The Lightning Prophecy (The Lightning Witch Trilogy Book 1) (11 page)

“No, do I look different? Am I different? Beth, I am still your Reid,” I pleaded with her. I had lost my humanity; I would not lose her too. “Please give me a chance. I am begging you. This is why we could not have children these past few months. But, I promise you we can adopt a hundred children.” I got up and left the room to give her space. About an hour later she sat across from me and spoke.

“Yes, I will try.” It took everything within me not to pounce on her and devour her mouth and take her where she sat.

How stupid I was to think she would really try. Three days later I came home from work to find her lifeless body hanging from our bedroom doorway. She didn’t leave a note. But her lifeless body was note enough. The message was clear. I would rather die than love a monster.

The hotel phone rang, scrambling the memories. I moved to answer it.

“What?” I spat at the phone.

“Hey, Captain Polite, what's the plan? Heard from Delaney?” Mitch’s tinny voice rang from the phone.

“Meet me at the car. We are going to find Cowboy Bill,” I said as I hung up the phone.

Delaney may need space, but I had a job to do and it was less than four weeks until the next full moon. I refused to let another person die because some werewolf was having a delusion of changing a witch. I would not let my attraction to her hinder me from finding this asshole. Cowboy Bill was literally the only lead we had, and I had to find him.

“HEY, DELANEY,” I
said into the phone. I would not crack this one.

“Oh, um, hi, Reid. What’s up?” Delaney's cold tone seemed to spark from the phone and sputter to the floor.

“Hey, thought I would let you know we are going to look for Cowboy Bill. I thought I would see if you wanted to come along.”

There was a prolonged pause and I knew what she would say. The same thing she had been saying for the past three weeks.

“Yeah, I’m sorry, Reid. I, um, have to work. Ronald said he needed me at the store today. Sorry.” The lie in her voice was palpable.

“Yeah, okay.” It was hard to hide the disappointment in my voice.

“Okay b—”

I hung up the phone. I had no interest in being blown off again. I didn’t think she knew I knew she was lying.

Delaney had no idea about two weeks ago I went to see Ronald at the record store and he said she never came in after she somehow “torched the place.” The guy looked like a gremlin, so I tuned out everything else he said and moved on.

Nearly three weeks she had been dodging my calls. Well, today was the day I would go get her. I honestly couldn’t care less that she was pissed, but this wasn't about her. We had looked daily for this guy and in the end we did not know Savannah and needed her to help direct us. The homeless community wandered, but I knew Delaney would know where to go.

I pounded on her door. I would not let her sulk and avoid me because I fucked something up. I heard a brief rustling the and soft, “Shit” from behind the poorly painted door. I inhaled, hoping to catch her scent through the door. There it was. Ozone and gardenias. I would never have thought that scent would plague my dreams, but it did. The woman had burrowed under my skin. I needed her scent like I needed air.

“Delaney, open the damned door. I can hear you.”

No answer. She wanted to play hardball, did she? Game on, my little firecracker. If she thought her friend, what was his name, ah, Troy, could make a scene, she had no idea what I could do.

“Delaney, I can smell you,” I nudged. I wanted to see how far she would let me take this.

Silence. I smiled.

In a much louder voice I said, “Remember what happened the last time I said that? I kissed you, then you wrapped your legs around me and…”

The door flew open. I almost laughed.
So predictable
.

“Reid! God, what are you doing here?” she said, a little wild-eyed.

I hadn’t seen her in what, three weeks, and now her storm-cloud eyes almost had me babbling. My eyes traveled down her small turned-up nose to her full bow-shaped lips and I was remembering how those soft lips tasted. My eyes continued their journey down her body. She had on a ratty shirt with fifty or so small holes in it. She clearly did not have a bra on, as I could see the outline of her pink-tipped breasts. I flicked my eyes lower and stopped in shock.

“Look, Reid, why are you here?” She put her hands on her hips.

I met her gaze. She had no pants on. When she put her hands on her hips, her shirt rose to show a beautiful pink thigh and I almost let loose a growl. My pants were beginning to fit a little snug.
Damn this female for having such an effect on me.

“Can we take this inside?” I barely managed to say it without snarling.

“No, we most certainly cannot! You're not answering any of my questions.”

Delaney Hagen was put on this Earth to infuriate me. That had to be her sole mission in life. In the most even tone I could manage I said, “Delaney, you have no pants on. So, I would think you would want to take this inside.”

Her eyes went wide and she looked down at her bare legs. When she met my eyes again her beautiful round face was a beautiful shade of pink.

“Oh my God,” she said, turning and running inside the apartment. When she turned and ran away the wind kicked up the back of her shirt and I got a brief glance at her ass. Were those kittens?

“Stay at the door! Do not sit down. Do not make yourself at home.”

“So much for southern hospitality,” I countered.

Three minutes later Delaney came out of her bedroom. Gone was the ratty T-shirt. It was replaced by a black-ribbed tank top that read, “Holy hot sauce, Batman!” and much to my disappointment she seemed to have put a bra on. And she had on little khaki shorts.

She was putting her hair up in some kind of messy thing on the top of her head when she said, “Sorry. Now, why are you here?”

“It’s time to stop sulking. We need your help to find Bill.”

“I am not sulking!” she said in a tone much like a petulant child would have used. She seemed to realize her tone and said, “Look I just don’t have time. I have to work.”

“I saw Ronald two weeks ago. He said you haven’t been back since you torched the place, whatever that means.”

“Oh God, you blow up one register and three security cameras and he says I’m burning the joint down,” she scoffed.

“You're avoiding me.”

She looked at the floor. She kicked the rug with her bare toe.

“Delaney, I should have told you. But, I didn’t think it mattered as it’s impossible.”

Without looking up she whispered, “What if it’s not impossible?”

I closed the distance between us and placed a finger under her chin to draw her eyes to mine.

“Look, it is impossible. I am not making this up. I need your help. Sierra needs your help.”

“That was dirty. And you know it. I will help but…” she paused, seeming to look for the right words. “But US can’t happen again, Reid.”

I knew that. I would have said the same thing had she not said it first. But, then why did those words hurt? Why did it feel like Beth all over again?

“I know. Just get your shoes,” I said and walked out of the apartment to go wait for her in the Jeep.

“Okay, so we have spent the last few weeks running around in circles trying to find Cowboy Bill. There are about seven days left until the next full moon. We have scoured the homeless camp. The only thing we have found is that Cowboy Bill is still in town, but is laying low. We do not know where to go from here and thought you could help.”

The whole time I was speaking, she was looking out the window. She was deliberately avoiding my gaze. She was insufferable! The better question though was why did I want to see her storm-cloud eye dance when she looked at me?

A few minutes later she spoke softly, “Have you tried bringing him dinner?”

I raised my eyebrow at her. Bring him dinner? Was she serious?

“Um no, I did not realize I should be dating him.”

Delaney looked at me as if I had sixteen heads. “If I rolled my eyes any more my eyeballs would get stuck in my skull. Reid, trust me. We need to go get him dinner.”

“Aye aye, Captain.”

About twenty minutes later we were back in the Jeep with a heaping mound of rice and teriyaki chicken and about a gallon of an orange liquid called shrimp sauce. When I asked why we needed it since we did not get shrimp, Delaney informed me it was a
“moral imperative.”
I picked up the phone to call Mitch and let him know the plan.

“Saldana.”

“Mitch, hey, we are going to the bridge.”

“About damn time. Where the hell have you been? I’ve been waiting forever over here.”

I paused to look at Delaney and said, “Apparently, we are dating Cowboy Bill and had to pick him up dinner.”

There was a long pause. I knew Mitch was thinking I was insane.

“Just meet us there.”

“Shall I bring the wine?” Mitch said in a petulant tone.

I hung up.

It took about another twenty minutes for Mitch to pull up next to us. Delaney rolled down her window and gave Mitch a dazzling smile.

“Hey, Mitch! Good to see you.”

It took everything in me not to jump out the car and throttle Mitch.

“Hey, beautiful! Missed seeing you,” Mitch said. His arms were both above him resting on the doorframe, allowing him to hang his head in the window. His face was entirely too close to Delaney. I took a deep breath and tried to wrangle the beast down. These reactions were insane.

“Delaney, you seem to have a plan here. Would you mind enlightening us?” I said in a half growl. Mitch seemed to take a cue from my tone and met my gaze. His intense stare asked if this would be an issue working with her. I just shook my head.

“I do. Mitch do you have a twenty on you?”

Mitch raised his eyebrows in question.

“Oh come on. As I am sure you both know I got fired so to make this work I need a little cash.” She put her palm out and waved her fingers back and forth as if to say,
come on, you moron, give me what I want.

Mitch dug in his pocket and slapped a twenty in her hand.

“Okay, now what?” Mitch questioned.

“You two stay here and I will bring him back here.”

Both Mitch and I looked from each other back to her. Was she kidding? There was no way in hell I was letting her go in there by herself.

“Yeah that’s not going to happen, Delaney,” I said what Mitch and I were both thinking.

She looked over at me and narrowed her eyes at me and said in a flat tone, “I can take care of myself.”

I swear I saw lightning spark behind her eyes.

Without taking my eyes off hers I said to Mitch, “Let her out, let’s see if she can best the big bad wolves.” Before she moved to get out, I put my hand on hers. A tingle went through me at the point of contact.

“Be careful.” Her face seemed to pinken slightly.

“I will.” She got out of the car, but not before I caught her scent on the wind. I smiled at her back. I knew what scent that was and it only roused the wolf.

“So we aren’t really going to let her go in there by herself, are we?” Mitch said in an amused tone.

Laughing, I said, “Fuck no.”

“Yeah, didn’t think so.”

It only took us three minutes to find Delaney walking through the camp. She passed by about every person as if she knew just who she was looking for. She seemed to spot someone, for her stride had purpose. She stood in front of a child who could not have been more than about ten. Mitch and I were several yards away trying to be in earshot yet not be seen. For a werewolf that was fairly easy, as we have excellent hearing.

“Hi, I’m Delaney! What’s your name?” Delaney said in a bright tone. She bent down slightly to be eye to eye with the little boy. The position emphasized her shapely ass and I tried not to groan at the sight of her. I heard Mitch next to me and it seemed he had not missed the provocative position in the slightest.

“I’m Ben. You don’t belong here,” the little boy said with affirmation.