Moonshifted es-2

by Cassie Alexander

  “You mean there was more?”

  “Yeah. I got jumped by two weres this afternoon.” Asher moved forward on the couch, but I waved him back. “Don’t worry, Dren saved me. And who would have thought that I’d ever get to say that aloud.”

  “What the—just what are you getting into, Edie?”

  “That’s the thing. I don’t know.” I shook my head. “It’s complicated, but I don’t think I’ve pissed anyone off.”

  An eyebrow rose higher on his forehead. “Does it have to do with you being an Ambassador of the Sun?”

  “I don’t think so. But I can’t honestly say. They acted weird, Asher, the weres. When Dren arrived, it was like they woke up.”

  His frown grew deeper. “When do you have to go back to work?”

  “Tomorrow night. Which I’m actually okay with, seeing as I at least get to have tranquilizer guns there.” I stopped pacing back and forth and leaned against a desk strewn with papers.

  He cleared his throat for my attention. “Can your friend in the friend zone make a friendly suggestion?”

  “Certainly.”

  “This time. For real. Get the fuck out of town.”

  I bit my lip and looked at the hardwood floor. “I still need my job to protect Jake, Asher.”

  “He looked pretty clean to me.”

  “Yeah, he’s good at that.” I put my hands up to my head and ran them through my hair. “There’s just never any guarantee it will last.”

  “You know, some people who knew you might say your life was worth a little more than his.”

  I lifted my head up and glared at him. “Asher—”

  “You’re a nurse, you help people, you give back to the community—you pay taxes. What does he do?”

  “He’s my brother—” I protested.

  “A lot of people start off life with siblings. But when you die, you die alone.”

  I inhaled and exhaled a few times. “I’m not ready to give up on him yet.”

  “I bet. It’s fun feeling needed, until it gets you killed.”

  A large log in the fireplace broke and sizzled, as fresh wood was exposed to the heat of the flames. I turned to watch it, because it was easier than looking at him. “You sound a lot like a co-worker of mine.”

  “Whoever they are, they must be very wise.” I heard him stand, and he walked over to me, blocking my view of the fire. “I have to be what I am, Edie. I have to do what I do to survive. You—you can still get out.”

  “What would I be then? Who would I be?” The person I was before all this craziness started—I didn’t want to go back to being her. To being like everyone else. The type of girl who’d never gotten to have any adventures or know that there were vampires, or have people count on her for life and death. As much as sometimes I hated or was scared of my current job—it made me feel alive in a way that I never had before. Leaving town wouldn’t just mean giving up Jake. It would mean giving up my entire life.

  “There’s nothing wrong with normal,” Asher continued.

  I looked up at him. “Says the most abnormal man I know.”

  He gave me a bitter smile, then walked past me to sit at the chair behind his desk. “You’re welcome to stay the night here, with your friend. I’m afraid I still have some work to do.”

  Despite the fact that I’d asked for it, his dismissal hurt. “Was that what you were doing earlier at the club when I called, working?” He’d met me once upon a time at a club, after all.

  He tilted his head. “Does it matter if it was?”

  I knew he had every excuse to be out. It wasn’t like we were a thing. And for him, the more people he could touch, the more people he could be. I assumed touching people equaled power. I inhaled and shook my head. “Never mind. Thank you for your hospitality, for me and for Gina. I’ll be upstairs.” I started walking toward the stairs.

  “Are you jealous of them? The ones that I touch just to touch, just to see?” he called after me, his voice low.

  “Of course I am.” I could have denied it, but why lie? Asher and I had slipped through each other’s fingers before we’d even known why. And I was angry that he was still here when if the world was a fairer place, I shouldn’t have to be alone.

  “You can’t judge me for doing what I need to, to survive. If a wolf is a wolf, and a shark is a shark, then a shapeshifter is and will always be a shapeshifter. What do you need to survive, Nurse Spence?”

  I turned around and his head was resting on folded hands, his coffee-dark eyes watching me. The fire behind him cast a glow, making him look devilish. I knew this room was warm enough that once you took your clothes off, you wouldn’t remember how cold it was outside.

  “Don’t make me have to tell you,” I said. “Just guess.”

  Asher stood and rounded his desk. He stood in front of me for a moment, looking down, and I felt that current of electricity that you get when you’re prey, yes, but prey that can still say no. All the power to make us go forward or hold back was inside my hand.

  I reached up and touched his cheek.

  A knowing smile crept across his face. “You’re still wearing your badge.”

  “Of course I am. I’m horny, not stupid.”

  He turned and kissed my palm, and then took it in his own hand. Stepping forward, he closed the space between us and wrapped his arms around my waist. His hands were strong, like I knew they would be—it would have been easy to relax into him and let him take control. But now that we were here—I reached up and kissed him, hard. Angry. He slid his hands up my back and held me tight while I fought to be in charge, lips rough against his, trying to drink him in. It wasn’t sexy, I wasn’t trying to be sexy—I just wanted a chance to be fierce.

  My hands clawed up his chest, started undoing buttons, finding a thin cotton T-shirt on underneath his dress shirt—I yanked it up from his waistband, my mouth still locked on his. He was breathing harder, answering my mood, reaching his arms back to free himself of his shirt, lips only leaving mine for a second to pull his T-shirt off, coming back to my kiss like he was drowning and I was air. I ran my nails up his naked back, pressed my whole body against his, felt him hard inside his dress slacks, knew exactly what he would feel like hard in me, and then raked my nails down his back again at the thought. He shivered and reached between us to take off my foolish silver belt.

  There was a retching sound from the top of the stairs. Then another. And a third.

  I pulled back and thumped my head against his chest. I heard his heartbeat racing—no matter what form he was in, that was mine. I breathed in heavy, the scent of his sweat, with its undertone of vetiver.

  “Let me guess,” he said, after a long inhale. “The sound of retching is like a mating call to a wild nurse.”

  “If I leave her alone, she might puke in her hair.”

  “That’s disgusting.”

  “It was supposed to be.” I stepped back from him. Parts of my body ached with regret. He looked disheveled, like I’d mauled him, which I supposed I had. “I can’t just leave her.”

  “You can’t just leave anyone. It’s one of your biggest virtues, and one of your worst flaws.” He bent down, picked up his dress shirt from his floor, and pulled it on. “Go.”

  Unsure if he was mad at me, but sure I was doing the right thing regardless, I ran up the stairs before I could embarrass myself or screw up anything any further.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  Gina had crawled out of the tub and made it to the toilet. She was laying there, her face pressed against its side. Thank God Asher’s maid, or some personal OCD streak of his own, had left this bathroom spotless, almost sterile. I’d feel bad if I’d brought Gina to someplace strewn with pubic hairs to hurl. I flushed the toilet and turned on the air vents.

  “Why did I do this to myself?” Gina mused aloud.

  “Love?” I guessed, though I knew she was being rhetorical. I knelt beside her and stroked her hair back from her face.

  “I never should have even got
ten infected. I should have known better.”

  “Better to know now than change your mind after the moon.” I got comfortable sitting on the floor, using some towels to buffer my ankles. “Let me get this straight. You were dating a were … bear?”

  She nodded sorrowfully, her face cradled against the side of the porcelain bowl.

  “I have to ask. Were there any brightly colored insignias on his chest? Like a rainbow, or an ice cream cone?”

  “What?” she said, peering up.

  “You know. Like a Care Bear.”

  “Fuck you, Edie.” She closed her eyes, like that would make me disappear.

  “I’m just saying that if I were dating a were-bear, I would carefully check him over for any lame tattoos. Like of candy canes. Or sunshine.”

  “Fuck you and fucking were-bears.” She snorted. I thought it might have become a laugh if she hadn’t thrown up again.

  * * *

  Asher knocked politely about ten minutes later, before opening up the door. “If I’ve learned anything from watching pornography, it’s that women at slumber parties need blankets and pillows. And perhaps also empty garbage cans.” He set everything he’d brought down on the bathroom counter. “I’ll be in the bedroom down the hall. Please call me before you two start to wrestle.”

  “Will do,” I promised as he shut the door.

  “How do you know him?” Gina asked me.

  “We saw each other, once or twice.”

  “You broke up with that?” she inferred. I was saved from explaining by her having another wave of nausea.

  * * *

  My phone was ringing when I woke up. I was on Asher’s bathroom floor, stiff and store.

  “Ugh.” I pushed myself upright. Gina was still snoring, so I knew she’d survived the night. I fished for my phone—it was dark, except for a line of light coming underneath the bathroom door—and found out it was eight A.M., and it was Sike’s number on the screen. “Hello?”

  “Edie—Edie, you’re safe.” It was Anna’s voice, not an answer, a question.

  “Sometimes. Yeah.” I pushed myself to standing and opened the door to creep out into the hall. “Why? Is there something else trying to kill me I should know about?”

  “I should hope not.” Wherever Anna was, it sounded hollow in the background; her words were echoing. I thought I heard the drip of falling water. It’d be ironic if we’d both spent the night in bathrooms. “Is Gideon safe?”

  “He was when I left him.” I sank down onto the carpeting in Asher’s hallway and put my back against the wall. I was comforted by the fact that she cared about Gideon. Most vampires wouldn’t. It made me feel that I’d put my trust in the right place.

  “Good. Things are more complicated than I had feared.”

  I wanted to say, You think? But I knew that would not be well received. “Why were those weres after me? Who were they?”

  “Did Dren contact you?”

  “Yes. To extort were-blood from me.” That had better not have been part of the plan.

  Anna made a growling sound. “He was supposed to ask you for help and offer you aid.”

  “You mean getting Winter’s blood was your idea?”

  “No. His. But he did clear it through me. He didn’t say he’d threaten you for it, though.”

  I sighed. “I probably wouldn’t have helped him otherwise. Still, he could have mentioned you.”

  “I’m sorry he did not. I will speak with him as soon as I’m free.”

  “You’re trapped?”

  “Being tested.”

  “Are you passing?”

  “Of course.” The sound of dripping in the background of wherever she was continued. “I can only assume the attacks on you are because of your association with me. But it’s unlike weres to work with vampires. Most of them hate us fiercely.”

  “Maybe some vampires are using the weres to cover their tracks?”

  “Possibly. It does appear that some other Rose Throne Houses fear me.”

  “I can’t imagine why,” I said, as flatly as possible. Anna laughed. I’d only seen her slaughter a dozen members of her former Throne. She’d had every right to do it at the time, but some Rose Throne vampires were there, and all of them had long memories. “Hey,” I went on, “have you heard of a were called Viktor? Now that Deepest Snow’s leadership is changing, he’s angry. Another were I know thought my attackers might have been sent by him.”

  “No. I’ll look into it, though,” she said. “Do you have a were you can trust?”

  “Depends. Why?”

  “I need you to talk to the highest-ranking were you can find. Ask them for sanctuary.”

  “Sanctuary?”

  “Sanctuary, on my behalf. Use my name. Do it in a public place, where there’s more than one of them. Sound as official as possible. They will not be able to refuse you.”

  “Why?”

  “It’s an ancient pact from our persecuted days. If I make them responsible for your care, they have to protect you.”

  “From … themselves? Does it really work like that?”

  “It’s supposed to. You know how long it’s been since there’s been a nochnaya?” she asked me, using her original people’s phrase for what she was, a living vampire. “The time in which anyone’s asked for sanctuary’s slightly longer than that.”

  “Longer … or are you all only counting the times it was successful?”

  She snorted on the far end of the line. “Just do it, Edie. I’m not there, Dren can’t watch you during the day, and Sike won’t survive a fight with a were this close to the full moon. It’s supposed to be too humiliating for a vampire to have to ask for were-help for anyone to do it. One way in which my humanity helps me—I’m too emotionally wrapped up in your survival to care about my pride.”

  “I can’t decide if that’s comforting or not.”

  “I can’t tell you if it should be.” Behind her, I heard the sucking sound of an emptying drain.

  “Where the hell are you?” I asked her.

  “In a charnel house. I’ve spent the last three nights hung suspended in blood. The first test is always hunger.” She inhaled and exhaled deeply. “I have to sleep now, Edie. The dawn comes, and tomorrow promises to be just as long as today.”

  And what did someone say to a teenage vampire whose fate was intertwined with her own? I shrugged at Asher’s hallway wall. “Good luck, Anna.”

  “I hope not to need it.”

  The line went dead.

  * * *

  I pushed myself to standing again, stretched out my back’s kinks, and descended to the first floor. When I didn’t find Asher, I decided to give myself a tour.

  It was weird to be at his home without him in it. First, because I expected him to spring out and catch me snooping, and second, because without him, it seemed as sterile as the bathroom had the night before. With the exception of the library below, his bedroom was plain: a huge closet full of clothing—mostly nice, but there were some strange costumey pieces, a few additional tragic holiday-themed sweaters—but no photos on the walls. His bathroom was dull too, all white tile, wood, and chrome. I even looked in his medicine cabinet, but it only had extra tubes of toothpaste, not unlabeled bottles of Ativan. As I went from room to room, it looked like an open-house home, ready for show. You could put yourself into this house pretty easily. Just like last night I’d tried to put myself into Asher, via mouth-to-mouth.

  There was one locked door, but I was a little ashamed about looking through all his other things, so it didn’t bother me, much.

  I grabbed what I hoped was an extra shirt of his and rousted Gina, helping her to strip and turn on the shower. She needed it. I found a tray of bagels in his kitchen, a half-full tub of cream cheese, and a note saying Help yourself in clean block handwriting. A fresh pot of coffee, still warm, was the only thing to prove Asher’d been there.

  I was on my second bagel when Gina made it down the stairs. “God, I’m so embarrassed.” On her,
one of Asher’s shirts hung almost to her knees.

  “Don’t be. Everyone’s been there.”

  “I know. It’s just that I’m not supposed to be that person. I didn’t go to vet school for this.”

  I proffered the bagels, and she shook her head, looking a little green. “I’m just glad you called me.”

  “I didn’t mean to interrupt your date,” she said, and I stared blankly at her. “That guy who was here. This is his house, right?”

  I snorted. “The only person I slept with last night was you. I have the tile prints on my ass to prove it.”

  She made her way around the kitchen and poured herself a glass of water. “If you’re not dating him, can I have his phone number?”

  “He’s not really rebound material.” Though I would bet that Asher wouldn’t be above helping someone out with revenge sex. “He’s a shapeshifter.”

  Gina made a face. “Oh.”

  “Yeah.” The clock on the microwave said it was ten A.M. I needed to get back home. Gideon was less independent than a houseplant, and the only reason I remembered to feed Minnie was because she’d tell me to. “Gina—”

  “It’s just that they’re going to ask. That’s what sucks.” She set her glass into the sink. “I introduced him to my parents, Edie. I thought he was the one.”

  I didn’t know what to say. I didn’t think I’d ever felt like that. I’d stood on the edge of The Oneness before, and maybe peeked into the valley below, but I’d never made the final jump. I’d learned that if you thought of people as disposable, it hurt less when they disposed of you.

  But that didn’t stop me from putting an awkward arm around Gina as she slumped over Asher’s kitchen sink and cried.

  * * *

  We gathered ourselves into my car not long after she stopped crying. As I drove she narrated a tangled web of semi-plausibility. She’d told her parents she was working last night, and now she’d pretend she had car problems and had to wait for the mechanics and a tow.

  “Why’s it so complicated?”

  “I’m the baby of the family. I live with my parents. I just tell them I’m working when I go out on spend-the-night dates.”