoving against his chest. Hard and hot, my hands slid against the smoothness of his flesh without budging him an inch. “What did you think I was going to do? I barely even know where I am.”