Page 23 of Just in Time
It was a long ride with many different scenarios running through my head at once.
I figured it’d be better just to keep my mind clear and wait to see what needed to be done when I got there.
I felt Brody starting to slow down, his head raising a little as he approached a clearing. A clearing that smelled like blood. There was something laying on the ground in front of us.
I slid off Brody’s back and felt him shift behind me. I tossed him his jeans as I knelt down beside the body.
“Indy…” I said softly, reaching out to gingerly tuck a strand of his sweaty hair behind his ear. He was cold. Dead still. Starting to stiffen up. “This wasn’t supposed to be like this, though…”
Brody sniffed, shaking his head. “Nope.”
“What happened?”
“Mygranddadhappened…” Brody said, barely able to conceal the growl. “I saw him. Younger him, obviously… but the pack meeting… they had a man. A younger man. A human.” He shook his head. “It wasn’t nothing I wasn’t used to from when I was a pup, but, it really seemed to upset Indy. He went looking for granddad afterwards. There was a fight. Granddad was stronger. There was no contest…” he trailed off. “I knew I had to find you. To fix it.”
I nodded. “Hold onto me, okay? It takes a lot of power for me to turn it back with more than one person, but if you’re close… it’s easier…” I stood up, leaving Indy on the ground.
I closed my eyes and reached out to the edges. I found them where I usually did. And I found both mine and Brodies wheels in sync and close together. I grabbed them and cranked them back, grunting under the strain, but that was nothing to having to explain to a really territorial Brody that he shouldn’t snap at Indy for time reasons.
I let out a cry as I began clicking us back, back to that afternoon when we pulled up in Indy’s driveway. He couldn’t go to that pack meeting. So we had to convince him not to.
I stopped the wheel where it was and Brody and I were suddenly back in Indy’s truck. Of course, I’d dropped us really close together, so I was actually on his lap.
Indy wasn’t looking at us, thank goodness, he was looking at the road. When he glanced over, he jumped though.
“Oh, that’s a good way to fix that problem,” he said with a laugh. “You cool enough now, sugar?”
“You can’t go to your pack meeting tonight,” I blurted. So sue me, I wasn’t the best at seamlessly transitioning.
He frowned a little, glancing over. “Okay… I never told you about that, but y’all are time travelers who apparently know everything, so I’mma let that slide…”
“Look, you can’t go, Indy…” Brody reached out to grasp at his arm. “It’s a matter of life and death.”
“Okay, matter of life and death or not, I have to go to that meeting,” he said with a shrug. “Maybe you come along with me, Brody? Keep me safe?”
I didn’t really like that. What if Brody was the one who ended up dead this time around?
“Can I come?” I asked. “If I stay hidden?”
“They’ll smell you,” Indy replied, glancing apologetically to Brody. “Not to be rude, but you got quite a scent coming off ya…” He put the car in park in front of his house, “Well, this is it.”
“That’s just you who smells that,” Brody said softly.
“What?” Indy asked, glancing between the two of us.
I was right there with him. I didn’t know that.
“What do you mean, that’s just him?” I asked, glancing at both of them.
“He’s the only one who smells that. Because he’s… attracted to you. You’re compatible,” Brody said slowly. “It’s the same with you and me. Sugar.” He smirked crookedly at me. “It’s a shifter thing. We can sense who’d make the strongest pups. The scents are… very pungent.”
“Ew,” I said, wrinkling my nose. “I never knew that. You mean you’ve been smelling my... You know… all this time?”
Indy chuckled. “That’s not what we’re smelling. You’ve just… you’ve got pheromones. That call to us, kind of…” He shrugged a little. “I thought it might be that, but I didn’t want to impose. Brody’s not in my pack and it ain’t my place to go sniffing around his mate. You know?”
“But how do we know that another one of your shifters from the pack don’t smell me too?” I asked.
“Because they’d already be sniffing around here. Trust me,” Indy said. “Why do you think I showed up in that small patch of woods where y’all showed up, huh?”
