Page 14 of Snake

“I don’t trust you.” He trusted almost no one. His Horde brothers. Mostly. But that was it.

Autumn sighed. “I’m not the enemy, Cox. I’m not a monster.” She sagged back in her seat, as if he’d exhausted her reservoir of snark.

He felt a glimmer of guilt but shoved it away at once and said, “You’re human. That’s bad enough. And I don’t give a shit if you’re an enemy or not. You can have that out with Badge.”

More quiet. Cox waited a bit to see if this spell would finally stick. When Autumn seemed to be finished making her case for how she was going to save a town that was doing just fine without her, he picked up his sandwich and got to eating.

She took his cue and picked up her sandwich as well.

He’d been surprised that a chick like her—tiny and obviously glued to the fashion magazines—would order such a robust meal (a not-Diet Coke even), and he’d expected her to pick at it, but she grabbed that fried chicken sandwich in both hands and took an impressive bite. She chewed for a while, washed the rest of her bite down with a big sip from her soda, and went in for another big bite.

The way she was putting away that sandwich would give some of the Horde a run.

She looked up and saw him watching. “What? Are you horrified by a woman who’s not afraid to eat?”

Cox registered that he’d been staring while she put down most of her meal, and his sandwich was growing cold and soggy in his hands. He set it down on his plate.

“I don’t care how you eat.”

“Then why are you staring?”

“Just surprised somebody like you eats like that.”

She paused with a fry halfway to her mouth. “Somebody like me?”

He waved a hand at her. “Little and skinny and dressed like a model. I thought all you shiny city girls eat six almonds and a strawberry and call it a meal.”

Setting the last bit of her sandwich down, Autumn wiped her hands with a napkin. “Shiny?”

“Now you’re just repeating words I say.”

“They’re provocative words. What about me is shiny?”

Cox felt like she’d maneuvered him into a trap. This was the kind of shit that happened when he put any effort into a conversation—he missed some double meaning, or some sneaky stratagem, and ended up wedged in a corner with no way out, like a rat in a maze.

“All of you. Like plastic,” he said, hoping to put an end to it.

He succeeded. She reacted like he’d hurt her, even wincing subtly.

She slid to the outside of her bench. “I need to use the bathroom. I’ll pick up the check on my way back.” She stood. “Then I’m going down Main Street. I don’t give a damn what you do.”

Cox watched her walk toward the restrooms. He hated that chick. Fucking snake.

So why the hell did he feel guilty?

Chapter Four

Alone in the restroom, Autumn gripped the sink with both hands and closed her eyes. There was no reason Cox’s stupid swipe should have hurt her; it was hardly the worst thing a man had ever said to her. It wasn’t even the worst thing a member of the Horde had ever said to her. She’d spent her life turning her skin to armor so comments like that didn’t reach her.

She should never have gotten cute and forced Cox to come along with her. In that moment, she’d been engaging in gamesmanship, trying to turn around the infuriating but unsurprising news that she could expect a Horde shadow all weekend, so she had control of it. But now she’d had a meal and what amounted to a conversation with a ‘patch’ who didn’t matter in the slightest. Daniel Cox wasn’t an officer in the club. He wasn’t a decision-maker or even particularly influential with his ‘brothers.’ All he had was one vote at their table, or however that worked.

But in the past hour she’d relaxed somehow, set down a shield or two, and he’d managed to get under her skin.

Part of it was probably that he was a good-looking guy. That thought had perched in her brain while they were still at the inn, one of the times he’d almost smiled, and she’d noticed the squareness of his jaw. He was blond and blue-eyed, with a beard just a skosh longer than tidy and brushed-back hair that reached the collar of his ‘kutte.’ If her memory of her research served, he was in his late thirties, but the two creases that formed a ‘V’ between his heavy eyebrows were deep enough to belong on a man at least a decade older. Daniel Cox frowned a lot, and his face was beginning to freeze like that. Maybe that was why she’d felt a little jolt the few times he’d nearly smiled at her.

When she’d called him by his first name, he’d corrected her sharply. Nothing she could think of in her research suggested why he’d dislike his name. ‘Daniel’ was a perfectly normal name, and he didn’t have a stupid nickname, like ‘Badger’ or ‘Thumper’ or ‘Double A.’

Why was she spending any time thinking about this guy? He didn’t matter, and his stupid swipe at her mattered even less. She didn’t have to make conversation with him; nor did she need his company. If the Horde was really so sure she was up to something nefarious and couldn’t be trusted moving alone through town, then Cox could skulk after her in the shadows like the creep he was, and she’d get on with her evening.

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