“What’s the verdict?” I asked.
“Rosalin is taking you with her. I want you to keep your eyes out for anything unusual.”
“Lenorre, there’s a problem with that,” I said.
“Hmm?” She looked at me quizzically. I met that look and found it difficult not to remember the hunger I’d seen in her eyes earlier. With her hunger riding her she would’ve drunk my blood, whether I consented to it or not. The thought didn’t settle well with me. Although it didn’t settle well, I understood the darker aspect of both of our natures.
In the end, I’d lost myself to the deeper cravings just as she had.
The memory of her fangs sinking into the skin at the back of my neck clung to me, as if I could still feel the languor infusing my limbs.
I ignored the goose bumps that broke out over my arms and asked, “How am I supposed to know what unusual is, when I don’t even know what the usual is?”
Her shoulders rose and fell. “Follow your intuition.”
I took a sip of my coffee. “Oh, that’ll never lead me astray,” I said sarcastically.
Rosalin returned. “That was Paula,” she said, not bothering to take her seat again. “My brother’s girlfriend.”
“I know,” I said, remembering. “Is she available this evening?”
Rosalin took a sip of her tea. “Yeah, we can meet with her at her house before the meeting.”
“We?” I questioned.
“You need to know how to get to her house, don’t you?”
“I’m sure I could figure it out.” I said.
“It saves time,” she said and I didn’t disagree with her.
“Fine.”
Rosalin said, “I don’t mean to trouble you…I know you’re busy working on the case the police hired you on…”
I leaned back in my seat, eyeing her thoughtfully. “Rosalin…” I was suddenly struck by an idea. “Do you think anyone in the pack would’ve taken him to get to you? Say, Carver. He’s gamma wolf,” I added.
Rosalin shrugged. “I don’t know him that well,” she said. “He’s never acted like it, that I know of.”
“It’s a thought to keep in mind,” I told her.
Her eyes shifted uncomfortably to the mug of coffee on the table.
“I’m sure your brother is still alive,” I offered.
“I hope so,” she said. “He isn’t the greatest guy in the world, but he’s my brother. You know?”
I placed my hand on top of hers where it rested on the table.
“I’ll find your brother,” I said, “somehow. First, I’m going home to take a shower. If you want to go with me later, I’ll come back and get you.”
Lenorre moved from her seat and came around the table to stand in front of me. She reached out her hand. I closed my eyes as her fingers swept a strand of hair out of my face. She tucked that tendril of hair behind my ear, brushing the curve of my earlobe in a gesture that nearly buckled my knees. Or would have, if I had been standing.
“You are upset,” she said, but it sounded more like an observation than a question.
She cupped the side of my face in her hand and I let her, feeling her cool tapered fingers stroking my cheek. “Confused is more like it.”
“I would not have damaged you beyond repair,” she said.
I laughed. She gave me a look that wasn’t a look of anger. It was a look that told me she didn’t understand what I was laughing about.
“Damage beyond repair?” I tilted my head to the side, looking up into her striking gaze. “Is that your way of saying you wouldn’t have drained me dry?”
“I cannot drink you dry.”
“What is that supposed to mean, exactly?” The words came out a little heated.
“It means that she can’t kill us by drinking our blood,” Rosalin said. “We’re not human. She can drain a human dry, but our bodies pump out blood faster than she can drink it.”
“Are you sure about that?” I asked. “It looked an awful lot like you were about to pass out when she was feeding on you. If that was the case,” I noted, “I don’t think you would’ve been on the verge of losing consciousness.”
Her cheeks turned a light shade of pink. “I stand corrected,” she said. “I could’ve passed out. Blood loss is still blood loss. What I mean is that our bodies would heal that kind of damage.”
I gave her a knowing smile and said, “I have hunted and executed a lycanthrope before, Rosalin. I know.” I looked at Lenorre. “What am I supposed to do when you feel the sudden urge to rip my throat out?”
She’d stopped touching my cheek and reached out again to catch the ends of my hair between her thumb and index finger. “For one,” she said, “I do not suggest running.”
The look in her eyes darkened. It wasn’t that the color itself darkened, but the look in them was suddenly filled with something dark and sensual.
“And for two?” I asked, barely able to speak through the desire coursing through me.
She bent at the waist, leaning toward me as if she meant to kiss me.
“For two,” she whispered against my mouth, “I advise staying calm.”
“So not running and staying calm will keep you from ripping my throat out?”
“In the heat of bloodlust, you know as well as I that fear can be quite the aphrodisiac.” The scent of cinnamon toothpaste was warm against my lips.
If she hadn’t been so close I would’ve nodded. At the nearness of her body, at the line of her heat so close to mine, my pulse sped.
“And aggression,” I said, trying to ignore my rampant heartbeat.
“And aggression,” she mumbled and brought our faces together. Her lips brushed mine in a feather-soft caress. She drew back, her eyes serious and intense.
“Be careful, Kassandra.”
I resisted the urge to bury my hands in her hair, to pull her mouth back down to mine.
“I will be.”
I heard the dishwasher in the kitchen open. Rosalin was no longer in the room. I’d been paying too much attention to the vampire in front of me to notice when she’d left. I let out a shuddering breath and went to get my things.
Chapter Twenty-Five
I killed the engine in front of my apartment. Stepping out with my bag and clothes, I pressed the button on the keypad. The car beeped, letting me know it was locked. I unlocked the apartment door and walked into the cool house, turning the light on over the dining room table.
“Where the hell have you been?”
I jumped.
“Good Goddess.” I felt my eyes widen. “Rupert, what the hell are you doing here?” The wolf growled quietly, disturbed by someone invading her den. I took a deep breath and soothed her, projecting a sense of pack to her. She settled down, her ears perked but otherwise calm.
“I’ve been trying to get a hold of you for the past three hours,” he said.
I looked at the door, then back to where he was sitting on the couch. “How the fuck did you get in?”
“I don’t need a key,” he said.
“You picked my lock?”
He nodded. “If you had a chain on the door it would’ve been more difficult. I’d have had to bust the chain.”
“I’ll remember that,” I said and put my stuff on the table.
“Looks like you stayed the night somewhere,” he said.
“I did,” I admitted.
“Where?” he asked, “Rosalin’s?”
I shook my head and went to the fridge, opening a can of Diet Coke. “Nope. Guess again.”
“The countess?” he asked and even as he asked it he managed to sound like he quite didn’t believe it.
My voice was soft as I sat down in the armchair. “Yeah.”
“I don’t trust her.” His blue eyes had gone cold and hard.
“I’m afraid,” I said.
“Why are you afraid? I haven’t known you to be afraid of anything. Except for spiders,” he said.
“I’m afraid,” I said, “that I do trus
t her.”
“Kassandra, you can’t trust anyone. Especially not a vampire.”
“Rupert, I think you forget what I am.”
“You’re a different story,” he said. “You didn’t choose to be what you are.”
“Who’s to say Lenorre chose to be a vampire?”
“They’re tricksters, Kassandra.” His voice was calm, as if he was trying to get the words gradually through to me, like if he didn’t remain calm and speak slowly I wouldn’t hear him. I suddenly felt like a crazy woman he was trying to talk down off the ledge. I didn’t like that.
“You don’t know her,” I said, narrowing my eyes. “So don’t start passing judgment and don’t start talking down to me.”
“I’m not passing judgment,” he said. “I’m not talking down to you. I’m just saying that you haven’t known her long enough to really know her either.”
He stood from the couch.
“Wait,” I said and he stopped. “Are you mad at me?”
“That’s not my place,” he said. “I’m just worried. I don’t think you know what you’re getting yourself into.” His shoulders lifted in a shrug beneath the denim jacket. He turned to look at me “You’re like a sister to me and I don’t want to see you to get hurt.”
“Rupert,” I said, “I don’t want to get hurt, either. Trust me on that one.”
“Do what you have to do.” He nodded and opened the door. “Call me if you need anything.”
He shut the door behind him. I got up and locked it, placing the laptop that had been moved to the island on the dining room table. I forgot to ask him why he had been calling me in the first place. If it had been important, he would’ve told me, but I had a feeling that Rupert was just worried about me. I only hoped that he wouldn’t resort to picking my lock again. With a new shifting ability, Goddess only knew what could happen if someone seriously spooked me.
I rubbed my temples. I’d gotten used to going furry once a month. The wolf had become just another aspect of myself, but the raven…
I hoped that the raven didn’t come with the same price as the wolf. If it came with the price of going feathery once a month, I wasn’t sure how I felt about that.
*
I spent some time when I got home sipping coffee and doing research on Colorado state parks and killings. Claire Delaine had mentioned that the guy she’d gone out with had worked as a park ranger somewhere in Colorado. Sure enough, there were three killings reported in that area.
In all of them, the victims had been torn apart, and pieces of their bodies were still missing. There was nothing about Carver or any other wolves. In fact, the police still didn’t have any suspects.
I turned on the shower. I stood under the spray of hot water, feeling each bead beat against the sore muscles in my back. Shifting into different animals really takes it out of the body.
I thought about Lenorre. I thought about the look of soft affection in her gray eyes as she held me. The way they flinched in pain as the sunlight began to cast its glow on our side of the world. I ran the tip of my tongue across my lips, recollection bringing forth the moment when blood welled between our mouths. There wasn’t a nick on my tongue. It had been my canines that had cut her.
The vampire hadn’t taken me when she had the chance. She hadn’t even taken me when I’d agreed with the wolf and offered myself to her on a silver platter. She had presented herself as a calming presence when I shape-shifted into something strange and unusual. It was still unnerving. Was it permanent? How had I been granted a gift? Was it really a gift? Why would the Morrigan have placed her mark so strongly on me? If I had the energy to freak out about it, I might. I assured myself there wasn’t any point in freaking out about it. I’d learned a long time ago that freaking out doesn’t fix anything. I had to accept the fact that I was no longer just a werewolf.
I laughed. It seemed that for once in my life I was willing to allow a question to remain unanswered for the time being. Then again, time itself has a funny way of revealing things.
Water dripped onto the floor as I grabbed a towel from the hall closet and headed to the bedroom.
I wore a long-sleeved burgundy thermal and a pair of black jeans. The Mark III in its shoulder holster was hidden from view thanks to the black leather jacket.
I picked Rosalin up, as I said I would.
“Turn here,” Rosalin said, pointing to the street on the left. The little blue sign above the red stop sign read Dillon. “It’s the third house on the left,” she said and I guided the Tiburon into the driveway, parking behind a red pickup truck. I turned to look at her while unbuckling my seat belt. “Do they know?” I asked.
“What I am?”
I nodded.
She shook her head. “No.” She put her hands in the pockets of her hoodie. “I never told Henry.”
“Do you think Carver knows where your brother works and lives?” I asked.
Slowly, she nodded. “The whole pack knows,” she said. “We know that type of stuff about one another: where everyone works, what they do for a living, where they live…”
“Terrific,” I said.
She looked at me with widened eyes. “If someone from the pack has taken him,” she said, “they’re breaking pack law.”
That much I knew, but I didn’t think Carver really gave two shits about breaking pack law. “I know,” I said, stepping out of the car.
The house looked small from the outside. The door opened and the woman looked past me and to Rosalin. Rosalin slipped past me, enfolding the smaller woman in her arms. I heard her whisper, “I’m so sorry, Paula.”
Paula stroked Rosalin’s back. “I know, sweetie.” Paula Meeks stepped back and looked at me. I approached, offering my hand and introducing myself.
Paula took the hand I offered and her fingers were light, her touch tentative and soft. I was guessing she was in her early thirties. “Thank you, Kassandra,” she said, “for agreeing to meet with me.”
“I’m just glad you found the time.” I winced, hoping it didn’t sound judgmental. But I found myself hoping that if I went missing, someone would make the time to talk to the people who could help find me. Of course, with the company I was keeping these days, there probably wouldn’t be anything left of me to find. I decided to pick up that train of morbid thought later, maybe to lull myself to sleep or something.
She opened the door. “Come in.”
I followed Rosalin into the living room, sitting down on the sofa beside her.
“Would you like some tea or coffee?” Paula asked, raising a hand to push the light brown curls of chin-length hair out of her face. Her dark eyes were red around the edges, as if she’d been working too hard and crying too much.
Rosalin accepted the offer of tea. I gracefully declined. I waited until Paula returned, handing Rosalin a mug and sitting down in the recliner on the other side of the coffee table. The house was neat and tidy. Two worn recliners were placed side by side. I imagined Paula and Henry often sat in them, watching television together.
“Paula,” I said, speaking softly, “can you tell me what happened?”
I watched as she took in a deep breath, steeling herself. “I came home from work Sunday evening.” She looked off to the left, remembering. “He’d already gone into work. He works until midnight at the school.”
“Jefferson Elementary?” I asked remembering what Rosalin had told me.
Paula nodded. “Yes,” she said, “Henry goes into work at seven in the evening and usually doesn’t get home until around midnight.” Her voice shook. “I take a sleeping medication,” she said. “I’m usually fast asleep when he gets in from work, but when I woke up the next morning he wasn’t in bed with me. He wasn’t here, so I ran outside to see if his car was in the driveway, and it wasn’t. I tried to call him,” she said, “and kept getting his voicemail. The last time I spoke with him was earlier Sunday evening, before he left for work.”
“He works weekends as a janitor?” I asked.
She nodded.
“I’m sorry to ask you this,” I said, “but would there be any reason for you to believe that he left you? Have you been fighting?”
She shook her head, eyes watering with unshed tears. “No,” she said, “Henry isn’t like that. If he was going to leave, he’d make damn sure I knew it.”
“Does he have a history of disappearing for days?” I asked. “Does he drink? Gamble? Is there anyone at work that he’s friends with?”
“No, no,” she said, shaking her head. “Henry doesn’t have very many friends. He’s a loner, keeps to himself.”
“He’s always been like that,” Rosalin added.
“Does he have any enemies?” I asked. “Any disputes with anyone at work or anything?”
Paula shook her head.
“My brother is one of those guys that when he does socialize, almost everyone likes him,” Rosalin said.
I rubbed my temples. If Henry didn’t have any known enemies or friends, I couldn’t think of anyone else who would’ve kidnapped him but Carver. But then, I didn’t understand why Carver would kidnap Rosalin’s brother. It didn’t make sense, unless there was something going on in the pack, some type of power struggle. I looked at Rosalin, wondering, why would Carver take her brother? She’d said he’d made no threats to her. She’d stated that Sheila’s brother had, but I had a feeling that was more to do with the whole werewolf power-bluffing shit than any actual real threat. Carver White posed a huge threat. As far as I could tell he was my prime suspect. How many werewolves end up with a dead body on their land? The ones that commit the crime, I say. If Carver wanted her position in the pack—why wouldn’t he just challenge her? I had a feeling I would find out soon enough.
I looked at Paula, standing. “Thank you, Paula. I’ll call you if I learn anything about Henry’s whereabouts.”
“That’s it?” she asked.
I nodded. “For now,” I said, forcing myself to smile.
Gods be damned—what the hell was Carver White up to?
*
We left Paula’s house and headed to the pack meeting. Rosalin informed me that the meeting was at the same place as the one I had spied on before. I drove while she stared out the window, obviously lost in her own thoughts. Once we were on the highway it was pretty much a forward shot until it was time to exit.
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