Page 29 of Countdown to Murder (A Paranormal Halloween #3)

Panda

I wasn’t at all happy about returning to an empty house. The note kept me from sounding an alarm to the slayers and Nathan, but it didn’t help my anxiety levels.

The groceries were all put away when she returned. Alone. Without Mordecai. I’d been looking forward to venting my anger at him, but with only Mira standing before me, my anger evaporated.

“I was worried.”

“I’m sorry. I left a note. Mordecai went through my brain and showed me everything I have access to that I didn’t before, and he reminded me of where my willpower resides.” She walked away from me three steps, crossed her arms, and spoke while looking the other direction.

“He showed me something important, but I’m not ready to talk about it yet. It’s a big deal, but...” She turned and met my gaze. “I don’t want to mislead you, so I’m telling you there’s something else. Can you live with that?”

I took a few minutes to consider what she was saying before I answered with a knee-jerk reaction. It was possible this wasn’t about me, but about our location. Mordecai took her somewhere else to show her, likely to keep the slayers from knowing.

“You don’t know Ryan, and have no reason to trust him.”

It was a guess, and she didn’t give me any feedback. Completely blank, expressionless look. Maybe it was the slayers she was keeping it from, maybe it was me, but the fact she was being as honest as she felt she could be had to count for something.

“I can live with it until we’re back in Chattanooga and we’ve put this behind us.”

“Thank you. Mordecai fed me chicken and broccoli. He seems to think it’s important I eat vegetables that grow in the sun with my meals, to feed both parts of me.”

I grinned. “I bought a ton of broccoli and clarified butter. So that’s good. Are you hungry now?”

“Yes, but my stomach is full. Can we go for a ride? Mordecai told me about a power spot, some cliffs by the sea, and he suggested I go there and meditate under the sun.”

“I know the spot.” My hands formed into fists and I squeezed them tight. “Please tell me he didn’t tell you to stay a virgin?”

She smiled. “He encouraged me to explore all of life’s pleasures, and to work to strengthen the bond you and I have already begun to form.”

My hands relaxed, then my forearms, biceps, and shoulders. Even my neck let go of some tension I hadn’t realized I was holding.

“Will you be meditating as a woman or a snake?”

“I think he wants me to stay in human form this week, or however long we have together here.”

“The slayers will likely want to test you in both forms.”

She nodded. “Yeah, he explained that part. I’ll be okay, I just need some time to adjust before my willpower is fucked with.”

We drove for a while in silence, and I let her have all she needed.

When she finally spoke, it wasn’t what I expected.

“I’ve met lots of people since I’ve had my supposed freedom. None made me feel the way you do. Why is that?”

“Some people say it’s chemistry, but I think that’s just a way of describing something we don’t understand.

The thing is, having chemistry gets you started, but if the relationship is going to work, there has to be a lot of communication, and you have to work past a lot of quirks and shit.

So far, I haven’t seen any quirks that bug me.

The important thing is that we talk about them when they show up. ”

“Quirks?”

“Sometimes it’s something silly, like putting the toilet paper on different ways, but even though it seems silly, it’s something you’re confronted with many times a day, and all of those add up to something like two thousand times a year.

So even if the quirk is something bigger, if you only have to deal with it two or three times a year, it might be easier to deal with. ”

“Like?”

Try as I might, I couldn’t think of an example.

“Nothing comes to mind. I’ve had a few women break it off with me because of my job.

They wanted someone who’s home every night, and that’s never going to be me.

If this works out between us, we’ll have to work around our assignments to see each other, but we’ll both understand that you can’t just walk away from an op because your partner is having a rough day. ”

I pulled into the parking area and turned the car off. “We walk from here.”

* * * *

Panda

Mordecai’s suggested spot seemed perfect for Mira’s energy. She walked out near the edge, sat, and meditated for two hours.

The wind blew her hair, her clothes, and I could sense it interacting with her aura. Her life-force. Salt and water and lots of positive energy. The god-of-old had been right — this was exactly what she’d needed to ground herself and begin to get intimate with her new abilities and energies.

While she sat, I considered what I felt from her now, as opposed to before.

More power, certainly, but also more abilities. Going up in power, gaining a hunger, and expecting to be tested within a week was a huge ask, but Mordecai and Nathan seemed to think she could handle it.

I’d called Nathan from the grocery store parking lot, and he’d warned me Ryan would have to tear her apart worse than he wanted in order to satisfy Apollonius. I’d known it, but hearing it made me want to take her somewhere else and hide her away forever.

But I knew I couldn’t do that. Vampires, deadly snakes, honey badgers, crocodiles, and a dozen other species have to go through testing that takes them to the brink of death, or at least feels like it.

Any shapeshifter who gains a hunger later in life, especially during a power-up, also has to go through testing. The fact she’s a king cobra and possibly a demi-goddess would certainly add to that. She was going to be tested, so we’d have to make certain she was ready.

The fact Mordecai wanted us to strengthen our bond worried me. Was she going to need to lean on it during her testing? Or was she going to need a reason to want to live?

Either way, it probably meant we needed to have sex sooner rather than later.

I thought back to everything I knew about virgins, which wasn’t much, and then something I knew about bad-assed women — most of them don’t get flowers and chocolate very often.

I was willing to bet Mira had never received either in a romantic setting.

But she didn’t like chocolate, so maybe a fruit assortment?

I used the phone Ryan had provided to look for a florist. There were none listed in town, but I’d seen flowers in the grocery store, and I remembered a sign saying they delivered.

A handful of texts later, I’d arranged for a grocery delivery, and had Ruth — who I now knew owned the house we were renting — agree to accept the delivery, put the groceries away, and put the flowers and fruit on the kitchen island so they’d be pretty when we walked in, and to put the roses on the bedside table in the bedroom. She was more than happy to help.

And yes, I’d just gone to the grocery store, but now that I was thinking of romantic foods, I realized there were things I should’ve picked up.

I’d put three lasagna pans together before we left, so all we’d have to do when we got home was stick them in the oven for an hour, and we’d be ready to eat.

Now we’d have apple pie and vanilla ice cream for dessert.

I also ordered root beer, so I could introduce Mira to a root beer float.

She was supposed to be experiencing all of life’s pleasures, after all.

“I don’t suppose there’s a boxing gym in town?”

I’d been watching our surroundings, making sure no one approached unnoticed, and I swung my gaze to Mira’s. “Do you want me to check?”

“I’d love to be able to tear into a heavy bag before we go back — balance the meditation with some violence. It’ll have to be in a slayer business though. Human heavy bags fall apart with one kick.”

I texted Ruth to ask if there was a workout place with a heavy bag we could pay to join for the week, and she gave me an address and told me who to talk to when we arrived.