"Oh, I've got something I want to rub in all right." His pose faded and he reached down to give me a hand up, but somewhere in the stalks Erik gave a loud yelp. Johnny twisted away, ready to charge to the rescue of his drummer.

"Fucking spider bit me!" Erik shouted from somewhere in the field.

Johnny turned back and offered me his hand up again. "Anyway, Red, that run was impressive." He had started calling me Red—as in Red Riding Hood—a few weeks ago, when Nana moved in. He joked that visiting me "at Grandma's house" made him feel like the big, bad wolf. Except it was my house and Nana hated to be called "Grandma."

I slipped my hand into his and he easily had me back up on my feet.

With a devious smile, Johnny said, "Oh, look! You're covered in grass." He began brushing the little green blades off the arms of my flannel shirt, then stepped behind me and fluffed my dark hair gently. It made a shiver flow through me. Wiping debris from the back of the shirt, his hands swept lightly all over me. "It doesn't want to get off," he said. I could practically feel him thinking, But I do. He returned to my front and crouched, one hand brushing down the outer leg of my jeans while the other rested—surely only for the sake of balance—high on my inner thigh.

As he worked, I watched his face, remembering how swollen his eye had gotten after the encounter with Menessos. He'd earned it, lying to me by omission. But I couldn't forget his earnestness, his sincerity. Johnny believed in me more than I believed in myself.

And he wanted me. For all these months, he'd kenneled alone. And according to Celia and Erik, he hadn't even responded to the advances of any females—and there were plenty who advanced—at the band's live gigs.

So.

It seemed he'd been waiting for me. Hopelessly heart-challenged, relationship-disabled me.

Me.

Now we'd lived under the same roof for two weeks and although he made his desires clear every chance he got, he'd never forced the issue, never been overbearing or less than a gentleman, albeit a seductive gentleman with an unending talent for innuendo-laden conversation.

For a waere, sexual abstinence was ridiculous. Their libidos were stuck on hyperdrive—and he'd been denying himself, mastering himself. Or taking a lot of cold showers waiting for me to wake up.

Well, I had fully roused, and so had my yearning for physical satisfaction. Long ago, while in emotional pain, I dealt with a broken heart by convincing myself that my libido had overdosed on sleeping pills and would never get me into such hurtful trouble again. But my desires had awakened from the long coma and now seemed intent on making up for lost time. Problem was… had Johnny awakened them or had my stain been the blaring alarm clock?

The rain-wet waves of his hair beckoned and my fingers strayed to those misplaced tendrils at his brow, caressing them away, lifting the cedar and sage scent of him to my nostrils. I wanted to touch so much more of him. Right now I yearned to—

No. He deserved my anger for the danger he'd put Nana and Beverley in!

I almost groaned aloud in frustration. For the last two weeks, that had been the biggest battle in my personal mental war about Johnny.

No one was harmed, my conscience reminded me. That was true—Nana was indignant about the whole thing and Beverley had spent her «hostage» time playing video games so she seemed no worse for the incident—but that wasn't the point. They could have been harmed, even killed, due to Johnny's deceit.

And I was also still waiting for him to explain to me how he'd managed an at-will partial transformation. He'd turned his hands to claws during his brief confrontation with Menessos. A waere just shouldn't be able to do that.

Under any other circumstances, it meant a waere had gotten close to a witch's spell energies and stirred up an incomplete transformation. Incompletes invariably lost their minds and never got them back. They remained stuck in a state between human and animal, crazed and vicious. Because of this, police officers were expected to shoot them on sight.

In addition to that un-waere-like talent, Johnny always kept his human sensibilities while transformed. He was unique in many ways.

We'd been becoming more than "just friends" since saving the life of our friend Theodora, but when he pulled a fast switcheroo with the stake, I learned he was willful to the point of deceit if he thought it necessary. I couldn't fully trust him.

And furthermore, if he was deserving of trust and discovered I was still stained and would forever be controllable by Menessos, could he trust me?

The Wedjat tattoos sharpened as he squinted slightly, his focus intensifying. Surely he detected my pheromones. Desire. Anger. A scent cocktail that a waere would crave.

Our mutual sexual attraction was trying ardently to overwhelm rational thought. I clung to my shield—made of trust issues that should keep us divided and that fear in me that was unsure which part of me spawned this deep yearning—but my grip weakened more each day.

"Such a sad smile from my Lustrata," he whispered. He stood, hands sliding up my legs, hips, then under the flannel to rest at my waist. The aroma of cedar and sage grew stronger, then as his hands came to my neck I detected something else.

"I smell metal."

He smirked. "It's from the guitar strings."

"I never noticed it before."

The damn stain had amped my sense of smell too.

It was a vaguely familiar scent to me, now that he named it. I'd tried to learn to play on an acoustic guitar as a teen, and I'd picked up a dorm neighbor's electric one occasionally when the weather kept us all inside. I knew some chords; that was all.

Johnny leaned in, ready to kiss me.

Erik burst from the field at a run. When he saw us, he stopped, realized what he was interrupting, and said a quiet, "Oh. Uh. Sorry."

"Well?" Johnny looked at Erik.

"Whoever they were, they were fast. Practically flew outta here."

Flew? My spine stiffened.

Johnny's hands squeezed me reassuringly. "The scent?"

"Nothing I could identify," Erik said. "You?"

Johnny shook his head. "No."

"I'm going to increase the perimeter of my wards," I said.

"Good idea," Johnny said to me, then to Erik, "You okay?"

I slipped away from them and started gathering my cut stalks.

"Just a spider bite," Erik answered.

"Aww," Johnny teased, "little vampire-bug sink fangs into you?"

"That spider," Erik retorted, "was fucking mega-ginormous."

"Mega-ginormous?" I asked.

"Beyond giant and enormous," Erik replied.

"He drums and makes up his own words," Johnny said proudly.

Erik snickered. "It is a word."

"Right," we both said in response.

Defending himself, Erik said, "It is! I saw it on the Web."

Poking fun at him, I said, "If that spider was named Charlotte and she was writing on her web, I hope you didn't squash her."

"On the Internet," Erik clarified.

I turned to them with the stalks in one hand, the sickle in the other.

"Holy Hecate," Johnny said.

"Huh?" Erik asked.

"Look at her!" Johnny pointed.

I turned to look behind me.

"Not behind you— you," he said, laughing at me. "You look like Hecate with her sickle and stalks."

"Yeah, right, because Hecate is always depicted in plaid flannel." Switching subjects to one I knew they'd not ignore, I said, "You guys hungry?"

"Of course," Erik said, still rubbing at the spider bite. "What do you think we're doing here?"

"Yeah," Johnny said. "Demeter promised to monitor the beef roast I put in for dinner and save some for us to eat after practice." He grinned broadly as he joined me and picked up a few stalks from the ground that I'd missed.

Though I'm a happy vegetarian, I know waeres need red meat. "I knew something was up with all that meat."