Moonshifted(72)

“True.” His hands wrung the steering wheel. It occurred to me that a vampire couldn’t get into my place without permission, but a were could. Lucas went on. “He didn’t smell like Viktor. Which doesn’t mean Viktor’s off the hook.”

“No, it just means I don’t really know who’s attacking me,” I said. He was silent after that.

The buildings outside passed by like fence posts in the dark. After an uncomfortable silence, I spoke. “Won’t you miss your fights tonight?”

“I’ve been there every night for the past two weeks. I think I can skip one.”

* * *

Minnie’s fear had subsided to a low growl by the time we got to Lucas’s home. It was a huge, sprawling two-story—the kind of place you assumed would have a pool behind it, and it did, I realized, as we went up the driveway and around. There was a smaller home in the back, and when we got out of the truck, I realized that’s where Lucas was leading us. I picked up the carrier and my overnight bag and followed him inside.

“My uncle is—was—a contractor. The main house is his. Helen lives there now, with Fenris Jr. This one is mine.” He tossed his keys on the counter and pulled his phone out of his pocket. “I have to make some more calls. You can take the first bedroom down the hall. There’s a bathroom the next door past it, with a shower.”

I set my stuff down in the spare room, then went into the bathroom and calculated the risks of showering in a strange house with a strange man in it versus being sticky with strange blood for the rest of the night. Disgust won over sanity, and I stripped out of everything, except for my silver bracelet, and hopped into the shower stall.

The hot water made it easier to think, but it didn’t solve any of my problems. Everything I owned was torn, broken, covered in blood, or absorbed into a creepy cyborg. I still owed a vampire a new hand. Weres were attacking me, and I had a date with a vampire on New Year’s Eve night. My thoughts spiraled like the water down the drain. I lost track of time.

There was a knock on the bathroom door. “Did you drown?”

“No.”

The door opened up, and I prepared to be scared, tried to scrape together some adrenaline left over somewhere, deep down inside, but Lucas just set down extra towels on the counter and closed the door again. I turned off the shower and dried myself off—remembering that Gideon had worn my bathrobe out the door, one more thing I’d never see again—and carefully picked up all of my bloodstained clothes. I walked down the hall to the room where I’d relocated Minnie. The door to her cat carrier was open, but she still sat inside, like Lucas’s carpeting was lava.

“I know. Boy, do I know.” I dried out my hair as best I could, and thoroughly dried off my body. Then I hunted through the clean things I’d brought—sweatpants and baggy shirt. Asher’s cuff didn’t go with these, and I didn’t want to be unkind. If Lucas was going to kill me, he would have done it in the shower to keep the carpet clean. I snorted at my morbid self and put the cuff inside Minnie’s cat carrier. Then I lassoed my silver belt around my waist one more time and untucked my shirt, so I could be a little protected but not openly rude. As armored as I was going to get, I went back outside.

“Hey.”

“Hey.” Lucas stood in his kitchen, not much bigger than my own. “I made coffee. I didn’t know what else to do.”

“Thanks.” I took the mug from him. Might as well drink coffee and stay up. It was at least one thing I was good at.

“How’s Minnie?”

“Unhappy.”

“I believe that’s tonight’s theme. Cream? Sugar?”

“Both,” I said, and he handed them over one at a time. Once I’d doctored my coffee to within an inch of its life, I walked out into his living room and sat down in a chair covered in cat fur. Of course.

“How are you feeling?” he asked. He sat across from me on a couch with his own coffee mug. He was wearing a white tank top now, which made it easy to see his tattoos. The one sleeve was blurry, covered in old work, but the newer sleeve was still fresh, ornate, gorgeous. “Are you shell-shocked?”

“I’ve seen people die before. Not in my living room, but—” I shrugged, attempting to be cavalier.

“Sure you don’t want to tell me what was he looking for?” Lucas said, with his head tilted forward. His tone was casual, kind. Downright friendly.

“What does it matter, when he was a were?” I asked back.

Lucas’s eyebrows rose at this. “You make a good point.”

“How is it that there are weres you don’t know about? My vampire friend can’t make new vampires without permission from her people.” I didn’t tell him that Veronica had technically been illegal. “How does that work for weres?”