Chapter 69: Her Boyfriend Had One Condition

Dove had survived a kidnapping attempt, crawled out of a flooding drain, and broken into a beauty store. If the man outside wanted to complain about the shampoo, she was going to bite him.

Thorne folded the reward notice into his coat as Edrik opened the back door. A stranger stood in the alley with a handcart, staring past the bear at Dove. Behind him were overflowing dumpsters and a frozen pickup with a pizza delivery sign still attached to its roof.

A beauty store, a nail salon, and a takeout place shared this strip of parking lot in Portage, south of Kalamazoo. It was an ordinary Michigan shopping center, except nobody had scraped the ice or collected the trash in months.

"There’s a woman in there," the stranger said, as though Edrik might have missed her.

"There are also hair products, which is considerably more exciting to me." Dove pushed her cap off and freed the high white ponytail trapped beneath her coat. "Did you need something?"

The man had brown dog ears and a knife he wisely left sheathed. Before he answered, the oldest depot caretaker recognized him and asked where his usual road partner had gone.

Three armed men had taken their medicine cart yesterday, the trader explained. He had escaped through the trees. His partner hadn’t, and he had been checking empty stores in case the man had managed to get away.

Dove stopped fussing with her hair. She knew what it felt like to hope an ordinary door would have something better behind it.

"What did the medicine come in?" she asked. "We took supplies from the men who attacked us. Maybe something belongs to you."

He described a wooden box with a green strap and a hinge repaired with wire. Thorne followed Dove behind a shelf while Edrik stayed at the door. She sat before sending her mind into the space, leaving her body where her mate could guard it.

The stolen sled stood beside the pond, still piled with boxes. She found the green strap beneath a folded coat. Rather than announce that she’d discovered a stranger’s entire medicine supply through magic, she returned to ask what was inside.

Dressings, two sealed bottles, and scissors with one orange handle matched his answer. She retrieved the box behind the shelf and carried it out. The trader ran his thumb over the bad hinge, then thanked her without looking up.

"You don’t owe me for it," she said before he offered his whole cart. "Just tell us which roads aren’t full of assholes."

That turned out to be a difficult request. The bridge on the direct road toward Terminal was still out, and reward notices were circulating near the larger shelters. The trader knew a relief center in Vicksburg, southeast of here, that took injured travelers and held violent men under guard.

The caretakers wanted to go there. Their youngest companion still had a bandaged forehead, the wolf courier’s ribs hurt, and none of them had any reason to follow Dove while she hunted for somewhere to trade.

Thorne spread their map on the counter. Their own route went south toward Three Rivers, using smaller roads beside US-131 where wrecks and ice blocked the highway. The trader would guide the others toward Vicksburg in the morning.

Dove felt relief so strong that she nearly apologized for it. She didn’t dislike them, but she was tired of checking which frightened man held the rope attached to the violent one.

"We can leave the prisoner with people who actually have somewhere to keep him," the stag courier said. "You don’t need to take him another mile."

"That is the nicest thing anyone has said to me today."

Edrik checked the shop’s upstairs office before letting her climb the stairs. It had two small rooms and a washroom. He put Dove and Thorne’s bedding in the room with the working door, then placed his own blanket near the landing.

The trader, couriers, and caretakers settled downstairs. Their prisoner stayed in the empty stockroom under watch, with the confiscated crossbow kept outside it. Nobody was bringing the man who had helped capture them into Dove’s bedroom.

While Thorne warmed ordinary water, Dove laid out the four cookie packs Sprout had given her. Three caretakers traded cloth and cord for one each; the trader bought the last with sealed hand cream. She took her twelve normal coins and tried not to miss shopping with money that everyone understood.

"You’ve earned six fresh Favor as well," Sprout told her when Thorne returned with the basin and found her smiling over the cream. "The daily mate bonus brings your Favor balance to one thousand ninety. Your insulated mug is unlocked."

She spent eighteen normal coins on the mug, leaving twelve. Then she stared at the other balance. More than a thousand points, and she was still rummaging through somebody else’s beauty store.

"You know what would be helpful? Letting me spend these on things I want."

A new task opened: change the obvious features on her wanted description without letting outsiders watch. Its reward was access to the Personal Shop, separate from her daily merchant stock.

"A shopping trip for hiding from kidnappers," she muttered. "Fine. Apparently that is what my life costs now."

She took two matching boxes of blonde dye upstairs. Thorne read the instructions over her shoulder while she studied her reflection, white hair pulled tight and high, ears outlined against it.

"You can change your hair and tail to any color," he said. "But green would be weird."

"I hadn’t considered green until you made it sound like a problem."

He wrapped his arms around her waist, already smiling. "Please don’t make me defend myself while I’m trying to help."

She rested against him for a moment. Then a scrape came from downstairs, followed by their prisoner’s voice offering a safer road if somebody untied him.

Edrik appeared on the landing with his coat over one arm. He asked Dove whether she wanted the water kept warm, then went down without waiting for the prisoner’s offer to improve.

Through the open door, she saw him take the man by the collar and steer him toward the rear alley. The captive dug in his heels when Edrik quietly told him they were going to clear up a few things before morning.