He stared at me like he was trying to memorize my face. “What do you know, Lyall?” The question caught me off guard, but I recovered quickly, showing no emotion, no flickering of eyelids.
“Everything I know for sure,” I said, “you and your men know.”
He gave a sharp nod of his head. I watched as he looked out over the office. His dark eyes stopped on Lenorre, who had her arms crossed over her chest. Arthur was talking to her.
“Is that your new girlfriend?” he asked. “The countess looks a little dark for you, Lyall.”
I laughed. “You used to tease me about looking dark,” I said. He used to always ask me when I was going to go get a tan, and I always told him that it would never happen. “Besides, why do you presume she’s with me? She’s talking to Arthur.”
Holbrook narrowed his eyes. “No woman in her right mind would willingly talk to Arthur. It doesn’t look like your girlfriend is enjoying the conversation.”
I ignored the girlfriend bit. “I still talk to him. Are you implying that I’m not in my right mind?”
He scoffed. “You talk to him because you know you’re going to get a retainer out of it.”
I grinned widely. “Do you tell him that?”
“All the time.”
“It’s good to know you haven’t lost your sense of humor.”
“Go save your girlfriend, Lyall.”
I nodded and looked over to Lenorre. Arthur’s hands were moving around in the air as he described something to her. She ignored him and made her way through aisles of desks to me. I met her halfway and then went for the door.
“Did it go well?” she asked.
“Well enough,” I said. “I want to wait outside for a few minutes. Do you know what time it is?” I’d tried to be quick during the interview.
“Kassandra, you do not have to worry about me.”
“I wasn’t,” I said, looking away from her.
“We have a few hours until the sun rises,” she said. “I will be fine.”
We stopped outside and stood away from the doors, on the sidewalk next to the building. Lenorre didn’t ask any questions. I was waiting for Claire to come out of the building.
Arthur walked out and looked at us. “Loitering?” he joked. He held the door open as Claire walked out.
“What is it, Kass?” he asked.
I looked up at him. “Could you give us a minute?” I asked, looking to Claire.
“You just questioned her,” he said.
“Arthur,” I said, “let me talk to her for a moment.”
He scratched his head. “I don’t know if that’s a good idea, Kass. If you’re asking her something you didn’t ask her in there, Holbrook will be pissed.”
“It’s for her safety,” I said. “Trust me. Let me talk to her.”
“Fine, but only for a minute. I’ve got to get her somewhere safe.” He made his way toward the parking lot.
“Claire,” I said softly, “I need to ask you something, and it’s important that you tell me the truth. Okay?”
She nodded, but the look in her eyes was cautious and uncertain.
“What happened to your cheek?”
Her eyes widened like the question had caught her off guard.
“I got scratched,” she said. “Why?”
“Shit,” I said. “Did the werewolf scratch you?”
I watched as the realization flooded her eyes. “I don’t remember,” she said, but it came out too fast.
She was only a few inches taller than I. My eyes met hers and I spoke slowly, “If the werewolf scratched you, you’re at risk of infection. Do you know what I’m talking about?”
“I already put triple antibiotic ointment on it,” she said.
“Claire…This may not be something you want to hear, but I’m talking about an entirely different type of infection.”
If I had thought her eyes couldn’t get any wider, I was wrong.
“You don’t mean…?” she asked.
I nodded.
“Shit,” she said.
“Yeah.”
“What do I do? Is there any way to prevent it?”
I shook my head. “No, I’m sorry. It either happens, or it doesn’t.”
She drew in another deep breath. “You’re telling me that I could be infected with whatever disease it is that turns people into werewolves?”
“It’s called the lycanthropy virus,” I said, “and yes.”
“How do I know if I’ve been infected?”
I shrugged. “You don’t. You won’t know until the next full moon.”
She looked at me. It was a long and deep look. I watched as the thoughts slid in and out of her eyes, and knew what she was going to say before she opened her mouth to speak.
“Is that what happened to you?”
Lady knows, I didn’t want to lie to her. If she was infected I wanted to help her as much as possible. There wasn’t another lycanthrope there to help me through my first shift, or my second shift, or hell, even the third shift. The only person I had was Rupert. I wondered if it would’ve been easier having another lycanthrope around. The first three shifts had been the worst. The pain had been so excruciating I’d passed out. I could still only remember bits and pieces, like a dream badly broken.
Lenorre’s voice was suddenly there, whispering in my ear. “If she has been infected, you can smell the virus in the wound.”
I turned to look at her. She was still standing against the wall. An army of chills marched up and down my arms. It was creepy, but I nodded in acknowledgment.
I looked at Claire. “Will you trust me?”
Her eyes were still wide, as if she couldn’t quite believe what she was hearing. After a few moments she nodded. I took a step forward and leaned into her. She took a step back.
“Claire,” I said, “you have to trust me.”
“What are you going to do?”
“Look, I won’t touch you. I promise. Just trust me.”
I took a step forward to make up for her step back, and she stood still. I inclined my face toward the scratch on her cheek. Up close, I could tell it was deeper than it had appeared at a distance. I drew the air in through my nostrils, sorting through the combination of scents, night air, fear, perfume, and sadness. I realized for the first time that other emotions had a smell too. Fear smelled like something sweet and sour, like sweat and green apple candy. Her sadness smelled like the salt of her tears and something musky. And beneath, her strength smelled like oak trees in spring. I took another careful breath as the smell of antibiotic ointment and petroleum mingled with the light scent of old blood and something else. I focused on the other smell, drawing another breath into my lungs, tasting it at the back of my throat. The smell was faint, but I knew what wolf smelled like.
She was infected.
I stepped back and let out the breath I’d been holding.
“Do you trust me?”
“Why? What is it?”
“You’ve been infected.”
I thought she would argue with me, fight against, pretend it wasn’t true, or real. She didn’t. I opened my senses and felt her struggle. She conquered the fear quickly, and I felt her strength flow through her. Thank the Goddess.
I watched as she steadied herself like a person bracing against the wind. “I believe you,” she said. “Tell me what I need to do.”
“She comes with us.” Lenorre stood at my side. “This is not something she needs to experience on her own.”
Arthur stepped onto the sidewalk as he emerged from the parking lot. I turned to look at him.
“Are you done yet?” he asked. “I’ve been waiting in the car for over fifteen minutes now.”
“We are almost done, Detective,” Lenorre said. She turned to look at me.
“Lenorre, this is one mess I don’t know how to figure out,” I admitted.
Lenorre turned to Claire. “You need to make a decision. Do you want to be alone when the fever takes control of your body, or do y
ou wish to be around people who know how to deal with it?”
“Fever?”
“You’re pretty much going to go into a comatose fever,” I said. “Been there, done that. It isn’t fun and it isn’t pretty.” I kept my voice low to make sure that Arthur wouldn’t hear me.
“This is all stuff that can be discussed on the way home. What is your decision?” Lenorre’s gray eyes were all for Claire.
Claire looked away. “Fine. I’ll go with you. You’ll help me figure out what to tell my family?”
Lenorre nodded and I asked, “And we slide her by the detective…how, exactly?”
Arthur walked up to us. “Whoa, what? What are you talking about?”
Lenorre was a blur of motion as she suddenly stood in front of Arthur. “You will not remember this,” she said. “You did not see Kassandra talk to Claire. You took Claire to relatives and now she is safe. Do you understand?”
I took a step back. Arthur’s blue eyes were empty of any emotion. There was a glaze to them that a person only gets when they’ve had too much to drink or smoked too much pot. He was completely gone, taken over by the vampire’s powers. Slowly, he gave a nod, once up, once down. Lenorre’s magic spilled over my skin and made me shiver. I wrapped my arms around myself as though it would keep me from ever falling under her spell. Right.
“Go back to your car and drive carefully back to your house, remembering only that you took Claire to safety.”
My eyes widened. Arthur turned as if he were on strings that Lenorre was pulling. He walked back toward the parking lot, heading for his car.
“We must go,” Lenorre said. I was glad that no one else had come through the doors during her little brainwashing episode. I was also glad that she didn’t try and touch me. I could tell by looking at Claire that the whole thing had left her a little shaken. Good, I thought, I wasn’t the only one.
Chapter Twenty-Two
It was around four-something in the morning when we arrived back at Lenorre’s. I’d parked the Tiburon in the four-car garage on the left side of the house. The door in the garage led into a large and brightly lit kitchen. The color scheme in the kitchen was black, white, and chrome. The tile was white with gray lightning strokes running through it. It reminded me of howlite, a beautiful white gem with streaks of gray. I didn’t think howlite was sturdy enough to use as flooring. It was clean, like it had never been used. Growing up, my mother had always been a little OCD about cleaning stuff. I never dreamed that I would see anything cleaner than my mother’s house, but I guess I was wrong. Somehow, I couldn’t picture Lenorre cleaning. The French maid outfit I could totally picture…the cleaning part, not so much.
I shook the thought away. The last thing I wanted to do was picture Lenorre in something even remotely sexy. After what I had seen of her powers earlier I was a little unnerved. How would I know if she had done that to me?
Lenorre led the way back to her underground hideout. I busied myself with remembering the way, in case I ever needed to get out. We walked through the darkened basement and Lenorre opened the door into the dank hallway. The sound of keys jingled as she unlocked the door at the end of the hallway and opened it as a spill of light flooded out of the room beyond.
“A room will be prepared for you. I will send someone to stay with you. Wait here,” Lenorre said to Claire. She nodded and sat down in one of the fluffy armchairs, her shoulders slumped and a look of deep weariness on her face.
I followed Lenorre down the hallway. She opened one of the doors.
“Isabella, a woman is waiting in the main room. I want you and your wolf to go stay with her.”
I peeked into the room and saw the blonde from the main room earlier. Trevor looked at us from where he was sitting on a small settee at the foot of the bed. Isabella, the vampire who had been wearing the miniskirt, was now wearing an old-fashioned frilly nightgown and brushing the locks of her long blond hair in front of a vanity mirror. The reflection of her cornflower blue eyes flicked from Lenorre to me. She nodded and I followed Lenorre as she walked down the hall.
“I am going to allow Claire to sleep in the bedroom you were appointed.” She stopped at another door. “You need to get your stuff.”
I looked at the identical doors lining the hallway.
“This is the room, Kassandra.”
“How the hell can you tell?” I asked.
“Practice.”
I opened the door and walked in, picking the clothes up off the bed. Lenorre stood in the doorway, patiently watching.
“Where exactly am I supposed to sleep?” I asked.
“That you do not need to worry about,” she replied. “Rosalin put your overnight bag in the very last drawer.”
She was right. The large backpack I’d kept in a closet at home was in the bottom drawer. I dug my clothes out of the other drawers and tossed them into the bag, draping the coat and dress over my arm. The high heels got crammed into the backpack with the clothes. I tossed the backpack over my right shoulder and shut the door behind me. We turned left down another hallway, and then down another one. At four in the morning my observational skills gave up. There were too many damn doors to memorize. There were a few sets of large double doors here and there. It wasn’t until we reached the end of the hallway that Lenorre opened two large shiny black doors.
I froze in the doorway, staring at the dimly lit blackness of her room.
“You are so kidding me,” I said.
She gave one of those slow and thoughtful blinks. “Why?”
“You want me to bunk with you?”
She ignored me and walked into the bathroom. The sound of running water filled the sudden silence. Sighing, I dropped the backpack in an armchair at the far side of the room.
Lenorre leaned against the door frame, elbow crooked as she brushed her teeth.
“Well, It’s nice to see you have good hygiene,” I said.
I think I saw a flicker of a smile around the toothbrush. “I may be dead, but I am not that dead.” She walked into the bathroom.
“I thought vampires die at dawn,” I said.
“We do.”
“And you want me to share a bed with you?”
Lenorre emerged from the bathroom. She was wearing the same robe and nightgown she had been earlier.
“That is an issue?” It was a question.
“If I wanted to sleep with a dead thing I’d go dig a hole in the graveyard and hunker down.”
“I assure you, they are not as well preserved as I am,” she said and I couldn’t tell if she was joking.
I frowned.
“Kassandra, for me to offer my bed to you is a sign of great trust.”
I sighed. “Look, what I saw tonight wasn’t exactly comforting.”
“What you saw tonight is what I am. As much as being a wolf is a part of what you are.”
I nodded. “I understand you are being…generous…offering your bed and all, but I just don’t think I’m comfortable with it.”
“You are not comfortable with me,” she said.
I didn’t know what to say to that. “I don’t know.”
“Kassandra, what is it you are not comfortable with?”
“You want me to be honest?” I asked.
“Always,” she said.
“I think the whole dying at dawn thing kind of weirds me out.”
“How would you feel if I had reacted in a similar manner when you had undergone your change in the park?”
How would I have felt? I drew a deep breath, answering as honestly as I felt comfortable. “The fear might’ve excited me.”
“Your fear or my fear would have excited you?” she asked.
Her stormy eyes met mine.
“Both,” I said.
“That is your wolf talking.” Her lips curved into a soft smile. “What does the human side of you say?”
“I would’ve felt rejected.”
“And you think that just because I am a vampire, I do not have feelings or emotion
s?”
I opened my mouth to speak, and then shut it.
“Clever,” I said. “That was a smart move.”
The look in her gray eyes was questioning.
“Trying to appeal to my sense of compassion to get me into bed?”
“Kassandra, I am not trying to sleep with you.”
What? How did that make any sense? It didn’t. She was trying to get me into bed with her. I stared into those smoldering gray eyes and tried to figure out what game she was playing. An ache was beginning to start between my eyes and I gently rubbed the bridge of my nose between thumb and index finger.
“I give up. What are you playing at?”
“I am not playing at anything.”
“Oh no, obviously, you’re playing at something. Out with it,” I said. Why was I even staying? I could leave, couldn’t I? The only problem was being a little tired, but I could make it home in one piece. I sat down on the edge of the bed, keeping my eyes on the vampire in front of me. We stared at one another for the space of a few heartbeats. She was like some surreal dream that my heart and body cried out for. I didn’t feel that with Rosalin. Looking at Rosalin didn’t make my groin sink or my knees weak. Looking at Lenorre did.
The problem was that my head didn’t believe in that dream, and thought my heart a fool. The damn thing skipped a few beats when Lenorre slowly slid out of the silky robe. My gaze instantly fell to the black-carpeted floor, but nothing could distract my ears from the sound of cloth sliding against skin, her skin. There was fear there, lurking like some great fish against the surface of my soul. She would break me, and I was afraid she’d do it in more ways than one.
I stood, quickly pushing off the bed and heading for the door. Fingers like cold steel wrapped around my upper arms. She turned me to face her. My pulse leapt into my throat.
“I will not harm you,” she whispered, eyes glowing with that otherworldly light, misty and surreal. She stepped into me, tightening her grip on my arms, fingers digging painfully into my flesh. Her eyes closed, lashes fluttering.
“Kassandra.” Her voice was breathy. The British accent turned my name into something sultry and rich. “Calm down or we are both going to do something we regret.”
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