“Xhex.”
“Yup.” When nothing else came back at her, she shrugged. “What you got? Come on, I have work to—”
“You can’t be out killing our kind. Humans? Fine. Messy, but you know the drill—”
“Excuse me?” Xhex lifted her brows and leaned in a little. “What the hell are you talking about.”
“I got a call about another piece of your handiwork. I don’t need it, and neither does anyone else. You keep dropping Trez’s patrons around Caldwell and it’s going to land on Wrath’s front door. I don’t give a shit if they’re getting silly—”
“Stop right there.” Xhex put her dagger hand up. “I have no clue what you’re talking about, and you better get your facts straight before you come in here and start throwing around unsubstantiated accusations—”
“The victim’s eyes are missing.”
“So? Maybe he was an organ donor.”
“Xhex. I warned you in the spring—”
Raising her voice, she mowed over the convo. “I’m in charge of security here, not corporal justice. If someone fucks around, they’re tossed and that’s where it ends as long as they don’t go stupid on me. What happens outside this club isn’t my problem, and people can find their graves just fine without my help.”
“Please don’t do this.” Rehv shook his head. “Don’t try to lie to me.”
Okay, if this were anyone but him? Talk about losing eyes. Limbs. Internal organs…
“I’m not doing this.” She crossed her arms over her chest. “You can just read me for confirmation—”
“I would, but your grid is fracturing, so there’s nothing to fucking read, Xhex.”
She opened her mouth. Closed it.
Rehv’s voice softened. “I warned you this spring, but like you don’t know what’s happening to yourself? You need to be honest here, and not with me.”
April’s little funfest of nightmares and mental scramble came back like a bucket of chum hitting her head and dead-fishing down her entire body: She instantly remembered all those days of waking up in mid-panic, not knowing where she was or who she was with.
That fucking lab. Even after all these years, it was still with her. Then again, if someone was used as a pincushion by a bunch of humans in white coats, it was hardly the kind of thing anybody “got over.”
“I have no problem being honest,” she said. “What I don’t like is somebody crashing my party when they don’t know what the fuck they’re talking about.”
“You never followed up on that contact I gave you—”
“The fuck I didn’t. I agreed to meet the guy. I went up to Deer Mountain. I sat at that summit, in the middle of the night, and he never showed. Afterward, he never answered my messages and I haven’t heard from him again—so unless you have Dr. Phil on speed dial or any other bright ideas, will you quit making it like I’m falling apart—and, once more with feeling, I didn’t fucking kill anybody tonight.”
Rehv rubbed the top of his head, his broad hand passing over the stripe of hair. As he switched his cane from one hand to another, he looked like someone he loved was dying in front of him—and the show of emotion was so shocking, it dimmed her pissed-off a little.
“Fine,” she muttered. “I was feeling rough back then, but the mood just drifted off—and I will take this relative peace and quiet, thank you very much.” She shrugged, then glanced over her shoulder. “Ask the boys around here. Like, tonight, some a-hole was hitting on a woman in the bathroom, and I just kicked his ass out. He hadn’t crossed any physical lines with my patron, he was just a leech. And you know what? When he swung at me? I didn’t even nail him in the nuts—I’m about to give myself a tolerance sticker.”
“That’s the male who was killed. Someone saw him here in the club—and knew you kicked him out.”
“So maybe they stabbed him.” When Rehv frowned, she threw up her hands. “Look, what do you want me to say?”
They stared at each other for what felt like an eternity, the thumping backdrop of the club the soundtrack to all the tension.
“I even gave someone directions to the fucking bathroom,” she exclaimed. “I’ve turned over a new leaf, and if you don’t believe me, that’s on you. Talk to John Matthew. I’m not waking him up in the middle of the day anymore, I’m not—why am I doing this. It’s not my job to make you feel better about where I’m at.”
“But your grid—”
“Annnnnnnnnd maybe you’re reading me wrong. But like your opinion, that’s none of my business or my problem—”
“Yo, Alex? You got a sec?”
Twisting around, she’d never been so grateful for an interruption by one of her staff. “What’s up.”
Although who cared. She’d chew her own leg off to get away from this symphath intervention.
Her bouncer spoke up louder as the music changed. “Bruno’s passed out on the floor of your office with blood all over his hand, and I dunno whether we should call nine-one-one or not.”
“Coming,” she called out over the din. After the guy walked off, she looked at Rehv. “If there are dead vampires showing up in alleys, talk to the Brothers. And if they’re missing eyes? Lys is a readily available weapon, and I haven’t used mine in a couple of years. So we’re done. Thanks for stopping by and fucking my vibe.”
Rehv switched his cane back and forth again. Then he rubbed his eyes like he was tired. “I’m just worried about you. And I’m not wrong about your grid.”
She walked up to the male. “A piece of advice? Not that you want it. Go back to the training center, find your mate, and spend a little time with her, if you know what I mean. You’re teed up about this, and the concern is great, blah, blah, blah, but I’m okay. Not dwelling on my past has turned out to be a far more effective strategy than confronting it. Go figure.”
She gave him a pat on the shoulder that felt as patronizing as it no doubt came across; then she walked away. The sense that she was leaving drama behind was a relief.
The idea that the King of symphaths might be the one losing his fucking mind?
That was downright terrifying.
FOUR
THERE WERE PLUSES and minuses to everything in life. Take first-floor bedrooms, for example. Con: If someone wanted to break in, it was easier. Pro: Fire safety.
Along that easy access angle came the benefit that, if you were a wolven, who had just shifted to go out into the darkness to find your mate—only to discover that he was sitting on a log in the forest, trying to give himself even more lung cancer…
You didn’t have to go through a house the size of a football stadium, all birthday-suit naked with tears rolling down your face, to get back into your clothes after you changed back again.
As Lydia resumed her human form, her body reassembled itself in a smooth morphing that had little in common with the An American Werewolf in London or The Howling gory-style torture. The second she was back up on two legs, with nothing but bare skin to insulate her from the elements, steam wafted off of her, the body heat created by her racing retreat from the forest evaporating into the cold air. She also lost about fifty percent of her hearing and seventy-five percent of her sense of smell—but all that was incidental because she’d lost one hundred percent of her mind.