“Kappa’s pet. We had a bit of a disagreement over a phone. I lost.”
“That’s a myth from Japanese folklore, right?” she asked.
I made a sound of agreement as I gained the top of the stairs and set my bike down on the narrow landing. Caroline stepped to the side, giving me room. Her eyes were searching as they examined my face. I kept my expression neutral. It hurt when she cut me out and refused to talk to me. I'd be lying if I said there wasn't a small, petty part of me that held onto a heaping dose of anger. The rest of me understood.
She’d just been trying to do an old friend a favor, not knowing all the shit that friend was going through, and that simple act of kindness destroyed life as she knew it. I understood. I'd faced some of the same anger and played a similar blame game when I'd been turned. I didn't fault her for her reaction, but it had still hurt to be told my best friend since childhood didn't want to speak to me.
"I forgot you worked nights," Caroline said, her voice stilted.
I nodded and looked at my door and then back to her. Did I invite her in? Send her on her way? I hated this awkwardness between us.
I decided to be direct. Caroline had never been good with subtext. I doubted that had changed now that she was a werewolf. At least, I assumed she was a werewolf. I didn't really know, since Brax had stopped providing me with updates when she made it clear she wanted nothing to do with me. As the alpha of the wolves, Brax’s loyalty was to them first. It meant he did what was best for her; my feelings be damned. It was the right call, but it still stung.
"What are you doing here?"
She fiddled with a rubber band on her wrist, snapping it against her skin three times before her hands dropped to her side. Caroline had never been fidgety. Now, she looked like she was sitting on a rocket blaster of energy and barely keeping it contained.
She took a deep breath, her gaze coming up to meet mine before wandering away again as she looked anywhere but at me. Another difference from the old Caroline who could stare down even hardened criminals.
"I need your help." Her shoulders slumped as if a great weight had been added to them.
I studied her for a long moment. Caroline had never been one to ask for help, even when she so clearly needed it. It was a trait both of us shared. I fished my keys out of my pocket and turned to my door.
"Aileen, please. I have nowhere else to go."
I unlocked the door and stepped inside, holding it open. "Come in. I have a feeling that whatever this is, I'm going to need alcohol."
"You don't want to know what I need first?"
I snorted, the sound containing little in the way of humor. "You've only ever had to ask. You know that."
Her eyes softened as they held mine for the first time since I'd stepped onto the landing. She gave a small nod, stepping past me and into my home.
While the outside might suggest a drug dealer lived here—or a college student without much money—the inside was a different story. It said I cared. Sourced from garage sales and thrift stores, the furniture looked well-loved and cozy. It invited you to sit down and put your feet up after a hard day's work. It was bright and cheery and everything my life was not. It'd never be featured in a magazine—unless that magazine was Thrifter's Anonymous—but it suited my personality, which was as tattered and cobbled together as the place I called home.
"Can vampires even drink alcohol?" Caroline asked.
I propped my bike against the wall, tossed my keys onto my kitchen table—really just a catch-all table—and headed to the kitchen.
"This vampire does," I said, pulling open the fridge and reaching for a bottle of red wine. Real wine. Not the stuff I hid my blood in to prevent nosey family members from figuring out my secret.
I took another look at the bottle. At least I thought it was the real stuff. I tilted the top towards me. Yup. It was unopened. Should be safe enough.
I pulled the bottle from the fridge, grabbed some wine glasses from the upper cabinets and fished around in one of the drawers for the bottle opener. I came up empty. Those damn pixies had better not be fucking with me again. We had a deal. They didn't play pranks on me, and I didn't figure out a way to evict them from my apartment.
Ah, found it. The opener had been wedged at the very back under a pair of tongs and a mallet, neither of which I knew I owned.
Popping the cork off the bottle, I poured both of us a generous glass. I had a feeling I was going to need it for this conversation.
"So, what brings you to my part of the city? I thought for sure Brax would have you sequestered in some remote part of the wilderness for a few more months."
Caroline accepted the glass I handed her and took two big gulps of the wine. I watched her chug it before taking a small sip of mine.
"You're closer than you think," Caroline said when she had finished draining the wine. She held her glass out for more. So, it was going to be that kind of conversation. I set mine down and retrieved the bottle, pouring her an even larger portion than I had last time. "He has a piece of property down in Kentucky. Over one hundred acres of untouched land that his pack has owned for several decades. It's where they send their pups."
"Pups?"
"It's what they call the newly bitten." This time she sipped her wine.
"Ah, the vampires call the newly fanged yearlings." I started to lean against the cabinets at my back before straightening at the last minute when I remembered what I was covered in.
"Sounds better than pups. As if we're children needing to be told what to do."
Sounded familiar.
"They expected me to stay there a year. Longer if I couldn't control my wolf." She set the glass down hard. I winced as the glass stem cracked, enough that I suspected it would be going into the garbage once she was done. "I have a life. I have a career—one I worked my ass off for. Do you have any idea what it's like to deal with an entirely male teaching staff? The comments? The snide jabs at my gender or intelligence?"
I took another sip of my wine. "I may have some idea."
Being in the military meant getting used to being one of the few females in any unit I joined. For combat camera, whose specialty oftentimes demanded we go out on patrol with the infantry, it meant even less women. During a mission outside the wire, it was relatively normal to be the only American female around; sometimes for weeks.
Caroline's shoulders relaxed, and her lips loosened, some of the anger that had been brewing sliding away. "I imagine you would. I couldn't take it anymore. I needed to get back, to remind myself that everything wasn't about this." She waved her hand in the air as if to indicate everything. I could only assume she meant the supernatural detour her life had taken.