Blood of Gato

William, Latecia, and Milagros had decided to start with breakfast before diving into everything that had happened—more importantly, what they were supposed to do about it now.

The café they'd ducked into was small, tucked on a rainy street corner. It smelled of sizzling bacon, warm bread, and strong coffee. Outside, the downpour drummed against the windows, smoothing the city's noise into a low hum. Their orders had already been placed, and the waiting gave them just enough excuse to talk.

Latecia leaned back in her chair, arms folded across her chest, eyes narrowing at William.

"Lemme get this straight, cher," she drawled, her voice rich and teasing with that Cajun bite. "You ain't kill her 'cause you suddenly got soft-hearted. Then, by some miracle, you figured out that a wendigo's greatest weakness is fire. An' you went and near destroyed her—body and soul both. Oh, and don' let me forget…" She rolled her eyes with a dramatic flourish, the corner of her mouth quirking, "…you wriggled your way past them skin-flayers too, eh? So tell me, William—should I call you the luckiest soul alive… or the most cursed?"

She smirked, chin propped in her palm, eyes glittering with mockery.

Milagros suddenly interjected, her smile sharp. "And don't forget, that bastard stripped me naked and kept me locked in a motel room." She flicked a glance toward Latecia, her expression daring her: go on, take your shot at him too.

Latecia's grin widened. She clicked her tongue and shook her head slowly at William, her gaze dripping with feigned disappointment.

"Lawd, boy, your mama never taught you that ain't no way t' treat a lady? Or is this your brand-new idea of… education?"

William flinched as though the words had smacked him. Heat crawled up his neck; even his ears burned red. He waved his hands quickly, stammering as if he could persuade them both at once.

"I… I never touched her! It wasn't like that. Her clothes burned—do you understand? They burned off. I took her to the motel because she was unconscious, to give her a safe place to wake up. I swear it! Milagros, I swear—I didn't do anything!"

But the moment the words left his mouth, he realized how horribly, disturbingly wrong they sounded.

Milagros, her skin already showing new warmth and color where burns had been the night before, looked at him coldly. Her voice was calm—too calm.

"You know… a rapist would have said exactly the same thing."

The air left William's chest in a painful rush. He opened his mouth, but no words came.

"That's foul, William," Latecia added, shaking her head slowly as though grading a failing schoolboy. "I get it—you got your insecurities, your demons runnin' through that head. But takin' advantage of a weak woman?" She let her eyes slide down and back up him, a deliberate, cutting once-over. "That's low. Even for you."

Seated between these two women, William felt every inch smaller than usual—and beside Latecia especially, he may as well have been a child. She knew it, too, and she was twisting the knife.

His thoughts roiled, bitter and raw. For the hundredth time since this nightmare began—when he'd first found Latecia, when he'd spared Milagros—he cursed himself. Every choice turned back on him, sharper than the last.

"I'm starting to hate you both," he muttered, half under his breath. But that only earned him twin glances and synchronized smirks, the kind shared between co-conspirators savoring his discomfort.

Milagros, however, shifted the subject. She lifted her glass of water, took a sip, then set it down gently. Her voice dropped, hesitant, carrying both fragile hope and anchored grief.

"Latecia… can you help me get back my bond with Edward?"

Her eyes stayed lowered, but the tremor in her voice betrayed her heart.

Latecia didn't answer right away. She tapped her fingers against the table, biting her lower lip. A silence stretched long enough to sting, until finally she sighed.

"Cher… I wish I could tell you 'yes.' Wish I could promise it's as simple as me sittin' back with a cold drink, flippin' through channels while I fix it up for you. But it don't work like that. That bond you had with your alpha? That was sacred. That wasn't no contract—it was… marriage of the spirit. Bound eternal with oath and blood. Breakin' something like that's damn near impossible. Restorin' it?"

She shook her head, voice lower now.

"Sugar, that's harder still."

Latecia sighed, dragging a hand across her forehead, as if the words tasted bitter even before they left her mouth. She didn't want to be the bearer of disappointment, but there it was.

"What you need, cher, is a Black Hawk shaman. An' that—ha!—that's one helluva tall order."

As soon as she spoke, Milagros's eyes lost their light. Her shoulders hunched; her face dipped behind the curtain of her dark hair. Hope slipped away from her like a candle snuffed out by a cold night wind.

Silence settled thick at their table until William broke it. He fidgeted, nudging his coffee cup closer, then asked in a voice that tried and failed to sound casual:

"So… she needs what? Like, a ritual? One of those things you see in movies?"

Latecia's lips curled in a lopsided smile, though her eyes stayed sharp and serious—narrowed, locked onto Milagros like she could pierce straight into her thoughts.

"Somethin' like that, sugar. But it ain't just no ritual. It's more like a rebirth. She'd have to walk through the whole damn fire again—all the filth and pain of that first change. To feel every damn tear of it again. Only way she'll ever get back what she lost."

The words rippled through the air, and Milagros shivered. Goosebumps broke out across her arms, and she laced her hands so tight her knuckles turned pale. William heard the sharp, nervous catch of her breath.

That was when the waiter arrived, sliding their plates onto the table. The smell of beef and eggs rose up, but none of them even lifted a fork. Their appetites had already drowned beneath heavier hungers and heavier fears.

William stared down at his own plate for a long moment. The roast beef sandwich looked like a stone in his stomach. Finally, he lifted his eyes, cautious, his voice low.

"So… this monstrous ritual. You can't do it yourself? It absolutely has to be a shaman?"

He tried to hold his tone steady, but it cracked all the same.

Milagros gave a bitter, humorless laugh. Her eyes flashed at him with something close to venom.

"Even if your lamia here—" she tossed Latecia a mocking glare, "—could perform it, I wouldn't let her. I'd rather die than go through that again. Better to accept it. Better to live broken than relive hell."

Her hand clenched, and she slammed her water glass back onto the table with a sharp crack. Her lips trembled with something between rage and pain.

"God… how did I let myself get dragged into this?" she whispered, her face twisting with anguish. The memory of what might have to be repeated clenched her from the inside, enough to make her shudder.

William frowned across at her.

"But you're the one who said you wanted your bond back…"

"Hey now—don't you come pickin' at her," Latecia cut in firmly. She sat straighter in her chair, flicking her hand as though batting his words right out of the air. Her voice softened, just a touch, unexpectedly gentle beneath the twang. "Poor girl didn't know what it meant, cher. Didn't realize she'd have to stagger through the Ikhtan Winter all over again."

"The… Ikhtan what?" William scrubbed a hand over his forehead, exasperated, half-laughing to keep his nerves from showing. "Could someone please explain to me, the 'complete idiot' at the table, what the hell that's supposed to mean? Because right now you two are tossing around looks and dark mysteries like I'm not even here. I feel like the dumb kid in a quantum physics class."

Latecia arched her eyebrows, then tilted her head at Milagros.

"You wanna be the one, sugar? Or should I?"

Milagros snorted and tore off a piece of bread instead of answering. She chewed it with deliberate force, grinding anger into the crust between her teeth. With her mouth still half-full, she muttered flatly:

"Go ahead. I'm not wasting breath on him."

Her words jabbed sharper than a knife in William's chest. He swallowed the sting but said nothing.

Latecia didn't seem to notice—or care—about Milagros's bite. She only leaned forward, lacing her fingers on the edge of the table. Her voice carried that same singsong bite, playful and cruel at once, though beneath it ran something darker, something sharp enough to raise the hair at the back of the neck.

"All right then, listen close, boy. Every tribe's got their own ways, their own cursed little traditions. Coyotes down in Texas, for example—Lord, them mutts got a weddin' season under the new moon. They'll offer blood to their shadow kin, an' then take their cousin, tie her to a post, and 'celebrate family' in the nastiest way." She gave a short, disgusted laugh. "But the wendigo? Cher, their bondin' ain't just cruel—it's somethin' out the blackest pit you can imagine."