"You're probably right." Gwen drank her coffee for a few minutes then said, "So, what's troubling you, kitty-kat?"
She smiled. She never could keep anything from her grandmother for very long — not even the faintest of worries. "You remember me saying that both of us were more than able to contain our hormones long enough to take care of protection? Well, last night we forgot."
Gwen sighed. "That's always the worry with werewolves.
That aura of theirs can be overwhelming sometimes." She paused, then added with a fond smile, "That's how your uncle came into being, you know."
Kat's smile widened. She hadn't known that, though it certainly explained why he was the only wolf shifter in a family of ravens.
"Does Ethan know?" Gwen asked.
She shook her head. "We used one this morning, and I cleaned up afterwards. I doubt he even thought about it."
"Are you going to mention it?"
She hesitated. "I don't know. He was so damn vehement about never having kids."
"Yet he's obviously very close to this niece of his." Gwen regarded her thoughtfully. "There's a story in all that, I wager."
"If there is, it's not one he's telling me." Not yet, anyway.
"Besides, I won't know for a couple of weeks for sure."
"I can tell you tonight. A day passed is all the stones need to see such things."
"I know." But did she want to know? Knowing meant she had to decide whether to tell Ethan or not. He had the right to know, and yet, he'd already told her he didn't want a relationship, let alone kids, and she had no right to trap him that way. Especially when she was more than capable of raising a child by herself.
Gwen sighed. "A kiddy will put a serious dent in our Circle activities. At least for a couple of years."
The anticipation evident in her voice suggested it was a dent she'd more than welcome. "Don't start counting your ravens before they hatch."
"Might be a pup," Gwen mused. "Mine certainly was."
"I really don't care what it is."
Gwen grinned at her. "Sounds as if you're certain it happened."
Deep down she was. Gwen might have scrying and visions, but her own second sight was just as strong, if somewhat more erratic. But she wasn't about to admit her certainty. Not yet. So she shrugged. "You're the one who told me they were lethally fertile around moon fever time.
With the way my luck has been running of late, it's bound to be a certainty."
Gwen touched her arm, squeezing gently. "You should talk to him. Try to find out why he is so against children of his own."
She sighed. "I'll try. But digging information out of that man is hard."
Footsteps echoed across the wooden floors behind them.
Ethan appeared two seconds later, a cup of coffee in hand as he stopped beside her. He was close enough that she could smell the fresh soapiness of his skin, yet not close enough for his arm to brush hers. And she sensed this slight distancing was deliberate. That after last night, he needed to put some space between himself and the emotions they'd raised.
And that annoyed the hell out of her.
"Benton just called," Ethan announced. "The missing kid turned out to be a custody case — just as you'd predicted."
Gwen nodded. "I'm not usually wrong, you know. I gather he's on the way back?"
"Yeah. He's told me to tell you to stay put. He wants to talk to you both about last night."
"We can't stay put." Kat's voice was sharper than she'd intended and earned an amused look from her grandmother. "We have a house to investigate."
Ethan nodded. "I told him as much. He ordered me to wait."
"And are you going to follow his orders?"
"Nope." He took a sip of coffee, his gaze distant. "I get the feeling Janie's time is running out. If we don't find her today or tomorrow, we're not going to find her at all."
"I feel the same way, wolf." Gwen sighed and rose stiffly from the stool. "I've got some packs ready with zombie deterrents and sleep potions in them. I'll just add some stakes, then you're ready to go."
Ethan watched her walk away. Her hobbling was worse this morning and pain pinched her mouth. "Why is your grandmother doing this?" he asked once Gwen had gone.
Kat's glance was quizzical. "Doing what?"
"This. Chasing bad things. Why do it when she's old enough to retire?"
"She's also strong enough to turn you over her knee and paddle your butt for even suggesting such a thing."
He couldn't help smiling. "I reckon she'd enjoy it, too."
Kat's own smile was fleeting. "You'd better believe it."
Ethan sipped his coffee and studied Kat. There was strain around her eyes and shadows beneath them. He'd thought they'd settled all their problems last night, but looking at her now, he had to wonder.
"So, why isn't your mother here helping?"
Her expression tightened. "My mother is dead."
He hesitated but didn't apologize. He could never understand exactly why people did that, though as a cop, he'd certainly done enough of it himself.
"Did she die on the job?"
She snorted. "No. She overdosed."
"Deliberately?"
She raised an eyebrow. "Does any addict overdose deliberately?"
"Yes." And far too often for anyone's liking.
Her gaze slid from his. "I have no idea whether it was deliberate or not. Gwen probably knows, but I've never asked."
"Why not?"
"Because I barely knew her."
"Were you young when she died?"
Her smile was bitter, and her hurt swam around him.
"No. I was ten. But she never had much to do with me."
"Why?"
"Because I was a hindrance to her social life. Gran raised me from the time I was born."
And if that hurt was anything to go by, she resented the abandonment, if only on a subconscious level. "And she never tried to help your mother?"
She gave him a long look. "They have to want to be helped before you can help them. You should know that."
"I reckon your grandmother could convince a cat to shower if she wanted to."
"I reckon she probably could. But Mom was her daughter and every bit as strong-minded."
"What about your dad?"
She looked away again. "I never knew my dad."
He hesitated. Her stance was still and straight, and the emotions that swam around him thick with pain. Yet he had to ask the question, if only because he sensed this could explain why she was the way she was — strong and independent, yet oddly vulnerable. "Why not?"
She looked at him. Tears touched her green eyes but were quickly blinked away. "Because my mother sold herself to feed her habit. My father could have been any one of the dozen men she'd had on the day of my conception."
It was a familiar enough story — many addicts fed their habit that way. He took a sip of his coffee, then said, "It sounds as if you know who her clients were that day."
She snorted softly. "I do. I stupidly asked her once. She gave me a very detailed account of the possibilities."
A charming woman, from the sound of it. "And you never tried to track any of them down, just to see?"
She looked at him, her expression closed, but her eyes filled with sudden anger. "Why should I? Mom was nothing more than a body on which they rutted to relieve themselves. What difference would it make knowing which one of them was my father?"
So they were back to that again. "Kat — " She held out a hand. "I've heard all the bullshit, Ethan. I don't want to hear it again."
"I told you the truth last night." His voice was amazingly calm, given the anger beginning to surge through his veins. "Don't keep pushing for what we both know isn't there."
"You told me part of the truth," she shot back. "As much you thought I needed to know, nothing more."
"Because there is nothing of importance left to say."
Nothing except the reason his world, his heart, had shattered so completely.