“I know you’re angry, but you don’t need to—”
“Or maybe Cody was right. Maybe you are too in love with him to ever give anyone else a chance.”
Now the heat radiating in the place was my own. “How do you know about that?”
“Just because you won’t talk to me doesn’t mean the others won’t.”
My fist clenched so tightly my nails cut flesh. “Amy.”
“Tobias, actually. And here’s the kicker on that one.” His arms flailed through one revolution. “He did it because he actually thought Cody was right. He told me—begged me to step up if I had any intentions of being with you, and get you to forget about him. But you can’t, can you?”
“Tobias told you?” But that didn’t make any sense. Yes, he was my friend, but Tobias hated Caleb. Why would he encourage the very man he told me wasn’t good enough for me to woo me? “It’s not about Cody. That was all over two years ago.”
“Ha! That’s who you think him is?” He threw his head back and barked a laugh, and as I faced the slayer, I saw my shadow stretch before me. “You think you can never love me? If that were true, Geri, you’d see the relationship you’re choosing over ours. That you’ve already chosen. Fine, good luck with that. Just remember when you wake up from that fantasy that you and I can actually work. Better hurry, though, because I can’t wait forever.”
I began to run even before he’d finished turning, making to exit from one of the main doors instead of back through the underground passage we’d used to sneak into the grounds, even as the aurora of Caleb’s solarium chased along.
“Please, Caleb! Don’t—”
My words died in a blaze of red and orange. Fire blinded me, bound me. It seeped into my veins, trying to consume me.
I wouldn’t let it. I breathed it in, and made myself its master.
LITTLE MADE SENSE WHEN I walked in the door: how I got back, where I had been, how much time had passed. All I knew was that I was tired. So crushingly, utterly tired. Every bone and every muscle ached. If this house had a bathtub, I’d draw one up and probably drown falling asleep in the soothing waters. My skin felt too sizes too small for my body, and scorched.
The full moon dipped low in the east, taking my determination with it. My body surrendered to gravity as I fell back into the low couches in the parlor. Tea. I wanted tea. I didn’t have the strength to make it. Habit took my hand down to my pants pocket. Maybe someone had texted. The device proved useless, however, its plastic frame bubbled from the heat of the solarium. The cracked screen wouldn’t even light.
The night outside waned, and I wanted to chase it as it blinked out. I closed my eyes, and ran into its oblivion.
TWENTY
The tide pulled in, the tide pulled out. Each wave rolled me, a gentle cycle of taking and giving. The water became flesh, and wrapped itself around me.
My head rolled into his shoulder as he scooped me off the couch. “Why are you sleeping down here? I thought Caleb said you guys were staying down at some fancy hotel in Beşkita.”
How did he know about that? No matter, I shook my head as he navigated the narrow staircase. “Never made it.”
“Please tell me you guys didn’t do it like dogs in some back alley.” A chuckle rumbled in his chest. “As a dog, even I look down on that.”
“We didn’t do anything. We broke up.”
He stopped, and my legs gave out beneath me as he set me on my feet. “What do you mean, you broke up?”
I could barely get my eyes open. God, why was I so tired? Depression? Stress? “He asked me to... I don’t know, he wanted me to teach our children something? I think he might have asked me to marry him.”
The werewolf sniffed the air. “I’m guessing by the fact that Caleb’s not here means you said no.”
He could know the truth, but he didn’t need to know the whole truth. “In so many words.”
“And how did he take that?”
“He hit me with a solarium.”
“He what?” With a jerk on my shoulder, Tobias spun me around, examining me for damage. “I’m going to kill him. What happened? Where are you hurt?”
“I’m fine?” A hint of surprise took my voice up a few notes. “No damage, other than a ruined cell phone. I must have just caught the edge of it.”
“Thank god.” The werewolf ran a hand through his hair. Fretting. My reliable, tough werewolf was fretting. “You smell different though. Did he at least apologize?”
I tried to think back to the aftermath, but all I could draw was a huge blank. “I’m not sure. It’s no big deal. I’m obviously okay. I’m not even sad about the break up, except we still need him to be a part of what we’re doing here. Has he called you at all? Texted?”
“Only once saying I shouldn’t worry about walking in on you too because of the fancy hotel thing. He’s probably there, licking his wounds. Come on, let’s get you into bed.”
“Can I... Can I come sleep in your room?”
Tobias gasped out a laugh. “Geri, that’s hardly...”
“What?” I asked. “Appropriate? A good idea? We slept in the same room in Chicago for almost a year while I was dating Caleb. How is it a worse idea now that I’ve broken up with him?”
“Because you’re...” He held up his hands, fingers splayed, as though he could gather the explanation from the air and press it into a ball. “...grieving.”
“I am not grieving.” I could cock a hip with the best of them. “Fine. I’ll go to sleep in my...”
I had barely turned to storm away when, seizing me by the arm, Tobias tugged me back the opposite way.
“You’re so frustrating, you know that? You think this is about you. Seriously, how can you be the singularly most informed hood I’ve ever known when it comes to werewolf behavior and still be so utterly clueless?”
He pulled me into the bedroom that he and Caleb shared. The footprint was identical the one Amy and I had on the other side of the house, the exception a blanket hung over an east-facing window to block out morning light. It made sense for two nocturnal beings, but I was surprised at the relief I felt in the dark. The door shut with a little too much force. I didn’t need my old hood skills to see I’d ticked off the wolf somehow.
“I can go back to the couch if I’m that much of a nuisance.”
“Makes no difference. My Geri-meter has never turned off.”
I blinked as his form took shape in the darkness, features inking themselves on my irises. Maybe the room wasn’t as dark as I thought.
“What does that mean?”
“The others can’t sense you anymore,” he said as he peeled off his shirt and pelted it against the floor. “And you can’t sense them. But you... The intensity changes, but I can still sense you. It hit me like a brick wall about a block away: your sadness, your confusion, your guilt. I’m awash in it. Grief, Geri. Don’t think for a moment I’m not familiar with its markers. I’ve been stewing in it since the day my brother died, since my mate was kidnaped.”
“I might be a little down, but it would be insulting to you to say breaking up with Caleb affected me even one-tenth the way losing Kara did you.”
“Yes, it would be.” His hands went to his belt, undoing the buckle. Suddenly my emotions could be described as anything but grief. “But a small cut still bleeds, even if it doesn’t take off an arm. If another of my pack suffered, I’d comfort them. My instincts say to... comfort you? I suppose that’s as good a word as any.”
A tiny drop of conflict rose in my stomach, even as Tobias’s pants dropped to the floor. Yes, he was a wolf – which included, on full moon nights as last night had been, going commando.
“Meaning?”
He pointed to the bed. His bed, not Caleb’s. “Lay down.”
I swallowed. “And you?”
“I can’t sleep in his bed, if that’s what you’re asking,” he said. “That slayer wears too much damned cologne.”
The laughter came despite its improbability.
/> “I’ll take the floor, just like back in Chicago.”
“In your wolf?”
He turned the other cheek. Literally. “Yeah, so?”
“Right after a full moon? Aren’t you tired as hell?’
“On so many levels. What’s the difference?”
“Then share the bed with me.” I couldn’t believe what I was saying. “Besides, I... I need you to be...”
“Comforted.” He turned, and I managed to keep my eyes locked in his. “But we both understand, that comfort as definitive limits. Right?”
I nodded. “Right.”
TWENTY-ONE
Instinct told me we’d slept through the day, even if the blanket over the window kept the changing angles of sunlight from confirming it. Oxygen flooded my muscles as I stretched long, then let my body go limp. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d felt so rested.
Tobias’s arm fell over me, pulling my body back into his. Air flooded my lungs as I drew in a breath. He held me. Tobias held me. I was a relinquished hood in bed... with a wolf. And I wanted him to hold me.
“I’m so hungry, I could eat a whole lamb.”
“Me, too. I’m famished.”
“Famished?” Tobias lifted his head enough to glance at me through one opened eye as I looked back over my shoulder. “I think my English is rubbing off on you.”
“We say famished where I come from.”
“Do not.”
“Do too.”
“I have never heard an American use the word famished, ever.”
“Can we get back to the discussion about the lamb?”
“Indeed.” His head collapsed into the pillow. “Lamb dumplings, with that tomato sauce they put on it. We should get dressed and have breakfast at that place down the street again.”
“Dumplings. God, I want a whole plate of them.”
He squeezed me, which I convinced myself was the same thing as a hug, even if his side of the hug came without any clothing.
“Ask Amy if she wants to go. I need to get some clothes on.”
“It’s still daylight. She might not even be here.”
“She’s right outside the door.”
I shot bolt upright. “How do you know?”
Tobias grinned as he rolled off the bed. Naked.
Still naked.
“I’m a wolf, remember? I can hear her.”
No sooner had he made the declaration than the pounding started at the door. “Gerwalta Kline, I know you’re in there. Tell Caleb he’s had you long enough. I need details!”
Tobias turned to me, his brow furrowed.
“She thinks I’ve been in here with Caleb since last night.”
“Reasonable conclusion. I don’t think she knew about the fancy hotel either. What are you going to tell her?”
I headed for the door. “What do you mean? I’m going to tell her the truth.”
“Geri, wait. Let me at least—”
But it was too late. The second I opened the door, Amy’s eyes filled with the scene: Me, in the clothes I had worn the night before; Tobias, wearing nothing but the blanket he’d just ripped off the bed to cover his wolfie bits.
No Caleb.
“Oh. My. God.”
My hands flailed about in a mad attempt at distraction. “This isn’t what it looks like.”
The blonde stuck out one accusatory finger. “So you didn’t spend the whole day curled up in bed with Tobias?”
“We only slept together.”
I shot daggers at the wolf, even as he scrambled to pull up boxers under the protection of our bedspread. “That kind of statement is not helping.”
Turning back to Amy, I continued. “Yes, we slept together. Literally, and only literally.”
Confusion pulled her quirked expression out into broader definition. “So you metaphorically slept with Caleb, then came home and crawled in bed with Tobias for some literal sleep? Is this some sort of ritualistic, supernatural mateswap thing?”
“Oh, my god.” Tobias growled as he pulled a shirt over his head. “I don’t know if it’s a girl thing, or an American thing, but do you really just up and ask about each other’s sex lives without a thought?”
Big words from a wolf who was constantly on me about mine.
Amy enumerated her virtues on her fingers. “One, it’s more of an Amy thing than anything else. And two, you said there was no sex. Did you want to revise that statement?”
The wolf brushed past us. “It remains none of your business.”
And with a thwack!, the bathroom door was closed and the shower came on.
Alone, she assaulted me, dragging me down the stairs. “Start at the beginning, tell me everything. I thought you said you were going to break up with Caleb last night?”
“I did break up with him. But unfortunately, not until after he’d asked me to marry him. Mate him. Be his baby mama? I’m not sure which one he was going for, but he didn’t take it well.”
I then explained the fact that he’d whacked me with a solarium, which turned the blond into a banshee bent on revenge.
“That bastard!”
“I don’t think he meant to hit me. I think he was just pulling the energy back into himself, and I got in between. It didn’t hurt me. I mean, I don’t think it did. I don’t remember being in any pain. In fact, now that I think of it, I can’t really remember anything that happened after that.”
Amy’s brow furrowed. “How did you get home?”
I scraped at reluctant memories. “I’m not sure. I just remember walking in the door an hour or so before sunrise and collapsing on the couch.”
“And Caleb?”
A big blank spot there too. “Probably just needs some time. Actually, can you text him and make sure he’s okay? My phone kinda melted.”
She grimaced, even as she pulled out her device. “You still haven’t explained how it was that you came to be sleeping next to a naked werewolf all day long.”
Heat prickled across my chest. “I just didn’t want to be alone, is all. I swear, we didn’t do anything. Remember, he can’t.”
Amy held one hand up. “Look, Geri, I’m not your mother. God knows I’m not, given how much time I spent the last two years trying to get you hooked up with someone. Which... was my fault. You’re not the hook-up type. You’re the automatic long-term commitment type; I see that now. Anyways, the point is, I’m not going to stand here and pretend like I have any business telling you what to do with your love life, but I will say this: allow for more than twenty-four hours between breaking up with your slayer boyfriend before curling up next to your I-swear-he’s-just-a-friend werewolf buddy. Even if it’s platonic, and even if it’s platonic because of some weird mates-for-life condition. You guys are still here on a mission, and if you have to continue to work together, you need to... well, continue to work together.”
A knock at the door below drew my attention away, and I spoke to Amy over my shoulder as we went down the stairs. “It was a moment of weakness. And when Caleb comes home, I’ll make sure he knows how much of a friend I still consider him. Has he texted back yet?”
“In the last sixty seconds? No.”
“He could be asleep. The sun just set, after all.”
The man standing outside the door was no doubt a local: A button-down shirt, black hair, olive skin, and a mustache that looked like he’d chopped off a squirrel’s tale and glued it to his upper lip. He said a few words in his native tongue, none of which either Amy or I understood.
“He says he has a package for the woman of the house.”
Amy and I both looked at Tobias like he’d grown a second head as he joined us in the entryway.
“How in the hell do you know that?” I asked.
“Unlike the two of you, I’ve actually been studying Turkish while we’ve been here.” The werewolf said a few words back, highly shaped by an English infliction, and dug a few coins out of his pocket. The man nodded his thanks, placing a linen envelope in Tobias’s hand in excha
nge for the tip. “Teşekkür ederim.”
I closed the door and engaged both its locks. “Must be a message from Igor. He loves being a pen pal and it wreaks of vampire.”
“Faintly. Like it’s been near one but not touched by one.” Tobias put the missive to his nose, inhaling. “You can smell that?”
“Of course, I can smell it.” Then, what Tobias had actually said hit me. “Not touched by one? Is Igor using scribes now?”
Two questions which needed to be answered immediately. When Amy put her hand on my shoulder, I wondered why. Only when her fingers massaged my tension did I realize how clenched up I’d become.
Fine linen paper turned to scraps as Tobias ripped open the envelope.
“Well,” I said after a few tense seconds of his eyes playing a tennis match across the page. “What does it say?”
He shook his head. “I don’t know. It’s not English. It’s not even in English letters.”
“You mean roman script,” Amy corrected as she grabbed the paper from the werewolf’s hands. “This is Cyrillic.”
“And you read Cyrillic?” I asked hopefully.
The blond grimaced. “Cyrillic isn’t a language. It’s an alphabet.”
“So what languages use it then?”
“Lots. Russian, Ukrainian... It’s used for most of the Balkan languages.”
Even as I asked it, even as Amy’s eyes went unfocused as she looked into her memory, the pieces had started to fall into place. “Romanian?”
She pondered that a moment, her mouth pursed, lips pulled left. “No, though maybe once upon a time. I mean, Turkish used to be written with Arabic script, didn’t it? Why?”
Tobias and I exchanged a look.
“Because,” the werewolf said, “Vlad was Romanian.” Tobias pulled out his phone, plucking out digits. “We need to get Igor or Inga on the phone now.”
“And Caleb!” Amy added, pulling out her own phone.
I pushed her device back down. “There’s no point trying again. The Ravens have him.”
TWENTY-TWO
Ravening Hood Page 14