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I touched his thigh, felt the taut muscles there jump in response. He glanced at me, anger briefly flaring in his eyes before he contained it. I suspected this time it was aimed at me; he was, after all, an alpha in waiting, and given I wasn’t, my interrupting could be seen as overstepping boundaries.
“That is a question we get quite often from skeptics.” My voice remained surprisingly calm, despite the inner turmoil. “And the easiest to answer. Ask her a question about something only you and she would know.”
“Then when are you free to do this? Tomorrow perhaps, after the café closes? I wouldn’t expect you to drop everything, of course.”
There was something in her tone that suggested the wise would do exactly that, but I was nothing if not obstinate.
“No. If you want to talk to her, we do it tonight, after dinner.” I couldn’t quite help the edge in my voice. “It has the benefit of reducing any chance of you being spotted with me. Can’t feed the gossip mill, can we now?”
The black in her aura abruptly sharpened. I had a vision of teeth being bared, even though she hadn’t moved a muscle. As a pack leader, she was well used to controlling herself.
“Neither of us are dressed for walking around in the bush at night, my dear.”
“We don’t have to. We can stop on the road that circuits a good part of the O’Connor compound near the wellspring, and I can call her to me.”
I crossed mental fingers as I said it, because in fact I had no real idea if it was at all possible for me to initiate contact via the threads of wild magic. It wasn’t something I’d had to do—and until last night, something I hadn’t even thought was possible.
“You don’t usually carry your spell stones with you when we go out,” Aiden said. “How safe is it to attempt such a connection without initiating an active protection circle?”
I hesitated. “Ashworth created a non-pinned circle around the first lot of feathers we found. I’ll try and repeat that.”
“And if that fails?”
“Then hope nothing attacks us while we’re doing this.” Or, if it did, that I could use the wild magic to protect us all.
Karleen frowned. “Why would something attack? And why would you need a protective circle when talking to my daughter?”
“Because, as I informed the full council yesterday, we have a flesh-stripping demon stalking the reservation.” Aiden’s tone was full of bite. “Allowing Katie to speak through her basically leaves Liz defenseless.”
Karleen’s frown increased. “But you have a gun—”
“Bullets are rarely a viable option against demons, unless they’re made of silver and blessed by a priest, and we all know just how unwelcome any weapon made of silver is in the reservation.” I was damn lucky to have gotten my silver knife back, and that had only happened because Aiden had seen firsthand just how necessary items of silver were in the fight against supernatural beasties. “If you don’t mind me asking, why the sudden desire to speak to her now?”
The black smoke flared again, but this time it was definitely grief, though it disappeared almost as quickly as it had appeared. Maybe the only reason her aura wasn’t as dark and as turbulent as Aiden’s had been when I’d first met him was thanks to sheer force of will.
She picked up her glass and took a drink and then studied me several seconds before replying softly, “Perhaps I simply wish to know that she is indeed happy in her choice.”
It was a statement filled with so much unintended heartache that I couldn’t help but feel for her. She was a mother who’d lost her child in what was initially thought to be a murder suicide, and no matter how strong a person you normally were, that would have been a hellish situation to cope with.
“Fine,” I said. “We’ll attempt it tonight, then.”
“Thank you.”
I nodded but didn’t bother replying as the waiter came in with our meals. The conversation turned to more mundane things and, while an underlying tension remained, it was at least pleasant enough.
Once we’d had coffee and dessert, Aiden called for the bill, but Karleen insisted on paying for it. The night was filled with a misty rain by the time we left and, though it wasn’t cold, Karleen nevertheless pulled on a light sweater.
“I’d don’t suppose you’d be a dear and go get my car for me?” she said, looking at Aiden. “It’s one block over, on King Street.”
“We’ll drive you over—”
“My dear boy, Elizabeth may be limber enough to climb into your truck with a tight dress on, but I, however, am not.” She took her keys out of her purse. “It won’t take you long, and I promise I won’t scare her away.”
The hint of acerbity behind that comment had me wondering just who she had scared away—Aiden’s loved and lost wolf, perhaps?
He gave me a questioning glance, but when I nodded mutely, he took the keys and left. The tension that had eased over our meal immediately ratcheted up. Mrs. O’Connor, I suspected, was about to go all alpha wolf on my ass. She might truly want to speak to Katie, but it certainly wasn’t the real reason behind her sudden desire to meet me.
I’d always known that if Aiden and I lasted more than a few weeks there’d be some form of push back from his parents. Aiden was destined to be a pack alpha once his parents stepped down, so him getting seriously involved or even marrying anyone other than an equally strong female alpha werewolf was totally out of the question. Aiden himself had warned me multiple times that we could never be anything more than lovers and friends, but his mother was about to emphasize that point, and in no uncertain terms.
