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“Devil’s club juice,” the old woman announced, and she held up two fingers as if that meant something.
Birk said words she didn’t quite catch, but the woman focused on Shiya.
“Um, thanks, but I don’t need—”
“For when tired. Brew it myself.” The woman tapped the bottle. She brought a pouch from her pocket and held it up. “Caribou leaf salve.” She patted her chest, and Shiya wondered if the salve was meant to grow the boobs, but her breasts were a good size if she did say so herself. The old woman explained. “Heal wound from bear claw.”
Shiya flinched. “I don’t think I’ll be mauled by a bear anytime soon, but thanks.”
“Bad woman. You bad woman!”
The finger pointed in Shiya’s face pissed her off. “Because I won’t buy your products? I’m sorry, Nana, but I don’t need it!”
“No Nana. No Nana,” the old woman almost shouted.
A deep voice called something out in another language, and the old woman went silent, although her eyes snapped with resentment as she stared at Shiya. Grateful for whoever had gotten her to stop the harassment, Shiya peered past the woman and had to tilt her head way back at the man who strode up to their table. Mercy!
He stood at least six foot five or six, and had Birk by a good three or four inches. His midnight-black hair and dark eyes, paired with a chiseled jawline and massive build, gave off an air of danger. All that would be more than enough to make a woman either throw herself into his arms or run in the opposite direction, knowing she was in over her head. What added to this sexy Native American man was the tattoo of a knife on the right side of his muscular neck.
Shiya watched as he conversed with the old woman. While neither spoke in English, she could tell he chastised her in a firm but respectful manner. After a few minutes, the woman eyed Shiya and then spun on her booted feet and m
arched out of the pub in an obvious funk.
“I apologize for my grandmother,” the big man said to her.
Shiya waved her hand. “It’s fine. No harm done.”
When Birk spoke, she realized he’d also spoken to the woman in the language the man used, but he seemed to know but a few words, and the old woman had ignored him. “Shiya, this is my friend Kotori Munro. I mentioned him a few times while we talked.”
“This is Kotori?” For some reason, she had always pictured a small man. Birk had told her Kotori was attacked a few years back by a wolf. He had a scar on his throat, an injury that almost took his life, but instead took his voice, until his grandmother’s potions healed him. Maybe she should have bought that salve and devil juice, or whatever she’d called it. Shiya took him in, blown away by how attractive he was, especially with the tattoo on Kotori’s neck, which covered the scar.
“It’s nice to meet you,” she murmured, still intimidated by this man’s size. “I’ve heard a lot about you.”
He nodded and dragged up a chair from another table. She guessed the apology was the extent of what she would get for now.
“Shiya and I were discussing when and where we would stop playing with each other and get to what really interests us,” Birk told Kotori.
“Oh were we?” Shiya shook her head at his boldness, and all her nervousness drifted away. What if she did? No one had to know. She hadn’t told her dad or her siblings about talking to Birk so much online, and it wouldn’t be like she were veering off from her job. She’d fast-forward it.
“She may look prim and proper, my friend, but under those cute glasses, our Shiya is a tigress waiting to get loose.”
She waggled a finger at Birk. “Listen, you, you’re going to get me in trouble.”
“With who?” Kotori cut in.
She hesitated and then forced a smile. “With my morals.”
Birk threw his head back laughing. “Your morals did not complain when I strip-danced for you on camera.”
“You call that dancing?” She wrinkled her nose at him and then stuck out her tongue. “Besides, I wasn’t the one doing it.”
“You could be.” His voice dropped low, and he reached for her fingers to hold in his warm grasp. Her heart hammered in her chest. “For me . . . and for Kotori.”
Her eyes widened. She retrieved her hand and held both up. “Hold on, what? Are you kidding, Birk? We both knew we might, you know, see what happens, but we never discussed a . . . a . . .”
Man, was she being a prude now. Her sisters had juggled boyfriends countless times and dared any of the guys to complain about it. Of course, she didn’t know if all were intimate relationships, but still, the girls took it in stride. Not only was Shiya venturing into territory unheard of scoping out shifters, she was being offered a ménage à trois with two of them?
These were monsters, nonhumans that would rip out a throat just as soon as look at a person. They lived by their own code, their own rules, and damn anyone who got in their way. At least, that’s how she’d been raised to view them. She’d begun to question that view when she met and started talking to Birk.
