Hard Mated

“I’ll call you back,” Spike said to Liam, and hung up the phone on Liam’s startled exclamation.

Spike limped back to the living room, lifted the jeans Sean had delivered to him last night, and plucked Myka’s phone number out of the pocket. As soon as he turned to reach for the phone, a pickup pulled up and stopped in front of the house. Myka herself hopped out, the October sunshine making her dark hair glow like black fire.

*** *** ***

Myka studied the house as she went up the walk. Shiftertown was nowhere near as slum-like as she’d assumed, and neither was Spike’s house. He lived in a two-story bungalow, its second floor about half the size of the first, an upstairs gable poking up to make the house cozy.

A wide, old-fashioned porch wrapped around the front, chairs and a porch swing adding comfort. This was not a house for display, like the fine suburban homes Myka passed on her way across town. This house was meant to be lived in.

Myka had about ten seconds to observe all this before the front screen door slammed open and a whirlwind that was Jordan flew at her.

“Aunt Myka!”

Jordan flung his arms around her legs. Myka leaned down to him, worried, but Jordan sported a big grin as he raised his arms to her, begging to be picked up.

Myka lifted him. Jordan gave her a sticky kiss and started babbling excitedly about the house, his new great-grandmother, his new clothes, and asking when he could go home.

The door opened again and Spike walked out. In the light of day, he looked even more huge than he had last night. Spike was taller than most men Myka knew, though not lanky or bony. He was big, hard with muscle, though it was lean muscle, honed by natural strength, not protein powders.

He wore only loose workout pants that rode low on his hips and tied with a drawstring, so most of that muscle was on display. The lack of clothing showed off his tatts, a dragon’s tail wrapping around his abdomen to disappear down somewhere under the drawstring. Holy effing moley.

Spike came off the porch, looming large as he approached. He walked right up to Myka, stopping maybe an inch from her, never mind about personal space.

Was it getting hard to breathe? No, Myka stood in the cool, fresh air, October in Austin dry and fine.

Jordan squirmed in her arms and pointed at Spike. “That’s my dad.” He said it proudly, no fear. “Did you know I had a dad?”

“He stays with me,” Spike said. His tone was flat, no argument welcome.

“How’s he doing?” Myka asked.

Instead of answering, Spike looked her over, running his gaze from her unmanageable hair to the pointed toes of her cowboy boots. Myka had put on a form-hugging tank top under a button-down shirt when she’d left the house, then thrown off the shirt when she drove over here, the day plenty warm under the sunshine.

Spike didn’t pretend not to look—he ran his dark gaze from her neckline to where the fabric clung to her waist. Myka held Jordan a little closer, a shield from Spike’s unnerving scrutiny.

“He’s fine,” Spike said, answering her question. His hard gaze broke a moment, as though he wanted to say something more, then he shut up.

Jordan squirmed to get down. Myka let him with some reluctance. Jordan ran back to the porch, jumped up on the swing, and started swinging as hard as he could. The chains creaked, but the porch swing held. The look on Spike’s face as he turned to watch his son was such a mixture of worry, protectiveness, and terror that it stopped Myka in her tracks.

“I came to tell you that Jillian’s funeral is Saturday,” she said into the silence between them. “Sharon—Jillian’s mom—thought you might like to come.”

Spike glanced at her. “Best I don’t.”

True. A Shifter showing up at a funeral with all Jillian’s family might cause some problems.

“Jordan shouldn’t go either,” Spike said. “He wouldn’t understand.”

Here Myka had to disagree. “He should be able say good-bye to his mother.”

“We’ll say good-bye. But in the Shifter way. Human funerals are depressing. You bury your people in the ground. Or shove them into a fire. That’s just weird.”

“Not much alternative, is there?”

“Jordan will give her to the Goddess, with me.”

Myka hadn’t been religious since she’d moved in with her stepfather at age ten, but she knew that Shifters followed some form of paganism no one really understood, though many documentaries had been made. Some of the churches around town had tried time and again to convert them, but had never made a dent.

“Come to the ritual,” Spike said.

“What?” Myka blinked out of her thoughts.

“Come to the ritual with us. Say good-bye to her our way.”

“I’ll think about it.”

Spike turned fully back to Myka, resting his hands on his hips, right above his waistband. “I have to go. I don’t want to, but I don’t have a choice, and I can’t take him with me. Not to this.”

“Have to go where?” Here it came.

“Shifter business. My job.” He hesitated, giving Myka the once-over again. “My grandma can’t watch him by herself. She’s not use to kids, and . . .”

Myka waited, wondering where the and led, but Spike shut his mouth again.

“Are you asking me to watch him?” Myka asked.

“Can you?”

Now he was pleading. The bad-ass warrior, who’d defeated a giant bear, for crap’s sake, was asking her, near-fear in his eyes, to watch over a four-year-old so he could do . . . whatever he had to do.