Lucas knocked on the door. “Edie, are you okay?”

“Can you just guard me from out there, please?” I asked through the door.

I didn’t get an answer. After a few minutes of silence, there was one whine, then another. I waited and they didn’t stop.

“Please, Lucas, stop.” There was the sound of scratching at the bottom of the door. “You’ll ruin the carpet.” The scratching continued. I gave up and opened the door.

The wolf came into the room and bounded up onto the bed, the mattress springs groaning with his weight. He lay there, still, his head in his paws. He yawned a soundless question, stared at me, then closed his eyes. I waited, trying to figure out what I should do.

I turned off the light and crawled into bed beside him. He stayed a wolf. Furry, warm, with hot moist breath. His tongue licked my neck, once. I wrapped my arms around his neck, buried my face in his fur, and cried.

* * *

When I woke up, sun was coming in through the plaid curtains, and there was a strange cat lying beside me, colored peach and gray. It opened one lazy eye. “Marguerite?” I guessed. The eye closed.

The rest of the room wasn’t my room, and all of a sudden I remembered everything that’d happened the night before—before the sex, and my subsequent shutdown.

I elbowed myself up to sitting. “Lucas?” He would want to talk this morning, and I would have to be nice about it.

Marguerite woke up and licked a paw. I looked down, and Minnie was still sitting in her cat carrier, ruling her small roost. I got out of bed. I really needed a toothbrush, and not having showered after sex made me feel gross. I opened my bedroom door, wrapped a blanket around me like a robe, and made my way to the living room. “Lucas?”

Jorgen was sitting on Lucas’s couch, his bald head reminding me of a snake’s. “The princess finally awakens.”

“Hello, Jorgen.”

“Helen wants to speak with you. She’s in the main house.” My belt was still on the living room floor. I waited until Jorgen left before I bent down to retrieve it.

* * *

I made most of an outfit, between what I’d brought and what I’d been wearing when I came in. My jeans from the prior night were cleaned, waiting for me, folded on the couch. I wondered if Lucas had done that, or if other pack members took care of the laundry. I pulled on my boots and went outside. At least the cold air felt clean.

I tromped up to the back door of the main house, and Jorgen opened it. While Lucas’s guest home had felt like the epitome of prefabricated America, the inside of the main house was much nicer. The floors and the furniture were dark wood, and Jorgen led me into a dining room that was ornate. It was decorated in marble and more wood, with brass fixtures hanging from the ceiling to hold iron pots and pans. Helen looked up at my entrance from where she was pouring a cup of tea.

“Edie—thanks for coming. I hope you slept well?” Helen said, giving me a sly smile and handing over a delicate china cup. It looked too fragile to be used, much less by werewolves. I took it and sat down.

“I, uh, did. Thanks.”

She went and got another cup out of a cupboard, and I looked back to check—Jorgen was gone. “I can’t blame you for liking Lucas. He’s a very handsome man. And wolf,” she went on.

“It’s not like that.” This was pretty much what I’d been afraid of, inside and out.

“Really? Because—don’t think I’m awful, because I’m not—you’re just not like us. These things—I’ve seen them before. They only end in tears.”

I took the tea she offered and gulped it. It was weird being inside her delicate house, with so many delicate things. I knew I must look bedraggled after last night. “It was just a one-night stand. We were both lonely. Bored.”

One of her eyebrows rose. “Really?”

I nodded. “Completely. One night.”

“All right then.” She took a delicate sip of her tea, then set the china down. “I can tell tea’s not your thing—you’re no good at drinking it.”

“I prefer iced, to be honest.” I set my china cup down with a guilty shrug.

Helen smiled. “Run along then. I’ve got a kingdom to run until he grows up—”

I was so glad to be dismissed, sitting on silk in my sweatpants, smelling of sex, that it wasn’t until I left the room that I found myself wondering if she meant Lucas or Junior.

* * *

I went back to Lucas’s place and packed my things back up. Lucas knocked on the door before entering. “Hey. Are you okay?”

“I’m fine. Thanks.” I had everything ready to go on his couch, waiting.

“I got us lunch.” Lucas held up a take-out bag, and he had a hopeful look on his face.

“Maybe you could just take me home?”

His face looked hurt as he looked me up and down, then nodded. “Okay.”

We loaded back into his truck in silence, and the drive was quiet, except for Minnie, who was over this. Her growls went up and down like a siren, registering disappointment at every turn. When we pulled into my parking lot, he waited.

“I didn’t mean to hurt you, whatever it was that I did.”

“It’s not that.” I tried not to look at his face, but I couldn’t ignore him. He looked sincerely concerned. “For me, last night wasn’t about starting things with you. It was about me ending them with someone else.”

His face clouded with confusion. “You said you didn’t have a boyfriend.”

“Because I don’t anymore.” I opened the truck door and hopped out of the cab, reaching back for Minnie and my things. “Thanks for the ride, Lucas. Last night was fantastic. I’m sorry I’m a mess.”

He leaned over and caught my hand. “You smell like Helen. She warned you away, didn’t she.”

“She did, but it’s not that.”

Lucas frowned. “I’m only taking charge till Fenris grows up. They don’t own me, Edie. Once he’s of age, the rest of my life is mine.”

“I believe you. And I’m sure you’ll find someone really fabulous to appreciate you at that time.”

Emotions ran across his face. Anger, betrayal, disbelief—I wondered if he’d ever been broken up with before, or refused. Then he went quiet. I could see him bottling everything up inside. I knew precisely what that looked like, and how it felt. “I have things to do. Someone else will be guarding you today.” He reached into the center console and pulled out paper and a pen. “You should take my phone number. In case anything happens.”

“Okay.”

I wanted to say thanks again, or good-bye, but the best way to get out of things like this was to just leave. I knew that, too, from personal experience. I turned and walked away.

CHAPTER FORTY

I pulled out my keys and found my front door still open. Of course. I hesitantly looked inside.

It had that new-carpet smell. I hadn’t smelled that since I’d been a temp in an office complex between semesters of nursing school. It was clean, and not exactly the same as what had been there before, but I didn’t think my landlord could complain. I took a step in, closed the door, and set Minnie down.

The carpet actually had cushioning underneath. And hadn’t been downtrodden by the feet of a hundred tenants. I waddled from side to side, just glorying in the niceness of it all before turning on the lights and looking in.

A brand-new couch. Not a shitty bloodstained old one with a couch cover to hide its hideousness, but one all the way from a store somewhere—I hesitated to think where Lucas’s shady cleaning service been able to find a furniture store open at four A.M.—and I didn’t care if it’d fallen off a truck. Taking up most of my apartment’s wall, it was a shade of brown that matched the carpeting without being hideous—it was lovely. It was mine.

Minnie meowed, and I unzipped her carrier so she could escape. She leapt out and hightailed it to the bedroom, while I completed my short tour.

The kitchen was the same, only cleaner—all the dishes done. If it weren’t still winter, I’d open up the small window to let out the remaining scent of bleach. I went back down the hall, found my bathroom same as it’d been left, and then turned toward my bedroom. It, too, was the same. Gah. I had a suspicion that the cleaner had been too busy dealing with traceable evidence. The DNA was gone, but my trashed closet was left up to me.

It’d take me all afternoon to clean—I wondered what time it was. I dug my phone out of my purse and texted Sike—Home now. Is this safe?—on the off chance that she would finally be helpful or supportive, and Lucas—Nice couch. Thanks—even though I knew it was probably a bad idea. Then I set to picking things up in my room.

I decided to wash anything that the intruder or Veronica might have touched. So I wandered around my room, putting all the clothing he’d pulled out into a huge laundry bag, and hauled it down to the laundry. Numerous quarters later, when I came back, Jake was waiting outside my door.

My heart dropped. “Jake? Are you okay?”

“I just wanted to say hi was all.” He was carrying his new backpack and a large duffel bag. “How’s it going?”

“Busy.” We couldn’t stand outside talking forever—I wasn’t dressed warmly enough for the occasion.

“Can I come in?” he asked.

I wanted nothing less, but I said, “Sure,” and I reluctantly opened my door.

Jake let out a low whistle behind me. “What is this?”

“My landlord remodeled.” Because there’d been a dead body on my floor less than a day ago. But don’t worry, the vampire and daytimer left, so it’s fine.

“Four days after Christmas? And two days before New Year’s Eve? In the winter?” Jake asked. He walked over to my new couch. “He get you a new couch, too?”

“Don’t ask questions, Jake.”

“Why not? You get to feel high and mighty all the time. It’s my turn now.” He sat down, patting the cushion beside him. “How could you afford this, Edie?”