Depressed, I let my arm hang out the window and watched the Hollows turn from homes to businesses. The sun glinted dully on my bracelet and its distinctive pattern of links. Ivy had an anklet in the same pattern. I’d seen a few others around Cincy here and there, earning shrugs and smiles when I tried to hide mine. I knew they were probably Kisten’s way to show the world his conquests, but I wore it nevertheless. So did Ivy.
“Skimmer won’t hurt you,” Kisten said softly, and I turned to him.
“Not physically,” I agreed, relieved he was handling this as well as he was. “But you can be sure she’s going to put extra love in her petition to get Piscary out.”
He sobered at that, and quiet filled the car at the thought of what might happen if she succeeded. We’d both be up shit creek. Kisten had been Piscary’s scion, betraying the master vampire the night I’d beaten Piscary into submission. Piscary was ignoring that right now, but if he got out, I was sure he’d have a thing or two to say to his ex-scion, even if Kisten had been the one keeping Piscary’s business ventures intact, since Ivy wouldn’t, her scion status aside.
My phone rang again. Digging it out, I looked to see that it was an unfamiliar number before I set it to vibrate. I was with Kisten, and taking the call would be rude. “You aren’t mad?” I offered hesitantly, watching the emotion on his face shift from worry about his physical being to that of worry for his emotional state.
“Mad that you’re attracted to Ivy?” he said, the sun flashing over him as we crossed the bridge. My face warmed, and he pulled his hand from mine to manage the thicker traffic. “No,” he said, his eyes slightly dilating. “I love you, but Ivy … Since leaving the I.S. and you moving in with her, she’s never been happier, more stable. Besides,” he said, settling himself suggestively, “if this keeps up, I might have a chance at one hell of a threesome.”
My mouth dropped open, and I swatted him. “No way!”
“Hey,” he said, laughing, though his eyes were firmly on the traffic. “Don’t knock it until you’ve tried it.”
I crossed my arms before me and looked straight out the window. “Not going to happen, Kisten.” But when I met his eyes, I could tell he had only been teasing me. I think.
“Don’t make plans this Friday,” he said as we stopped at yet another light.
I stifled a huge smile, but inside I was singing. He remembered! “Why?” I asked, feigning ignorance.
He smiled, and I lost my battle to remain unmoved. “I’m taking you out for your birthday,” he said. “I’ve got reservations for the Carew Tower restaurant.”
“Get out!” I exclaimed, my eyes darting to the top of the building in question. “I’ve never been up there to eat.” I squirmed, gaze going distant as I started to plan. “I don’t know what to wear.”
“Something that comes off easy?” he suggested.
A horn blew behind us, and, not looking, Kisten accelerated.
“All I’ve got is stuff with lots of snaps and buckles,” I teased.
He went to say something, but his phone rang. I frowned when he reached to take it. I never took calls when we were together. Not that I got that many to begin with. But I wasn’t trying to run Cincy’s underworld for my boss either.
“Snaps and buckles?” he said as he flipped open the top. “That might work, too.” Smile fading, he said into his phone, “This is Felps.”
I settled back, feeling good just thinking about it.
“Hey, Ivy. What’s up?” Kisten said, and I straightened. Then, remembering my phone, I pulled it out and looked. Crap, I’d missed four calls. But I didn’t recognize the number.
“Right beside me,” Kisten said, glancing at me, and a flicker of concern rose. “Sure,” he added, then handed the phone to me.
Oh, God, now what? Feeling like I’d heard a shoe fall, I said, “Is it Jenks?”
“No,” Ivy’s irate voice said, and I relaxed. “It’s your Were.”
“David?” I stammered, and Kisten pulled into the driving school’s parking lot.
“He’s been trying to reach you,” Ivy said, her tone both bothered and concerned. “He says—are you ready for this?—he says he’s killing women and he doesn’t remember. Look, will you call him? He’s called here twice in the last three minutes.”
I wanted to laugh but couldn’t. The Were murder the I.S. was covering up. The demon tearing my living room apart for the focus. Shit.
“Okay,” I said softly. “Thanks.’ Bye.”
“Rachel?”
Her voice had changed. I was upset, and she knew it. I took a breath, trying to find a glimmer of calm. “Yes?”
I could tell by her hesitation that she wasn’t fooled, but she knew that whatever it was, I wasn’t running scared. Yet. “Watch yourself,” she said tightly. “Call me if you need me.”
My tension eased. It was good to have friends. “Thanks. I will.”
I hung up, glanced at Kisten’s expressive eyes waiting for an explanation, then jumped when my phone, sitting in my lap, vibrated. Taking a breath, I picked it up and looked at the number. It was David’s. I recognized it now.
“You going to take that?” Kisten asked, his hands on the wheel though we were parked.
In the next spot over, I watched a girl slam the door to her mother’s minivan. Ponytail bobbing and mouth going nonstop, she chatted as she headed to class with a friend. They disappeared past the glass doors, and the woman behind the wheel wiped at her eye and watched through her rearview mirror. Kisten leaned forward to get into my line of sight. The phone vibrated again, and a sour smile lifted the corners of my mouth as I flipped the phone open.
Somehow I didn’t think I was going to make my class.
David’s hand trembled almost imperceptibly as he accepted the glass of cold tap water. He held it to his forehead for a moment as he gathered his calm, then sipped it and set it on the solid ash coffee table before us. “Thank you,” the small man said, then put his elbows on his knees and dropped his head into his hands.
I patted his shoulder and eased farther from him on his couch. Kisten was standing next to the TV, back to us as he looked over David’s collection of Civil War sabers in a lighted, locked cabinet. The faint scent of Were tickled my nose, not unpleasant at all.
David was a wreck, and I alternated my attention between the shaken man dressed in his suit for the office and his tidy, clearly bachelor town house. It was the usual two stories, the entire complex about five to ten years old. The carpet probably hadn’t ever been replaced, and I wondered if David rented or owned.
We were in the living room. To one side past the landscaped buffer was the parking lot. To the other through the kitchen and dining area was a large common courtyard, the other apartments far enough away that it granted a measure of privacy by pure distance. The walls were thick, hence the silence, and the classy wallpaper done in browns and tans said he had decorated it himself. Owned, I decided, remembering that as a field adjustor for Were Insurance he was paid very well for getting the true story from reluctant policy owners trying to hide the reason their Christmas tree had spontaneously combusted and took out their living room.
Though his apartment was a calm spot of peace, the Were himself looked ragged. David was a loner, having the personal power and charisma of an alpha without the responsibilities. Technically