A Feral Darkness (46 page)

      
At the moment, she couldn't think of a single thing she wanted to say.

      
At least, not until he tipped his head to kiss her more deeply and she tipped her head the other way to say
yes, let's
and her fat lip came between them.

      
"Mmm!" she said, the best she could manage at the moment.

      
He drew back enough so she could say, "Ouch!" but not so far that she didn't brush his mouth when she did it, and replied, "I don't think
ouch
is the response I was looking for." But he must have seen something, because he took her face and tipped it to catch what little of the moonlight there was, and then he pulled her unresisting to the porch and flipped on the light.

      
One glance at her face and he swore heartily, causing Druid to give a prim bark. At Masera's tone, no doubt, but Brenna couldn't help but laugh, in spite of all that had happened to her within the past few hours.
From supernatural attack to a dark assignation in the driveway
.

      
Or maybe
because
of all that happened. A nice little hysteria.

      
He swore again, not amused. "You should have said something, Brenna. What the hell happened?"

      
"I didn't have the chance to say anything," she told him. "
I'm
not complaining, so you'd better not."

      
He gave that a double-thought, even had the grace to look a little sheepish. "No," he said. "But let's get a cold washcloth on some of those bruises." He opened the door for her, let her precede him inside, and held it open long enough so Druid could come through trailing his leash. She flicked the light switches on her way in, blazing a trail to the bathroom.

      
Where she looked in the mirror and swore.

      
"I told you," Masera said, sounding satisfied. "Now you tell me—what
happened
?"

      
Brenna stared at the blood streaking her upper lip and dried down the side of her face; the slight normal bump in her nose now swollen and reddened off to the side; she gingerly touched it and made a face when—
surprise
—pain shot through it. Similar swellings marked her brow and cheek, and she had another cut on her chin. Welts dotted with blood raked her arms in neat claw lines, and a glance down at her thighs revealed the same.

      
"Parker," he said, unable to refrain from guessing and now lurking by the closed bathroom door. "You came from the pasture. I heard the noise out there—thought it was a town truck somewhere with the jake brake on. But it was Parker, wasn't it?" His voice darkened. "
Parker
did this to you."

      
"In a way." Brenna fished a washcloth from the linen closet and ran cold water over it, raising her voice. "It was Druid. I pulled him on top of the spring, and what with the wind and—" Well, that wouldn't make any sense. Not told inside out like that. "Wait a minute. I'll be right out."

      
She looked much better with her face clean and her arms and legs washed down. She came out of the bathroom with purpose—almost knocking him down, he stood so close—and marched to her bedroom, where she pulled off her shirt and replaced it with a soft old cotton sweater, one with little horseshoes marching around the cuffs, bottom, and neckline. Warm and soft. She'd left the windows open and the heat off, and the house was no longer pulling in sunshine...and besides, she wanted it around her, snug and comforting, like an old blanket. Pulling her hair out from the neck of it, she found again the horrifying snarls near the end and wandered back into the kitchen where Masera now waited, examining them with resignation. "I'll have to cut it, I think."

      
"You will
not
," Masera said, rising from the chair in which he'd finally settled, coming to face her and do what he'd probably wanted to do all along—put a hand over either shoulder and lift her hair, running his fingers through it as far as they could go before encountering tangles. "Do you know how hard it's been to keep my hands out off this hair? Get a comb."

      
She laughed. "You think it's that easy, do you, you with your hair that can be measured in inches?"

      
He raised an eyebrow, acceptance of a challenge. "My mother had long hair."

      
She really didn't want to cut it.

      
She went to the bathroom and returned with two combs and a bottle of horse finishing spray.

      
"This is for
horses
," he said, taking it from her. "Just how hard did that dog hit you?"

      
She gave him a warning look, one brow quirked up. "It'll make the hair slick. I use it all the time." She took the bottle back and went to the den, where she plunked herself in the couch, draping the snarls around to lie across her thighs. Druid put himself at her feet. "Come on, then."

      
He came in with a glass of water for each of them, anticipating what she'd forgotten to ask. Sitting on the floor beside her, he picked up a section of hair, mulling the extent of the tangles, running his fingers over it as though it were a strange Braille that only he could read.

      
"Here," she said, handing him the finishing spray. "What happened was, I was at the spring, giving Mars Nodens a candy bar. And then I fell asleep, and Parker came, and we had an argument."

      
"Giving Mars Nodens a candy bar," Masera repeated, looking up at her with disbelief.

      
He sounded as bemused as she'd probably feel if she stopped to think about all the things that had happened since she woke from her nap, and having him sitting beside her working gently at her hair was hardly the least of it. So she somehow didn't snap at him in the sudden embarrassment of the absurdity of her own words. "I didn't want to go empty-handed. And you know what, I think he liked it."

      
Masera looked down at his work, frowning over a particularly tight witch's knot. "You might be right about this."

      
"Giving up so easily?"

      
That got his attention all right. He gazed at her with those blue eyes hooded, long enough to see if she'd back down or ease up—very much the look he'd given her in the break room that first day—and said, "You should know better than that."

      
She just smiled. Then she told him the rest of what had happened at the spring, and by the time she was done he had come up on his knees to take her into his arms again, holding her tightly—only this time she felt it was for him more than for her, a fierce reaction to the thought of the things that might have happened but hadn't. And it was she who stroked his ruffled hair back and rubbed her thumb along the evening stubble on his cheek and gave him the moment he needed.

      
But not much more.

      
"Now," she said. "You tell
me
."

      
"Tell you—?"

      
"
We have things to talk about
," she said, repeating his words from the night before.
Only the night before
. She moved aside a small section of hair they'd actually managed to untangle; it was soaked with the coat finisher but drying fast, as sleek and shiny as ever. Not normal hair, she thought, not for the first time in her life...only now she knew why. "I could have called animal control a long time ago. I didn't do it...because you didn't want me to, even if you never said so in so many words.
Now
...I want to know."

      
He grew distant, then, without ever moving a muscle that she could see. A distinct vibration in the air around him, complete with little
no trespassing
signs. Brenna ceased working on her hair, let her hands rest in her lap, and looked at him. Whether he knew it or not, he hovered at a point of no return.

      
He must have known it.

      
He still hadn't moved, he still watched her with as much tight concentration as ever, but something inside had relaxed, and she knew it without having to know how she knew it. She went back to work on her hair.

      
"We were trying to build a connection to Parker's cocaine source," he said, apparently starting right in the middle of the story.

      
"We, who?"

      
He looked up, mildly startled. "Me, animal control, the cops...who else?"

      
Brenna shrugged.

      
"No," he said, and then laughed, short but truly amused. "You didn't think—"

      
"You tried hard to make sure I didn't know what to think, didn't you? Me
or
Eztebe. Do you know how worried he is? And since when do the cops go to civilians to solve their problems?"

      
Masera sobered. He ran his fingers through the hair he'd freed up, letting it slide through his fingers like heavy silk. "I was walking a line, Brenna. I didn't intend to get involved at all. Before I even started working at the store, Mickey spotted me there and asked me about the best food for performance dogs."

      
"The same brand he ended up stealing, I suppose."

      
"He was walking away with merchandise from the start. He only worked there so he'd have access to what he could take, and a discount on what he couldn't. Parker's supply man. Happens I saw him in a dog fight photo my friend in animal control was showing around. By then Mickey knew me...I started asking around and ended up in the middle of it. The cops wanted me out, especially after Parker's boys pulled their little initiation stunt on me. Lots of shouting over that, believe me."

      
Brenna thought back to their first real conversation, when he'd barely been able to move and the bruises had obscured the well-defined features with which she'd since become familiar. "That day in the breakroom? The first of many times you pissed me off?"

      
Grinning, he glanced up; the light reflected from his eyes in translucent indigo. A rare humor, and she thought it was just as well; it was nigh to irresistible. "The day you got my attention."

      
"I was trying to get your
goat
," she said, and wrinkled her nose at him. "That
beating
was their little initiation stunt?"

      
He snorted; instead of working on her hair he'd transferred his attention to scraping a blob of mud from the fringe of her cut-offs. "As far as I can tell, it was a transparent attempt to gauge my determination. Parker's minions; they came and went, except for Mickey and a few others. Didn't matter. It was Parker I wanted, the son of a bitch." He scowled and reached up, using a knuckle on her chin to tilt her head to the light; she let him. Whatever he saw satisfied him, for he let it go without comment. Her nose, probably. It still throbbed, but with less fervor. "There was no way...not once I knew Parker had blundered through
akelarre
and had a fast growing power at his back...that he would do anything to gain access to your spring—" He shrugged, and quit trying to put it into words. "It wasn't something I could leave to the cops."