A Fresh Start (Book 6 Arrow/SPN Series)

Wishful Thinking

She shook Roy's hand, "Nice to meet you, this is Cougar Kills Bears, Cougar for short."

Roy looked a little intimidated by Cougar, not that I blame him. Cougar makes Sam look small and he was all business. His full head of waist length black hair was down, he was wearing a short sleeve black shirt, a vest and black jeans. You didn't need any imagination to see how ripped he was, he had a huge Bowie knife strapped to his waist on the left and another blade tied to his right thigh. The worst part was his face, totally empty. If I didn't know the guy I would have pegged him for a stone cold killer but he wasn't, or hadn't been anyway.

Now that I was over the initial shock of how she felt and being burned at the front door I took another look at her. Whatever she'd been through the last few years had hardened her, given her rough edges that she'd never had before. Her hair was braided as usual but there were several feathers attached to the braids, she was in her standard hunter look. Black t-shirt and jeans but she was wearing knee high moccasins instead of work boots. They were brown and heavily beaded and she had a lot more accessories than usual. There were three necklaces around her neck, one had some sort of quartz pendant that was wrapped with silver, one was a small black pouch that had some pretty complex beadwork on it and the other was a several gemstones all clustered together held together by bronze and sliver wire. The largest stone was a piece of jet black obsidian with something small etched on it that I couldn't quite make out. She still wore the armband with the silver coyote on it and several pouches hung from her belt. One long knife hung from her left hip and I saw the hilt of a knife poking up above her right boot. She'd gained some more muscle, leaned down which told me she'd been training or fighting a lot more than before which worried me although I didn't know why. I knew she was more than capable of handling anything that came her way.

"Nice to meet you," Roy said as he shook both their hands. She gave him a quick smile then looked back at me and time stopped. Her eyes drew me in and I felt dizzy. The neutral look she'd given me when she'd walked in slipped on her face for a second, all I saw was pain and I wasn't sure if it was hers or mine. She lowered her eyes and turned towards Sam. "So catch me up."

I felt like I was swimming in a whirlpool and took a few steps into the hall until it faded. She'd done the shaman thing on me, checked my warrior spirit out. How I was feeling now was pretty damn close to how I felt when Rising Dove had done it years ago. I knew how little of me was left, I had no idea how she perceived it but that look told me enough. Even if I'd wanted to try to fix things somehow, there was no way I could. What the hell did I have to offer her or anyone for that matter. I had barely enough left to get me through a day, much less be supportive of anyone else. The world finally stopped spinning after another minute or two. I had a job to do, that's what I had to think about, not something that I threw away years ago. I pushed off the wall I was leaning on and walked back into the living room. Sam was just finishing up explaining the autopsies and the relationships between everyone. I grabbed the last beer from the case that Roy had bought, popped it open and stood next to Roy. "Fun stuff huh?"

I'm not sure how she looked more solemn than Cougar but she pulled it off somehow. "Where's Jim?"

"Follow me." She nodded and I led her to the laundry room where we'd stashed him. "Roy's kept him dosed up with tranquilizers so he's not up to answering questions."

I heard her pull her knife, "Won't need to."

"Whoa, wait. What's the knife for?"

"I'm not killing him. Who do you think I am?"

"Not sure, it's been a few years and both of you have been playing this pretty close to the chest. We shared, your turn."

She debated that for a minute, I'd really missed watching her face. She's not someone that most guys would go for, she never liked it when I told her she was hot because she didn't think she was. Yeah sure, she wasn't a curvy ass, blonde model type but that didn't make her any less attractive. I couldn't even say I was attracted to her because she was exotic looking, I'd never gone specifically for that either. There was just something about who she was, how she carried herself that had kept me coming back. I'd been around other hunter chicks, and they all had similar traits, sort of had to to survive the job and the guys hitting on you all the time but somehow that never seemed to touch her. Maybe it was because she hadn't grown up in the life, she'd had a career and a damn good one before she hunted. Still had for all I knew. She wasn't as bitter and cynical as the rest of us, that seemed to have changed though.