Page 9 of Dream Weaver

My inner grizzly hummed dreamily.She sure did.

Raging fires didn’t disturb my sleep, but a wisp of a woman with brown hair and green eyes had. All night long.

Auburn hair,my bear corrected.Like maples in the fall.

Or more appropriately, like the shadowy bases of Sedona’s red cliffs.

I thought the situation over. Abby knew about shifters, though very few humans did.

She’s not human, my bear concluded with a little cheer.

No, she wasn’t. So, what was she?

Not another shifter, judging by her scent.

Not a vampire, because they had no scent at all.

She smells nice,my bear proclaimed.Like dandelions and huckleberries.

In the chaos of competing smells in the metal shop, her sweet scent had stood out like a rose among weeds.

So, not a vampire either. That left two possibilities: witch or relic — a human with a trace of supernatural ancestry.

Anything but a witch,I prayed.

Even my bear went quiet on that one.

Working with a witch was a total no-go. Not after the war they’d waged against my clan generations ago.

Okay — many,manygenerations ago. So many, I didn’t know the details — not even what they’d fought over. But I knew the important part: witches were cruel, unpredictable beings and not to be trusted.

Not that I’d ever met a witch, but that was what I’d heard.

Plus, she’d forged the lucky ax. That could be witchcraft, right?

Or just superstition,my bear pointed out.

Behind me, the garage-style rear doors of the metal shop clattered open. Clenching my jaw, I headed in.

Walt introduced me to Louie the dog and three men — two youngish ones, Matt and Pablo, plus Bob, the veteran of the bunch — then left me to it.

“Abby’s assistant, huh?” Pablo glanced in her direction. “Good luck, man.”

“Yeah, bring a helmet.” Matt chuckled. “So she can’t bite your head off.”

He was only half kidding, I sensed.

“Oh, come now.” Bob came to her defense. “She just needs a little space.”

Yeah, like the last fire I’d worked on — a few thousand acres, give or take.

“Leave her alone, and you’ll be fine,” Bob said, as much to me as to the other two.

I would have loved to leave her alone, but I’d been appointed her goddamn assistant.

Finding Abby’s corner of the shop was easy. I followed her scent — and the noise.

Wham! Crash!

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