I did my best to block Fergus. “Please don’t curse my pup.”
THIRTY-FIVE
Everyone Is Dealing with Something
“Wait. Let me get Daddy’s jacket off or it’ll be covered in dog hair.” I draped Clive’s jacket over the chair Vlad liked to use in the corner. “I think that collar can be repaired.” I turned back to my giant little guy. “Buddy, this is my great-uncle Bracken. He’s going to stay with us tonight.” I flicked on a lamp so they could see each other.
Bracken dropped his bag again and offered his hands to Fergus to sniff. “A Wolfhound? Does he hunt you?”
“He would never. He loves his mommy.” I went to the back door and opened it for the pup, following him out.
“How lovely,” Bracken said. “You’ve created a perfect English garden here, haven’t you?” He wandered down the path, through the flowers and trees.
“Would you like me to turn on a light?” I asked.
“Not necessary,” he responded. “I can see perfectly fine by moonlight. Which reminds me.” He came back into view around a tall flowering bush. Pointing up at the full moon, he asked, “Do you feel a push to shift?”
I nodded. “I feel it, but I can resist if I need to. It’s not like old horror films where as soon as I see a full moon, the transition begins.”
He nodded. “Declan takes his pack out for a run at the full moon. He said the pull is quite strong for most werewolves, but he can resist it, if need be. I assume it’s because you are both Quinns.”
“Maybe. I do go for full moon runs because they feel good and I want to, but if I can’t, like tonight, I just feel kind of prickly and uncomfortable. I’ll run tomorrow night.” I checked the time on my phone. “Or maybe a quick one tonight.”
“Do you run in wolf form in the city?” he asked.
I tipped my head back and forth. “Not through the city streets. I have tunnels to the Presidio and to the North Bay from The Slaughtered Lamb. More often than not, I choose the North Bay because there are forests to run through.”
“With no pack, do you run alone, or does Fergus accompany you?”
“Are you interviewing me?” I gave him my squinty, suspicious look.
He tapped his pockets again. “Sorry. I—I have difficulty with new places and situations. I’ve found that if I assume the persona of an outgoing researcher, I can short-circuit the anxiety and interact with others.” He shook his head. “I’m sure that sounds ridiculous.” He rubbed his forehead, clearly embarrassed. “It’s hard to explain, but adopting this persona helps me seem more normal and helps me get out of my RV. My curiosity and interest are stronger than my other issues.”
My throat felt tight and my eyes went suddenly wet. I nodded. “After my attack, I hid. A wicche friend of my mother’s knew I loved books and reading, so she suggested working in a bookstore. I knew I could never go out in the world and hold a job like that, so I daydreamed about opening a bookstore. It had to be a hidden bookstore that only other supernaturals—not werewolves—could enter. Helena, Mom’s friend, said she’d speak with Clive about it.”
I sat on a patio chair and Fergus put his head in my lap. “Eventually, I met with him. It was one of the scariest moments of my life. Not because he was a vampire, but because he was a strange man. He was so gentle with me, though, guiding me through my ideas, helping me picture exactly what I wanted. He hired the architect and the builders. I thought it was my uncle who’d loaned me the money to start The Slaughtered Lamb. I found out seven years later that it was Clive who’d paid for everything. He felt sorry for a poor scarred and brutalized wolf and so stepped in to help her make a life for herself.”
He got a funny look on his face. “You were a teenager?”
I nodded. “Seventeen.”
“And you started dating him then?”
I held up a hand. “Oh, no. My goodness. I was doing what you said. I was trying my hardest to pretend to be brave, greeting the people that came to The Slaughtered Lamb, serving them tea and beer, trying to learn how to make cocktails, researching and buying books—I’ve added all of yours to the collection, by the way—and recommending titles when I was feeling very brave, though I had to practice what I was going to say multiple times in my head before I built up the courage to say it out loud.
“Almost immediately, Clive told me he had someone who wanted to work as a part-time cook, so I could offer food. That was Dave.”
“Ah, yes,” Bracken said. “I’ve met Dave. You weren’t frightened to have a half-demon work there?”
I shook my head. “No more so than anyone else. I was afraid of everything, and he was just grumbly and cranky enough to knock through some of those walls I’d built around myself. I used to work opening to closing every day, manning both the bookstore and bar, but Dave would sometimes come out to help at the bar if I was busy. He’s horrible with customers, but he had two extra hands and knew how to make any cocktail requested.
“I was lucky to have Owen, wicche extraordinaire and all-around awesome person, offer to work here during my third or fourth week open. He came in for a book, saw me use a tea bag to brew tea, and told me I needed to hire him because he couldn’t watch me do that.”
Bracken laughed. “Wicches and our teas.”
“Exactly. So, no, Clive and I weren’t dating. I’d contented myself to always be alone. I assumed I was too broken to ever be romantic material. It wasn’t until last year, when Abigail found me and renewed her campaign to kill me, that Clive and I started spending time together, trying to figure out how I kept getting locked into horrendous visions and if whoever was doing that was the same person leaving dead, scarred wolves in the water outside my window.”
I waved my hand. “It’s a long story.”
