Wildfire Griffin (Fire & Rescue Shifters: Wildfire Crew #1)(61)

Mean Shadowhorse. Fenrir shrank back into his dog form, padding along at her side. Flies. Quiet.

“Oh, Callum.” Her frown deepened. “But he doesn’t have black hair or skin. Why do you call him Shadowhorse?”

Fenrir shook his head as though not understanding the question. Is shadow.

And apparently that was all she was getting on that topic. “Fair enough, I guess. So what do you call Wystan? And Joe?”

Icehorse. Seasnake.

Seasnake was obvious enough, since Joe had said he was a sea dragon, but Wystan’s nickname puzzled her. “Because…a unicorn horn is like an icicle?”

Fenrir gave her a deeply puzzled look. No. Because is behind ice. Can’t smell him.

Now she was going to have to work out a way to politely sniff Wystan. “And what’s Blaise’s name?”

*Not for speaking. Makes her sad.*

“Edith.”

The familiar, unwelcome voice made her whole spine tense up. She hadn’t noticed Seth lurking in the shadowed gap between two cabins.

The C-squad boss looked awful. He was still wearing the same clothes as last night, muddied and wrinkled. A pair of mirrored sunglasses hid his eyes. As he stepped out of his hiding-place, he winced as though the pale dawn light hurt even through the smoked lenses.

A deep growl shook the air. Seth halted abruptly.

“Call off your dog.” Seth tugged his baseball cap a little lower, shadowing his face. “I only want to talk.”

Ugh. She was done with maintaining polite fictions for the sake of others’ comfort. “I’m sorry, Seth, but I think you got the wrong idea yesterday. I’m not interested in you. I’m actually in a relationship with Rory.”

There. He couldn’t possibly misinterpret that.

“I know.” He took a step closer. “I wanted to…apologize. In private. Can we go somewhere?”

She cast a puzzled glance around. They were the only people in sight. “This is private.”

His gaze flicked to the still-growling Fenrir. But that was silly. Seth didn’t know Fenrir was anything other than a dog. Did he?

“Just come with me.” He edged closer. His tongue darted out, licking his lips. “It’ll only take a second.”

“No, thank you,” Edith said firmly. “Apology accepted, but I think it would be best if you stayed away from me. Rory doesn’t like you very much. And to be blunt, neither do I.”

Fenrir stayed between her and Seth as she marched past. Even with the hellhound guarding her back, her skin crawled. She could feel Seth’s fixed stare burning the back of her head.

“Gah.” She shivered with relief as they went round the corner of the office building, finally escaping Seth’s unnerving attention. “Trust Seth to find a way to make an apology creepy. I wonder if he meant it?”

If he did, he should have brought you a squirrel. Fenrir’s ears perked up. Why is Man-Alpha howling?

It didn’t take a great feat of deduction to work out that Man-Alpha was Buck, considering that she could hear the chief’s steady, methodical, and heartfelt cursing from clear across the parking lot. The Superintendent was standing with folded arms in front of the battered C-squad truck. The few crew members already up were giving him a wide berth. He fixed her with a scowl as she approached.

“What,” he demanded, stabbing a finger at the truck, “is this?”

Edith looked. “It’s a hole in the windscreen.”

“I can see it’s a damn hole! What I want to know is how it got there!”

Well, he could have said. “A bear punched it.”

“A bear punched it,” he repeated. He closed his eyes, bringing one hand up to pinch the bridge of his impressive nose. “A bear punched it. Of course it did. RORY MOTHERLOVING MACCORMICK, GET YOUR FURRY ASS OUT HERE!”

His roar rocked her back on her heels, but her sense of the mate bond stayed quiet. “He can’t hear you. He’s still sleeping.”

Will go fetch him. Fenrir backed away, ears and tail flat. Stone Bitch can handle Man-Alpha.

“Gee, thanks,” she muttered, as Fenrir beat a strategic retreat.

Buck glared at her. Then his eyes narrowed. “That’s a very interesting interpretation of uniform you’re wearing this morning, Edith. Do I take it that Rory’s night has been filled with even more excitement than mere bears?”

Heat colored her cheeks. She tugged self-consciously at her borrowed t-shirt. “Yes, chief. We’re fully mated now.”

Buck grunted. “Congratulations. I’ll send you a card and a damn waffle-maker. I hope that means Rory will stop dragging about like a sad puppy. All that pining was setting my teeth on edge.”

“I’m sorry about that.” She hesitated. “And…I’m sorry that you’re stuck with me, chief. I know you only hired me because I’m Rory’s mate.”

“True,” Buck said—not meanly, just as a simple statement of fact. “But I also told you that I’d fire you if you weren’t up to the job. And yet, here you still are.”

Now, she decided, was definitely not the time to mention her autism. “I—I promise I’ll keep working hard. I won’t hold the squad back.”

“Just don’t let Rory hold you back,” Buck said, mysteriously. Before she could ask him what he meant by that, he went on, “He did tell you everything about himself and the rest of A-squad, didn’t he? Otherwise I will kick his ass up and down this mountain.”