He glanced toward the skinny woman. Was the warrior trying to impress his woman?
“Jillian calls her spiritheschrmalthe Screaming Mother,” Wolf revealed in his normal mild tone. The dude had regrouped and regained control.
“No shit.” O’Neill chewed on that for a second. Wolf had told him earlier about hisanistaa’sclaim that her charge—Wolf’sshadowle'ven'a—was claimed by theheschrmal. “So, she was claimed by the feminine version of the spirit, then? And it sleeps with her?”
“So it would seem.”
The surprise wasn’t that Wolf’sle'ven'awas claimed by the feminine version of the mountain lion. Female Kalikoia were always claimed by the feminine version of their spirit animal. Or so he’d heard. No, the surprise was that theheschrmalhad claimed awoohanna,rather than a Kalikoia warrior.
Wolf’s eyes suddenly flickered with discomfort. He cleared his throat. “Does your spiritheschrmalsleep with you?”
“No. It does not.” He’d often imagined what it would be like if others questioned him about his spirit claiming. Whether hisheschrmalslept with him was not a question he’d ever expected to answer. “Her spirit guide seriously showed up here? On base? In her bed?”
While Wolf’sle'ven'adidn’t respond, both Wolf and hisanistaanodded. Still, Wolf was the one who answered. “It did.”
“And you saw it? With your own eyes?” O’Neill asked.
“We both did,” Wolf confirmed.
O’Neill turned to study Jillian’s face. She was watching the door with uncanny focus, like she was expecting her favorite movie star to walk through at any minute. She didn’t appear to be paying the slightest attention to the conversation taking place, even though it was about her, or at least herheschrmal. When a knock sounded, she made a beeline for the door.
“Jillian asked the cafeteria for waffles.” Wolf broke the startled silence as Jillian opened the door and accepted a Styrofoam container.
“Waffles?” O’Neill echoed, knowing he sounded befuddled. But holy hell, waffles seemed far too mundane for the turn the conversation had taken.
Silence fell as Jillian returned to the table and opened the Styrofoam box. The smell of sweet bread reached O’Neill’s nose and then his taste buds. His stomach growled, whispering it could go for some waffles about now, too.
Wolf finally returned to the conversation. “We think herheschrmalvisited her on theBrenahiilo.Does yours visit you?”
“No.” Although that would be awesome. He battled a surge of envy as he watched Wolf’sle'ven'adevour her waffles. “I’ve never heard of a spirit animal returning to the one it claimed. Have you?” he asked, already certain of Wolf’s answer.
“No.”
As O’Neill expected. “What does all of this mean?”
“We do not know.” Wolf followed O’Neill’s gaze to the table and the woman sitting there, plowing through the food in front of her. “She claims to know you?” There was a question in his voice.
O’Neill shook his head. “I’ve heard of her. But I’ve never met her. She doesn’t know me.”
A puzzled frown wrinkled Wolf’s forehead. “Yet she knew the color of your eyes, before she looked at you. She mentioned the way they glow...”
Yeah...that had been weird.
“Perhaps someone mentioned me to her?” He glanced at Wolf’sanistaa,although it had been years since he’d run into the woman. “The color of my eyes...the way they appear to glow sometimes...it attracts attention.”
“Perhaps.”
But Wolf didn’t sound like he believed it.
O’Neill wasn’t sure he did either. The only person who might have mentioned him to Wolf’sle'ven'awas Rachel Eaglesbreath, and the last time she’d seen him was prior to his spirit claiming—before his eyes had started to glow.
Day 37
Washington, D.C.
Clark sucked back a 32-ounce white chocolate breve as he stared at his computer screen, switching back and forth between the camera feeds in the two bot labs.
He still didn’t understand what his brilliant little creations were up to. While Comfrey had dunked her arm in the testing tank, the specimens in the clean room had opened the lid to the NNB26 holding tank. Whoever, or whatever, was running amok in his security system had green-lit the panels for both tanks.
