I scratch the back of my head. “Do they think we . . . ?”
“No. We made that clear, too.”
“So they know that I’m your mate but we’re not together?”
“Correct.”
“And doesn’t it bother you?”
“Why would it?”
“I don’t know. Just . . . big bad Alpha. Everyone’s boss. I thought you might want to . . .”
“Spare myself the humiliation of having been rejected?” He huffs a laugh. “Serena, there are much worse things than that.”
Are there? I’m not so sure. The good and the bad of my life correlate strongly with feelings of being wanted- or not. But Koen is not a Human orphan, let alone one whose claim to fame is being useless in therapy because of an overgrown case of infantile amnesia.
Like me, or don’t. I really couldn’t care less.
God, how many times do I have to make him tell me before I turn it into a long-term memory? “I’m sorry. I don’t know why I asked. I’m just tired.”
“Right. If only you had a bed to sleep in.”
His sarcasm is a jolt of electricity. “I hate you,” I say mildly.
“You need me to check the closet for monsters?”
“Nope.” I already know where those are.
“Glass of water? Brush your hair one hundred strokes? The fucking chamber pot?”
I let out a small laugh and shake my head, and before I can force my “Good night” upon him, Koen is gone.
My heart feels cavern hollow. I ignore it, spend five minutes punching my pillows into shape, and fall into a deep sleep.
IT STARTS LIKE IT ALWAYS DOES. THAT IS TO SAY, NICELY ENOUGH.
I wonder how universal a truth it is that the closer to the end we get, the more mundane our oneiric activities become.
Mine used to be ridiculous, equally fun and horrifying, but lately they’re about only one thing: sex.
It just seems so . . . unambitious. I could be dreaming of castles, or deer with Jell- O antlers, or pizza pies in the sky. Instead, it’s all work-rough palms wrapped around my kneecap, and bare, sweat-slick skin. Outdoor scents. Sticky, dripping, hazy warmth. Bites into unyielding muscles. Rolling murmurs, whispers of something dark and good I can never make out, and laughter pressing into my throat. Red cheeks, a hot olive flush, heavy, lingering touches, aches that don’t hurt. Twitches of pleasure, a white-knuckled grip, the pulse of something hungry and needy. A hitch of breath. A sharp inhale. Low bass, vibrating through me. A quiet exhale. Hard and soft, muted swallows, a sloppy, lazy rhythm.
It’s not even sex. At least, not as far as I can tell. Just the components of it, the pieces and not the whole, cluttering my mind, taking up every corner. Like I said, it’s nice enough- until I wake up.
An agonized moan slips out of my throat, and I press my palm to my mouth.
I don’t waste time. I know by now that hoping for the rippling pain to subside is no use. My temperature would spike even higher, and the heat would probably kill me. Fisting the edge of the mattress, I manage to roll out of bed and crawl to the bathroom. Once I’m a heap of perspiration and tears and shivers on the soft shower mat, that’s when the fun starts.
Some nights, I only deal with the fever. Others- more and more frequent- my stomach demands its due. Luckily, when the first bout pours out of me, I’m standing right by the toilet bowl. It smells like acid and sickness and rot, and I gag even more, but once that’s done, the pain recedes long enough for me to catch my breath.
So I focus on the real issue: I’m about to burst into flames.
It could be an exaggeration- or not. Will my organs melt out of my orifices if I skip the next step? It sure feels like it. So I elbow myself into the bathtub and flick on the cold water.
The first cool splash against my sizzling skin always has me sighing in relief, but it’s ludicrously short-lived. It’ll get better, though. Once I’m neck deep, I’ll stop feeling like a small, violent mammal has crawled inside my abdomen and is gnawing at my flesh while breathing fire. For now, though, my heart hammers against my rib cage, my body arches and contracts, and I swallow the pain of a hundred bones crumbling.
And since it’s all I can do, I sit, bury my face in my knees, and wait.
She calls him out of the blue. He hasn’t saved her number, but it’s etched into the hidden layers of his skin. “I need a favor.”
“A favor. And am I- ” He stops and briefly covers the phone’s mic with his palm to tell Jorma that yes, he did sign whatever the hell was on his desk this morning. “Am I your favor guy, now?”
“Um. Do you want to be?”
“No. I don’t like doing nice things for people.”
Her low laugh makes his body do things. “The thing is . . . when Ana was being targeted, Lowe said you hid her.”
“I did.”
She wets her lips. He can hear it. “He said that the Northwest is the best place to disappear.”
A pause. “Is anyone after you?”
“No, no. Nothing like that. It’s more like . . . I really need a break.”
Two months earlier
Southwest territory
KINDA DISAPPOINTING, HOW LITTLE DIFFERENCE THERE IS BETWEEN Human and Were physicians’ offices.
I probably should have known. When I asked Lowe if the Southwest had a, um, holistic healer I could see, or something, he looked at me with his resting
I must have drop- kicked a lot of puppies in my past life to deserve this face, and said,
We do. We call them doctors. They have degrees and such.
Clearly,
I’m the problem here. The first time Misery brought me into Vampyre territory, I expected capes with standing collars, scarlet velvet, a menagerie of aloof Mexican free-tailed bats. Instead, I found commercial buildings and suit-wearing finance bros who crowded the elevators and screamed into their phones as though their lives depended on cryptocurrency. Even Owen, Misery’s twin, was less like a demonic scion of darkness and more of a lost, indolent fuckboy with daddy issues.
Then again, my impression of him might be influenced by the fact that he hit on me relentlessly, from the moment I entered the Nest till the second I stepped out. I never told Misery, and I’ll bring this to my shallow grave.
Very soon, apparently.
Dr. Henshaw’s office, tragically, is a new addition in a long line of unmet expectations. The plaque on the door followed by a whole-ass MD? The lack of evolution vector concept art in which an
Australopithecus transitions to Human and then to wolf? Zero terrifying forceps? Disinfectant wipes that smell exactly like the ones I used for my apartment?
As I said: disappointing. The setting and the news.
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