Wild Night Road(13)

There was a loud thump that sounded like a heavy body had been thrown against the wall of the banquet room. Tasha jumped. “Are they always like this?” she asked.
Lilith snorted. “They’re not exactly housebroken. What do you expect from a were?”
Tasha frowned. “A what?”
“Were.” When Tasha didn’t respond, she continued, “Shifter? You know, werewolf? Fangs, lousy temper, goes all hairy and howls at the full moon?”
Tasha laughed. “So that’s their symbol? My ex used to watch Sons of Anarchy on television. The guy who played the lead was kind of hot, but it was too violent for my taste.”
“Yeah,” Lilith said slowly, the full extent of Tasha’s ignorance spreading like an oil slick on a moon dark pond. “But not.”
“Not what?”
“Not bikers. Not even human. They only look human. They’re werewolves. Real ones.”
Except Remy, but she left that particular detail out since Tasha didn’t act like she was prepared to deal with the variations in the shifter versions.
“Werewolves don’t exist,” Tasha said stubbornly. “They’re an urban legend.”
“Like this doesn’t exist?” She grabbed Tasha’s wrist and turned it over. An intricate knot of lines formed a raised red welt against her pale skin. “This is real. This is Owen’s mark. The mark of a werewolf.”
Jerking her hand from Lilith’s grasp, Tasha cradled it against her breast. “I got tangled in some vines on a hike this past week at the spa. Possibly poison ivy. I have sensitive skin.”
Lilith raised a brow.
“There were a lot of weeds,” Tasha said defensively. “I think maybe they had thorns.”
Lilith sighed, not wanting to argue with a woman willing to consider the notion that a poison ivy rash might appear in an artistically patterned design on two square inches of her body and nowhere else. “Whatever. You still want to understand what’s going on?”
Tasha nodded.
“Then go and sit with your friends and wait for me. When I know more, I’ll come back and fill you in. Sound like a plan?”
“Do I have a choice?”
“You can go home and pretend it never happened,” Lilith said.
“I’m not going to walk away. I want answers.”
“Then you’re going to have to trust me.”






 
    Nine by Night: A Multi-Author Urban Fantasy Bundle of Kickass Heroines, Adventure,   Magic
    
 


 

CHAPTER SEVEN


After making sure Tasha was seated safely with her friends in the bar, Lilith slipped back inside the banquet room.  She noted that only one table had been overturned with two of the metal legs dented and misshapen. The wall nearest the table was in worse shape. The seventies era driftwood-colored paneling boasted a werewolf-sized hole at eye level with half-broken pieces jutting into the room at odd angles.
Why talk when you can throw your buddies around like soccer balls?
One of Gideon Black’s lieutenants hunched on the floor nearby, cradling one arm and glaring at Owen with murderous intent. Or what would have been murderous intent in a human face. With werewolves, it was hard to tell hatred from admiration because their entire emotional spectrum seemed to be expressed exclusively in shades of violence.
“You need to leave.”
Remy.
He leaned against the wall next to her with his hands jammed in the pockets of his jeans and looked at her like he was hoping she’d refuse to do as he asked.
“I’m trying to protect you,” he said
“Well, good for you,” Lilith said, “but I have a stake in this dog fight.” She glanced over where Owen and Gideon sat talking. She was too far away to make out their conversation, but at least they were talking and not trying to kill each other. Always a plus with werewolves.
“Nothing you can do or say will make any difference, except perhaps to make things more difficult for Owen.” Remy paused, and then said,  “No matter what they say about you, I don’t think you meant to do harm.”
She studied him, not entirely sure what to do. True, she needed to find out what Gideon Black was doing here, but did she need to know enough to trust a lyr who’d proven time and again his loyalties were with the weres of Lost Legacy?
Of course, Remy could turn his handsome face into more of a mask than any were, and as far as she knew, the lyrinye had never hunted witches, but there was always a first time…
Suddenly, the idea of tricking a were in order to gain a seat on the council didn’t seem very bright. It made her vulnerable to Owen. Although he was too malleable to represent a challenge. Remy was a different story. She didn’t like feeling vulnerable around him.