“Can Changers be other animals? Not just mountain lions?”
“Depending on the original shaman they descended from, yes, though it’s usually a predator. Wolves, coyotes, hawks.”
“If you are a pureblood,” Naomi said, “that would mean your father was a Changer. Or your mother. Right?”
“Both my families have the genetic strain, the researchers in the pack told me. But apparently the ability to change doesn’t manifest in every generation. If anyone else in my family can change, they’ve never admitted it.”
“The researchers?” Naomi picked up on the word.
Jamison went silent a moment. “They had a lab. They had money. Everything was state-of-the-art.”
Naomi reached over and plucked off his sunglasses. Behind them his eyes were filled with memories of pain. “They hurt you,” she whispered.
“They had to make sure I was worthy to be allowed to live. They took a lot of samples.”
She didn’t like the way he said samples. “You only need a strand of hair to check DNA.”
“They checked so many things. My stamina, my strength, my endurance.”
“They tortured you, you mean.” Anger surged through her, wild and furious. “Those Changers had better not come up here after you, because they’ll have to deal with me.”
Jamison smiled a little, but he said, “Don’t even think about fighting them, Naomi. They’re dangerous and well trained.”
His tone made her subside, but Naomi wanted to scream in frustration. They’d hurt him and caged him while she’d been living obliviously in Magellan, angry at Jamison for deserting her.
If she’d known what was going on, she could have found some way to rescue him—how, she had no idea. But she was related to half of Hopi County and must know someone who could have helped her. Putting her connections together with Jamison’s huge family, she could have raised a formidable army.
Jamison put his arm around her shoulders. “I got away, and I’m back. Thinking of you, needing to get back here to you, kept me alive, kept me from giving up hope.”
Naomi’s throat ached. “And here I was pissed at you for not calling me.”
Jamison pulled her close and buried his face in her neck. “But I’m glad you were here not knowing. It kept you safe.”
His warmth was much better than the heater running full blast. She turned her head and met his mouth with hers. She loved having him here, with his satin-smooth lips on hers.
“Let’s do this bond thing,” she whispered. “I don’t want to lose you again.”
Jamison caressed her face, his hand sliding into her coat to cup her breast. “The bond means I protect you, and no one else touches you.”
“Good.”
Jamison started to kiss her again, then glanced out the front window. The door of the house stood open. “Ah, it looks like Mr. Clay is ready for us.”
“Good,” Naomi repeated and snapped off the engine.
FIVE
Jamison realized before they’d spent ten minutes inside Alex Clay’s tiny and rather smelly house why Coyote hadn’t sent him here to learn about being a Changer. The man was insane.
The thin, elderly Apache shuffled around his one-room house, gathering up bits of trash and piling them on a worn blanket in the center of the room. He muttered to himself, paused to extensively scratch an armpit, then plopped cross-legged onto the blanket and closed his eyes.
Jamison gestured for Naomi to sit facing the old man, and Jamison sat next to her, letting his thigh touch hers.
Alex kept his eyes closed as he rummaged through a leather pouch. He brought out stones—turquoise, onyx, and a white stone Jamison couldn’t identify.
He began muttering to himself again, but Jamison couldn’t understand what he said. Alex wasn’t speaking any Native American language Jamison recognized, and he knew many.
Naomi looked sideways at him, and Jamison shrugged, though his heart constricted with uncertainty. He wanted—needed—this bond with Naomi, and he grew impatient.