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Chapter Ten
“Oh, fuck this.”
I turned to find Grant with his gaze pinned on Gran, his color paler than it had been before we’d walked in, his green eyes wide.
He hadn’t seemed to recognize the store, but the moment he’d seen Gran, he’d uttered the curse.
Gran only smiled. “Hello, Grant.”
“Nope.” He shook his head and took a step backward. “You knowher?”
I turned my gaze between the two like some tennis match, unsure where to look. “What’s the problem?” I’d seen people give Gran a lot of respect, but I’d always chalked that up to her age more than anything. Maybe an odd amount of professional courtesy?
That wasn’t what was on Grant’s face. He wasterrified.
And for a man who had just flung me against a wall, a man who Kase trusted to take on Olin should he need to, that was an unnerving thing.
“She turned me into a goat!”
I fully about-faced at that, staring at Grant as if he’d lost his mind completely. “A goat?”
Grant shook his head. “Nope. No fucking way. Kase can take his money and shove it, because I willnotdo this. Nothing is going to screw with you while you’re around her, so I will be outside, you know, the place where normal people don’t turn other people into fucking goats.”
The door slammed behind him like some final punctuation to his hissy fit.
Gran’s laugh meant I didn’t need ask if she’d done it. People didn’t giggle likethatunless they were guilty as shit.
“Really? A goat?”
Gran lost whatever composure she had then, her laughter deepening until she had to lean forward to catch her breath. “A girl goat.”
“Why would you turn him into a goat?”
“It was a long time ago, but rest assured he deserved it.” She straightened, then smoothed her hands down the loose gown she wore. Her silvered hair was pulled back into a messy bun and her withered skin held years of lines. “He walked into one of my old shops with all the confidence, as if he were the biggest thing around. I rather like explaining to men who think that that they are not, in fact, the most dangerous thing there is. I’ve discovered a few days as a goat tends to teach them some humility, and I rarely need to give the lesson more than once.”
“But ifyoucan deal with him that easily, why on earth would Kase hire him to protect me? What? Was he some sort of bargain, coupon bodyguard deal?” I slid onto the stool beside Gran.
“No, Ava, he’s rather talented. He can handle your protection. He might have been overly full of himself but if he weren’t powerful, I wouldn’t have bothered with the lesson. Plus, he was kicked out of the guild, which makes me likes him more.”
“Oh, so not only is he agoat-man, but he also got kicked out of theonegroup he’s supposed to be in as a mage? This is getting better and better.”
Gran sat on the stool across from me, the same slow way she always did, one that said she was in no hurry and would do things at the exact moment she intended to—and not a second earlier. “The guild is like a boy’s club. Him not being in it doesn’t change his abilities.”
“So he’s not that bad?”
“I never saidthat.I said he’s capable of protecting you, if you’re into a man doing that.” She scoffed at that, as if the entire idea was one of the dumbest she’d ever heard.
“Well, mostly I’m into not dying, and since vampires, werewolves and hellhounds are out of my range when it comes to protecting myself, I think I’ll sit this one back and rely on goat-man.”
She snorted. “I’ve always said you were capable of more than you realize.”
“Yeah, but that’s just what everyone says now. It’s the new age, participation-trophy thought process. We’re all special and capable of more. I may not have had parents to tell me that, but you’ve done it.”
Gran caught my hand, her grip solid for a woman who had to be in her eighties. “You don’t get it, Ava.” Her eyes went white, the freaky thing I’d seen from time to time that always forced me to remember she was very much not normal. “There’s more inside you, and so much less. If you ever stopped hiding, if you ever stopped being afraid…” She shivered and shook her head, releasing me. “You might terrify us all.”
I stared down at my hand, at where she’d clutched, tiny red half circles in the skin from where she’d dug her nails into me.
An unease crept through me, one I had every time I stopped to think about exactly what I was.
