The guards knew they weren’t fully in control. I could see their unease by the tension in their shoulders and their general air of wariness that was too much for escorting a man who didn’t even rate handcuffs.
Gary looked full‑blooded Native American to my eyes, though someone more experienced might have said differently. His skin was darker than mine, darker than Hank’s, too. He wore his thick, straight black hair shoulder length, just a few inches shorter than I wore mine. His rough‑hewn features made him interesting rather than good‑looking.
Gary Laughingdog was the very first coyote walker I’d ever met, and I looked for some resemblance to the face I saw every day in the mirror because we were related. All walkers are descended from the archetypal being whose shape they take. I found the likeness in his eyes, which were the same shape and exact color as the ones that I saw in the mirror every morning.
He pulled out the plastic chair with exaggerated care and sat down with all the circumspection of Queen Victoria at her royal breakfast. His smile lit his face as his eyes, flat and unaffected by the cheer and bonhomie of the rest of his expression, traveled from Honey to me, then back to Honey, where they stayed.
“Well, hel‑lo, ladies,” he said. “What can I do for you?”
I looked up at the guards and raised my eyebrows at them. One of them walked away, and the other, after a wary glance that took in all of us, raised his eyebrows back at me. Luke was the other wolf from our pack. I jerked my chin, and he shrugged, raised his hands, and followed the first guard over to a position far enough from us that quiet talk couldn’t be overheard by a human. Luke would hear every word.
Gary leaned forward, licked his lips, and said, in a low, hungry voice, “Hey, little princess, what are you doing coming out to a place like this? Gotcha some kink for a man behind bars?”
Honey raised an eyebrow, and said coolly, “Bodyguard for my Alpha’s mate. And, although I haven’t eaten lunch yet, I prefer cooked chicken to raw human flesh–much as your words might tempt me.”
Gary took in a deep breath and shook his head in apparent wonder. “I thought there weren’t any female werewolves.”
She showed him her teeth in what someone else might have mistaken for a smile. “Ignorance is not unexpected.”
Instead of being insulted, Gary looked delighted. He opened his mouth to say something, but then his eyes focused just over Honey’s shoulder.
I knew what he saw.
I growled. A low sound that didn’t carry, but it caught Gary’s attention.
“She is mine,” I told him. “You say one thingthat hurts her, and I will see to it that you never get out of here.” I didn’t have that kind of power, but I meant it anyway. And he knew darn good and well what the “one thing” was that I was talking about.
The mask of affability dropped off his face, and he met my eyes with a blank face. I let him see just how serious I was. If he told Honey that her dead mate’s ghost was following her around, I’d make sure he regretted it for the rest of his life.
The ghost that tagged along behind Honey wherever she went wasn’t really Peter, anyway, not now. Ghosts were only the remnant of the person left behind, bits and pieces of people that sometimes thought they were still alive.
Something a vampire named Frost had done to Peter had kept Honey’s mate here for longer than usual, kept him soul‑tied to earth when his body was dead. When I’d managed to release Peter and the others the vampire had harmed, Peter had lingered for a day and night before moving on to where souls go when the body is dead. But he’d left behind a lingering, sad‑eyed ghost.
It broke my heart a little when I saw his shade, and I’d be damned before Honey felt the same way.
The other walkers I’d met hadn’t been able to see ghosts the way I could. It made sense that Gary Laughingdog, who was a coyote walker like me, would be able to see them as well. If I’d thought about it, I would have brought someone else here. Closed down the shop and taken Tad if I’d had to.
“He can’t hurt me,” Honey told me. There was something odd in her voice, but I was too focused on the coyote on the other side of the table to decipher what it was.
“ Won’thurt you,” said Gary Laughingdog, his voice softer than it had been; his eyes, which hadn’t left mine, were unfocused and a little dreamy. Softer than I’d seen them up to this moment. “Not on purpose. But there’s a change coming for you. I got a feel for change, and you’ll have a big one somewhere near you soon.” He half closed his eyes, and I felt a surge of magic that left my nose tingling and my eyes watering–it didn’t feel like fae magic, or witch or anything else I’d sensed before. Gary’s voice lowered an octave. “Got some choices to make, sweet Honey. Choices.”
I hadn’t told him Honey’s name. No one knew I’d brought her with me. Her coloring was honey‑toned, though. Maybe it had just been an unexpectedly accurate guess. Honey wasn’t exactly an unusual endearment.
I sneezed, and Gary’s eyes focused on me. He gave me a small smile, his eyes warm.
“So, little sister,” he said to me. “What can I do for you?”
“Why the change in attitude?” I asked suspiciously.
“Word came only that coyote walker needs to talk to me,” he said with a shrug. “Usually my brother and sister walkers are con artists, thieves, and gamblers.” He tilted his head toward Honey. “Not too concerned with saving anyone’s hide except their own.”
Honey wiggled in her seat in an un‑Honey‑like fidget.
“What?” I said.
“Mercy cares,” Honey said in that same funny voice she’d used before. She tapped a finger on the table. “She always cares.” This time it sounded more normal.
“I saw it,” Laughingdog said. “And that’s why I am suddenly a lot more interested in being helpful than I was ten minutes ago. What do you need, child?”
“Child?” I curled my lip, because letting a wolf get away with patronizing me would have been dangerous. A coyote was likely to be more annoying than dangerous, but in either case, it was better to stop it before it became a habit. Not that I expected to spend a lot of time with Gary Laughingdog; however, “better safe than sorry” was my phrase of the day.
He raised a hand in surrender. “I’m a lotolder than I look, older by a damn sight than you and your bodyguard, too. Something I can tell because of this thrice‑dammed useless foresight gift Heleft me with when I was about your age.” He nodded at Honey. “Said He’d come by and take it back, but He hasn’t.”
Beside me, Honey went still. Peter had been pretty old for a werewolf, at least two centuries. I didn’t know how old Honey was–and for the moment I didn’t care.
Werewolves don’t age physically. I’d always assumed that, like my human mother, I’d have a normal life span, and Adam could live to be as old as … well, as Bran Cornick, the Marrok, who ruled the North American werewolves and sometimes talked casually about things that happened in the Middle Ages. Through Hank and his brother, I had met a few other walkers, and they seemed to come in all varieties of young and old. I had known couples, growing up, where the werewolf looked to be in his twenties, and his wife was dying of old age. I didn’t want to do that to my mate. I worried about Adam because he didn’t talk about it at all, and Adam was all about discussing problems he thought had solutions.
I raised my chin. “How old will I get?”
He opened his mouth, then shook his head. “It’s not that kind of foresight. I don’t get dates, just possibilities. And if I did know, I don’t hate you enough to tell you.”
“She doesn’t know any other coyote walkers,” said Honey. “She is married to a man who will be young a hundred years from now. She wants to know that she is not going to leave him tied to a woman who will slowly die on him.”
Laughingdog looked at me. “I don’t know. Most walkers age like humans–most are mostly human anyway these days. Coyote doesn’t walk this ground much anymore.” He smiled a little, but it wasn’t aimed at me. “Most of Coyote’s children don’t have to worry about a long life, anyway. A fool and his life are soon parted, you know.”