sympathy in her voice? “It was just a bad dream, Cole.”
Or a vision of things to come. He leaped out of bed, intent on finding Charlene. He’d been avoiding her for three days, but he had to warn her. Make her understand. And if she didn’t understand, he—he didn’t know.
But . . . like she said, maybe she wasn’t pregnant. Maybe the situation would be salvaged. He would have to leave Mysteria, but the alternative was worse. He had no animosity toward the night mare; she had shown him a future he wanted no part of, a future he needed reminding of, and given him time to fix things.
“I’ve got to see her,” he told Rae, striding toward the door.
“Good plan, Cole. May I suggest clothes? Or at least boxers?”
“Oh. Right. Thanks again.”
“I must say, you’re the most interesting roomie I’ve ever had. Everyone else usually moves out by now.”
“Can we talk about this later, please?”
“Oh, fine, ignore the ghost, see if I care. It’s not like I have feelings or anything!” That last was almost shouted as he slammed the door on his way out. He made a mental note to make it up to her—how, exactly, does one make it up to a ghost?
A problem for later. Right now: Charlene.
Eleven
He bounded up the steps to her house and, before his fist could land on the door, it opened and he fell through the doorway.
“For a werewolf,” she observed, looking down at him, “you’re remarkably clumsy.”
“Buh,” he replied, because she was wearing a Vikings jersey and nothing else. He had never had much interest in organized sports, but he had a sudden urge to watch every Vikings game ever televised.
“You do not,” she observed, “look well. Everything all right?”
He climbed to his feet. “Sorry about barging in on you like that.” A lie, but he had to start somewhere.
“You didn’t really barge,” she pointed out, walking toward the kitchen, big hips rolling sweetly beneath the purple and white. “I heard you jogging down the lane—don’t you ever drive? We live five miles apart, you know. Then, zip! Like the Marathon Man. Is it safe? Anyway, I had the door open by the time you came up the walk.”
“Uh-huh.” It all went over his head, and who cared? He had other things to worry about. He followed her, trying not to obviously sniff. “Why are you up so late? Oh, of course. Vampire beater-upper business.”
“Ah. Yes. About that. I’m not.”
“Not pregnant?”
She froze in the midst of pouring a glass of milk for herself. “Now how would I know that already? It’s been, what? Half an hour since we did it?”
“Seventy-six hours.”
She gave him an odd look and he crept closer. He needed a really good whiff of her hair or her neck, skin on skin would be even better. In fact, best of all would be—
“Riiiiight,” she replied. “Anyway, I’m not a vampire beater-upper. I made the whole thing up.”
“The whole thing?”
“Yes.”
“You don’t have dealings with the, uh, depraved underworld of the dead?”
She shook her head. He literally didn’t know what to think: his mind was as blank as a broken TV. The enormity of the lie actually distracted him from the other problem. “But—why?”
“Why do you think? I wanted an excuse to be close to you. You picked out the one house for sale and bought it so damn fast, I had to think of something else. Something you wanted. The truth is, I wouldn’t know a vampire if he came up and slapped me in the face.”
“You’re pretty close to that now,” he said, getting pissed.
“Oh, Cole, stop it. You’d suck up your own barf before you’d hit a woman. And I’m sorry to sound like such a bitch.”
Her switches in temperament were dazzling. “What?” he managed.
“Well, it was a crummy thing to do. I’ve been just sick about it and I wanted to—you know. Get all the cards on the table, as the saying goes.”
“But—”
“Justin really is a werewolf, though,” she added anxiously, watching his face.
Justin—some strange male werewolf—was the last thing on his mind right now. “I don’t—” he began.
“I’m sure he can help you. I can’t, though. I’ve got other stuff to worry about. Stuff you can’t even dream of, so don’t bug me about it,” she added, going from truthful to contrite to defiant in about ten seconds.
He stared at her. “I knew you were lying about part of it, but I didn’t think you were lying about all of it.”
“How does it work, exactly?” she asked. “It’s not like your nose is a lie detector—I mean, it is, and obviously a pretty good one compared to most people’s equipment, but how could you know exactly what was a lie and what wasn’t?”
The irony of the woman who claimed to be able to help him find his herd asking about something as fundamental as scenting was not lost on him.
“I just assumed you were anxious about your work—I was distracted by, uh, other things.” He looked down at his hands. He should, by rights, be strangling her right now. But he had gone along with the lie, hadn’t he? To get laid. To see those fabulous breasts. To be with her. The most important quest of his life and he hadn’t asked any questions. The neighborhood was right: all muscle, no brains.
Charlene put a chubby hand over his, looked up at him earnestly, and said, oblivious of her milk mustache, “I really did have my reasons. I don’t blame you for being mmpphhh-phargle.”
She mmpphh-phargled because he tugged her into his embrace and buried his nose in her hair. Then he held her at arm’s length and almost shouted, “You’re pregnant!”
“I am?” She looked thrilled. “Noooooo. Really? You can really tell so quickly?”
“Dammit! Dammit! Dammit!”
“Yes!” She broke out of his embrace, clasped her arms around herself, and spun around in a tight circle. “I don’t suppose you can tell whether it’s a boy or a girl?”
“Charlene, this is a very serious business. You have to stop—stop dancing around your kitchen and listen to me.”
“It’s more serious than you know,” she reminded him, “but I’m listening.”
He stopped. What was there to say now? Stay or go; it was still the same choice it had always been. Only now infinitely more complicated. He didn’t handle complicated well. He tended, in fact, to handle it by leaving.
“What do you mean, more serious than you know? What’s your agenda?” he asked, stalling for time. Stay or go? Have sex with her or throttle her? No, wait. That wasn’t the question.
“I have to have a baby,” she explained. “Do you want a glass of milk?”
“No. Why?”
“I’m a mial.”
He blinked. The name meant nothing to him. “What?”
“A mial.”
“A meal?”
“Mee-
“Yes, but what is it?”
“What’s a human?” she retorted, scrubbing her fingers through her loose hair and almost glaring up at him. “What’s a werewolf, what’s a warlock, what’s a night mare? What’s a witch, what’s a dryad, what’s a vampire? What’s a fairy, a goblin, a troll? It’s just another creature sharing the planet, that’s all.”
“Yes, but what
“Oh, right. Uh. That’s a tough one to explain. We’re just—we’re just another species here. There’s about . . .
