“I’m going to give you access to whatever technology you need—not that you ever asked for my permission,” he adds with a drawl. “You should look into Serena’s communications in the weeks before her disappearance. I know you already tried, but you should cross-reference it with our data. I’ll give you information about Ana’s whereabouts that might help bring more insight. And Alex will help and monitor you.” I make a face, which has him adding sternly, “You are still a Vampyre living in our territory.”
“And here I was, thinking we were firmly in the reluctant alliance stage of our marriage.” I don’t mind the supervision. It’s more that Alex appears to be as good a hacker as I am—the one area in which I allow myself to be competitive. “Okay. Thanks,” I add, a bit sullen.
He nods once. The conversation comes to a bit of a lull, which then stretches into something of an awkward silence, which means that Lowe is done with me.
I’m being dismissed.
I give one last half-loathing, half-longing glance at the peanut butter jar and stand, pushing my hands down into the pockets in my shorts. “I’ll start tonight.”
“I’ll have Mick bring you something to put on them.”
I’m confused. Then notice that his eyes are slowly traveling down my bare legs. “Ah. My feet?” I shiver, but it’s not cold. Now that I think about it, this place hasn’t been cold in days.
“And your shoulders. And your side.”
I frown. “How do you know my side hurts?”
“Professional hazard.” I tilt my head. Doesn’t he have an architecture degree? Do I look like the Leaning Tower of Pisa? “We teach young Weres to study potential enemies for weaknesses. You’ve been rubbing your rib cage.”
“Ah.” That profession.
“Do you need medical attention?”
“Nah, it’s just more burns.” I lift my shirt and let it pool right under my bra, angling slightly to show him. “My tank top was askew, and the sun managed to get . . .”
All of a sudden, his pupils are as large as the irises. Lowe abruptly turns his head in the opposite direction. The tendons of his neck stretch, and his Adam’s apple bobs. “You should leave,” he says. Gruff. Cutting.
“Oh.”
His shoulders relax. “Go take another one of your baths, Misery.” His voice is husky, but kinder.
“Right. The smell. Sorry about that.”
I’m at the bottom of the stairs when Ana comes racing down the steps, almost crashing into me. Her eyes are full of tears, and my heart clenches. “Are you okay?” I ask, but she runs past me, straight toward her brother. She’s babbling something about bad dreams and waking up scared.
“Come here, love,” he tells her, and I turn to study them. Watch him lift her into his lap, push her hair back to kiss her forehead. “It was just a nightmare, okay? Like the others.”
Ana hiccups. “Okay.”
“You still don’t remember what it was about?”
A few sniffles. “Just that Mama was there.”
Their voices lower to soft whispers, and I turn to climb the stairs. The last thing I hear is a phlegmy, “Okay, but did you cut the crusts off?” and a deep, hushed response that sounds a lot like, “Of course, love.”
CHAPTER 11
Some nights, when he’s walking past her door, he has to whisper to himself: “Keep going.”
Two things can be true at once.
For instance: I like Alex, because he’s an intelligent, pleasant young man.
And: spending time together and watching him be terrified of me sparks joy.
Just for fun, I’m tempted to contact a therapist and ask them to quantify how bad a person I am. But by the time Alex and I have been working side by side for five nights, I’ve accepted that reassuring him that I don’t plan to feast on his plasma is futile. Nothing will convince him that I’m not going to exsanguinate him. And I really shouldn’t enjoy it, but there’s something genuinely fun about watching him move around the room like a contortionist to avoid giving me his back, or about running my tongue over my fangs and feeling the clatter of the keyboard stammer to a halt. It’s usually followed by eyes scrunched shut, and low whimpers he thinks I cannot hear, and . . . The Were children who bike all the way to my bedroom window just to point at it are right. I am a monster.
And yet, I carry on. Even after overhearing Alex say, “Please, please, don’t let me die until I turn twenty-five or I get to visit the the Spy Museum, whatever comes first.” Yeah. He prays a lot.
He has no idea why his Alpha tasked him with helping me in a Where in the World Is Carmen Sandiego? errand, and to his credit, doesn’t question it. Most of our work consists of reexamining Serena’s correspondence, cross-referencing the people she had contact with in the last few months for Were connections. We gather info I couldn’t have found on my own, like that one of the CEOs she interviewed last year for a story on speculative construction owns property near the Were-Human border through a shell company. Even if most stuff leads to dead ends, I still feel closer to Serena than I have since she disappeared.
Lowe checks in for updates once a day, briefly. Father’s response to our lack of progress would be a mix of opaque threats and jabs at our intelligence, but Lowe manages to never sound pushy or disappointed, even as worry lines bracket his mouth and his shoulders strain under his shirt. Impressive, really, how civil he keeps it. Maybe it’s part of that innate pull to leadership he has. Maybe they taught him patience at Alpha school.
When I wake up on the sixth evening, Mick informs me that the Alpha has been called away on urgent pack business and brought Alex along. Without unsupervised access to technology, I once again have nothing to do. I feed. Wander around the house until the sun fully sets. Then move to the porch.
The sky is prettier here, more expansive than in either Human or Vampyre land, but I can’t put my finger on why. I’ve been chin up, studying it, for a quarter hour or so, when I hear a noise coming from the thicket.
A wolf, I think, instantly ready to retreat inside the house. But no. It’s a woman—Juno. She emerges from the trees, looking beautiful, and powerful, and naked.
Newborn-just-slithered-out-of-the-birth-canal naked.
She waves, and then unhurriedly comes to sit on the chair next to mine. “Misery.” She nods once, courteously.
“Hey.” This is fucking weird. “Just checking: You know you’re naked, right?”
“I was on a run.” The moon will fill tomorrow, and the light gleams off her glossy hair. “Does it bother you?”
Does it? “No. Does it bother you?”
She looks at me like I’m one of those Humans who think premarital sex is a ticket to hell. “I’ve been meaning to talk to you.”
“You have?” Talk to might be Were-speak for severely injure.
“To apologize.”
I tilt my head.
“You helped Ana last week. With Max.”
“Sounds like you guys were on it already.”
“True. But you . . . cared. And Ana has been through enough that she could use more people who do that.” Her full lips press together. “Lowe said you’ve been using your tech skills to help her, too.”
“Kind of.” I’d hate for her to think I’m selfless when I’m obviously not.
“I’m sorry I was so harsh with you when we first met. But Lowe is like a brother to Cal and me, which makes Ana family, too, and I was . . .”
“Worried?” I shrug. “I wouldn’t be a fan of me, either. I assumed you were being protective.”
She still looks apologetic. “She had a hard time. And it will likely only get harder as she grows up. Did Lowe tell you about Maria?”
“Maria?”
“Their mother. She was attacked by Roscoe when she criticized him over pack affairs. I don’t think he wanted to kill her, but Weres can get carried away, especially in wolf form.”
“He didn’t say, no.” But I’d gathered as much.
“I cannot begin to imagine how traumatizing it must have been for Ana, seeing her only parent be hurt by the single Were whose authority she’d been raised to never question.”
My chest is heavy. “What a piece of shit.”
Juno laughs softly. “You have no idea. He had some good years, but . . . Did Lowe tell you Roscoe felt so threatened, he sent him away?”