Dead Heat (Alpha & Omega 4)

“Maybe,” Anna said. “But maybe he would know who does. Maybe he could help us.”

Katie looked up and Anna caught her eyes. Anna was no Alpha wolf to force people to do things that they would rather not. But she was honest and stubborn. It was Katie who looked away first.

“If you put anything in writing, I will make you look like a fool,” Katie said.

Anna tipped her head. “We have no intention of making you look foolish or getting you into trouble.”

Leslie hesitated. “If this has nothing to do with the girl’s disappearance, there will be no need to record anything more than that we checked out your story and found it not germane to our investigation.”

Katie was quiet a moment. “All right. All right. Fine. I have a touch of the Sight. My mother did, too, and her mother before her. My grandmother was a healer and wisewoman. My mother … she had migraines during which she would see things. Some of them happened, some of them didn’t. She thought she was getting glimpses of likely futures. Me? I can see the fae for what they are, whatever guise they are wearing. And I have hidden it from them because they don’t like sidhe-seers. If you give me away, my life will be very short.”

“Understood,” Leslie agreed.

Katie Jamison strode past the big pool with its attendant fountains, hot tub and assorted pool chairs, bar and barbecue: a full-service pool. Instead she aimed at the small green corner in the back of her yard.

Three huge palm trees formed the upper canopy, and huge clumps of lavender nearly waist high lined the eight-foot stone wall that separated Katie’s yard from the next house over. There was some kind of bush in between the lavender with pretty orange flowers. But there was no denying that the most spectacular plant was a huge orange tree, craggy with age.

It sprawled arrogantly over the wrought-iron fence into the jogging path, its branches laden with green fruits that were just starting to turn orange. It was obviously older than the yard it presided over, older than the housing development, the jogging path, and the three other fruit trees next to it, too. Anna, though no gardener, thought that the other fruit trees, though much smaller, were pretty old, too.

She paid attention to the messages that her nose was giving her. Over the faint scent of lavender, though most of the lavender was not yet in bloom, over the unripe fruit, and the orange-flowered whatsit, she smelled something wild, something magic, something fae.

“These people want to talk to you,” said Katie, staring directly at the decorative and effective gate between the yard and the canal-and-jogging-path. “It’s about a missing child. I don’t think they care about you being here at—Yes. I know it was stupid, but I didn’t torment that damned dog on purpose for months, either.”

Apparently Katie was a sidhe-hearer as well as seer, because even Anna’s enhanced ears couldn’t hear the person she was talking to. Her eyes caught on the great orange tree and stayed there.

The trunk was bent and twisted with knots where limbs had been cut years and years ago. The oranges were plum-sized and green. Anna didn’t know much about the vegetation in Arizona. A few quiet afternoons in Asil’s greenhouse in Montana had given her a working knowledge of rare roses and a handful of flowers and plants that appealed to the old wolf. The only fruit tree he had was a waist-high dwarf clementine that Asil said was a tribute to his Spanish heritage and the oranges he used to grow on some farm he’d owned at one time or another.

Katie turned back to them. “He likes to play games,” she said. “He told me that if you can find him, he’ll answer three questions.”

“Agreed,” said Anna. She pulled her cell phone out and texted a quick message to Charles so he wouldn’t worry when he felt her change.

“I’m not my husband,” she told Leslie. “I’m going to change to my wolf shape. Unlike him, I probably won’t be able to change back for a couple of hours after this.”

“You can’t just—” She tapped her finger to her nose.

Anna shook her head. “If it were that easy, he wouldn’t be making a deal. Just remember to phrase your questions very carefully. Take your time. The fae always answer truthfully, but not always completely. If they can deceive you with the truth, they will. Don’t ask rhetorical questions, because those will count.”

She stepped to the side of the big tree, where she was hidden from the sight of people outside the yard, and began stripping her clothes off. “This will take a while,” she warned them.

“What are you doing?” Katie said as Anna kicked off her shoes.

“I’m a werewolf,” Anna told her. “I’m changing into my wolf. The wolf’s nose is better and less easily confused.”

The moon was almost full, so her change should have been easy. Pain, as her body rearranged itself, was now an old friend. It slid over her head with hot hands that dug in and cracked her jaw so forcibly that the pain of the rest of her body seemed gentle by comparison—until her shoulders slipped out of their sockets at the same time.

On a moon night, with the pack gathered together, pack magic shielded the sounds the changing wolves made in their pain, and the moon could sometimes change pain to ecstasy. But alone and in the full Arizona sun, Anna was obligated to make no noise that might attract attention. She was good at not attracting attention.

Some changes were better than others, regardless of the moon’s phases, but this was much, much worse than any shift she’d done this near the moon’s call. Before pain drove her to the single determination of silence, Anna belatedly recognized the wariness her wolf felt that drove her to speed the change. The wolf could not adequately defend herself while caught between forms. Anna had chosen to change in front of a virtual stranger and a fae she could not see and knew nothing about. A fae who could be the very creature they were hunting.

Anna trusted Leslie to have her back. But the wolf was more judicious in her trusts and Leslie was not pack, nor anyone they were long acquainted with. So speed was necessary and pain was a small cost to pay for safety.

When it was over, Anna lay winded and shaky, which wasn’t exactly a safe thing, either. She rolled to her feet and shook off the last of the muscle twitches. She couldn’t tell how long it had taken. Pain made time subjective.

She stretched, sliding her claws out until they dug into the soil. Satisfied that her body was working, she turned her head to look at the two women who stood carefully not looking at her.