"You need to shift. You've been in human form all week. The kids and I will not fall into the sinister hands of the evil vampires if you take the evening off." She curled on the sofa and wrapped her arms around her knees, her red hair falling in frizzy curls from the humidity, curls she hated. Angelina raced up and threw herself on the leather cushion with a gust of trapped air. Molly rolled her daughter over, keeping an eye on Little Evan, who had found his ball under a chair and was bent over, butt in the air, trying to get to it. "I'll set my wards. They'll keep us safe."
"Is Aunt Jane gonna turn into Big Cat tonight? Can I watch? Please, please, please?" Angie asked. She was only six, but already the little girl was coming into her gift--and it was strong.
"No. That's private for Aunt Jane. And we do not talk about that, remember?"
Angie dropped her voice into a whisper and put a small finger over her lips. "It's a secret. Shhhhh." And then she giggled, a sound that always brought a smile to my face.
"Leo's not himself," I said, "not since I killed the thing that took over his son. He's still grieving, and my sources say grief can make vamps . . . not exactly rogue, but unstable. I don't trust him." Still, Mol was right. I hadn't shifted in too long. I could feel Beast's pelt rubbing under my skin, insistent. I needed the night.
Beast will guard kits, Beast thought at me. I am strong. And fast. And have killing claws and killing teeth. I shushed her with a calming thought.
"Leo won't violate your contract with the vampire council to find the young-rogue maker." Mol laughed up at me and added, "Of course, when you fulfill the contract, all bets are off."
"Thanks. That makes me feel oh-so-much better."
"Hunt tonight," Molly said. "Go running. End up at the Cherokee shaman's place and let her sweat you. You've been promising." She looked down and finger-combed Angie's curls. In sunlight, the baby-fine hair almost glowed with honey blond and strawberry highlights, but in the dimness of the storm, it lost its vibrancy. Angie smiled and closed her eyes, soothed by her mother's hand. It was nap time, and even a storm was powerless against the sleep compulsion Mol was thrumming through her elder child. "You might learn something new about your past," she added. "About skinwalkers."
"Yeah, like that they were all a bunch of crazed killers, and it's only a matter of time before I go nutso too." I had been trying for humor, but I could smell the tang of worry in my own words.
"You are not a killer, nor are you crazed. You are my best friend in the whole world." The faith on Molly's face when she looked up was absolute. "I'd trust with you with my life and with my children's lives any day of the week, Jane."
My heart turned over. I'd never had a best friend growing up, but I'd lucked out when I met Molly. She'd welcomed me into her small family and introduced me to the larger family of her sisters' coven without a single qualm. Her husband, Big Evan, wasn't so sanguine about me, but he was in Brazil, which was why Molly was visiting me for several weeks, despite the possible threat of trouble from Leo Pellissier, Blood Master of Clan Pellissier, the Blood Master of the City and head of the vamp council. "I'll think about shifting," I promised, knowing I was lying.
I looked over at Evan and found him asleep under the chair, his ball in his pudgy hands. I scooped up the baby and Molly gathered up Angelina, and we carried them both upstairs to their room. With the storm as protection, and the wards off, I could enter, settling the baby into his bed, placing the ball in the curve of his arms. I wasn't maternal, not at all, but I loved Molly's children.
Beast reared up in me, fierce and violent, her maternal instincts vastly different from any human ones. Will protect kits.
"I know," I said too softly for Molly to hear. Louder, I said, "Cards? Or a nap?"
Molly yawned. "Nap for me. See you in an hour or so, Big Cat."
I nodded, and as the storm outside died down and passed and the evening drew in, I went back to prowling the house and worrying. I didn't know much about my own heritage or my own past, except for the Cherokee stuff Aggie One Feather was teaching me, and that didn't include her knowing what I was: a skinwalker. The only other skinwalker I had ever seen was dead now, at my hand. He had killed, and taken the place of, Leo Pellissier's son Immanuel, maybe decades earlier, and then gone even further to the dark side, killing and eating humans and vamps. I still didn't know why. I worried that it was the nature of skinwalkers that we all went crazy eventually. I'd killed Immanuel's walker, and gotten myself into the predicament of being on the hate list of Leo Pellissier.