Lord of Misrule

More beautiful than any man she’d ever seen in her entire life, ever.

Whatever he was saying, she stopped it by kissing him. A lot. And for a very long time. When he finally backed up, he didn’t go far, and this look in his eyes, this intense and overwhelming need—that was new, too.

And she liked it.

“I love you,” he said, and kissed her so hard he took her breath away. There was more to it than before— more passion, more urgency, more . . . everything. It was as if she were caught in a tide, carried away, and she thought that if she never touched the shore again, it would be good to drown like this, just swim forever in all this richness.

Red flag, some part of her screamed, come on, red flag. What are you doing?

She wished it would just shut up.

“I love you, too,” she whispered to him. Her voice was shaking, and so were her hands where they rested on his chest. Under the soft T-shirt, his muscles were tensed, and she could feel every deep breath he took. “I’d do anything for you.”

She meant it to be an invitation, but that was the thing that shocked sense back into him. He blinked. “Anything,” he repeated, and squeezed his eyes shut.

“Yeah. I’m getting that. Bad idea, Claire. Very, very bad.”

“Today?” She laughed a little wildly. “Everything’s crazy today. Why can’t we be? Just once?”

“Because I made promises,” he said. He wrapped his arms around her and pulled her close, and she felt a groan shake his whole body. “To your parents, to myself, to Michael. To you, Claire. I can’t break my word. It’s pretty much all I’ve got these days.”

“But . . . what if—”

“Don’t,” he whispered in her ear. “Please don’t. This is tough enough already.”

He kissed her again, long and sweetly, and somehow, it tasted like tears this time. Like some kind of good- bye.

“I really do love you,” he said, and smoothed away the damp streaks on her cheeks. “But I can’t do this. Not now.”

Before she could stop him, he slid out of bed, put on his shoes, and walked quickly to the door. She sat up, holding the covers close as if she were naked underneath, instead of fully clothed, and he hesitated there, one hand gripping the doorknob.

“Please stay,” she said. “Shane—”

He shook his head. “If I stay, things are going to happen. You know it, and I know it, and we just can’t do this. I know things are falling apart, but—” He hitched in a deep, painful breath. “No.”

The sound of the door softly closing behind him went through her like a knife.

Claire rolled over, wretchedly hugging the pillow that smelled of his hair, sharing the warm place in the bed where his body had been, and thought about crying herself to sleep.

And then she thought of the dawning wonder in his eyes when he’d said, I love you.

No. It was no time to be crying.

When she did finally sleep, she felt safe.

10

The next day, there was no sign of the vampires, none at all. Claire checked the portal networks, but as far as she could tell, they were down. With nothing concrete to do, she helped around the house —cleaning, straightening, running errands. Richard Morrell came around to check on them. He looked a little better for having slept, which didn’t mean he looked good, exactly.

When Eve wandered down, she looked almost as bad. She hadn’t bothered with her Goth makeup, and her black hair was down in a lank, uncombed mess. She poured Richard some coffee from the ever-brewing pot, handed it over, and said, “How’s Michael?”

Richard blew on the hot surface in the cup without looking at her. “He’s at City Hall. We moved all the vampires we still had into the jail, for safekeeping.”

Eve’s face crumpled in anguish. Shane put a hand on her shoulder, and she pulled in a damp breath and got control of herself.

“Right,” she said. “That’s probably for the best, you’re right.” She sipped from her own battered coffee mug. “What’s it like out there?” Out there meant beyond Lot Street, which remained eerily quiet.

“Not so good,” Richard said. His voice sounded hoarse and dull, as if he’d yelled all the edges off it. “About half the stores are shut down, and some of those are burned or looted. We don’t have enough police and volunteers to be everywhere. Some of the store owners armed up and are guarding their own places—I don’t like it, but it’s probably the best option until everybody settles down and sobers up. The problem isn’t everybody, but it’s a good portion of the town who’s been down and angry a long time. You heard they raided the Barfly?”

“Yeah, we heard,” Shane said.

“Well, that was just the beginning. Dolores Thompson’s place got broken into, and then they went to the warehouses and found the bonded liquor storage. Those who were inclined to deal with all this by getting drunk and mean have had a real holiday.”

“We saw the mobs,” Eve said, and glanced at Claire. “Um, about your sister—”

“Yeah, thanks for taking care of her. Trust my idiot sister to go running around in her red convertible during a riot. She’s damn lucky they didn’t kill her.”

They would have, Claire was certain of that. “I guess you’re taking her with you . . . ?”

Richard gave her a thin smile. “Not the greatest houseguest?”

Actually, Monica had been very quiet. Claire had found her curled up on the couch, wrapped in a blanket, sound asleep. She’d looked pale and tired and bruised, and much younger than Claire had ever seen her. “She’s been okay.” She shrugged. “But I’ll bet she’d rather be with her family.”

“Her family’s under protective custody downtown. My dad nearly got dragged off by a bunch of yahoos yelling about taxes or something. My mom—” Richard shook his head, as if he wanted to drive the pictures right out of his mind. “Anyway. Unless she likes four walls and a locked door, I don’t think she’s going to be very happy. And you know Monica: if she’s not happy—”

“Nobody is,” Shane finished for him. “Well, I want her out of our house. Sorry, man, but we did our duty and all. Past this point, she’d have to be a friend to keep crashing here. Which, you know, she isn’t. Ever.”

“Then I’ll take her off your hands.” Richard set the cup down and stood. “Thanks for the coffee. Seems like that’s all that’s keeping me going right now.”

“Richard . . .” Eve rose, too. “Seriously, what’s it like out there? What’s going to happen?”

“With any luck, the drunks will sober up or pass out, and those who’ve been running around looking for people to punish will get sore feet and aching muscles and go home to get some sleep.”

“Not like we’ve had a lot of luck so far, though,” Shane said.

“No,” Richard agreed. “That we haven’t. But I have to say, we can’t keep things locked down. People have to work, the schools have to open, and for that, we need something like normal life around here. So we’re working on that. Power and water’s on, phone lines are back up. TV and radio are broadcasting. I’m hoping that calms people down. We’ve got police patrols overlapping all through town, and we can be anywhere in under two minutes. One thing, though: we’re getting word that there’s bad weather in the forecast. Some kind of real big front heading toward us tonight. I’m not too happy about that, but maybe it’ll keep the crazies off the streets for a while. Even riots don’t like rain.”

“What about the university?” Claire asked. “Are they open?”

“Open and classes are running, believe it or not. We passed off some of the disturbances as role-playing in the disaster drill, and said that the looting and burning was part of the exercise. Some of them believed us.”