The Cougar's Wish (Desert Guards) (17 page)

Jamie’s expression of wide-eyed curiosity gave way to squinting and pouting.

Claude leaned a bit sideways, peered through the open door into the kitchen, then straightened up. Then he looked to Jamie. “My sweet, could you perhaps run a little errand for me?”

Jamie groaned. “In other words, you want me to walk away and find something else to do for a while.”

“Just a little while. Fifteen minutes.”

Jamie sighed, picked up her plate, and muttered, “You owe me,” as she passed through the screen door.

“Sending the kid away. Well, that’s not a good sign,” Sean said.

Claude shrugged. “I assumed you’d want to keep this somewhat quiet.”

“We’ve already got a whole football team’s worth of folks in here, so what’s a little more?” Steven asked.

“I don’t think the others should be involved. You keep people like them away from portals as much as you can because their proximity will incite whatever’s waiting on the other side. Those things waiting will want to come out and fight. We need to be a bit stealthier.”

“What are we being stealthy about and what does it have to do with Belle?”

“Not much, anymore. Her little escort has disengaged now that she’s said what she’s needed to, but she’s waiting around for someone to act.”

“Rewind,” Hannah said. “What escort? You said
she
, so you’re not talking about Steven.”

Groaning, Belle rubbed her eyes. “Gods, someone explain it so I don’t have to.”

Steven gave her knee a squeeze and reached for his plate. He understood probably better than anyone how tiring it got to be talking about things he didn’t have all the right words for. “She picked up a spiritual hitchhiker that was messing her up for a while. We asked Claude why.”

Sean narrowed his eyes at Belle. “Why didn’t you say something?”

“It wasn’t any of your business. I was going to deal with it.”

“How’s that working out for you? And is that why you were running to the hellmouth?”

“Not completely.”

“Actually,
completely
,” Claude interjected, “and please, I have enough siblings of my own that I know where this discussion would go if I didn’t interrupt. You can have a rousing argument later.”

The two Foyes muttered their concessions, but Steven knew damn well they’d pick up the fussing again at the first opportunity.

“Anyhow, the spirit entered Belle because Belle was convenient and already a bit confused because of ...”

“Going into heat,” Belle said. “Don’t dance around it and make it sound shameful. I have enough of my own already.”

Steven squeezed her knee again, but she didn’t look at him. “Belle?”

She kept on picking at her food.

“Apologies,” Claude said.

“What did she want?” Ellery asked.

“She wanted help for a friend,” Claude said.

“Pardon?” Steven said.

Claude leaned back against the couch’s cushions and put his arm around his wife’s shoulders. “In a nutshell, there’s someone on the other side of the portal who doesn’t belong there and who can’t get out on her own.”

Belle set down her fork. “That’s who’s been calling me. My personal mission. Time to share, I guess.”

“Wait,” Steven said. “If she’s there, she’s probably there for a good reason, right? People don’t volunteer to go to hell.”

Claude grunted. “Generally, no, but there are entities who are tasked with carrying messages between one realm and the next, and they’re not all strong like my father or his brethren. Usually they do their jobs proficiently until there’s some sort of catastrophic disturbance, and then they may need a little bit of assistance.”

“So, she got stuck there while doing her job?” Belle asked. “I thought she was a child. She sounded like a child.”

“Might just be aural interference. Regardless, she was a friend to your spirit.”

“And the spirit won’t go away until her friend is free.”

Claude nodded.

“You’re not sending Belle in there,” Steven said. “If that was your plan, think of another one.”

“I second that,” Sean said.

“It’s not up to you.” Belle set her plate onto the table with more force than was strictly necessary. “Give me all the information, and let me make a decision on my own. I’m not a child, so don’t treat me like one.”

Steven opened his mouth to make some rebuttal, but before he could get it out, Claude put up his hands.

“I wouldn’t send Belle in. She’d be too easily possessed, and we don’t want to inadvertently bring her back out with something even worse clinging to her.”

“So in that vein, you couldn’t send me in either,” Sean said. “Cougars are more attuned to the disturbances.”

Claude nodded. “Probably not as much as Belle, but I suspect none of you Cougars would be a safe bet. Including you, Hannah. Don’t want to risk it.”

“She wasn’t going to volunteer, anyway,” Sean said.

“I wasn’t?” Hannah asked.

“Sure fuckin’ weren’t.”

“I’m the glaring’s avenger, you know. If it’s anyone’s job, I’d say I’d be the best candidate.”

“Nope.”

“I don’t like where this is heading,” Ellery said. “Who
can
we send in? And for that matter, who’s willing to go in?”

“I can’t get closer than I already have for the same reason the people in the kitchen shouldn’t,” Claude said. “Otherwise, I would go.”

“So, that pretty much leaves Me, Steven, and Gail,” Ellery said.

“Not quite,” Claude said. “Gail is psychically bonded to me. I’m penetrable through her.”

“Which leaves ...” Belle whispered.

“Am I supposed to stand up and volunteer as tribute now?” Steven asked dryly.

“You can’t go in there,” Hannah said. “Do we perhaps want to stop here and make sure everyone in the room knows you have PTSD that’ll probably get triggered if you get close to that portal, or nah?”

“For fuck’s sake,” he said a little louder than he’d intended, then fought to bring his voice down to a more reasonable level. “I haven’t forgotten it for more than five minutes since I stepped onto this ranch this afternoon. I sure as shit don’t want to be the one going in, either, but it seems it’s either me or Ellery, and I don’t think the alpha’s gonna jibe so well with his mate going into that hole.”

“Right, so you should walk into it instead,” Belle said tartly.

“Actually, you both need to go,” Claude said. “One blocking the gate, as it were, and the other in to find our confused new friend.”

Steven ground the heels of his palms against his eyes and chuckled. “Shit.”

“Steven,
don’t
do it,” Hannah said. “If you’re going to go in there and freeze up, I’m going to have to in there and get you, and Cougar or not, I’ll do it. I will find some way to blow that damn portal to smithereens even if doing so rips a hole in time and space, so help me
God
, I mean it.”

“Hannah ...” he warned.

“I said I mean it.”

“Is this person important?” Steven asked Claude. “The one inside the hellmouth.”

“Important?” Claude shrugged. “Probably to someone. Obviously, people cared about her. Is she
missed
? Likely not by many. She was just one low-ranking employee in the angelic bureaucracy.”

“That makes it even worse,” Steven said. “The little people always get ignored. You can’t leave folks behind like that. Not when you know they’re there.”

“I agree,” Ellery said softly.

“Ellery,” Sean warned, “Mason is going to
flip
.”

“So don’t tell him.” She wiped her hands on her napkin and tossed it onto her plate. “Don’t say anything until all is said and done. When do we do it? After some of those folks leave for the night?”

“
Are
we doing it?” Claude looked to Steven.

Steven didn’t want to do it. He didn’t want to be anywhere near that portal or close to the things coming out of it, but he’d never be able to put aside the guilt if he left that woman in there. Sometimes people had to temporarily sacrifice their well-being for the sake of other people’s long-term good. He was going to hate it. Going into that thing was going to scare the hell out of him, and he wasn’t usually the kind of man who courted fear.

But it had to be done, and there didn’t seem to be anyone else who could do it.

“Eleven o’clock?” came his choked voice.

Claude’s smile was tight and strained as he nodded. “Yeah. Eleven’s good.”

Belle didn’t realize Steven had intended to leave her at home until he stood from the sofa where he’d been wedged between Alex and Lily, playing some video game with them that obviously perplexed him mightily, and handed off his control without a word to her.

A growly engine idled outside, and she’d heard it enough times in the past few years to know exactly which Foye it belonged to.

She stuffed her feet into her sneakers and ran after him, grabbing him by the back of the shirt on the walkway and giving him a hard yank. “You’re just going to leave like that?”

“I would have thought you’d be happy to be rid of me for a while. I don’t have to babysit you, right? You probably have things you want to do.”

“Nothing so pressing.”

Sean leaned on the horn.

Belle flipped him off and hoped he could see it. He was going to wake her derelict neighbors and send the squatters scattering into the night.

“I gotta tell you that the cat in me thinks you’re being an idiot,” she said. Actually, that was a mild description of what the cat thought. The cat wondered if maybe Steven was the one who needed to be followed around as if he were a habitual shoplifter in a high-end boutique. Maybe if she sat on him and dug her claws into his shoulder or some fleshy bit of him, he’d be still for a little while.

She wouldn’t even have to shift all the way, and if she were still in her human form, there’d be no risk of infecting him.

Not that infecting him was that bad of an idea. He’d live longer. Be around more years for her to torture him—for her to be just one more
demand
on him.

Dick.

She started at the press of his hand to the top of her chest and grabbed his wrist.

“That you, Belle?”

“Huh?”

“You zoned out on me. Did your hitchhiker come back? I’m guessing no, because as far as I could remember, she never made you growl.”

“I wasn’t growling.”

“Yes, you were.” He grinned. “You were growling like I tried to take a bowl of kibble away from you. You kitty cats are funny.”

More like jealous and irrational.
She didn’t see how that was funny at all.

She let her hand fall from his wrist, and his hand slid down her chest, tickling the skin left exposed by her shirt’s V-neck before falling away.

“You shouldn’t tease me,” she whispered.

“Who’s teasin’?”

“You are. You’re teasing a cat in heat, and I think you believe it’s a game.”

Sean pressed the horn again.

Steven turned and waved.

Sean rolled down the window and leaned out of it.

“I’m coming. Just give me a minute.” Steven turned back to Belle. “I don’t think it’s a game, princess.”

“You act like it.”

“If anyone’s treating this like a game, it’s you, but I guess I can’t fault you. You’re young. You probably don’t know you’re doing it.”

Her jaw dropped.

He shrugged and tamped her mouth closed. “I’m just sayin’. When I leave here tomorrow or the next day, you’re not gonna care. Mark my words. You’ll come down from this thing—this
state
you’re in—and when you’re clearheaded, you’ll figure out it was a bad idea.”

“You think the fact that I’m hormonal right now renders me unable to make good decisions?”

“I think there’s a chance of that. I mean, no offense. Happens to the best of us.”

“Are you
trying
to piss me off with that lame-ass excuse?”

“Come on, Belle. Don’t even act like this is bothering you.” He furrowed his brow. “You don’t want me. You don’t give a shit about me, and hell, you could probably do better with someone who lives right here in town.”

She gave her forearms pinches and tried to wake herself up from the nightmare she was obviously having, but nothing changed. She was still outside on the walkway of her rental house being swarmed by moths. Sean was still parked at the curb and waving Steven on. Of all possible things, a deputy’s cruiser pulled up in front the truck, which was parked in the wrong direction, and flashed its lights once. Not a dream.

Belle closed her eyes and sighed as Deputy Carlson emerged from the vehicle.

She could hear Sean’s muttered “Damn it,” from twenty feet away.

Fortunately, the deputy just waved at him and bypassed him altogether. He walked up the path and stopped in front of Belle and Steven, tipping his hat. “I’m glad to see you up. I have a message for you.”

“Oh, is that all? I thought you were going to give my brother a ticket for being half parked on the sidewalk.”

“Nah, I’m off the clock. Not heading into work for a while, so he could park up in the tree for all I care.” The deputy rooted in his front pocket and handed her a folded slip of paper. “Jill handed that to me before she got on the bus. I think she was afraid to give it to you personally.”

“What is it?” Belle unfolded the three sheets of loose leaf, squinted at the tiny print, but, even with her superior supernatural vision, couldn’t make out anything. It was too dark outside.

“Dunno. I was curious, but I didn’t read it.”

“And she said to give it to
me
, not to Mason?”

“She said you’d know what to do with it.”

Oh.
That probably meant that the contents didn’t only concern Mason. She and Jill weren’t exactly BFFs, but they got along okay in spite of their groups being enemies. “Well, thanks.” Belle refolded the papers and tucked them into the back pocket of her jeans.

“Sure.” Carlson turned to Steven. “How long will you be hanging around?”

Steven shrugged. “Can’t say. Maybe until the end of the week. I’m already being threatened with termination back at home. Perhaps, I’ll actually have a job to go back to.”

The deputy handed him a business card. “Sheriff told me to give you that. Said to call him if you for some reason got canned.”