Silver Basilisk: Silver Shifters - Book 4 Read online

  Silver Basilisk

  Silver Shifters - Book 4

  Zoe Chant

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Epilogue

  More Paranormal Romance by Zoe Chant

  While every precaution has been taken in the preparation of this book, the publisher assumes no responsibility for errors or omissions, or for damages resulting from the use of the information contained herein.

  SILVER BASILISK

  First edition. August 10, 2020.

  Copyright © 2020 Zoe Chant.

  Written by Zoe Chant.

  Created with Vellum

  Chapter 1

  GODIVA

  “A tea party?”

  The other three women in Godiva’s Gang of Four stood in a row staring at her.

  Godiva put her hands on her hips. “Why are you looking at me like I just suggested a wild and drunken game of three-pack Canasta?”

  Godiva’s three closest . . . no, she didn’t let anyone get close. Her three oldest friends reacted in completely different ways, which were characteristic of them all. Bird, a sweet-faced woman with soft graying curls, blinked at the idea of wild and drunken anything. Doris, unflappable after decades of teaching high school, merely murmured dryly, “It’s just that I don’t remember you ever suggesting a tea party before.”

  “And so, what better time to begin?”

  Jen, towering over the two shorter women, gave a belly laugh. Jen had always been striking, but now she looked magnificent. Though she had her queasy mornings, this wasn’t one of them, and she definitely had the proverbial glow. Or maybe it was just happiness at the prospect of her coming wedding.

  The three old friends were the center of the Baker Street Writers’ Workshop, a group Godiva had championed years ago when the tiny town of Playa del Encanto had an equally tiny library struggling to survive. Starting the writers’ group had been a way to draw people to the library, until there were too many writers to fit into the library’s cramped study room.

  The Gang of Four had stayed a solid unit until this last year or so, when it had stretched into a Gang of Seven, now that all three of Godiva’s friends had unexpectedly found romance. Despite being well past fifty.

  Romance. Tchah! While Godiva was the world’s champion fan of her fellow woman grabbing some lips-and-hips action while the gettin’ was good, she did not believe in romance, true love, or oaths of everlasting whatever.

  However, she also didn’t believe in raining on others’ parades, so she cheered her friends’ starry eyes out loud, attended one wedding, organized the second one, and planned to attend the third.

  And then?

  Was it time to move on, and make a graceful exit? Four was a good, square number, but seven was awkward no matter how you looked at it.

  Godiva loved the town and its people. Yeah, well, most of them. She’d done good work here. But instinct had been itching at her lately, making her restless. It wasn’t her age. She knew her age—it wasn’t like she’d woken one day, and whoa, how did I get to be in my eighties? She counted every year, because . . . well, because.

  This was something different. Maybe it was time to move on. Quietly. No fuss. Here one day, gone the next. She was pretty good at that.

  She could get used to being on the move again. She wasn’t dirt poor anymore, so moving would be easy for a change. She could always come up with a fresh new identity, and leave her friends to get on with their happy lives.

  “A tea party.” She forced a smile. “My new mystery starts with a tea party.”

  Three versions of “Oh!” sounded around her.

  Doris led the way to one of the tables in the Baker Street Bakery, run by Linette, another of the writers in the writing group. This table sat in a corner where adjacent windows let in plenty of light. “This will film well. How do you want us?”

  “Just sit down.” Godiva carried over the tray of pastries she’d bought. “Your coffee mugs are now a fancy tea service. You are wearing silk, pearls, and fancy hats. Gloves! I’ll asked Linette if she can handle the camera, because—”

  At that moment, the little bell on the front door tinkled, and slim, dapper Joey Hu entered. Silvering blond hair fell in waves above a handsome face that showed his Asian heritage. His quiet smile warmed the entire room, though it was mostly aimed at Doris—their wedding was the one Godiva had organized herself.

  “Joey! You made it just in time,” Doris said with a beaming smile.

  “Mikhail and Nikos are right behind me,” Joey Hu said. “They . . . got delayed.”

  Godiva heard that slight pause, and though no one reacted, she felt—as she often had lately—that another conversation was going on beneath the surface. Not that her friends were the type to play social exclusion games. Maybe it was just one of those inevitable romance things, two against the world, la la la.

  One of the reasons why she wrote mysteries instead of romance.

  “Joey, can you handle the camera?” Doris asked.

  “Be glad to.” Joey said took the cell phone from Doris and turned to Godiva. “What type of mystery are you writing now?”

  “It starts with a tea party,” Doris said, stepping aside as a cluster of teenagers entered the bakery.

  Joey looked surprised. “No cyber-warriors or spies or assassins?”

  “Not this time,” Godiva said, as Bird and Doris set their tea mugs down, and Jen her caffeine-free latte. “It’s . . . a locked room mystery. And I’m going to be in this vid. Because I want four characters. Women,” she added at the range of astonished looks.

  ‘Never explain’ had been her motto for years. She sat down with the others, as Bird—the least bloodthirsty person Godiva had ever known—said cheerfully, “Do you want me to be the victim, as usual? Is it poison?”

  “Not this time. That is, not yet,” Godiva said, making it up rapidly. “This scene is setting up the atmosphere. The victims come later. So for now, let’s dig into Linette’s masterpieces of baked heaven here, and pretend we’re high society ladies at a fabulous mansion.”

  Doris the drama teacher sat erect, her nose elevated, her upper lip lengthened as she drawled, “One simply cannot get good help these days. I had to fire my downstairs footman for wearing morning livery at an afternoon soiree.”

  “How shocking,” Bird fluted, her mouth trembling as she tried valiantly to smother a laugh.

  “Piffle,” Jen declared, as she selected a fresh-baked peach tart, pinky arched. “I divorced my sixth husband for insisting on wearing a black tie at a white tie event. Now, that is a national crisis.”

  “One must maintain one’s standards,” Doris intoned, arching her pinky and her fourth finger as she sipped from her mug.

  The others promptly started trying to out-snob each other. Bird was the first to break into laughter. “Sorry, sorry, should we start again?”

  Godiva waved at Joey. “Just keep going.”

  Bird flushed, her smile tender as her tall, silver-haired husband, Mikhail Long, entered with Nikos Demitros, Jen’s soon-to-be husband. The two men sat in the far corner to be out of the way of the filming. Bird turned back to Godiva. “Will it be an Agatha Christie sort
of mystery, then?”

  “I haven’t decided yet.” Godiva was not going to admit that what she really wanted was a videotape of the four of them just being themselves. The snob thing, funny for a minute, had been a mistake. So she tried another tack. “What are you bringing to the next meeting?”

  Bird’s gaze widened. “I finished my novel about dolls coming alive,” she said in her normal voice. “I was up all night writing the climax.”

  “Don’t spoil it.” Doris raised her hands. “I want to hear the ending completely fresh. From everything you’ve shared so far, I would have adored that book when I was a kid.”

  “Same here,” Jen said fervently. “As for my project, it’s going great! My phoenix princess is about to face down an evil gorgon.”

  As Godiva expected, Bird began to enthuse about Jen’s fantasy novel. Which was a good story. Godiva had to admit that. It was just that magical stuff . . . that was for kids. Real life might have mysteries that actually got solved, and justice served, but there sure as shooting wasn’t any magic in it.

  Howsomever, if that’s what Jen wanted to write, well, Godiva fully supported writers writing what they wanted to write. So she sat back to listen as her three friends began chatting about their current projects, the camera forgotten. This, right here, was what Godiva had hoped for: to capture this easy moment, that otherwise might never be remembered.

  Almost easy.

  Godiva caught Bird side-eyeing her, and then Doris doing same. Why? Because I’m in the vid for the first time? Godiva wondered. She wasn’t about to tell them that this wasn’t a real start to any story, that the vid was only for her to replay and enjoy once she reached wherever she was going next. She didn’t know where. Only that it would be soon.

  Very soon.

  The bakery had filled with customers, most of them young, as this was summer vacation so the local kids were at large. No one disturbed their corner, though Godiva hoped that the group of middle-teen boys yapping about birthday plans at the next table over wouldn’t drown out the women’s lighter voices.

  The door tinkled again. Godiva didn’t bother looking, as her party was all here, including their plus ones over there in the corner. But something in the way Jen, Doris, and even Bird straightened up staring, surprised her.

  “Whoa,” Linette said on a low, appreciative note from behind the counter.

  Godiva slewed around on her chair.

  And stared.

  The tall, rangy man who sauntered in with such an air wore a work shirt and age-softened jeans over beautifully cut riding boots. Tilted black eyes under slanting brows swept the room, then lit on her. His face was brown, seamed by the sun and time, and his coal black hair had lightened at the temples to a silvery white, but his eyes had not changed—nor had that wide, curved mouth, a mouth made for laughter and sin.

  Rigo the Betrayer? Here?

  Impossible, she was thinking as Rigo threw his arms wide and said, “Shirl my girl! I found you.”

  It was his voice, slow and easy, like whiskey and smoke.

  Godiva’s brain froze.

  Her body took over.

  Before anyone could move, her fingers closed on the tray of pastries, and she hurled them straight at him.

  He sidestepped neatly. Of course he did. With a minimum of effort, because his life had depended on avoiding far more dangerous things charging him.

  Pastries splattered against the door.

  “Food fight!” one of the teenagers at the next table howled.

  A second later the air was full of flying pastries.

  Godiva had half a second of sanity to be appalled at what she’d done, then sheer fury burned away every other thought as he started toward her, hands out wide.

  “Shirl,” he began.

  “There is no ‘Shirl’, you pettifogging pillock!” she yelled, backing away and looking for something else to throw. Ah! Her half-drunk coffee would do the trick. “She punched her ticket more half a century ago. Thanks to you.”

  Toss!

  Splash!

  Of course he dodged neatly, leaving the brown liquid to drip down the wall. “Shirl—sorry, Godiva. Just give me a chance to—”

  “A chance to what, you stenchiferous wight,” she yelled, and when she saw her friends staring like a bunch of frozen statuary, she turned to the teens. “Get ‘im, boys. That crottled potsniffer is . . . trying to take my virtue!”

  The teens enthusiastically began picking up the splattered bits of pastry around them. Rigo, damn him, neatly dodged a bombardment of glutinous bits, his expression midway between laughter and exasperation. “Hey, that pony left the barn sixty years ago—”

  His slight Texas drawl threw her right back to the first time they met, when she was eighteen, far away in distance and time. The memory was so vivid it made her almost giddy for one second, then the sheer effrontery of him tracking her down after all these years caught up.

  That betraying snake was here!

  Sheer rage swept away all sense. “Duncebucket!”

  “I just want a chance to talk to you—”

  “Snitchweasel!”

  “—beginning with an apology—”

  “Apology? APOLOGY??? Sixty years too late, buckaroo. You know where you can shove your apology, you slimy scuzzwaffle? I’d say shove it where the sun don’t shine but your head’s already wedged right up tight . . .” To her absolute horror, she heard her own accent creeping back in—more than half a century after she had thoroughly eradicated it, along with the miserable identity of Shirley Temple Lamas.

  At least the teens had driven him away from the door at last. She darted past, and made it outside.

  She’d promised herself before most of those in the bakery were even born that she’d never waste a single tear on man. She leaned against the door, breathing hard. Blinking hard. Then became aware of something parked right in front of her that the dusty street had probably never seen before: a silver, glistening Rolls Royce Phantom II, in perfect condition. Several men stood about, staring at it, mouths open.

  A vivid memory rose, lying side by side with Rigo on a broken-down cart in the hot Texas night, dreaming of the things they could never have. They couldn’t even afford the nickel for one of the magazines with pictures of fancy people in their fancy houses and cars and clothes, but somebody had left one behind at the diner where she worked, and they’d pored over it together.

  She could still hear his whiskey and steel voice promising, “Someday I’m gonna git me one of them Rolls-Royce Phantoms.”

  Obviously he’d chosen to keep that promise, even if he broke every other promise.

  Not that she gave a flying pickle.

  Her hand scrabbled behind her for the door latch to the bakery. She yanked the door open just enough to grab some of the slime that had splattered along the edge, then she shut it again. With a twinge of regret for the downfall of what had been an exquisite lemon custard, she flung it at the windshield of the evidence of her worst nightmare come true.

  She wiped her hand off on the Rolls Royce flying goddess hood ornament, then stalked away, boiling with righteous fury.

  Chapter 2

  RIGO

  She was still beautiful.

  The long, glossy black braid he remembered so well had gone snow white, which framed even more extravagantly those striking black eyes that could sparkle with fun one moment, then melt soft and tender in the next.

  Right now those eyes, as well as the rest of her, were madder than a bag of rattlers. The more than sixty years since he’d lost her felt like sixty centuries, yet also like sixty seconds because damn, she could turn him inside out with half a glance, just as she had when they’d first met.

  It was also clear as a summer river that more than half a century later after he’d made the dumbest, damndest mistake of his life, she had not forgiven him.

  Chaos swirled around Rigo as he stood where he was, trying to figure out if he should roust these wild boys whooping it up or just go after Go
diva.

  Yeah, like there was any question. She would always come first. He started toward the door as a glop of something whizzed past him, missing him by half an inch.

  “Hey, Tucker, this is what you should do for your birthday,” one of the boys panted. “Food fight! Be the most awesome party ever.”

  “But not good foods,” another boy brayed. “Least, not till we get to eat it.”

  “I’d totally bring my mom’s fruitcake. It’s disgusting. There isn’t even any booze in it!”

  A gangling youth came out of the back of the bakery, carrying what appeared to be a fresh cherry pie. With the stealth of a ninja, he crept up behind the tallest boy, then whapped the entire pastry into his face. “Take that, Skyler Higgins. For messing up our—”

  “STOP!” A woman’s voice cut through the hubbub, freezing everyone in place. “What the hell are you boys up to?”

  The boy who’d offered fruitcake whined, “That old lady started it.”

  “Hey,” Rigo said, scowling. “Show some respect.” Then he remembered that Godiva actually had started it—because he’d thought it was such a good idea to surprise her.

  IDIOT, his basilisk commented.

  Rigo suppressed a grimace. Yeah, he’d screwed up badly, all right. “How about I pay for the damage?” He took out his wallet.

  The baker ignored him completely and turned to the teens, fists on her hips. “You boys had better have every crumb picked up before I finished pulling your parents’ names off the school directory. And you,” she turned on the boy who’d weaponized a fresh cherry pie, “will have the cost of that coming out of your allowance.” Her pointing finger took in the cherry filling falling to the floor in glops off the biggest boy.