CHAPTER TWELVE

Lance had barely backed his pickup onto the parking pad when the smack of a fist against his quarter panel made a growl come out of him.

Estela loomed in the reflection of his side view mirror looking like some kind of malevolent wraith in her black clothes and with her eyes ominously slanted.

“What the hell?” he asked low.

“Here are Josefina and Blanca.” Lily opened the door on her side and immediately had Martha lifted from her arms.

Without a word, the women started walking away.

That wasn’t right. Lance hopped down and slammed his door. “Hey,” he shouted after them. When they didn’t respond, he shouted it again, louder. “Hey!”

Estela stopped but didn’t turn.

He stormed across the pad to her, wanting her to look him in the eyes. Five feet from her heels, though, he found himself clutching at his chest, trying to draw in a breath. It was as though scalding hot water had been poured into his lungs and he couldn’t expel it.

As he coughed, trying to dislodge the phantom irritant, she slowly turned.

She didn’t say anything.

By the time he could straighten up and look at her, he was glad she didn’t.

In all the years he’d spent flying Blue around and running errands for him, Lance had never seen such a malicious creature. He knew without a shadow of a doubt that Estela hated him—straight up hated him—for being what he was. Her eyes were pure black, skin unusually gray and damp-looking like glass coated with condensation.

She turned again, slowly marching toward the tents.

Josefina and Blanca had long since disappeared into them.

Briefly, he pondered walking in and forcing some answers from them. They’d left Martha there with nothing but a bag and a dog, and then had the nerve to return and snatch her back without so much as a thanks or even a “kiss my ass.”

As much as he wanted to stomp over there swinging, his alpha’s warning hung in his mind. Blue had said not to engage them unnecessarily. Further, Lola’s cryptic feedback about them was making him somewhat more risk-averse than usual.

He took a deep breath through his nose, let it out, and turned back to the trailer.

Lily was standing despondently by the door, chafing her arms. She was always so cold. Maybe she needed iron or something. She should have eaten the steak.

The thought of dinner reminded him—they’d left the restaurant leftovers in the truck. Grunting, he went to fetch them. Upon return, he reported, “They didn’t have anything to say.” He unlocked the trailer and gestured for her to go on up. She needed to get warm, and he needed to debrief Blue.

She took a seat at the table, so he set her takeout container in front of her along with a knife and fork.

“Never seen anything like that in my life.” He’d dialed Blue’s cell phone and it was already ringing on the other end.

“You’ve got news?” Blue asked. “If so, so do I. I’ll talk first.”

Lance dragged his hand down his face and plopped onto the sofa. He brushed some of the numbing gel packaging aside on the coffee table so he could put up his feet. “Okay. Go for it.”

“Regina had to double back.”

“What? Double back to where? I thought she was on the way here.”

“She was, but she had to go back to the group home.”

“What happened?”

“I guess the kid finally opened up enough to her to say something. He felt bad about leaving his friend there. She did a little probing. Seems like the kid’s an orphaned Coyote.”

“We didn’t know anything about there being other Coyotes there. Where’d he come from?”

“Not a hundred percent sure yet. I’ve got Kenny doing some digging. He knows a lady in another pack whose job is to move shifter kids around. She doesn’t find out about every single one, but she dug up a bit on this little guy. Her network says the kid’s story checks out. He’s got nobody. The moral thing for us to do now that we know is to help Regina claim him.”

“But you can’t just spring a kid from a group home without having some kind of close family relationship that can be proven.”

“We’re working on that,” Kenny said in the background. “Just because our pack hasn’t had to do this before doesn’t mean it isn’t done.”

“How long is what you’re doing going to take?” Lily asked. She still hadn’t touched her food.

Lance wondered if she needed some help. She was rubbing her arms again, so maybe she needed someone to cut up her steak for her and help it find her mouth. The reward for his hard work would be if that if she were chewing, she couldn’t be as mean to him. Shortcake’s words had bite.

“Trying to get it done by end of the business day tomorrow,” Kenny said, “but of course, there are no guarantees. Anything wrong?”

“No, I just need to get back to work. Don’t worry about it. I’ll call Belle.”

And tell her what?

That would have been a conversation Lance would pay money to hear.

“Yeah, sorry about that,” Blue said with a laugh. “Unfortunately, that’s what happens, sometimes, when you edge into a shapeshifter’s orbit. You get ensnared in all sorts of delicious drama.”

Lily didn’t look amused. In fact, she was resting her head atop the table. Actually, lightly pounding her forehead against the surface.

Maybe she wouldn’t have been so hangry if she’d eaten the steak. A little cholesterol boost always made him a kinder, gentler Coyote.

“What’s your news?” Blue asked.

Lance pulled his gaze away from Lily and crossed his ankles in the other direction. “Jaguars returned. Martha has been snatched back into their custody.”

“What do you mean by snatched? Did they say anything?”

“We got back from dinner, and before I could my truck door open, they had us flanked. Three of them. I don’t know if they thought we were going to put up a fight about the baby or what, but anyway. None of them seemed all that cheerful, but Estela, in particular, had a nasty stink of magic coming off her.”

“Oh?” Lance could imagine Blue perking up at that bit of trivia. “Explain.”

“Hot. Hostile. Scalding, drowning feeling.” Lance gave his nostrils a squeeze. His sinuses still burned a little just from the memory of the magic bombardment. He’d never encountered anything like that before. Lola owed them an explanation and pronto.

“How close were you?” Blue asked.

“When I felt that? Two meters, maybe. I could have probably scratched my way closer, but it was a struggle, man. Walking on bubbling lava barefooted might have been easier.”

“Interesting. I wonder if only Estela has that ability. It maybe wouldn’t be so uncommon for someone’s who’s the de facto alpha of the group, but if all of them are like that, that’s downright…”

“Terrifying?”

Blue grunted. “Are they moving?”

“Nah. They were zipping themselves into their tents for the night. I can only assume that Martha is being taken care of.”

“I’m taking her if she’s not,” came Lily’s murmur.

“What’d she say?” Blue asked.

“Nothing,” Lance said. The woman was obviously out of her head. She knew better than to pick fights with people who were half animal, especially about their offspring.

Lily rolled her eyes and stood. She walked past the table without looking at him, climbed onto the loft, and promptly pulled the covers over her head.

What is with her?

“Be vigilant as always,” Blue said. “I’ll hit you up as soon as we know more about Regina’s ETA.”

“Great. Made any progress on the territory expansion issue?”

“Maybe. One thing at a time, though. I need to have a chat with our Cougar friends so they know we’re not just grabbing land for the purposes of being provocative. If we can work something out where they’re helping us manage the additional territory—”

“Then no one can accuse us of starting takeover shit.”

“Exactly. The claim would be strictly for purposes of making easier transit through nearby zones. Catch you soon.” Blue disconnected.

For a few minutes, Lance lounged on the sofa, tossing his phone from hand to hand and staring at the small lump Lily made under the covers.

He was going to tell her that she hadn’t eaten, but she wasn’t a child. She knew that.

He was going to ask her what was wrong but feared he wouldn’t like the answer.

If she told him “You’re what’s wrong,” he wouldn’t be surprised, but it would sting anyway, knowing why she’d come along at all. She was there for them to detach themselves from each other with surgical precision so that no one ever found out what they’d done.

It was necessary, of course, but suddenly seemed to be such a waste.

She was going to make some man really happy one day. Lance could recognize who’d likely be getting the better end of the deal. Any man who got her would be lucky.

There was just no way it could be him.

*

“Where’s Ma?”

Lily stirred from sleep in a panic yet again, brain reeling at a question she didn’t know the answer to.

“Where’s Ma?” Lance repeated.

As the fog lifted from Lily’s brain, she realized the question hadn’t been meant for her. The answer wasn’t hers to know.

Sitting up the best she could in the cramped space, she threw off the sweltering covers that Lance must have piled on top of her.

“Why is it so hot in here?” she whispered as she rubbed her eyes.

Falling asleep in her clothing may have had something to do with it.

She heeled off her boots and yanked her sweater over her head.

That was better, though the trailer still seemed unusually warm. Lance usually tended to keep the thermostat set at around sixty-six. That wasn’t surprising or unusual. Shifters ran hot. Having spent so much time around her cousins, Lily was used to wearing layers as necessary. It didn’t feel like sixty-six in there.

“Where’s Ma?” Lance asked again.

“Don’t you know that?” Lily whispered as she rolled up her sleeves. Still too many layers. Pajamas would be better. As she dangled over the edge of the loft, she told the dreaming man, “Your mother is in Maria, probably dead asleep like I wish I were.”

“Ma’s supposed to pick me up,” he said as Lily’s feet touched the floor.

“From where, Lance?”

Responding to him might have been a gentler way of waking him than shaking him. She had no particular desire to be a Coyote by the next full moon.

Her pajamas were on top of the shelf of the organizer in the bathroom. She pulled them on, listening for more of Lance’s murmurs.

“She at home?” he asked. “You’re supposed to be at work. You’re gonna get fired if you don’t go to work. You said so.”

“Who did?” Lily mused.

He wasn’t just dreaming. It seemed as though he were recalling a conversation again.

“Happened again, didn’t it?” he asked. “Tell me. Last time, she said I was old enough to know.”

“Old enough to know what?” Lily whispered.

She paused in front of the thermostat and squinted at the display. The trailer was dark, but she could just barely make out the digits. 76.

“No wonder.” She notched the heat down a few degrees. She’d rather wear a blanket than sweat to death. “Why isn’t he sweating? He should be soaked.”

Turning back to the bed, she noted that he wasn’t even under the covers. He was sprawled on top of messy sheets in his boxer shorts and nothing else. Moving closer, she could indeed see the bead of sweat on his brow and the scowl on his mouth, but she didn’t know if those were due to the greenhouse temperature they were sleeping in or the dream.

Backtracking to the kitchenette, she got a paper towel and wet it with cool water. She swiped it across his forehead.

Still, he didn’t wake.

“She at home?” he asked again. “Why don’t you just stop trying? You’re gonna kill her. Don’t I matter? Shouldn’t I have a mother?”

“Oh, Lance.” Lily had no idea what event had caused him so much turmoil, but the angst in his voice ripped her heart to shreds. He must have been a child, terrified that something awful would happen to his mother.

Lily knew that fear all too well. Not a single day passed without her wondering when she’d get to see her mother again. The longer they went without embracing, the more she feared that something bad would happen before she could see her in the flesh again. Two years was too long for a young woman to be without her mother.

She couldn’t leave him to suffer like that, no matter how much he frustrated her. Figuring out how to wake him was going to being a challenge, though.

“Throw something at him, maybe?” she murmured, eying her pillow. That would put a safe distance between them if he got all shifter ragey from being roused. She could toss it from as far back as the sofa and still have sufficient force.

She grimaced and considered the man’s long reach and supernatural speed. The bathroom was farther. She could stand in the doorway, toss, and then shut herself in hoping for the best. If all was well, she’d come out, no harm done. If he went berserk, there’d be a little metal layer between her and the beast that should stave him off until his head cleared and he remembered where he was.

Carefully, she climbed onto the side of the lower bed and reached for the pillow on the top one. It was just within the range of her grasp when Lance said, “This some kind of joke?”

That was different.

Did he wake up?

She bent her knees to get a peek. Looked like he was still asleep. She grabbed the pillow and got down.

“You’re playing with me,” he said. “Come on. You can’t be serious.”

Those words were somehow redolent. Furrowing her brow, she pressed the pillow under one arm and planted her other fist on her hip.

She couldn’t believe this was what her life had boiled down to—eavesdropping on a Coyote’s dreams to slake her curiosity about him.

“How long have you known?” he asked.

She remembered those words, too.

“We can be in Vegas by tonight,” he said. “Hate fuckin’ going there. The moment I set foot in Nevada, Randall’s gonna know, but we’ll have to risk it.”

Wait…

Lily took a step closer. She remembered all those words. He’d told her that the day she’d told him she was pregnant. He was talking to her, but…not.

“It just has to be done,” he said. “You’re not a Coyote. You’re not my mate. This’ll get people to leave you alone, probably. Has to be done if you’re gonna go through with it.”

Lily perched on the edge of his bed, heartbeat loud in her ears.

Had she become one of his dreams? Or was she a nightmare?

Just wake him.

She wanted to wake him because she was a coward and didn’t want to know what he’d really been thinking of her on that awful morning. She didn’t want to know what thoughts had crawled through his mind after they’d disconnected. At the same time, she recognized that dreams had their purposes. They helped the brain process strong emotions and traumatic events, even long after the traumas had occurred. But she didn’t want to be anyone’s trauma.

She reached for him as he asked, “You gonna go through with it?”

“I wanted to,” she found herself quietly answering.

Even alone, she would have been okay. She had lots of family around. Even if her father had completely disowned her, she would have had her cousins and all the Cougars. Cougar women rallied and pitched in. There’d been no doubt in her mind that Lily wasn’t going to succeed at being a mother if she chose to. Her friends weren’t going to let her fail.

“Give me a couple hours,” he said. “Can fly out as soon as I finish up some errands.”

And they had. A silent, nervous flight to Vegas, during which the refrain she’d been whispering in her brain was, “Am I really doing this?”

“Married a man I hardly knew, and for what?” she asked Lance’s slumbering form. “Just so that no one would criticize me? And so that no one would bother your kid? That’s what Coyotes do, right? Always looking for quick fixes.”

“I don’t understand,” he murmured. “This far? I don’t understand.” He tossed his head, expression crinkling with anguish. “When? Two days ago? But you said you were ten weeks.”

Oh no. No no no.

She wasn’t going to let him recount that. She didn’t want a replay the aftermath of one of the worst nights of her life from his perspective. Having done the hard work of living through it, she thought she’d earned the right not to have to listen to the highlight reel.

Without thinking, she gave his shoulder an insistent push. “Lance.”

His pale eyes, reflexive as mirrors in the dark, snapped open and before her body could complete its backward recoil, he’d thrown his arm around her waist. He yanked her close, teeth bared.

She was close enough to hear the beginnings of a growl starting in his chest, even through the bombastic pulse in her ears. Close enough to hear his heart’s accelerating patter. Close enough to see when his pupils began to shrink and feel when the tension in his body began to abate.

“Shit. Lily.” He dragged his tongue across his lips and took a breath. “What are you doing?”

“I…tried to wake you.” She tried to wriggle out from under his arm, but even with his lazier, wakeful grip, she couldn’t move her body enough to work herself free. “You were having a dream.”

“I don’t dream.”

“Bullshit. Either you dream, or you tell secrets in your sleep due to being in some kind of hypnotic trance. If the latter, you better call Blue and tell him he has a new rabbit hole of research to burrow into. That’s something you should really get checked out. Gods know how many trade secrets you may have leaked to your travel trailer—” She clamped her teeth and spit the word “companions” through them.

“What was I saying?” He made a decent effort at trying to sound cavalier about it.

He failed. Lance may have been casual, but he was always serious.

“Are you or are you not recognizing that you were in fact dreaming? I can’t believe this is even an argument.”

He shrugged jerkily beneath her. If the idea of actually letting her go dawned on him, he certainly didn’t act on it.

“Maybe I don’t remember all my dreams,” he said. “Sometimes I wake up knowing that I was dreaming, but whatever the dream was about sort of slides away before my wakeful brain can grab onto it.”

“Maybe that’s for the best.”

“Maybe it’s not. You’re being super cagey,” he said.

“I did you a favor.”

“What favor would that be?”

She raised a triumphant eyebrow. “I woke you.”

“Loud sex dream disturbing you?” She could see the corners of his lips inching upward in her periphery.

She rolled her eyes. He should have known by then she wasn’t so easy to scandalize. Being related to who she was, if she got her panties in a bunch over every off-color statement a shifter uttered around her, she’d spend her entire life offended. Frankly, she had too much shit to do to let that happen.

“Do you feel like you were having a sex dream?” She wedged her knee between his thighs and gave it a revelatory wriggle. “Doesn’t feel like you were to me, but I may have forgotten some anatomical certainties.” She canted her head and worked her arm out from the band of his grip so she could tap her chin. “Which way did you hang? Left or right?”

“Gravity doesn’t work that way, shortcake. I’m on my back.” The corners of his mouth twitched again. “What do you think is filling the gap between your belly and mine? Sure as hell isn’t my waistband.”

She blinked at him.

“I like physics,” he said. “Almost as much as I like anatomy.”

She swallowed and tried to make sense of what her body was feeling without actually moving. If that massive bulge beneath her wasn’t gathered fabric, then mescal had erased a phenomenal memory.

And then it twitched.

Fabric didn’t tend to do that.

Shit.

“I’m just…gonna go back to bed.” She crooked her thumb toward the top bunk. “You’re awake now. Maybe just try to keep it down. Okay?”

“Keep what down? We’ve already discussed the physics, shortcake. There’s nowhere for it to go but up, and it’s too heavy for that.”

“Let go of me.”

“You really want me to? You smell pretty relaxed to me.”

Bastard.

She tried to work up some inner turmoil and get her hormones moving in a more “Eek, I’m prey,” kind of direction, but all she managed to do was get a better idea of the exact outlines of a certain physics experiment.

It was a wonder she’d been able to walk afterward.

Or could I?

She narrowed her eyes at him. “Could I walk?”

“When?”

“That night after I left Blue’s.”

“Probably about as well as I could.”

“You don’t remember.”

“Bits and pieces.”

“Okay, well, I’ll leave you to your bits and pieces.” His very prominent bits and pieces.

“What’s the hurry? You’re shivering. Might as well stay until you’re warmed up.”

“If I’m shivering, it’s not become I’m cold. It’s plenty warm in here. I had to turn down the heater.”

“Turned it up because you’re always cold.”

Oh.

So she was. Some little voice inside her head screamed out for her to tell him why, but she couldn’t. She’d sound so dramatic. “I could have died that night.”

Anger was easier than being sad.

“I’m fine right now,” she said.

“Okay.” He gave his throat one of those “Well, that’s that” clearings, closed his eyes, and let his head fall to the side.

“Uh. Lance?”

“Yeah.” He cleared his throat again and shifted his right leg so she fit more snugly between them.

And more in touch with his physics experiment.

Damn. Damn.

She pressed her palms to the mattress and pushed herself up onto them.

That small victory didn’t last long, because he’d apparently only let go of her to grab the corner of the covers.

He pulled them over her body in its plank position and looped his arm back around her trunk. “You’re making a draft.”

He tugged her back down and cleared his throat again.

“What are you doing?”

“You wanted to shut me up so you could sleep, right? Congratulations. You’re shutting me up.”

“My best idea was really more along the lines of suffocating you with my pillow.”

“Nah, I’d just chew through it before you could succeed.” He grinned. “You want me quiet, this is how you can make your wish come true.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Apparently you have much to learn about shapeshifters.”

Maybe she did, but he didn’t seem especially interested in furthering her education, in spite of the fact that she kept waiting for him to say more.

He didn’t.

Within a couple of minutes, he began to snore softly.

“Lance.”

He smacked his lips and settled her even tighter against his chest in his sleep.

“Lance.”

“Gods,” he groaned. “What?”

“My bed’s up there.”

“Just stay where you are.”

“Why?”

“I just…” Still facing the wall, he opened his eyes and let out a long, ragged breath. “I don’t want to dream. Just…stay there so I don’t. Okay?”

“But I thought—”

“I don’t want to talk about it right now. Okay?”

“So, you know? You know what’s in your dreams?”

He didn’t respond.

She didn’t push. That haunted look in his eyes told her to back off, and she would because she was smarter than he gave her credit for.

She put down her head and closed her eyes. “Okay.” In the morning, they could pick up their fight where they’d left off.

Besides, she was comfortable where she was.