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The old lady beamed at me, pride emanating from her in waves. That made no sense. Why was she proud of my words? Most would find them offensive. I’d been beaten for less at the compound.
“You’ve got fire in you.” She made it sound like a compliment. “As for what you can call me, everyone here calls me Granny.”
“You don’t look that old.”
Granny snorted. “Shifter genes help with that.” She winked at me. “Now, want to tell me why you’re wandering around town in shower slippers and clothes that look four sizes too big for you?”
“You’re the one with the magic,” I taunted. There was a playful lilt to my voice I barely recognized. “You tell me.”
Her lips turned up at the corners, her eyes shining.
“I said I knew you were coming.” Her eyes narrowed at me, but there was no heat behind them. “Not that I knew where you had been.”
“I don’t want to talk about where I’ve been,” I muttered petulantly, burying myself in my mug. Damn, these beans were brewed with magic. Maybe the old lady was a witch. I’d heardtales of them at the compound. Whispers of shamans and devil work. She didn’t look like a demon. Then again, neither did my father before he handed me over to the High Council.
“All right.” Granny held up her hands in a peaceful gesture before picking up her mug. “When you’re ready to tell me, I’ll be here. Then maybe I’ll tell you how I knew you were coming.”
“Hardly seems fair.”
Granny shot me a pointed look. “Why should I share my secrets if you won’t share yours?”
“You’re a stranger,” I rebutted. “Secrets aren’t meant to be shared with strangers.”
“Well, then,” she smiled at me, her graying hair falling slightly from her bun, framing her narrow face, “I suppose we better get to know each other. Then we won’t be strangers, will we?”
If only everything could be that easy.
“What do you mean she’s gone?” I growled at Carlson. “You were supposed to keep her under a psych hold.”
Doc Carlson had the wherewithal to look ashamed. A shifter himself, he handled most of our injuries at the club. Shifters healed quickly, but some injuries needed a bit of help. That was where he came in. Doc had come from a broken pack. His parents had gotten hooked on some new drug that hit themarket, and he’d been left to fend for himself. My father had taken him in, trained him, and paid for him to attend college.
He’d always wanted to be a doctor. To help those who were lonely and disenfranchised. Like Hunter and me, the doctor had a soft spot for the weak and broken.
“I did.” His mouth twitched at the edges. Amusement? Really? “She, uh, decided to check herself out against medical advice. Through the second-story window of her room.”
Fuck me. I didn’t need this shit.
“Did you have a chance to run the toxicology report at least?” I grumbled.
Doc nodded. “Just waiting for the rest of the results from the lab,” he assured me. “All the normal stuff checked out, though. We got those back fairly quickly. She was a bit malnourished when she came in. Low vitamin D and B12, but that’s not uncommon for anyone living in Washington. Potassium was a bit low, too. Fixed that. Thyroid levels are all normal, along with creatinine and BUN. No traces of human drugs in her system. Not even weed. AB is just waiting for the outliers to see if she has any of the Lycan drugs rolling around in her system.”
Lycan drugs.
Stupid fucking name. It was a fucking diss to shifters. A jab at our community. Funny fucking thing was that those drugs had to be made by shifters. Or by a human who knew far too much about our unique anatomy. Though we weren’t much different from humans in the form of flesh and bone and muscle, our immune systems worked differently. Our metabolism functioned on a higher level, our tolerance for pain and drugs was enhanced, as well as our healing, and all our senses were heightened.
It was why finding the girl was so disturbing.
And why I had wanted Doc to hold her for observation.
I hadn’t expected the little vixen to run. That made me even more suspicious of her. What did she have to hide? I’m assuming whatever it was is what had her face down on the riverbank. Maybe it was part of the reason she didn’t have a scent. Was she somehow connected to my cousin’s men being gunned down in the early hours of the morning?
It seemed unlikely. She’d been nearly an hour away from town in the opposite direction. Didn’t mean she wasn’t a part of whatever was going on, though.
“How long until those tests come in?”
Doc frowned. “Probably another day or two.”
Gave me plenty of time to track her down. Not that she could have gotten far. Doc said she’d run in nothing but a pair of shower slippers and the clothes we’d given her from Hunter’s truck.
