sister had eventually drifted off. But not Goliath. He’d never leave TJ.
“What the fuck you doing here, Colbana?” Goliath grumbled, his watery blue eyes peering down at me as I crossed the road.
“Slumming. Wanna run away with me?”
The sidewalk was a crumbled ruin under my feet and I sidestepped a pitted hole as I came to a stop a few feet away from Goliath. At my back, I was all too aware of Damon’s presence, hot, edgy and breathing down my neck.
In contrast, Goliath’s wolf hovered around him all nice and snug. Curled up like he was taking a nap or something. Big as he was, Goliath was one of the most peaceful, restful people I’d ever met in my life.
“If I did that, TJ would have both our hides.” But he smiled at me and reached out, patting my head with one of those plate-sized hands.
I felt Damon tense behind me.
“Knock it off, he’s a friend,” I said, glancing over my shoulder.
Goliath snorted. “Colbana, kid, you need to watch the company you keep. That’s one of the Alpha cat’s little toy soldiers. Why you running with him?”
“‘Cuz he’s pretty?”
Goliath stroked a hand down his goatee and made a strangled sound deep in his throat. Most people wouldn’t recognize it as a laugh. “Hell. Nobody is that pretty. Find somebody else if you just want a pretty shadow.”
“I can’t.” I grimaced. “I’m doing a job. Speaking of which…I need to talk to TJ.”
“Figured. Weapons.”
I grinned a little as I heard Damon’s snort. Then, as I slid my sword out of her sheath, he swore. “What the fuck—?”
I smiled at him. “I need information and I don’t get it if I go in armed.”
Goliath tapped his chest. “I’m all the weapon Kit needs.” Then he gave Damon a dismissive look. “You are on your own.”
I finished stripping away my weapons and turned them over to Goliath who stored them in a chest for just such a reason. He lingered over the sword, stroking a hand down it. “Try to behave this time, Kit.”
I blinked at him, giving him my most innocent smile.
He wasn’t fooled. Sighing, he locked it up and gestured us through. I was prepared for the magic.
Damon wasn’t. I tried to act like I didn’t take a little bit of pleasure from his startled grunt, but I didn’t pretend for long. Inherent honesty is a flaw of mine. “Keep moving,” I said over my shoulder. “Easier that way.”
The pins and needles sensation would only get worse if we lingered, although it was enough to drive anybody but the determined right back outside.
Once TJ trusted you, she could have it keyed so that the ward didn’t hit so hard, but I’d been gone a long time. Spells didn’t have long memories.
As I finally crossed through, the familiar smell of beer, fried food and magic flooded my head.
TJ was looking right at me and she had a cross-bow aimed at my chest. Pretty much exactly like the first time she’d met me. “Well, well, well. Look what the cats dragged in.”
“Hiya, TJ.”
She sneered at me and laid the crossbow down over the stumps of her legs.
Damon hissed in a breath.
TJ’s eyes, glowing in the dim light, shot to him. “What, you ain’t ever seen a werewolf before?”
Oh, I was pretty sure he had.
But a werewolf who was missing her legs from below the knees…that was a different story.
The local cat Alpha was a nasty piece of work.
Goliath’s Alpha had been a jackass.
But TJ’s Alpha had been a sadist of the highest order.
She had been one of his…toys, she’d told me. And she’d tried to run. So he’d made it to where she could never run again, severing her legs just below the knee. A shapeshifter can heal from almost anything. But she hadn’t been given the chance because a healer had been forced to heal her, cauterizing the flesh and leaving her damaged legs as they were.
Sometimes I wondered where the bastard was.
I’d liked to find him.
I’d like to kill him.
But I knew he was out of my league…if he was still alive. TJ had a way of catching up with her enemies. A fact I’d learned here in Wolf Haven.
As her eyes continued glow and swirl in the dim light, I glanced at Damon over my shoulder and then back at her. “Hey, TJ, it’s okay.”
She harrumphed. “You got lousy taste in men, bitch.”