Chapter 18
Tank and Lissa made it over to the grill area just as the food prep was getting underway.
Xander looked up from his place at the end of redwood picnic table and said, “Well, if it isn’t Ursa Major and Ursa Minor. Took you long enough. I thought we were going to have to deliver your burgers to the shower.”
Lissa felt her face get a little red at that. Did everyone know she and Tank had been in the shower together? That was embarrassing.
Tank just narrowed his eyes at Xander, who smirked.
To distract them both, Lissa said. “Ursa Major and Ursa Minor? What does that even mean?” She figured it had something to do with bears—the People of Ursus were the People of the Bear.
Sloan, who was sitting at the other end of the table near where Jasmin stood at the grill, spoke up in his quiet voice. “They’re constellations,” he said. “The Great Bear and the Little Bear.” He grinned. “I guess that does sound like you guys.”
“They’re also called the Big Dipper and the Little Dipper,” Jasmin added.
Xander guffawed. “That’s even better! We can call them the Big Dip and the Little Dip for short,” he said. “Although I don’t think the little one can get any shorter.”
“Shut up, Xander,” Flynn said casually, from over in the shadows. He was slouched down in a patio chair, his legs splayed out in front of him. He’d put on a t-shirt as his one concession to the dropping temperature, but he was still barefoot. “She just got here today. Leave it until tomorrow to start annoying the hell out of her.”
“But then she’d feel left out,” Xander said. “I’m an equal-opportunity annoyer.”
“It’s okay,” Lissa said, slinging her leg over the bench midway down one side of the table, giving both Xander and Sloan some space. Tank perched himself on the stone half-wall that surrounded the grill area. “Xander tired himself out today, carrying my stuff and hunting for my treasures. We all know little boys get cranky when they’re tired.” She reached into a nearby six-pack and grabbed two cold beers. “Here, Baby Cat. Here’s a bottle.” She tossed him one.
She knew he would be embarrassed if she said ‘thank you’ in front of everyone, but she wanted him to know she appreciated what he’d done. Some guys were just more comfortable with friendly insults.
He looked so startled he almost missed catching the beer, but he snagged it out of the air at the last minute.
He twisted off the top and raised the bottle slightly to her before he took his first drink. “It took about two seconds,” he muttered. “You suck at hiding things, Little Dip.”
“Yeah, that’s sweet,” Jasmin said. “Are you planning on slicing those onions any time soon, ‘Baby Cat?’ Or should I take your knife away and give it to one of the grownups?”
“Bitch, bitch, bitch,” Xander muttered.
Jasmin gave him the slitty eye, and then turned on Sloan, who was chopping tomatoes. “Diced, I said diced!” she snarled. “Dice are cube shaped. Why the hell don’t people know that?”
“Jaz was a fry cook before she got stolen away by Alexander Grant’s evil minions,” Xander said, wielding his knife like a machete and cutting the onions into a decimated mess that in no way resembled slices.
“Fry cook?” Jaz gave another snarl, turning on him and stabbing a carving knife into the table, millimeters from his hand. “I am a cordon bleu chef, and I was head chef in the top restaurant in St. Louis.” She growled, then turned back to the grill, muttering, “Fucking fry cook. I’ll fry your fucking balls in hot oil with you attached. See how you like frying then.”
Xander just grinned.
Lissa looked at Sloan. “Was she really head chef?” she whispered.
“I heard that,” Jasmin snapped. “Shifter hearing. And what, you think I make this shit up? Like I think it’s going to get me respect from these hotdog-eating, horse-piss-cheap-beer-drinking morons? Dream on.”
Lissa sipped her beer and watched in fascination as Jasmin moved around the outdoor grill area, doing things to food that Lissa didn’t even recognize, giving the others jobs and then bitching at them for doing it wrong.
Flynn just sat in the shadows, drinking, an ironic smirk on his face. Tank sat on his stone wall, looking lost in thought.
Lissa glanced at him every once in a while, something uncomfortable slithering through her chest. She kept thinking about what they’d done in the shower, how he’d been so passionate and yet so gentle, how he’d murmured sweet things to her and seemed to want her as much as she wanted him.
How it had seemed like even more than wanting. Caring.
He’d washed her clean afterwards, touching her gently, but he’d seemed far away even then. And as they got dressed and carried her boxes and sheets and towels over to the tiny house, he’d grown even quieter and more distant.
Maybe he was sorry for what he’d done. Maybe he was missing Angie. He was obviously still in love with her.
Maybe being with Lissa felt like cheating on her, even though she was dead.
Lissa didn’t know what mating meant to shifters, but she knew some animals mated for life. If they lost their mate, they never took another one.
Maybe bears were like that. Shifter bears, anyway.
Sadness washed through her, and loneliness. She usually didn’t feel lonely—she didn’t let herself. But feeling so close to Tank, so cherished, and then losing that all in the same evening, made her feel cold inside.
She wished she could go over and sit next to him, snuggle in under his arm and keep him company, even if he didn’t feel like talking. But she wasn’t brave enough. If he wanted to be near her, he would come over to her.
So she sat and listened to the others banter until the food was ready. As soon as she took the first bite, she figured out why Xander and Sloan put up with being Jasmin’s abused kitchen slaves.
It was amazing. Lissa didn’t know what some of it was, but there were cheeseburgers with the melted cheese on the inside of the meat patty instead of the outside, and some kind of fancy hotdogs slit lengthwise down the middle with soft creamy cheese called Brie stuffed in the crack.
There was homemade salsa, and seasoned potato cubes with onions and mushrooms, and grilled asparagus.
“Watch out for the asparagus,” Xander said. “It makes your pee smell funny.”
“Sweet,” Lissa said. “I’m gonna leave an asparagus pee trail in the woods. Maybe rabbits will follow it, and I can eat them for a midnight snack. I’m a mighty hunter now, you know.”
The guys snickered. “Uh huh,” Xander said. “Better learn to shift before you get all mighty and huntery, Little Dip.”
“If you catch any bunnies, Jaz makes a mean rabbit stew,” Flynn said, from his shadowy corner.
“That’s civet de lapin to you, peasant,” Jasmin sniffed.
Flynn just grinned lazily.
After dinner they kicked back around the fire. It was getting cold out, but Tank had found a warm hunting jacket for her to wear, and the fire was blazing high.
Lissa leaned back in her chair and looked up at the stars. This was the life. Even if she was a messed-up bear, even if something happened and they couldn’t fix the bad magic inside her, at this moment she didn’t even care. She had a full stomach and an amazing, warm place to sleep, and she might even have someone to sleep with.
If he still liked her.
She glanced over at him. Tank was still sitting at the picnic table, drinking a beer and staring moodily at nothing. He’d made sure Lissa had plenty to eat, filling her plate and bringing it to her, but he’d barely spoken a word since they came outside.
After a few minutes of hesitation, Lissa went over and sat next to him. “Hey,” she said softly. “Is everything okay?”
He glanced at her, his gorgeous face unreadable as stone. “Sure,” he said. “I just don’t feel like talking right now.”
She felt totally shut out. “Did I do something wrong?” she asked, hating herself for even asking the question. She didn’t do that. She didn’t follow around after guys trying to figure out how to get them to approve of her.
Tank flicked his gaze to her again, then away. “Don’t worry about it, okay? Just leave it.”
Leave it? He’d bailed her out of jail and brought her here, and they’d shared something amazing, and now he was pretending they had no connection at all. He was such a…such a guy.
Lips pressed together and hurt lancing through her, Lissa went back and sat down by the fire. Her feeling of happiness had evaporated, and she felt clumsy and embarrassed and out of place.
Sloan finished stacking up dishes and sat down next to her, giving Tank an uneasy glance.
“Want to see your constellation?” he asked in his quiet voice. He always acted like he was afraid to talk, like he didn’t have the right to make too much noise or take up too much space. The opposite of most of the others here, who walked with a confidence that said they owned any space they occupied.
“Sure,” she said, grateful that anyone wanted to be nice to her.
Sloan got her to find the Big Dipper, and then showed her how she could follow the line made by two of its stars to the North Star, which was part of the Little Dipper—the Little Bear. “I’m in the sky,” Lissa said, delighted when she found it.
He showed her a few other constellations. “The Big Dipper and the Little Dipper are always there,” he said. “Other ones change with the seasons. See those three bright stars all in a row?” He pointed them out. “That’s Orion’s Belt. The rest of him doesn’t really look like a man—more like a big box—but the belt is easy to see. It’s a winter constellation, though. You can’t see it in the summer.”
“Cool,” she said. She thought it might be fun to learn about the stars and the pictures they made. She’d never paid much attention to the stars when she lived with the cult, and before that she’d lived in cities. But maybe she’d learn about them now.
She heard a murmur of conversation, getting heated. She looked over to see Xander and Tank having words.
“Just stay out of it, Panther,” Tank was saying, his voice low but hard. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Xander said something she didn’t catch, and then all of the sudden the picnic bench fell over as Tank rose to his feet. “Leave me the fuck alone,” he said. “And keep your opinions about Lissa to yourself.”
They were fighting about her? Lissa got up out of her patio chair.
“Lissa,” Sloan said, warning in his voice.
Xander shook his head and put his hand on Tank’s arm. “I’m just saying—”
“Well, don’t.” Tank smacked Xander’s hand away, harder than necessary.
“Hey guys,” Lissa said. “Cut it out.”
She tried to get between them. Xander snarled, and Tank slapped at him again. Lissa reached for his arm.
Xander rippled into panther form, his clothes tearing off him. Tank roared, and then a grizzly bear burst out of his skin, his huge claws just missing taking half her arm off.