Blue laughed. “Only the special ones. I’m a natural asshole repellant.”
Iris grinned. A small grin, sweet.
Blue said, “Good. That’s good, Iris. You’re ready to fight again.”
“Is that what a smile means?”
“Sometimes. In my experience people don’t smile unless they have something to live for. And I’m talking real smiles, not that fake crap your Agent Fred was giving us.”
“He did seem a bit plastic this time around.” Iris watched the FBI agent start his car and drive away. “Do you think I should have told him about the hidden camera?”
“I think you did just fine.”
“There are things I wouldn’t want anyone to see.”
“I know.”
“And if the FBI or police were to find the person who set that camera, if there were tapes, recordings …”
“Yes,” Blue said. “You don’t want those to get out. You don’t have to tell me any more.”
“I don’t, do I?” Iris’s voice was soft, almost wondering. She searched his face. “Why is that, Blue? Aren’t you curious?”
“Yes,” he said.
“And?”
“And nothing. You’ll tell me when you’re ready.”
Her expression sharpened. Indecision, maybe. Blue sighed. “Iris, you have better things to worry about.”
“Yeah.” She dug her nails into her palm, pushing and pushing until Blue was afraid she would make herself bleed. “So what do I do? How do I fix this?”
“You don’t.” Blue took her hand and uncurled her fingers. He rubbed her palm, smoothing out the deep crescent marks her nails had left. “We fix it, Iris. Together. I’m a detective, remember? So I’ll detect. I’ll protect you. I’ll help you keep your life the way you want it.”
He was afraid to look at her face, to see what was in her eyes, but she was silent for such a long time that he didn’t have a choice. He found her staring at him, wide-eyed, her golden gaze glimmering with a soft light.
“I’m afraid to trust you,” she said. “I’m afraid you aren’t real.”
A mask, an illusion—being nice only because he wanted something—that later when the mood struck he would become another man. Weak, petty, hurtful …
“I’m not perfect,” Blue said. “But I told you, Iris. I like you.”
“You like me,” she said. “How much do you like me?”
He wanted to laugh again. “I like you enough not to care if you trust me—but I also like you enough to wish that you would.”
“You make it sound easy.”
“It’s not.”
“It feels strange. Like I’m doing something dangerous.”
“Because you are.”
“The most dangerous thing I’ll ever do, huh?”
“Maybe. But can you think of the alternative?”
Iris surprised him by laughing. “Not sharing my high heels with you? Sole possession of my closet?”
“What closet?” he asked, grinning. “Personally, I’d like to check that kitchen out again.”
Iris ducked her head. “I don’t know if that’s a good idea, Blue. You know, for us to be together like that.”
“I think it’s a fantastic idea,” he said, touching her chin. “Besides, I’m tough. I bounce.”
“Maybe that time,” she murmured, then straightened up, looking left. Her eyes grew distant. “Someone’s coming. Pete and Daniel.”
“Ah,” Blue said, wondering if she realized how much she had just given away with that little display of sensational hearing. “Are you getting tired of all the company?”
“Depends.” Iris eyed him, and he thought, Yes, she realizes what she did.
“Iris,” he said, but when he tried to keep going, the words froze in his mouth. What was he going to say? The truth? That he knew what she was? That he had friends who were shape-shifters, that his own humanity stretched a gene or two past the norm? Hell, he hadn’t even been able to tell Daniel that they were brothers. This was worse.
“What?” she asked, frowning. “Blue?”
“You’re not alone,” he said.
She frowned, peering into his eyes. “I know.”
“No,” he replied. “You really don’t.”
Pete rounded the corner, Daniel close on his heels. Blue stopped talking. Iris’s frown deepened, but when she looked at the newcomers her expression darkened even more.
“Something’s wrong,” she murmured. “Pete doesn’t look happy.”
She was right. Pete had a grimace on his face made more pronounced by his sagging jowls, tucked head, and hunched shoulders.
Daniel was far less demonstrative, but there was still a hardness to his face, a cold light in his eyes, that was pure effortless Perrineau. He turned his gaze on Blue, but it was not in the least bit intimidating—no more so than Blue’s own face. Blood, after all, was blood. Only, he did not want to think about how much the two of them resembled their father.
Daniel’s expression changed when he looked at Iris, softening into concern, melancholy, something that was, to his credit, almost sweet. “Iris,” he murmured, but she shook her head, quieting him.
“I’m fine,” she said. “How was the press?”
Pete said grimly, “The hotel is furious that you dodged those journalists. They’re threatening to dock your pay if you don’t play to the rags and cameras, just like we discussed.”
“They can dock me all the way to hell, for all I care. I’ll quit before they push me around like that.”
“They won’t fire you and you won’t quit,” Pete said firmly. “You need the money and they need you. But they can still make you miserable. Better to cooperate a little, soothe the wild beast, if you will. Then negotiate.”
“That’s not in my vocabulary.”
“Liar.”
“Hey,” Iris protested, and Blue moved close, touching the small of her back.
Pete and Daniel both noticed, and the look Blue’s brother gave him was indescribable. Hurt—it hurt Blue’s heart so badly he almost winced, and he felt caught up in the surprise that emotion gave him. Surprise that he should feel guilty, as though having his heart full of Iris was committing an act of betrayal.
Pete set his jaw. “Son, I also came here to talk to you, too.”
“Something wrong?” Blue asked.
“You could say that.” The old man sighed, rubbing his face. “I need you to go. Right now.”
Blue stared. “You promised me a day.”
“And the day is up. Sun is going down in an hour.”
“Pete Reilly,” Iris murmured in a hard voice. “What is going on?”
“Business,” he said. “My business, Iris. And Blue can’t be part of it.”
His stomach felt hollow, as did his heart. He listened to Pete’s words rattle through his head, words that did not match the old man’s eyes, which seemed to tell a different story, like stay.
Someone got to him. This isn’t right. Blue glanced at his brother, but Daniel was also staring at Pete, and he looked just as surprised. Even alarmed.
“You can’t fire him,” Iris said, and there was a touch of desperation in her voice that Blue did not want to hear, not even for him. “After everything that happened today? The way he helped me? That’s ridiculous.”
“This is not open for discussion, Iris. He has to go. Don’t make it any harder than it has to be.”
She began to argue, but Blue touched her shoulder. “Don’t beg. Don’t. Not for me.”
Her eyes flashed with light—quick, breathtaking, a trick of the sun to anyone but Blue—and though she did not kiss him, did not hold him, he felt her spirit lean and lean, as though her shadow were made of electricity, hot, and it was almost too much, more than he could bear.
I want you, he thought, trying to speak with his eyes. I think I love you.
“Blue,” Pete said. Inexplicable, mysterious Pete, who still looked at him with those soft, sad eyes so at odds with that hard mouth, that
cold voice.
“This isn’t over,” Blue said quietly, but he spoke to Iris, only to Iris, as though nothing existed but her. She nodded grimly, hands rolled into fists. Daniel also watched her.
Blue grabbed the front of his brother’s shirt and dragged him close, staring hard into his eyes. “You were right, Daniel. You don’t really know me. Not in the slightest. But you take care of her. You take care of her. Or else I swear to God I will do whatever it is you think I’m capable of—and I will terrify you.”
Daniel did not flinch. His gaze did not waver. He nodded once, jaw set, and Blue let him go with a shove.
Everything, gone to hell. That was the story of his life.
Blue looked at Iris. “Kiss Petro for me.”
She choked back a laugh, her eyes far too bright. He didn’t give her a chance to say anything; his heart couldn’t take it. Blue got out of there, fast.
CHAPTER NINE
It was evening in the human desert—this place where hot earth was covered in concrete, steel—and the last blush of day was flung sweetly across the horizon. Iris thought about taking her RV, loading the cats inside—however ill sized it was for them—and rumbling out of town. Going, going, gone. Straight into the sunset, burning up in the sun.
Pete was gone. Back to the hotel, back to some hole, back to a cave where she decided he belonged. No more words. Not to him, ever. He’d refused to give her reasons, refused to say anything at all, and his scent—so tired, sad, and pained, so completely at odds with his demeanor—made no sense at all.
Made no sense, like the ache in her heart for a man she barely knew.
This isn’t over. Blue’s voice was still strong inside her head, strong like the sound of his heartbeat, the lightning in his scent.
She lay flat on her back in the cats’ holding pen. Con’s head rested heavy on her stomach, while Boudicca curled around her head. Petro lay against her, with Lila draped over his back, eyes half-closed in sleep. Lazy lions.
Iris heard a low sigh. Daniel. He sat cross-legged outside the holding pen, his back against the wire. He hadn’t said a word since Blue walked away, just followed her, silent, like a ghost, blue eyes watching her every move. She was too tired, too upset to tell him to go.
But now he sighed again, and very quietly said, “You could have gone with him, Iris.”
Easy to say, and thoughtless. Iris could not have just simply left. Blue had known that. He had told her as much—this isn’t over—and for Daniel to say those words, say them and believe them …
“You don’t know me,” she told him. “You don’t know me at all.”
“I seem to be getting a lot of that. Much more and I could become insecure.”
“Don’t let Pete know. He might fire you.”
“He might anyway. I’m in trouble, Iris.”
“You’re arrogant,” she accused, staring at the darkening sky, the deep blue hue. “That’s what your brand of trouble is called.”
“Arrogant,” Daniel echoed softly. “Yes.”
“Yes,” she murmured, and then, “Why don’t you like Blue, Danny?”
He did not answer. The silence stretched. Iris waited.
“You want dinner?” Daniel finally asked.
Iris almost sat up to look at him. “Danny.”
“No,” he said firmly. “I don’t want to talk about him. Not now. I’m hungry. You must be hungry.”
“Danny—”
“It doesn’t have to be a date, Iris. I’m not that stupid.”
Iris closed her eyes. “You act different, Danny. You’re not the same man you were this morning.”
He laughed, low. It was not at all humorous. “Danny. You’ve always called me Danny. But Danny is someone else. Quiet, with a flair for the dramatic. You’re talking to Daniel now.”
She agreed. But she had to ask: “And who’s Daniel?”
“Another question.” He said it softly, and the holding pen creaked as he leaned away and stood. Iris sat up. Con rolled free of her.
Iris looked at Daniel. His face was drawn, tired.
“Dinner?” he asked again, and Iris remembered, very briefly, that she had crushed hard on this man, that she had wanted him once upon a time, and that here, now, he might still be a friend.
“Okay,” she said.
Walking through the Miracle hotel—through most hotels in Vegas—made Iris feel like an actress on a movie set. Big decorations, wild lights, flash and glitter and overdone glamour—all wrapped up in elaborate facades hiding cheap construction that was good for nothing but show. Not that anything built on the Strip was meant to last. Not even her, though it was interesting seeing her face—and the cats—on a poster near the front of the lobby. Interesting and disconcerting; her mother had always warned about publicity photos. Disdained them. Iris had never been entirely certain why.
She did a lot of things you didn’t understand. Like leaving.
Leaving, leaving, two years gone. Gone, taking none of her clothes, no money—nothing at all—with only a note to mark her passing, and no good explanation. Out for a long run, a hunt, time spent in another body.
The wild is calling, her mother had written. The wild is calling and I must go.
Crap. All crap. Iris did not understand it and never would. Only, she remembered that her mother had seemed restless in those weeks building up to her departure; there had been an edge in her eyes every time she looked at Iris. As if she were measuring her, taking stock, identifying and cataloging every strength and weakness with the cold precision that had marked all her mother’s actions.
She and Daniel hit the street, the crowds, the stink. Prostitutes crowded the corner, big hair whipped up by the racing cars; around them small, sweaty men aggressively passed out handbills and brochures covered with pictures of naked women. The sidewalk was also plastered in paper, along with whole catalogs and baseball-sized cards: wallpaper, skin paper, sex, sex, sex. Iris thought about the love letter written on flesh, and she gritted her teeth.
People swarmed. The air was dusty, dry. Daniel walked, Iris following. She found herself buffeted, touched, penned in by men and women—entire families with wide-eyed children in tow—assaulted by sights and sounds that overwhelmed her eyes and ears.
There’s a reason you never leave the Miracle’s premises, Iris reminded herself, and grabbed Daniel’s sleeve. “Do we have to walk far?”
Daniel hesitated, studying her face. Without a word he moved to the edge of the sidewalk and hailed a cab. Iris sighed.
The air inside the car smelled like cigarettes and air freshener and cheap cologne. The seats were plastic, sticky. The leopard stirred within her chest, dreaming of the open desert, the mountains, the forests. Of running and running.
Iris did not talk to Daniel as the cab crept through the heavy traffic along the Strip. She thought about Blue and watched the sidewalk, scanning the faces of the men who drifted like ghosts in the neon machine, searching for magic in the cooling night. Hard faces, soft faces, tired faces—all of them dreaming of a good time, a little risk, a piece of something hot to hold and take home.
Never leave Las Vegas empty-handed. Isn’t that the whole point?
But when Iris left this place, what was she going to take with her? Fame, glory, money? None of that mattered. None of it would last.
And you think Blue will? You think Blue will stick around longer than a bank account full of cash? You think he’ll last past the final clap of hands, be willing to go to bed with a woman and wake up with a leopard?
Iris remembered his eyes, the heat of his large hands. The intensity, the passion that had rolled off him like quiet thunder, clear lightning, surrounding and lifting and drawing her near.
“We’re here,” Daniel said. All Iris could see of him was his profile, standing out strong against flashing red and gold. For a moment his nose and forehead reminded her of Blue, and she forced herself to take a deep breath. Not that it helped. Daniel’s scent reminded her of him, too.
God, she was pathetic.
Fremont Street. The entertainment had already started. For a moment she and Daniel stood like zombies, mouths hanging open as they craned their necks to stare at the light show exploding against the giant screen suspended above their heads. Electric lava poured and sizzled, exploding into fireworks, shadows, bursts of night and cosmic rainbow. Music roared; Iris’s hands crept to her ears. She gave up pride and covered them, wincing. Daniel noticed. They started walking again.
The casinos and hotels turned off their neon during the show; the entire street was lit only by the wild lights raging from ninety feet above. Iris, glancing down at her arms, at the faces around her, felt bathed in fire.
Restaurants lined the street, but Daniel did not take her into any of them, instead leading her to the Golden Nugget Casino. There was a crowd out front; Iris and Daniel had to push to get through. For a moment she panicked. If she shifted, if the fur ran wild over her body where everyone could see …
“How did you find this place?” Iris asked him.
“Natalya told me about it. She said the steaks are good.”
Iris had kept herself sheltered; the Golden Nugget was only the second hotel and casino she had found herself in since arriving in Las Vegas. The lobby was pale, made of marble—not quite as grand as the Miracle’s. Daniel led her into the casino, down a carpeted path that followed the edge of the gambling pit.
The casino looked as though it had been designed for someone with the tacky taste of a crow: all cheap glitter, gilding and lights, a lure for the eyes and heart, whispering, Come to me, come to me, to all the men and women living and dying by the dollar sign. Iris could not understand the attraction of games of chance, the kinds of risks people took with their livelihoods. Money, which was already so hard to earn, was thrown away in bits and pieces and chunks, tossed on tables or into slot machines like lifelines to a sinking ship, lines that would only drag them down and under, them and everyone else who depended on that cold, hard cash.
Daniel did not ask if she wanted to try her hand. That was a point for him, although she was not entirely certain his silence had anything to do with understanding her. He smelled nervous. His eyes kept moving—to the people, the security monitors, the security guards.
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