Lie Down with Dogs Page 14

  I jerked the curtains shut and spun around on the AC unit to hop off the edge. “And they’re off.”

  “We should be leaving soon too.” He checked his cell. “We can’t wait much longer for Diode.”

  “Give him a few more minutes.” I stretched out my back. “He’s been acting strange lately.”

  “You’ve only known him a few weeks,” Shaw pointed out. “This might be normal for him.”

  “I know that. It’s just...” I bit my thumbnail. “I feel connected to him somehow.”

  “He was your father’s pet.” He shrugged. “It’s natural for you to want that connection.”

  “He wasn’t Mac’s pet.” Diode would shred Shaw to ribbons for insinuating otherwise. “They were associates.”

  He shot me an indulgent look. “That sounds like something a cat would say about his master.”

  I laughed out loud because he was right, and because cat jokes never got old.

  A burst of music from my pocket had me reaching for my phone. I checked the ID and rejected.

  “Who was that?” Shaw asked oh so casually.

  “A wrong number.”

  “Don’t lie to me. You didn’t hesitate. You recognized the number.”

  “Fine.” I warned him, “You aren’t going to like it.”

  Explaining the odd calls made his face turn so red I expected smoke to come pouring out of his nostrils.

  Oops. Guess I had forgotten to mention those during my purge earlier.

  After drawing a calming breath, he began pacing. “You have no idea who’s calling you?”

  I bumped my cell against my lips. “None.”

  His steps slowed. “This guy knew you were in Florida how?”

  “No clue. Mable wouldn’t have told him or anyone else. If he showed up in person, someone might have told him I was on vacation or out of the office.” I doubted any of my coworkers would use the S word with a civilian. Gossip about a suspension could discredit a marshal in the eyes of the public. “How this guy connected vacation to Florida, I have no idea.”

  “Did he mention Daytona?” He paused for my answer.

  I thought about it. “No. He sounded confident he could find me, but he never got specific.”

  Shaw rubbed his jaw. “Is it possible some crackpot with an ounce of psy magic got your number?”

  “Anything is possible.” The calls didn’t feel random, though. “I do pass out my number sometimes.”

  Shaw pulled up short, and a white sheen frosted his eyes. “Why?”

  “Informants. Victims. Coworkers.” I smothered a grin. “Hot guys who dig chicks with badges.”

  He growled in response.

  Still fighting a smile, I waggled my cell at him. “How do you want to handle my gentleman caller?”

  “You will stay in my sight.” He jabbed the air in my direction. “If your mystery caller does have a way of locating you, I want to be there when he shows up. Otherwise, we focus on Linen.”

  The slow shake of his head when he said Linen this time made me blush. My habit of nicknaming people amused him. These days, he just went with it. To me, Linen rolled off the tongue smoother than the guy who probably drugged Mai or freaky hotel guy.

  “There’s one more thing I should mention.” I scrunched up my face. “I’m pretty much broke.”

  “Still paying your mother’s bills?”

  The way he said it, calm and without inflection, I could have ignored him. He would have returned the favor if I had, but he knew me, and he knew I wouldn’t let a comment like that slide. Not about Mom.

  “That’s low, Shaw.”

  “What will she do if you go to Faerie? Are you going to warn her that the gravy train is ending? Or will she keep her seat until it smashes headfirst into a wall? Will you even tell her where you’re going?” With visible effort, he reined in his tirade. “All I’m saying is, you see her as a victim—as your victim. You think she sacrificed everything for you, and maybe she did, once, but you’re missing the big picture here. She’s your mom. You love her—”

  “You think?”

  His voice softened. “She was scared, of you, of me, of all the things she didn’t understand. She did good by you. She brought you to folks who could help. But she never bounced back. She never tried to. She lives in a bubble where she feels safe again, and you’re so damn scared of bursting it you’re tightrope walking over a bed of needles to support her.”

  “She’s my mom.”

  “And you’re her daughter.”

  “It’s my fault—”

  “No.” He cut me short. “She had a relationship with your father. You’re the product of that. The result can’t be the fault of the actions preceding it. It’s a calculated outcome, one she was well aware of when she chose to be with your father. You don’t owe her anything. She’s an adult. She made her own choices. You’ve paid her back a hundred times over. She needs to know the truth. All of it.”

  My lips pressed together until they startled tingling.

  “Say it.” He studied me. “Before your head explodes.”

  “She didn’t know who Mac was—what he was.” My chest ached. “Their whole relationship was a lie because if she had known the truth, Mom never would have been with him. She would have...”

  I couldn’t say it. It hurt too much to bend my lips around those words.

  She would have stamped out the spark of my life before it ignited.

  Shaw’s expression gentled. “How is it your fault he lied to her?”

  “It’s not,” I snapped.

  “Exactly.” He dropped a kiss on the top of my head. “Talk to your mother.”

  He gathered our things and headed for his truck, tugging the door shut behind him.

  Anger clamped me in a chokehold. Even if I had had a comeback ready, and I didn’t, I couldn’t loosen my fury to spit it out. After a full minute, I gasped for air and shouted, “Armchair psychologist.”

  I found Diode lounging on the shady limb of a bitternut hickory tree with branches overhanging the back half of the parking lot. His furry butt was exposed where anyone looking could see him. I walked under him and yanked on the end of his long tail.

  Yowling ensued as Diode tested that whole cats-always-land-on-their-feet thing.

  He did, by the way. Land on his feet, I mean.

  Morale on the drive back to Daytona hit rock bottom. Forced to cram his long, lean body into the tight space behind our seats, Diode overflowed the extended cab compartment of Shaw’s truck. I let him get away with draping his right front paw and tail over the back of my seat because I figured Orlando had seen stranger and dealt with it just fine. From a distance, Diode could pass for a lifelike movie prop or a plush toy won at a carnie booth in any one of the theme parks. Not that I told him so.

  Shaw coasted to a stop at an intersection packed with bikini-clad women carrying yoga mats rolled up under their arms. “Is that the right hotel?”

  “Yep.” I hauled my messenger bag onto my lap and groped around the bottom. “That’s it.”

  He leaned forward to appreciate its height. “How tight is security?”

  “Think muumuu.” Loose was putting it nicely. “It’s a busy hotel in a beachfront town in summer.”

  “New faces arriving daily.” He picked up my thought. “Hard to track who is and isn’t a guest.”

  “The stock rotates and the pantry replenishes itself.” No two ways about it. “It’s an ideal hunting ground.”

  “It’s early.” He spared a glance at Diode. “We need to get a room and stash the cat.”

  For once, the cat didn’t argue. He did add, “I’m hungry. There’s nothing to hunt here.”

  I twisted around to face him. “You should have mentioned it earlier.”

  His claws flexed in and out. “You are traveling light. I don’t want to be a burden.”

  “Light? I have you and two guards and... Oh.” I reached behind me to ruffle the fur on his head. “You heard me talking about money.” A
pparently, when Mom was handing out life advice, I missed the part where you didn’t talk finances in front of your children or your pets.

  “At home, I care for myself.” His chin jerked higher. “You shouldn’t be responsible for me.”

  My mind jumped to Wink, but home to him meant Faerie.

  “Rook agreed to let you come with me. He’s been here and knows the landscape. He knew there were no hunting grounds and that I would have to provide for you.” I popped his front paw before he sank claws into Shaw’s supple upholstery. “As far as I’m concerned, that makes your needs his concern.”

  “Are you going to ask him for money?” The steering wheel groaned beneath Shaw’s hands.

  “No.” Diode rumbled a laugh. “That pretender is living on the future queen’s coin. She is saying she will do for me what she would not do for herself. She will use Faerie gold to finance my needs.”

  “Yeah, well, don’t let it go to your head.” I let him butt his huge furry face against mine. “This is probably the first time that gold has been used for good since it was minted.” I spat neon fur stuck in my lip balm. “I’ll talk to the guards when they arrive, then you three can hash out all the details.”

  “Now that we have that settled,” Shaw said as his foot tapped the gas, “let’s find us a room.”

  “Rooms,” I corrected.

  “I thought you were broke.”

  “I am.”

  “I’m not exactly rolling in green here, either.”

  I narrowed my eyes, not believing him for a minute. “Let me guess. You’re offering to share?”

  “If you’re nice to me, I might request two beds instead of a king.”

  “Hold that thought.” I palmed the phone I had unearthed from the depths of my bag, then called Mai. Eighteen minutes later, I hung up with an update on how she was feeling—better—and a reason to smile. “Well, that’s one less thing. We’ve got ourselves a room.” Shaw’s eyebrows lifted expectantly. “Mai was in no condition to check out yesterday, so as far as the hotel knows, she and I never left. She paid for the week online through one of those bargain travel websites, so the money is gone. At least if we stay, it won’t be wasted. Besides, we know that’s the area where Linen hunts.”

  “I can’t argue with that logic.” Though it was clear he wanted to.

  I patted his thigh. “Just think, now we won’t have to worry about that pesky bed situation.”

  He grumbled.

  “You can take Mai’s room.” I clasped my hands together. “We’ll have locking doors between us and everything.”

  Behind us, Diode chuffed with amusement, but beside me, Shaw wasn’t laughing.

  No matter. I chuckled enough for the both of us.

  Sneaking Diode into the bustling hotel this time around was harder. I sent Shaw ahead to secure a baggage trolley from the front desk and had Diode crawl onboard. We used our luggage to hide his paws then draped a couple of shirts over the top of him. It would have to do. With the guards in the ether, we were on our own. Besides, if someone stared too hard at the trolley, Shaw could use a whiff of his lure to draw any unwanted attention onto him.

  Even without his lure, he drew more looks than our wobbly cart.

  Once the elevator doors closed with a whoosh, I exhaled and relaxed against the cool metal wall.

  A warm hand enveloped mine, and Shaw interlaced our fingers. For a minute, I expected the stinging tug of magic as he fed. Palm to palm was less intimate than other ways, and he had to be starving. But the pain never materialized. He stood with his back flush to one wall, and me with mine on another. The corner between us stood empty and significant as our hands stretched across it to touch.

  Breaking the silence, I stared up at him. “Working on our cover story?”

  “Husband and wife?” His lips twitched. “Newlyweds? Honeymoon or vacation?”

  I yanked on my hand, wanting it back with a fierceness that startled us both. Surprise transformed into need on his face. The heat in his gaze faded to familiar stark, gnawing hunger that echoed in my gut. “Hungry?”

  “Starving,” he replied in a rumble I felt clear to my core.

  I held perfectly still, staring into his frosty eyes so I could gauge when the danger had passed.

  The man who taught me fledgling control of my powers was losing his iron grip on his.

  It terrified me. Almost like a ghost from the past had held up a mirror in front of my face and shown me a reflection of my history. Of that circle of dead teens, their glittery pink nails shining, their hands still linked from the silly game we had been playing.

  That first terrible, magical current had exploded out of me and raced through them, snatching their souls and stuffing all their raw power inside me until my pores bled with energy.

  Even with Shaw standing in front of me, when he got like this, I saw too much of myself in him.

  Maybe that was what frightened me the most.

  “There are cameras in here.” I used a low, nonthreatening voice. “We have to be careful.”

  “Thierry?” Diode made my name both question and warning.

  “Need to feed,” Shaw grated out. “Should have done it in Orlando.”

  A ting signaled our stop.

  “Our room is right over there.” I jerked my chin toward it. “You can hang on that long.”

  He nodded and shut his eyes, throwing his arm out to catch the doors before they shut.

  The task of wheeling Diode down the hall and into the room fell to me. Shaw kept hold of my hand, so I made steering a team effort. I shoved from behind and used Shaw’s body as a guide. I don’t even think he noticed.

  The room door locking behind us he registered, because he pinned me against it by our joined hands and wedged his knee between my thighs. I had trouble moving air through my lungs when his nails extended, their razor tips nicking my knuckles. Color slid from his skin like paint washed down a drain. Hunger peered at me from his face. Its expression of endless craving—for me—hit me hard, made my body soften and my brain fog. I remembered how it felt before necessity drove him to obsession with my taste. I recalled the exhilaration of his complete adoration being channeled into me.

  If I was death in spirit, then Shaw was rapture incarnate.

  No one I killed would have thanked me for it. It was a brutal way to die. But seeing him this way breathed life into the old lore, stories where incubi feasted on their victims’ souls as well as their flesh, draining the spark from their lovers, leaving behind an empty shell with a smile on their lips.

  Diode’s weight leaned against my leg. “I can restrain him.”

  Tightening his grip on me, Shaw bared his teeth.

  “I can handle him.” I wiggled my hips to get his attention off Diode. “Are you hungry or what?”

  His head whipped toward me. “Yes.”

  With a hungry growl, Shaw’s mouth sealed over mine, and all polite dinner etiquette flew out the window. His first draw brought power tingling into my lips. The ant-bite-like stings made my eyes water. Pain was there. The soreness in my chest was more than bruised feelings. It was a loss of self as Shaw devoured fragments of me. The way he broke me down, left me empty and aching, appealed to me more than it should have. I could get lost here, beneath his urgent lips and strong hands. I could forget all that I was or would be, and become his.

  The hand not pinned to the door grasped Shaw’s belt buckle, and a tentative finger dipped inside the waistband of his jeans. His groaned response melted my knees until I sagged astride his thigh. He teased his hands under the hem of my shirt, claws grazing my rib cage. With a startled grunt, his warm weight vanished.

  Without his support, I hit the floor with a gasped oomph. The burst of pain in my tailbone cleared my head.

  Three feet from the toe of my outstretched leg, Diode pinned Shaw beneath him to the floor. His muzzle hovered less than an inch from Shaw’s nose, and his ears flattened against his broad skull.

  “That is enough, incubus.”r />
  Shaw bucked under him, head turned toward me, clawed hands grasping. “Mine.”

  The cat flexed his paw, and his claws pressed into Shaw’s throat. He leaned forward until Shaw’s face burned scarlet.

  “Get off him.” I scrabbled toward them and jerked the cat’s tail. “You’re suffocating him.”

  “Good.” The yellow tail flicked. “Let him experience the panic you feel when he doesn’t stop.”

  Panic had been the farthest thing from my mind, but telling Diode that might shorten his fuse.

  “I should have made him feed earlier.” I shouldered my weight into shoving him. “I knew he had to be getting close.”

  Whiskers stood on end. “Are you a goddess like the Morrigan?”

  “No.” Even the comparison made me ill.

  “Are you omniscient? Or omnipresent? Or omnipotent?”

  Two-thirds of that sailed right over my head. “No?”

  “Then why do you shoulder so much blame? Why are you responsible for the actions of others? In all my long life, I have never met another being so determined to be at fault for every wrong thing that happens to everyone around them.” He shook his head. “You have your father’s best traits, and his worst. You share the same fire, the passion to protect those weaker than yourself, and I admire that.”

  I let his tail slip through my hands.

  “I will share with you a concept it took him centuries to grasp.” Diode shifted his weight. “Your actions are your choice, just as the actions of others are theirs. You lay no blame at Shaw’s feet, even though he is decades your senior—” a dismissive whisker flick, “—and well aware of the limits of his self-control and that being with you tests them. You find no fault with your mother’s behavior, though she is as much of an adult as you are.”

  With his attention on me, he rocked back, applying less pressure to Shaw’s windpipe. I bit my tongue and let him speak his mind.

  “Thierry, you must learn not only when to lift a burden, but when to set it down.” He patted Shaw’s lax face with his paw. “Otherwise, your back will break under the strain, and everyone who depends on you will be left as sheep without their shepherd. Do you understand?”