CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

“Marcie.”

Christ, she was gray.

Marcella had shown up exactly when she said, at seven on the dot for them to get started for the day, but she seemed to have left her mojo in her room.

He pulled out of the drive-through line he’d been waiting in and slung the SUV into a parking spot. “Marcie.”

She had her head propped against the window and her eyes closed. She twined her fingers primly atop her lap. “Only my granny gets to call me that.”

“Make an exception.”

She sighed.

Seriously? Just a sigh?

That wasn’t right.

“Who are you and what did you do with Marcella Bailey?” he asked.

“Hmm?”

“You sighed. Where’s the smart-ass response?”

“Give me a few minutes to come up with something good. Do you want something mean or something funny?”

“What’s with you?”

“Nothing. Where’s the coffee?”

“I pulled out of the line.”

“Huh?” She reached blindly for the armrest and pushed herself a bit more upright. The movement seemed more than a chore than it should have.

“Did you not sleep last night after you left my room?”

“Mmm. I dunno. Maybe?”

“That’s a yes or no question. You’d know if you slept.”

“Maybe I did for a few minutes.”

“Perhaps you should go back and get some. You’re no good going into a mission if you haven’t slept. You look gray. I don’t want you turning into a puddle in the middle of a conflict.”

She pouted, eyes still closed. “I won’t.”

“Marcie, open your eyes.”

“I’d rather sleep.” She put her head against the window again.

He grabbed her arm, righted her posture, and then took her face in his hands. “Look at me.”

She sighed again, and if he wasn’t suspicious before, the feeling ramped up in him like a rocket trying to climb out of the atmosphere.

“Open them. Now.”

“Bastard.” She raised the lids slowly, one then the other.

No dark brown irises. No whites.

No eyes at all—only the appearance of water.

“Fuck.” He pressed her lids back down.

“I’d really like that coffee.”

“And I’d really like to know why you’re in this state right now. Were you up working spells all night or something?”

“No.”

“Then what?”

“Nothing for you to worry about.”

“Bullshit.”

“I’m fine. In a couple of hours, I’ll be good as new. Trust me.”

“I’d trust you more if you were honest with me.”

“I haven’t lied to you.”

“You’re withholding the truth. Same thing.”

“Hardly.”

Gritting his teeth, he drummed his fingertips against his thigh and stared through the windshield. There was nothing out there but fields. They were at the edge of a town in the middle of nowhere. They were lucky there was a restaurant with a drive-through at all.

“Marcie—”

“I don’t see the point of having a share-all right now,” she interjected with frustration. “You’re going to get angry, and anger isn’t always the most productive emotion to be carrying around.”

“You’re preaching about anger to a Bear?”

“Seemed an appropriate time.”

“Trust me. I know better than almost anyone how to channel anger into something I can use to get shit done.”

“Perhaps you can teach me to do that someday. Seems like a useful skill.”

“What were you doing last night? Tell me.”

“What did you do after I left?”

“Classic deflection. You think I wouldn’t notice a subject change?”

“Because my activities don’t matter. We have a job to do, and before we can do it, I need a coffee, and maybe a sausage biscuit or something. The morning calls for pork.”

“Unbelievable.” He pulled back into the line and put an order in at the box. As he inched the SUV toward the window to wait, he stared at the side of her face.

He didn’t like seeing her that color. He didn’t like having to speculate wildly about what she’d done to get that way. If she were trying to earn her Shrew & Company secrecy merit badge, she had probably already qualified for one three times over.

The car behind him tapped on the horn and, snarling, Soren moved up a space.

She was distracting him, and he the distraction wouldn’t stop until he found out what the hell had happened to her. They couldn’t work like that.

“Believe it or not,” he grumbled, “when I’m forced to work with Peter, we do actually talk. I imagined you’d be better at that than him.”

“Because I’m a woman?”

“No, because Peter’s preferred method of communicating is with grunts and pokes.”

She made a scrunched face at that.

“If I’m truly your mate, I imagine we’re supposed to be more efficient working as a duo,” she said.

“That’s the theory.” He moved the SUV up to the payment window and handed the clerk a twenty. When he’d received his change, and the teen had shut his window, Soren said to Marcella in a whisper, “Whatever the problem is, you can tell me. I’ve made a fortune from assassinating people who needed killing. If there’s anyone you can unburden yourself to, it’s me.”

She opened her eyes and looked forward. Some of the solidness had returned, though the color hadn’t. The fact she could see at all was a marvel to him. Doc would probably be breathless with excitement when she finally got her hands on Marcella. Advanced crossword puzzles and Shrews were her favorite things to mull over.

“What were you doing last night?” He moved the car up one more slot. He’d be glad when they were finally away from that blasted building, and he didn’t have to watch his words or his volume. “Tell me, or I swear, I’ll call Dana right now and have her pull you from this case. You can’t work like this.”

“You wouldn’t.”

“So help me God, I fucking would.”

“Fine,” she spat, but she didn’t put much heart into the word. She sighed again and swallowed. “After I left, I…I didn’t go back to my room,” she said haltingly. “I mean, I did, but, I didn’t stay. I dropped off my computer and then crept back out.”

Knew I should have fucking followed her.

The one time he’d given his mate the slightest bit of leeway, she’d absconded and had apparently nearly gotten herself splashed. He drummed his fingers on the steering wheel with impatience. “Where’d you go?” He grabbed the bag and the drink carrier from the clerk at the second window and didn’t bother checking the contents before peeling off.

He thrust them onto her lap and barked, “Talk.”

“I did you a favor.”

“Me?” What kind of favor could you possibly have done for me by going out and nearly liquefying yourself? I would have told you in very succinct language not to. In case I haven’t made the point perfectly obvious, I prefer for my mate to be healthy and intact.”

She rolled her eyes, or at least, he thought she did. He couldn’t easily tell with her lack of irises. The fact they hadn’t returned yet unsettled him a bit. He knew next to nothing about the kind of creature she was, but he knew a little something about wind-walkers, and wind-walkers worried about losing permanent cohesion. If they shifted too often or for too long, they could get trapped in their air state. They could become witnesses to the life happening around them but no longer able to participate in it.

The Castillos were exceedingly careful about when they chose to take that shape, but apparently, Marcella didn’t always have a choice.

That worried him. He didn’t want to lose Marcella to some shit she had no control over. There had to be a solution—a fix for her.

“Yes, you,” she said drily. “You were put off by having to do the work, so I handled things for you. You should thank me.”

“The work?” He turned onto the road and headed toward the wildlife rehab center. Pamela had apparently done some late-night brainstorming with one of the Bears in her group, and he ended up calling Wes to arrange for a meeting. He’d been so compliant up to that point that Wes hadn’t suspected anything of him, and believed that he simply had something to show him.

Soren programmed his GPS machine. “What work, Marcella? The only work I’ve refused in the past several months was a job from my parents.”

“We’re talking about the same one.”

“I don’t follow your line of thought. Why would you have anything to do with Bear business?”

“It became my business when your parents made it my business. In case you weren’t aware, they have an uncanny ability to find phone numbers and email addresses.”

“They contacted you?”

“Indeed.”

I’m going to kill them.

As soon as they’d close the case, he was going to find a sturdy bed to tie his reckless mate to, and then he was going to fly to Romania. Apparently, his parents were long overdue to see his fangs.

“And they told you, what? To convince me to do the job? I’d already refused them numerous times. I wasn’t going to change my mind.”

“You don’t understand. Your parents didn’t want me to play advocate. They asked me to do the work since you couldn’t.”

That didn’t make sense. Soren couldn’t keep driving—not and be able to stay in his lane. He pulled over as soon as there was a shoulder wide enough to perch the SUV on and yanked up the parking brake.

“Tell me you’re joking with me, Marcella. Tell me you’re not getting involved in Ursu bullshit.”

“I believe I got involved in your so-called Ursu bullshit from the moment you caught a sniff of me at Eric Falk’s lodge.”

He couldn’t argue against that. He groaned. “What did my parents ask you to do?”

“Easy enough job, actually, and I didn’t leave a trace behind. That was the first time I’ve ever used a plumbing system to access a house.” Her voice held a note of tired wonderment. “A new trick for my arsenal, I suppose. I’ll have to remember that one. Anyhow, he had friends sitting around outside, and I didn’t want to risk being seen. I got in through the bathtub drain, walked straight into his bedroom, and drowned him as he slept. He never woke up. I left the same way I got in.”

Soren stared at her, not knowing what to say or even what to feel, but he knew one thing. If she’d told him what she’d planned, he wouldn’t have let her go. The mess wasn’t hers. He didn’t want her involved in Ursu shit. He didn’t want to be involved in Ursu business.

“You… Why, Marcella?” He slapped the console holding the cup holder, spilling coffee into the receptacles and not giving a single shit about the mess. “Why the hell did you do this? You don’t have anything to prove to them.”

“This has nothing to do with proving anything to anyone!” she shouted.

“Are you certain?”

“How dare you? I did your family a favor—did your Bears a favor—and you immediately assume that I only wanted to show off my magic tricks? Are you fucking kidding me?”

“I honestly can’t think of another reason you’d do something so stupid.”

“I just told you. I did it to save you and Peter some hassle. I did it because I could, and easily, and no one would have been the wiser. You should be thanking me, not raging a silly defense.”

Thanking her wasn’t what his brain was telling him. His brain was telling him that she’d gone behind his back and tangled with a man known to be ruthlessly dangerous even after both he and Peter had refused the job. She’d gone a-murdering despite him.

Or perhaps, to spite him.

He loosened his white-knuckled grip on the steering wheel and, staring through the windshield, concentrated on grinding his teeth instead of running his mouth.

For the first time since he’d laid eyes on her, he started to wonder if perhaps they weren’t right for each other. Perhaps she was too independent, and she’d been right in trying to repel him. He didn’t know if he could manage, as a Bear or as a man, who couldn’t respect him both professionally or personally—who thought she could do his job, and better than him.

The food bag crinkled at his right. In his periphery, he watched Marcella set a coffee into the cup holder, and wedge the bag behind it after taking out what she wanted.

She’d been the one demanding space for weeks, but he was starting to see the appeal of distance, too. Not because he didn’t want her—that would probably never change. He wanted her the way he wanted to eat and breathe. He needed space because he couldn’t work through his anger at her because the overwhelming drive to nurture and coddle her got in the way.

Perhaps a football field of distance between them would be sufficient to start. If not, he could always see about renting a rocket ship. He’d heard the moon was pleasant that time of year.