“Fine. I’ll call the bloody wanker, if you’re really that set on it. And if he double-crosses us somehow, I’ll take great pleasure in carving his Fae heart out with a rusty iron spoon.”
“That’s the spirit,” I said. “And, hey, with an apology like that, I’m sure he’ll jump at the chance to repair your friendship... or whatever you want to call it.”
“I don’t owe him a fucking apology,” Rans spat. “He owes me an apology.”
I refrained with some difficulty from rolling my eyes. “Uh-huh. That seems... totally likely to happen. Tell you what—why don’t you give him a call right now?”
As we spoke, Len’s gaze had drifted up from his meal despite himself, while Guthrie had been watching the byplay like someone watching a tennis match.
“Do I want to know the back-story, here?” Guthrie asked.
“Probably not,” Rans and I said in unison.
“I sort of figured,” Guthrie observed, with the philosophical air of someone who was sorry he’d asked in the first place.
Rans gave me a last, long look and shook his head in disgust, taking out his phone and dialing. I waited, holding my breath. As a Fae, Albigard tended to have an... unfortunate effect on electronics in his immediate area. For this reason, he didn’t have a cell phone—only an old rotary landline with a remote voicemail service. Getting hold of him was, therefore, hit or miss.
After long enough that I was starting to think we’d be out of luck tonight, Rans straightened. He listened for a moment, and a furrow of irritation formed between his brows.
“I know perfectly well whose damned residence it is,” he said. “Find your liege lord and tell him that if he calls me within the hour, I won’t put a sword through his heart the next time I see him.”
With that, he hung up.
“Wow, lover,” I said, feigning an impressed tone. “Diplomacy for the win. Never let it be said you don’t know how to lay on the charm when it’s required.”
Len pushed away from the kitchen island and picked up the empty plates. “Right, so I think this might be my cue to get on out of your hair. Thanks for the food, anyway—and, y’know, for the fresh helping of existential dread.” He deposited the dishes in the sink and gave them a quick rinse. “Z, it sounds like you’ll be out of St. Louis soon, but—”
He turned and I let out a surprised gasp. “Len, you’re bleeding. Your nose...”
Len frowned and lifted a hand to his face, looking down at it in surprise when it came away smeared with red. “Oh. Um, not to worry. Just a little nosebleed.”
He reached for the roll of paper towels next to the sink and tore off a couple with his free hand. Some inner sense made me whirl toward Guthrie, perhaps in response to a small noise or movement in my peripheral vision; I wasn’t sure.
Whatever the case, I found Guthrie staring fixedly at Len’s profile, his nostrils flared and his eyes glowing with a predatory inner light. His lips pulled back in a snarl, revealing viciously pointed fangs.
SIX
I DREW BREATH to cry out a warning at the same instant Guthrie sprang. Without thinking, I hurled myself into his path, blocking his access to Len. Before I could brace for impact or even properly start to second-guess my life choices, another figure was between us, moving too fast for my eye to follow.
Rans shoved Guthrie backward by the chest, driving his shoulders into the front of the refrigerator. The heavy appliance screeched backward an inch or two along the tile floor until it hit the wall, the stainless steel door denting under the impact of Guthrie’s body.
“Don’t,” Rans said in a hard tone of warning. “Keep your head in the game, mate. You and I are going to go get you a nice blood bag now, and I don’t think you really want me hauling you there by the scruff of the neck. Which I absolutely will in about three seconds, if I don’t see you exercising some control.”
“Let me go,” Guthrie snarled, his attention still focused more on Len and me than on the vampire currently pinning him to a kitchen appliance.
“Guthrie,” I begged softly, aching at the knowledge of how much the soft-spoken man would hate what was happening to him right now. I kept my arms splayed, caging Len behind my smaller frame.
Guthrie blinked twice. Deep brown replaced the predatory glow behind his irises, and suddenly he was cringing back in Rans’ grip rather than leaning into it. “Shit,” he breathed. “Shit, shit.”
Rans unclamped the fingers that had been fisted in his friend’s shirt and spoke to us without looking. “Right. Sorry about that, you two. Crisis averted. We’re just going to take a quick trip to the wet bar’s fridge, where the blood is stashed. Back in a mo’.”
With a grip on his arm that now appeared more supporting than restraining, he chivvied Guthrie’s unresisting form out of the room, leaving behind a silence that was very nearly deafening. Eventually, Len broke it.
“Um...”
I wrenched myself free of adrenaline paralysis and turned around, backing off a few steps to give Len some space. He’d frozen, the paper towels gripped in one hand. Blood was still trickling from his right nostril, dripping onto his black Social Distortion t-shirt. Following my gaze, he seemed to shake himself out of his fugue, and lifted the paper towels to his nose, pinching it.
I sighed, trying to drain some of the tension from my own muscles. “So, you know how I said Guthrie had just recently been turned into a vampire? I... didn’t really mention how recently. He’s still a bit, what’s
