by Paula Guran
I seem to be the only one who’s in a bad mood, Dahlia thought, and then without meaning to, her eyes met the tall Were’s again. Nope, Todd was less than happy, too. Dahlia wondered whether it was the engagement between Don and Taffy or her own intrusion that had triggered Todd’s irritation.
“This is my friend Dahlia Lynley-Chivers,” Taffy announced to the crowd of Weres. “She’s my maid of honor.”
There was a smattering of polite response. Dahlia inclined her head civilly. She couldn’t force a smile.
“Snotty-nose bitch,” muttered the other Were sitting in the booth. He had dark curly hair and a pugnacious attitude. “Having one in the bar at a time is enough.”
Dahlia’s tiny hand darted out and dug into the Were’s throat.
He gagged, his eyes going wide with shock and fear, and the atmosphere of the bar went into high gear.
“Dahlia!” said Taffy. “He didn’t know what he was saying, Dahlia. Please, for me.”
Dahlia released the dark-haired Were, and he collapsed against the wood of the booth, breathing heavily. There was an uneasy stirring among the denizens of the crowded bar.
“Thanks, honey,” Taffy murmured. “Let’s take this out on the sidewalk,
okay?”
Her back as straight and her head as high as ever, Dahlia followed Taffy out of the bar, looking neither to the right nor to the left, ignoring the growing chorus of growls that surged in her wake.
“Smooth move, Dahlia,” Taffy said, the words bursting out as soon as they were on the sidewalk.
“You were the one who invited me! If you weren’t the one engaged to that … that dog man … do you think I’d go inside such a place?”
“Where are the others?” Taffy lost her anger and looked a bit lost. Maybe she hadn’t been quite as comfortable as she’d seemed, being the only vamp in a crowd of Weres.
“Ah, they couldn’t make it.” Dahlia couldn’t think of any way to cushion the rudeness of Taffy’s other bridesmaids and her sheriff, Cedric.
Taffy sighed. “I didn’t think it was too much to ask, coming to a party in our honor to wish me well.” Dahlia’s cheeks would have flushed if they could have; she was embarrassed at the poor manners of her sisters. “I guess it’s a measure of our friendship that you came inside to see me,” Taffy admitted. “I know we’re buddies. Please, help me get through this wedding with peace between our people. I want you there on my wedding day, and I want my other friends there, too, and the last thing I want is a bloodbath between the two tribes, us and the Weres, right there in Cedric’s garden.”
Cedric had offered the garden of his mansion as the locale for the wedding, to everyone’s surprise. Cedric had told Dahlia, in his languid way, that he had been sure Taffy would cry off before the day actually arrived. Now that the wedding was fast approaching and still a reality, the notably lazy Cedric was scrambling to get the grounds ready and also calling in markers in an effort to assemble some of the more levelheaded vamps to act as security for the big night, which was shaping up to be the scandalous social event of the season in the supernatural world.
Ignoring the Weres who were peering out of the bar, Dahlia and Taffy began to stroll down the street, arm in arm, an old-fashioned habit that drew a few stares.
“Taffy, I’m worried.”
“What about, Dahlia?” Taffy asked gently.
“You know that Cedric’s mansion is in a turmoil of preparation,” Dahlia began, trying to think of the best way to voice her concerns without sounding like a complete alarmist.
“I heard.” Taffy laughed, her throat tilted back. “That old bastard! Serves Cedric right for making a promise he had no intention of keeping.”
“Taffy, you’ve been with the Weres too much. Don’t disrespect the sheriff so boldly.”
“You’re right,” Taffy said, sobering quickly enough to satisfy even the worried Dahlia. “So, Cedric’s in an uproar. What of it?”
“The Weres and the vampires aren’t the only ones who may have heard of this wedding,” Dahlia said. She was voicing something she’d not told anyone else, and her voice wasn’t completely steady. “Since the Weres haven’t come out yet, to the world it must look as though you’re illegally marrying a human.”
Vampires didn’t have the legal right to marry in the United States, not yet anyway. Dahlia couldn’t have cared less about her legal rights, since she knew how transitory governments were, but there was no denying it was sweet to be able to walk the streets openly, admitting her true nature, and to know that if she was killed, her death would be state-avenged.
Well, maybe, under certain circumstances.
The point was, society was moving in the right direction, and the backlash from this affair might knock all of them sideways. “Who in the mundane world knows?”
“It won’t make a difference if humans know it afterward; we can explain it wasn’t a true wedding at all. Cedric can get reporters to believe anything. But if it becomes common knowledge beforehand, there’ll be human reporters all over the place, and protesters, and who knows what else.”
“Cedric’s gardeners are human,” Taffy said slowly. “The florist is human.” Her face was utterly serious now, and she looked like a true vampire. They turned back to return to the bar.
Dahlia nodded, silently, knowing her point had been taken. She was thrilled to see Taffy looking like her former self, until she realized that though the familiar calculation had returned to Taffy’s face, something had been taken away: the lighthearted joy that made the ancient vampire look so renewed.
“So, you’re saying that we might need more security than Cedric’s thinking of providing,” Taffy continued.
Dahlia cursed inside. Her point had been that Taffy should call off this insane ceremony. But Taffy had simply not considered it for a moment. “Sister,” Dahlia said, calling on the bond of the nest-mate. “You must not go through with this wedding. It will bring trouble on the nest, and … and …” Dahlia had a flash of inspiration. “It may bring the Weres out into the open before they are ready to be known,” Dahlia said, confident she was playing a trump card.
“This is a big secret,” Taffy whispered, and not even a gnat could have heard her whisper, “but in the next month, the Weres are voting at their council about that very issue.”
It had taken years of worldwide secret negotiations to pick the moment for the vampires: months of coordination, selection, and a carefully composed text that had been translated into a myriad of languages. The Weres would probably slouch in front of the television cameras with beers in their paws and dare the world to deny them citizenship.
“Then delay the wedding until then,” Dahlia urged, trying to ignore all these side issues and stick to the main point.
“Sorry, no can do,” Taffy said.
It took Dahlia a minute to grasp the meaning of Taffy’s words. “Why not?” she asked. She made her lips manufacture a smile. “I know you’re not pregnant.” Dead bodies, however animated they looked, could not produce live children.
“No, but Don’s ex is.” Taffy’s face was grim as she looked down at Dahlia’s stunned face. “We have to get hitched before she has the baby, or she can appear before the Were council and demand they reinstate her marriage. Don hasn’t had a child with anyone else, and you know how the Weres are about the purebloods reproducing with each other.”
Dahlia could not do something so gauche as gape, but she came close. “I’ve never heard of such a thing,” she said weakly.
“None of us knows much about the Were culture,” Taffy said. “Our arrogance keeps us ignorant.” The two stepped off the curb to cross the mouth of the alley. The bright lights of the bar were only half a block away.
Dahlia brightened. “I’ll kill her,” she said. There, she’d solved the problem. “Then you can hold off on your marriage, or cancel it altogether. No need to get married, right? What does this bitch look like?”
“Like this,” said a sweet voice from the shadows, and a you
ng woman leaped out, the knife in her hand glinting in the streetlight. But as fast as the Were stabbed at Taffy, Dahlia jumped to intercept it. She deflected the knife with her bare hands, but not quickly enough. It lodged between Dahlia’s ribs, and the strong Were woman began to twist the blade. Just in time, Dahlia gripped the Were’s wrist, and neatly broke it before the gesture could be completed.
The woman’s screams drew an outrush of Weres from the bar. They circled Dahlia, growling and snapping, sure that the vampire had attacked first. Dahlia herself was standing very still, trying to keep from shrieking. That would have been unseemly, in Dahlia’s opinion, and she was a vampire who lived by a code.
Taffy was so shocked that she didn’t react with the speed one expected of a vampire. Between trying to explain to her fiancé what had happened and positioning herself to slap away the hands that would have struck Dahlia, Taffy was too occupied to evaluate Dahlia’s plight. Oddly enough, it was Todd who calmed things down by silencing the crowd with a yell that was perilously close to a howl.
Into the hush he said, “Keep all humans away, first of all.” There was a flurry of activity as the few humans who’d been drawn by the ruckus were hustled off, diverted with some story that would hardly make sense when it was reconsidered.
“What happened?” Don asked Taffy. Several female Weres were kneeling on the ground around the moaning ex-wife. The Amazonian Were called, “The vamp bitch attacked Amber and broke her arm!” A chorus of growls swelled the throats of the werewolves.
Dahlia concentrated on her breathing. Though vamps healed with amazing speed, the initial injury hurt just as much as it would any other being. The blood dripped from her hands, but it was slowing. She held them out in the light, and the crowd murmured. Taffy exclaimed, “She did this for me!” and then became quite still. Her voice shaking with a very unvamplike quiver, Taffy said, “Dahlia protected me with her life. Not exactly in the bridesmaid description.”
Don was clearly conflicted between the woman on the ground (whom Dahlia could see now was what she thought of as medium pregnant), his distraught fiancée, and Dahlia.
“Dahlia, what do you say?” he asked harshly.
“I say, the fucking bitch stabbed me,” Dahlia said clearly. “And would someone please pull out this damn knife before I heal around it? I mean, just any old time will do, unless you want to moan some more over Little Miss Homicide there.” It was convenient that none of them had heard Dahlia offer to take care of Don’s ex a few moments earlier. It gave her the definite moral high ground. Pregnant women, after all, were revered by almost everyone, both supernatural and human, and Dahlia needed all the leverage she could get. Without moving, because the pain was so intense she might fall down, Dahlia scanned the ring of Weres blocking the group from the view of passersby. “Todd, would you do the honors?” she asked, biting her lips with the pain. “You might even enjoy it.”
Todd looked like there was nothing he’d enjoy less.
He bent down to look into Dahlia’s green eyes, narrowed with the effort of sustaining her dignity. “I salute your courage,” he said, and then he put one hand against her abdomen and yanked out the knife with the other.
Dahlia would have collapsed to her knees (terribly embarrassing) if the big Were hadn’t caught her.
The next few minutes were a dim blur for Dahlia. She heard Don’s stern voice, even deeper than usual, ordering Amber to tell the truth. Amber, a medium-sized blonde with a large bosom, wept copious tears and told her own jumbled version of events. In this version, she just happened to have a knife with her, in fact, ready in her hand, when Dahlia had jumped her. As to why Amber happened to be there in the first place, she whined that she’d just wanted to catch a glimpse of Don. Even the Weres didn’t believe that.
“An attack on the packmaster’s wife is an attack on the packmaster himself,” Todd said.
“Then this vampire is as much at fault for breaking Amber’s arm as Amber is for trying to kill Taffy,” said the Amazon, trying very hard not to smile. “Since Amber is Don’s wife.”
“Was Don’s wife,” the packmaster himself corrected. “Before the state and the pack, I divorced Amber. Her attack on Taffy counts as an attack against me.”
“Does not,” argued the Amazon. “You haven’t married Taffy, yet.” “Oh, for goodness’ sake,” Dahlia muttered. “Bore me to death, why don’t you.”
She felt Todd’s chest shaking, and realized he was laughing silently. The wound in her side was almost healed, but she took her time pushing away from the Were’s support. He was warm, and he smelled good.
She looked down at herself, taking stock. Her dress was ruined. Ruined! And she’d just paid off her credit card bill! “My dress,” she said sadly. “At least make her pay for my dress. Did blood get on my shoes?” She hobbled over to a streetlight and held out a foot in an attempt to survey the damage. “Yes!” she said, going from grief to outrage in an undead minute. The shoes were brand-new and had cost more than the dress. “Okay, that does it.” Her head snapped up and she glared at Don. “Amber pays for my dress and my shoes, and she doesn’t come within five miles of Taffy for a year.”
She was speaking into a chasm of silence. At the sound of her crisp voice, all conversation had ceased. Everyone was staring at her, even the whimpering Amber.
Don blinked. “Ah, that sounds fair,” he said. “Honey?”
There was another embarrassing moment when both Amber and Taffy believed this appellation referred to them and began to respond simultaneously. Don gave Amber a look of withering contempt, which prompted a fresh burst of noisy tears.
Taffy said, “That seems a very moderate sentence, to me.”
Dahlia knew from her friend’s mild tone that Taffy thought Amber should be drawn and quartered, no matter what her condition.
“Amber, do you agree?” Don asked.
“What about her paying my hospital bill? I have to get this wrist set, after all.”
“That’s stupid, even for you,” Todd said, into the general silence. “Amber, one more offense and the whole pack will abjure you.”
Dahlia didn’t know what being abjured consisted of, but the mere threat was an effective deterrent. Amber was shocked silent.
Two of the Were women loaded Amber into a car and headed off, presumably for the hospital. The rest of the crowd dispersed, leaving Todd, Dahlia, Don, and Taffy on the sidewalk.
Dahlia held up a hand to examine in the light. The slash across the palm had completely healed, and when she touched the wound in her ribs, she only felt a slight tenderness. “I’ll take my leave,” she said. She wanted to divest herself of her ruined clothes, shower, and knock back a few pints of synthetic blood before dawn.
“I’ll walk you home,” Todd said. It would be hard to say who in the little crowd was the most surprised by this statement.
“That’s not necessary,” Dahlia said, after a moment’s recovery.
“I know you can carry me over your shoulder like a sack of potatoes,” Todd said. He looked down at Dahlia. “And I’m not saying I’m happy about my packleader marrying a vamp, legal or not. But I’m gonna walk you home, unless you fly away.”
Dahlia’s brows drew together.
“After all,” he said, “I’m in charge of security for the wedding, and I’m the best man. Since you’re the maid of honor, I understand, you’ll be responsible for security on your side? We should talk.”
Dahlia turned to Don and Taffy, who were standing hand in hand, looking shell-shocked. “I will see you tomorrow night, Taffy,” the vampire said formally. “Don.” She nodded at the packleader, still not able to think of a formal pleasantry that would suit the unsuitable alliance.
The big Were and the little vampire walked side by side for a few blocks. Everyone they met stepped off the sidewalk to give them room, and the odd pair never even noticed.
“You’re quite articulate for a Were.” Dahlia’s voice was cool and steady.
“Hey, some of us have even
graduated from high school,” he said easily. “Myself, I made it through college without tearing up one single coed.”
“I shared my brother’s tutor until my parents decided that, as a girl, I didn’t need to learn any more,” Dahlia said, to her own surprise. To cover her confession, Dahlia launched into a discussion of the security measures for the wedding. The vampires would guard the doors to the mansion; the only people on the premises should be the invited guests and the catering staff.
“Are all the vampires living in the mansion invited to the wedding?” Todd asked, trying to sound casual.
“Yes,” Dahlia said, after a moment’s consideration. “We’re all nest-mates, after all.”
“How’s that work?”
“Well, we live together under Cedric’s rule, since he’s the sheriff of this area. As long as we’re nest-mates, we protect each other and come to each other’s aid.”
“And contribute to Cedric’s purse?”
“Well, yes. If we stayed in a hotel, we’d pay for lodging, so that’s fair.”
“And do his bidding?”
“Yes, that, too.”
“A lot like the pack does for the packleader.”
“I had assumed so. What part will the Weres play in security?” Dahlia asked. Todd was asking entirely too many questions.
“There should be a Were at every door, too, along with a vamp. We need to make sure that one or the other knows everyone who comes into the mansion that day. This wedding isn’t popular with anyone, vamps or Weres, and though Don is totally not worried, I am.”
“None of the vampires are worried, except me,” Dahlia confessed. They’d arrived at a side door to the huge house on a street in the heart of the haughtiest section of the city. Cedric had had centuries of savings to use in purchasing this prime piece of Rhodes real estate, and though having a vampire among them hadn’t made the wealthy neighbors happy, the city’s Freedom of Housing ordinance had reinforced the vampires’ right to live where they chose.