Something's a Miss

"I'm not actually a bad driver." I jumped, startled out of my funk, as Lucian spoke for the first time since we'd gotten in the car.

I glanced at the clock on the dashboard. Ten minutes ago.

"What?"

Lucian pressed his lips together, hit the gas so hard I jolted back in my seat, and shifted gears with a force that would have cracked the shifter in a car that wasn't as sturdily built as this one.

Figured that Lucian would have some muscle-car nightmare. He'd probably restored it himself, since he had more time than money.

"You're white-knuckling your seatbelt," he said. "You don't need to. I drive just fine. Jace drives like someone's grandma. I mean, he drives a hybrid." Enough contempt dripped from that last word.

I started to laugh, and then I pictured Lucian in a waistcoat, and my brain shorted out for a minute.

"Hello? Landon? Anybody home?" he asked irritably.

I came back to reality again, a little disturbed at how easily I seemed to be phasing in and out.

"Yeah. Sorry. Just a lot on my mind. You know, your driving isn't really at the top of my list of problems."

"Huh," he grunted, and hit the gas again. I discreetly changed my grip from the seatbelt to the edge of the passenger seat by the door, where hopefully he couldn't see the color of my knuckles.

"Unless I don't survive long enough to be killed by the Kimballs, in which case I guess your driving moves up the list. Jesus, Lucian! Watch out!"

I pressed back in my seat and slammed my foot down on an imaginary brake pedal as he swerved around a pickup truck and back into the left lane, tires screeching right at the edge of the twisty road, and jerked the wheel back the other way to barrel around the curve.

"We had inches to spare," he said dismissively.

"Yeah, exactly!" I glared at him, and he stared out the windshield.

Whatever. I didn't own a car at the moment. My last one had given up the ghost, and I hadn't had the money to replace it. But maybe Jace would let me borrow his hybrid, and I could avoid being in Lucian's car ever again.

The forest flashed by at lightning speed, patches of dappled sunlight blending into rows of gnarled trunks and distant glimpses of higher mountain peaks gilded in rivulets of gleaming snow.

Trees gave way to fields, and then we were in town.

Laceyville had about twenty thousand people, but getting an exact count was tough. At least half the residents were supernatural creatures. Vampires and ghouls often avoided census-takers out of fear or suspicion. Meanwhile, gnomes, trolls, and some stubborn fairies lived in caves, which meant they didn't have proper addresses to be counted.

This side of town was a hotbed for magic. The mountains were attractive territory for anyone who wanted to stay the hell away from normal, and the forests drew shifters of all kinds.

The William Lacey, the town was named after, had himself been a werewolf of legendary ferocity.

However, his direct male bloodline had died out in the two hundred years since he died in a single-handed fight with a dragon. A fight he almost won. There was a reason he was a legend.

The Reeses were supposedly descended from his bloodthirsty sister, one of the only female alphas in the region's history. I wouldn't have been surprised.

Lucian finally slowed down enough to take a left into the strip mall with the town's one superstore, and I let out a long breath of relief as the car jerked to a stop. Did being the 'dominant mate' mean he expected to drive all the time? Fuck, I hoped not, because he had a big surprise coming if he did.

I slid out of the car on shaky legs, feeling more like I'd been at sea for a few days than in a wheeled vehicle for twenty minutes.

"Hardware section first," I said. "That's where they'll have the big bags of rock salt. Then produce."

Lucian grabbed a cart and followed me in. Okay, so he could be moderately useful. Maybe 'dominant mate' meant he drove anything with wheels, including grocery carts — and I wasn't really sure what gender norm that was supposed to support, but whatever. Maybe Lucian didn't think about it that deeply.

"Oh, hey, they have jellybeans on clearance," he said, and veered off with the cart toward a freestanding display.

I was going to have to go with 'didn't think that deeply.' I sighed and followed him, dragging him away only after he'd tossed three giant bags of crappy candy into the cart.

No wonder he didn't have any goddamn money if this was how he spent it, 80% off or not.

We were halfway down the center walkway of the store, glancing down the side aisles to see the signs as we went, when the weird vibe I'd started to get when we came through the doors really sank in.

It had just been a faint frisson at first. Some instrumental version of a bad '90s pop song was playing, and a cashier was ringing up a guy in a hoodie with the local community college's logo on it. Normal enough.

But maybe not so much.

There was something…and then it dawned on me. No one had looked at us for more than a second, and a middle-aged woman with a cart full of diapers and laundry detergent had turned and quickly gone the other way when she saw us coming.

I mean, yeah, we weren't exactly in a place where people exchanged cheerful greetings with all and sundry. It was more of a nod and a grunt at most.

But the cashier had also glanced over without making eye contact and then stared pointedly the other way, and the couple of other shoppers we'd passed seemed to be giving us a wide berth.

It was just weird.