“Come with me.” His voice was low, rapid, rough. “Lucas will blame you and your crazy house. And me. And I still need your help.”
Jazz continued to stare at him. “But, I—” The word can’t died on her lips.
There were a million reasons she shouldn’t go with him. I can’t leave my house. I can’t leave my job and my clients. I can’t just up and run away with a Shifter I met today because he has pretty eyes and a gorgeous body.
The sirens grew louder. Yep, definitely heading this way.
Her heart fluttered. Jazz had lived most of her life in this house, on this quiet road along the river. Industry had encroached it, and the beauty of the land had been marred, but it was all she knew. That and driving the road into New Orleans every day, to friends, crowds, tourists, her life.
As many times as she advised her clients to follow their adventurous streak and try new things, Jazz never did.
The house behind her meant safety, comfort. Mason, the unknown. Danger. Uncertainty.
She didn’t have time to draw a tarot card or cast a rune to tell her what to do. For the first time in her life, Jazz had to rely on her own judgment.
Jazz sucked in a breath, slightly dizzy. She was crazy, but she felt a sudden freedom blossoming inside her, looming up through her chest and lightening every part of her. She felt herself floating, giddy, wanting to laugh.
“What the hell?” she said breathlessly. “All right, yes. I’ll come with you.”
Mason’s eyes flickered. Whether he was pleased with her decision or not, she couldn’t tell. He simply turned to the bike.
“Wait,” Jazz said. “I need my supplies. From the gazebo—in the big velvet bag.”
Mason studied her a moment without blinking then he turned and made for the veranda. He moved so swiftly Jazz lost him a few times in the shadows, then found him again, a man running with lithe, athletic grace.
Within seconds, Mason was back, carrying her bag that held cards, stones, herbs, and other things she’d need to do divination. “This it?”
When Jazz nodded, he quickly stowed her accoutrements in his saddlebag then straddled the bike and reached for the starter. “Come on. Is there a back road out of here?”
Jazz hesitated one more moment, folding her arms, hugging herself. Behind her lay the protection of her grandmother’s house, enclosing walls that would never let anything bad happen to her. Before her, Mason, a Shifter she barely knew, and the open road. Darkness, insecurity.
Oh, for crap’s sake. If I don’t leave now, I never, ever will.
Mason watched her impatiently. If she hesitated too long, he’d have no choice but to ride away. He had to go before the police found him and dragged him off to a cage.
Jazz flung her arms open, as though releasing herself to the wind. She launched herself at the bike and scrambled up onto the seat behind him, using Mason’s body to steady herself.
Mason already had the motorcycle going, the large machine rumbling beneath her. Jazz wrapped her arms around Mason, balancing herself as her biker ex-fiancé had taught her years ago. Mason eased the motorcycle forward and pulled carefully onto the back lane Jazz directed him to, moving slowly to not make too much noise.
Police cars poured down the front drive of the old house, sirens blaring, lights flashing red in the night. Jazz and Mason quietly slid out the back way, Jazz heading into her future with her eyes shut tight.
* * *
Mason drove north. He figured that by the time the police freed Lucas—if the house let them—and got a coherent story from him, they’d start searching for them east into New Orleans, or west toward the giant city of Houston. Mason instead rode straight north, out of bayou country and away from the river.
He drove for hours, heading north and west to Shreveport and then west across the border into Texas. Once in Texas he’d at least not be automatically arrested for being a Shifter out of his state, even if the police questioned why he was out on a back highway with a beautiful woman in the middle of the night.
Jasmine was hanging on to him, the warmth of her against his back erasing the pain of his injury and Collar shock. Mason was usually hungover for a while after his Collar went off, but with Jasmine holding him, the queasiness had faded much faster than usual. Likewise, any ache from the bullet that had grazed him was gone.
Mason could have kept riding through the early hours of the morning, turning the bike south to head for Austin, but Jazz was exhausted. He’d given her his jacket early into the trip, knowing she wasn’t used to having her bare skin buffeted by the wind. The night was dark enough not to expose his Collar, and the cool wake of the moving bike felt good to him.
He’d not seen a cop on the road, other than ones making their leisurely way along without lights or sirens, or manning speed traps that Mason made sure not to spring. Either the police were looking in the wrong place for them, or they’d taken Lucas’s story of wolves and staircases swallowing him as crazed ravings.
On the far side of a dark Texas town, Mason pulled into the parking lot of a one-story motel. It was about three in the morning, and the motel’s office was locked up and dark.
Mason parked the bike and knocked on the office’s door, but no one answered. Probably the manager had gone home or was asleep, this place too quiet to get much business.
Only a few vehicles lingered in front of the tiny motel. Mason signaled for Jasmine to wait at the motorcycle as he moved past the doors, listening and testing the air for scents to determine which rooms were empty.
When he reached the last room, he waved Jasmine over. She’d already climbed off the bike, and she surreptitiously rubbed her backside as she joined him at the door.
Mason touched the lock, which was a regular one that needed a key. “I can break this,” he said, “but I’d rather be able to lock it again. A flimsy chain is only so good.”
Jasmine’s fingers landed on his shoulder. “That’s all right. Let me. Can you grab my bag, please?”
Mason grunted, returned to the motorcycle, and pushed it over to the door. He fished the velvet carryall from his saddlebag, wondering what she’d needed from it.
Jasmine opened the bag’s drawstrings and rummaged around in it. The light above the door shone into the bag, revealing all kinds of things—cards, stones, pouches, books … Mason had never figured out how women stuffed so much into their bags and purses. Women’s purses had to be like the time machine on that British sci-fi show—bigger on the inside.
Jasmine pulled out a stick of incense and then a lighter. She lit the end of the stick, puffed on it gently until it glowed, then blew a tiny stream of smoke into the lock. She whispered a word Mason didn’t know, and went motionless, waiting.
Nothing happened for a moment or two. Just as Mason was about to return to the suggestion that he break open the door, he heard a distinct click. Jasmine smiled, ground out the burning tip of the incense on the cement doorstep, and turned the knob.
Mason caught her by the arm before she could charge inside. Jasmine gave him a startled look, as had the women at Inspirations when he’d pushed in past them, but he stood her aside and walked into the room, scanning for danger.
He glanced into the bathroom, but his nose had already told him the room had been empty for some time. Once he determined all was well, he turned on the light and motioned Jasmine in behind him. She closed the door and looked around, rubbing her arms in his jacket sleeves. Her gaze fixed on the bed—there was only one.
“It’s a Shifter thing, isn’t it?” she asked, halting in the middle of the room. “Going first into a building and checking it out?”
“Yep.” Mason dumped the duffel and her velvet bag to the table then locked and chained the door. “It’s a Shifter thing. How’d you do that, by the way? Open the lock?”
Jasmine shrugged, her hands tight against her sides. “My grandmother taught me. It’s a fairly basic spell.”
“I thought you were psychic, not a witch,” Mason said, opening his duf
fel bag. They’d have to buy her a toothbrush and other amenities in the morning.
“The gift is the gift, no matter what you call it,” Jasmine said, her voice weak. “The problem is, it’s air magic, and I’m best with earth magic. Any other kind wipes me out. There’s only one bed.”
She swayed as she made the last declaration, then her knees buckled and she collapsed.
Mason was there to catch her. He lifted Jasmine into his arms, her warmth and flowerlike scent undiminished from their long ride.
Jasmine looked up at him through half-closed eyes, tried to struggle, and gave up. “There’s only one bed,” she repeated, the words a mumble.
“I know,” Mason said.
Chapter Seven
Jazz woke to sunlight streaming through badly fitted blinds into her face. She blinked open her eyes, wondering what had happened to her nice, soft bed, and then realized she wasn’t in her own bedroom.
She lay face up beneath a sheet on a hard bed under a water-stained ceiling. At several points in its life, the roof had leaked.
The bed sagged heavily on her left, and Jazz turned her head that way.
Mason lay on his back on top of the sheet, his arm over his face, wearing nothing but a T-shirt and tight-fitting boxer-briefs. His chest rose and fell in sonorous breathing, and a light snore eased from his mouth.
Jazz carefully rose on her elbow to look at him. Mason was a big man, taking up a good portion of the supposedly king-sized bed. His body was trim and tight, in spite of his size¸ hard even relaxed in sleep.
He’d been a beautiful wolf, but he was beautiful in this form too. Jazz let her gaze run from his face, brushed by the sunlight that had awakened her, to the Celtic cross that lay against his throat.
The Collar kept Shifters tame, so humans claimed. Jazz had never quite believed that.
Here she was, on a bed with a man who was supposed to be a wild beast, crazed and out of control, theoretically subdued only by the Collar around his neck.
But she’d read Mason—his aura, his past. This wild beast loved, laughed, grieved. He’d been protective of Jazz from the moment he met her, he spoke of his brothers with gruff exasperation, and he loved his aunt. He’d touched the guitar with skilled and gentle fingers, and listened to Jazz try to play with interest, not derision.
If all wild things were like Mason, they wouldn’t be so feared.
Then again …
She became aware of a pair of gray eyes on her, Mason’s arm having come down while Jazz moved her scrutiny to his hard abdomen and very tight underwear.
“Hey,” Mason grunted as she flushed. “You okay?”
Jazz tugged the sheet higher on her chest, though she wore the shirt and shorts she’d put on last night. “Just hungry. Where are we, anyway?”
Mason shrugged, the bed moving with his strength. “Hell if I know.” He scanned the room as though that would give him some clue, then lay back down. “We’ll rest here a while. You need it. Then we’ll head to Austin.”
“Austin?” she asked in surprise. “Why? I thought you were looking for your healer.”
Mason rolled off the bed and came to his feet. “I know a house there where you can stay while we figure out how to find him. A house that doesn’t eat people,” he added as he turned away.
Mason standing up, his back to the bed, wasn’t a bad view at all. The gray underwear hugged his ass, and his back held strength.
Unaware of her perusal, Mason stretched, giving a yawn worthy of his wolf. “I’ll shower and go round up something to eat.”
Jazz sat up to watch him stroll across the room and pause to grab clothes from his duffel. “Shouldn’t I go for the food?” she asked. “You’re Shifter. You might scare people, and then we’ll have to run again.”
Mason swung back to her, balling his clothes in his hands, scowl in place. “You’re not going anywhere by yourself. You’re probably the tastiest thing for miles around, and the Goddess knows who is out there to catch you.”
Jazz blinked at him. His protectiveness had returned, stronger than ever.
“Wow,” Jazz said, trying for a light tone. “I don’t think anyone’s called me tasty before.”
“Then they’re idiots,” Mason said. “You stay here while I’m in the shower and don’t go anywhere.”
Jazz lifted her hands. “Don’t worry. I don’t know how to ride your motorcycle anyway. I’m only good at hanging on the back.”
Mason watched her a moment longer, as though expecting her to bolt outside the second his back was turned. Finally, he swung around and stalked into the bathroom.
“Tasty,” Jazz repeated. “I like that.”
Mason shut the door, his frowning face and nice body disappearing from sight.
* * *
Mason wouldn’t leave for food until Jazz had finished with the shower she wanted to take, then he instructed her to lock up behind him and not let anyone in but him.
Jazz felt a frisson of worry as Mason started the motorcycle and headed out—for Mason. Sure, he’d left her in a motel room in the middle of nowhere by herself with no transportation, but Jazz unfortunately did not have a lot of fear in strange situations—unfortunate, because it sometimes got her into trouble.
She was plenty resourceful. There was a land line here, and she could call friends back in New Orleans to come and get her—once she figured out where she was. She could also communicate with a few of her friends via scrying in water, though that wasn’t always reliable. Water magic exhausted her even more than air magic.
One summer when she’d been in high school, Jazz and her grandmother had driven a beat-up RV all over the South, giving card and aura readings in small towns along the way. They’d made some money and had met amazing people. Jazz could always do that again, maybe finding another psychic in or near this little town with transportation.
Everything in life is an opportunity, her grandmother used to say. Disadvantages can be turned into advantages. Just look around and count the possibilities.
Jazz wasn’t sure what possibilities were here yet, but she felt a pang as she remembered her grandmother’s voice. She missed her.
Mason returned in a short time, without mishap, carrying fast-food breakfast. Jazz fell upon it hungrily, not worrying about things like grease, fat, and salt.
Mason ate carefully and slowly, not how she imagined a wolf would eat at all. Jazz tried to be sedate, but it had been many hours since she last had food, and she was hungry.
Once they finished, Mason gathered up all the trash and took it outside to throw it away. Jazz wiped off the table with one of the thin towels from the bathroom, and she opened her velvet bag as he came back in.
“Might as well get started,” she said. “Can you tell me anything about this healer?”
Mason sat heavily in the chair on the other side of the table as Jazz drew out her rune stones, gathering them into her hand. “Nothing I haven’t already told you.”
“Right then.” Jazz drew a breath and concentrated. “Healer. Has Goddess magic in him. Might be somewhere in two countries. Maybe.”
Mason only gave her a nod, a glint of wry humor in him.
Jazz tried to picture what a Shifter healer might look like, but nothing came to her. She imagined a man with a Collar and a fuzzy aura around him, and tumbled the rune stones onto her cloth.
“Hmm,” she said.
Mason rested his hands on the table’s edge and leaned forward. “What?”
“It’s a jumble.” Jazz indicated the stones that had fallen every which way. “The runes for disruption and a stoppage are the most prominent. Blocking me.”
She returned the stones to their drawstring bag, shook it, and held it out to Mason. “Draw a stone.”
Mason’s brows pinched together as he snaked his fingers into the bag and withdrew an amethyst. He turned it around so Jazz could read the symbol that looked like a lowercase letter T.
“Great.” Jazz wrinkled her nose. “Means constraint, or again
, a blocking. Either the universe is messing with me, or this healer doesn’t want to be found. Putting up metaphysical blocking is like setting your cell phone to ‘Do Not Disturb—Ever’.”
Mason dropped the stone back into the bag. “How would he know we’re looking for him? I didn’t exactly tell the world. Only the Shifters who needed to know. And if they knew how to find him to warn him—then I wouldn’t be looking for him. I’d just make them tell me where he was.”
Jazz pictured Mason lining up the Shifters and glaring at them until they caved in with the knowledge. She said, “If this Shifter has the Goddess magic you say, he could easily set up wards to keep people from finding his location. Or he might not even know he’s doing it.”
Mason set the bag down with a click of stones and folded his arms. “How do you get through the blocks? Or—how about we stop with the magic shit and actually try to find him?”
Jazz gave him an irritated look. “Hey, do I question your ability to find things by scent? It’s weird to me to watch you sniffing and then figuring out what’s what from it. Well, this is my way of scenting.” She leaned toward him, her hands on the table. “I can find him like this, Mason. I just have to keep trying.”
Mason grunted low in his throat. “Whatever. If it doesn’t work, I’m no worse off than I was before.”
“It will work.” Jazz took up the bag of runes, closed her eyes, and drew one. Disruption. Figures. “Just means I have to work a little harder, that’s all.”
She returned her runes to the large bag, and opened her small box of stones. The aura of each stone came to her as she picked it up—the soothing fire of turquoise, the energy of the tiger’s eye, the wisdom of ancient amber.
“What are you going to do with those?” Mason asked, sounding more curious than skeptical.
“They will help me open myself to the universe.” Jazz placed each stone on her cloth, forming them into a semicircle with herself in the middle. “As I mentioned, I work best with earth magic. The stones—elements and compounds of the earth itself—will help me focus. These very stones have existed for ages, long before any of us got here. And here they are, continuing.” She waved at the blue, yellow-gold, and black pieces glittering in the sunlight. “They’ll continue after we’re gone. If anything can help get me through a magical block, it’s the bones of the earth.”