everything that went on in the Deepwild, but they were likely to know something, or be able to sense it at least. “I never thought that the King-Queen was the tearing apart type. That’s more my mother’s style.”
“Which is one of many things that concern me.”
“You think she’s involved?”
Tara shook her head. “No, I think something else is. I know you believe I’m too suspicious of mortal sorcerers, but this stinks of witchcraft. A bargain with a faery creature, hunting a werewolf for her skin. This is human magic of the bloody kind.”
“What do you want me to do?”
“Come to Safernoc. See what you can find. We will need to take vengeance for this. Terrible vengeance.”
I wasn’t going to argue. Tara had come through for me when I needed her and I had to do the same. Even if that meant taking a case that didn’t pay and was apparently going to start with me looking at a flayed corpse.
Quietly, because subdued didn’t begin to describe the mood, we went outside and Tara called the car around. Since she’d busted my front door it meant I was leaving all my important documentation where anyone could nick it but what were they going to do? Steal my debts? And if somebody went to the office looking for information the joke was on them. If I couldn’t sort through my filing system a burglar had no chance. Which, now I thought about, it felt shitty because Elise had left my books in good shape but a couple of years of having to sort this stuff out on my own had added the basic administration of my own damned business to the list of things I’d ruined.
Travel with Julian had been all limousines all the way, because she’d been a motherfucking vampire prince and she wanted the world to know it. Tara, on the other hand, had a fondness for the classics, so we were chauffeured to Safernoc in a lovingly maintained Aston Martin DB5. This being Tara, I half-expected her to jump me in the back seat, but instead she lay her head against my shoulder and took my hand in hers.
“I’m sorry about your door,” she said. “I was angry. Last night was difficult for me, and I didn’t like that I was alone.” She turned her face towards me, midway between vulnerable and accusing. “I like even less that you were with a human.”
With Julian I’d got used to having a partner for whom sexual jealousy was an almost total non-issue. Then again, she did spend most of her evening surrounded by half-naked women making come-bite-me eyes, so it would have been mega hypocritical. Tara was different—territorial. And also kinda werewolf-racist. “I know you’ve been through some shit,” I said. “But if you’re going to object to my lovers can you not do it on the basis of species.”
“Lovers is it now?” Her fingers threaded through mine much more gently than she was speaking. “I was hoping you’d at least just think of her as somebody you fucked.”
“I’m not into labels.”
“Grandmama’s right. You make me weak.”
I put my arm around her, which maybe wasn’t the best way to challenge that particular complaint. “You’re not weak, Tara. You just need help with something.”
“I’m supposed to defend my pack. If I can’t, what good am I?”
“Defending people doesn’t mean nothing bad can ever happen to them. You’re a werewolf, not a god. And even if you were, I’ve met an actual god and he came close to losing everything to Sebastian Douglas. This world is full of stuff that can mess you up really, really badly. You’ve saved a lot of people from a lot of shit.”
I wasn’t sure, but I thought she was shaking. Whether it was in fear, anger, or something else entirely, I didn’t know. “They skinned her, Kate Kane. It’s the worst thing you can do to one of my kind.”
“And you’ll find who did it, and you’ll do whatever heinous shit you need to do to settle the score.”
“We don’t even know where to begin.”
I squeezed her hand. “Which is why you brought me in. I don’t have a lot of talents, but finding out who did stuff is how I pay my bills. And it’s true I’ve been a bit lax on the whole bill-paying front lately, but the point still stands. We’ve got this.”
She shuffled down and put her head on my lap. It was terrible road safety but unless we were hit by a