“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.
Impatience was something new to Jamison. He’d been raised to be calm and accepting, not acting until nature or the gods showed him the right path. Since his first Change, he’d been more volatile, less willing to wait for someone else to tell him what to do.
Had he ever been patient? he wondered. Or just stubborn? Had he only wanted to show off to others that he could sit in meditation longer than they could? To show that he didn’t need to rush around looking for happiness? That he could sit like a lump and wait for grass to grow on him better than anyone else? Idiot.
Naomi had never waited for life to show her what to do. She faced her problems full-on and did what she had to do. She’d left her husband in Phoenix when he made it clear he blamed Naomi for Julie’s deafness. She’d returned to her people, took over her parents’ business when they retired, and made something of her life. When Jamison had disappeared, she hadn’t folded up and stopped. She’d gotten mad and kept on living.
Naomi embraced life, the good and bad of it. She was an Unbeliever, yet she indulged her neighbors’
obsession with the Ghost Train and took in Jamison’s Changer ability with good grace.
Jamison put his hand on hers. He liked the feel of her skin, always warm, on his. She laced her fingers through his and gave him a little smile, which made his blood sing.
Jamison had been raised not to interrupt his elders, but he sensed that this man could go on rocking and mouthing nonsense for days if he wasn’t stopped.
“Sir,” he said in a low voice. “Mr. Clay.”
Alex Clay didn’t look up or stop chanting. But after another minute or two, he wound down to silence.
He rose, took a bundle of herbs from a basket in the corner, and tossed it into his wood-burning stove.
A sweet but acrid smell permeated the room.
“I think that’s a controlled substance,” Naomi hissed. Jamison gave her the barest nod.
The old man sat in front of them again. He took Jamison’s hand in his then Naomi’s. He closed his eyes and began chanting in a low drone as the room filled with heady smoke.
Alex put their hands together and started piling the stones on top of them. The turquoise and onyx felt warm, the white stones strangely cool. Naomi’s eyelids drooped from the smoke, and Jamison wished the man would open a window or something.
Alex suddenly opened his eyes. They were wide and black, full of more intelligence than his rambling muttering had led Jamison to believe. He put his hand on their joined hands and squeezed. Naomi winced, and Jamison felt the pain of stones pressing into his skin.
Just as suddenly the old man let go and raked the stones back to the blanket.
“One hundred dollars,” he said clearly. “Cash.”
Naomi raised her brows. Jamison bit the inside of his mouth, pulled out his wallet, and counted five twenties into the man’s outstretched hand.
Jamison helped Naomi to her feet while Alex recounted the money and stuffed it inside the pouch with the stones.
As they made to leave, Jamison turned back.
“I don’t mean to question you,” he said. “But you are a Changer, aren’t you?” The old man chuckled. He didn’t move, but suddenly his body shrank and his clothes collapsed inward.