Bayou Moon (The Edge #2)(29)
Author: Ilona Andrews

"We had a date with the sharks."

Urow glanced at William. "Who’s your friend?"

"His name is William. He’s from the Weird. I found him in the swamp and he followed me home."

Urow’s black eyes took William’s measure. "Did you feed him?"

"Yes."

"There’s your mistake. That will do it every time."

The blueblood hadn’t moved.

"This my cousin Urow," she told him. "We keep trying to get him to work less on strong and more on tall, but he doesn’t listen."

Urow tossed back the mane of coarse black hair and grinned, showing a mouthful of serrated teeth. William’s face showed nothing. He simply waited, his attention focused on Urow.

Urow squared his shoulders, flexing. Just what she needed. Two knuckleheads in a tough man contest. She had to nip it in the bud. Urow outweighed William by at least two hundred pounds – her cousin weighed four hundred and then some, none of it fat, but Urow got along on brute strength and a loud roar, while William threw Lagar’s crew around and made it seem effortless, like he was playing. Like he hurt people for fun.

"Stop trying to pick a fight with the blueblood." She patted Urow’s arm. "He’s my guest, and besides, he isn’t the jumpy type."

She turned to where Urow’s boat waited, tied to the cypress knees. He’d brought the smaller of his cargo boats, the smallest size that could be pulled by a rolpie without being tipped over. They’d go fast, and after the cramped canoe, extra room felt like a luxury.

"Is the blueblood coming with us?" Urow asked.

"He is."

"To the house?"

"Yes."

He chewed that over. "Are you sure?"

She let a note of steel slip into her voice. "Yes, I’m sure."

A rolpie popped out of the water. Cerise leaned over and patted the brindled head.

Urow frowned. "It might be a mistake. We don’t know him."

Cerise turned and looked at him, copying her father’s stare as best she could. It must’ve worked, because Urow clamped his mouth shut.

"If you have an issue with the way I make my decisions, you can take it up with my father, when he’s back. Until then, I run the family and what I say goes. Now will the two of you get into the boat, please, before I take off and leave you standing on the shore?"

004

THE boat sped across the brown water, sending shallow waves to lap at the nearest shore. William stood against the rope rail, resting on it but not really leaning. At the stern, Cerise sank to the bottom of the boat, leaned over, and skimmed the water with her fingertips. Her face seemed lighter, as if she had been carrying a heavy pack and had finally dropped it. He decided not to tell her how close he’d come to shooting her cousin in the throat.

Urow, whatever the hell he was, sat at the bow, guiding the Nessie wannabe with his reins and sulking. He smelled odd. William wrinkled his nose. Not a changeling, definitely, but not all human either. Something strange. If William had been wearing fur, the scent alone would have made his hackles rise.

"Any news of my parents?" Cerise asked.

"Nope." Urow grimaced. "A woman was killed near Dillardsville. She had claws between her knuckles. Bob Vey said she shot a web at them. It hardened on their skin and ate away half of his nose. He looks like a Gospo Adir skull now."

"Serves him right," Cerise murmured. "Bob is a scum-bag of the first order. Last year he beat Louise Dalton bloody because she wouldn’t spread her legs for him."

Urow nodded, shaking his black hair. "That’s what I said. I bet Louise is laughing now."

A long narrow island loomed ahead, on the left. In the bright light of the moon, the cypresses and slash pines crowding the shore stood out, etched against the river.

"What are you?" William asked.

Urow glanced at Cerise. "He doesn’t mince words, does he?"

She laughed. "What are you talking about? Subtle is his middle name."

"I’m half-Mar, half-thoas," Urow said.

"What’s a thoas?"

"The moon people," Cerise said.

"The swamp elders," Urow said. "The mud crawlers."

"They are an odd race." Cerise slumped against the short rope rail. "Some think they may have been human at some point, but they look different now. We don’t know if they came from the Weird or from the Broken. They live deep in the swamp and don’t like people much. Something about the full moon mesmerizes them. That’s about the only way to see one – deep in the swamp, staring at the full moon with glowing eyes."

"My mother was raped by a thoas," Urow said. "Although the rest of the family seems to think otherwise."

Cerise cleared her throat. "We don’t dispute the thoas part. We’re just a bit unsure about the rape."

Urow leaned to him and wagged his eyebrows. William fought an urge to jump back.

"My mother was a woman of loose morals." Urow winked.

"You make her sound like a whore." Cerise grimaced. "Aunt Alina just liked to have fun. Besides, she was just about the only one of the family your wife could stand."

Wife?

"Don’t say it," Cerise warned.

"You’re married?" William asked.

She sighed. "Now you’ve done it. He’ll never be quiet about it now. The whole trip will be, ‘Oh, look at my pretty wife. Oh, look at my pretty babies.’ "

Urow dipped his head and pulled a plastic wallet off his neck. "Just because you don’t have a pretty wife …"

"I don’t want one." She sighed. "Wives are too much trouble."

William barked a short laugh.

Urow passed the wallet to William. "The redhead is my wife. On the right that’s my three boys and a baby."

"Three boys and a daughter," Cerise told him.

"Right now it’s a baby. When it starts talking to me and comes when I call, then it’s a daughter."

William opened the wallet, carefully holding it by the edges. A picture of a pretty redheaded woman looked at him from the left. Three adolescent boys crowded into the picture on the right. All had black hair and a grayish tint to their skin. The oldest looked like a younger copy of Urow, down to an oversized hand and claws. The smallest, the one holding a baby, could almost pass for a human.

William closed the wallet. Even this man got to have a family. But no matter how he tried, he just made a mess of things. He slapped a lid on the familiar frustration before it took over and made him do something he might regret.

They were looking at him. This was one of those human situations when he was expected to say something. "Your wife is very pretty."