He tilts his head, curious and wolflike, and hums for me to continue.
“Serena was a lot of things, but computer savvy wasn’t one of them. Nothing as tragic as you”—I power through Lowe’s glare—“but if I wasn’t able to find traces of Ana while snooping around, it’s very unlikely she came across it on her own. Which means that someone must have told her, and we need to figure out who.” I shake my head, marveling for the millionth time at Ana’s existence. She’s here. She’s perfect. She’s like nothing I’ve ever conceived of before. How the fuck did Serena get embroiled with her? The theory I keep coming back to is someone pitching Ana’s story to a hungry young journalist. But the Serena I know would never, never go public with Ana’s identity. “Lowe, if it makes you uncomfortable, if you feel like this is intruding on your mother’s privacy, I’m okay with pursuing this one on my own.”
“It doesn’t. What you’re saying makes sense, and I wish I’d thought of it sooner.”
“Okay. Well, glad to have you on board. Juno did say that we make a good team.”
“And you replied that—”
“Who even remembers?” I gesture breezily, and feel my face slowly widen into a smug grin, one with fangs. He smiles back, small and warm. And then we seem to reach an impasse: I’m not sure what to say, neither is he, and the events of the last time, no, two times we were together finally catch up with us.
I’m no coward, but I don’t think I can bear it.
I’ve been wanting to be in his presence, but now I’m not sure what to do with him. So I dip my spoon in the peanut butter jar once more, just to keep busy, and stuff it in my mouth. “Well, I think I’m overdue for my nightly bath, just to avoid smelling like phlegm. After that I have a hot date with Alex, so—”
“Does phlegm smell?” he asks.
“I . . . Does it?”
“No clue. Weres don’t get colds.”
“Stop bragging.”
“Do you get colds?”
“Nope, but I’m classy about it.”
“You’d be classier if you didn’t have peanut butter on your nose.”
“Damn. Where?”
He doesn’t say, but comes forward to show me, walking into me until I’m nestled between him and the counter, and . . . am I cornered, here? By a Were? A wolf, the stuff of bogeyman tales?
Yes.
Yes, I’m cornered, and no, I’m not scared.
“Here.” His hand swipes the tip of my nose. He holds his fingertip up to show me the small clump of peanut butter. I should be wondering how it got there to begin with. What I do, instead, is lean forward and lick it off Lowe’s thumb.
I regret it instantly.
I don’t regret it at all.
I contain every pair of opposing feelings as his eyes, pupils expanding in a way mine could never, fix on my mouth in an entranced, absent way.
I should not have done it. My stomach twists in what feels like pain and something else, something sweet and hot. “Ana’s feeling much better,” I say, hoping that it’ll defuse this thick tension between us.
We’re a seesaw, Lowe and I. Constantly pushing and pulling for a precarious balance on the brink of this . . . whatever this is that we are always about to fall into. Alternating in chaos.
“She’s completely healed,” he agrees. We’re too close to be having this conversation. We’re just—really close.
“Back to her pestering self.”
He takes a small step back, barely an inch, and I almost cry with relief, or disappointment, or both. “Yeah,” he says, even though there’s no question to answer. It’s punctuation—he’s leaving. He’s about to.
“Wait,” I blurt out.
He stops. Doesn’t even ask me why I’m keeping him here, tethered to me. He knows. The atmosphere between us is too awkward and rich and lush for him not to know.
“Do you—” he starts, with a small, abortive, uncharacteristically insecure gesture of his hand, just as I say, “When did—”
We fall silent at once, letting the sentences swing between us. The silence swells, triples, and when it reaches critical mass, it bursts inside my head.
This time I’m the one moving closer. My head swims deliciously. “What’s happening? What is—this thing between us?”
“I don’t know,” he says. And then. “That was a lie. I do know.”
I know, too. My stomach is an empty, open ache. “You have a mate.”
He nods slowly. “It’s never far from my mind.”
“And I’m a Vampyre.” I have to lick my fangs to make sure that I really am one. Because my people don’t itch to touch his. It’s simply not how things go.
“You are.” His eyes are on my teeth, and yeah. He doesn’t mind them at all.
“This can’t be real, can it?”
He is silent. Like I have to work through the answer on my own, and he cannot do it for me.
“It just feels real,” I tell him. I’m heated. Glowing. I didn’t think my body was capable of these temperatures. “I’m afraid I’m misinterpreting, maybe.”
One of his hands, large and warm, curves around my waist, tentative at first, then firm, like a single touch is enough to double his greed. “It’s okay, Misery.” His thumb climbs to the back of my neck, rubbing over the fine hairs at my nape, and I shiver in his arms. “It can just be us,” he whispers.
Suddenly, I’m not sure that there’s something wrong about the fact that we’re about to kiss. It feels right, for sure. I’ve never kissed anyone before, and I like the idea of my first being special. And Lowe—Lowe is that and more.
I’m unsteady. Muddled. Off-balance. But it’s normal. Who wouldn’t be, next to someone like him, someone who’d carry them through? So I stretch on the tips of my toes, leaning into his touch, and I feel shaky.
I feel ready.
I feel happy.
I feel light-headed, as though I’m made of glass, about to shatter into pieces. My limbs have never been this heavy, and I wish I could just drop to the ground.
Yes, I think. I’ll just let myself do that.
“Misery.” The mix of worry and fear in his voice is unexpected. “Why are you so—”
Searing pain stabs throughout my body, and that’s when the world turns pitch-dark.
CHAPTER 20
Whoever did this will pay.
Slowly.
Painfully.
The next few hours are sheer, concentrated agony.
The mere act of breathing is an ordeal. My stomach hurts like it’s about to digest itself, bruised from the inside out by a thousand wild creatures who are having way too much fun carving their name in its lining with a rusty knife. There are several moments—and then a single one, long, protracted—when I’m sure, just sure, that this is the end. No living being can sustain this level of torment, and I’m going to die.
Which is just fine. Nothing can be worse than what I’m experiencing. I welcome the blissful release of nothingness and all that good shit, but just when I’m about to tip into the void, something pulls me back.
First there’s someone—okay, Lowe, yes, Lowe—giving orders. Barking orders. Growling orders. Or perhaps not Lowe, because I’ve never seen him any way but in control. He sounds desperate, which makes me want to crawl out of my corner of pain and reassure him that it’ll be okay—maybe not me, but everything else.
And yet, I’m unable to speak for eons. Many, many times I drift right up to the edge of consciousness, only to sink back into sweaty, suffocating darkness. And when I finally manage to drag my eyes open . . .
“There she is.”
Dr. Averill? I try to say, but my tongue is glued to the roof of my mouth.
I know him. The Collateral’s official physician. With diplomatic passage into Human territory, where he’d give me annual checkups to ensure that I remained healthy enough to . . . be killed if the alliance dissolved, I guess? His duties must have expanded, which is a shame, because he looks as ancient now as he did when I was ten. Except that there’s something weird about him. Is he experimenting with facial hair?
“Little Misery Lark. It’s been a while.”