Chapter Twelve
T
he rush hour had passed and traffic was light as Kenzie drove them to their hotel. Josh didn’t feel much like talking but he was impressed that she remembered how to get there, even though he had been driving when they’d checked in to their rooms the night before. But then she was smart—not one but
two
doctorates. Way too smart to hang around with him and he should have damn well known better from the start. Resigned, he scooped up a double armful of her shopping bags—despite her protest—and followed her inside to her room, where he set them on her bed. To his surprise, she blocked him as he turned to leave.
“Sit. Relax a minute.”
“I’m fine.” He tried to brush past her but she put out a hand.
“I’m not. Please sit.”
Reluctantly, Josh backed into the bed and sat down harder than he intended to. God, he was tired. The flashbacks (
hot memories
as his counselor had called them) often left him physically exhausted as well as emotionally wrung out. Kenzie produced a large bottle of water from the mini-fridge and he drained most of it. It hadn’t been desert dust but the damn adrenaline that had left his mouth and throat dry as cardboard. Now they felt like
wet
cardboard, but still, it was a step up.
“Better?”
He nodded.
“Good. Now tell me what’s wrong.”
“What’s
wrong
?” Without warning, he was angry again. He didn’t want to be a v”
ngry and that fact just pissed him off more, pushed him back to his feet. His voice rose. “You were in Anchorage and I was in Afghanistan. That’s what’s
wrong
.”
She just shrugged, as if they’d been talking about the weather. As if he hadn’t been all but shouting at her. “I figured that out when you yelled at someone I couldn’t see to
get down
. I’m not asking about that. I’m talking about right now. I want to know why you’ve got this hang-dog attitude going on. We had a great day together and now you won’t even look at me.”
A dozen emotions rampaged through his brain, but it was the anger again that won out, snapping his head around so he was eye to eye with her. “You’re too smart and too beautiful to be hanging around with somebody who’s messed up. You don’t need a head case, so get out of my way.”
He got up and took a step toward the door but didn’t get any further. Those gorgeous gray eyes leveled a look that could have pinned him to the nearest wall.
“First of all, I’ll decide what I need and what I want, and I’m right where I want to be,” she said. “Second of all, if you’re feeling guilty or embarrassed or some crap like that, you can just drop it right now.”
He stared at her. It wasn’t the reaction he’d been expecting and he didn’t have a clue how to respond.
“And third, everybody’s messed up about something,” she continued. “Trust me on that one, I’m an anthropologist. What counts is how you handle it and what you do with it. And right now, you don’t have to do a single damn thing except relax.”
His anger fizzled out like firecrackers in the rain. He unclenched his fists—he hadn’t even known he’d closed them—and sat down on the bed again.
She waited until he’d taken a few breaths. “Is it okay if I sit with you? Touch you?”
“Sure.” The raspiness of his voice had him drinking the rest of the water.
Again, she did the unexpected. No arm around the shoulder, no
there, there
. Instead, she settled in close to him and took his hand in both of hers, rested her cheek on his shoulder as if he was the one comforting her. It steadied him as nothing else had, brought him fully back to himself. He leaned his face so he could smell her hair and ended up nuzzling it.
“I have a brilliant idea,” she said. “Why don’t I dial up a pizza, and we’ll just lie down and take a break until it gets here.”
Could it really be that easy? “Guess you’re relieved you don’t have to go on a date with me, huh?”
She laughed. “Not as relieved as I might have been a day or two ago. I’ll take a rain check on it, okay? Even though you blackmailed me into going out with you in the first place”—she punctuated that by poking him in the side—“I hereby solemnly swear to accompany you on another date.”
“A dress-up date?” He eyed her speculatively, as he rubbed the spot between his ribs where she’d drilled him with her finger.
“Now you’re pushing it. Jeans and a really nice shirt. Maybe earrings, but that’s as far as I’ll go.”
He chuckled, then coughed because his throat was still rough. “Done.”
“So, Mr. Food Snob, what about that pizza? Or there’s room service—I think I saw a menu here somewhere. We’ve got cable and Pay-Per-View, so we can hole up for as long as we like if somebody delivers chow. Jeez, I haven’t watched television in months. Is
Castle
still on?”
“I think so—there’re summer reruns on Channel 4 for sure.” A quiet night of TV sounded pretty damn good at the moment, although he’d usually be watching World Extreme Cagefighting. “But if we’re going to order pizza, it has to be
good
pizza. Call up Esposito’s on the corner.”
“Hey, all pizza is good pizza.” She laughed and crossed the room to the desk, leaned over and began thumbing through the phonebook. He allowed his gaze to slide over her shapely butt. A lot of people said that sex was like pizza, but he didn’t quite agree. In his book there was junk food sex and there was gourmet sex (and would Kenzie tease him or be insulted if she knew he ranked sex like he rated food?). It was true, though. Junk food sex was what you had with partners you weren’t particularly attached to. Quick, simple, even fun, but it didn’t stay with you, nourish you,
change
you. Gourmet sex was something you had with somebody you loved. You savored it, reveled in it, wholeheartedly indulged in it, gave your all into creating it. It filled you up and fed you, heart and soul. You could build on it, and you couldn’t help but grow. You wanted to.
At least he had it figured that way. And he knew that sex with Mackenzie Macleod would definitely never be the fries and burger kind. Not for him.
Of course, it was a helluva long way between shopping and sex, and he’d just had a major meltdown before they’d even gotten around to an official date. But she was still here and she didn’t hate him and that was amazing.
He lay back on the bed and closed his eyes.
Anya liked the old wolf. He knew lots of games and was as much fun to play with as Kenzie, even if he insisted it was time for her to go to bed. She didn’t understand why grownups made it bedtime when it wasn’t even dark yet, but her mom had done that too. To her surprise, though, Stanton stretched out beside her. She snuggled up against the silvery fur and sighed, wondering if this was what it was like to have a dad. She didn’t remember hers much—she’d been very little when he died. But he’d told her stories; she recalled that much even if she couldn’t remember what they were about. Her mom read books to her sometimes and Anya had a whole shelf of storybooks in her room. She could read them herself now, but it was always more fun to hear them. Josh had been really good at stories but he’d gone with Kenzie to the city. She missed them both, missed her mom. Why did everyone have to go away?
Without thinking, she wished
really hard
that she could hear a bedtime story now.
Once upon a time there were three billy goats ...
Stanton’s deep gravelly voice spoke in her mind.
She jumped up and looked at him. Had he heard her? She couldn’t remember putting up the
gate
as her mother had called it. Anya thought of it more like a little door inside her head, a pink one. She slammed it tight now, and pictured locking it with all kinds of bolts and chains. As she scrutinized the old wolf with narrowed eyes, he gave her a long, slow wink.
The billy goats were brothers, and their name was Gruff.
She didn’t know what to do. She wasn’t supposed to talk to strangers, not even strange wolves, but what was she supposed to do if she
had
? What came next? Should she run? Hide? She was so tired of being afraid all the time, of never talking to anyone. Even if mindspeech was harder work than talking with your mouth, it would be awfully nice t {wfume,o talk to somebody. Just for a little while ...
One day the three billy goats named Gruff discovered they’d eaten up all the grass in their meadow.
What were their names?
Stanton looked surprised for a moment, but quickly responded.
I told you. It’s Gruff. They’re the three billy goats Gruff.
Yeah but that’s their last name. What’re their other names?
Well—the
big one’s name was Josh, and the medium-size one was Kenzie, and the littlest one was Anya.
She giggled. Only it didn’t come out that way—it was hard to laugh when you were a wolf. It was more like a whuffing sound in her throat. He whuffed right back and Anya snuggled up again and rested her head on his front leg.
Josh and Kenzie and Anya Gruff decided they had to travel to the next hill where there was lots of grass to make them grow fat and strong. But to get there, they had to pass by the terrible troll who lived under the bridge....
Chapter Thirteen
J
osh had to admit that watching television had never been so much fun.
Propped up by all the pillows from his room as well as hers, they sat side by side on the bed with two boxes between them containing four different styles of pizza. Josh was surprised at how much he really
was
able to relax, and knew it was mostly because of Kenzie. Sure, he’d learned self-calming techniques years ago, but they were nothing compared with the easy acceptance she gave him and her refusal to let him indulge in feeling
less than
.
Saturday Night Live had just ended when the northern sun finally dipped below the horizon on the other side of the hotel. The entire sky in every direction was painted with brilliant sunset colors, which proved more interesting than late night talk shows. Kenzie grabbed the remote and flipped off the TV.
“The better to see the sunset with,” she explained.
“I’ll bet it’s all part of your master plan to jump my bod.”
“Sure. Step one was to stuff you full of pizza so you couldn’t run away.” She held her middle. “But I should never have let you order.”
“It was part of my own master plan to turn
your
plan back on itself by making sure you couldn’t move either.”
“Interesting defense. We might be stuck here for days.”
They watched a jet climb to clear the mountains, a silvery streak against the orange and pink sky. It seemed as good a time as any to ask the question that had bothered him all night.
“So the big shapeshifter we met at the museum—are you two an item?”
She stared at him for a moment, then put a hand to her head. “Damn, that’s spooky. I forgot you’d be able to tell what he was.” She blew out a breath. “As for Nate, no, we’re not together. We tried that back in our college days and it didn’t work. He’s more like a little brother.”
“He sure as hell didn’t act like one.” Josh was surprised by the hint of a growl that crept into his voice.
“I know. He’d definitely like more than a friendship. I’ve told him many times it’s not go ~ice.
Josh relaxed then. At least he wouldn’t have to compete with one of her own kind. “So what are you digging for in Chistochina? Anything special?”
She sighed. “An end to prejudice.”
“Against the Ahtna?”
“No.”
He waited but she didn’t say anything more. The darkening sky was reflected in her serious gray eyes as she stared out at the mountains, and he wondered what those eyes had seen, what was the source of the tightly-held pain in them. “I’ll show you mine if you show me yours,” he said suddenly.
“What?”
“You have a story behind this quest of yours. I’d like to hear it. I’ll trade you, my story for yours.”
“You don’t need to do that. I don’t have anything to share.”
“You mean you don’t
want
to share.”
“Okay, I don’t have anything that I
want
to share. Same difference.”
“What if I wanted to share my story anyway? Would you listen?” He was really going out on a limb here.
Kenzie turned and studied his face. He had no idea what she saw there, but it must have satisfied her. “Well, of course I would listen. Do you really want to tell me, or are you just trying to barter with me?”
For a split second he was caught—and then awareness dawned. He did want to tell her. He wanted her to know everything. Well, what the hell ... he’d already had a full meltdown right in front of her. What could it hurt to have her know the story behind it?
“It was one of my last missions. I’d been flying for Task Force Falcon for five years... .” The words emerged slowly at first, as if he had to pull them out one by one. Gradually, however, they gained momentum as Kenzie’s genuine interest prodded him on, coupled with his own desire to have her know this part of him, to lay it bare and almost dare her to look at it. But then the story took on its own life, because it
was
alive and couldn’t be killed, and he could no more stop telling it than he could stop a train with his bare hands.
When it was done, he was wrung out but at least he didn’t have to brace for Kenzie’s reaction. Somewhere during the telling, the pizza boxes had disappeared and she had curled up against him with her head on his shoulder, one arm thrown across him and a hand clasping his. She said nothing, simply allowed her closeness to speak for her. He closed his eyes and rested his cheek on her dark wayward hair, letting the scent of it wash away the last vestiges of the unwelcome memories. It was so blessedly ordinary, so welcome to be just a couple cuddling close as a few stars poked bright holes in the deep twilight. They lay together like that for a long time as a big round moon rose over the mountains, and Josh wondered if he had ever felt such a perfect peace. He pressed his lips to her forehead.
“I was seven when the hunters came to our forest.”
He brushed his lips over her forehead again. “You don’t have to tell me anything.”
“What if I want to?”
“Then I promise to shut up and listen. You were seven?”
She nodded and told him what he realized she hadn’t told anyone. He couldn’t say how he knew, just that he’d heard plenty of vets relate their stories at group, and there was always a rawness to the first telling. Hest ’r family knew what had happened to her, of course, but that didn’t necessarily make it easier for her. She’d been a child, she’d been scared out of her mind, and everyone would have been focused on soothing her—and that probably meant
never bringing up the subject again
. How could they know that some things needed to be opened not just once, but again and again like an infected wound until all the poison had drained away? A staff sergeant had made that analogy to him, and it had helped him to finally take the first and most difficult step—talking about it.
He sure as hell hadn’t enjoyed it. He didn’t like it the next time either, or any of the times he’d related the story, including tonight when he’d told Kenzie. But each and every time, it had eased something inside him and he gained a few more millimeters of breathing space.
What surprised him the most was that Kenzie’s experience was not so very different from his. Did Changelings get PTSD too? Did they process trauma differently? If they aged more slowly than humans, maybe they recovered from some types of stress more slowly than humans. And she’d been a child at the time—wouldn’t the whole experience be more intense if you were a just a kid? He didn’t know how old Kenzie really was, but he had some notion of history and was pretty damn sure that the wholesale slaughter of wolves hadn’t been popular in any country he knew of for quite a while.
“Why did it take so long for your family to find you? Don’t shapeshifters have some kind of homing system? And why were you alone?”
“It wasn’t planned that way. My parents hid Carly and me in the loft of the barn and told us to stay put. The boys were helping our uncle shear sheep, over on the western edge of the forest. So my folks went to get them and scout things out. But dogs came sniffing around and some hunters followed them. They set fire to our house ... we didn’t understand why, couldn’t imagine why anyone would do that. But that’s when Carly grabbed me and we ran away. We got separated pretty quickly, though. She was trying to lead the hunters away from me, because she was faster. But more hunters came.
“As for the rest, I asked Culley about it a few years later. Well—I didn’t exactly ask. I was fifteen and we were arguing. I accused him of taking too long to rescue me because he was
just plain mean
. You know, typical brother and sister crap.”
He nodded. “Believe me, I know.”
“Anyway, Culley told me what had been going on. That there weren’t just a few hunters, but a big party of them organized by some wealthy landowners to drive the wolves out of the forest once and for all. There were several packs of dogs, and a lot of them weren’t afraid of Changelings like most dogs are. Some of the Changelings stayed in human form, thinking they’d be safe. And—they weren’t.”
She fell silent and Josh didn’t expect her to say any more. He could guess what had happened next. History was replete with examples of people being killed on the slightest suspicion of being werewolves.
“There was such a lot of confusion, friends and family being chased down, others trying to help them. My uncle and aunt, and both my cousins—they were cornered by an enormous pack of dogs, almost a hundred. The four of them fought back but they were overwhelmed.” She rubbed an eye with the heel of her hand. “Sadie was my age. We used to play together.
“Anyway, James and Culley figured out where I was, but they were busy keeping the hunters away from me—the boys were scared that I’d be shot or given to the dogs before they could get me out. My brothers did a good job too because n to were busyo humans ever came near the pit, at least not until after I was freed.”
“Jesus. That was a helluva lot for anyone to go through, never mind a child. And what about Anya?” Josh asked. “You must have seen yourself in her right from the get-go.”
“Yeah. Yeah I did. And I’ll bet you’re having flashbacks because of her too, a child in distress, a little girl that needs your help.”
He nodded.
“It’s kind of strange, don’t you think? That this little girl should be such a powerful catalyst, that her situation triggers the most difficult memories for both of us?”
“Maybe that’s why we’re meant to help her.”
“You think so?”
“Hey, it’s natural karma. Circle of life or some such thing. If my Gramma Kishegwet was here, she’d say it was because it’ll help us both if we help Anya.”
Kenzie looked up at him and smiled. “I like that. I like that a lot.”
He took a chance then. “So what are you looking for, really, in that dig of yours?” Intuition told him it was related to what had happened to her although he couldn’t imagine how.
Her smile faded, and she was quiet for so long that he wasn’t sure she was going to answer him. “Changelings can’t remain hidden forever, Josh,” she said at last. “Science is moving forward in leaps and bounds. DNA testing has become so sophisticated, and everyone and their dog has a cell phone camera. It’s like a net drawing tighter and tighter.” She shivered and he rubbed his hand up and down her arm. “I know that it’s natural for humans to be repelled by things that are different, that they see as alien.
Other
.”
“Not everyone. Not all humans.”
“It’s an instinctive response, a survival mechanism. Human beings were suspicious of strangers in the Pleistocene and they’re suspicious now.”
“Maybe that’s their first response. But we can choose our actions. We can decide to be tolerant, to accept the new.”
“Exactly. It’s a conscious decision. Some people can make that decision easily and some aren’t interested in even trying.”
“Okay, so you’re worried because shapeshifters are going to have to come out of the closet one of these days. Or be outed by science.”
“Yes. And that’s why I have to find the evidence before that happens. I have to be able to show that we’re not so different. That we’re not alien and other, but that we were once the same.”
“The Ahtna legends? You started to tell me about them at the museum, that men and beasts were equal or something. And they knew about Changelings.”
“It’s more than that. The Ahtna believed that every person was able to shapeshift. Everyone, not just their family and their tribe, but
every human being had the capacity to change into an animal form and back again
. Think about it—shapeshifting is present in the ancient lore of almost every culture in the world. Why is that?”
“You think it might be true?”
She nodded ever so slightly, her fingers pressed across her lips as if she was afraid of what she was revealing. “My instincts tell me it is. But I have to prove it. I have to find that point in time where a few humans discovered they could become wolves at will. Right now, the genes are still present in every human being, but inactive unless saliva from a Changeling bite awakens them. How did the firow scovered tst Changeling come about then? Was it a spontaneous shift? A mutation? An attribute like that would be sure to improve the odds of survival. So why doesn’t everyone have the ability to change their form now?”
“I’d like to know the answer to that one. None of my people’s stories tell about being able to shapeshift. We only get to be friends with those who do. I feel deprived.”
“Hey, this is serious.” She pulled back as if offended, but allowed him to gather her close to him again.
“I
know
it’s serious. And I can see this means a lot to you. You want to establish a solid link to the human race before the scientific world learns that shapeshifters exist.”
“I’ve got to. If science figures out Changelings are real, they’ll also figure out how to identify us. There’ll be no hiding, no choice about whether to reveal ourselves or not. It’ll be so much better if we’re able to point to common ancestors, common roots, before humans panic and assume that the Changelings living among them are alien monsters.”