Bex smiled, carefully close-lipped. “Ian. It’s lovely runnin’ into y’all,” she said, her voice a dainty drawl, more belle and less redneck than the rest of Erin’s locals. I wondered if her dialect was an act to lower our guard or if she was truelly southern.
Walker crossed his arms. “Can’t say the feeling’s mutual.”
I stepped around the Chevy and grimaced as pain stabbed through my hip. I’d sat on a bus for most of the day, but I knew by the click and grind of bone on bone that the little time I’d spent on my feet had been too much. Five years had passed since the stakeout I’d taken a bullet for Officer Harroway. The injury had been worth the story I’d scooped, and of course, it’d been worth saving Harroway, but I’d live with chronic arthritis for the rest of my life.
I gritted my teeth against the pain and tried not to limp the ten feet it took to reach Walker. We stood in the shining warmth of sunlight, and like a divider between us, Bex remained confined to the overpass’s shadow.
Bex cocked her head. “Won’t you introduce me to your friend?”
“She’s of no concern to—”
“DiRocco,” I said, and Walker groaned.
Bex’s eyes flicked to study my face and something, not quite recognition, but something akin to familiarity, sharpened her gaze.
“Cassidy DiRocco, night blood to Dominic Lysander, Master of New York City,” I specified. I nodded in greeting instead of offering my hand. She wouldn’t extend hers into the sunlight and I sure as hell wouldn’t extend mine into the shadows. “Great to finally meet you.”
Bex didn’t say anything for a moment. I braced myself for her attack, considering the threat she posed to Dominic, but she just stared at me, stock-still. If I didn’t know better, I’d say she was shocked. After living a few hundred human lifetimes, I’d imagine that shock was rare. I’d been an iron-clad cynic at only thirty years old; then I’d met Dominic and discovered the existence of vampires. Now, shock was normal.
“Likewise,” she said, suddenly animated again. She smiled wider, still close-lipped but lovely nonetheless. Her amiability didn’t seem forced, but I’d bet that without that strip of sunlight between us, I’d already be dead, or maimed and writhing at the least. “Your reputation precedes you.”
I smiled, but my expression certainly felt forced. “All good things, I hope.”
Walker leaned in threateningly. “Let it go, Bex.”
“You were Walker’s partner while he was in the city, is that right?” Bex asked, her glowing, unearthly eyes trained on me.
“Unofficially, yes, I suppose you could call us partners. I covered his back, and he covered mine on numerous occasions.”
Bex nodded. “I’d like to extend my gratitude. The rule of New York City’s coven is collapsing, and bless your heart, I’m grateful that my night blood had someone to rely on in my stead.”
“Your night blood?” Walker asked. His voice was low and growled from somewhere deep and ugly inside of him.
I winced from Bex’s opinion of the city. “I’m not sure ‘collapsing’ is an accurate assessment of Dominic’s rule.”
“I am.”
“You’re wrong,” I stated, and the depth of my feelings surprised me. It almost felt like loyalty. “Once Dominic survives the Leveling, the coven will once again be under his full reign.”
Walker looked at me like I’d sprouted a wholly unwelcome second head.
Bex raised her delicate, carefully sculpted eyebrows. “If he survives.”
“When,” I corrected.
“You sound so certain of Lysander’s abilities.”
“And my own,” I said, nodding. I had my issues with Dominic, but he’d saved my human life when he could have easily taken advantage of my injuries and unconsciousness to have his way and transform me into a vampire. But knowing my preference to remain human, he hadn’t. For that, despite my misgivings, he’d earned a sliver of my trust. “We’ll weather the storm.”
“We,” Bex murmured. “Your attitude is refreshing.”
I laughed. I couldn’t help my reaction. It bubbled up from my gut in a swift burst.
Bex narrowed her eyes.
I raised a hand. “I’m sorry. It’s just that not many people qualify my attitude as ‘refreshing.’ I’m usually a little too outspoken for most people’s tastes.”
Bex smiled, and this time, she let her fangs slip from between her lips. “I like the taste of you just fine.”
“That’s enough,” Walker snapped. His face was boiling red, and it took me a moment to realize that he was embarrassed, like Bex had exposed something private. “Why did you stop us?”
Her fangs were longer than any other vampire’s fangs I’d ever seen while still in human form, even longer than Dominic’s. Like a snake’s retractable bite, her fangs must slip into sockets in her lower gums. Otherwise, they couldn’t fit in her mouth.
“To say hello, of course. It’d be rude to cross paths with y’all and not acknowledge one another,” Bex said, her fangs tucked neatly away, once again the dime-a-dozen country sweetheart.
“Hello. So we’re done here then,” Walker said. He ushered me back toward the truck. “Have a good evening.”
“But now that we’re all acquainted, it’d be rude not to extend an invitation. You protected Ian with your life, and I would be remiss not to extend my gratitude to such a loyal partner. Are you free tomorrow evening for dinner?”
Walker snorted. “When was the last time you extended an invitation to Ronnie?”
Bex’s eyes shifted like two lasers to target Walker. “Bring her as well.”
Walker snapped his mouth shut. The muscles in his jaw flexed convulsively, and I wondered if he was chewing on his tongue.
I cleared my throat. “Tomorrow evening works for me.”
“No it doesn’t,” Walker growled.
I glared at him. “Then you don’t have to come.”
Walker stared at me, his eyes wide and searching, like he was desperate to find something he’d lost.
I turned to face Bex again, and she was much closer, less than two feet away. The setting sun had begun to cast a longer shadow in the five minutes while we talked, and Bex had inched along its growing path toward us. This close, even wearing her human façade, she couldn’t pass as anything but the creature she truelly was. Her skin was too flawless, her features too sculpted, and her eyes, those glowing yellow-green swirling orbs, too animal. Looking into her eyes, I knew that her brain didn’t feel like ours. She had goals and desires, but when her motivations boiled down to their core, I suspected that she and Dominic and all the rest of the vampires, although capable of love or the memories of love from their human existence, now acted primarily on instinct.
Bex lifted her hand up to my face, and I realized that the overpass angled toward me. I was centimeters shy of its shadow. She ran her fingertips down the line of sunlight between us, mere inches away, and I froze. A thin, rotting stream of twirling steam hissed from the pad of her pointer finger. I stared at that finger as it boiled, the skin beginning to bubble and ooze scant millimeters