“Yeah. I could do a hot drink,” Luna says.
Word travels faster than any of us walk at a thing like this. By the time we reach the cider tent the woman at the urn already has three cups poured, and when I reach for my wallet she flaps both hands at me, scandalized, and tells me my money’s no good here right now, it’s on the house. A man two stools down lifts his cup and just says, “Glad you’re alright, miss.”
Luna gets both hands around the cup, and some of the gray goes out of her face. I watch the dark, sour edge burn off her scent a little at a time as she settles, the honey climbing back up warm underneath it. Warmer than I know it, honestly. Riper.
Must be relief,I think, breathing her in over the rim of my own cup.Her body letting go of a scare.
By the time the cups are near empty she’s shrugged her coat off one shoulder and looped it over her arm. “They really overheat these tents,” she says, and fans the open neck of her shirt.
The light’s gone orange across the field when I spot Ash and Reed cutting back down through the crowd, and one look tells me the whole story. Reed’s got a sheen on him and a thundercloud on his face. Ash is breathing hard with a frown on his face.
Reed reaches her first, both hands on her face, quick. “You okay? Tell me you’re okay.”
“I’m okay,” she says, with a small smile.
Ash is on her other side a half-step later, one hand at the back of her neck, the other circling her wrist. “You sure?” He doesn’t take his eyes off her until she nods.
“We lost him.” Reed’s words come out bitten in half. “By the time we crested the rise he was already fishtailing onto the county road.”
“He moved, I’ll give him that.” Ash drops onto the bench, flat. “Fear’s a hell of an engine. Man had a head start and he spent every inch of it.”
They both turn to me for the call. I’m the one with the badge, part-time or not, and the eldest.
“So what do we do?” Reed says. “We’ve got Maren as a direct witness. I can put six guys who owe me on every road out of this valley before full dark. We find where he’s bedded down, and you make the arrest.”
The want in me answers before my head can. I think about his hand closing on her arm, the dark sour fear it pumped into her scent, and God help me, an arrest with a long “conversation” on the end of it sounds like exactly the right weight of justice.
“Yeah.” I hear myself say it. “Let’s do it. Between what’s in the legal folder and what just happened, I’m pretty sure I can have a warrant pronto.”
“In the meantime.” And here Luna’s voice changes. Goes small. She looks around at the three of us, one at a time. “In the meantime, can you all just stay? Close? I know you’ve got calls to make. I just really want all of you near me right now. Is that okay?”
She doesn’t have to ask. Not for that.
“Of course,” I say.
“Always, beautiful.” Reed’s already folding in.
“You never have to ask us that,” Ash says, low.
And we close in around her, the four of us in one knot in the long orange light, Maren’s hand landing on Luna’s shoulder from the outside of it. And that’s when it hits me.
Her scent comes up off her in a wave. Thicker than the warm relief from before. Sweeter. It pours straight down into the bottom of my lungs andpulls.
Reed’s chest hitches against my arm. He goes rigid. Across the huddle Ash has gone very still, and his eyes come up and find mine over the top of her head, and I watch the same question land in him that just landed in me.
“Hey.” I get a knuckle under her chin and tip her face up. Her eyes are glassy, pupils blown wide and dark, and I can feel heat rolling off her skin through the front of my shirt. “Luna. You’re burning up, sweetheart. Let me get you something cold. Water, ice, anything. Sit down for a minute.”
“No.” The half-empty cider cup drops from her hand, clattering against the bench as she presses in tighter, both hands fisting my shirt. “No, I’m fine, I don’t need anything, I’m fine, I’m just—”
She stops as a long shudder rolls through her. Her knees dip, she slumps forward, and I’ve got an arm under her before she’s halfway to the grass.
“Luna!” The four of us say it at once.
She lifts her head. “Ow—I think my heat’s coming. Like, right now.”
***
We make it back to the orchard in under twenty minutes. Luna’s got both hands pressed low on her belly and her forehead against the cool of the window, breathing in the long counts Reed’s been giving her since the county line. Behind us Maren’sheadlights swing in off the road and climb the lane two careful lengths back.
