as the others preceded them—slim dark Julia, Brun trailing in her wake as usual, Eric hunching his shoulders and glancing from side to side warily. “It smells odd.”
Kyle agreed silently, his chin dipping in the facsimile of a nod. “Wish we had a shaman.”
You and me both. We could settle down if we had one. And Zach wouldn’t be half so tempted to do something drastic.
But resisting temptation was getting to be his middle name. “I’ll keep an eye on Julia.” I’m such a diplomat.
The half-blind, animal part of him raised its head, interested in a thread of scent. Brunette and young, tantalizing in its evanescence. Hmm. Wonder who that is. Smells interesting.
“Good. We can blow town if we get enough tonight.” Kyle glanced up at him, as if Zach was the alpha. “South, I’m thinking.”
Nice and warm. Easy pickings, too, if we just stay under the radar. “Sounds like a good idea.” Except we’re traveling blind, without a shaman. Nobody to throw the bones, and Julia’s unstable. She’s too headstrong. She should marry into another Tribe, if we can find a male strong enough.
But good luck finding a mate for her without a shaman. Good luck finding anything. None of the other Tribes would so much as give them the time of day if they didn’t have a shaman of their own. Not even the Tanuki would talk to them, and Tanuki were some of the most gregarious around.
He sighed, a cloud of breath hanging in the cold air, and Kyle gave him another one of those odd sidelong glances. Quit looking at me that way. You’re the alpha, I’m the second—that’s the way it’s going to stay. God, I wish Dad was here.
“You’ve got the quickest fingers,” Kyle finally said. “You take point tonight.”
Zach nodded. “By this time tomorrow we’ll be driving toward orange groves and white-sand beaches.” And still running one step ahead of disaster.
Chapter 3
She meant to have fun. Really, she did. But the gin and tonic was watered down, the dance floor was so crowded she’d gotten elbowed and damn near molested in the five minutes she’d spent on the floor, and the pumping, throbbing music was going straight through her head with glass spikes.
Great. All I need is a migraine. Why can’t I enjoy myself like everyone else?
Lucy was having a fine time, shaking her thang on the dance floor with a guy who looked like the epitome of Latin Lover, right down to the poufy white shirt. She looked good, and the guy was leaning in, talking in her ear or nibbling. They were rubbing hips, and Lucy had her hands up in the air, abandoned to the dance in a way Sophie couldn’t even dream of being.
I was like that once, though, wasn’t I? She couldn’t remember. Instead, the image of copper-bottomed pans hanging over a kitchen island rose up, their bright shapes moving slightly, and a cold rill of fear slid up her back. A half-guilty glance around showed nothing out of the ordinary.
Still jumping at shadows. She couldn’t even remember what it felt like to dance without being afraid. And her nerves tingled, whether it was from weak gin or the infrequent pins-and-needles feeling that meant something bad was about to happen.
Those pins and needles had saved her from a car crash once. Or, at least, she firmly believed so. The feeling had made her sit at a four-way stop until a car zoomed through the intersection, not even pausing. Whether the driver was drunk or just careless didn’t matter.
The trouble was, that feeling would never warn her when she was, say, about to marry a man who thought “wife” meant “slave.” Or “punching bag.”
Sophie sighed. She could have left her glasses in the car, making the world into a soft fuzz much easier to deal with, but then she’d be half-blind. She probably should have left them, this was just the sort of crowd who would accidentally knock them off her face and step on them, and there went two hundred bucks’ worth of frames she couldn’t afford to lose. They were cute, yeah, and they didn’t require the care and expense contacts did.
I’m all new now. Except the inside, where I’m the same old Sophie. Scared of my own shadow. She took another gulp of gin and tonic, and someone bumped into her from behind. The drink slopped, splashing, and cold liquid landed on her cleavage. The pins and needles swept over her skin and retreated.
Sophie sucked in a breath, nearly choked, and looked up as the person bumping her settled against the bar less than a foot away.
Oh, wow.
He was tall, and dark, and rough-looking, stubble crawling on his cheeks under high arched cheekbones. His mouth was a little too thin, as was his nose, but his eyes—so dark pupil blended into iris in the uncertain light—were nice. And the shelf of dark hair falling stubbornly across them looked like it was just waiting for fingers to smooth it back. A streak of pale blondness winging back from his temple should have looked ridiculous, but didn’t.
Hello, stranger. Sophie quickly looked back down at her drink. Lucy would have grinned at him and said something witty. Jeez. I’m such an idiot.
“Sorry about that,” he almost-yelled in her ear, easily heard over the music. His breath touched her hair, and a bolt of heat went through her. It was the closest she’d been to a man since … oh, two months before she filed for divorce?
The tingling feeling had gone away. It was probably just the weak gin.
“No problem.” She pitched her voice loud enough to be heard, as well, but yelled into her drink. Being this close to anyone made her nervous. And he was big. The physical size meant danger, and she nervously checked where his hands were with quick little peripheral glances.
You can’t tar everyone with the same brush, she told herself for at least the five thousandth time. Not all men are like that.
The sense of someone breathing on her didn’t go away, and she slid to the side, bumping a tanned woman in a white dress. Too many people in here. I’m going to suffocate. Her gaze swung up, and she found the man looking at her again. A drink had appeared in front of him, and he handed the harried bartender a ten without looking. Black T-shirt, jeans, a belt with an oddly shaped silver buckle.
He was standing too close, too. It was packed three-deep here at the bar, but he was still way inside her personal space.
Like, leaning in so far they were almost rubbing noses. A breath of male scent, some musky cologne, enfolded her.
Her heart gave a nasty, nervous thumping leap. Jesus! Sophie flinched back, dropped her gin and tonic on the bar, and retreated. The glass turned over, sending a tide of watered alcohol across the polished plastic, and a flash of terrified guilt burst reflexively under her rib cage.
Stupid. You’re stupid. Mark’s voice hissed inside her head, and she made it to the dance floor, going up on her toes to look for Lucy. She pushed her glasses up, and hoped they wouldn’t get smudged. That would just cap everything.
Dammit, Lucy. Where have you gone now? But her friend was nowhere in sight. Sophie canvassed the whole dance floor, glanced at the emergency exit, and decided that was silly. Lucy wasn’t at the bar, either—and
