He grinned at that. “How long?” His lips moved against her fingers, warm and soft.
“Let’s go back to communicating.”
“We are communicating, babe.” He took her hand and rubbed it back and forth across his mouth.
She shivered and pulled back. “I meant, about what to do if we encounter a murderous Dragon.”
“I can whistle just fine, but not the Fringe way. You have a language all your own. Like that one you did to let everyone know Smitty was on the loose.”
“Every clan has their own codes. For instance, one long, high-pitched whistle followed by two short ones is a Smitty alert. Other clans would have their own signal, if Smitty were bothering them. Unfortunately, he seems to target us because our property is accessible to him. Anyway, if I shared our codes with you, I’d be cuffed to the barn wall big-time. But we can come up with another code, just for us.” Boy, did that sound intimate. “I mean, for alerting each other.”
She hooked her pinky between her lips. “Put your finger like this, and then blow.” She demonstrated with a sound like a whip-poor-will. “If it sounds like a bird, it won’t tip off the son of a bitch.”
He mirrored her movement and blew out a mangled whistle. “I’ve never done it like this before.” He whistled normally, a soft catcall. “Yours sounded natural.” He tried her way again.
She wrapped her fingers around his hand, positioning it, and finding herself too close for comfort. Her arm brushed against his. “Try again.” She kept moving his hand to change the angle until he got the sound right. Damn, his mouth did make her think of staying in bed late. “Whip-poor-wills call repeatedly.” She mimicked the sound. “They’re calling for a mate, so you’ll hear one call and then a second one answering.”
He raised an eyebrow. “So we’re going to call to each other like horny birds.”
She let out a breath, backing away because she was way too close. “Birds don’t get horny. Finding a mate and procreating is their instinct, their life’s mission aside from survival.”
He took her in with an amused expression…for a few seconds too long. “Thank you for that nature lesson. Is that how your Dragons are?”
“No, they’re just horny,” she fibbed, then quickly added, “Try the whistle again.” She did not want the word horny to be floating between them.
He tried again and nailed it.
“Excellent. If I were a female whip-poor-will, I’d go for you.”
“Vee, you kill me. You really do.”
She reran her words in her mind. “I meant it as a compliment, not a come on.”
“Honestly, if you recited a grocery list, especially in that sexy Lauren Bacall voice, it’d still be a turn-on.”
“Focus, Kavanaugh.” Violet pulled out her map, and they picked out two points along the property line to stake out. She grabbed a small cloth bag from behind her seat with a backup set of clothing. The killer was Dragon. She knew as soon as she saw him, she’d Catalyze. “If we catch this person, we kill, right?”
“Ideally, we want to incapacitate and then torture for information.”
“Is that how Vegas work?”
“If we need information. Otherwise, we just kill. But we want to know why he’s doing this. And if anyone else is involved.”
“You do the torturing, and I’ll kill, because I really, really want to kill him.” She looked into the darkness beyond the Slades’ front line of trees. “He’s responsible for a lot of deaths. And plans to be responsible for more.”
“Once I find out what we need, he’s all yours.”
Her Dragon clawed, hungry to emerge and exact justice. Usually Crescents’ humanity was strong enough to keep the beasts’ lust and bloodlust in check. The real trouble began if they broke loose. She pushed open her door. “Then let’s go.”
Kade led the way, blending into the night with his dark clothes and silent stride. He’d done this before. Of course, he’d done it on her clan’s property more than once, busting Arlo for his pot farms. The very ones she warned him about having.
Arlo. You were messed up, but you didn’t deserve to die.
No stranger to prowling in the dark herself, she followed. Kade had showered at her house before dinner. Funny how her own soap and shampoo smelled different on him.
As she followed his silhouette into the woods, it was exactly as she imagined with the moonlight sprinkling down onto their path, over Kade, and across his face when he paused and turned to her. He gave her a nod and continued. She remained there as planned, watching him disappear into the shadows.
She settled on the ground against a tree, tuning in to the sounds around her: the rustle of a creature foraging for food and, far off in the distance, music. The Slades were having a party. Occasionally someone hollered with happy excitement. Death hadn’t yet touched them.
