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“Deputy, he’s not armed,” I said, pitching my voice low and calm but clear enough to carry. Can you please pull your damn aura in some? I thought furiously at Mzatal. “It’s okay. We’re not causing any trouble.”
Frank heard me. I knew that much by the battle between logic and gut instinct that played out on his face. His gun was out, but he hadn’t yet raised it to point at Mzatal. Thank everything for that, because I could imagine all too well what the lord’s response might have been if he’d felt threatened.
I risked a quick glance to Mzatal. “Boss . . . rein it in.” It wasn’t exactly an order. More like a Holy fucking christ, if you love me at all will you please do this tiny little goddamn thing for me? Then again, he too was operating on instinct, reacting in patterns carved by millennia of interactions with humans and other lords. “There’s no trouble here,” I repeated to the deputy. “No one is causing any problems or creating a threat. You know that, right?”
Frank’s gaze remained locked with Mzatal’s. The deputy licked his lips, drew a shaky breath. “I . . . don’t know what I know.”
Mzatal ended the stare-down and turned his eyes to me as he slowly lowered his hands and pygahed. Immediately the intense, smothering pressure of his aura diminished to its typical I-can-kill-you-anytime-I-want-and-don’t-you-forget-it level. He inclined his head slightly in my direction, and I knew he’d toned it down and stepped back from the confrontation as a concession to me.
As Mzatal looked away, Frank blinked and gave his head a slight shake. He swallowed hard, then looked down at the gun in his hand. His face paled as he hurriedly shoved it into his holster. “Jesus,” he muttered, voice cracking.
I damn near wilted in relief and went ahead and put a hand on the beef jerky display to steady myself. “Paul, go back to the car, please,” I managed. “I’ll buy your snacks.”
He gulped and obeyed with alacrity. The bell on the door dinged behind him as he did a fast-walk to the SUV.
Mzatal was not so pliant and moved toward the deputy instead of toward me and the door and the highway and away from this place and this whole situation. Shit.
“Deputy, he won’t hurt you,” I told the man, watching the struggle on his face to not step back, to not draw his gun as Mzatal closed the distance between them. This was instinct again, a big Alpha Dog putting a little yappy thing in its place, holding teeth around its neck until it shut up. “He won’t hurt you,” I repeated while I silently cursed ingrained patterns of behavior. “I swear it.”
Mzatal paused barely within Frank’s personal space, face utterly unreadable, which was a scary-as-hell expression in its own right. He gazed down at the man for half a dozen heartbeats while the cop firmed his jaw and struggled to maintain control.
Finally Mzatal moved past the deputy, past me, and out the door.
Frank let out a ragged breath as the bell dinged behind Mzatal. His stress showed as he clenched and unclenched his hands, but he didn’t make a move to stop Mzatal from leaving. I hurried to the snack aisle, grabbed a handful of the Krunch ‘n Krackle, then ran back to the front and threw a twenty dollar bill on the counter.
“Keep the change!” I called to the still cowering clerk, then hit the door at a run. “Fucking hell,” I muttered. This whole incident stood as a stark reminder that none of the lords were tame or culturally socialized. Even with Mzatal on super-best behavior, this had been a near-disaster. It chilled me to think of an unscrupulous lord loose on Earth.
I yanked the driver’s door of the SUV open, then stopped dead. Everyone was in the vehicle and belted in, even Mzatal. Except that Mzatal was in the driver’s seat.
I spluttered something that was probably best left unsaid, then took a deep breath. “Boss? What are you doing?”
He gave me an implacable look. “Waiting for you to get into the vehicle so that we may depart.”
I shot Bryce a horrified glance. He shrugged in response and gave me a slightly pained look that clearly said, How t
he fuck was I supposed to stop him?
“You all need rest,” Mzatal stated. “I will drive.”
Scowling, I shut the door, ran around, and climbed into the front passenger seat. “Fine. Whatever. Let’s get the hell out of here.” I tossed the bags into the back seat for Paul, and remained tense as Mzatal started the engine and pulled away from the pump.
“Paul said the cop freaked out,” Bryce said, lingering tension in his voice. “What happened?”
“Yeah, he did!” Paul exclaimed, already typing furiously on his laptop. “We were just looking at the snacks and all of a sudden the deputy was like—” he dropped his voice to be more cop-like, “—‘lemme see your hands!’” He blew out a breath. “No reports so far. No pings.” He looked up. “What did he say after I left? Did he ID us or what?”
I shook my head. “Not that I know of unless he ran the tags. The SUV would come back to the rental, but Eilahn’s motorcycle is registered to my aunt.” I paused, giving a hard look up and down the highway as Mzatal pulled onto it and headed toward the interstate. “The cop must be sensitive,” I continued. “He really felt Mzatal’s aura.”
“Yes, he is, and he did,” Mzatal stated.
Bryce muttered something foul under his breath then glanced over at Paul. “Anything ping yet? Did he run us?”
“My connection sucks. I’m still checking.”
“Just let us know if we need to watch for anyone coming after us,” I said. Then again, what the hell could the deputy do? He’d pulled his gun for no apparent reason. He might go ahead and run the tags out of curiosity, but I couldn’t fathom him pursuing us. And unless he jotted down the tag numbers as we were leaving, he’d be out of luck since Paul had hacked the gas station’s security.
Still, I continued to check the rear view mirror obsessively. After several minutes of no blue and red flashing lights behind us, I finally turned to Mzatal.
“You’re sure you know how to drive, know the rules of the road, and what route to follow?”
