Chapter Thirty-One
“You’re licensed to ride.”
Angel blinked and faced her companion. Surprisingly, he wasn’t watching the waitress’s pendulum of an ass. His eyes were on her license instead, where it still waited between them on the table. He leaned in and nodded at it, raising a curious brow. Obviously he’d seen the “M” along with the “C” under the registered vehicle class.
Angel shrugged. “I don’t ride anymore.”
“Why not?”
Angel looked away, focusing on the glasses of beer on the table a few feet away from their booth. She stared at the amber bubbles rising from the bottom. It looked like she and Jake weren’t the only ones wanting to get an early start on things that day. “It’s just…” she started. But then she trailed off and smiled, meeting his eyes again. “What’s it to you?” she asked, not in an unfriendly way, but with enough evasiveness she hoped he could tell she didn’t want to talk about it.
Jake leaned back again, and the overhead lights flashed across his jade-shard eyes. He ignored her question and asked another of his own. “What was it you liked about riding?”
Angel blinked. She looked down at the table top, absently tracing a star someone had carved into it long ago. Her mind turned back the clock fifteen years.
Normally she found it hard to think back to those times, but for some reason, a feeling of serenity was stealing over her, and she closed her eyes. There in that darkness, old sensations re-emerged. “I didn’t like riding,” she said softly, though her voice echoed in her ears. “I loved it.”
She licked her lips as she felt the throttle in her grip, the wind in her hair, the saddle between her squeezing thighs. “I loved the way my bike was a part of me, an extension. It moved where I looked, leaned when I leaned, echoed my emotions with the slightest provocation.” She laughed suddenly, recalling how when she’d been angry or impatient, the bike had been too. She’d broken more than her share of speeding laws that way.
“But mostly it was the freedom,” she continued. “I was… immortal on that bike. I was above it all, untouchable.” She shook her head. “Uncageable. Nothing could get to me. Not even reality.” Especially reality, her thoughts echoed.
Then she opened her eyes to find that Jacob Crow was observing her with intense scrutiny, his disturbingly beautiful eyes sparking like green fire. Aside from those eyes however, his expression was unreadable, and if the carved stone of flexed muscle pressed against his shirt was any indication, there seemed to be a new tension riding him.
Angel cleared her throat; it felt a little dry again. She noticed that the waitress had brought the coffees to their table while she’d been in her memory stupor, and hastily she picked both of them up and switched them. When Jake smiled wryly at her behavior, she grinned and shrugged. “Can you blame me?”
He laughed.
She picked hers up and took a few quick sips. “Oh… crap,” she whispered, blushing when she realized she’d said it out loud. But it was so good. It was just shy of scalding hot, it was sweet, and it burned just the right amount as it slid soothingly down her throat. “You were right. This is amazing.”
Jake grinned in satisfaction. “I’m glad you like it.” He picked up his own, and he must have felt it was safe because he put it to his lips and took a few sips himself.
As Angel swallowed the warm, therapeutic drink, her brain began to clear. A kind of fog was sliding away, and in that sudden clarity, she realized everything she’d just said about riding, and that she’d said it all to a bona fide biker. She blushed and laughed nervously. “But look who I’m talking to about riding.” A member of a motorcycle club, no less.
Jacob Crow laughed again. It was an honest and pleasant sound, one that sort of vibrated through her like an internal massage. She forgot about her clumsy divulgence and was feeling good again in a few seconds flat.
“You know, that’s pretty much the only thing I know about you, Crow.” She took another long sip and put the mug down. “I know you ride and I know you own a bad ass car. You seem to know a hell of a lot more about me.”
Jake smiled. “Do I?”
“You already knew I didn’t ride. The Monsters clan is a motorcycle club. You don’t go anywhere without your bikes. But you didn’t even ask; you just brought me out in the GTO.” She smiled a sly smile, and thoroughly enjoyed the fast flash of surprise he was unable to hide from his gaze. “And you know I like this drink. There are hundreds of coffee drinks you could have chosen from, and Irish Coffee is normally what people suggest. But not you.”
Jake straightened a little and chewed on his cheek, watching her with a far more shrewd look than he had been before.
Angel looked him dead in the eye. “You had me vetted, didn’t you?”
There were several tense seconds of silence between them before Jake shook his head and grinned. “Damn, Angel.” He actually laughed, the sound once more delicious and deep. “You really are good. And I messed up.”
“Yeah, you did,” she chuckled. She didn’t care if he’d had her researched. For some reason, despite the fact it probably meant he knew her biggest secret, that she could heal, she felt okay with him knowing. She trusted him.
And she had nothing else she seriously wanted to hide. Besides, the fact that he’d looked this shit up meant he cared. And that was like a dose of fae aphrodisiac to her. When she thought about it, warmth began to slide down and coil in her core, heating up between her legs.
But she did wonder how far back his research had taken him. Did he go back fifteen years? Did he know why she didn’t ride any longer?
With that thought, her smile slipped a little, and she drank more of her coffee to try to put it back on.
“Okay, fair is fair.” His deep, sexy voice drew her attention again. “You want to know about me?” he asked, leaning forward now to cross his arms on the table and get closer to her.
Angel’s smile was back. “Yeah, I do.” I really, really do.
“What would you like to know?”
“The name Crow. Is it Sioux or Chippewa?”
He was visibly impressed, his smile growing. “It’s Chippewa. Good guess.”
“Well, as you already know, I grew up in Minnesota.” She shot him a reproachful look.
He laughed, guilty and gorgeous.
“I’ve run across the surname before. But since both the Sioux and the Chippewa are in that area, I was stuck between the two.”
They fell silent for a bit. Then she asked, “You’re a mage, aren’t you?”
That was a big question for her to ask. Wardens liked to keep their magic-using abilities secret, though not as secret as her healing abilities.
Jake grew silent, contemplating her with keen eyes. She was getting bold with him. Maybe it was the coffee. Then again, he owed her. Tit for tat.
“Yes,” he admitted after a long pause.
“But you’re not a warlock or witch. You’re something else. You use a different kind of magic.” She nodded at the pendant around his neck. It was a silver chain with a bear claw that seemed to have been dipped in silver as well. “Like that pendant. I can feel magic coming off it. But I can’t place it. It’s… new to me.” She’d sensed it when they’d first met weeks ago, but still couldn’t tell what the bear claw was meant to do.
Jake seemed to be a little at a loss at first. He sat up straight again and glanced down at the pendant, thinking quietly. He touched the bear claw. Then he took a deep breath, as if coming to a decision. When he looked back up, his expression was soft.
He’s remembering something, she thought. She knew that look.
“My father was chief of our tribal clan,” he told her. “And the highest ranking medicine man. His name was White Wolf.”
White wolf….
Angel saw a massive white wolf at the edge of a forest.
Like the wolf from my dream.