A Bloody Good Secret

The living room had no personality, per se, with the singular exception of the beaded curtain covering the hall closet which was a take on the famous Japanese painting of a big blue wave. I ran my hand over the wooden beads and enjoyed the clicking rattle they made as they tapped against each other.



There was a single loveseat in the room, and it looked too large for the space. Against the wall leading to the kitchen was one empty bookshelf, and next to the front door was an old, antenna-operated television. I didn’t think analog worked in the city anymore, but trust a vampire decorator to be out of the loop on that. At least someone had gotten her a DVD player, and by the looks of it, the first few seasons of Gilmore Girls.



The afghan on the back of the loveseat was a nice touch too.



I stopped playing with the beaded curtain and gave the afghan another, harder look. It was a bit too nice of a touch, and certainly not something anyone rushing to find a home for a newborn vampire would have thought to add.



I walked over to the couch and snatched the blanket up, sniffing it more carefully. It smelled like old hand lotion, age and the faintest hint of the chemical people used for perms. I dropped the blanket in disgust.



This apartment had belonged to someone else. Recently.



I stalked back into the bedroom, which now seemed more incongruous with the rest of the apartment, with its bright white walls and giant bed. I made an angry mental note to ask Sig if they had at least waited for the old lady who once lived here to die before the council annexed her rent-controlled abode.



“…just gave me all these clothes, which is so cool! I mean, I’d rather have gotten them myself, because seriously who’s ever heard of Miss…Mees…Missoni?” She tossed a burgundy sweater out into the room, where it landed on a pile of other discarded clothes.



For someone who had lived the New York party-girl lifestyle when she was alive, Brigit Stewart was blithely unaware of a majority of the fashionable labels most girls her age would kill for. I was willing to bet she had only borrowed my twelve-hundred-dollar shoes because she thought they were pretty.



I pouted to recall those very same shoes would never be the same again after their adventure in Lucas’s pool.



What does it say about me that I can be distracted from wondering about the demise of a nice afghan-knitting little old lady by the thought of shoes? Probably that I’m a bad person.



“Aha.” The triumphant cry from within the bowels of her closet drew my attention back to the mission at hand.



I had called Brigit after getting Lucas’s message and insisted I needed her help preparing for my date tonight. I figured this way I could check on her, see how she was adjusting to being alone, and I could also find an outfit. I may have a lot of shoes, but I have very little to wear them with. And nothing in my closet screamed date with royalty. On my last date with Lucas I’d felt woefully underdressed.



Not that it mattered, because the whole outfit ended up getting covered in blood anyway.



What I needed for tonight was twofold. I wanted an outfit appropriate for a night out with Lucas, but I needed it to carry on with me for the latter part of the night, which would involve a little lying, troublemaking and general no-goodery.



Plus, my only date-worthy dress had been left at a dry cleaners over a year ago to get bloodstains out, and I hadn’t made it a priority to get it back. Wearing a dress you’d killed someone in was probably bad luck for any date anyway. Especially when the man you would be with might be able to smell the old blood on you.



I have a lot of problems with getting blood on me in my line of work.



“Found one!” the closet doors declared.



I needed to start learning to dress myself for fancy occasions. Getting help from vampires made me feel a little pitiful sometimes.



Brigit re-emerged from the closet, holding something I wouldn’t have imagined any vampire in their right mind choosing, but coming from Brigit it made perfect sense. It was a sweet-looking candy-pink strapless dress, which appeared to have pockets in the skirt. I hated myself for admitting it, but I found the dress charming in spite of how very pink it was.



She held it out to me like a proud cat showing off a dead sparrow.



“Like it?”



“Amazingly enough.” I took it out of her hands and held it against me so I could assess it in the full-length mirror hanging on her bedroom wall. She clapped delightedly, then collapsed backwards onto the giant pile of clothes behind her. “Thanks, Brigit.”



“Anytime. Put it on!”



I stripped down, almost embarrassed by my day-to-day uniform of jeans and a V-neck T-shirt, and slipped the dress over my head, thankful one of the many physical traits Brigit and I shared was our dress size. I was also glad whoever had put this dress in the closet for her had considerably underestimated her chest size.



The dress was even better on me than it had been on the hanger. The rose undertones of the fabric provoked the illusion of color in my cheeks, and it somehow managed to make the blonde of my hair look less yellow and more gold. If I’d thought I could wear that dress to do all of my work from then on, I would have.



But there was always the blood to consider.



“Lucas is going to die,” Brigit said cheerfully.



“God, I hope not,” was my all-too-honest reply.



At ten to ten I was standing outside of the Two Moon Grill on Madison, feeling like a high-school girl waiting for her prom date. At least that’s what I imagined the feeling was equal to considering I’d never been to high school or a prom.



As much as I had wanted to go all-out glam for my date, I had learned a few lessons in my tenure as a vampire-slaying bounty hunter. My heels, pretty as they were, were easy to slip off, and inside the ridiculously huge purse I was carrying I had a pair of flats and a handgun.



I had places to be after my date with Lucas, and I didn’t think my plans for the night were going to wait for me to go home and get a gun.



I hiked the purse straps higher on my shoulder and stuffed my hands in the front pockets of the dress. From this point forward I was only ever going to own dresses with pockets. I was way too fidgety when I was nervous, and having pockets at least allowed me a place to steady my idle hands. A breeze drifted past me, and with it came the wolf king.



I tasted Lucas before I saw him. The sudden sweetness of cinnamon was almost overwhelming, and my whole mouth filled with the spicy and aromatic swell of it. After the taste came his arms, strong and a little warmer than the air. Werewolves are always hot, any time of year, and I found it comforting. My own skin maintained a happy medium between hot werewolf blood and cold vampire blood, so I just felt normal. It was one of the only parts of my life that was—at least on the surface—human.



He rubbed his cheek against the side of my head, his beard snagging against my hair. I heard a rumble in his chest, a contented sigh as he pulled me closer into the familiarity and safety of his embrace. Though my anger was now a distant memory, I felt like I was supposed to still be mad at him. But it was difficult to be mad at a handsome, strong man who just one night earlier confessed his love to me.



Nevertheless, I insisted, “Hey, I’m still mad at you.”



“Mmm,” he murmured, snuggling me tighter. Over the sweetness of cinnamon, there was a scent that was entirely Lucas. All werewolves smelled like peat and evergreen, but with Lucas the musk was uniquely his and so intoxicating it was in another universe from all other wolves. The fragrance was dangerous and promising, and it made me want to bury my nose in the crook of his neck, nip at the sensitive skin, and…



My eyes were suddenly wide open. I worried that if my train of thought followed the path it had started, I would be back into a shared mind-space with Holden. With Desmond, the task at hand had been consuming enough he hadn’t noticed what was going on. I didn’t know if Lucas would be able to overlook my sudden catatonia as I went into a shared dream with the vampire.



Lucas had once shared a dream with me, and I had never asked how he’d been able to do it. I had been too grateful for the part it played in saving my life. Now I was beginning to wonder if I was easy to violate on the subconscious plane, or if I just opened myself up to people I was close to without realizing it.



One more question to answer, one more mystery to solve.



But nothing could be more important than finding a way to save Holden from condemnation and death at my hand. I was a tool of the Tribunal, and I could only keep them from forcing me to do their bidding for so long. I didn’t think anyone, even Sig, could convince Juan Carlos not to kill me if I refused to finish this job.



Juan Carlos was looking for any excuse, and I wasn’t about to deliver one to him on a silver platter.



Tonight, when the vampires came out to play, I would try to find some answers. But for right now I was here with my wolf king, and I wanted to hear what he had to say for himself. I extricated myself from his arms, sad to be out of them, and turned to face him at last.



The beard was still so foreign to his face, it felt like I was looking at his evil twin.



I reached up and ran my hand over his cheek, letting the short hairs tickle the palm of my hand. As an experiment, I scratched the beard on his cheek as if it were fur, and he grinned at me.



“It makes you look old,” I said.



His grin faded and his hand caught mine at the wrist, then lowered it from his face. I flinched, realizing too late I’d insulted him, which hadn’t been my intention. I was just unsettled by the maturity it lent to a face I remembered being full of candid, youthful sweetness.



A lot had changed since I’d left.



He held my wrist a little longer, then twined his big fingers with mine so our hands were palm to palm. “Let’s go eat.”



Two Moon Grill, according to The New York Times, was the premiere restaurant in the city for a good steak. A year ago it had been STK. The year before it had been a place called Red. Considering a blue-rare steak was about the only thing I could eat aside from blood that was of any nutritional benefit to me, I was in a unique position to think of myself as a bit of a steak snob.



I ignored the array of steak sauces brought to our table and eschewed the offer of any kind of side dish. The waiter gave Lucas an imploring look when I asked for it bloody rare, like he hoped the man at the table might persuade me to let them cook the steak until it was at least warm.