“Darn it, Virgil.” Jana grabbed the back of his shirt and tried to stop him. Couldn’t do it, of course, but she tried. He heard a couple of seams rip before he reached the sidewalk.

He’d decide later if he was annoyed or amused. Right now …

“Arrrrroooooo!”

Everyone around the square stopped moving, stopped working, maybe even stopped breathing.

<Simon Wolfgard found Broomstick Girl. She is hurt but alive. They are going back to Lakeside.>

“What?” Jana said. “Who was on the phone? What did they say?”

“They found her. Simon found her.” Something hot and heavy filled his chest. Relief? He wasn’t sure. Tonight he would shift to Wolf and run and run until that feeling eased.

“Alive?”

The wolverine smelled of fear. For herself or for the girl in the Lakeside Courtyard that she might have met in passing?

“Alive,” he confirmed. “Hurt, but alive.”

“Thank the gods,” she whispered. Her voice shook but she stood straight.

“What do humans do when you receive news like this?”

“Laugh, cry, gather and hug each other. Become giddy enough to be a little stupid.”

“Humans are always a little stupid.”

She laughed. “I guess we are.” Then she sobered. “The man. Cyrus James Montgomery. Are the police still looking for him?”

“No.” Virgil met her eyes. “The Elders found him.”

He was glad she didn’t understand what that meant. Dead, yes. She understood that much. But not the rest.

He did understand what it meant—and he was glad.

* * *

* * *

Scythe watched the humans who filled the Bird Cage Saloon. They crowded all the tables and stood three-deep at the bar. Even Candice Caravelli and Lila Gold were behaving oddly. Excited and fluttery, like Yellow Bird when she gave it fresh food and water.

“This behavior is normal?” she asked Don Miller. Yuri Sanguinati was at the other end of the bar, filling drink orders as fast as he could. “They don’t even know what happened.”

“We don’t know the specifics, but enough of us had a feeling that something bad was happening, something the sheriff and the mayor wouldn’t—or couldn’t—share with the rest of us. And now there’s a feeling that the crisis is over, that things are okay again.” Don looked at the customers. “So, yeah, this behavior is normal. Everyone wants to celebrate.”

Scythe considered his words and nodded. “I will walk among the customers and smile at them.”

“Which is exactly what the owner of a frontier saloon should do.”

Pleased that she had correctly interpreted her role in this situation, she was about to step away from Don when she saw the look on his face. Sharp. Almost predatory.

<Yuri,> she said.

The Sanguinati looked up, looked over. Focused on Don. Then focused on what had caught the Intuit’s attention.

So did Scythe, but all she saw was Jesse Walker elbow her way up to the bar.

“Jesse?” Don said.

“Bottle of whiskey. I’ll take it with me.”

Don hesitated, then selected an unopened bottle and handed it to Jesse. “I’ll walk you out.”

“Not necessary,” Jesse snapped.

But Don was already moving to the open end of the bar—and Scythe moved with him, scanning the area of the saloon where Jesse had been. All these happy humans, and suddenly one who was important to the town was unhappy. In her saloon. Why?

As Don escorted Jesse to the door and Yuri kept watch, Scythe moved through the mass of human bodies who were laughing and singing poorly compared to Yellow Bird—a hunter moving through oblivious prey.

There was a male over there who looked angry, but the look disappeared when Garnet Ravengard walked by and stopped when the man spoke to her.

Perhaps she’d been mistaken. Perhaps he wasn’t angry, just disappointed that he wasn’t talking to a female.

But Jesse Walker. That was a problem someone else needed to fix.

* * *

* * *

“So we’re okay?” Tobias asked.

Jana tightened her hold on the mobile phone as if it were a lifeline. She’d told him enough for him to appreciate how close they had come to disaster today.“We’re okay. Didn’t think of what it must have been like for the cops in Lakeside when the scariest forms of terra indigene declared war on humans and swept through the cities. The cops knew enough to understand what was going to happen—and there was nothing they could do to stop it. Nothing I could have done here to help anyone if things had gone the other way back East. Feels pretty helpless.”

“You weren’t helpless, Jana. You were out there doing your job. Keeping the peace. Providing vigilant protection.”

“I wish you were here.” I wish you were kissing me and helping me forget what could have happened today.

“Have you and your housemate worked out a system for when you need privacy, or is everyone okay with a closed bedroom door?”

“What?” She felt her face heat and wondered if Tobias had somehow sensed her thoughts or was just letting her know he’d like to explore the spark that was between them.

Tobias laughed. “You can give me an answer the next time I’m in town.”

A Wolf howled nearby.

“Have to go,” Jana said. “I’m still officially on duty.”

“Long day.”

“Yeah. But once the saloon closes and we make sure everyone who was celebrating is still sober enough to find their way home, Rusty and I will be heading home too.”

“Goodnight, Deputy.”

“Goodnight, Rancher.”

As she ended the call, Jana wondered why those two words, deputy and rancher, made her feel a little sad.

* * *

* * *

Tolya knocked softly on Jesse Walker’s hotel room door. He heard movement inside the room, but he didn’t hear footsteps approaching the door.

All Scythe could tell him was there was something wrong with Jesse, that she was unhappy and upset when all the other humans seemed excessively happy, and that she had bought a bottle of whiskey to take back to her room. Yuri couldn’t tell him much more than that.

He knocked again, louder this time in case Jesse hadn’t heard the first request to enter.

More sounds in the room. How much had she drunk? Surely not enough in the time between Scythe’s and Yuri’s reports and his standing here to have done herself some harm. Easy enough to shift to smoke and flow under the door and …

The rattle of the security chain before the door opened with a jerk.

They stared at each other. Tolya was surprised at the stiff body and the anger on Jesse’s face. Then the anger faded and the stiffness eased.

“Oh.” Jesse opened the door wider and stepped to one side. “Tolya. Come in.”

He came in and closed the door behind him. Put on the security chain. Then he moved closer, studying her. “You expected someone else.” Not a guess; a certainty. Just as he was certain the other visitor would have been unwelcome.

She poured a double shot of whiskey in a water glass and downed it. “I may not be some fresh young thing anymore, but after waiting through this day to find out if we were going to survive, I just wanted to kick up my heels and have a little adult fun with a like-minded man. And no matter what anyone says, I am not lonely, and by all the gods, I’m not so old and so desperate for male company that I need to accept a pity fuck.” She grabbed the bottle and poured another double shot. As she raised the glass, she looked at him. “You probably don’t know what that means.”

“I know what a pity fuck is, but I don’t understand why someone would offer one to you.”

She laughed, a bitter sound that troubled him—and angered him when he realized she had misunderstood what he’d meant.

Humans had sex without wanting to have a mate or young, so Jesse’s age wasn’t relevant, and despite being human, she was an interesting, intelligent female. Such a female would never be desperate for male company if she wanted company. But whatever words were said had hurt her, and he valued her too much to let her wallow in that hurt when there was something he could do.

“Who made such an offer to you?” he asked.

She shook her head. “Doesn’t matter.”

“It made you unhappy, so it does matter.”

Jesse sipped the whiskey and eyed him. “It doesn’t matter enough for me to identify the fool. He bruised my ego, hurt my feelings. I’ll get over it.”

Will you?

“It’s just … I thought there would be enough single men here that one of them would want a skin-to-skin celebration. That’s all I was looking for, some company tonight and, hopefully, some halfway-decent sex. But the man who approached me made it clear he would be doing me a favor, which is all I could expect, and I don’t want that kind of company.”

“There will be many having sex tonight?” Tolya asked.

“Oh, yes. It’s a very human way of confirming that you’re still alive.”

Tolya walked over to Jesse and took the glass from her hand. “Enough.”

“Why? If I can’t have sex, I might as well get drunk.”

“You are going to have sex, and I don’t want to get drunk.”

“How … ?” Her eyes widened when she realized what he meant.

“Not a pity fuck—and not a pity feed. A mutual give-and-take between friends to celebrate being alive. Is that acceptable?”

She said nothing. She just studied him. Finally she nodded. “That’s acceptable.”

She looked away, and he was charmed to see her blush.

“Is it different with your kind?” she asked.

Tolya smiled. “In this form, I believe the mechanics are the same. The rest?” He shrugged. “You can tell me after.”

As he kissed her, touched her, undressed her, he couldn’t say if it was different for her, but it was different for him. This wasn’t an impersonal hunt where sex was the bait. This wasn’t a stranger’s body to feed on and leave. This also wasn’t romance as portrayed in human stories. This wasn’t love, and it wouldn’t be forever. Someday he and a Sanguinati female would become a mated pair and would raise their young. But for tonight at least, he could touch and taste and kiss a woman’s flesh in ways that pleased her. When he moved inside her and she moved beneath him, he told her without words that she mattered.

And when she guided his mouth to her neck in order to feed while passion fired her blood, she told him in her own way that he mattered too.

CHAPTER 26

Firesday, Messis 24

The words traveled swiftly.

They were carried on a wind howling out of the east—a wind that held enough heat to swiftly dry out grass and leave it vulnerable to a dropped match … or lightning’s fatal kiss.