I was babbling, and Nick knew it. He puffed his breath out and settled back while I rummaged for them. 'A disguise sounds good,' he said. 'Thanks.'
'No prob,' I answered, bringing out a new finger stick along with a handful of amulets. I broke the safety seal and arranged four amulets on my knees. I didn't know how to treat Nick anymore. We had done well together until it fell apart, but it had been a long, lonely three months until he finally left. I was mad at him, but it was hard to stay that way. I knew it was my need to help the downtrodden, but there it was.
The silence was uncomfortable, and I pricked my finger anew. I invoked them all to make the scent of redwood blossom, then handed him the first. 'Thank you,' he said as he took it, lacing it over his head, where it fell to clink against his pain amulet. 'For everything, Ray-ray. I really owe you. What you did…I can never repay you for that.'
It was the first time we'd been alone since pulling him out of that back room, and I wasn't surprised at his words. I flashed him a blank smile then looked away, draping my amulet over my head and tucking it behind my shirt to touch my skin. 'It's okay,' I said, not wanting to talk about it. 'You saved my life; I saved yours.'
'So we're even, huh?' he said lightly.
'That's not…what I meant.' I watched Ivy spray an elaborate symbol on the hood, her hidden artistic talents making something both beautiful and surprising as she blurred the gray paint into the white of the van to look very professional. Glancing at me in question, she tossed the can to the box and went to the back to change the plate.
Nick was silent, then, 'You can Were, now?' he asked, stress wrinkles crinkling the corners of his eyes. The blue of them seemed faded somehow. 'You make a beautiful wolf.'
'Thank you.' I couldn't leave it at that, and I turned to see him miserable and alone. Damn it, why did I always fall for the underdog? 'It was a one-shot deal. I have to twist a new curse if I want to do it again. It's…not going to happen again.' I had so much black on my soul, I'd never be rid of it. I wanted to blame Nick, but I was the one who took the curse. I could have submitted to the drugs and stuck it out until someone came to rescue my ass. But no-o-o-o. I took the easy way by using a demon curse, and I was going to pay for it dearly.
His head went up and down, not knowing my thoughts but clearly glad I was talking. 'So it isn't like you're a Were now in addition to being a witch.'
I shook my head, startled when my longer hair brushed my shoulders. He knew the only way to become a Were was to be born one; he was trying to keep the conversation going.
Ivy came to the door, smelling of the fixative and wiping the gray from her fingers with a rag. 'Here,' she said, handing the old plate through. 'If you look in the console, there should be an altered registration taped to the top. Can you switch them out?'
'You bet.' Swell. Let's add falsifying legal documents to the list, I thought, but I took the Kentucky plate and screwdriver, giving her two amulets in their place. 'These are for you and Jenks. Make sure he puts it on. I don't care what he says it makes him smell like.'
Ivy's long fingers curved around them, shifting so they dangled from the cord and wouldn't effect her. 'Scent disguise? Good thinking—for you.' Showing the faintest blush of nervousness, she handed one of them back. 'I'm not wearing one.'
'Ivy,' I protested, having no clue why she'd never accept any of my spells or charms.
'They don't know what I smell like, and I'm not wearing it!' she said, and I put up a hand in surrender. Immediately her brow smoothed, and she dug in a pocket for the keys to the van, handing them to me through the window. 'I'll be right back,' she said. 'If I'm not out in four minutes, go.' I took a breath to protest, and she added, 'I mean it. Come rescue me by all means, but plan it out, don't burst in with your hair flying and in flip-flops.'
A half smile came over me. 'Four minutes,' I said, and she walked away. I watched her in the side mirror. Her shoulders were hunched and her head was down—and then she was gone.
'I've got a bad feeling about this,' I said.
'What?' Nick said softly. 'That she's walking into a trap?'
I turned to him. 'No. That she's not going to leave until it's over.'
Worry filled his eyes; he was going to say something I didn't want to hear. 'Rachel—'
'By the Turn, I'm hungry. I hope she hurries up,' I babbled.
'Rachel, please. Just listen?'
I closed the console and eased into the seat. This conversation would happen whether I wanted it to or not. Breath slipping from me, I looked at him, to find his haggard face determined.
'I didn't know you were alive,' he said, panic in his eyes. 'Al said he had you.'
'He did.'
'And you never answered your phone. I called. God knows I did.'
'It's at the bottom of the Ohio River,' I said flatly, thinking he was a wimp for not calling the church. Then I wondered if he had and Ivy simply hung up on him.
'The paper said you died in a boat explosion saving Kalamack's life.'
'I almost did,' I said, remembering waking up in Trent's limo, having passed out after I pulled the man's freaking elf-ass out of the freezing water.
Nick stretched a swollen hand across the consol between us, and I jerked out of his reach. Making a frustrated sound, he put an elbow on his closed window and looked at the nearby semi. 'Damn it, Ray-ray, I thought you were dead. I couldn't stay in Cincinnati. And now that I find you're alive, you won't even let me touch you. Do you have any idea how I mourned?'
I swallowed, the memory of the budded red rose in the jelly jar vase with the pentagram of protection on it lifting through me. My throat tightened. Why did it have to be so confusing?
'I missed you,' he said, brown eyes thick with pain. 'This isn't what I had planned.'
'Me neither,' I said, miserable. 'But you left me long before you left Cincinnati. It took me a long time to get over you lying to me about where you had been, and I'm not going back to the way things were. I don't care that it wasn't about another woman. Maybe that I could understand, but it was money. You're a thief, and you let me believe you were something else.'
Nick slumped into a defeated stillness. 'I've changed.'
I didn't want to hear this. They never changed, they simply hid it better. 'I'm seeing someone,' I said, my voice low so it wouldn't shake. 'He's there when I need him, and I'm there for him. He makes me feel good. I don't want to return to how things were, so don't ask me to. You were gone, and he—' I wiped a hand under my eye, embarrassed that they were wet. 'He was there,' I said. He helped me forget you, you bastard.
'You love him?'
'Whether I love him or not isn't relevant,' I said, hands in my lap.
'He's a vampire?' Nick asked, not moving one inch, and I nodded.
'You can't trust that,' he protested, long hands gesturing weakly. 'He's just trying to bind you to him. You know that. God, you can't be that naive! Didn't you just see what happened with your scar? With Ivy?'
I stared at him, my feelings of betrayal rising anew, both angry and frightened. 'You told me once that if I wanted to be Ivy's scion, that you would drive me back to the church and walk away. That you loved me enough to leave if it meant I would be happy.' My heart was pounding and I forced my clenched hands apart. 'Well, what's the difference, Nick?'
He bowed his head. When he looked up, his face was tight with emotion. 'I hadn't lost you then. I didn't know what you meant to me. I do now. Ray-ray, please. It's not you making decisions anymore, but vampire pheromones. You've got to get out before you make a mistake you can't walk away from!'
A movement in the mirror caught my eye. Ivy. Thank God. I reached for the door handle. 'Don't talk to me about making mistakes,' I said, grabbing my bag and getting out.
I slammed the door, glad to see Ivy for the distraction if nothing else. The van was now gray at the bottom, shading to white at the top and plastered with professional-looking decals. The cloying scent of fixative was a fading hint. Ivy was watching the nearby road as she approached, her subtle finger motions telling me to stay between the shelter of the dirty trucks.
Rocking to a halt, I crossed my arms and waited by the back bumper, lips pressed while Nick shut his door and shuffled forward. 'All clear inside?' I said brightly when Ivy joined us. 'Good. I'm starved.'
'Just a minute, I want my stuff.' Slipping past me, she yanked the driver's side door open and retrieved a rolled-down paper bag from under the front seat. She shut the door hard before pushing past Nick and pulling me
