Coyote Calling, page 20
“Relax. It will make the ride easier,” Ayra said near my ear.
“Easy for you to say, Ms. Cowgirl,” I mumbled.
She laughed, a rare thing indeed.
“What’s so funny?”
“A werewolf cowgirl.” Her deadpan tone combined with the words made me laugh.
Tension eased out of me.
“You don’t have to worry,” Ooljee said from where she walked near the horse’s head. “Tahoma wouldn’t insult your honor by unseating you.”
“Tahoma, that’s the stallion’s name?” I asked.
Ooljee made a humming sound of affirmation.
While the conversation helped put me further at ease, I needed to listen to our surroundings. There was a reason they made us ride Tahoma to our destination. I was relatively certain it had to do with them not wanting us to know the terrain. It had worked for a bit, distracting me so thoroughly that I’d focused on nothing but clinging to the back of the stallion once we’d gotten far enough away I couldn’t hear Ty or Vidar’s heartbeats. Per Ooljee, the other animals had ‘escorted’ the two of them back to the gate where they were to remain until Ayra and I returned.
The fact that Ty let me out of his sight meant he’d come a long way in trusting me to take care of myself. Of course, it didn’t hurt that Ayra was with me. But the fact he hadn’t argued and insisted on coming himself made me warm and fuzzy all over. Or it had until I’d been forced to jump on the back of a horse and put on a blindfold.
We traveled long enough that my clenched thighs began to cramp. The sound of Tahoma’s hoof beats changed, echoing back at us ever so slightly. Had I not been listening so hard, I probably wouldn’t have noticed it. It made me think of the way boot heels sounded when walking down a huge hallway. The terrain must have changed. Another few minutes and Tahoma came to a stop.
“We’ll go on foot from here,” Ooljee said.
Ayra let go of me and suddenly her warm presence disappeared. Feather soft, she landed to my left. I marveled at her ability to map the scenery so accurately using her sense of smell. Hearing wasn’t quite as tell-tale, and it was the only super sense I was any good at, so I wasn’t about to take a blind leap. The pressure of her energy preceded her hand coming to rest on my leg.
“Slide down here,” she instructed.
Part of me dreaded ending up in an embarrassing heap, but the bigger part of me—my ass, quite literally—was over being on horseback. I swung a leg over Tahoma and slid down with zero graceful ability. Ayra grabbed my hands and steadied me.
“Thanks.” To Ooljee, I said, “Can we take these things off now?”
“Not yet. The path is smooth and easy. Take my hand.”
A growly sound of despondency came from Ayra. I gripped her hand in what I hoped was a reassuring gesture, opened the other one, and offered it up to Ooljee. She took hold of it. Her hands were both cold and sweaty at the same time. I couldn’t tell if we made her nervous, or if it was something else.
The path beneath our feet felt like decomposed granite or clay—packed hard from the wear of many feet. I stumbled a little here and there over nothing more than irregularities in the surface. Blindfolded and all, it was hard not to. My mind kept conjuring up all manner of things that could lie in my way, which made me second-guess every step. In only a few yards, the sound of our footfalls changed, echoed back at us in a hollow way. The air grew colder.
Ayra’s hand spasmed around mine. She pulled me to a stop, and a low growl came from her. “You’re taking us into a cave,” she snapped.
I gasped, and it felt as though I sucked in nothing but panic. The scent of fear suddenly filled the cave—not mine, but Ooljee’s.
“Y-Yes. That’s where our sacred place is. That’s where Hok’ee agreed to m-meet you,” she stuttered.
“You should have mentioned it was in a cave,” Ayra said through a growl.
Unable to handle the panic closing in on me anymore, I tore the handkerchief from my eyes. Sure enough, we stood in a cave three times as tall as we were and almost as wide. It yawned out in front of us, the barest hint of a white glow coming from way, way down in it. Ayra stood to my left, a blue paisley patterned handkerchief pulled down around her neck.
“I’m sorry. I’m not allowed to mention anything about its location,” Ooljee said in a soft voice that shook.
“It’s all right,” I said.
“No. It isn’t,” Ayra said.
We exchanged a look, one that expressed her concerns over this being a trap, one that said we should turn back. It was good advice. I wanted to listen, I really, really did.
“It isn’t her fault. I’m sorry, Ayra, but I have to take this chance. Those women need my help,” I said.
For a moment, she stood there growling at Ooljee, me, hell, probably the world in general. After a snap of her fangs, she straightened and relaxed back to her stoic state where not even I could tell what she was thinking. “Ours.”
Lips cracking into a smile, I bumped her shoulder with my own and nodded. “Our help.”
Looking to Oojlee, I beckoned to the tunnel beyond. “Lead on.”
Hands wringing, she hesitated, gaze going from the handkerchief in my hand to my eyes. I got the very distinct impression she would get in trouble if we arrived without blindfolds. While it pissed me off on a couple of different levels, I wasn’t about to take a stand at the expense of this girl. Grumbling all the curse words in Icelandic that I knew, I tied the handkerchief back around my eyes. Though Ayra growled, I heard the rustle of fabric as she retied hers.
Having seen the path before us, walking down the tunnel was easier this time. It still left me feeling vulnerable, but I tripped a lot less. We took a right, traveled maybe another twenty feet, then stopped.
“Elder Clearwater, I have brought them,” Ooljee said. Her voice sounded different, less echoey. My guess was it was because we stood at a door.
I focused in on my hearing until everything not only grew louder but also sharpened. Only one heartbeat lay on the other side of that door. I tried to feel for the pressure of power, but I couldn’t tell through the barrier between us. It didn’t help that skinwalkers felt so different from shifters. Aside from the phones Ooljee, Ayra, and I carried, not a single buzz from electronics filled the air.
“Enter,” came a gruff, irritated-sounding male voice from the other side of the door.
I fought down a growl, determined to approach him with a positive attitude. Maybe we weren’t the reason he sounded that way. For all I knew, he’d awoken on the wrong side of the bed today. The world didn’t revolve around me, and several of his tribe members were missing, after all.
A door latch disengaged with a soft click, and warm air poured into the corridor. We followed Ooljee in.
“That is far enough,” the same male voice said.
Ayra and I stopped. Ooljee’s footsteps retreated. The door closed behind us. The sound of Ooljee’s heartbeat became muffled and then drew away until I could barely hear it.
“You can remove your blindfolds,” the man said.
Ayra and I took our handkerchiefs off at the same time. Something that sounded a lot like a curse in a foreign language—Diné, if I had to guess—came from the man.
We found ourselves in a round room of hollowed-out rock, maybe two hundred square feet. Earthen benches surrounded the perimeter in a continuous ring, broken only by a wooden door. A firepit sat dead center of the room, filled with old ashes that smelled of dust. High above it, the barest hint of light filtered through what smelled like an animal hide.
The source of the voice stood on the opposite side of the firepit, thin but muscled arms crossed over a green T-shirt. Long gray hair plaited into a single braid hung over his right shoulder. Mahogany eyes glared at me from narrowed slits in a manner all too familiar. It was the very same look my mother had given me any time she was irritated at me, which was pretty much all the time. We loved each other, but I was wicked talented at rubbing her the wrong way. Something more than irritation festered in this man’s eyes, something more like hate.
“Thank you for seeing me,” I said in my best polite but neutral tone.
“Give me the pendant,” he demanded.
“You are Hok’ee, I take it,” I said, a statement more than a question.
His glare deepened. “Obviously. And you’re her,” he spat the last word.
“Yep, I’m her.” Sick of his attitude, I crossed my arms over my chest. “And I will give you the pendant after you give me some information.”
Mean, ugly laughter came from him. “You really think you are in a position to bargain with me? Are you really that arrogant? You are on Yee Naaldlooshii land now. You do not have your precious pack at your back or even access to the skies—in case the rumors are true about your abilities.” He spit on the ground less than five feet in front of me. “All it will take is a word from me and our finest warriors will descend on you and take the medallion.”
Tired of playing Miss Nice Girl, I let out a rumbling growl as I took a step forward, flinging my right hand open as my claws extended. His gaze shot to the two-inch claws, and his eyes widened. “One, yeah, I think I’m in a great position to bargain with you. Two, it isn’t arrogance, and you’ll find that out if you push me. Three, the closest thing I have to a pack is standing right here beside me and back there on that road. So I am not at any sort of disadvantage. And four, well, I forgot what four is, but it doesn’t matter. I’ve had it with your crap.”
My tirade failed to elicit anything more than a sneer from him, down his overly large nose, of course. His gaze moved from my claws to my face. The shock had worn off, replaced by disdain. “So what if you have the power of an alpha. I expected that. Two little wolf girls without access to their storm magic don’t stand a chance against my warriors.”
It didn’t escape my attention that he said “my warriors”, which excluded him from that equation. Ayra grunted and extended her own claws, baring fangs at him. Her energy vibrated and I knew all too well what it meant—she wanted to stop talking and start fighting. While I wouldn’t mind pummeling this arrogant ass, I needed answers more than satisfaction.
“If you truly believed that, you’d already have them in here,” I said.
Again, that horrible laugh erupted from him. “That is where you are wrong. Our gods have chosen ones just as yours do. If you persist, we will see which is stronger.”
Ayra and I exchanged a long look. The way her left brow raised made me think she was just as puzzled as I was by his statement.
I let out a frustrated sigh. “Look, we aren’t here to piss on anyone’s boots. Several women have gone missing from your tribe, one of them is dead, and another was bitten by a ma’ii. I only want talk to you and your people to get information that might help me find the missing women,” I said.
He spat on the ground again. “If they have been bitten, they are abominations now. It does not matter if you find them. They can never return.”
Violence wasn’t my thing, but the urge to punch this guy was really starting to fester in me. There was no way he could be my great grandfather. Resemblance to my mother aside, it wasn’t possible. I refused to accept it.
Beside me, Ayra growled. The temperature in the room rose at least ten degrees from the ferocity of her power.
Reaching through the furnace radiating off her, I touched her arm to calm her. To Hok’ee, I said, “I don’t want to find them so they can come back here. I want to find them to save their lives, their sanity. Surely you aren’t so heartless as to deny them that.”
Nose raising in a sneer, he shook his head once. “It is not heartless to wish them dead. It is a mercy.”
Another growl rumbled from Ayra. “Let me punch this guy.”
I had a feeling if she punched him, he wouldn’t get up. “Not yet, please,” I said.
Part of me had hoped my mother might have come here seeking either help or asylum of some sort, but this man had thoroughly smashed that. No way in the nine worlds would she have come here.
Careful of my claws, I squeezed my head to ease some of the pressure building behind my temples. “Look, Hok’ee, I have something you want, you have information I want. It’s a simple exchange. This doesn’t have to be hard or end in violence. From your reaction when we came in, I take it I look like your daughter, and that pisses you off, but you can’t seriously be so self-centered as to allow that to get in the way of finding these missing women.”
Forehead furrowing so deep his dark brows touched, he took a step toward me. “Self-centered? How dare you, an abomination, insult me!” He degraded into a slur of curses in his native language before getting a slight rein on his temper and continuing in English. “Your grandmother dishonored her ancestors by getting knocked up by a human man from a Cherokee tribe. A human!” He spit the last word as if it were a Smoker’s Cough cocktail—a horrendous combination of Jägermeister and mayonnaise that I’d only ever had one person ask for in my years of bartending. That baby he talked about with such hate had been my mother.
I rolled a hand at him. “Yeah, so?” Baring fangs, I took a step closer. “Apparently you wanted me when I was a child. Members of this tribe tried to kidnap me. The protection of the Seeker Pack is the only reason you backed off.”
A grunt blew from him. “Ancient history, and a mistake on our part. You were not who we thought you were.”
“Riiight,” I said with a roll of my eyes. “More like you didn’t want to go up against a powerful werewolf pack and had no choice but to back off. But one of your people killed my dad when he was in prison.” I had to stop talking because my fangs had grown so long they impeded my speech. Slow, steady breaths eventually brought my anger under control. “Lucky for you, I’m not here to make you atone for the past. I’m here to help the women from your tribe who have gone missing.” That I would save for another day.
He went on as if I hadn’t spoken. “When your grandmother was banished from the tribe, she stole that pendant—a family heirloom that belonged to my grandmother. It belongs in the tribe, and I want it back, now.”
Lips scrunched into a pensive look, I pulled the pendant from beneath my shirt. “You mean this one?”
In a flash, Hok’ee’s eyes went from hazel to a mixture of brown and gold. The most ear-piercing cry I’d ever heard echoed off the earthen walls around us. He threw his arms up, and they sprouted into magnificent brown and white wings. They were so huge the walls stopped him from unfurling them completely. The rest of his body stayed in the form of a man. The scent of bird filled the room.
On instinct, Ayra and I both took a step back—or two in my case.
“What the actual fuck?” Ayra exclaimed.
With a shake of his head, Hok’ee’s mouth morphed into a wickedly curved beak. His wings tucked in and he crouched as if preparing to leap at us. In an explosion of clothing and white fur, Ayra transformed into a wolf. Lips curled back from fangs that could rip my great-grandfather apart, she snarled and snapped at him in warning. Putting all the power I could muster into my voice, I directed a command at him. “Stop this!”
Hok’ee stumbled back as if pushed, fell on his butt, and crab walked backward a few feet. The wings that had sprouted from his back folded in and dissolved into his body, as did his beak. The transformation left him looking entirely human, and vulnerable. His eyes grew so wide the white of his sclera threatened to swallow his irises. “You should not be able to do that to other races. You are worse of an abomination than I thought. Get out. Get off our land, and don’t ever come back.” He backed up until he hit the wall and then used it to brace himself as he stood.
Growling, Ayra paced before the firepit between us and Hok’ee, her ears laid back against her skull, and her fluffy white tail straight out behind her. I sighed deep, the sound filled with disappointment. “Come one, Ayra. He isn’t going to help us,” I said.
In a shimmer, Ayra transformed back to her human form, rising to her feet as she did so. Her long white hair draped around her naked body, hiding all but the swell and outline of her breasts. I turned and started for the door.
“You are an evil son of a bitch, to talk to your own great-granddaughter that way,” she said. “Sonya is the most amazing person you will never get to know. You deserve to burn for eternity in the fiery fields of Muspelheimr, alone, and powerless.”
He cursed in Diné at her, but it was soft, quiet, as if he were afraid to speak up. To me, he said, “I want that pendant back.”
“And the missing women of your tribe want to be found. You gave me nothing, so you get nothing. No wonder my grandmother left. You don’t deserve to know my mother, or me,” I said as I looked down my nose at him—just as he’d done to me when we arrived.
CHAPTER TWENTY
Once we’d left the room and the door closed behind us, I gave Ayra some serious side-eye. “That was an oddly dark and specific curse you threw at him.”
Completely comfortable in her nakedness, she shrugged as she strode next to me. “I’m no völva, but I take my curses very seriously.”
Despite wanting to cry, scream, and tear my hair out all at the same time, I laughed, because Ayra had that effect on me. The idea of her being a völva—sort of the Norse version of a witch—on top of being the reaper of all shifterkind dampened my laughter.
Smiling, she thrust her head in my direction. “Mind if I borrow your flannel?”
I looked down at my red and white flannel a little forlornly. The material was soft and comfortable, hitting me nearly at midthigh. It was one of my favorites. I took it off and handed it to her. “As long as you don’t shift again without taking it off. I like this flannel.”
“No promises.” Though her tone was utterly serious, the hint of a smile crinkled the corner of one of her eyes.
Five figures stood at the end of the hallway, some leaning against the walls, some with their arms crossed over their chests. Four of them were tall, muscular men who had the look of badass warriors. They also smelled familiar—they were the bear, elk, stallion, and cougar, now in human form. The fifth figure was Ooljee.
