Chapter Three
Buck
I’d made my way to Ohio, following the vague trails I recalled toward the city Rayne best guessed he’d be in or near.
The whole state stank of betrayal and anguish. I’d never met the Iroquois people who originally lived there, but they’d named the place the great river . Which might have explained a lot, considering that River haunted the state at one point until driven off by a new people. I forgot which ones because there’d been so many. Humans all seemed the same to me.
As I got to the crowded little city, dust in the wind scouring the landscape, I caught scent of Rayne’s blood near a trendy bar and took form down an alley. From there, I slipped from between the two buildings, slouched and unassuming. The bouncer at the door gave me the side eye, and his nostrils flared before he allowed me in without even asking for ID. Shifter of some sort.
I perused the area, finding the scent distant but condensed, like he’d been there a lot but not recently. It made me circle back toward the bouncer, shouldering up near him as his gaze slanted my way with a polite nod and thick swallow of nerves. “Cliff.”
“Stopped showing up for work a week ago. Fired. No call, no show,” he grunted.
“Got an address?”
The bouncer shook his head but pointed me toward a girl working the bar. She had a side ponytail of all things, blonde and bouncy. I nodded thanks to the bouncer and made my way toward the bar, running a hand along the lacquered veneer. The resin finish didn’t shine like it would have years ago, dulled from small scratches over time. Like me. Death by a thousand cuts.
“Looking for Cliff,” I told the girl when she eyed me up and down, a purr of lust just seconds from being let free. I had that tall, dark, and handsome countenance human women adored, a little native, a little Latino. I preferred the term ambiguously brown . It suited me.
She bit her lower lip. “He no-called no-showed a week ago.”
“Hasn’t answered calls from family in a while. I’m checking in. Got an address?” She eyed me suspiciously and huffed. “Three-thirty Friar. Left on Main about a mile and a half, right onto Newson and follow that down about six miles until you start seeing cows, and it’s that gaudy amalgamation of a house on the right.”
“Thank you kindly, ma’am.” I nodded in respect and tugged the brim of my hat before turning to leave.
“Uh, hello?” She caught my attention and I turned back, staring her down. Her hand was out, palm up. I was familiar with this human gesture and gave her a down low high five. It didn’t seem to please her, so I left, stalking out before giving the bouncer a nod of thanks.
“She any help?” he grunted.
“Immensely.” I patted his shoulder and parted with a flick of my power, giving him a little gift of luck with the earth. How he chose to use it would be up to him. Though, from the scent of hemp about him, he’d be unleashing it on his indoor garden when he got home. A truly noble cause.
As I took to the skies in dust once more, traveling an unseen breeze, I found the house quite easily. The frankenvilla looked like it’d been cobbled together of leftover material from several other houses and each one a new style of architecture. The scent of death lingered about, old, but not recent. Male, but not young. The earth, as I landed on it, feeling the ground’s energy, informed me that there was a body buried disrespectfully somewhere out back. But not Cliff though.
I flitted by the windows of the house and found the scent stronger near the garage. Flowing in through a crack, I landed amid old tools and a tiny SUV that hadn’t moved in some time. The scent of wild hare drew my attention to a set of stairs that lifted up to a door that pulled me in with interest.
Out of politeness, I knocked, not that I could sense another person in there, but it alerted the hare inside the apartment to my presence. If the scuttling and rattling inside was to be believed, it was a hare, at least, though it was odd not to hear its thoughts or speech.
I turned the knob and found it unlocked. As I peered in, I saw a neat little apartment, everything in its place, a love seat and bed, a kitchenette. It smelled of litterbox, and the whirr and trickle of kibble hit a food bowl from an automated feeder in the corner. A rank scent of boar caught my attention above the scent of Cliff, and how similar he smelled of Rayne. A soft masculine scent, a little sweet, a little sharp. I inhaled deeply, and the core of my being resonated with the rich temptation of omega. Oh.
A recorded voice from somewhere in the apartment piped up. Mad!
Without warning, a thump and scramble caught my attention and I glanced down. A shivering hare stared back up at me, eyes bulging. In its maw clattered a kitchen knife, precariously held between its upper and lower incisors. One ear drooped off to the side a little, and the scattered thoughts of its mind came in whispers and static.
It head-butted my leg, giving a snort and bark of displeasure.
“Hello there, little friend. Do you know me?” I knelt down and offered a hand, hoping he’d drop the knife or calm down. Neither happened. The static of thought pricked at my mind like a dog whistle, there in some strange way, but inconsequential. In a breath, he dropped the knife and reared onto his hind legs, pawing at me anxiously, barking in little broken yelps.
“Hey, hey!” I raised my hands to show my innocence, but it did nothing to assuage the murderous wrath of the lanky hare. I had to grab it by its spiked leather collar. “What happened to Cliff?”
The rabbit paused its assault and barked once, a broken version of a leveret’s cry for its mother. The hare had been infantilized by its owner, raised too young by humans. I stroked his little head as it calmed down. “Now, where is your master?”
It barked once, no words in its thoughts, desperately trying to convey something. “Poor little guy.”
He scrambled across the room to a plywood board on the floor decorated with little symbols and an assortment of colorful buttons. He scavenged them carefully before stamping a button. As before, a noise I heard earlier repeated. Mad!
“Clever boy…” I stepped closer.
Animal! Person! All gone. Mad. He pressed four buttons in synch, giving me a scratchy recording of what must have been Cliff’s voice. The rabbit huffed. Gimme salad, bitch!
That last button was unnecessary, but I acquiesced.
I scooped him up and rose to my feet, traversing the room to the fridge to see if I could grab him something more substantial than the pellets in his already-overflowing bowl. From the thinness of his waist, I’d have bet the hare was too upset to eat.
Nothing much in the fridge stood out, but the vegetables inside were still edible. A box of salad mix still had a day or two left on it. I popped it open and let the rabbit shove himself into the entire tub, munching for his life.
I traced the apartment, sniffing the air, catching whiffs of boar and fear. And oddly, female.
I sniffed about a little more until a shoulder forced its way through the door behind the weight of a rather robust woman, finely muscled and tall, that same green in her eyes as Rayne.
I barely had time to open my mouth in greeting or protest before she hurled something heavy in her hand toward me, pinning me right in the forehead with a resounding clang. A tire iron clattered to the floor right as the female landed atop me. “Where is my brother?”
“I don’t know!” I snarled and, against my better judgment, dissipated into dust and slipped away from her, sneering.
She startled for a second and scrambled back. “Not a shifter…”
“You know abou—”
“Fuck, yes, I know about shifters! What are you?” She brushed herself off and braced herself, a fire in her eyes so dark and vicious.
“A god.” A slight pressure nudged against my leg and I glanced down to witness the hare, mouth full of salad greens, head-butting me. Before I could reach down, the rabbit ran off and pressed one of the many buttons. Friend.
“Jacque likes you…” She narrowed her gaze at the hare and he thumped his back feet in protest. Still no coherent thoughts.
“What’s wrong with the hare?” I glanced down.
“Kestrel dropped him as a baby. Cliff has a soft spot and nursed him back, but he’s unreleasable.” She eyed me warily. “A god, really? Of what?”
“I’m the Buckling Stone. You may call me Buck. Rayne sent me.” I stared her down, but she didn’t relent, gaze as doubtful as anything.
“Rayne. Really?” She sneered and pulled her phone out, giving me a wait gesture. She dialed and frowned at the phone before glaring back at me.
“Need his new number?” I huffed and she glared before I produced my phone to show her. Relaxing marginally, she added the number to her phone. “You’re Eve, I believe?”
She nodded. “He knows everything?”
I nodded. “Surprised you do too, to be honest.”
“Haven’t figured out what I am, but I’ve got shifter friends.” She dialed and held her phone to her ear.
“Rayne? It’s Eve.” She raised a brow for a second. “I’m staring at a god here in Cliff’s apartment… Yeah.”
She tapped her foot. “Yeah, yeah, I know all about shifters and shit. Now why is a god in Cliff’s apartment? Someone fucking nabbed him a few days ago and I’ve been searching.”
“Right. And you trust him?” She glared up at me and froze. “What? Really? How… I thought you were— Oh fuck, okay. We got talking to do when I come down, bro, but I’m going to take mister Buck here and we’re going to nab Cliff.” She huffed.
“Don’t distract me! Bye. We’ll talk later, fartsniffer.” She hung up with a flourish of her thumb and glared at me. “Rayne is a god, too?”
“An aspect, yes.” I bent down to scoop the hare, Jacque, up. “He is powerful.”
“So what the fuck am I?”
“I don’t know. We didn’t think his siblings were anything.” The hare snuggled contently in my arms and barked. “Aspects are flukes.”
“Fuck. Okay. Any idea what happened?”
“Rayne had a stalker about a year back. He skipped town, met his mate, and then the creep found him again. He killed Rayne, but he pulled through—the stalker, not so much. A boar shifter.”
“It was self-defense! What’s their problem?”
“God stuff. Their god, Grim, is not the kind sort and is demanding repayment, life for life.”
“Ew. No. Where do we find them?” She eyed me up and down before gesturing me to hurry up.
“North Texas.”
She grabbed her keys and shook them. “Hop in. Road trip time.”
“Or, I can travel how gods do and be there in minutes.” I hefted Jacque and moved to pass her when she blocked my path.
“If you’re going, I’m going.” Her glare grew more intense.
“Wish you’d been this concerned over not talking to Rayne for a year.” I glared at her, and the tiniest spark of anger fell from her face. Her breath caught, and I swore under my breath. “I can make it in a few hours if I carry you.”
“Carry me how?” She hesitated, and I pushed Jacque into her arms.
“You’ll ride. So, hold him tight.” I could swear that Jacque growled at her and settled with slight resignation.
She followed me as I left the apartment, making my way out of the garage as dust to reform on the other side. Not as a man but as a bird, one I knew from eons ago.
The great size of me had become what scientists would refer to as a pterosaur . I’d been called many things over the years, thunderbird, phoenix, and one I hated more than all. Quetzalcoatl. The blood from those dark times in my life still flowed in my veins, of countless humans they’d offered to me like sustenance before I truly knew better. Before I loved, before I watched my brother be served his own mate.
I spoke through a clenched jaw as she stared up at me, slack-jawed. My great resonant crest bore flame-colored feathers that they depicted in murals and impressions throughout the ages. Many features were embellished or changed throughout the ages. Few saw this form since those days long passed, and I’d not be taking it if the life of someone Rayne cared deeply about wasn’t in the mix.
Instead of offering to let her ride my back, where there’d be nothing to grab hold of save for flimsy feathers in the way of my wing joints, I offered my leg. She strolled to a car that she’d parked by the garage and pulled out a backpack, making room for Jacque inside. “Drop me, and I’ll haunt you. Drop his rabbit and he’ll make you pay. Got it?”
I huffed and shook my leg, urging her to climb on. I liked the girl more and less by the moment. I hoped she continued to avoid Rayne after we made sure Cliff was okay.
She didn’t act like she noticed my attitude and climbed aboard, wrapping her solid thighs around my leg and squeezing in a way that did nothing for me. Not that she wasn’t an attractive female, but unlike my brother, my preferences leaned toward masculine, solid and resilient. I craved a male beneath me that could fight back, challenge my dominance, and fall to pieces in absolute tears.
I flapped my wings and dreamed of the old days when I’d sit upon a throne while they brought men forward to me in teams to compete in Ollamaliztli, the ancient Aztec ballgame. The winning team would have the honor of feasting in my temple, and sometimes I’d choose one to carry off to my bed. As I felt the strange weight of my burden and took off, I realized those days were long since passed.
“Are you comfortable, human?” My voice snarled from a strange mouth as I glanced down.
She shrugged, the motion a nudge against my scaled leg. “Does it matter? I’ll make do. Just find Cliff.”
“Why are you so concerned with Cliff and not Rayne?” I huffed and brought us high into the clouds as the wind whipped.
“We never were close. He always lived a separate life.” She huffed and readjusted her grip. I changed the angle of my foot, making her rest easier. I could deal with discomfort if it meant speaking with her more.
“He spoke of you and his brothers. He didn’t think any of you knew.”
“That he’s omega? That he has a kid? That I set off the nerves of every single shifter and witch around me when I get upset? When did he get knocked up?” She leaned her face against my leg, cheeks cold, but the slight tremble through her body had nothing to do with the chill in the air.
“All of the above. He didn’t know any of it.”
“Cliff didn’t know, either! I started getting creepy shit happen, and Rayne seemed normal, so I kept my mouth shut. Also, he stayed hidden so much doing his internet stuff it was bound to blow up on him. I was waiting for some dark web stuff to crop up.” She huffed and earned a yap from the hare.
“I wish I could mend the broken fences to come, but you have much to learn, yourself.” I set my sights west, dead set on searching out Grim Dawn’s territory.