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She smiled. “Thank you, Master.”
“Dammit, Etta.” He didn’t like it when she called him Master in private, and I didn’t try to hide my smile. I loved watching these tiny little power struggles between them. Etta was happy as Marco’s Secundo, but she still has a mind of her own, and I respect that about her.
“Deal with it, Marco,” Etta told him. “You’re the Master, and you’re giving me a way out, so if I have to lie to him, and he finds out, I’ll be able to honestly tell him it was under your orders and I had no choice. When you do something like that, I’m going to acknowledge it.”
Marco gave her a two-second glare filled with both annoyance and affection, and then looked to me. “How do we smell?”
“Still not right. A shower won’t wash the stench of evil deeds off, I just wish we knew whether the magic of the skin is what’s lingering, or the essence of the humans who originally owned those skins. Also, now that I know you have human food still inside you, I can scent it as well. At a guess, I’d say you consumed just about every animal humans normally eat, along with pastries and sweets?”
“Sausage, steak, bacon, eggs, and I’m pretty sure the gravy had dried venison,” Etta said.
“I had all of those, plus a waffle with blackberry syrup,” said Marco. “Etta had a blueberry pancake with blueberry syrup, and also a peach pancake with peach syrup a little later. I believe we both had the cinnamon rolls.”
“I also had scrambled eggs with cheese, a fried egg, and an omelet with sausage and tomatoes and onions and I think spinach, but I can’t be certain.”
Marco stepped out of the shower with a smile. “I believe I had every kind of egg offered as well, though I bypassed the boiled ones.”
I laughed. “Well, no wonder you both have indigestion. I’m a werewolf and I’m pretty sure I’d need to lie around and let my food digest if I’d eaten that much.”
“And then we went horseback riding,” Etta said with a laugh. “Through the forest in the daylight. It was magnificent.”
It’s a wonder they hadn’t been thrown. I couldn’t imagine horses being okay with carrying them as they smelled now, and I was curious as to how they’d smelled while wearing the skins.
“Did anyone react oddly to you while you were in the skins? Could they smell the evil? Were the horses okay with you?”
Marco had put a robe on while we talked, and now he and Etta looked at each other a few seconds, and Marco shook his head. “I don’t think anyone reacted negatively to us.”
Etta looked at me. “I didn’t notice, either.”
“I can scent on Venom that he had sex with Etta, but I can’t scent on Etta that she had sex with Venom. Neither does it smell like the two of you were intimate.”
“Nothing intimate about it,” Etta said, “but we certainly fucked.” She sniffed her own arm. “I don’t scent anything on me or on Marco, but since all of you do, I’ll need to fix it before returning home. Ryan can’t smell me with even a hint of evil in my essence.” She looked at Marco. “Same goes for you, though for different reasons.”
“We’ll figure it out.”
* * * *
Marco
Indigestion was an understatement. It felt as if I had concrete and black tar in my colon, snaking around through my abdomen — heavy, sticky, and viscous. Also, a little acidy, or perhaps alkaline. I didn’t know which, but there was some burning involved.
I wasn’t ravenous for blood, however, and when Ranger made coffee, it felt as if I must have some.
And so, as an experiment, I tried a sip of Furio’s, and to everyone’s surprise, it went down easily and I had a larger sip.
“It’s crazy, but it feels as if the coffee helps the indigestion,” I told them, and then looked towards Furio. “Can you make me some like this, really strong, but with a lot of sugar and a whole lot of milk?”
“Of course, but…”
“Sir,” Ranger said from beside me when it was clear Furio wasn’t sure how to continue. “I’m not sure that’s a good idea.” I can’t get into his head, but I could tell he had all kinds of concerns, and he didn’t want me drinking coffee on top of everything else.
I shook my head at him, and then did the same to Furio when he telepathed, If you have sex with Cora and drink from her, it might fix whatever the problem is.
I wasn’t going to let Cora rescue me from whatever this was. I’d fix it myself.
Though, it probably wouldn’t hurt for me to add some blood to my coffee.
“Let’s compromise,” I told Ranger. “Why don’t you add some of your blood to my coffee.”
