The problem of using a gift as an excuse to visit Governor Davenport is that we cannot show up empty-handed. It takes one hour in Human territory, three different antiques stores, and a whole lot of bickering before Lowe and I find a present we both consider appropriate. He nixes my choice of a vintage bicycle pump (“That’s a hookah, Misery.”). I veto his ceramic vase (“Someone’s grandpa’s in there, Lowe.”). We insult each other’s taste, first covertly, then passive-aggressively, then with unabashed contempt. When I’m about to suggest that we fight it out in the parking lot and see how well his claws hold up against my fangs, he has a momentous realization and asks, “Do you even like the governor?”
“Nope.”
“Is it possible that we’re putting too much thought into this?”
My eyes widen. “Yes.”
We slip back inside the last store and buy a mysterious ashtray shaped like a polar bear. It’s simultaneously the ugliest thing we can find and well over three hundred dollars.
“Where does the money come from, anyway?” I ask.
“What money?”
“Your money. Your seconds’ money. Your pack’s money.” I glare at him on our way back to the car, making sure no one is around. I’m wearing brown contacts, but haven’t shaved my canines in a while. Opening my mouth in public would probably get animal control called on me. “Do you work in insurance while I’m passed out during the day?”
“We rob banks.”
“You—” I stop him with a hand on his arm. “You rob banks.”
“Not blood banks, don’t get too excited.”
I pinch his left side, miffed.
“Ouch. My . . .” An elderly Human couple walks past, giving us an indulgent Young love look. “Liver?”
“Wrong side,” I whisper.
“Appendix.”
“Still wrong.”
“Gallbladder?”
“Nope.”
“Fucking Human anatomy,” he mutters. He laces his fingers with mine, pulling me in his direction.
“You’re not serious, right? About robbing?”
“No.” He opens the door for me. “A lot of Weres have jobs. Most Weres. I had a job, before . . . Before.”
Before his life became something his pack owned. “Right.”
“Most Were packs have highly organized investment portfolios. That’s where the expenses for infrastructure and the leadership roles who don’t have the time to hold other jobs come from.” He watches me slip into the passenger seat and then leans forward, one hand on the door and the other on the roof of the car. “It’s different from the financial framework of Vampyres.”
“Because our leadership positions are hereditary.”
“I’m sure that families like yours rely on estates passed on over generations, but generally, Vampyres are not as centralized. There’s fewer of you, less community culture.”
I purse my lips. “Kind of annoying, that you know more about my people than me and that you’re such a show-off about it.”
“Is it?” he drawls. He leans forward and presses a kiss against my nose. “I’ll have to do it more often.”
It’s the most fun I’ve had with someone who’s not Serena. Even more, at times. Although that might be due to the way I find him glancing at me between bouts of perusing stained glass lamps, and the fact that he silently hands me his sweater when I shiver in the AC of the store, and how when we’re alone in the car he steals a kiss that has me forgetting how to breathe, his tongue soft across my fangs until I taste a drop of blood, and then he is the one groaning, pressing his hand around my waist, telling me that he cannot wait to be home.
Home.
I try not to think about it—that the territory of his pack is most definitely not my home—but it’s difficult. I’m relieved when Governor Davenport welcomes us at his door, making a show of explicitly inviting me in. I wonder if in all their years of political dealings, my father never dispelled that specific myth for him. It’s the kind of mindfuck he’d indulge in.
“It’s so refreshing to see a Were-Vampyre union that has not yet ended in bloodshed.” Going by the smell of his blood, he’s not fully drunk, but on his way there. His house is a mix of pretty and ostentatious, and his wife is definitely not his first. Probably not his second, either. When he tells me, half paternal and half salacious, “You must have been behaving, young lady,” Lowe’s glance at me clearly asks, Would you like me to hold him down while you tear his jugular to shreds?
I sigh and mouth a Nah.
Still, Lowe’s “Thank you for having us” is accompanied by a more-than-firm handshake. The governor holds his fingers to his chest as he escorts us to a sitting room, and I tip my head down to hide my smile.
He appears to have a prurient interest in the workings of our marriage, and he’s not shy about asking. “It must be challenging. Full of arguments, I bet.”
“Not really,” I say. Lowe takes a sip of his beer.
“Disagreements, at least.”
I glance around the room. Lowe sighs.
“I cannot imagine that when topics such as the Aster come up you see eye to eye.”
“The what?” Lowe looks at me blankly. It occurs to me that the Were might remember the event by another name. One less centered on Vampyres’ blood.
“The last attempt at an arranged marriage before ours,” I explain. “Where the Weres betrayed and massacred the Vampyres.”
“Ah. The Sixth Wedding. It was an act of revenge. At least, that’s what we are taught.”
“Revenge?”
“For the Vampyre groom’s violent treatment of his Were bride during the previous marriage.”
“They don’t tell us that,” I snort. “Wonder why.”
“Are you going to argue about it?” the governor asks, like we’re his personal source of entertainment.
“No,” we say at once, giving him harsh looks.
He clears his throat bashfully. “It’s time for dinner, don’t you think?”
Lowe doesn’t have the Machiavellian, manipulative skills of Father, but he’s nonetheless crafty at guiding the conversation where it needs to go without giving too much away. The governor’s wife is mostly silent. So am I: I stare at my risotto with mushrooms, which according to Serena are different from the fungus she once got under her foot, though I can’t really recall in what way. I lazily wonder why Humans and Weres keep throwing food at me, and listen as the governor informs us that he and my father are “great friends” who’ve been meeting in Human territory about once a month to discuss business for the past decade—despite the fact that Father visited me once per year when I was the Collateral; I’d love to be shocked, but I’d rather save the energy. The governor has never been in Were territory, but has heard beautiful things and would love an invitation (which Lowe doesn’t extend). He’s also going to transition to a lobbying position once Maddie Garcia fully takes over.
Then Lowe moves the conversation to his mother. “She used to be one of Roscoe’s seconds,” he says, switching our plates once he is done with his dinner and starting the meal over. “Worked closely with the Human-Were Bureau, as a matter of fact.”
“Ah, yes. I met her once or twice.”
“Did you?”
The governor reaches for a piece of bread. “A lovely woman. Jenna, right?”
“Maria.” I hear the displeasure in Lowe’s tone, but I doubt anyone else can. “I was under the impression that most of her dealings were with someone in charge of border affairs? Thomas . . . ?”
“Thomas Jalakas?”
“That sounds right.” Lowe chews my risotto in silence. “I wonder if he remembers her.”
I tense. Until the governor says, “Sadly, he passed a while ago.”
“He did?” Lowe doesn’t act surprised. Paradoxically, it makes his reaction more believable. “How old was he?”
“Young, still.” The governor sips on his wine. Next to him, his wife plays with her napkin. “It was a terrible accident.”
“An accident? I hope my people were not involved.”