Standing at the sink, I pulled the scrunchie from my hair and rummaged for a detangle charm. I’d taken a shower last night, but my hair needed major help, and as I stood before the mirror and tried to make some order out of it, my mind drifted to last night: the relieved reunion with Ivy and Jenks, my thirty-second call to Trent that ended with me feeling brushed off.
Why isn’t he coming? I thought as I gave up and let it be a lion’s mane today. He was a mover and shaker in Cincinnati, but maybe he was being excluded because his religion was suspected of funding the faction trying to kill the undead.
Mystics clustered between me and the mirror as I brushed my teeth, liking the idea of personal hygiene. Maybe it hadn’t been so much being brushed off as Trent being distracted. He’d clearly been glad I was okay. Hell, if he hadn’t cared, he wouldn’t have messaged over that finding charm to Edden. Perhaps he was simply distancing himself. My motions slowed, and I spit in the sink, refusing to admit that the idea depressed me. Distance between us was what needed to happen. It would make everyone’s life easier, mine included. It was better this way.
But a feeling of tingles cascaded over me as I remembered the touch of his hand on my waist, firm with demand, a promise of more.
Us? A handful of mystics asked, their voice clear as they combined into one. This is not us. This is . . .
“Nothing,” I whispered, wiping my mouth and staring at my reflection.
It is! they insisted, myriad conversations rising in the background. This we is different.
Whatever. Leaving them to figure it out, I shimmied out of my nightgown and found everything I needed in the dryer. Oblivious in their debate, the mystics left me alone as I got into a fresh set of jeans and a dark green camisole. Barefoot and feeling a chill in the air, I padded to the kitchen, hesitating at the threshold. Normal. It looked normal, and I wished it was mine to keep, to see again and again, like the slow repetitive feel of summer days until the fear was dabbed away.
Ivy was frowning at her monitor, Jenks sending a bright dust down her shoulder as he tried to help. Bis was asleep on top of the fridge, a red bandanna wrapped around his head like a street fighter’s. Three pixy kids darted through the hanging rack, arguing over a seed someone had found. Dressed casually in jeans and a button shirt, David made the simple task of starting a second pot of coffee into an art. We’d had men in the church before, and they all had fit in as if they belonged. None of them had stayed, though, and it was starting to wear on me.
Pixies, friends, almost lovers, I mused, wondering if it would all amount to anything other than a good story. My head hurt. I needed a cup of coffee.
Lovers? a returning mystic asked, and it was swamped by the new debate over the different we’s they had found.
The coffee smelled wonderful, and as it went chattering into a mug, I gave the mystics a memory of Kisten, the way he’d touched me, the way I’d felt, the emotions I could pull from him, the desire. Ivy looked up, the rim of brown about her eyes shrinking, and I shrugged. Shaking her head, she went back to her computer. The mystics were even more confused.
“It means nothing,” I breathed as I sat at my usual spot, the cup of coffee warm in my hand.
Jenks was taking me talking to myself in stride, the visual clue of my aura flaring making it obvious I wasn’t alone in my skull, but David and Ivy exchanged worried looks. I didn’t care as I took another sip, eyes closing as it warmed me from the inside out and woke me up. I felt lost, even as the mystics gave me a sensation of the space around me as they darted through the room and garden like pixy kids coming back to me with their visions. The idea of David crossing the room lifted through me, and I started, eyelids flying open when I heard a chair being pulled out and I saw him in my mind as he sat down.
“Sorry, didn’t mean to startle you,” he said, and I turned, seeing him exactly where I knew he’d be.
This can’t be safe, I mused, hiding my concern behind another sip of coffee. If the mystics didn’t drive me insane, or the Goddess didn’t kill me for polluting them with my “singular visions,” Newt would, just for the crime of harboring elven wild magic. Al would beat them out of me or kill me trying. And Dali would sell tickets. I was on my own.
But as a handful of mystics flowed back to me with the idea that a woman was entering the back door, I set the cup down and smiled. I was on my own—with a lot of help. All I had to do was learn how to use it.
Jenks rose up in a wing-clattering alarm as the woman I’d seen in my thoughts appeared in the doorway, her Were-soft steps silent on both the steps and in the hallway. “Holy mother of toad piss!” he exclaimed. “Give a pixy a little warning, huh?”
I didn’t know her, but clearly everyone else did, and I couldn’t help but notice David’s eyes light up. “David,” she said flicking a glance at me that was neither subservient nor challenging, and I warmed when it lingered on my hair, frizzy and full—like a red wolf’s mane. “I know the meeting is about to start, but that issue with the Black Sands has come to a head. You want me to facilitate an alliance while it might be still effective?”
David set his coffee down and stood. “Yes. Megan, come in and meet Rachel now that she’s not delirious with magic.”
Smiling, he gestured for her, and she eagerly strode into the kitchen. “It’s a pleasure,” she said, hand extended. “I saw you last night, but I was on paws and you were a little out of it.”
She was wearing my pack tattoo, and I stood, feeling a flash of guilt the mystics buzzed over until I told them it was a task I’d failed to give the proper attention to. “I’m sorry,” I said, taking her hand firmly. “I really should know everyone in the pack. I’ve been . . .” My words trailed off. Preoccupied didn’t seem to cut it, but it was hard to be involved in mundane matters when the world needed saving every three months.
Megan let go of my hand, her smile widening. “I meant to get to that last pack meeting you were at, but my youngest was graduating from kindergarten. We’ve both been busy,” she said, not a hint of recrimination in her voice. “In times of unease, alphas range far afield to shake danger to death. The pack is content. If it wasn’t, I’d pin someone.”
Pride crossed her, and I liked seeing it there. She was a good woman, and a second flash of guilt flickered and died. The mystics currently within me pondered my immediate trust. Some liked her, others didn’t, and a tiny, almost unheard faction shouted it was dangerous to like everyone just because they wore no cap.