The Badger in His Burrow (Beyond the Veil #8)

Chapter 1

1

Seth Mays

What would you do if I were outside your door right now?

The answer, apparently, had been to open the door and let me in. Which seemed like a good sign. At the very least, it meant that I wasn’t going to have to sleep in my car. Again.

I crossed the threshold of Elliot Crane’s house, my body aching and my heart uncertain. I looked around, taking in the polished wood, the wash of light coming in the massive windows from the end of the hall leading back. To the right was one of the only painted walls, a soft, pale sage green, backing the garage. To the left, another long hallway, most of the wall taken up by long windows. There was light everywhere , filtered through the lush green of leaves with splashes of color showing through them from blooming shrubs outside.

My eyes must have been huge as I took it all in. If this had been my house, I wouldn’t have even considered moving away from the tiny town I’d driven through to get here, either.

“Shoes off, if you don’t mind,” Elliot said from behind me, his tone soft.

I looked down, finding another woven mat—much bigger than the one outside—inside the door beside a gnarled wooden coat tree. There were already several pairs of shoes on it—a pair of well-used hiking boots, some trainers, black suede loafers, and a pair of what looked like old moccasins. I let the backpack I was carrying fall to the ground, wincing as I bent to loosen the laces on my old trainers so that I could toe them off.

“You okay?” Elliot asked, and I flinched a little. I must have let out some sort of noise when I’d bent down—my knee was throbbing, my back ached, and my shoulders felt tight and knotted.

“I—It was a long drive,” I finally said. I didn’t want to start this off by complaining, whatever this was. I wanted him to like me. To want to spend time with me. To want me in his life. Complaining didn’t go a long way to endearing you to people in general, so I kept my actual thoughts to myself.

“Sixteen hours?” Elliot asked. I was startled that he’d known that for a moment, then remembered that Hart had probably driven it at least once.

“About eighteen,” I replied.

“Was there traffic?” he asked as I straightened up from removing my shoes.

“Not too bad,” I replied. “Some around DC, some near Cleveland, more around Chicago.”

“You didn’t go through Chicago, did you?” He actually sounded horrified.

“No. Hart warned me about that. I don’t think I want to know what going straight through would have been like, given what I did have to drive through.” I grimaced. If I hadn’t been able to see it on the map, I would have assumed I was going through Chicago, at least until I passed the giant water tower painted like a rose that proclaimed me in ‘Rosemont.’ Which I guess was a suburb of Chicago, but was not actually Chicago.

I’d also hit more traffic going through Milwaukee, but that was just a slow-down, nothing like DC or Chicago. I’d gone around Pittsburgh, Cleveland, DC, Chicago, Milwaukee, and Green Bay—the last of which was significantly smaller than the rest. Not tiny, not like Shawano, but not like the other cities, either. I’d expected it to be bigger, honestly, given the fact that it had an NFL team.

I wondered if Elliot was a fan.

“Chicago is always a mess,” Elliot was saying. “Did you drive straight through?”

“No,” I answered, shaking my head. “I stopped in Ohio at one of the rest stop things.”

He blinked. “You slept in your car?” I couldn’t tell what emotion underlay his tone—judgment or surprise or something else.

I shrugged.

“Shit, Seth, no wonder you look like hell.”

I felt my neck flush, and I ducked my head instinctively.

“Sorry, but you do look like something the cat dragged in,” he said, his tone soft in spite of the relative harshness of his words.

“Can’t really afford a hotel,” I mumbled, feeling the heat creep up my neck and the tingles starting at the center of my palms. I clenched my fists, one holding the strap of Noah’s bag, the other at my side.

“Seth.” One strong hand gripped my upper arm. “Deep breath, baby shifter.”

I obeyed, feeling it catch at the top of my chest.

“I’m sorry,” he said again, even more softly.

I swallowed the saliva that had built up in my mouth, although the tingles were already going away. “’S okay.”

He drew in a deep breath, then let it out. “You’re exhausted,” he said gently. “You should take a nap, and I’ll make you some food for when you wake up.”

The tingles came back, and tears pushed against the back of my eyes. I blinked rapidly to keep them from spilling. I didn’t need to be any more of an emotional mess than was strictly necessary.

“You don’t have to do that,” I murmured, already feeling guilty.

“I know I don’t,” he replied, his tone light. “But I’m going to do it anyway, and I’ll feel bad if you don’t eat it.”

I blinked. “Um.”

“Not eating the food made for you by a Wisconsinite is basically a mortal insult,” he informed me, hazel eyes sparkling and that crooked half-smile on his lips that I had thought of more times than I could count since he’d left.

“Uh… okay?” I wasn’t really capable of complex speech anymore.

“Assuming, of course, that it isn’t going to kill you. No dairy, no pork, no beef, right?”

“Yeah.” My cheeks were flushed now under my beard. Because not only was Elliot going to make me food, he’d remembered what I could and couldn’t eat.

“I’ve got turkey, mustard, mayo, lettuce, tomato, onion, pickles… And chips. That all okay?”

“As long as the chips aren’t cheese, yeah.”

He nodded. “Let me show you where your room is—and the bathroom, so you can shower when you wake up.”

“Because I’m rank,” I mumbled, my face flaming. I was. I’d just spent the better part of the last 24 hours in my car. Maybe like 22.

“Because showering makes you feel like a functional person after a two-day drive and a nap,” he retorted. “Come on.”

He led the way down the hall, bringing me to a moderate-sized room with a full bed and a worn desk. The bed had an old quilt, the colors faded, but still beautiful. “Here you are,” he told me. “Get a few hours’ sleep. Bathroom is across the hall.”

I nodded, stepping into the room. “Thanks,” I managed, speaking around both exhaustion and emotion.

Elliot nodded, the silver in his ears glinting a little in the light from the window. “No problem.”

“For everything,” I said, turning away, embarrassed.

When he replied, his voice was gentle. “Get some sleep, Seth.”

I’d slept for four hours, waking up groggy and sore, the bitter aftertaste of the coffee I’d all-but-mainlined all morning still in my mouth. I pushed myself up, swinging my legs off the side of the bed with a soft groan, the heels of my hands pressed against my eyes, which had that horrible still-have-my-contacts-in feeling.

I felt like shit.

I’m sure I looked even worse.

I’d needed the sleep, though. And now I definitely needed that shower Elliot had mentioned earlier.

The bathroom was across the hall, and I nervously checked to see if Elliot was around before I hurried across in my filthy t-shirt and shorts. I hadn’t bothered with any sort of sleepwear, just stripping down to underwear and t-shirt.

I snagged the duffel Elliot had left just inside the guest room door—it had a couple sets of clothes, all my toiletries, and my epipens, just in case. Not that I thought I was going to need those in the bathroom.

Elliot had been right. The shower made me feel like an actual, semi-functional—well, barely functional—person. Being clean made me feel like I could handle complex problems like properly greeting Elliot and thanking him for his hospitality instead of making apologetic grunting sounds. I might well have embarrassed myself, but I was going to act like an adult and be helpful. It was the least I could do, after all.

I opened the bathroom door and immediately smelled something amazing—roasting chicken, I thought. And something both sweet and spicy. I could also smell garlic, and maybe potatoes?

I’d been promised a turkey sandwich, but this was much more elaborate than that. Unless, of course, he was cooking for himself and had made a turkey sandwich for me. Which, okay, would have been kind of a dick thing to do—and Elliot didn’t strike me as a dick—but either way I was getting free food out of it, so even if he had done that, I couldn’t really complain.

I’d dressed myself in jeans and one of my old VCU Forensics t-shirts, then I dropped my duffel back in the guest room and made my way toward the kitchen by following the smells.

Elliot was tossing something in a big metal bowl, but he looked up and gave me a crooked smile when I walked in. “Hey. Better?”

I nodded, my neck flushing a little as I remembered how awkward I’d been a few hours ago. “Yeah, thanks.”

“I made your sandwich,” he told me, and for a second I thought he had been a dick, but then he kept talking. “But when you kept sleeping, I wrapped it up and put it in the fridge. Dinner is honey mustard chicken, roasted potatoes, and what will be everything seasoned green beans in about a half hour.”

I felt my eyebrows rise. “Oh, wow. Fancy.”

He snorted. “Not really. They’re all fairly simple things I can throw in the oven and forget about until the timer goes off.”

I felt my own lips curving up, because he was still smiling at me.

“You should eat the sandwich, though,” he told me. “Since you haven’t actually eaten today, I’m guessing.”

My stomach growled loudly, agreeing with him.

He set down the bowl and went to retrieve a saran-wrapped plate and sandwich, which he slid onto the kitchen island. “Sit down and eat. What do you want to drink? I have beer, seltzer, a couple sodas of some sort, and I think there’s probably wine? Dad liked wine, but I’ve been too lazy to actually bother to find where he kept it.”

It had been seven months since his dad had died. I didn’t know if that was a sign that he hadn’t dealt with his dad’s death, or just an indication that he really wasn’t a wine guy. “I’m fine with water,” I told him.

“Sparkling? I’ve got lime and raspberry.”

“Just… regular.”

He gave me a look that I couldn’t read, but pulled down a glass, put ice in it, then filled it from the tap before setting it in front of me. I was already three bites into the sandwich, which might have been the best thing I’d had in weeks.

I was hungrier than I’d thought, clearly.

“I want to be clear about something,” Elliot said, his tone serious.

I looked up at him expectantly, still chewing, but slowing down so I could focus on what he was saying.

“I didn’t offer to have you stay here thinking it would be a few days and that you wouldn’t eat.”

I swallowed my bite of sandwich. “Okay.” That was a good thing from my perspective. Because even if he did expect me to get my own place, it was going to take more than a few days. And I probably should get my own place, if only to prove to myself and everyone else that I could.

“And I made the offer knowing damn well how much a shifter eats,” he continued, giving me a pointed look. “And drinks in the middle of summer. Don’t make food decisions to try to save me money. I can afford to feed you.”

“Okay,” I said softly. “But I like water. And I don’t like bubbles.”

He blinked. “You don’t like… bubbles?”

I shook my head. “No. Maybe because we never had soda as kids. Or seltzer water. Noah became obsessed with both—but the bubbles made my nose feel funny, so I didn’t like either.” I prefer sweet tea or lemonade. It was one of the few things that Noah and I came down on opposite sides over.

“Beer is okay, though?”

“They’re… milder. The bubbles. I don’t mind them as much.” I shrugged. “I’m honestly more of a fruity drink guy. Margaritas. Daiquiris. But beer is a lot cheaper.”

Elliot snorted. “Piece of advice—only get a margarita if you’re in a Mexican restaurant around here. Otherwise you might not like the kind of attention it draws.”

I shot him a look. “I can make them myself, if it comes to that,” I told him.

Elliot shrugged. “Small towns are usually a half-dozen decades behind the rest of the world when it comes to social acceptance. Especially in places where people are getting drunk off their asses.”

I made a face around my next bite of turkey sandwich. “I’m from rural Virginia, remember?”

Elliot grunted. “People are different in the north woods.”

“I’ll see your north woods,” I told him, “and raise you Appalachia.”

Elliot snorted. “Wait until you’ve been here a little while,” he warned me, although there was a hint of amusement in his voice that kept me from actually worrying. I had no intention of going out to a bar and ordering a margarita—mostly because I had no intention of going to bar, since that would require me to spend money that I couldn’t afford to spend. Especially not until I got some sort of job, whether or not it was with the Shawano PD.

Besides, much as I liked margaritas, they were a special occasion drink. Most of the time beer was just fine. If I had one now, though, I would either say something I really regretted or just fall asleep on Elliot’s kitchen island. Neither of those was how I wanted to start this—whatever this was—off.

I finished my sandwich.

“Do you want the tour?” Elliot asked me.

“Tour?”

“Of the house.” He gestured around us.

“Oh, yeah, sure.”

The house was trapezoid—not quite a true square, but roughly—the hallways forming a courtyard around a small garden in the middle. One hallway led past the garage and to Elliot’s old room, where I was sleeping. Continuing around the corner led down the hall to the master bedroom with its own bath. Continuing around another corner put you on the hallway with the office—its door closed. There was also another room, a closet, and another half-bath on that hallway. The last one—the one you’d end up in if you turned left instead of right from the front door—led to the kitchen and living room, with the door to the basement next to the kitchen.

The whole thing was on a hillside—you drove up it and around a corner from the highway—with a dug-out exposed doorway in the basement accessible from the side. It was a single door, though, which is why Elliot apparently used the garage, with its wide garage door, for the large-sized projects.

Almost everything in the house was natural—granite counter tops in the kitchen, polished slate on the kitchen and entryway floors, stone tile on the bathroom floors, wood paneling and trim, solid wood cabinets and tables and desks. Nothing laminate or particle board.

Probably because I was in the house of a master carpenter.

But it was everything—woven rugs and baskets made from reeds or needles, and artistic pieces woven from wool and feathers and leather or carved from wood or stone or a mixture of materials, like a stylized deer head with what appeared to be real antlers. The whole house—aside from the carpets and walls and giant glass windows—seemed to be drawn from the natural world.

It was stunning.

I wondered how much of that was Elliot and how much had been his parents’ choices. It seemed possibly rude to ask, though, so I didn’t.

It did make me wonder if this was a house or a shrine—if this stuff was Elliot’s, or even partly Elliot’s, that was one thing. But if he’d just moved in and changed nothing, made nothing his own… then that was a little worrying. And probably not healthy. You shouldn’t live your life in someone else’s house.

I know, pot-kettle.

I was working on it.

I’m a pretty good cook, but so was Elliot Crane. In my head, I’d imagined somehow wowing him with my cooking skills, being able to offset his generosity by providing almost-gourmet meals that he’d appreciate the way Noah appreciated my cooking. Noah was not a particularly good cook—he wasn’t terrible, but his cooking skills were pretty limited. He could put together pasta and a jar of sauce and cut things up, but he didn’t have an understanding of how to combine flavors or choose spices.

Elliot definitely did.

“It’s Judy Hart’s recipe,” he informed me when I told him, around a full mouth, that the chicken was amazing. “Hers is better.” He let out a soft, almost grunting laugh. “Val says that she must be some sort of kitchen witch.”

“Hart’s mom?”

He nodded, cutting another piece off his chicken. “Yeah. I can use the same recipe, but hers is always better. I’ve even done it alongside her—and hers is still better.”

I wasn’t sure what to say to that, so I just smiled at him.

“Do you cook?” he asked me.

I nodded. “Yeah. I did most of the cooking for Noah and I, because Noah really doesn’t.”

“He doesn’t like to cook?”

“He’s… not good at it,” I replied, loading both chicken and potato on my fork and putting it in my mouth. “He’s not going to set the kitchen on fire or anything, but if it doesn’t come packaged with five or fewer steps, he just gives up.”

Elliot grimaced, eating a forkful of green beans. “I’d learn how to cook just to avoid having to eat boxed or frozen dinners all the time.”

“Noah is a living garbage disposal,” I told him. “He will literally eat anything.”

So would I, although I tried not to have to make that choice. But the way we’d grown up, we learned to eat what we could, when we could. Because before we left home, we never knew when our parents were going to institute a fast to cleanse our souls, and after, it wasn’t always easy to get enough meals in a day for Noah’s metabolism in the public school system. So I often gave him at least half of mine.

I was a skinny kid. So was Noah. I didn’t put on weight until I was in my twenties and finally had enough stability in my life that I could eat mostly what I wanted, when I wanted it. At least until last year, although at least there were some halfway decent dairy-substitute options so that I could still have things like ice cream and cheesecake—that were almost as good. Give me a few more years, and I might not even remember what the real thing tasted like.

I didn’t say any of that to Elliot, though. Because that’s not the sort of thing you say to a casual lover or even a passing friend.

It wasn’t something I’d said to literally anyone. Noah knew—I didn’t have to tell him. But I hadn’t talked about my childhood—our childhood—with anyone else. Friend or boyfriend. And I wasn’t going to put it on Elliot now.

“But you’re more discerning?” His tone was playful, light.

I offered him a smile. “When I can be.”

Elliot is nobody’s fool. Those sharp hazel eyes searched my face, bringing a flush of heat to my neck. I wasn’t going to tell him the whole story, but I wasn’t going to lie to him, either. Lies aren’t a good foundation for any sort of relationship, whether romantic or friendship.

He opted to not push it, even though I could see the curiosity there. I wasn’t sure if that was because he was respecting my boundaries or because he understood that those boundaries should only be crossed if we became more than we were.

Instead, he started telling me about Shawano. The restaurants and shops and the things that happened in small town Wisconsin. He told me about the way the reservation crossed—and didn’t—with the town, and the casino and the events it hosted—concerts, magic shows, touring performers. He also told me what you needed to go to Green Bay for, and all the things that were worth driving to Milwaukee or Madison for, even though you’d spend most of the day in the car… or have to stay overnight.

By the end of dinner I felt full and I had a better sense of where I’d just dropped my life to move to. I was also starting to worry that I’d made a terrible choice.