Page 24 of Blind Date with a Werewolf
“I don’t know about Mama,” Joshua said, obviously trying to mimic her calm demeanor. “Something fell in the hallwayand caused an avalanche and these fu—” He caught himself. “The doors in the house open out into the hallway. I can’t get the door open.” His voice cracked again, and he took a breath. When he resumed speaking, he sounded much younger than his age and terrified. “Mama had bars put on all the windows so the thieves couldn’t get in and steal her stuff—”
“I remember,” said Tami. The boy—young man, really—was well and truly trapped. “You should call 911 as soon as I hang up.”
“No,” he said. “Please, Tami. I can’t call them on Mama again. She tried to kill herself last time. I don’t think there is really smoke. Bea? Do you smell smoke?” There was a murmur Tami couldn’t hear. “No smoke,” he said. “Mama doesn’t mind if you come. But if the police come…she’s doing better.”
There was more hope than conviction in his voice.
“Okay,” she said. “I’m coming right now. Hold tight. If there is smoke—you call 911.”
She hadn’t driven. Her apartment was close so she’d decided to walk off her nerves about meeting her not-date. But she could call an Uber or a taxi if she needed to.
She glanced over her shoulder. Asil was putting money—three hundred dollars—on the table. As she watched, he stood up, gathered her purse and her coat. Something about her coat made him frown.
He was even beautiful when he frowned.
“I’m sorry,” said Joshua in her ear. “I know you told me not to meet the girls here, but it’s cold outside and they don’t have warm clothes.”
“It’s all right, Joshua. I’m coming.” Tami disconnected.
“Let me help,” Asil said, handing her purse over. He held hercoat out so she could put it on. “If I don’t spend an hour and a half with you, they will cry foul and send me on a date with someone who likes drag racing or something.”
She stared at him. “How did you overhear my call?”
He wiggled his hands to draw her attention to the coat. She shrugged it on and turned to look at him. Her heartbeat picked up.
“It will be faster if I drive,” Asil told her, ignoring her question.
“But—” she said, and then her voice hung in the air as she looked into his eyes and saw the bright gold of his wolf looking out at her. “Werewolf,” she whispered.
He nodded. “Witch,” he responded flatly. Then his mouth softened a little. “White witch.”
She had had no intention of letting him know what she was. Her hands wanted to reach up and cling to her mother’s pendant—but she forced them to stay at her sides.
“No,” he said dryly. “I don’t go around eating little white witches. No, another werewolf wouldn’t pick up what you are unless they got very close to you. You are very good at concealing yourself. I just caught the scent of your magic on your coat.”
She stood frozen.
“Children are in danger,” he told her slowly. “I can help.” He paused. “Let me help.”
She blinked as if his last words had broken a spell. She took a deep breath and said, in a businesslike voice, “If you are a werewolf, you heard that whole conversation. Okay, let’s go save Joshua and his little sisters.”
It was stupid to get into a car with him, she knew that. But a werewolf wouldn’t need to trap her in his car in order to hurther. And she was, as he’d said, a witch. She was not without power.
He knew she was a white witch. This time she couldn’t help it; her right hand wrapped around the pendant, but she said, “I walked here from my apartment. Where is your car parked?”
“Joshua is fifteen and has two much younger sisters who are five and three,” the witch told him.
She hadn’t taken her hand away from the amulet she wore; he supposed that it held some sort of protective magic. With rare exceptions, white witches were not very powerful, and they were prey to their darker sisters. They needed all the protection they could get.
Asil knew a lot about witches. He and his beloved had taken a witchborn child into their home. Mariposa. That child had grown up and killed his mate. She had killed a lot of other people, too.
“Take the next left,” Tami said, then continued as if he had asked her a question—maybe he had. “We found Joshua wandering around homeless two years ago, scooped him up, and as there was nothing wrong with him other than his mother is a hoarder, we dusted him off and found a foster home for him. Straight for about two miles.”
He had to admire her emergency persona. Her voice was calm, and if she kept a hand braced on the dashboard, he didn’t hold it against her. He was driving thirty miles an hour over the speed limit in traffic and she was only human.
“But he visits his sisters?”
“A good thing,” she told him. “His mother was better whenhe was a child. He tells me that before she inherited her parents’ house, they lived in a small apartment and she kept that clean. But her parents were hoarders and she just…let the house absorb her, too. Next right.”
