CHAPTER TWO
Try as she might, Lily was having a hard time keeping up with the women’s rapid-fire dialect. She’d been bilingual since learning to speak and was starting to suspect that the comprehension problem wasn’t due to rusty language skills on her part. Their dialect of Spanish seemed to contain an unpredictable smattering of indigenous words she was only superficially familiar with. Further, they were speaking so quickly and with such constant verbal shorthand that the sounds were almost blurring together. She had to close her eyes and concentrate hard to pick apart the language components.
“La rubia,” they kept saying. That was how she knew they were talking about her. She was the only blond woman anywhere around them. From what she could catch, they didn’t seem to be speaking of her in ill terms, which made sense, since one of the women had thrust a baby at her the moment she’d been guided into the cluttered vehicle.
She shifted the baby to her other arm and tried to get comfortable atop the hard footlocker she sat on. All of the seats in the fifteen-seater van, save the captain’s chairs in the front and the bench immediately behind it, had been removed to make room for the women’s possessions. The bags and crates were packed tight as Jenga towers. Lily pondered how long they must have been on the road.
Lance, tied to the bench still mounted to the floor, twisted his body and tried to kick his legs out of his bindings.
Lily had watched the women tie him up and knew the futility of the movements. Those binds were secure, and that cording was unbreakable.
“What the hell is this?” he asked, though Lily didn’t know who. She’d been hoping he’d just keep his mouth shut until she could figure out what was happening.
Fat chance of that.
The woman who’d pulled her into the van poked her head into the van at his query but only stared at him with cool annoyance before returning to her conversation outside. She’d been so curious about a scar on the back of Lily’s neck, and Lily had been too taken aback to say anything about it except, “Yeah, it’s pretty wide, huh?” It seemed a random thing to her that a stranger would so boldly point out the slight disfigurement.
Lily strained to see her through the window. She’d never met anyone who looked like her before, and questions sprang out of the ether of Lily’s mind.
The woman was a dominating figure of around thirty whose incongruous features spoke of some mixed heritage that wasn’t often seen in Mexico, where the van’s license plates indicated she and her entourage were from. Her skin was dark, her hair scraped back into a single long braid had a coarse and cottony texture normally seen only in people of African descent, but her face bore a resemblance to every Mixtec sculpture Lily had seen in museums.
“Hmm. Maybe that explains the language,” Lily mused quietly.
Holding the baby against her chest, she wriggled a path through the mounds of laundry bags piled in front of the farthest back edge of the window for a closer look at the other women. Variations on a theme. Some lighter, some darker. Some with straighter hair, some with curlier. All with dark eyes and dangerous litheness she should have recognized on sight. She’d grown up around shifters and was usually better at spotting them before she could offend them. She was praying she hadn’t.
She didn’t quite grasp what was happening, but evidently, they didn’t intend to hurt her. They wouldn’t have plopped someone’s baby on her lap if they had. If the baby was alarmed at all by the commotion, she didn’t show it. She was too busy trying to shove ever more fingers into her mouth, gnawing and drooling with all the telltale enthusiasm of the perpetually teething. Chunky-cheeked and diaper-bottomed, and wearing mismatched clothes. Missing one of her socks.
Lily’s belly lurched with yearning.
Bad medicine.
When she’d thought she was going to be the next victim of Maria’s baby boom, she hadn’t been all that put out by the idea. Her life wouldn’t have changed much with or without Lance; she would have had scads of support on the ranch. Aunt Glenda was pretty much always holding someone’s baby. Her best friend, and cousin, Belle, though aggressively swerving away from any surprises from the stork of her own, was like a bonus mom to her niece and nephews. Then there were all the ladies in the Cougar group who espoused the “it takes a community” method of childrearing.
Lily would have been fine.
It just wasn’t meant to be.
She ran a hand over the baby’s curls and smiled at those five uncovered, fat toes.
Lily had been a scrawny baby. Small and pink like a newborn bird. Not at all cute until she was around two, not even with the darling little earrings her mother had the pediatrician put in. Her father had insisted, though, that she’d been the prettiest baby in Maria. Of course, he would have. He was one of those parents whose children were the center of their universe.
Lily could do no wrong…because she was never given enough latitude to.
He would have surely flipped his lid about her getting tangled up with a shapeshifter just like Aunt Glenda had, but he didn’t really have to know that. The less he knew, the better.
“Lily?” Lance couldn’t see, but his head was angled precisely toward her. He was probably cataloging every sound she made.
“I’m fine.” She poked at adorable flat baby feet and toes that curled up when she tickled the soles. “Stop being so darn cute, because I’ll ask to take you home,” she said with a giggle. “Why are you so cute?”
“Who are you talking to?” Lance asked.
“Not you.”
His jaw tightened. He took a deep breath and let it out. “What are they saying outside?” he asked in a slow, annoyed-sounding monotone.
She rolled her eyes but tried to focus on their words, anyway. “That’s what I’m trying to sort out.”
Five women stood in the space between the two camper pull-ins, chattering rapidly and madly gesticulating. They were all in black. Lily couldn’t tell if they were in mourning or if that was their uniform of sorts. Their garments ran the gamut between casual and dressy. The youngest amongst them, who couldn’t have been more than twenty, was in leggings and a flannel shirt that had holes at the elbows. The eldest—the leader, the best the Lily could guess—was dressed fairly conservatively. She was all tucked in and covered and had her hair neatly gathered in that braid.
“I’m only catching bits and pieces,” Lily said. “Their dialect is pretty piecemeal.”
“Dialect of what?”
“That’s Spanish, obviously.”
“I wasn’t so sure.”
“I would think that living in the western states all your life, you’d be able to recognize it.”
“I can recognize Spanish even if I can’t speak it. Something’s off with what they’re speaking. It’s the… I don’t know. The rhythm of it, I guess.”
“I think it’s a sort of creole. I can’t guess region.”
“Why would you be able to?”
Of course he thought she didn’t know anything. That lazy thinking was probably easiest for him—assuming she wouldn’t possess some intelligence that he didn’t. That made talking all over her when he wanted to get his way expected. He was a typical dominant shifter who still needed housebreaking.
She didn’t feel compelled to be tactful. He never held his tongue for her, so she figured she should start doing the same for him.
“My mother is Mexican,” she said evenly. “As in, lives-in-Mexico.”
Cue the usual superficial observation in 3. 2. 1—
“You’re blonde.”
“And you’re brilliant.”
People were nothing if not predictable. If she’d had a dollar for every time she’d had the same conversation in college, she could have paid for a semester of out-of-state tuition.
“You’ve seen my father,” she said through clenched teeth and then forced herself to relax her jaw. “He’s the whitest white man in New Mexico. My mother calls him ‘transparente.’”
Unnerved, Lily gave the interior of the van a longer scan, looking now for untended weapons or other dangerous things those women could harm them with. What they were doing didn’t make sense, but shapeshifter logic rarely squared with common sense. They simply weren’t going to be predictable to her. That didn’t mean she had to just ride out the chaos without being proactive.
She knew better than to expect the best from people.
“Given that none of us pick what bodies we’re born into,” she said, loud enough to muffle the sound of the creaks as she opened the footlocker, “let’s move on from the vagaries of genetics, shall we?”
There was nothing interesting in the container. Just toiletries and extra diapers.
Hmm.
She settled back atop the footlocker and slid her phone out of her back pocket. The idea of dialing 9-1-1 quickly came and fled. Even with their weapons, human cops were no match for a well-organized group of shapeshifters. Lily would be setting them up to lose.
It didn’t matter, anyway. There was no signal inside that van.
She’d have to think of something else.
“I feel like that’s something I should have known. About your mother, I mean.”
“Why?” she asked in a light tone belying her mood. It was probably a good thing he couldn’t see her face. She was used to people disappointing her and saying shitty racist things, but she hadn’t married those people.
He gave a jerky shrug and immediately cringed. The cordage was probably digging into his wrists. The fact she hadn’t considered loosening the knots before then suddenly dawned on her. She should have felt guilty.
She didn’t.
“Dunno. Just realized that I don’t know much of anything about you beyond the fact that your hair color is…well, natural.”
“Yeah, lucky me. My carpet matches my drapes. I’m surprised you can remember,” she muttered.
“Meaning what?”
“As far as I can recall, you didn’t seem to be all that observant that night. You could barely keep your eyes open.”
“Same could be said for you.”
“I don’t need to see to know what I’m doing.”
After a few seconds of silence, he murmured, “Fuck if I can remember.” He tilted his head toward the open door. “What are they doing?”
“Conferencing.”
“Did they put their fangs and claws away?”
“Yes.”
“Any idea what they are? Evidence says Cougar, but the scent’s not quite right.”
“Not being a shifter myself, I don’t have any added insight on that. As far as I can tell, they haven’t mentioned what they are.”
“What was that lady looking at on your neck?”
Lily’s hand immediately went to the scar on the back of her neck. She could still make out the slight ridges when she ran her fingertips across the flesh. Lola Perez had once accidentally scratched Lily with her ring while adjusting Lily’s necklace. At least, accidental was what Lily had believed until she’d thought to get a mirror and look at the thing. To Lily, it looked too symmetrical to be accidental—not like any letter in the Roman alphabet, but somehow still purposefully crafted. She’d been curious, but never enough to ask Lola about it. People knew better than to question Lola. The ancient goddess had subtle ways of making interrogators regret ever drawing their first breath, and Lily wasn’t the kind of girl who’d push her luck.
“There’s a scar there,” she told Lance. “Lola scratched me a couple of years ago.”
“Did she do it on purpose? Because if she did it on purpose, that’s a mark, not a scar.”
Lily rubbed the raised flesh again, contemplating. “Assuming she did do it on purpose, why would she mark me?”
He shrugged again. “Maybe because you’re related to her favored alpha. Every shifter in town knows of her special relationship with the Foyes.”
“Is that a dig at my cousins?” Lily wasn’t itching for a fight, but if he wanted one, she’d kindly oblige.
“Just the truth. If the truth is offensive to you, I can’t help that.”
She scoffed and murmured under her breath, “What did I think I’d get out of marrying you?”
“I think you and I both know what our thought processes were, and you definitely didn’t marry me for my winning personality. You really want to talk about that right now, though? I think we both knew that starting the dialogue in the truck wouldn’t have been the smartest decision given the disagreeable moods we both seemed to wake up with this morning. Our moods have gotten exponentially worse since then, so does now seem like a good time to you?”
She didn’t think so, especially not while holding a slumbering baby who was quickly turning into dead weight over Lily’s arm. She didn’t want to talk about marriage, babies, or her cousins. Any of those things were guaranteed to put her in a dark mood she wouldn’t be able to shake. She was known for her cheerfulness, and faked it when she had to—which was almost always—but sometimes even she couldn’t muster up the effort.
“If that’s a mark on your neck,” Lance said, “it might be something that’s universally recognized by members of a certain group. Have any of the Cougars in Maria commented on it?”
“I don’t think they’ve seen it. I usually wear collared shirts.”
“I think it’s probably—wait.” He jerked a bit more upright in his seat and turned his head straight at her as though he could see through that thick fabric. “Is there any chance those ladies are distracted enough that you can get these cords off me? Feels like wire. It’s digging into my skin.”
Lily didn’t have time to answer him. The apparent leader of the Cat posse stepped up into the van, took the baby from Lily, and tilted her head commandingly toward the door.
“You…want me to…”
“Lily?” Lance queried.
“Who the hell is shushing me?”
The lady took one ominous step toward him, and Lily’s wits cranked up and got her moving. She arced between the two of them and murmured, “Just do what they say,” as she departed.
“Lily?” he repeated.
She stepped away from the van at the woman’s urging.
The lady closed the heavy sliding door one-handed.
“Lily?” Lance called through the open window.
The lady tutted and got Lily moving toward the pad’s picnic table where the others were busy setting up the midday meal.
“Um…” Food? Now? Lily wondered about their priorities. She crooked her thumb back toward the van, confused. “That guy in there. El hombre. Debemos—”
She handed the baby back to Lily and said with emphasis, “Martha.”
“Me? No. Lily.”
“No, la bebé se llama Martha.”
“Oh.” A little titter escaped Lily’s mouth as she leaned the slumbering baby onto a shoulder. “Who would name a Mexican baby Martha?”
The lady narrowed her eyes at her. Evidently, Lily had offended her just that quickly, and she hadn’t needed any help from Lance, after all.
She shifted her weight nervously and tried to make her smile serene. “Of all things, though.”
The lady smirked. Disarmed, she waved a hand as though to swat the notion away and bumped Lily’s side with her elbow. “Tú sabes. Como Martha Stewart.”
“¿Pero por qué?” Lily asked. Learning why the child was named after a domestic doyenne probably wasn’t important in the greater scheme of things, especially with Lance shouting at them from the van, but sometimes conversations about light things made people more agreeable on other subjects. Lily just needed an in to understand who the women were. Shifters were rarely like normal people. Normal people probably wouldn’t have been having a picnic ten feet from the man they’d basically abducted and cheerfully inviting his wife to eat with them.
“Martha crea,” the woman said. She opened her arms in an expansive gesture. “Ella puede hacer cualquier cosa que quiera.”
“Oh,” Lily said with cheer. Naming a baby after a woman who created things seemed pretty damn reasonable. “I approve, then.”
The lady grinned. Her features were stern when her expression was serious, but when she smiled, she was arrestingly handsome. Hard for Lily to take her eyes from.
“Ah. Me llamo Estela.” After indicating herself, she pointed to each of the other four women in turn. “Josefina. Guadalupe. Nayeli. Blanca.”
Lily lifted a brow at the last. The lady did happen to be the palest of them. Hell of a coincidence if it were one. “¿De veras?”
Blanca rolled her eyes. “Is nickname,” she said huskily, flicking a hand dismissively toward the rest of the women before resuming her chore of unwrapping foods. “They give. It stick. Ha ha. So funny I laugh.”
Lily certainly wanted to laugh a little. Given the gravity of the situation, though, she managed to keep the sound in her body where it would do no harm. “Ah. Listen, I’m sure you think you mean well and such but I think—”
Guadalupe, a heavyset woman in a polka-dotted skirt and Adidas chanclas grunted and swatted some of the dusty film off the bench. She gestured for Lily to sit and eat.
“Um.” Lily looked beseechingly at the food, and guilt tumbled through her. Taking a couple of minutes to put one tortilla in her belly probably wouldn’t break Lance, and she had to eat something. She’d been too anxious to gulp down a decent breakfast before they’d left Maria. Her alarm clock hadn’t woken her—the panic of not knowing what she was going to say to him during the long drive did.
Sitting at the end of the bench, she shifted sleeping Martha to her left arm and pulled a couple of tortillas closer. Rustic. Handmade. Still warm.
So hungry.
One couldn’t hurt.
Noting the movement in her periphery, she turned toward the grill. Josefina was moving meat around on it, dancing a bit as she sang lewdly to herself. Nayeli mashed tortillas in a press, giving her head the small shakes of the perpetually embarrassed. Her cheeks were a little red, eyes downcast.
Lily had seen that expression enough to recognize sibling shame when she saw it. The Foye brothers’ favorite pastime was to torture each other. Belle hated being caught in public with them.
“Lily!” Lance bellowed.
Lily cringed and turned to stand. She couldn’t believe how distracted she’d let them get her. Her priorities were way out of whack. Certainly, she wasn’t so attention-starved that she’d turn to strangers for fellowship.
Am I?
Josefina sat beside her, pulled Lily back into place, and hovered a ladle of beans over Lily’s tortilla questioningly.
“Um. Well, go ahead, but can we talk about—”
Guadalupe danced over and slid chopped meat onto Lily’s beans.
It looked so tender and the aroma of peppers and herbs hinted that it’d be perfectly spiced. The rice looked good, too. Perfect little white grains dotted with transparent onions and a bit of cilantro.
Her mother made her so much rice whenever Lily visited. With butter. Without butter. Served inside burritos and beneath carnitas. Accompanying Lily’s favorite black beans. In soups and stews. Even in desserts.
Lily couldn’t cook rice to save her life. If there was a way to ruin it, she’d done it.
Just one little bite?
“That…smells good,” she said weakly.
“Secret recipe,” Blanca said. “From Oaxaca.”
“Is that where you’re from?” Lily asked with a note of feigned disinterest.
In what seemed like rehearsed synchrony, the ladies did hand waves of “Eh.”
Lily furrowed her brow. “No?”
“Live there long time,” Blanca said. “Not from there.”
“Oh. Far drive from here. Do all of you…um…speak English?” Even as a fluent diglot, Lily wasn’t entirely sure she could tactfully translate “That screaming dude says you’re not human, so, what kind of creature are you, anyway?” but she needed to ask or else they’d probably be sitting there all day shooting the breeze. The fact they were so skeptical of Lance and yet so friendly to her didn’t make sense.
“All a little,” Estela said. “Blanca best. Nayeli worst.”
“Okay, then.” Grimacing, Lily pinched the bridge of her nose. “Let’s see if I can ask this without getting myself tied to a van seat and left to swelter.” She dropped her hand, took a breath, and turned to Estela. “You all know that I know that you’re not human, so why don’t we cut the crap now and you tell me what the hell is going on?”