Cougar's Courage (Duals and Donovans: The Different) (21 page)

And he might be dying because he’d chosen to cut himself off from his magic.

“Why not? We humans lie to ourselves all the time.” Like her telling herself she didn’t want Jack. She’d actually believed it for a while.

Which, in hindsight, was hilarious.

She smiled despite herself. Her grandfather shook his head slightly, something resembling a grin flitting over his face before it settled back to looking like an old walnut. “Duals can literally smell lies, so they tend to be honest folk. No point in lying if you’ll just get caught anyway. But that doesn’t mean they always know what the truth is.” He squinted at her. “That’s one important thing to remember as a shaman. We know a little more than other people, but we’re still as likely to fuck up as anyone else.”

“We?” Anger flared hot and tight inside her, although she couldn’t explain why she was angry. “I thought you weren’t a shaman anymore, Gramps. I thought you couldn’t find the magic.”

He shook his head. “The magic’s still there, but I can’t tap it any more than you could reach yours when you first came to us. Coyote won’t talk to me, and I can’t find the way back on my own. Your grandmother and I always worked together, from the time we were boy and girl. Coyote wasn’t her guide, but he always swore he hung around to be close to her since she was so much prettier than me. And maybe he wasn’t kidding. I haven’t felt my guide in years. It’s killing me. Literally. I’ve prayed and burned sacred tobacco and drummed and done everything you’re supposed to do when you’re blocked from the spirit world, and I’m still alone in my damn head.”

She tried to make a joke out of it. “I’m jealous. My skull’s crowded these days.”

“Downside of being a shaman, and also the upside. You’re never lonely, but you never have privacy.” He sighed and took her hand between his large, age-spotted, bony ones. “I try to take comfort in the quiet. When I start hearing voices and they’re not Coyote, it’ll be time to join your grandmother and mother.”

“Maybe we could share guides. Take Jack. Please.” She was only half kidding, although seeing Gramps smile again helped. “Or borrow Lynx. She’s a snot, but she’s useful, if only so she can say ‘I told you so’ later.”

He chuckled, but it was a rueful one. “Lynx and I go way back. She was your gram’s guide, and your mother’s, but she talked to me—especially when she thought I’d been stupid, and that was a lot. She came to me after your gram died, to say good-bye and that it had been a pleasure teasing me all those years.”

Desperate, Cara hung on to that. “That’s something. She knows you. She likes you as much as she likes anyone. So maybe she can work with you.”

Instead of answering, Gramps walked to the rustic twig shelf and opened his tobacco jar. The longhouse filled with a rich fragrance. She waited, feigning patience, as he loaded the pipe, lit it, took a deep draw and let out a puff that smelled nothing like the harshness of cigarette smoke.

Finally, he answered. “It doesn’t work that way. I can’t take your guide, and I’m not sure what we can do for you and Jack other than pray you don’t end up killing each other. But I’d be willing to try something if I could. Sheer gumption’ll get you a long ways in this shaman business, Cara. Important tip. If you try something impossible, but you throw heart and spirit into it anyway, it just might work.”

She slapped her hand down on the bunk. Magic surged as she did, so the frustrated gesture carried far more force than it should have, jarring the solid construction and making the tin cup of oily coffee jump, splashing its contents onto the furs and blankets. “So try the impossible, dammit. Do something to invoke Coyote. Try some magic without Coyote and see if it lures him back. Jack says Coyote still hangs around you sometimes. Maybe if you just did your thing, it would work.” Cara reached into her pocket and pulled out her cell phone. She didn’t know why she bothered carrying the damn thing, since the battery was long dead. Maybe as a reminder the outside world existed. “Hell, call him and ask him to pop round for a nice steak dinner.” She handed her grandfather the phone.

He studied it curiously, and she realized he’d probably never used a cell before. Some of the villagers who’d spent time in the outside world had them, but they were uncommon and worked only sporadically.

“The green button means go, right?” He began to dial. “What do you think? 1-800-COYOTE sounds promising.”

“I was kidding, Gramps. The phone doesn’t work anyway.”

Gramps cackled so loudly they could probably hear him above the Arctic Circle. “It doesn’t matter if the phone works, Cara. I’m calling
Coyote
. If he wants to take the call, he will.”

He held the small red-and-silver device out a little gingerly and dialed.

Despite a dead battery and no signal, she could hear it ringing.

She froze when she heard a voice.

“Coyote’s not home right now,” it said. It was raspy, whisky-and tobacco-laced, prankish and intimate, yet doing its best to sound like a machine. “Or he is, but he’s eating or fucking or napping and doesn’t feel like being interrupted. Please leave a message at the sound of the…”

Then the tone changed, no longer pretending to be a recording. “Sam, where have you been? Your time’s almost up. Expiration date quickly approaching. But I don’t think earth’s quite done with you yet.”

Cara didn’t think her grandfather, with his weathered bronze skin, could turn pale. She was wrong.

Then again, she didn’t think a cartoon sledgehammer could pop out of her phone and bop her grandfather on the head. “I never left you, Sam Many-Winters. You’re a moron. I’ve. Been. Right. Here. All. Along.” The last six words were punctuated by more bops on the head with the impossible hammer. The blows didn’t seem to hurt. If anything, each one left Gramps looking more focused and determined. “All you had to do was ask properly, and by properly I don’t mean one more snore of a ritual, but in your own way. Now that you finally did, yes, I’ll take you up on that steak—with a side of whoop-ass for sorcerers.”

With the last one, the door blew open, even though Cara had latched it behind her out of habit, and a coyote trotted in.

Chapter Twenty-Seven

A coyote in a battered Stetson, holes cut for his ears. His tongue lolled out, and he left muddy paw prints on the floor.

The coyote—who had to be
the
Coyote—trotted up to Cara and proclaimed in a downright seedy voice, “Hubba-hubba, you are one hot lady, even if you have cat all over your spirit. So, Sam, aren’t you going to introduce me to your lovely, tall friend?”

Gramps opened his mouth to say something. Probably, judging from his expression, something you’re not supposed to say to your long-lost spirit guide.

Lynx materialized and smacked Coyote on the nose with a large, viciously clawed paw. “There’s a reason your dick is detachable, Coyote—so you can leave it at home and not make a fool of yourself quite so often. Cara is Lily’s daughter, Margaret and Sam’s grandchild. Mine to guide, not yours to play with. Unless she feels like slumming with a canine, I suppose.” She batted at him again.

Coyote yelped, buried his wounded nose between his front paws and, from that ignominious position, said, “Sorry, old friend. Didn’t realize this was your granddaughter.” He looked up again and grinned a doggy grin. “Hey, granddaughter or no, you have to admit she’s gorgeous. And, sweet stuff, I know we canines aren’t quite up to snuff for you cat-aligned types, but no one who’s slummed with me has had any complaints, and I promise not to leave fleas in the bed.”

It was so over-the-top that Cara couldn’t help laughing. A quick glance at her grandfather revealed that, under a look of indignant horror, he was struggling not to chuckle himself.

Then the door banged open again.

Jack burst in, his form halfway between the familiar hunk and a cougar. Without hesitation, he backhanded Coyote, who ducked and rolled before Jack actually made contact, then skittered across the floor. “Mine!” Jack roared, half a human roar of indignation, half a cougar’s snarl.

Coyote laughed. Gramps laughed. Even Lynx tittered politely.

Jack didn’t crack a smile.

Cara had never seen someone shaking with rage before, but Jack was. Shuddering with rage and the effort not to commit further violence.

He shuddered visibly as he shifted to his full wordy form. More naked than not, his eyes wild, he grabbed Cara and kissed her. One big hand traveled up and down her body. The other fisted itself in the hair at the base of her neck possessively, tipping her face up to him for a deeper kiss.

“Mine,” he growled again, into her mouth, and the word, barely audible, shuddered throughout her body.

Cara’s pussy sprang to instant, damp attention. Her nipples crinkled. As usual when Jack touched her, her common sense decided to take a vacation.

This time, she caught her common sense by the scruff of its neck and dragged it back kicking and screaming.

Summoning all her willpower, Cara pulled away. “Jack,” she said, pleased she could keep the needy quiver out of her voice, “what the hell were you thinking?”

“I was thinking”—his eyes blazed—“that no mangy mutt gets away with speaking to you like that.”

“That mangy mutt is my grandfather’s MIA spirit guide, asshole. They’re finally talking again and you try to smack him into next week. Do you want to help Gramps or kill him? I wouldn’t blame Coyote if he washed his hands of all of us.”

Coyote snickered, then said, with what sounded like genuine regret, “Sorry, cousin. I was only having a bit of fun with your lady friend. She’s very pretty and too damn serious. Couldn’t resist.”

“You should know better. You’re a powerful avatar, but as long as you’re in physical form, I can kick your furry ass. Payback would be a bitch, but that’s a risk we mortals will take for our mates.”

“Sorry about that. I smelled cat, but I figured guide, not mate. She has Lynx all over her aura, and Lynx’s girls are such fun to tease. So very earnest, but they always have such sweet laughs.”

Jack smiled. “Fine to make her laugh. Just keep your paws to yourself.”

Coyote nodded. “Mates are off limits.” He looked at Cara and added, “But if he bores you or doesn’t treat you right, come talk to Coyote.”

Both males sounded almost genial again, which just went to prove that, human or furry, males were incomprehensible once their hormones got involved.

Relief that they weren’t about to come to blows allowed Cara to focus on one alarming word.

“Mate?” Her voice rose to a grating, squeaky note. “Mate? Don’t I get some say in that? In my world, a man asks, and it usually takes longer than two times in the sack to bring it up.”

“You’re not in your world anymore, Cara. You’re in mine. And you’re my mate. Simple as that.” Jack’s lazily possessive voice sent a thrill through her treacherous body, even while it enraged her brain.

“Then I’m getting out of your world as soon as I can. You’re fun, but this is too weird for me.”

Gramps cleared his throat. “What about that little matter we were discussing earlier, Cara?”

“Oh, shit.” Well, they’d had good luck asking unlikely things of Coyote today. Why not one more? The worst that could happen would be he’d say no.

Okay, the worst that could happen was that it would blow up in her face, but she’d take that chance.

She crouched down next to the small canine with the huge aura. “Coyote, I need your help. Jack’s cougarside thinks he’s my spirit guide, but I can’t see how that’s going to work, especially not since wordy Jack and I have a few things to work out. You’d be a lot more fun, and everyone knows you’re the most powerful avatar of all. Would you do me the honor of being my guide?” She didn’t look at Coyote as she said the last words, but glared at Jack instead.

“Of course, Cara. And for your gram’s sake, there won’t even be any naughty business, though I can’t promise no flirting.” He winked at her, then craned his neck to wink at her grandfather.

She hugged Coyote.

He smelled like a wild thing, strong and pungent, a scruffy, scrappy, wet-dog smell. She thought of the clean, sun-warmed fur smell of Jack’s cougar, which clung to him even in human form.

Still, she buried her face in Coyote’s ruff, to show her gratitude—and to emphasize the disconnect with Jack, Jack’s out-of-line possessiveness, Jack’s cougar, and most of all, the part of her that still vibrated from his possessiveness and wanted to take him up on the whole “mate” thing, even if the word made her feel like she belonged in a
National Geographic
special.

Jack’s face fell, and a cougar’s snarl passed his human-seeming lips. It could have been a noise of fury, despair or both, but it sounded dangerous, feral.

He turned and banged out the door, stumbling as if drunk on violent emotion.

Lynx hid her face between her paws, a very human gesture. Some rebellious part of Cara’s brain, attempting to evade the mess, wondered if Lynx could peer between her furry toes like a child covering her eyes in a scary movie.

Gramps stared in silence for a moment.

Then he laughed. No, he roared. He cackled. He slapped his knee repeatedly. He choked on his own laughter. Cara sprang to her feet to check on him, but he kept right on laughing and waved her off. Finally, he sank to the floor, still laughing, but with tears streaming down his face.