“What. Is. That,” Lucas asked.
“Long story.” I said. “Gideon—do you want to go with her?”
“What did you do to him?” Sike asked, looking him up and down.
I ignored her. “Gideon, it’s up to you. Honest.” I knew I wanted him to want to go with her, but I wouldn’t send anyone with her who didn’t want to go. Gideon turned to look at Sike. Then he nodded.
“All right then. Would all the circus freaks in the room please follow me?” Sike held Veronica up and began pulling the woman toward my door.
“Aren’t you going to do anything about him?” I said, pointing toward my kitchen floor. My voice rose with each syllable. I was having to fight hard to keep it down.
“Not my problem. Ask your new boyfriend for help.”
“Wait—what about what—” I looked from her to Lucas, not sure how much I should confide. “What about what I texted you about?”
Sike also glanced back in Lucas’s direction. “I’ll call you later.” Then she escorted Veronica out the door. Gideon followed her, my bathrobe fluttering in the night.
I stood there, looking at a corpse in my kitchen and a bloodstain on my floor, with a man—no, werewolf—I hardly knew.
“Are you sure you don’t know him?” Lucas asked. He leaned down and tossed the corpse for his wallet and keys, like someone familiar with the chore. He pulled the man’s hoodie down so I could get a closer look.
I knelt down. “Still no idea who he is.”
“I bet you have a strong stomach—but you might want to look away,” Lucas warned. I didn’t. He reached up, put his hand into the corpse’s mouth, and yanked down on the jaw. I heard it pop as it dislocated, and then a wet snapping sound as tendons and muscles inside tore free. Once the jaw hung loose, he ran a finger along the teeth.
“What are you doing?”
“He has fillings. I don’t. Weres don’t get cavities—the moon heals all when you transform, even teeth. So he was made less than a moon ago.”
“He’s a were?”
“Was.” Lucas touched the blood and then put it up to his nose. “I can’t scent his pack, though. Which is strange.”
Dren had said as much about the women who’d been chasing me. Lucas wiped the man’s blood on his thigh. “This would have been his first moon, if he’d lived to see it.” Lucas rocked up to his feet and offered me a gore- covered hand. “This violence is fresh. If you’d left dinner any sooner, or not come out at all—” He didn’t have to finish his thought.
I looked around my kitchen. It was thrashed—not just the aftermath of a fight but completely tossed, high shelves emptied of their contents, a spout of flour from a torn bag still trickling white powder onto my floor. Lucas followed my gaze.
“He wasn’t just out to get you. Clearly, you weren’t hiding in your cabinets.” He turned toward me. “What were you hiding in here?”
“Nothing,” I said. It was even the truth.
There was a plaintive meow from my bedroom, and I ran back.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
“Minnie?”
There was another sad meow, from behind my dresser. I walked over to it and crouched down. It’d been shoved away from the wall as whoever had tossed my room had looked behind it. Minnie was back there, wedged in, hiding and unhappy.
“Oh, Minnie—” If anything had happened to her, that’d be it. I’d be through.
Lucas followed behind me and whistled from my doorway at the mess. All the drawers were out of my dresser, my underwear and bras strewn across the floor. I assumed the were had done that—and it’d been Veronica who’d taken my closet door off its hinges when she’d woken up. I scruffed Minnie and pulled her out of hiding, holding her to my chest.
Lucas pulled his cell phone out of his pocket. “You should pack. I’m calling you a cleaner.”
“A cleaner’s not going to cut this,” I said, squeezing Minnie tight.
“My pack’s cleaner. He understands. I’ll be out there, measuring your carpet.” Lucas tilted his head toward my living room and left the door.
I should have asked some questions, like
The dark wood box Anna’s knife had been in was shattered into large splinters on my floor. The knife was still in my locker at work. That was the only thing I could imagine the were had been looking for. A vampire-thing. So much for Lucas’s assertions that weres and vampires were completely distinct.
I almost tripped over Asher’s silver bracelet. I picked it up, put it on, and went for my closet door—I had an overnight bag inside.
Minnie’s cat carrier was at the top of my closet. I put her into it, grabbed enough clothing off my floor for overnight and walked out into my living room. Lucas was walking around my living room in a very precise way, sending multiple texts. I stood in the hallway, watching him pace.
“Minnie can come, right?”
“I’m not sure if Marguerite will approve.”
And this would be when I found out he had a jealous werewolf girlfriend. “Who’s that?”
“My cat.” He glanced over at my disbelieving face. “What, you think werewolves can’t have pets? Plenty of people have dogs and cats that live together.” His phone chirped, and he looked at it before nodding to me. “My cleaner will be here soon. Leave the door open for him. Of course you can bring her. Let’s go.”
All the locks on the door were busted in. I had no choice but to leave it open. Me and Minnie followed Lucas out the front door, and we all got into his truck.
“Where are we going?” I asked, once I had Minnie’s carrier settled on my lap.
“My place. Just for a while. My cleaner’s fast.” I was thinking about this, and maybe he took my silence for fear, as he continued. “You couldn’t stay there. Not with all the blood.”
“Yeah. I’d totally lose my deposit.”
He snorted. We took a turn, and Minnie growled.
“I feel awful putting her through this.” God only knew how long she’d been hiding behind my dresser.
“Doesn’t it occur to you to be mad? Your vampire friend just got you into a lot of trouble.”
“Yeah, only somehow all the things attacking me are weres.”
“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
