Nina’s husband and head clan- man. Right. Casey remembered from Wanda’s explanation the other night. Oh. Clay was so going to be grounded or something.
His tongue rolled along the inside of his cheek. “Greg knows.”
Wanda’s brow furrowed. “He knows you have a mate?”
“Yep.”
Casey finally scrambled to her feet, too, avoiding looking at the lower half of Clay, but deciding it was time she took care of her own business instead of letting Wanda, who seemed to have developed the steamroller gene, do it for her. “How about we forget all of the mate stuff?” Because she’d like to keep her weeping on the inside. “Okay, so Clayton’s married—mated—whatever you people call it. That’s not the issue. Why did your mate come here and ask for me?”
“I don’t have an answer to that question, Casey. If she should be looking for anyone, it definitely should be me. Maybe she asked for you because no one knows we’re here and she didn’t want to create trouble for you.” His answer was beautifully executed and smacked of bullshit. Though she wasn’t quite sure why it smacked of anything but what he claimed it was.
Casey cocked her head, pushing up the sleeves of her prim button-down sweater. “So here’s the bigger question, then. Why don’t you just call up your mate on the phone, or contact her with your Vulcan mind meld, and ask her?”
Wanda joined her in that sentiment, bobbing her highlighted brown head up and down.
“We don’t speak.”
“Is this a case for Judge Joe Brown—like, divorce vampire style?”
“There are no divorces of any style when you’re a vampire, honey.”
This time she rolled her eyes at Wanda, pushing her mussed hair out of her eyes. “Again. Isn’t there some kind of vampire handbook or informational pamphlet you pass out that answers all of your vampire questions?”
Clay shook his head. “What Wanda says is true. Once you’re mated, you’re mated.” But he didn’t add anything to enlighten her any further, either.
Interesting. “Sorry. I wasn’t trying to intrude. Is this mating thing something we should just chalk up to another kooky byproduct of your being a vampire?”
Clay’s face lightened, his stance relaxed. “Kooky isn’t a bad choice of word.”
Closing her eyes, Casey ran her fingers over them. “Look, I don’t want to pry. Your marriage, mating, whatever it is, is your business. I just don’t understand why your wife would want to see me. And I have to admit that my fear comes from this: I’m a little worried she’s going to take issue with me and, like, I dunno, crack open a vein.” She made light, but it was a cover for the sheer terror she felt at the idea that a vampire might set her in the sites of her crossbow, fangs, whatevs. Though, damned if she didn’t want to know why they were estranged. Not at the expense of her ass, mind you, but she was definitely curious.
“You have nothing to fear from Hildegard as long as I’m here.” His words were reassuring, but hidden behind those dark, unreadable eyes was something she couldn’t put a finger on.
Yet something about this was totally wrong. Call it a vibe, call it premonition, but something was missing and she wasn’t going to be left in the dark if some jealous she-vamp came calling. “Then why is she asking for me and not you?”
“I answered that.”
Hands on her hips, Wanda went for it. “Well, Casey may not want to pry, but I don’t have a problem with it. How is it you’re mated and none of us had even an inkling?”
Clay’s face changed, but only a little, and Casey wasn’t sure if the expression he wore was defensive or defeated. “You know how the mating thing goes for us, Wanda. Sometimes it isn’t always what we want, but a necessity for survival.”
Instantly, Wanda’s face went from granite hard to concerned and sympathetic. Her hand went to the front of her white silk blouse, circling her slender throat. “Omigod—you were down to the wire, weren’t you? Oh, Jesus. How awful.” She looked at Casey. “That happened to Greg, as of course you know, Clay. What a frickin’ nightmare that was, but you’re actually living it.”
Casey raised a hand in the air. “Uh, noob demon here. Care to explain?”
“Vampires have a rule. They have to mate by the time they’re five hundred or they turn to dust. I just couldn’t cop to that. Dust is pretty harsh, don’t you think? So I did what I had to do.”
Grim. “So you can die in a fashion that doesn’t include wooden stakes and sunlight? Color me befuddled.”
“Mating ensures the longevity of the clan, the integrity, if you will, and the power it creates makes us stronger as a whole when we mate. It’s a protective measure. I don’t know where the rule came from, or how long it’s been in existence. I just know. I’ve seen it, and it blows.” His expression soured.
“So instead of turning to dust you mated with someone you knew you’d have to spend an eternity with—someone out of necessity, but someone you don’t even like?” She had to say it out loud for it to make sense. This paranormal existence was mind-boggling, steeped somewhere back in the Dark Ages.
His dark eyes drifted off to a spot on her closet wall. “Again, your spot-on observations are startling.Yes, in essence, that’s what I did.”
What kind of Neanderthals ran this vampire thing, for the love of God? How prehistoric. And yet, at the same time, promising. It was obvious Clay and Hildegard had no love lost between them.
Wheeeee. Things were looking up.
Oh. Bad Casey. It doesn’t matter whether they like each other or not. Marriage is marriage—paranormal and premeditated or not, you slut.
Wanda’s lips were at her ear with a harsh reprimand. “Wipe that look of hope off your face right now, Miss. Once a vampire’s mated, they can’t ever mate with anyone else—ever, or you’re shunned, and while I’m still not exactly sure what that entails, I just know the mumblings I’ve heard about it, and it ain’t pretty. I’ve seen you look at Clay with those big, moony eyes and I was okay with it until I found out he’s mated. Now knock it off. Put the panties in your mind back on, and break out your chastity belt.”
Guilty, guilty, guilty. Casey looked down at the floor, studying her brown loafers, hoping Clay hadn’t heard Wanda with his vampire hearing.
His snicker said otherwise. “Look, my mating wasn’t by choice—I do what I want, go where I want, and so does Hildegard. That’s that. Now, if you both don’t mind—I really need to get some sleep.” With that, he gave Casey a shove out of the closet with a gentle hand and closed the door firmly shut, ending the possibility for a more thorough investigation.
Turning to Wanda, her eyes were wide. “Is that really true? If he, you know, does it with someone else, he can be shunned?”
Clay popped the door open again. “Yes. It’s true. So I’m hoping you’ll take pity on me, realizing that sort of rule can be a lot of stress for a guy like me—exhausting, in fact—and let me get some damned sleep.” He winked before he shut the door again.
Casey grabbed Wanda’s hand and dragged her back into the living room. “So he has to live forever and never have sex? Ever?” How depressing. She might not be having sex this very moment, but she had high hopes for the future—like someday, when she found the right person. But to be denied eternally? People joked all the time about not having sex in forever, but it was metaphoric. If Clay said it, it was literal.
How abundantly crappy.
“First of all, I’ve heard about some of these arrangements between vampires, and yes, they’re all out of necessity and the desire for eternal life. Personally, I think I’d rather just off myself than be tied to a man I didn’t want anything to do with. But I don’t judge because I haven’t been around as long as some. Second of all, how do we know Clay’s not having sex with this Hildegard? She is his wife, essentially, and he is a man. You know how that goes. Sometimes it isn’t about love, but need.”
While Wanda spoke, Casey’s fingers had latched onto a pear in the fruit bowl she always left full on the coffee table. He
aring her sister’s words, toying with the idea that Clay was possibly bedding this woman, made her insane.
Unjustifiably insane.
“Sometimes it’s just about scratching an itch,” Wanda continued, “and unless this Hildegard is butt ugly, I guess whatever differences they have Clay manages to overlook when he’s, you know, wobbling her eyeballs. You don’t have to talk or even like each other to wonk.”
Rage, pure and sweet, blinded her to everything else. Where it’d come from or how it had gone from zero to sixty in such a short amount of time, Casey couldn’t say—but it did make a hella mess.
Because she’d crushed the pear with her hand.
Just one hand.
Juice and the pulp of the green fruit ran down her wrist and onto the floor.
“Casey?”
Immediately, she was contrite. “Shit. Sorry.”
“What is wrong with you?” Wanda called over her shoulder, making a beeline for the kitchen. The slam of a drawer was like cold water being dumped over her head. Wanda came back with a dish towel and began to sop up the mess. “So what set you off this time?”
Clay and Hildegard locked in an embrace filled with passion, long limbs with her flowing white-blond hair tangled around them. No. She couldn’t admit that. That she had anything to admit at all left her incredulous. So she turned the tables. “Do you have to live by the same rules, Wanda? Because you’re only half vampire.”
Kneeling down, she scooped up a handful of exploded pear. “Yep, I do.”
She held her hand up while Wanda wiped it off as though she were a child. “But that’s insane. What if you and Heath drift apart two hundred years down the road and you want out? We’re not talking about signing on for the average human marriage of maybe fifty years. We’re talking forever. Like, love you long time, Joe.”
When Wanda stood back up, she smiled. “First of all, if you go into marriage thinking there’s always a way out called divorce, you might as well not get married. Second of all, who would evah want to part with the man who sacrificed his life for yours? And third, Heath rocks the sheets. My sheets didn’t rock much when I was first married—I don’t plan to give that up. Not now. Not ever. And if Heath were to want out—I’d hunt his ass down, and drag him back home. Oh, and I’d make Nina come with just to make sure I did it right.” She grinned.
Laughter burst from Casey’s lips for the first time in what felt like days. “Wow. That’s pretty deep. You didn’t ever talk about the ex like that.”
“That’s because the ex never made me feel like that. I didn’t know you should feel like that. The bonding ritual is deep, sweetie, and yes, it’s a forever thing—but with the right person, someone who fulfills all of your needs, yet lets you be who you are without interference, and, let’s be real here, boinks like a dream . . . Well, there’s nothing like it, bar none.”
Her breath caught in her throat. That kind of devotion, or longing for it, wasn’t something she spent much time dwelling on since her college days. But seeing Wanda’s face when she talked about Heath, hearing the conviction in her voice about her choices, made Casey feel very lonely.
Her sister had this life, albeit unconventional, and it was filled with rich textures and bright hues she could almost reach out and touch when Wanda spoke of them. She had good friends and a husband she was so obviously wild about.
As isolated as that made her feel—it also made her smile. Wanda deserved only great things after the kind of divorce she’d had—the type of man she’d been married to. It made Casey so glad tears stung her eyes. She reached out for Wanda and hugged her hard. “I’m sorry I missed out on so much, Wanda. I’m sorry this was the way we ended up seeing each other again. I’m sorry I didn’t see you get married, and I’m sorry I wasn’t there for you when you were sick. If I had known—I would have told you how sorry I was—am.”
Cupping her cheeks, Wanda winked a blue eye at Casey. “Well, we’re together now, and I think I can almost understand why it’s so hard for you to do much but take your next breath with those twins. I didn’t think that cell phone would stop ringing yesterday for the amount of times they called you. Do they do anything on their own?”
The embarrassment she felt about the lengths she had to go to in keeping the twins out of trouble and in line was mortifying on so many levels. But that feeling hadn’t ever been as acute as it was now. Her laughter was tinged with bitterness this time. “Not often, and if they do, it’s usually bad and ends up in a four-page spread in Star magazine. But I love them regardless—even if that means nothing to them.”
“So how did this happen? I mean, this job. I thought after all the bouncing from major to major in college, when you found teaching, you’d finally made a decision. What happened to getting your teaching certificate at that private school?”
“That’s sort of where it started. I was working as an aide at the very exclusive school Lola and Lita attended. They were always in some kind of trouble, but for whatever reason, I was able to stay one step ahead of them most of the time. Their father, my boss, Mr. Castalano, took notice of it and made me an offer I couldn’t refuse. My money was running out. I wasn’t going to be able to get my degree at the rate I was going because I did so much of that bouncing—so I bit, thinking I could work days and go to school at night.” And that was how it had started—sort of . . .
“Who could shit at night when those two are always up your ass?” Wanda’s face screamed distaste.
Casey shrugged in response. “I didn’t realize how demanding it would be. At first I was just shuffling them back and forth to school, and making sure they did their homework—I was almost like a nanny—but when the girls graduated and had some freedom, it became a free- for-all. Time slipped away, and here I am.” Yeah. Here she was. Ashamed, undereducated, belittled by two women who had everything handed to them on a silver platter via her hand. Yet they had no purpose, no plans for the future other than the next party given by their newest fascination—rappers. The hotter on the music charts, the better.
Wanda brushed a strand of hair out of her face. “Casey. You don’t have to do this—be treated like some gofer. You went to jail for those young women, and they didn’t do a damn thing to stop it. I want to know why they didn’t call your boss and have you bailed out. He certainly has the money. No, wait. I know exactly why those two didn’t do a single thing to help you, and you do, too. Because it was easier to let you take the fall than have to deal with their father. And that’s bullshit. Look, I can help you go back to school. I’m not poor. So tell me where, when, and how much. Please. No amount of money is worth those two.”
The shake of Casey’s head was firm. “Nope. It was me who spent far too much time dicking around about choosing a major. Mom and Dad told me I needed to get it together, and I didn’t. They only had so much cash to throw around, and I used my fair share. I don’t want handouts.” She’d had those—just once in her foolish youth. They’d brought a misery she’d rather not revisit. They were part of the reason she worked for the Castalanos to begin with.
“Then call it a loan.”
“I’m not calling it anything. I don’t want your money, Wanda. I got myself here, I’ll get myself out.” Someday. Though, since she’d been in the big house, her patience for someday had come to a screeching halt. She’d gone to a lot of extremes for the twins, but being holed up in the slammer for a night, not to mention now having a criminal record for defending them, was above and beyond. It was time to reevaluate.
Once she was done figuring out this demon thing.
And speaking of—the almost unbearable itch on the top of her head drew her clean hand to her scalp. Good. Fantastic. Her horns had arrived. She went to the kitchen in humiliated silence to wash her hands.
“I gotta say those are even stranger than Marty’s tail. I thought I’d seen it all until I saw those.” Wanda leaned over her shoulder, handing her a fresh towel.
A tail . . . No. Not going there. “Speaking of strange. I
just had a thought—care to explain the five-hundred-year rule?”
“Vampire tradition says you must mate when you reach the age of five hundred—in vampire years, that is—or you turn to dust.”
“So when did Clay turn five hundred?”
Wanda frowned. “You know, I don’t know. I don’t know a whole lot about Clay other than Greg trusts him, and as a result, we all do, too. But I think I’ll poke around a little and find out.”
“Don’t do that on my account,” Casey said with far more haste than she was comfortable with.
Wanda was quiet for a moment until her hand came to rest on Casey’s forearm. “I know you find him attractive, but I’m going to give you a really serious warning. This isn’t just from your older sister, but from another vampire. Do. Not. Canoodle. With. Him. Understood? I don’t know who this Hildegard is, or what kind of temperament she has despite Clay’s claim they each do as they please, but I can tell you, if she’s easily cranked, hell could ensue. Think Nina. . . .”
Yeah. Nina. Casey shuddered. “About Nina. You said Greg had been in the same predicament Clay was. Did he have to marry Nina to save himself? I can almost—almost—see his imminent death as a good enough excuse.”
Wanda barked a laugh. “Nina made him mate with her, yes, but he was already head over heels for her anyway. When they met, he was nearing his five hundredth birthday. He just neglected to tell Nina that until almost the eleventh hour. So she forced his hand, but it wasn’t just to save him—she was in luuuuurve.” Her chuckle was the kind reserved for a fond memory.
A strange one, but fond nonetheless.
Casey’s cell phone chirped to the tune of Kenny G, signaling the girls calling, probably wanting their coffee. She sighed, racing for her phone. “I have to run, Wanda. If the twins don’t have their coffee the moment they wake up, things get off to an ugly start.”
Wanda hurried behind her as Casey made her way to the door, pulling a colorful scarf off her blazer. She tossed it at Casey. “It’s a good thing I’m not their personal assistant. Things would get ugly all right, right after I took them over my knee and spanked them. Here, put this around your head—you know, to hide your—”
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