Derik's Bane

But it was more than that: He wanted her to see. See all of him, and not be afraid.

"What's wrong?" he finally asked, deciding to grab the bull by the horns.

"Nothing."

"Oh. Are you, uh, mad about something?"

"No," she lied.

"Oh." Honest to God, he had no idea what to do now. She was lying, and he knew she was lying, and she probably knew he knew she was lying. So what the fuck? "So, uh, everything go okay last night?"

"Fine."

"That's good." Tell her she was lying? Ignore the fact that she was lying? Tell her but at the same time forgive her for lying? Tell a lie himself?

What? "Are you mad because I didn't bring back a rabbit? I thought about it, but to be honest, skinning and cleaning one would be a pretty messy job, and I didn't think-you—"

"I really don't care, Derik."

"Oh."

"So," she grumped, poking the fire.

"So, what?" He stretched, feeling pleasantly pooped. "Is there any bacon left?"

"You know damned well there is," she snapped. "Where's what's-her-fur?"

"Huh?" He sat up, puzzled. She wasn't kidding around. Not at all. She waspissed. She smelled exactly like the campfire. "What? Did you wake up with a spider on you?What is it?"

"That hair-covered-whore you took off with last night, as if you don't remember. That'swhat."

"Hair-covered . .. oh, you mean Mandy?"

"Mandy," she sneered.

"She's not a hair-covered-whore," he said defensively. "She owns her own accounting firm. And she's not here. She went home."

She shook the spatula at him, and he dodged drops of hot grease. "Look, all I want is the truth. Just tell me the truth, okay? I promise I won't get mad."

"But you're already mad," he said, wondering if he could crawl underneath the fire. The truth was, he was sort of morbidly curious ... what would her powers do to him if she was just mad, but not defending her life? Maybe just give him dandruff, or a sprained ankle. "Really, really mad."

"Oh, shut up. Did you guys do it out there in the woods?"

"Do—oh. Oh!" He laughed out of relief, then dodged as she jabbed the spatula at him. "Sara, for crying out loud. Mandy'sgot a mate. We just paired up to hunt. Remember: Way more of you guys than us. It's really rare to just run into one of us in the woods. So we teamed up. She was on her own, because it was his turn to stay home with the cubs."

"Hmm." She was staring at him with narrowed eyes, but he could tell she felt better.

"I can't believe this! You've been stewing about this all morning?" He was trying to stop laughing; it wasn't likely to make her less mad.

"The most powerful sorceress in the world is jealous of an accountant?"

"M'not jealous," she muttered. "Just wanted to know, is all."

"Well, now you do. And thanks for the vote of confidence, by the way. Yes, we werewolves are so slutty we do it with anything on four legs."

"I didn't mean it quite like that," she mumbled.

"Yeah, sure you didn't."

"Well, I'm sorry," she grumped.

"Besides, I'd never go off with another female now. I'd—" He'd shut his mouth with a snap.

"You'd what?"

"I'd get some of that bacon, like, pronto. I'm starving!"

"And the Universe," Sara said dryly, "realigns itself."

"Seriously," he said after a long moment. "That was really dumb."

"Oh, shut up," she said, but he knew she wasn't mad anymore. Even if she hadn't smelled like roses again, she fixed a whole 'nother pound of bacon, just for him.

26

They were in St. Louis, and to tell the truth, Sara was getting pretty damned sick of the truck. And sick of sleeping outside. And sick of the smell of campfire, how it clung to her hair and clothes and skin.

And really, really sick of bacon. Derik, it appeared, could eat it with every meal. She could not.

But none of that mattered, none of it was important, because, as sick as she was of the whole thing, she didn't want it to end. She wanted to stay like this with Derik—in this adventure limbo—forever.

Because the world would end, or it wouldn't, and either way Derik would be out of her life.

Unacceptable.

That's nice,she told herself.Put off saving the world so you can get boned a few more times. Very nice.

"Over halfway there," Derik said.

"Uh-huh."

Right. Because werewolf lovers come along all the time. Why shouldn't I want to hang on to some happiness?

She coughed. "Listen, is there a plan for when we get there? How do we find these guys, anyway? And then what do we do, once we find them?"

"I figured your luck would help us out with finding them. Shit, you'll probably trip and fall on the leader and accidentally give him a fatal concussion. As for the rest of it... I can take care of the rest of it."

"You have no idea what the plan is, do you?"

"Never mind," he said primly, which made her laugh.

"It's okay," she said. "We've got some time to work on it, thank God,"

"Mmm. Listen, this Morgan Le Fay business . . . maybe if Arthur's Idiots find out you're a good enough gal, they'll stop trying to kill you. I mean, we've only got Dr. Cummings's word for it that they're the bad guys."

"That and what I saw with my own eyes at the hospital," she pointed out.

"Oh, right. Well, like I said, maybe once they find out you're not bad, they'll forget about the whole thing."

"And maybe," she added brightly, "I'll get caught up on my laundry this week. But probably not."

"Seriously. Morgan's whole deal was that she was wicked, bad, blah-blah, but you're not like that."

"Morgan's whole deal, as you so annoyingly put it, is that Merlin set her up, screwed over her family,splintered her family, and then took off after he did all that damage."

"Oh." He paused. "Really?"

"Listen, without his interference, she could have been Arthur's greatest champion. She really could have. But she's been totally screwed over, not just by real life but by history, too. Men write the history books," she added neutrally. "So naturally their take on it was that Morgan was this wicked terrible evil witch who destroyed Arthur because she could. But that's not true at all. She wasset up to destroy him. And then she did. But if things had been different,. . ."

"Oh."

"If she'd had a normal family life ... a normal upbringing . . . who knows?"

"Huh."

"This is the part where you say, 'I never thought about it like that.'"

"Well, I never did."

"Exactly. Men. I mean, I'm not mad about it or anything, because you can't help thinking with your dicks all the time—"

"As long as you're not mad."

"Stop the truck!" she shouted suddenly, and Derik stood on the brakes. Sara was half-strangled by her seat belt, but finally fought free of it and opened her door. She reached back, grabbed the large duffel bag they were using as a communal suitcase, and said, "Come on."

"Come on, what?"

"Trust me."

She ran toward the .. . Amtrak station, Derik belatedly noticed. He ran after her. "A train?" he called. "You want to take a train? Why didn't you say so when we first started seeing trains?"

"I dunno. I'm sick of that truck," she explained, entering the busy station. "And I'll bet you a million dollars we can find a train that goes to Boston. We can ride instead of driving."

"One of ushas been riding instead of driving."

"That's because you're a wheel hog. You wouldn't let me drive after that one time."

"You can't drive a stick."

"I can, too!"

"So we were stalling all the time, why again? And what are we doing looking for a train?"

"I don't know," she said, "but I think it's going to be all right."

"When we don't have a ticket? What am I saying. The ticket guy won't notice us, or will pretend like we have tickets, because his wife left him this morning, or Amtrak's entire computer system will crash, and they'll be too distracted to worry about two strangers on a train."

"Exactly."

"So, this is like instinct?"

"Exactly."

He was following her past the ticket windows. "Okay."

She turned to look at him over her shoulder. "Really okay?"

"Sure. I'm a huge believer in instinct. Besides"—he smiled at her—"you haven't steered us wrong yet."

27

"You know, I could get used to this," Derik said, climbing into the sleeping berth beside Sara, who was propped up on one elbow, looking out the window. "No ticket, no money? No problem!"

"I was wondering if it would work," she said, not looking around. "I'm sick of my power—my whatever-it-is—being passive, you know? I wanted to see if I could make it work."

"And you did."

"Ithink I did.. ."

"And say, hon, can you see anything out there?"

"Ican't," she said, looking over her shoulder and smiling at him. It was ridiculous what a gorgeous smile she had. "Come here and narrate."

He curled up behind her and peeked over the top of her head, out the window. "Well. . . that's a farm . . . and that's another farm . . . oh, there's a herd of cows, sound asleep . . . mmm . . . cows ..."

"Don't start, you just ate."

"What, 'just'? Half an hour ago. Oh, now look here, the land's thinning out, probably because ... yep, there's a river ... you can see those lights, right? Probably a town right on the river. Where the hell are we?" ns class="adsbygoogle" style="display:block" data-ad-client="ca-pub-7451196230453695" data-ad-slot="9930101810" data-ad-format="auto" data-full-width-responsive="true">