Head Above Water (Gemini: A Black Dog #2) (4 page)

I fisted a clump of Graeson’s fur, and he flattened his ears in Isaac’s direction. “You don’t understand.”

The pack bond held the power to shatter me. It flowed across my senses like a molten river of contentment, filling the old wounds to the brim with peace, spilling over the cracks in my heart until I became better, stronger than I was alone. When I lost Lori, I lost that resonance in my soul that came from being so perfectly in tune with another person. The pack bond sang in harmony with me when I neared it, calling me to it, welcoming me home.

After that first taste, I’d feared that taking another warg’s blood would shatter the illusion, like maybe I had fooled myself into believing such fulfillment existed or that I could be part of it. Now I understood my reluctance for what it had been. Withdrawal. That inviting warmth was the drug my ravaged heart craved, and all it had taken was one hit to make me an addict.

Each time I touched that awareness, it healed another fissure crisscrossing my soul. Until the connection snapped, and I was thrust back into the emptiness of my own head, alone. All the companionship gone, the loss ripping those fissures open twice as wide, three times as deep, as they had been before I met Graeson.

Gemini weren’t meant to live solitary lives. We thrived in pairs, our lives intertwined with our twins, our powers held in check by maintaining balance between two people. I was skewed. I had been since Lori died. The pack bond righted my world, and that terrified me.

“You’re making the decision to endanger yourself.” Isaac embodied cold logic I had no hope of fighting. “If you’re brave enough to stay here, fight for Graeson and buck the system, then you’re smart enough to know you don’t stand a chance against either while you’re this weak.”

Weak
.

The word had its intended effect. It pricked my heart and made me bleed. It rendered those mental walls to rubble and left me standing exposed to the lash of his intent.

I had failed my sister.

I had let her die.

That was the worst part. Knowing her death proved how weak I had been, how weak I still was.

No wonder my parents left me with Aunt Dot. I would have ditched me and started over too.

“I’ll train with you.” The voice didn’t sound like mine. It was raw, jagged and cut my throat on the way past my lips.

Isaac acknowledged my decision with a grim nod. He’d gotten what he wanted, but it had cost us both.

“I think we’ve had enough excitement for one night.” Aunt Dot shooed him out of the booth, and he kept going until he took the steps. “It’s getting late, and I haven’t started dinner yet.”

I rocked Graeson’s shoulder, and he snuffled. There I sat, baring my soul, and he had slept through it all. I wasn’t sure if I was grateful or insulted that I had bored him to the point of unconsciousness. Ducking under the table, I hit the floor and crawled into the kitchen on my hands and knees.

“I recognize that expression.” Aunt Dot offered me a hand up and pulled me into a hug. “Wipe it off your face right now. Isaac is going to hate himself enough tonight. You don’t have to do it for him.”

Hating him hadn’t occurred to me. No, I despised myself too much to blame him.

A tired sigh deflated her, and she brought my face down to deliver a sound kiss to my cheek.

“I think I’ll stay in tonight.” I broke away from her gently and used my sleeping guest as the perfect excuse. “I have some research waiting, and I still have to figure out what to do about that.”

Silvery legs dipped in white kicked in prey dreams.

“Have fun.” A chuckle turned into a smile that crinkled her cheeks. “I’d like to meet him when he’s got pants on.”

I almost confessed pants didn’t happen as often as she might think, but I didn’t want to encourage her to hang around until he shifted. “Tomorrow,” I promised, ushering her toward the door.

Outside, night had fallen. Isaac had left and flipped on the generator running strings of fairy lights between our trailers. Seeing that glow comforted me all the way to the bone.

The twinkle bouncing off the silver exterior of the trailers painted the closest trees with glimmering stardust.

Figuring the wards and the wolf would keep me safe enough, I scooped up the bubble package and my laptop. I retreated to the rear of the trailer, where I stripped the mattress and sat on the edge. I perched the laptop on the narrow desk sandwiched between my closet and the bathroom. My luggage stood as sentries beneath it, and I had dumped Harlow’s bag there for safekeeping too. After folding my legs under me, I tore open the bubble mailer and popped in the CD.

Time to get to work.

T
he quality
of the black-and-white surveillance footage failed to improve with repeated viewings. Tapping the pause button on my laptop, I squinted at the screen, trying to make out useful details. Another tap and the video lurched forward in slow motion. Frame by frame, I watched as a humanoid fae stepped from a closet limned with blinding light into a trashed office at the marshal outpost in Wink, Texas.

Based on the information I had compiled, along with Thierry’s statement on her early involvement in the portal breach, I felt safe naming the fae in question as Charybdis. He exited the portal from Faerie and walked straight out the door leading into the hall. The camera was mounted flush against the ceiling in a corner opposite the office door, and that slight crook in the wall made the angle wonky.

Once in the hall, Charybdis stood in plain sight for a full three seconds before cocking his head to the left. This was the part where I wished the video came with an audio accompaniment, but no such luck. The recording was mute. Had I not watched the video a dozen times already, I might have missed the shadowy crease revealing a grainy smile that cut across his mouth as he spoke.

Gooseflesh raced down my arms as a short woman with pale skin paced into view. Between one frame and the next, Charybdis disappeared. At the same instant, the woman jolted as if spooked, rubbed her eyes and exited the screen in a daze. Pen tapping against a pad of paper, I added more notes to the growing pile.

Did the marshal see Charybdis? Is she available for questioning? What is the timeline on this video? Why did she walk past the portal? Did she discover the breach? Or was she a part of the security detail making rounds after the fact?

Eyes dry and itchy, I massaged them with my fingertips, wishing Graeson or Dell could lend me a second pair, but all information pertaining to the video was classified, which meant I was on my own. When I lowered my hand, Graeson stood in the doorway of my bedroom. Hindquarters wiggling, he leaned forward until his wolfy elbows hit the floor while a massive yawn cracked his jaw. I rolled my eyes, and his tail wagged once, as though asking for permission to join me.

“Not on the bed.” I made a no-way, no-how gesture. “I only have two sets of sheets, and I’m not doing laundry tonight.”

One of the downsides of living in such cozy quarters was the limited closet space. Two sets of sheets—one for the bed and one for the laundry pile—was as luxurious as it got around here.

Polite as could be, he walked over to inspect my desk and laptop. He sniffed the keyboard, dismissed it and dropped his head into my lap instead. Taking the hint, I scratched under his chin until his hind leg twitched. His sudden bark made me jump to my feet, which must have been his point since he darted from the bedroom, blazed through the kitchen and scratched on the screen door’s frame until I opened it for him.

He was a pale blur as he leapt from the steps and hit the dirt, initiating his change the second his paws touched earth. This change was slower than others I had witnessed, but in under a minute Graeson sat bare-cheeked in my yard. Careful to keep my eyes north of his collarbone, I gathered his clothes and waited for him to come claim them.

“Did you enjoy your nap?” I called.

With a grunt, he rolled to his feet, and then he was jogging toward me, ignoring the pile of fabric in my hands as he climbed the steps. “I did.” He smiled down at me, eyes slumberous. “I haven’t slept that well in weeks.”

Returning home to the place where his sister had been murdered couldn’t have helped his restless nights.

“Is there a reason you decided to introduce yourself to my family while wearing your fur suit?”

“I didn’t have a choice. I couldn’t shift back.” He bent down, leaning close enough the scent of his damp skin filled my head, and reached over my shoulder to caress the doorframe. “It’s very subtle magic.”

“The wards,” I said, distracted by his proximity. “The trailers have dampening wards so that any residual energy is siphoned away from us.” His eyebrows climbed. “Retaining magic makes us fidgety. The wards help us sleep. They flush all the foreign energies from our bodies and use it to fuel themselves.”

He scratched the stubble on his cheek. “They also prevent wargs from changing.”

“I’d have to ask Aunt Dot, but that might explain why you fell asleep.” No one outside of my family had been inside my home. Ever. Graeson was my first real guest. “The wards might have been munching on your energy.”

“Hmm.” The thoughtful sound rising in his throat caused warning bells to ring in my ears. “You think so?”

I shrugged. “Spellwork is her forte, not mine.”

For the longest time after coming to live with Aunt Dot I was afraid of the dark. She tried teaching me a spell that manifested in a bouncing sphere of light, but I couldn’t so much as conjure a spark. I still can’t. Her knack was self-taught using tips from friends she depended on to create our stacked ward system, and they didn’t translate to me. My skills tended toward reading magics from touch and being immune to glamour.

“Dell is on her way.” Graeson’s eyes went distant. “She’s watching over you tonight.”

A ripple of unease kicked my pulse up a notch. “Do you expect trouble?”

“Oh yes.” His nostrils widened as he inhaled the warm night air. “And she’s right on time.”

Leaning around him, I spotted a pair of golden eyes waiting in the darkness. “Dell?”

“Aisha,” he corrected. “I can wait for Dell to arrive before I leave if you want.”

Aisha and Graeson. Alone. In the dark. My question came out sharp. “Where are you going?”

“To handle pack business.” He reached up and ran his fingers through my much shorter hair. No longer brushing my lower back, it barely tickled the undersides of my shoulder blades now. “I like your hair this length.”

Feet cemented in place as he toyed with the frizzy ends, I crushed his clothing tighter against my chest. “Yes, well, I had to get it trimmed.” I worked up a scowl. “Someone cut a chunk of my hair off. I couldn’t just leave it jagged.”

“You donated to a good cause,” he assured me, lifting his arm. “See?”

A thick bracelet of black leather circled his wrist, almost melding with the wide bands of ink, the design brightening its center an intricate braid of honey-blonde hair.
My
hair. Of all the things I had imagined him doing with the chunk of hair he’d sliced off with a sharpened nail, turning it into a fashion statement wasn’t one of them.

“The wolf wasn’t wearing any jewelry.” That much I was certain. “How is it you kept it through the change?”

“The stronger the wolf, the more control he has over his change.” He let me run my finger across the design. “I can hold on to one or two small items.”

I squinted up at him. “Like underwear?”

“Probably.” A grin split his cheeks. “But where’s the fun in that?”

“Exhibitionist,” I grumbled.

“Nudity is part of our culture. I won’t say we don’t notice each other’s bodies, because that would be a lie. Our souls are spliced with wolves, and wolves have strong mating instincts. We’re not immune to the lure of perfect breasts or…” his gaze swept down me, and his tongue darted out to moisten his lips, “…soft curves, but we learn early the difference between nudity and intimacy.”

A flush riding my cheeks, I dropped my hand and glanced down at my bare toes.

“Dell’s here,” he sounded distracted. “I should get going.”

“I don’t trust her.” I didn’t have to specify the
her
in question.

He crowded me, smooshing his clothes between us. “Worried about me, Ellis?”

“My interest in your well-being is strictly professional.” I managed a cool tone. “I need your help tracking down Charybdis.” My throat tightened. “We’re running out of time.”

Graeson pressed warm lips to my forehead. “We’ll find Harlow.”

I nodded when the words got stuck in my throat.

“Aisha is waiting,” Dell huffed out as she slowed to a walk and leaned against the trailer’s exterior.

“Another minute won’t hurt her,” he said, loud enough it carried.

Dell fidgeted with the buttons on her sleeveless shirt, her lips a flat line. “Be careful tonight.”

He palmed her shoulder, bare skin to bare skin, and that contact appeared to soothe the restlessness in her. She left the threadbare buttons alone and sucked in a deep breath that she released in a slow gust.

Physical contact was important to wargs on a level I didn’t fully grasp. The thought of Aisha touching Graeson…it did dangerous things to my blood pressure. But the way he was with Dell, and with the other female pack member who had followed him to Mississippi, didn’t ruffle my feathers at all. The males slapped backs and bumped shoulders more than humans or most fae did. Those observations helped put our interactions into perspective. What I viewed as an invasion of personal space, he saw as a welcome and necessary part of our social interactions. It made me wonder if he pushed so hard at times because I wasn’t fulfilling his need for touch. And then I wondered if that lack was one I wanted to rectify.

Non-warg-to-warg etiquette was something to ask Dell about later, where even if he overheard our conversation through the bond, at least I didn’t have to look him in the eye while figuring out if I had to pet him to keep him happy while we worked together.

“Keep Ellis out of trouble.” He winked at Dell. “You two stay inside tonight.”

“Why?” I had planned to quietly work on my case notes right up until I heard the casual warning in his tone. “Is the pack hunting?”

“Something like that.” His gaze lingered on me. “Don’t give Dell a hard time, okay?”

I made him no promises.

Turning on his heel, Graeson leapt, and wild magic enveloped him. The change swept over him fever-fast, bones and muscle snapping into place with one decisive crunch. He landed on four graceful paws, glanced over his shoulder with reflective eyes and caught me gaping after him.

“Show-off,” Dell called.

The sleek wolf barked once then loped toward Aisha.

“Why doesn’t he do that every time?” I marveled. “It seems like it would hurt less—like ripping off a bandage.”

“The pain is always the same. Unless it’s worse. You can’t cheat the wolf.” She smoothed her hands down the front of her shirt. “The insta-shift is flashy—not many can execute it and none as well as Graeson—but it’s not practical except under dire circumstances.”

An intense uneasiness prickled my skin. “What, exactly, is the pack up to tonight?”

The valiant button gave up its struggle to stay attached and popped off in her hand.

“Mom can’t find her can opener.” Heavy footfalls squished over damp grass. “All I have is a bottle opener.” Isaac rounded the corner and drank in the sight of Dell with hungry eyes before blinking away the fledgling spark and replacing it with cool courtesy. “Do you have a spare?”

“I always keep a spare.” Aunt Dot wasn’t the best cook. She did breakfast well, and she made a mean sandwich, but dinner came safest from the can unless she was supervised. If Isaac was asking for an opener, then they had decided to forego unstrapping the fire extinguisher tonight. “Check the top drawer to the left of the sink.”

Blue eyes sharp on Dell, he ran a hand through his dirty-blond hair and approached with caution. The entryway was crowded with all three of us standing there, but Isaac slid past Dell and me into my trailer, where drawers began rattling and thumping. He never listened to me when I told him where I put things.

“That’s your cousin?” Dell worried her bottom lip between her teeth. “Which one? You’ve got two, right?”

“This one’s Isaac. The other’s Theo.” His trailer sat at the rear of our circle, empty. His work carried him around the world, but just like me, he always came back home, wherever home might be. “I doubt you’ll see him. Last I heard he was still in Mexico.”

“Is Isaac single?” Twisting the tail of her shirt into a knot, she laughed at her nerves and shook out her hands. “How hairy does he like his women?”

“Isaac?” I called.

“I don’t see the damn can opener.”

“That’s not—” I rolled my eyes. “Are you single?”

Something hit the floor, shattered. I hoped it wasn’t my favorite mug. I had washed the carroty taste out of it earlier and set it out to dry near the sink.

“Who’s asking?” He appeared in the doorway, gaze piercing Dell where she stood.

“This is my friend Dell Preston.” I frowned at his coldness. Usually he loved buttering up the ladies. “Dell, this is Isaac Cahill.”

“I don’t think I’ve ever met a friend of Camille’s before,” he said, extending his hand.

Aware of what Gemini were capable of, Dell closed her fingers over his fearlessly.

“Cam’s good people.” Her Southern accent intensified. “I’m proud to call her my friend.”

“You’re a warg.” Statement of fact. Rubbing his fingertips together as though parsing a confusing texture to her magic, he cocked his head to one side. “You’re the donor.”

“Yeah. I guess.” Tendrils of reddish hair spilled over her shoulder when she ducked her head to peer shyly through the wavy curtain. “I mean, I did the one time.”

“About that.” I rescued her from the awkward silence following his pronouncement. “A condition of me staying here is an agreement I made with Isaac. I’ve let my magic go the past few years, and he’s going to whip me into shape.” Now for the awkward part. “That means I need a blood donor. You’re the only warg I trust enough to ask for the favor, but you can say no.”

Her head jerked up, all hesitation gone. “I’ll do it.”

Relief flooded me. “Are you sure? There’s no pressure. I can find another source.”

“I’ve seen what you can do. If he can make you better, stronger, then I’m glad to help. Things are tense in the pack right now,” she hedged. “You’re taking a risk staying here to help your friend. The least I can do is make that stay safer.”

“What are your plans for tonight?” Isaac interrupted.

“I, well, Cam…” Her fingers fluttered in an attempt to pluck the right words out of thin air. “Guard duty.”

His grunt of approval left her beaming, and he jabbed me in the side with his elbow. “How would you feel about getting in some practice?”