Ayatas stirred his tea with a long splinter of wood from the fire, adding a smoky, ashy flavor. “Adawehihas folded his wings over you,e-igido.”
Adawehi.Cherokee forangel. My voice sounded as rough as broken stone when I said, “His name is Hayyel. He’s totally untrustworthy. Treacherous. Devious. Heclaims to be the hand of God, and while he did help us fight a demon, I’d never let him braid my hair.”
Ayatas looked at my messy braid before returning to the preparation of the tea. I got the feeling that time had passed when he lifted the bowl with both hands and poured the tea into two wood cups. He replaced the bowl in the hot ashes and lifted the cups in his hands. This was an odd dream.
“Ugalogv, my sister. Drink.”
Ugalogv.Tea. I took the cup and waited until he lifted his cup to his lips before I sipped. Then drained the cup and wished for more. There was still water in the one-liter bottle. But Ayatas handed me a fresh bottle instead. I wrapped my lips around it and crushed it with one knobby hand as I drank it down.
He was right. I hadn’t brought water. Hadn’t thought about replacing the water bottles I had used during my last sweat. I set the empty aside and accepted the salt tablet Ayatas offered. The door to outside opened. Icy air swept into the room. The fire blazed up high. Faster than I could follow, my brother was holding a semiautomatic, centered on the doorway.
Edmund stood there, outlined by darkness. He looked at my brother, took in the weapon, ignored it, and transferred his gaze to me. “Thema was watching the security cameras. She saw a spotted big-cat race onto the property and shift into a naked man. He disappeared. I came to see that you are safe. Are you well, my mistress, my Dark Queen?”
“I’m just ducky,” I said, my voice sounding more human and less croaky. “Update. Why was Thema watching the screens?” Old vamps were seldom tech-savvy.
“She is capable. Alex is sleeping, exuding the stench of poison energy drinks. Eli is healing. Lincoln Shaddock is working with the witches to secure the grounds, yet this one”—he pointed at Aya—“got through the defenses.”
“How?”
“He reads as skinwalker. Like you. They are adjusting thehedge of thornsfor were-creatures, and the white werewolf is feeling unwelcome. The wolf is most insistentupon being with you.” Ed stepped aside and Brute pushed through, into the sweathouse. The smell of wet wolf was strong on the air.
Ayatas turned the gun on my werewolf. Brute snorted with amusement. Edmund said, “Brute ate the Son of Darkness. I doubt you could kill him with anything less than an atomic bomb. If you harm my mistress, I will hunt you down and flay the skin from your body. Then I will tan the flesh and make a horsewhip from it.”
Ayatas sighed and put the weapon away with a soft click of Kydex. The wolf plopped down beside me and dropped his enormous head in my lap. That was when I realized that I wasn’t dreaming and hadn’t been for some time. I was awake. My brother and my primo were both really here, and the wolf was asking for scritches. My life was... not my own anymore. Hadn’t been for a very long time. I put a hand on the wolf’s head and massaged his ears. He sighed and closed his eyes.
“My mistress acquires the strangest pets.” Ed backed out and closed the door.
“Why do I have the feeling,” Ayatas said wryly, “that I am included under the designation of pets?” I didn’t answer. He asked, “Why do you trust that werewolf?”
“He was part of a werewolf motorcycle gang. Then he was trapped in ahedgewith a demon that was eating him alive. Then Hayyel appeared and saved him.” I shrugged slightly. “Approved by one who claims to be an angel. Who am I to disagree?”
Brute yawned hugely, his fangs dangerously near my hand. His breath was awful. “Holy crap, wolf, what have you been eating? Rotten meat and raw onions?” Brute didn’t answer.
Ayatas had gone immobile during my truncated story. “Motorcycle gang. I had a run-in with a werewolf gang on bikes long before they were out of the closet. Outside of Billings, Montana. In 1974.”
Brute turned his head and chuffed again, his icy blue eyes on my brother, narrowed with laughter.
“I barely got away with my life.”
A chill raced over me. I hated it when synchronicityand serendipity combined into something that was too coincidental to really be only that. And I wondered how long Hayyel had been hovering over my life, whether I was in human or Beast form, watching over my family, pulling strings, setting things in motion. I scowled at the wolf head in my lap.
“There was no white werewolf in the pack,” Ayatas said.
“Brute wasn’t white until after the encounter with Hayyel. Before that he was red and big as a fire truck.”
My brother swore under his breath, recognizing the wolf from the description.
“You and Brute have a history. Interesting, that.”
Brute yawned, showing killing teeth. He closed his eyes again and made a sound that might be a fake snore.
“Will you talk to our grandmother?”
Abrupt change of subject. “Sure. After the invading vamps are dead or neutralized. I’m too busy right now for a family reunion.” Though there was that pesky memory of the longhouse and the woman who hadn’t belonged. “Later,” I said, to Aya and to myself. “Later.”
“I’ll hold you to it.” He stopped.
I knew what else he wanted but I wasn’t going to make it easy on him. I gave him my best Beastly toothy grin.
