Hellforged

Juliet had seemed to be in a trance, how the creature standing next to her had attacked me. “So I know what it feels like to get jumped by one of those things. But the next day Juliet denied it all. She said I was dreaming.”

But I couldn’t have been dreaming—I knew that now, because no zombies had died. I’d been unconscious, stuck in a blank, twilit world outside my dreamscape. Why had Juliet lied?

Kane jumped up and paced before the fireplace, like the enraged wolf locked in that underground room. “Juliet’s involved, Vicky. She was seen near the site where Justice Frederickson was killed.”

“Oh, come on. Juliet, in D.C.? She never leaves Boston. It must have been someone who looks like her.”

“Surveillance cameras again, this time outside a bank. I saw the images. It was Juliet.” Contrary to some legends, vampires do show up on film. In mirrors, too. How else would my roommate manage to apply her bloodred lipstick so perfectly?

“But that still doesn’t—”

Kane held up a hand to show he wasn’t done yet. “A guy came forward and said she’d fed from him that night. The saliva sample matched Juliet’s profile.”

“You are not going to convince me that Juliet murdered a judge and tried to blame it on you.” But she’d lied to me. Even as I shook my head, I wondered just what the hell she’d been doing with those things in the living room. And I remembered something else, something Juliet had said in Creature Comforts: about how she missed the old days, when vampires could drain a body dry. Did she want to force the monsters back into hiding, just so she could kill norms again? I couldn’t believe it.

“I honestly don’t know, Vicky. She’s disappeared.”

I caught his hand and held it to make him stop pacing. “What do you mean?”

“After the third full-moon night, I was free to go back to Boston. Nobody had seen her for several days. Not Axel, not your doorman, not Councilor Hadrian.” Juliet never went more than a day or two without calling Hadrian to complain about something. If he hadn’t heard from her, that was a bad sign. “I tried calling you to see if you knew where she was, but you didn’t call back—”

A surge of anger made me fling his hand away. “So you hopped on a plane and came to Wales to see if I was harboring the fugitive who tried to frame you.” Everything made sense now. Why he’d shown up, why he’d come with us today. The hell with stopping Pryce; he probably thought we were on our way to Juliet’s hiding place. No wonder he didn’t want to explain anything in the car.

“No, Vicky. That’s not it.” He sat down again. Leaning toward me, he caught my hand between his. I tried to tug it back, but he wouldn’t let go. “You’ve got to understand. Yesterday was a real low point for me. Everything I’d worked for lay in ruins at my feet. Everything I cared about had been ripped away. I asked myself, what the hell did I care about? What was worth fighting and struggling and sacrificing for? Anything— anything at all?” He dipped his head, toying with my fingers, and was silent for a long time. When he looked up again, his gray eyes shone. “There was one thing, Vicky, just one. And that was you.”

He raised my hand and pressed his lips against the palm. His eyes never left my face. “Suddenly, it seemed very important to find you and tell you that.”

My voice wouldn’t come. I leaned my forehead against his, and we stayed that way for half a dozen heartbeats. Then he made a sound low in his throat and pulled me to him, lifting me onto his lap. He kissed me with deep hunger, lips pressing mine, tongue exploring. I leaned into him, meeting his kiss with equal hunger, as need, fathomless and intense, opened in me. He held me like he’d never get close enough. My hands traced the broad contours of his shoulders, kneaded the hard muscles of his back. Everything about him—his scent, the feel of his body, the thrill of his kisses—was familiar, but also new.

He pulled back, breathing hard. “Vicky, I know I haven’t—”

I silenced him with a kiss. Wherever we might be headed, we didn’t have to figure it out tonight. I tucked my head under his chin and nestled against him as he stroked my hair, caressed my neck. If only I could stay here, like this, for hours. Days even. Warm, safe, held. Nothing to fight, nothing to save. Just us.

But it wasn’t just us, and I couldn’t stay here any longer. Reluctantly, I stood up. Kane stood, too. He took both my hands in his.

“Mab—” I began.

“I know, and you’re right. You should be with her.” He kissed the top of my head, both eyes, my nose, and finally my mouth. Gently, but with so much promise it took my breath away. “Go on. I’ll see you in the morning.”

HIS TOUCH LINGERED ON MY SKIN AS I MOVED AROUND THE kitchen, brewing a mug of no-dreaming tea. I carried the mug downstairs to the shift room. Mab, still in wolf form, lay on the cot; Rose dozed beside her in a chair. When I touched Rose’s shoulder, she jumped. “Go home and get some sleep, Rose. I’ll sit with her.”

She wiped her face with her apron and nodded. She squeezed my shoulder, mumbled something that sounded like “good night,” and went out. I took her place in the chair.

I sipped the herbal tea and stroked Mab’s fur. She sighed in her sleep. Her ribs rose and fell under my hand. That small motion was a miracle. Beside it, everything that had gone wrong—the freed Morfran, Pryce’s escape, Kane’s fiasco in Washington, Juliet’s disappearance—seemed small and insignificant. Mab was alive. She was breathing. It was what mattered.

I watched her for a long time. When exhaustion crept up on me, I lay down on the floor near the door, out of range of the energy blast that would come if Mab shifted back. Tomorrow, I’d throw myself back into the fight. For now, my aunt and I both needed to rest.

31

“WAKE UP, CHILD.” MAB’S VOICE AND THE SMELL OF COFFEE pushed through my sleep. I lay on the shift room’s cot. Everything was backward. Mab wasn’t supposed to be sitting by the cot waiting for me to wake up—it was supposed to be the other way around.

And yet, there she was.

“Mab!” I jumped out of bed and threw my arms around her.

“Careful, you’re spilling the coffee.” Mab tutted and said she was sure she didn’t know what I was making a fuss about. But she laughed a little, too.

I stepped back, keeping my hands on her shoulders. She looked like she always did, wearing her long black dress and a blue cardigan. “So you’re all right?”

“Yes, child, I’m fine. Still weak, but nothing a few days’ rest won’t cure.”

“When—?”

“I shifted back at about three o’clock this morning, and there you were, fast asleep on the floor.” She nodded toward where I’d lain down. “I lifted you onto the cot. I had a fright because I nearly dropped you. That’s when I realized how weak I was.”

For Mab, “weak” was stronger than most norm bodybuilders. If she’d had trouble lifting my 115 pounds, she wasn’t yet recovered. Still, it was wonderful to have my aunt back.

I hugged her again, sloshing more coffee. She bore it stiffly, then patted my back— onetwothree—and gently pushed me away. I took the now-half-empty coffee mug.

Mab crossed her arms and quirked her mouth in a smile, but my head drooped as I looked at the cement floor. “Yesterday … it was my fault.”

“Nonsense. You startled me, but I should never have let my guard down. I knew better.”

“I don’t mean in the mine.” Although that was my fault, too. “I mean before, in the library. I should have warned you.” I sat down heavily on the cot.

She looked at me, waiting.

“The book told me. The message was confused, a big jumble of words. But one word came through loud and clear: death. I thought it referred to me, and I didn’t say anything because I didn’t want to worry you.” Tears brimmed. “But it was you. You’re the one who almost died.”

She batted away my words and sat beside me. “We’ve discussed this before. The book is deceptive. It tricked you the first time you opened it ten years ago, and it tricked you yesterday. If you’d tried to warn me, I suspect your