A Wolf After My Own Heart MaryJanice Davidson (children's ebooks online .txt) 📖

had been through so much as a kid, she deserved some stability. Instead, she was reliving her childhood fire trauma and stuck with a houseful of weres. He was going to solve this, he was going to get Sally squared away and find out who tried to burn Sally and Mama out. And then Lila would be safe, and if she smelled smoke, it would be dream-smoke. Nothing real.

And if that meant distancing himself once the mysteries had been solved so she could have the uneventful arson-free life she deserved, then that’s what he would do. And Annette might tease him and call him a “noble knight errant,” but it wasn’t about that. It was about being decent and putting his heart ahead of his cock.

Something like that, anyway.

Meanwhile, there was still this dill weed to deal with. “Is that my cue to lose my mind and take a swing at you? Lila can take care of herself.” And in a perfect world, Oz would get to see what Lila could do to Gulo. But all bullshit aside: He was very, very glad she was at the Curs(ed) House, and out of danger.

11. Hulk shout-out!

Chapter 44

Hot, and getting hotter, and her eyes her eyes were streaming and she had no idea how bad the smoke could get and everything was fine five minutes ago and now she couldn’t see and couldn’t breathe and Mama was going to be SO MAD but maybe she could grab some of the mags, maybe even the little bookshelf just inside the living room that was stuffed with People and US Weekly and it was worth trying, sure it was, but she couldn’t she tried and she lost her grip and when she tried to scoop up the smoldering magazines she was scooping up fire she was holding fire and it felt like a zillion bees were stinging her arms at once and she had to put them out she had to kill the bees every last one and and and and and and

* * *

Lila woke with a gasp. She’d slapped herself awake. No surprise, but Christ, that was a vivid one. She could still smell the smoke. She’d never been a lucid dreamer; no matter how ridiculous or fanciful the dream. She could dream she was elected POTUS and declared all Mondays to be Chocolate Pudding Day, she could dream she was a NASCAR driver who only raced horse and buggies, she could dream she was Anne Boleyn chopping off Henry VIII’s head, it all seemed perfectly real until she woke up. Small wonder she thought she smelled smoke.

It’s just the remnants of a dream, the oldest and worst dream. Calm down. Nothing’s on fire. Look at your arms, see? No fresh scars. You haven’t had a burn graft in years. So just calm your ass down and tell yourself that holy shit I can still smell smoke!

She sat up and flung the blankets off. Only then did she remember that Sally was napping beside her with Osa tucked under one arm. After she’d left three urgent voice mails for Oz, she’d realized there was nothing more to do. She had no idea where Oz was, and it was unlikely that Berne would go on an Oz-murdering rampage to protect his secret. She’d catch him up when she saw him for their next not-date.

Except she wouldn’t, because they were done not-dating.

Mama Mac and Daniels had gone shopping—new wooden spoons, no doubt, and several reams of paper for Daniels—and she’d gotten drowsy. (Busy week.) She was almost asleep when Sally crept in beside her.

That had been over an hour ago. At least her nightmare thrashing hadn’t disturbed the kiddo. Lila stumbled out of bed—naps always left her feeling like she was moving through wet polyester—and went to the door. She felt the doorknob, listened, and then

“Jeez, a guy can’t even take a shower, ducha, douche, without the place going up in smoke. That’s literal, by the way!”

opened the door. Devoss was standing just outside the bathroom, stripped to the waist and looking scrawny and vulnerable. His shoulder blades stood out like…well, blades. Behind him, the shower was running, and to her left, smoke billowed and rose from downstairs.

“Get your shirt back on and get in here,” she barked, and to the kid’s credit, he wasted no time. “Sally, time to get up.” She closed her bedroom door, went to the closet, pulled out the EZ-OUT ladder. “Devoss, open the window. Punch out the screen if you have to.” She went to her top dresser drawer and pulled out two pairs of thick socks. “Put these on, both of you. No time for boots.”

She picked Sally up, swung her around until the girl was sitting on Lila’s lap, and tugged on her socks. “What is it?” the child whispered, scrunching into Lila to get small.

Devoss hadn’t punched out the screen, he’d bent it, then pushed it out the window. “What else? Bad guys set this house on fire, too.”

Lila bit her lip; she’d never felt such pride and sorrow at the same time. Devoss’s words were fearless, but his assessment was heart-breaking. Matter-of-fact becomes jaded so quickly. Can’t anyone just be a kid anymore?

“We don’t know that. It might just be a grease fire or something.” Technically true. But she wasn’t a big believer in coincidences. Not a single one of her smoke alarms had gone off. “Up. Window.”

Devoss hooked the EZ-OUT to the windowsill, then watched as the thing unfolded itself down the outside of the house. “Hey! You weren’t exaggerating the other day. This ladder is quick to install.”

“We’ll make sure to send them an appreciative email later.”

“Ugh. Nobody sends emails anymore. Well, maybe grandmas.”

“Listen. Both of you.” She put her hands on Sally’s shoulders. “You’re going to climb down this ladder carefully. Just like the jungle gym at school.”

“I think ‘jungle gym’ is offensive to people who live in actual jungles,” Devoss said, because he was smart and brave