Authors: Christine Warren
Those big, innocent brown eyes gazed back at Tess, twinkling so brightly that she instantly stopped wondering how this woman went about managing a man like Graham Winters. She clearly had the power to wrap him around her little finger without breaking a sweat. He probably thought his wife was sweet and innocent and malleable, too.
She snorted.
“I hope you’re not too busy for us?” Missy asked.
Tess looked pointedly around the small shop, empty except for her and Missy’s friends. “Well, I think I can squeeze out a few minutes for you in between pressing nothings.”
“Good. Then let me introduce you to my friends.”
Missy smiled and turned toward the four other women. “Ladies, I’d like you to meet Tess Menzies. Tess, this is Regina Vidâme, Ava Markham, Danice Carter-Callahan, and Corinne D’Alessandro.”
Tess offered each woman a smile in turn and made mental notes to help her remember who was who. Regina was the redhead who had made the joke about Ava, and Ava seemed to be the elegant model type with the silky dark hair and exotically shaped eyes. She was the sort that usually intimidated Tess, but at the moment, her expression looked perfectly pleasant, if a little remote.
It was odd, actually, because while Tess would have to say Ava was more beautiful than Regina, something about Regina’s pale skin, auburn hair, and Mona Lisa smile gave her a striking quality Tess couldn’t quite define. It niggled at the back of her mind while she turned to the other two women, quickly filing away that Danice had the gorgeous café-au-lait complexion and Corinne had the exotic Mediterranean coloring and features.
“It’s nice to meet you,” Tess finally said, nodding to them. “Did you all come in looking for something in particular?”
Danice snorted. “You might say that.”
Missy stepped in front of her friend and gestured to the shelves of huge amber jars that lined the walls of the shop. “I just wanted them to get an idea of the sort of things you have to offer. Maybe let them sample a few of your blends.”
“Absolutely.” Tess never let curiosity keep her from making a sale, though she did look back at Missy and hoped she hadn’t misinterpreted the woman’s reassurances. “Let me put a kettle on, and we’ll have some fun.”
She kept an electric kettle on a shelf behind the counter, next to the sink and watercooler. Being able to brew up her wares for customers to sample made sense to her and had earned her a reputation for being friendly and accommodating. In the retail business, those qualities counted for a lot.
Getting the kettle ready only took a second, and when she turned back to her customers, she found them watching her intently. She blinked and stifled the urge to touch her hair. If they were staring at her wild, golden blond curls and thinking she needed to spend more time with a comb in the mornings, they’d just have to deal. Her hair didn’t do tame.
Especially not after a night like this last one.
“So what sorts of qualities were you looking for?” She began scanning her shelves and pulling down jars, placing them on the counter. “I need to know if I have the right stuff.”
She thought she heard a choking sound coming from one of Missy’s friends, but when she looked up, they all wore suspiciously bland expressions.
“Oh, we’re sure you do,” Missy said. “It’s just a matter of getting you to show us.”
Now, that sounded significantly odd. Tess shook her head and pulled out a mesh tea basket. “Okay, let’s try it this way. Who are we aiming to please here?”
This time she was watching closely enough that she saw Danice’s shoulders jerk and her hand come up to cover her mouth.
“Sorry,” the woman said, looking not at Tess but at Missy. “Allergies.”
“Well, that’s a good place to start.” Tess forged right through the odd energy in the room and reached for a jar of mullein. “Do you have high blood pressure?”
Danice gave a puzzled laugh. “Only when my husband is giving me grief. Why?”
“If you did, I’d be blending up a different formula. No ma huang with high blood pressure.” Tess dragged out her small electronic scale. She laid a creased square of parchment paper on it and zeroed it out. “Does that cough ever go anywhere? Ever bring anything up, or is it usually dry like that?”
“Uh, dry?”
“And it ends up irritating your throat after a while, doesn’t it?”
Danice’s eyes widened and she stepped up to the counter to watch Tess more closely as she dipped into several jars, weighing each addition to the parchment with precise care. “Yeah, especially at night. I used to just blame it on the cigars someone is always smoking on the steps of the courthouse, but they instituted the no-smoking-within-a-hundred-feet policy and it hasn’t really gotten any better.”
“It will, but smoke is a stubborn irritant. Plus you sound like you’re super-sensitive. It’ll take a bit for your lungs to recover from the exposure.”
“And in the meantime?”
“Well, if you like this tea, I’ll make up a batch for you to take home. But try these, too.” Reaching under the counter, Tess withdrew an opaque waxed-paper bag that rattled slightly when she set it on the counter. She smiled at Danice’s curious expression. “Horehound candies. They taste pretty darned good, and they’ll make your throat feel better and soothe your bronchi. Give ’em a try.”
Tess automatically poured her herbal mix into a small pan, added water, and set it on a portable burner, but her eyes were on Danice. The other woman broke the seal on the bag and shook out one of the small lozenges, examining the rather unappealing brown candy with its powdery coating.
Tess grinned. “They’re better than they look, I promise. The dust is powdered sugar. It keeps them from sticking together in the bag.”
Giving her a doubtful look, Danice took a deep breath and popped the small candy into her mouth. She sucked for a moment before her eyes widened. “Hey! These are pretty good. They taste sort of … maple-y.”
“I add extract to the syrup when I make them. The horehound itself doesn’t taste all that bad, but it’s not exactly exciting, either. Take the bag. They really will help your throat.”
“How much?”
Tess shook her head as Danice reached for her purse. “On the house.”
“That’s no way to run a business.”
“Don’t worry about it. If you like them, you can buy the next batch.” She grinned. “Besides, I can always overcharge you for the tea.”
Regina laughed. “Now I know why Missy likes you so much. You’ve definitely got the goods to handle … whatever crosses your path.” She cleared her throat. “You got anything behind that counter to help a woman deal with a ridiculously Alpha male husband?”
“Sorry, but I don’t think so. Well, not unless you want to try some damiana.”
Reggie leaned her forearms on the counter and watched as Tess filled the tea basket with loose, black leaves and set it in a ceramic pot. “What’s damiana do?”
“He’ll be so busy thinking about sex, he’ll probably forget about being king of the mountain for a few hours.”
Corinne laughed out loud. “Oh, yeah. That’s all Reggie needs. For Misha to have an even harder time keeping his hands off her.”
“I can always add some valerian. He won’t know whether he’s coming or snoring.”
Her offer met with a brief silence, then an explosion of laughter from every party in the room. Even Reggie appeared to be smiling just a bit. “Um, thanks, but I think I’ll pass.”
Tess thought about the potential results of feeding Rafe some damiana and shuddered. After last night, she’d have to be insane to try and up that man’s libido. Not unless she wanted to make it impossible for herself to walk for a week. “Right, then. That’s totally understandable.”
She grabbed the boiling kettle, half filled the teapot, then made up the rest of the liquid volume with the boiled herb mixture from the saucepan. A second teapot got a basket filled with pure Darjeeling, a few bits of lemon peel, and the rest of the water from the kettle. Carrying both pots over to the table in the back corner of the shop normally reserved for tasting, she plunked them down and crossed her arms over her chest.
“So,” she said, leveling a glance at Missy. “Why don’t you tell me what you’re really here for and how much of what happened last night you shared with your friends?”
She watched as the other woman weighed her options carefully and seemed to choose ignorance as a tactic. “What makes you think we’re not here for tea?”
Tess sat down at the table and poured herself a cup of Darjeeling. “You mean aside from the fact that you all are giving off so much nervous energy it’s like being trapped in a room with twenty thousand hamsters on meth? Call it a hunch.”
Missy paused for a moment before pulling out a chair and joining Tess for tea. “That’s a hell of a hunch. You get those often?”
“Not as often as you’re apparently going to try to avoid answering any of my questions.”
Corinne flipped an empty teacup over and nudged it toward Tess to be filled. “It’s a matter not so much of ignoring your questions as of easing into the answers.”
“Is that what you call it?” Tess poured for Corinne, then lifted the other pot and poured a cup of the herb-and-tea mixture. She handed it to Danice. “I was just going to call it annoying. I mean, my first reaction is naturally to tell you to mind your own business, but since I think that’s probably kind of rude—and since I also think I might genuinely like you all with a slightly better acquaintance—I figure rude might not be my best strategy.”
Missy sighed. “Don’t be mad, Tess. I really didn’t tell them all that much about last night. I just mentioned that you and Rafe seemed to have a … connection of sorts. That’s all.”
Tess raised her eyebrows. “And for that, you all came down to the East Village in the middle of a workday in the rain? What makes this thing you seem to think Rafe and I have that important?”
“It’s Rafe,” Corinne announced. “He’s been driving us crazy, so we’ve been keeping an eye on him.”
“Well, it’s Rafe,
and
the fact that we really like you,” Missy added.
“And the fact that Rafe seems to really like you.” Danice grinned over her teacup. “Or so I hear.”
Regina nodded. “And then there’s the fact that whatever you had to talk to Rafe about affects the Council as a whole, which means it affects our husbands.”
“But really, it all boils down to the curse.” Ava dropped that bombshell with her usual aplomb, then sat back in her chair and crossed her long legs. She saw her friends glaring at her and raised one elegantly arched eyebrow. “Well, it does.”
Tess shook her head and looked at each of the women. “Okay, in order. One, why is Rafe driving you crazy? Two, it’s not really anyone’s business how much he likes me. Three, I know nothing about what I had to talk to Rafe about. All I did was deliver the message telling him the Witches’ Council wants to meet with him. And four, what the hell? What curse?”
Missy shifted in her seat and set aside her teacup. She folded her hands neatly in front of her and said, “Look, Tess. Let me be blunt. I like you. I liked you from the minute I set eyes on you yesterday. I also like Rafe. He’s one of my husband’s best friends, and he’s a wonderful man to boot, but he is driving us all crazy.”
“How?”
“He won’t settle down. Well, he seems to think he can’t. What man wouldn’t resist the idea of finding the right woman when he has such a perfect excuse not to?” Corinne rolled her eyes. “It’s the dream of every male non-Lupine on the face of the earth.”
Tess groaned and got up to throw handfuls of two new herbs into her brewing pot. She set it on to boil. “Okay, not only have you lost me again, but now you’re giving me a headache. So please, speak slowly and use small words. At least until my willow bark is finished brewing.”
Ava hooked one arm over the back of her chair in what should have looked like a sloppy, masculine sprawl. Instead, it looked like a
Vogue
cover pose. “I think we need to backpedal a little. The first thing we need to find out is how much our little Tess knows about shapeshifters in general and the Felines in particular. Then maybe we can pick the proper small words to get our points across.”
“I know about as much as I found out talking to Missy last night. Which had more to do with human–Lupine procreation than with social customs.” Tess saw Missy blush and smiled at her. “No, it was really interesting. It just didn’t exactly leave me in the know.”
“Didn’t you learn any of it in school, or something?” Danice asked. “I mean, you’re a witch, right? So don’t you all just grow up knowing about all this supernatural stuff?”
What? Did they think she’d gone to Hogwarts or something?
Sometimes Tess forgot how ignorant humans could be not just of the Others, but of magic users as well.
“Afraid not. Witches are a bit … xenophobic, as a group. They know that a lot of things exist, but they don’t see any point in actually going and meeting them. I’d heard shapeshifters existed, but the only things I’ve ever learned about them are from books and movies. And somehow I’m not sure Rafe has all that much in common with Nastassja Kinski.”
“He’s got a better body,” Ava countered. “But no. I think we can safely assume that Hollywood has yet to render an accurate portrayal of any shapeshifting breed.”
“Well, then I’m in the dark. Who wants to enlighten me?”
Everyone looked at Missy. She sighed. “Right. That’s my job.” She paused for a bracing sip of tea. “Okay, first of all, I should say I’m not an expert in Feline society. I’m not even an expert in Lupine society, and I live in that one. Part of the problem, though, is that Felines don’t really have a society to begin with. The lions live in their prides, of course, but the different Feline species don’t do a lot of intermixing. I suppose it’s like us and the coyotes or jackels. All canines, but not all the same.”
Tess reached for the willow bark tea and used it to warm up her Darjeeling. She nodded at Missy to continue.
“Just like wolves stick with wolves, the Felines mostly stay away from one another and maintain their independence, even when their territories overlap. In modern times they’ve gone ahead and appointed leaders in all the major cities just to keep the peace. They call each one a Felix, and he acts sort of like a Lupine Alpha. But that’s where the commonalities end. I mean, we’re basically wolves, and like most canines, we tend to live in groups with similar pack structures and social systems.