Reflected (Silver Series) (11 page)

By the time Felicia got halfway through the bottle, everything was warm, delightful, and hilarious. She returned the favor by pestering Enrique until his bottle was similarly low. He got more and more relaxed, rather than silly like her. Felicia laughed at the way he oozed deep into his lounge against the car, then tucked herself against his side. She didn’t care if she was being silly. This was fun.

“So is Silver really as crazy as all the rumors say she is?”
Enrique asked. He settled his bottle against his chest and looked up at the Lady’s face, comfortable.

“She’s not crazy! Well, she is. But it’s this weird not-crazy kind of crazy.”
Felicia gestured with her bottle and made it slosh. She giggled. She’d spill it if she wasn’t careful.
“When she’s at home or somewhere familiar, you’d never be able to tell. And she gets really uncomfortable when she’s somewhere new or complicated, but she’s still supercreepy. It’s like she can’t see the world, but she can see people extra well. You can’t get away with anything. Seriously.”

“But she can’t really fight, can she? I noticed she didn’t use one arm, even though Madrid said she did at the Convocation.”

Felicia grinned, thinking back to when she’d watched Silver do that.
“She can move her fingers, if she wants to. That’s what she did when she held that silver chain on the former Roanoke.”
Felicia curled her own fingers halfway to her palm to illustrate.
“She can’t shift. But you’re underestimating her if you think she can’t fight just because she can’t shift. She’s got creepiness on her side.”
Felicia giggled again.
“Never underestimate the power of the creepy.”

“So creepiness makes her the mate of the alpha of all North America?”
Enrique shook his head.
“I don’t even understand how that works. How does one alpha control that many people?”

“Two.”
Felicia held up two fingers and her bottle sloshed around more as her grip loosened. She switched to holding them up on her other hand and tipped the bottle up to drink.
“Two alphas. And the sub-alphas are the key thing. Papa and Silver don’t have to keep track of every single Were themselves, they just make sure that all the sub-alphas do. It works pretty well, actually. Papa’s good at it.
” Felicia frowned. “
Even if he’s infuriating.”

“You just called him Papa,”
Enrique noted. He looked up at the moon again, so Felicia couldn’t tell if he was teasing her for being too old to call her father Daddy, or if he was confused by it. She was a little confused by it herself. It had just slipped out. She’d better not ever let her father hear her say it, though. He was too infuriating for that.

“So?”
she said to Enrique, trying to sound nonchalant.
“I’m drunk.”
She grinned at him.
“I don’t know even half of what I’m saying right now.”

“So I guess you get along with him, then? Even when he makes you get a job or go roaming?”

Felicia kicked at a rock, part of the gravel they must have put under the road surface.
“I think everyone expects me to roam. I don’t really want to go to a stupid job all day all the time, no, but it’s not like I want to travel
around with everyone snarling at me because I’m some evil European, either. I earned my place in this pack. I want to stay.”

Enrique reached over and tilted her head so he could kiss her hair.
“You’re not evil. North Americans are just rabbits.”

Felicia shoved his shoulder, and he shoved back, developing into a brief tussle like they were children again. She was no rabbit. She stole a swig from his bottle and he pulled it back out of reach. She liked the taste of hers better anyway.

The talk of Europeans made a question that had been nibbling at her float back to the surface.
“Are you seriously here because you think you can talk me into coming home, Enrique? Tell me the truth.”

“The truth? Can you keep a secret?”
Enrique waited while Felicia pressed her thumb to her forehead as a promise on the Lady, then swigged from his bottle and sighed.
“All right. Yes, I want you to come home, but not just because everyone misses you. Madrid has made some decisions I don’t agree with. I think he’ll listen to me and maybe change course if I prove myself by bringing you back. And he’ll listen to you, if you support me.”

Felicia twisted to face Enrique and wished she hadn’t. Better not to move too quickly right now.
“Decisions?”
Anger bubbled up that Enrique thought she’d support him just like that, but it did depend on what kind of bad decisions her former alpha was making. She nodded to show she’d hear him out at least.

“I know I said it wasn’t bad for most of us at home, but it was enough to drive me mad. One of the fighters is always there, always watching you. I can take care of myself, I should be one of the fighters, but there’s no room for advancement with everyone always in the city, never out on patrol. Some of the families with young kids even joined Barcelona to keep them safe, so there are fewer people to protect too. We need to take the fight to Barcelona, not keep letting them bully us, but Madrid won’t hear of it.”

Felicia took Enrique’s hand when she smelled his old, soured anger, even over the alcohol.
“How badly were you hurt when you tried to take the fight to them all on your own?”
Enrique was more than old enough to be the protector, not the protected, unless he’d gone and done something stupid. His wordless growl was enough to confirm her guess.
“You really think I’m going to help you do that again?”

Enrique jerked his shoulders in a shrug and pulled his hand away.
“It doesn’t have to be a head-on attack. Just something besides hiding in the city.”
He held his bottle against his chest, as if to shield himself from her wrath.
“I want you there because you’re you, though. Not just for that. You’re not angry, are you?”
Enrique glared down at his bottle, as if it was the one that had just spilled the secret.

Was she angry? Felicia cradled her bottle more contemplatively. Thinking in straight lines took concentration at the moment. She was sure she had the truth now, at least. And she knew she didn’t want to support Enrique in that fight, or even send him back to it alone.

But he was here now. She’d liked North American life when she got to know it. If he stayed for a while, maybe he’d start to come around to appreciating North America too, especially if she gave him a shove or two. Life back home in Madrid sounded like shit, so why shouldn’t he settle here? She’d show him all the good things about North America that she’d discovered. And if he stayed, he’d be around to commiserate about the North American idiosyncrasies that no one else saw.

Meanwhile, she needed to be subtle about her real motives
. Wait quietly enough, for long enough, and your prey will walk right by,
Madrid had often told her when he was teaching her to hunt. It had seemed a stupid strategy at the time. Only later had she grown enough to see the less literal meanings.

“I’m not angry with you. It’s not going to work, but I’m not going to tell on you or anything.”
Felicia paused, maybe a little extra long, as she considered that. That sounded pretty good. No hint of her ulterior motive. She wagged a finger in his face.
“Don’t think you can wear me down, though!”
Hopefully he’d think just that and stick around so she could do it to him instead. She toasted him with her bottle and tossed back some generous swallows to celebrate her decision.

Enrique pushed away from the car, relief showing clear in his expression and scent.
“Enough talking, anyway. Let’s go run.”

Balancing to get undressed was a little difficult, but Felicia found a tree to lean against and managed it. They had to be well into the trees anyway, to avoid the risk of being seen from the road or parking lot. She took one last swallow from her bottle and then nestled it carefully on top of the pile of her clothes.

Enrique had already shifted, and he trotted over, darkly gray and shadowed to match the evening. Shifting made the alcohol sit badly in Felicia’s stomach, but the nausea settled out once she was safely on four feet. She still felt warm and silly. Enrique led the way in an easy lope, and Felicia bumbled after. She couldn’t laugh in this form, but she panted in amusement. She’d never actually catch any prey like this.

She wondered what Enrique was thinking. A line of red cedar or hemlock trunk here and a tangle of encroaching blackberry there felt familiar after seeing many like them while living here for three years, and she was in no state to note details. It was home to her, but of course it would be strange to Enrique.

Enrique seemed intent on something, though it wasn’t prey, because he ignored several promising trails they crossed. As Felicia’s head cleared a little, she realized he was paralleling the road that twisted up the side of the nearest hill. Cars flashed past regularly, the two-lane highway probably providing access to any number of expensive homes buried up in the trees. Enrique paused on the top of a slope down to the ditch flanking the pavement and watched the cars for a while. Most of them came down far too fast, enjoying the speed of the hill and trusting their fancy technology to keep them on the curves. Felicia flumped down beside him, muzzle on her paws. This was boring. What was he doing, counting them?

Without warning, Enrique jogged along the slope until it offered a diagonal trail down to the pavement. He waited, ears pricked, until a car growled around the curve immediately above them. Then, as its headlights swept down onto them, he dashed across the road. Brakes squealed, and the car slewed wildly into the oncoming lane as the driver panicked, but there was no sound of impact.

Felicia felt like her heart stopped. In her imagination, she saw Tom’s expression of canine shock as the car zoomed around the bend toward him instead. She hadn’t actually seen that moment, but it clawed at her voice anyway.

Over on the other side, Enrique looked fine, of course. When her thoughts started moving again, Felicia realized he’d been gauging the cars’ speeds carefully earlier. He’d had this planned to the split second and looked mightily pleased with himself, tongue hanging out as he panted.

The sound of another engine interrupted from above them, and Enrique jerked his head in invitation for her to take her turn at the game. Her father or any other older Were would be Lady-darkened furious that they were showing themselves to humans, but any teen knew that humans saw monsters in the dark all the time. Catch the light on your eyes and run away before they could do more than grasp your size, and no one was hurt.

But she was in no mood to play along. Not this time. Not with Tom’s expression in her mind. Besides, the driver who had seen Enrique might turn around and come back. They should get out of here. Felicia headed into the trees, toward her clothes. Enough.

Enrique arrived when she’d shifted back and was frowning at the bottle she’d lifted off her clothes. She’d liked the part of the evening where she’d been drunk better, but that wasn’t really just because of the alcohol.

Enrique shifted and came up to kiss the back of her neck, hands on her shoulders. He chuckled.
“They’ll be calling the local news right now, screeching about the … what would it be here, the chupacabra?”

Felicia rolled her shoulders to dislodge his touch and swigged from her bottle. “Bigfoot, up here. Well, Bigfoot’s dog, maybe.” He kissed her again, in the curve between shoulder and neck this time, and she twisted to face him. Now she was starting to feel embarrassed about her strong reaction back there. Enrique hadn’t been in any danger, and she wouldn’t have been either. She was plenty fast enough to outrun a car she was expecting. “I don’t … like playing with cars right now, okay?”

“Okay.” Enrique said it easily enough, eyes on her face. He touched her bottle, and she took the suggestion, finishing it in a couple gulps. Then he took it away from her, set it down, and kissed her deeply.

It was a great kiss, or maybe the alcohol hit her bloodstream right then, but Felicia tingled all over. She felt vaguely like she’d been more conflicted about Enrique’s gorgeousness sober, but her whole body throbbed with the attraction to his scent surrounding her now.

She shoved him against the papery bark of a red cedar trunk and devoured his mouth. Why not? He was hot, and he wanted her. And she bet he wouldn’t run away even if her father did show up this minute and forbid him. Not like stupid Tom. Enrique brought his hands up, smoothed her hair, tangled fingers in the waves.

And he didn’t try to get away.

Felicia pulled back from the kiss, though not away from her press against his body, and tried muzzily to pin down the instinct that made her hesitate. Playing chase was no fun if the other person just sat there, waiting for it. Was he not actually that interested in her?

Or was he too interested? His scent made it seem like he was so ready for them to have sex that he wasn’t bothering with the chasing part. That made Felicia uneasy, though she couldn’t really put her finger on why.

Whether or not she knew why, it completely killed her mood. She shook her head and put a hand on his chest to push away from him. “You’re not going anywhere, are you? We don’t have to do
everything
tonight. Leave something for later.”

Enrique growled under his breath, but he turned frustration into humor with a smile after a beat. “If you don’t want to scare the humans, what do you want to do, then?”

She tried hard to think, but the alcohol was hitting in earnest. Her thoughts kept flitting away like butterflies. She needed to catch one, and the image of herself snapping her jaws after them made her laugh again. “Let’s go dancing!”

Enrique held out his arms, striking a pose from the Were version of flamenco. Felicia shoved his chest. “No, in a club, stupid. Come on!”

Enrique pulled a face. “With humans? I know North Americans are weird, but that’s too much.”