The sounds of sawing and hammering were already filling the air as Naomi pulled out of the driveway. Once away from everyone, she pulled over to the side of the road, giving way to the hilarity that had filled her from the moment she’d seen Nathan wavering uncertainly in the doorway when they’d arrived. She laughed so hard her sides hurt, and tears were streaming down her face. Poor, poor Nathan! The hits just kept coming for him.
Finally she sat up straight, using her sleeve to dry her damp cheeks, and put the jeep in drive, pulling away from the curb. Nathan was a good man, though, you could tell. He was totally committed to caring for the little antlered bunny that had sought his protection. The jackalope—jillalope, she thought with another burst of laughter—was a good judge of character.
An hour later, the whole jeep smelling like hay and straw, and the back seat overflowing with six-packs of beer of various types, a couple cases of soda, a bag of ice, and enough chips and dip to qualify as an advertisement for Lay’s, she pulled out of the supermarket parking lot.
She hadn’t gotten a block from the supermarket, when that weird, prickly sensation of danger crept over her again. It was all she could do not to slam her foot on the brake. Instead of fear, though, what she felt was a flood of anger.
“Really?” She screamed aloud. “Really, fucker?” Her hands gripping the steering wheel until her knuckles turned white and she jammed the clutch into third gear, her foot stomping on the gas as she tore down the street toward Nathan’s house.
“You want to do-si-do, let’s see you follow me to a house full of predators,” she muttered.
It must have been sheer luck that there were no cops around, and that she didn’t get pulled over as she roared through the streets. She turned into Nathan’s driveway with a screech of tires, and pulled the jeep to a bucking halt. She set the parking brake, noting with satisfaction the retreat of that sense of danger.
“Hah! I knew it!” She yelled at the top of her voice. “Fucking coward!”
A rap on the passenger window had her turning to see Liam looking at her in some concern, and men were piling out of the house. Oops. She must have made a lot of noise with the tires and brakes and yelling and all that. She opened the door, swinging her legs out, only to find that she was shaking.
“Naomi, what is it?” Liam came around the jeep and held out his hand to steady her as she stepped down, his arm coming around her once she was steady on the ground.
“It was that… thatthingagain,” she said bitterly. Now the adrenaline rush was fading, she was beginning to tremble violently. The anger faded, the underlying fear surging forward. By now, the others had gathered around while she clung to Liam, her heart thudding in terror. He explained the situation in succinct words.
“I never heard of such a thing,” Paul, the construction foreman, said, frowning. He looked around, his gaze falling on one of his crew, a tall, wiry older man with greying hair who Naomi hadn’t seen before. He must have arrived while she was gone. “Sam?”
“On it,” Sam said, and strode off toward the house, disappearing to the back. A minute later, the call of a hawk echoed in the still neighborhood, and a red-tailed hawk soared upward, winging its way into the distance.
Nathan stared, his jaw hanging open. “Is that…?”
Paul thudded a friendly hand on his shoulder. “Sam? Yep. Hawks have different senses from us four-legged types. Since none of you have been able to sense whatever this is, he may have better luck.”
They all waited, the atmosphere tense, every eye on the distant horizon. It may have been only a few minutes before the hawk once more came into view, but it seemed like hours to Naomi.
“Let’s head inside,” Paul suggested gruffly. “Sam will need to change.”
“You’re still trembling, Naomi,” Liam seconded Paul’s suggestion. “You can sit while he updates us. It feels like I’m the only thing holding you up.”
He could be right. Mostly the trembling had subsided, but her legs felt oddly rubbery.
“Yes, okay,” she agreed.
Together they all trooped into the house, and took up seats on the sofa and chairs, with one of the men, Greg, she thought it was, perching on the coffee table. The back door opened and closed, and Naomi felt herself tense as Sam walked into the living room, still buttoning the top button of his shirt.
“Well,” he said, his gaze taking them all in before settling on Naomi. “You’re not imagining it. There was someone… or something… watching from the sky.”
“The sky?” Liam asked. “You know that?”
Sam nodded. “Oh, yeah. There was a trail… I’m not sure how to describe it to you all, but it’s like a kind of energy that I could sense.”
“Like a scent trail?” That was Joe, and Naomi remembered he was the wolf shifter.
“Yeah, like that, but energy. My guess is it’s a mythical of some kind, and once he, or she, I suppose, realized I was following, they cloaked themselves, and I lost them.”
“A mythical?” Nathan queried.
“A mythical being,” Liam told him. “Like a dragon or unicorn.”
“Yeah, but it wasn’t one of those,” Sam said, his brow furrowing. “There was a kind of darkness to the energy. Dangerous. My hawk was agitated, angry and afraid all at the same time.”
Naomi sat straight up in her seat. “That’s it, exactly! I’m so angry I want to rip something apart, but at the same time I’m terrified and want to find a deep place to hide.”
