12
KENDRA
I-75 is a nightmare in good weather. A blizzard, the dark, Kade behind the wheel is something else entirely. We’re barely ten minutes out of that parking lot and I’ve got one foot pressed flat against the floor and both hands wrapped around my seatbelt. Kade drives like most people text — like the consequences don’t apply to her.
She’s weaving through traffic like the other vehicles are just suggestions, switching lanes without signaling, threading gaps I wouldn’t have risked at all, let alone with ice under every tire. The snow is coming down sideways now, the road ahead nothing but two faint trails of red taillights bleeding through the white, and every time she swings left I’m doing the math on what happens when you overcorrect something this size at freeway speed.
“Calm down.” She doesn’t look at me. “I’m not going to flip the truck.”
I ignore her and glance back into the cab, needing something to focus on that isn’t the speedometer.
Aiden is still locked rigid against Andrew’s shoulder, his fingers starting to twitch now, small unsteady movementsagainst his own thigh like sensation is slowly finding its way back. Andrew has him arranged carefully against his side. His palm rests on Aiden’s chest, his other hand smoothing the collar of his jacket in slow strokes, and he is not even pretending to look out the window. Andrew’s entire focus is on that face, watching for every small sign of returning movement.
Andrew digs behind the seat with his free hand and pulls out a crumpled gym bag, tossing it into Kojo’s lap without looking. “There’s a towel and a clean shirt in there. You look like you crawled out of a slaughterhouse.”
Kojo unzips the bag and pulls out a white bar towel first. He works it over his forearms in short, rough strokes, scrubbing dried blood from the lines of his tattoos, flipping the towel when one side darkens and starting again on his knuckles, the spaces between his fingers where it caked and cracked. He pulls what’s left of his shredded shirt over his head and the movement is awkward, his elbows hitting the window and the headrest, his shoulders too wide for the space. The ruined fabric peels off stiff and he balls it up and shoves it into the bag. He sits bare-chested for a few seconds, tattoos and muscle and that ridge running up his spine pressing flat against the seatback, before he wrestles Andrew’s shirt over his head. It’s too tight across the chest and too short in the torso, and he tugs at the hem once before giving up. Then there’s a soft tearing sound from the back of the shirt and I see the ridge poking through the fabric between his shoulder blades, the fur strip pushing through a rip it made for itself. His old shirts had slits cut in the back for it. This one didn’t.
Andrew glances over at the sound and sighs. “That was my favorite shirt.”
Kojo doesn’t respond. He shifts against the seat and the ridge settles through the tear, the tips of the fur visible above thecollar, and he looks uncomfortable in a way that has nothing to do with the fit.
I look away before he catches me watching.
Kojo takes up most of what’s left of the backseat and then some. He is not built for truck cabs or any other enclosed vehicle I can think of. His knees are pressed into the seat back in front of him, his shoulders bracket the window on one side and Andrew on the other, and he is perfectly stil. He’s not looking at Aiden. He’s not tracking the road or the dark press of trees beginning to appear on either side of the freeway as the city falls behind us. He’s watching me, and every time my eyes move, his move with them. I glance at the side mirror and he’s already there. I look at the road and I feel it return a second later. It’s not uncomfortable like it probably should be. It’s just steady.
I meet Andrew’s eyes and say hi, and he says pleasantly, “Hi, Kojo’s mate.”
“It’s Kendra.” Kade cuts in.
“It’s majesty,” Kojo snaps from the backseat.
I turn in my seat and look at him. That same level amber gaze meets mine. Nothing moves in his face. I exhale through my nose and face front. No version of this exchange I’m going to win.
“How’s he doing?” I ask Andrew instead.
“He’ll be back to himself soon.” Andrew adjusts his hold, tucking Aiden’s arm a little more securely against his side. “Paralysis wears off clean. No lasting effects.”
Outside, Detroit is letting go of us one block at a time. The wall of lights breaks up into longer, darker stretches and the skyline shrinks in the passenger mirror, and I watch it go with something I don’t have a clean word for.
“I guess this means Wintermoon is my forever home now,” I tell her.
“It’s not as bad as you think,” Kade says.
“I haven’t said anything about what I think.”
“You didn’t have to.” She changes lanes without signaling — apparently traffic laws are advisory to her. “When you get there, my wife Leah will help you get settled. She’s better at it than I am, which is a low bar, but it’s the truth.”
Something about how she sayswifemakes me look at her. She’s got a small, closed look I haven’t seen from her before, not the sharp impatience or the fangs-out authority she’s worn since that motel room.
“It’s a long drive,” I say. “Tell me about her.”
Her features soften. Just briefly, just around the corners of her eyes, but it’s there. “She’s amazing. You may be Kojo’s queen, but Leah is mine.” She smiles at me briefly then continues, “She’s like me, a vampire hybrid witch, but she’s retained more of her power than I have. You’ll see her pop in and out of town the same way I do. She’s patient, which I am not. She’ll actually sit with you while you figure things out. She glances in the rearview mirror at the backseat, and whatever she clocks back there makes her press her lips together for a second before she looks back at the road. “Wintermoon isn’t a cage, Kendra. I know it feels that way, not what you planned for tonight.”
“Tonight started with a Shut-off notice for my electric bill, and a pizza delivery,” I say. “So no. This is not what I planned.”
I let that sit and watch the snow for a moment. The question I’ve been carrying since the parking lot works its way out before I can decide whether I actually want to ask it.
“Who was that woman?” I ask. “The shifter who fought the poachers. Is she like Kojo?”
