“Tom,” he corrected.
“Tom.” Lydia said firmly. “I promise that neither you nor your sister are any danger. It’s highly unlikely that anything will happen here at a public event like this, and like I said, it’s a personal thing. I’m sorry I alarmed you, I was only trying to eliminate suspects and I’m not very good at this.” She gave him a winning smile.
Tom was already squinting around at the other guests suspiciously. “What about that brute you were dancing with before? He’s got kind of that look, doesn’t he?”
Lydia turned them so she could smile across the dance floor at Wrench’s glare. “He does, doesn’t he?” She said fondly. “It’s a useful look, for certain lines of work.”
Tom gave her a deeply skeptical look. “Okay then, how about that Russian guy who looks like he did time in Siberia? I saw him shift into something goddamn prehistoric, with fangs like scimitars.”
Lydia tipped her head. “That was useful! But I’m afraid we’re specifically looking for a snake shifter. He’s already made one attempt.”
Tom shuddered.
“Who else have you seen shifting?” Lydia hastened to ask. “Anyone you’ve seen would be helpful!”
“There’s that really, really big woman with auburn hair who shifted into a polar bear at the pool,” Tom offered. “And, let’s see…”
Chapter 39
Wrench glared across the dance floor as Lydia continued dancing a second song with the young man she’d selected.
He used all of the steps Lydia had taught him, not just the one easy set, and even with a handful of other dancers between them, Wrench could tell he was doing a good job of it. They even turned sometimes, where Wrench had stuck to the one safe move, counting under his breath the entire time.
They appeared to be deep in conversation, and Wrench had to ball his fists at his side to keep from stomping across the floor and shoving the man away from his mate.
“Isn’t she gorgeous?” Bastian said from his side.
“Yeah,” Wrench said before he realized the other man was talking about Saina, who was dancing with the Swedish not-a-bear. There was no graceful way to correct the statement, so he didn’t bother.
He made himself stop staring at Lydia like a lovestruck puppy and sweep a glance around the room. Scarlet met his eyes briefly from behind the DJ’s table, clearly doing the same. Her expression was serene and unruffled but her eyes were sharp, even from here. She may not expect trouble at a public event, but she was clearly alert for it.
But nothing happened.
Lydia and Saina came back from their dances with more names to cross off of Scarlet’s list, but they felt no closer to a culprit by the time the night had grown old than when they had started.
Most of the guests trickled away as the night grew deeper. The white-haired woman, looking two sheets to the wind, nursed a last glass of wine at the little bar, and the last dancers drifted away as the staff began folding up chairs and collecting forgotten glasses.
“We usually split what’s left of open bubbly bottles after these things,” Lydia said, bringing Wrench a glass. “No use letting them go to waste.”
Wrench eyed the fizzy drink skeptical but tossed it down as Lydia sipped hers. It tasted better than he expected, but it tickled distractingly, all the way down. He preferred the burn of whiskey.
The flower in Lydia’s fancy updo had started to slip, and Wrench put his glass down so he could tuck it back in. Her hair smelled delicious, and Wrench had to concentrate very hard not to betray his sudden rising need for her. He lingered over tucking a lock of her dark hair back over her ear and loved the way her breath hitched when he brushed her neck.
Just has he was wondering if cottage two was still available for their use, a movement beyond Lydia caught his attention.
The white-haired woman was pushing a bottle away from her on the bar. Her motions were slow, which may have been a product of her inebriation, but it caught Wrench’s attention as simply slow, not drunk-slow. Careful-slow. Trying-not-to-get-attention-slow.
“You got the list?” he asked suddenly, his hand on Lydia’s shoulder.
“Laura has it behind the bar,” Lydia said, glancing in that direction.
Wrench resisted the instinct to tell her not to look. “You remember what that woman’s animal shape is?”
Lydia smirked. “Weasel. Ermine, I think? I remember thinking it suited her personality, she was so nosy.”
Wrench frowned. “Told me she was a fox.” He thought back to the conversation and remembered with a sour stomach what else they had talked about. “I told her I had a sister... and a niece.” That had been just a day before Renna ended up in protective custody.
Lydia’s smile froze. “She doesn’t look like an assassin!”