A Barrel of Whiskey - (An Urban Fantasy Whiskey Witches Novel) (2 page)

And he was naked. Blessedly, buck-assed naked. And the ass end wasn’t facing her.

She threw him Dexx’s shirt. “Public highway.”

He caught it with ease and held it loosely in front of his manly parts that might distract drivers and cause accidents. “Normally, we don’t greet strangers this way,” he said with an accent she couldn’t place.

She certainly hoped not. “But you’re making an exception for us. How lovely. Why?”

A growling yowl rolled over the hill Dexx had disappeared behind.

Wolf-man tipped his head to the side. “You are not a shifter.”

“Nope.”

He narrowed his eyes.

He can sense me,
Cawli murmured.
You should tell him.

Why?
She didn’t know anything about this man except that he seemed quite confident in his naked self. Granted, he had every reason to be confident. She hadn’t stared, had only caught a glimpse, but the man was well-endowed. And the rest of him was a sight to see as well.

He is this region’s high alpha. You would do well to introduce yourself.

She kept her eye roll internal and sighed. “I’m Detective Paige Whiskey.”

“Whiskey.” He straightened and narrowed his eyes.

In for a penny. “A couple days ago, a shape shifter was murdered. I was given the case. It led me to Nederland.”

His hands balled into fists.

High alpha, huh? Match for a witch? Was she a match for him? She really didn’t want to find out. “Demon. We didn’t catch him, but we did get the murders stopped.”

“And Nederland?” Coldness entered his piercing blue eyes.

“Safe.” A shiver coursed down her spine as she recalled the details. It had been close, keeping the shapeshifter town safe from the demons. “We made sure they were safe. We were just there yesterday. The town’s good. There are new protections. Demons won’t ever be a problem ever again.”

A frown flickered between his brows. “So, the stories are true, then.”

Was there a newsletter or something? If the Eastwoods had found out what Paige had done, she knew how. Sven. Wanted to make trouble for her. But this guy? If he knew, she might be in trouble because she didn’t know
if
the Eastwoods really knew. She assumed they did, but
hoped
they didn’t. “What stories?”

“A witch was chosen by the animal spirits.”

Hopefully, he was as accepting as the shifters of Nederland had been, but
he
didn’t need her help like they had. “Yes. The stories are true.”

Wolf-man raised his chin and sniffed the air.

Paige ran her tongue along her teeth. Animals. They could tell a lot by smell. They could smell emotion. How weird was that?

She might not be able to shift, but her sense of smell was getting better. Not as good as to be able to smell his emotions at that moment, which would have been helpful. She could, however, tell that he’d recently showered. He still smelled of soap. And he was hot in the sun as it beat down on them.

He lowered his head, his narrowed eyes trained on her. “What is your business?”

“Am I in your territory?”

“You are.”

“Oh, well.” Awesome. “I’m going home. My sister had a baby. Going to see him.” Wasn’t a lie, either, thankfully.

He shifted his weight from one foot to the next.

The mottled wolf beside him growled low in his throat.

Wolf-man shook his head.

“Look, I’m just trying to get home for a visit.”

“Back to your coven.”

Paige snorted a chuckle of surprise. Coven. Everything about being a witch was still so new to her. Even before her memories had been wiped, she hadn’t been a part of any coven.

However, apparently, Leslie and Alma were. Her sister was the medium and her grandmother was the local hedge witch. It shouldn’t surprise Paige that they’d gathered a coven, but it did. When she’d lived in the house, magick had just been an everyday thing. A little spell here. A small hex there. But nothing that would require a coven.

Also, as the demon summoner, no one wanted her magick to meddle with theirs. She tainted magick.

Wolf-man narrowed his eyes.

“No. I am not a part of any coven.”

Confusion pinched his dark, full brows together. “Is there something wrong with you?”

Be honest
. Cawli huffed in the back of Paige’s mind.

She wasn’t used to broadcasting to people she’d just met what she was. “I’m a demon summoner. I don’t get asked to participate a lot.”

He nodded slowly. “And yet the animal spirit chose you.”

She shrugged. “And yet.”

She’d lost a lot due to her demon gift and people’s opinions about it. She’d lost her job in Texas, her daughter, her family. She’d never been offered the communion of coven. Yeah. Being the demon summoner was a lot like being a leper.

His gaze shifted to the landscape beside them.

Dexx crested the hill accompanied by the two mountain lions, the eagle, and the hawk.

Where was the owl?

And he was buck-assed naked, too. But she’d seen that lovely piece of ass.

Dexx leapt over the fence with an ease that
looked
like Hollywood wirework. He grabbed his pants, the mid-sky sunlight shining on his short, brown hair. His green eyes were narrowed and surly.

She smiled tightly. “Local pack.”

“Got that,” he gritted between his teeth.

“You okay?”

He shrugged one bare, freckled shoulder and zipped up his pants.

A white minivan drove past, swerving a little.

She needed to get the hot naked men off the highway.

“Okay.” Paige returned her attention to the alpha. She just needed to ensure she didn’t have a two-front war. “What do you want?”

Wolf-man met her gaze squarely. It had a weight to it. “You tripped our protections.”

She hadn’t felt any, but that did explain why Dexx had been unable to control his shift. “Okay. Great. Now, what?”

He studied Dexx. “The animal spirits have great faith in you.”

“I wouldn’t call it that,” Dexx said low in his throat. “Is that my shirt?”

“I didn’t want his penis talking to drivers,” Paige said. “Okay? You’ll get it back.”

“Where are the keys?”

“In the ignition, where you left them.”

He leaned through the wide open window of the Challenger, took the keys, and padded barefoot in the brown grass and weeds to open the trunk.

“Are we clear to go?” Paige returned her attention to Wolf-man. “Or are you here to lay down the rules? Arrest us? Pee on us? I don’t know. What are we doing here?”

“Someone with as much power as he has cannot simply walk unhindered into another pack’s territory.”

“So.” He was more interested in Dexx than her. Interesting. And good. “Pissing. I’m guessing there’ll be a lot of pissing.”

Paige
. Cawli’s voice was dark.

Screw him if he couldn’t take her sarcasm.

A big, blue pick-up truck blew by.

Dexx came back, pulling on a green t-shirt. “I don’t want your territory.”

“But you are planning on staying with this one? She said she is coming home.”

Dexx clucked his tongue. “For a visit. A couple of days.”

Or as long as the war lasted. “What does he have to do to stay?”

“You said a couple of days?” Wolf-man asked softly, his eyes shifting ever so slightly. If she didn’t know better, she’d say he almost looked disappointed.

“Might be a week.” Or until the bodies stopped dropping.

Wolf-man bit the inside of his cheek, studying her with unfocused eyes. “You will both present yourself to the pack. After that, we will decide.”

Paige released a long breath. “I have to ask. Do you have any connection to Portland?”

Wolf-man drew his head up, his eyes almost glowing with interest. “Yes.”

She took in a tight breath. “The Eastwoods are coming to Texas. So, I don’t know what you gotta do, but be careful.”

The tightness around Wolf-man’s eyes lessened. “Thank you, but we are already aware. They are here for other reasons. Be calm. They do not know you have broken the treaty.”

Saliva swarmed her mouth. Wow. Great. Shit. Relief swept through her. They were safe?

“We will keep this information within the safety of trusted circles.”

Even trusted circles had leaks, and she was fairly confident she had a demon intent on re-starting the war.

“His message was intercepted.”

“Did you read my fucking mind?”

“Your expression.”

Even if he was just good at reading her face, his response to her unintended non-verbal was damned eerie. “Fine. Where do we meet? How do we get a hold of you?”

He glanced down at the mottled wolf beside him. “Can we approach your house?”

Probably a bad idea since she hadn’t told Alma, but what choice did she have? She’d broken the treaty. She couldn’t treat the shifters like
they
were the ones doing wrong. She’d tell Alma and make it right. “You may.”

“We will send an invitation via messenger, then.”

With the Eastwoods…in town. What could go wrong? “Okay.”

He quirked his lips and handed her back Dexx’s shirt.

Dexx stiffened beside her.

“You are not what I had thought you would be.”

It was still too early to tell with him. Spending time with the shifters at Nederland, she’d discovered shifters were just people. Like everyone else. “Good or bad?”

“Undetermined.”

“Fair answer.”

He stepped back, the weeds doing nothing to hide his male pride. “Until we meet again.”

She nodded curtly.

He shifted back into the form of a wolf, the morph smooth and apparently painless. He leapt over the fence, barking once. The pack followed and disappeared over the hill.

Paige swallowed. So, this was the new normal. Awesome. She hit Dexx on the arm. “I have to pee.”

He glared, grabbing his boots on the way around Jackie’s hood. “Burn that shirt.”

“T
hat was quite the welcoming.” Dexx hadn’t said anything until they were a few miles outside Highland Park.

Paige had waited. Mostly because it was morning and she wasn’t a morning person. Also, she was waiting for the caffeine from their late Starbucks run to kick in. Additionally, she was still freaking out a little from the knowledge that Merry Eastwood wasn’t in town for her. So, why in the Hell
was
the centuries-old witch there?

Had
Paige just brought the war to her grandmother’s house?
Could
they have stayed a little longer in Nederland? Dexx could have had more time with other shifters to gain control over his new gift.

But how long could they have really stayed? Really. She’d been fired from the Denver PD and her last paycheck hadn’t been that big. Where were they going? What would they do?

They really hadn’t had a chance to discuss it. They
couldn’t
go back home.

No. Technically,
she
could go home. She’d have to leave Dexx.

She didn’t
want
to do that. She didn’t
have
to go home. And of the two thoughts, she
wanted
to be with Dexx more than to stay with her grandmother who had betrayed her by blocking all memories of her daughter and her ability to control magick.

But that was, of course, as long as no one discovered she had an animal spirit inside her witch body.

No. No, they had to figure out something else.

Also, she instinctively knew Dexx was having a tough time with their shifter encounter. It might have something to do with her heightened senses due to Cawli sharing meat-suit space with her.

Or, it could be that she was finally being the good girlfriend.

Kind of. Probably not.

“It didn’t go as bad as it could have.” Paige saluted with her coffee cup. “All things considered.”

“They ambushed me.”

“They tested you.” Which was true.

He gripped the steering wheel, his teeth clenched.

“Put yourself in their shoes.” Paige sighed as they pulled onto Grandma Alma’s street. Longing for home, angst over what she was about to face, and fear over what she might be bringing with her warred inside her chest.

Dexx parked at the curb and let Jackie idle. “I guess you’re right.”

“I typically am.” Which wasn’t true. In the slightest.

Paige stared at her childhood home. A rising anger drowned out her other emotions.

When Paige had been a kid, her mother had abandoned her and Leslie. Because of Paige. Because of her demon gift. Alma, their grandmother, had raised them and they never saw Rachel again.

Until five years ago. She’d shown back up with an angel-backed lawyer, had taken Paige’s daughter, and fled the state.

Paige, in a moment of rage, had summoned a demon to kill Rachel.

The demon had chosen to tell Alma instead. Together, they’d removed all memories of her daughter and bound her gift.

When an insane demon had kidnapped her and cast a spell into her bones, then shoved a demon down her throat a few weeks ago, all those memories had come back along with her gift. But with those memories came the feeling of betrayal and a seething anger that consumed her.

Having her mother, who had already abandoned her, take her daughter to another state with the help of the court system was one thing.