Lake Silence (The Others #6)(103)

The three remaining females had squawked at one another—or to one another; it was hard to decipher—before going down to the beach to lie on towels and overheat in the sun.

<Another shiny!> Jozi said when she spotted the metal backing.

<Leave that one,> Aggie said. <Take the sparkly instead.>

Jozi hesitated. <Why can’t we take both?>

Jozi hadn’t watched cop and crime shows with Miss Vicki, hadn’t seen the story where a female had dropped an earring while struggling with a male who attacked her and then took her away from her nest. It turned out the dropped earring had been a clue for the cops who were searching for her. And Jozi hadn’t had time to study humans closely enough to know that humans reacted differently to losing something and having something taken.

<If you take both, the female who dropped it will say we stole it and cause trouble,> Aggie replied. <But if she finds the metal piece, she won’t know if she lost the other part around the cabin or if the sparkly fell out of her ear when she walked down to the beach.>

<Oh.>

<Hurry up,> Eddie said. <Someone is coming.>

Jozi grabbed the sparkly piece of the earring and flew off to hide it in her treasure tree. Aggie flew over to the Crowgard’s porch and went inside their cabin to shift to her human form and put on clothes. There had been something about the way these new human males had looked at her and Jozi that made her wary of them seeing her without clothes.

By the time the males called Mark and Tony came in sight, she and Eddie were on their own porch, sipping cool water from the plastic glasses Miss Vicki had bought for the cabins.

The males walked by, predators assessing potential prey. She watched them too because something about the way they wore their shirts bothered her. Not that by itself, but combined with the look in their eyes . . .

<I think they have guns,> she said. <They are hiding guns under their clothes.>

Eddie cocked his head. <How do you know?>

<Miss Vicki and I watched stories about many kinds of bad humans. Some of them hid guns, or knives, under their clothes.>

<Are you going to tell the Sanguinati?>

Aggie nodded. First she would warn the rest of the Crowgard, who would warn the rest of the shifters living in The Jumble. Then she would tell the Sanguinati, and they would tell the Elders and the Elementals.

And all of them would make sure these two-legged predators never came close to Miss Vicki’s new nest.





CHAPTER 62





Vicki


Thaisday, Sumor 6

I had ignored the increasingly sharp hunger pangs—brought on, in part, by skipping breakfast that morning—until Julian set a plate in front of me that had the sandwich special from Come and Get It, along with thick-cut fries. The sandwich—corned beef and sauerkraut with Helen’s special sauce on toasted rye bread—was one of my favorites. So were the diner’s thick-cut fries. Julian had just uncovered his own plate when he heard the store’s screen door close with enough sound to be deliberate.

“Stay here,” Julian said quietly. He left the office break room, moving swiftly. Within moments I heard him say, “Oh. Hi. I was just about to close for lunch, but you can browse.”

Someone he knew.

I relaxed and took a big bite of my sandwich. All right, too big a bite. My cheeks resembled a chipmunk’s when it was gathering food for its winter stockpile.

Of course, that was when my yummy attorney walked into the room. He stopped in the doorway, looking startled. Then he walked up to the table and studied the paperback near my elbow.

Ilya smiled. “Feeling Wolfish?”

“Mrph.”

“Chew, don’t choke.”

I felt like a fool, burning up with embarrassment. Stuffing my face like that wasn’t my usual way of eating, but hunger had overcome good sense and any nod to manners.

I chewed . . . and chewed . . . and chewed before I finally swallowed.

“Sorry,” I said.

His smile was still there, but it had an edge now. “Don’t you have food at the cabin?”

“Plenty.” Did the Sanguinati ever binge eat because of stress? Probably a question I didn’t want to ask. “I was going to have breakfast after taking a walk, and then I met Aiden and . . .”

“And?”

I put the sandwich down and wiped my fingers on the napkin to give myself time to figure out a safe way to explain. “I’m grateful for Aiden’s help in getting a fire started in the stove last night. But this morning, when I realized who he was . . . I felt intimidated.”

“Why?”

“Because he’s Fire. An Elemental.”

“The Lady of the Lake is also an Elemental. Does she intimidate you?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

Huh. Good question.

“Is it because Aiden is male?” Ilya asked.

Ooooooooooh, trick question coming from my male attorney. And I hadn’t been afraid of being around Aiden when I thought he was Julian’s friend or Ineke’s.

If Fire mates with Water, are the children called Steam?

Focus, Vicki.

“It seems silly to be scared of someone who has minnows swimming around in her tummy. But Aiden . . . When he asked me if I was all right this morning, I was afraid of what he might do to Julian, who was with me. I was afraid of saying the wrong thing.”