She was staring at Samantha up on the dais with an emotion that was just as fleeting as her fear, before she put that well-rehearsed cool mask back in place. Was that—was that envy?
He blinked. Surely not. A vampire being envious of a werewolf was about as logical as a fish nesting in the trees. And yet, there was this spark, this curiosity mixed with that something that looked so much like envy, but couldn’t be, that made it difficult for him to look away.
“How is this process supposed to work?” Samantha asked as she looked over at Vivianne and Dave.
Dave winced. “We need to see his body. She’ll need to—” Dave made a gesture with his hand “—touch it.”
“No,” an older voice exclaimed, and Zane turned to see Dietrich, one of the elders, rise to his feet. “That’s obscene. Not just her being here, among us, but to give her access to our dead. Samantha...” His voice came out low, chiding.
Samantha lifted her chin. “I understand, Dietrich. But we know Zane is not at peace. She is the key to giving him that.”
Vivianne frowned. “How do you know he’s not at peace?”
Zane walked closer to the dais. Had his pack noticed something? Had they sensed something wasn’t quite right?
Dietrich shifted on his feet, frowning. “This is wrong, Samantha.”
Samantha’s smile was brittle. “My son growing up without knowing his father is wrong, Dietrich. Zane—our loyal, funny, full-of-life guardian—being killed by a vamp is wrong. His body... There are so many things that are wrong, Dietrich, this is just going to have to get in line as we deal with it.”
The baby in her arms fussed, and she dropped her gaze to the wriggling boy she held, and smiled. She adjusted their position, and lifted the baby up to her shoulder and gently rubbed his back, ignoring the mess he was making with the now-soggy biscuit.
“We need to do this. Not for her, but for Zane.”
Zane tuned out the rest of the argument as he stepped up onto the platform. The baby lifted his head and blinked, and Zane smiled at his attempt to focus. J.J.—Jared Junior. It was so obvious who had sired him. From the pale hair that looked dusted with gold under the lights from the hall sconces, to the silvery-blue eyes, the little boy looked the image of his father.
The baby gurgled, then smiled up at him, and Zane moved, stunned when the baby’s gaze followed him. J.J. could see him. He leaned down until his face was level with the baby’s and smiled. The baby chuckled, then burped, and a wave of sweet smelling breath wafted over to Zane.
He scrunched his nose up and poked out his tongue, and the baby laughed again.
He glanced up, hopeful, but disappointment crushed when he realized only the babe saw him. Dietrich and Samantha, Nate, the rest of the pack, they were all oblivious to him.
Everyone except Vivianne, who watched him curiously, a faint smile curving her lips.
“Then it’s settled,” Samantha said as she rose from her seat. She gave J.J. a cuddle and a kiss before handing him back to Marjorie, the elder who stood nearby on the dais.
She strode down the steps to the hall floor. “Nate, bring two guardians, the witch and the vamp.” She turned to Dietrich. “We’ll make sure Zane is treated respectfully.”
Dietrich nodded, but Zane could see the man wasn’t pleased. Zane was touched. He hadn’t expected anyone, let alone one of the elders, to be so defensive, so protective of his... Wait. He frowned. He realized Samantha hadn’t answered Vivianne’s question.
“Ask her what’s wrong with my body,” he said as he leaped from the dais and strode over to Vivianne.
She frowned, shaking her head slightly in confusion.
“Ask her what is wrong with my body? Why am I not buried?”
Vivianne gaped for a moment, then turned as Samantha approached her. “Is Zane buried?”
Samantha strode past her, and beckoned Vivianne with a flick of her fingers. “No.”
“Why not?” Zane asked as Vivianne turned and followed Samantha, Nate and Dave close behind, with two more guardians in their wake.
“Why isn’t Zane buried?” Vivianne repeated, then shrugged as she looked at Zane. She clearly had no idea what was going on. They entered a tunnel, and Zane shook his head. He knew this tunnel. A little ways down it housed the mortuary and then there was an exit, the mouth of the cave that lead out to the icy graveyard.
Samantha didn’t reply, and just kept walking.
“I don’t understand,” Vivianne whispered. “They said they knew you weren’t at rest. How?”
Zane shook his head. “I don’t know. Lycan custom is to place the body in a viewing coffin, and three days later we take the bodies out and either bury them, or cremate them so their ashes can be scattered. Depends on the time of year, and if the ground is too frozen for burial. Either way, we’re supposed to return to feed the earth.”
“And you think you haven’t been buried? Or...” Vivianne hesitated.
“Burned,” he supplied. “Buried or burned.” He was surprised to see her flinch, and gave her an odd look. He’d never expect a vampire to be squeamish over death.
“Do they do this a lot?” Nate asked Dave.
“What, you mean the chitty-chat?” Dave enquired. Nate nodded. Dave nodded. “Yeah.”
“Weird.”
“Yep.”
“You don’t know the half of it,” Zane muttered.
They rounded a bend and entered the mortuary. Little rock shelves lined the walls, and Zane paused when he saw a body on a shelf. “Damn, Patrick died? How?”
Vivianne sighed as she glanced over her shoulder at Nate. “How did Patrick die?”
Nate’s eyebrows rose, and he glanced between her and the shelf. “How did you—” He held up a hand. “No, don’t tell me. Tell Zane it was Patrick’s time. He passed away in his sleep.”
Zane nodded. Patrick had been a tracker, and had taught pretty much all of the pups for the last three generations how to track and move through their territory.
Samantha picked up a lantern from the floor, and paused long enough to light it, then stood to the side as the guardians stepped forward to shift a large boulder that looked like part of the wall.
Zane’s trepidation grew. What the hell was wrong with him? This was one of the rooms they reserved for bodies that could be contagious and pose a health risk to the rest of the pack. In effect, the quarantine room.
“What the hell is going on?”
Vivianne turned to Samantha. “You didn’t answer my question, before. If you can’t see or hear his ghost, how did you know Zane wasn’t at rest?”
Samantha stared at her for a moment, then spoke slowly, as though carefully choosing her words. “Our custom is to let everyone come and pay their respects to a dead lycan. Three days later, when certain...changes start to occur, we bury or burn.”
Again, Zane noticed Vivianne tense up at that.
“The problem is, with Zane, those changes were...missing.”
“Missing?” Vivianne repeated.
Samantha gave her the lantern and gestured to the now darkened doorway into the smaller cave. “See for yourself.”
Vivianne grimaced, then took a step toward the opening.
“Wait,” Zane called out, bounding in front of her. “Wait.”
Vivianne halted, frowning. “What?”
“Once you go in there, and see my body, I will pass on. At least, that’s the plan.”
“Then why are we waiting?” Vivianne asked, and Zane noticed Samantha’s eyebrows rising as she watched Vivianne talk with thin air.
“This is the last chance I’ll get to talk with...my pack.” You. Talking with her was his first thought, and the realization that this would be their last moment together seemed to hit them both at the same time. Why it should seem quite so important and meaningful, he couldn’t, shouldn’t try to fathom.
“Oh.” Vivianne nodded, then tucked a dark curl behind her ear. “Did you—did you want to say something? To your pack?” she ended hurriedly.
“Yeah,” he said, his voice rough. “Tell Samantha—Tell her congratulations on J.J. He looks like he’s thriving. Tell her I’ll miss not being around to see him grow, but I know she’s going to be a phenomenal mother. It was an honor to serve her.”
Vivianne nodded and turned to repeat the words to Samantha. The alpha prime blinked, her eyes glistening as tears formed, and she nodded, smiling sadly.
Zane turned to Nate. “Tell him I’ll see him on the other side, but not too soon. Tell him he needs to find his smile again. Oh, and that Emma Thompson has a freckle above her left eyebrow.”
Nate smiled when Vivianne told him what Zane had said. “You brat. You knew all along.”
Zane grinned, then turned to face Vivianne. She swallowed.
“I guess this is it, then...” he said to her.
She nodded. “I guess so.”
He took a deep breath, then stepped a little closer. “You work too hard.” If this was the last he’d ever see her, he felt the need to share something meaningful with her. He’d been her shadow for so long, had seen and heard so much... He understood her. Sort of. As well as any lycan could understand a bloodsucker.
Vivianne blinked. “What?”
“I know the great Vivianne Marchetta would kill anyone who implied she was a people-pleaser, but I’m already dead, so you can’t. You look after your colony, all the business interests, you try to please that lifeless father of yours—God only knows why. You should take some time for yourself.”
“Are you seriously giving me lifestyle tips right now?”
Zane grinned. “I know your secret.”
Vivianne paled, and glanced at the others around her. “And what is that?” she asked coolly.
He leaned down so that their gazes were level. “You’re nowhere near as scary as you like people to think.”
Her lips pursed, and he chuckled softly at her show of annoyance, before his gaze dropped to her mouth. He was tempted to kiss her, to press his lips to hers. So tempted. He cleared his throat. But he was a lycan, she was a vamp. Oh, and there was that minor detail where he was...dead. He didn’t think kissing Vivianne would lead to him finding peace. No. He suspected that one kiss wouldn’t be enough, though, and he didn’t want to spend his eternity wanting more of what he couldn’t have. Besides, under normal circumstances, there would be no way in hell he’d be entertaining fantasies of kissing the Nightwing vampire prime.
“Let’s do this,” he said gruffly, and stepped into the cave.
Vivianne followed him inside and held up the lantern. The soft glow illuminated the waist-high ledge that cut across the middle of the room. On that ledge lay...him.
Zane gaped as he stepped closer. Wow, this was...weird. He looked down at himself. His beard was the same length, as was his hair. Zane frowned. He hadn’t quite known what to expect, but he was thinking more of a zombie kind of look, or skeletal, but no. He looked...like he was sleeping.
“That’s not normal,” Vivianne stated, setting the lamp on the ledge next to his shoulder. She turned to Dave, Nate and Samantha who clustered around the opening. “He hasn’t decomposed.”
Samantha shook her head. “No, he hasn’t. When we realized, we held off moving him, waiting for the decomp to start, but it didn’t. So we kept him.”
“That’s sweet,” Zane said. He took a deep breath, let it out and then reached out toward his body. “Okay, here goes.”
He closed his eyes as he touched his hand, waiting for the whoosh. Or the pooft. Or whatever it was that signaled passing on.
It didn’t happen. He opened one eye, and Vivianne stared at him in confusion. “Why are you still here?” She turned to Dave. “Why is he still here? Do you need to do some sort of spell or something?”
Dave shook his head. “Nope.”
“Then why isn’t he moving on?”
Zane opened both of his eyes to glare at the witch. “Did he screw this up, too?”
Dave stepped closer to the doorway. “He’s attached to you. You’re the one who has to move him on.”
“How do I do that?” Vivianne asked.
Dave’s lips quirked. “You have to connect with him.”
Vivianne reached over and picked up the corpse-Zane’s hand. Zane closed his eyes again, waiting for the whoosh.
Still nothing. His shoulders sagged and he opened his eyes. “Oh, come on.”
Vivianne dropped his hand and picked it up again. Squeezed it. She looked up at Zane, her face crestfallen. “I’m so sorry,” she whispered.
Zane frowned. “Why are you sorry?”
“I wanted to help you, but I can’t. You’re stuck.”
He was stunned. Her desire to help him was genuine. She’d done this—for him. Braved a werewolves’ den, at the risk of not only her life, but her professional reputation—if his pack spread the word that the Nightwing vampire prime thought she could talk with ghosts, well, she wouldn’t be prime for long. Warmth bloomed in his chest, as did a need to assuage some of her obvious guilt.
“This isn’t your fault, Vivianne. You’re just as much a victim of this mess as I am.”
Dave sighed. “He’s not stuck.” He stepped inside the cave. Even in the darkness, he didn’t remove his sunglasses. “Zane’s essence is currently with you. You need to give it back to his body.”
“How?” Vivianne exclaimed.
Dave folded his arms and grinned. “The way to return a spirit to a vessel is to breathe his essence into him.”
Vivianne’s nose scrunched up. “As in, CPR?”
Dave rubbed his chin. “No, as in a kiss.”
* * *
Vivianne gaped, then took a deep breath. “I think you’re going to have to repeat that,” she said, “because I think I misheard you.” She thought she’d heard the witch say “kiss.”
“Kiss,” Dave repeated. “As in smooch. Snog. Tonsil hockey. Tongue—”
“Whoa, easy there. I get it.” Vivianne held up a hand to stop the barrage of words.
“I don’t know about this,” Samantha said from the doorway, her expression wary.
“Oh, I know about this—I know it’s not happening,” Vivianne said, shaking her head. Nate ran his hand over his face.
“A kiss. That’s all it takes.”
“This isn’t some fairy tale,” Vivianne cried in protest. She gestured to Zane, lying so darn peacefully on the slab, his ghost looking just as confused as she felt. “He’s no sleeping beauty.”
Zane folded his arms. “Hey. I take exception to that.”
“You know what I mean,” she muttered to him. Truthfully, he was a beautiful man, and he so didn’t look dead. He looked like he’d wake up any minute. She reached out and prodded him, surprised his skin could still feel so warm, so solid, after all this time.
He still wore khaki pants and a white singlet, and he looked...ripped.
Not rotting.
She swallowed. “I can’t do this.”
Dave shrugged. “Okay. As long as you’re okay with Zane haunting you every minute of the rest of your eternity.”
She thought of all the meetings Zane would rant about, all the dates he’d ruin. She’d never get anything done, never have a meaningful relationship with another man as long as this particular werewolf was around to distract and annoy her. She looked up at him.
“What do you think?”
“I think this sucks,” he told her frankly. “But I don’t think either of us wants this,” he said, gesturing between the two of them, “to go on forever.”
She nodded. “True.” She glanced down at the Zane lying on the rock shelf. “This is ridiculous.”
“I think I’m going to puke,” Nate mut
tered, and turned away.
She closed her eyes, her hands gently lowering to the ledge. “I can do this. I can. It’ll be like that story, where the girl kisses the frog.”
Zane arched an eyebrow. “Are you calling me a frog?”
“Shh,” Vivianne hissed. “Stop distracting me.” She had to mentally prepare herself. She would lean down, brush her lips against his and then back away without disgracing herself by wanting more. Or acting out that fantasy from yesterday. No, she needed control. Control and calm, soothing vibes. She took a deep breath, counted to four, then exhaled.
“Are you—are you working yourself up to this?” Zane exclaimed.
“Shh,” she hissed at him again.
She reached out to hesitantly touch resting Zane’s face, and leaned forward.
“Yeah, I don’t think I can watch this, either,” Samantha said from the doorway.
Dave chuckled, and leaned back against the cave wall. “I’m fine with it.” Nate reached in and tugged the witch outside.
“Just get it over and done with. I don’t think my ego can take much more of this,” Zane muttered.
Over and done with? Is that how he felt about this? About her kissing him? Well, how did she expect him to feel? She still wasn’t sure what had happened yesterday, whether she’d just dreamed the moment, or whether she’d somehow dragged him into her fantasy. Regardless, all she had to do was kiss him and then this would all be over.
She leaned down and gave him a quick peck on the lips, and straightened. She glanced up, and frowned when she saw his ghostly presence next to her, his hands on his hips, an exasperated look on his face.
“You’re still here.”
“You call that a kiss?”
She gave him a narrowed-eyed glare and then leaned forward again, pressing her lips against his. It was weird, kissing a nonresponsive man. Even though his lips were soft and pliant, it still felt odd not getting any kind of reac—
Her eyes widened when the lips beneath hers moved, and a hand slid into her hair.
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