Bride

He is not reckless, or negligent, or quick to trust. But he recognizes a formidable ally when he sees one.

Many rooms in the house would be perfectly adequate for a discreet conversation, but we find ourselves sitting at the kitchen table, a mug of black coffee in front of Lowe, steadily steaming as the sun outside struggles to rise.

My night was sleepless, like most. His, too, going by the dark shadows under his eyes. His face is etched, as carvingly beautiful as usual. He hasn’t shaved in a while, and it’s clear that he could use some rest and a two-week stretch without a coup.

I have the sneaking suspicion he’s not going to get either.

“I couldn’t figure out why you’d accepted,” he tells me between sips, almost conversationally. Every other interaction we’ve had has been fraught with tension, on the heels of him catching me in compromising situations. Now . . . We’re not fast friends, but I wonder if this is Lowe when his energies are not fully focused on trying to protect his pack. A steady, reassuring, bulky presence. His mouth even twitched into an almost smile when he saw me make my way down the stairs, as he gestured for me to take a seat across from him. “Why you’d do it again.”

“You thought I had a martyrdom complex?” I hug my legs to my chest, watching his lips as they close around the rim of his mug. “I have no allegiance to the Vampyres. Or the Humans, with a single exception. And I’m going to find her.”

He sets the mug on the table, and asks, bluntly: “You’re sure she is alive?”

“I hope she is.” My heart twists. “If she isn’t, I still need to know what happened to her.” If I don’t, no one else will think of her again. No one else will even know her name aside from a handful of orphans who bullied her for being cross-eyed, colleagues who never got her sense of humor, people she dated but felt tepid about. It’s not acceptable. “She’d do the same for me.”

Lowe nods without hesitation. Loyalty, I suspect, is a painfully familiar concept to him. “Do you know what article she was writing? What prompted her interest in Ana?”

“No. She usually talked about the stories she was working on, at least in passing. And she covered financial stuff.”

“Crimes?”

“Sometimes. Mostly market analysis. Her degree was in economics.”

Lowe taps his finger on the edge of the table, mulling. “Anything on Were-Human, or Vampyre-Human relationships?”

“She’d grown up as the Collateral’s baby companion. She wasn’t touching that shit with a ten-foot pole.”

“Smart.” He stands, goes to the no-blood fridge. His broad shoulders shrink the kitchen as he gathers a few items that he carries back to the table. A jar of peanut butter that has my most nefarious interests perk up. Sliced bread. Some kind of berry jelly that just stumps me.

Serena loved berries, and I tried memorizing their names, but they’re so counterintuitive. Blueberries? Not blue. Blackberries? Not black. Strawberries? Straw free. Raspberries? Do not rasp, or make any noise at all. I could go on.

“I want to have a look at her communications prior to disappearing. You still have access to them?”

“I do. And have inspected them—no clues.”

He takes out two slices of bread. His forearms are strong, large muscles interrupted by the occasional white scar. “If Were business is involved, you might not know what you’re looking for. I’ll have you talk with Alex and hand them over to—”

“Hey.” I shift and tuck my legs under me. “I’m not turning over anything until you tell me what you would be looking for.”

His eyebrow lifts. “You’re not in a negotiating position, Misery.”

“Neither are you.”

The eyebrow lifts higher.

“Okay, maybe more than I am. But if we’re doing this, I need to know what’s in it for you, because I highly doubt you suddenly care about my random Human friend enough to help me find her.”

He’s good at staring, staring with those arctic eyes without saying anything, and I squirm in my chair, heated. How does this guy make someone with a basal temperature of ninety-four degrees and next to no sweat glands feel clammy?

“It’s about Ana, right? You think Serena was looking for Ana.”

More staring. Mistral, with a hint of assessment.

“Listen, it’s obvious that you want to figure out why a Human knew of your sister’s existence. And I’m not asking you to trust me—”

“I think I will, though,” he finally says, decisive. And then starts spreading peanut butter on the bread, like he’s settled an important matter and now needs a snack.

“You will . . . ?”

“Trust you.”

“I don’t get it.”

“No.” His expression is not tender, but approaching. Kind. Amused, for sure. “I reckon you wouldn’t.”

“I was just proposing we trade information.”

“And you could do many horrible things with the information I’m about to give you. But you’ve been in Ana’s shoes before. And you’re hurt because you ran to help her when the sun hadn’t set yet.” Lowe points at the reddened skin of my right arm and hands me an ice pack.

He must have retrieved it earlier from the freezer. And it feels really, really good.

“Misguided as you were, I doubt you’d throw Ana under the bus.”

“No more misguided than using her as bait. Nice parenting there, by the way,” I add, a bit archly.

“There were eight Weres monitoring the situation,” he says, unoffended. “And a tracker in her suit. Max had no vehicle at his disposal, so we knew he was going to attempt to hand off Ana to someone else. She was never in any real danger.”

“Sure.” I shrug, pretending I don’t care. “And children are soft and adaptable and make for perfect pawns in the power plays of great leaders, right?”

“I can only protect Ana if I know where the threats against her are coming from.” He leans forward across the table. The scent of his blood is like a wave lapping at my skin. “I’m not like your father, Misery.”

My throat is suddenly dry. “Well, you’re wrong. I would throw Ana under the bus, if I had to choose between her and Serena.” I have priorities, very little heart, and find no pleasure in being deceitful when others are being honest with me. Ana might be growing on me, but she wasn’t the one who slept next to me for a whole week when I was fourteen and gave myself seizures by trying to file off my fangs for the first time. With a cheese grater.

“Yeah?” He doesn’t sound like he believes me. “Hopefully it won’t come to that.”

“I don’t think it will,” I agree. “And it makes sense for us to collaborate. As Ana’s brother and Serena’s sister.”

His eyes meet mine, serious and unsettling. “Not as husband and wife?”

Because we’re that, too, even if it’s disturbingly easy to forget. I glance away, landing on a dollop of peanut butter on the rim of the jar. It’s the variety without the crunchy bits, which . . . yeah.

I set down my ice pack and lean back in my chair, as far away from it as possible.

“She’ll be seven next month, by the way,” he tells me. “She’s just better at lying with words than with her fingers.”

“Are her parents . . . Where are they?”

There is an infinitesimal stutter in his movement, and he sets down the jelly jar. “Mother’s dead. Father’s somewhere in Human territory.”

“There are Weres in Human territory?”

Lowe’s jaw tenses. “This, Misery, is where I’m taking a leap of faith.”

My heart goes wooden. A memory flashes: my first day alone among the Humans, after Father and Vania and the rest of the Vampyre convoy had left. The terrifying smell of their blood, their odd sounds, the weird beings crowding around me. Knowing I was the only member of my species for miles and miles. I don’t want it for her. I don’t want it for anyone. “Is Ana Human? A Collateral?”

He shakes his head. I’m flooded with relief. “Okay. She’s Were. Then why—” I stop.

Because Lowe shakes his head again.

I know what Vampyres smell like, what their needs and limitations are. And Ana is not one of us. Which leaves one single other possibility.

“No,” I say.

Lowe says nothing. His knife clinks against the side of the plate, and he crosses his arms on his chest. His expression remains anchored in a way that makes me utterly unhinged.

“It’s not possible. They . . . No. Not both.” Why is he silent? Why is he not correcting me? “Genetically, it’s not . . . Is it?”

“Apparently.”

“How?” There are so many levels of impossibility here. That a Human and a Were would even want to engage in what’s necessary to produce a child. That it would work, physically. That it would have consequences. Weres may not struggle as much as Vampyres, but their reproductive rates are still lower than Humans’.

I shoot to my feet in a spurt of nervous, incredulous energy. Immediately sit down again when my abused soles protest. “But she’s related to you, isn’t she? The eyes . . .”

“My mother’s eyes.” He nods. “She was one of Roscoe’s seconds. Overseeing the woods between Were and Human territories. Officially, under Roscoe’s rule there were no diplomatic relationships. In practice, very limited agreements with Humans were constantly being negotiated, especially in high-conflict areas. I believe that’s how she first met Ana’s father, but I wasn’t around at the time.” He sounds regretful, and I remember the pretty house drawings. The only locked space in his room.

“He’s not your father, is he?”

“My father was a Were, and he died when I was a child.”

I’m not going to ask if my people were involved in that, because I’m sure I know the answer. “Why are you telling me this?”

He is silent for a while, eyes downcast. It’s not until I follow his gaze that I realize he’s staring at our wedding band on his ring finger. “You know what makes Alphas good leaders?” he asks without looking up.

“No clue.”

He huffs out a laugh. “Neither do I. But at times, there are decisions that feel right, deep in the marrow of my bones.” He wets his lips. “You are one of them.”

Blood rushes to my cheeks, hot. There’s no way Lowe misses it, which is mortifying. I’m just grateful that he chooses to continue without mentioning it.

“I was living in Europe when my mother was injured, but immediately flew back. When it became obvious that she might not make a recovery, she told me about Ana’s biological father.”

“Her Human biological father.” Inconceivable.

“I thought she was delirious because of the drugs. Or just mistaken.”

I tilt my head. “What changed?”

“There are things about Ana. Things that had me taking what my mother said as more than some morphine-induced delusion.”

“Like what?”

“For one, Ana doesn’t shift.”

“Oh. Should she, already?”

“A Were child would. In fact, during the full moon, they’d have trouble not shifting. Her blood is a deep red instead of green. At the same time, she has Were traits. She’s more agile, stronger than a Human. Her vitals are all over the place. After my mother passed, and very discreetly, I had her DNA tested. Juno is a geneticist, and she was able to help.” He picks up the knife again, slathers more jelly. The peanut butter jar is still there. Open. “At the time, Roscoe was the Alpha; it was easy to predict what he’d do if he found out that he had a half Human in his pack.”

“Roscoe was not a fan, huh?”

He gives me an understatement-of-the-decade look.

“And, she was the sister of the dude who smelled like he was gonna steal his job,” I murmur without thinking. I notice Lowe’s surprise. “What? I know things.”

“Roscoe was never a peaceful Alpha, but in the past few years, his positions gradually escalated to extreme aggression. He demanded control of certain demilitarized zones, and began enforcing zero-tolerance policies. We killed more Humans and Vampyres in the last decade than we did in the previous five—and they killed more of us. That’s when several of his seconds began to openly disagree with him. Their dissent was met with another ramp-up of violence. This time last year, more Weres were dying at the hands of other Weres than any other species. My mother was one of them.” His lips press together. “I came home, challenged Roscoe, and won. His four most loyal seconds challenged me, and I won again. There were others, weaker and weaker, and it felt so wasteful to . . .” He rubs his jaw with his palm. His thinking gesture, I’m starting to realize. “It was my mistake. I shouldn’t have let them live.”

I study him, wondering if he ever wanted to be Alpha in the first place. Wondering how I’d feel, leading thousands of people without feeling a true calling to it. At least Father thrives on the high-stakes life of politics, and subterfuge, and petty pissing matches against the other councilmen.

“Let me guess: the ones you defeated but left alive rebranded themselves as the Loyals and have been radicalizing young Maxes like it’s their birthday.”

He nods. “It’s a small group, but they’re willing to stoop much lower than I can afford to. And they have the blessing and leadership of Emery, Roscoe’s mate. She denies it, of course, and she’s a smart-enough player to avoid having the recent attacks traced back to her, but we have intel.”

“If it were me, I’d borrow a page from their beloved Roscoe and deal with dissent his way.”

His mouth curves infinitesimally, like he’s tempted to do just that, and I smile, too. Our eyes hold for a beat before he continues: “Ana doesn’t know who her real father is.”

“Who does she think . . . ?”

“Vincent. He was another of Roscoe’s seconds, and he and my mother were in an on-and-off relationship for years. He was attacked in Vampyre territory, when Ana was about one year old. The rest of the pack are also under the impression, heavily encouraged by my mother, that Ana is Vincent’s kid.”

“How are you explaining away the not shifting bit?”

“It’s not widely known, and there are other conditions that could cause it, including a psychological block. They are rare, but . . .”

“Not as rare as a half-Human Were. Who else knows?”

“Juno and Cal, because we grew up together and they’re family. Mick, too. He was one of Roscoe’s seconds, the only person my mother could rely on when I was gone. Aside from that, my mother told no one. But I’m starting to question that. I can only imagine Serena being interested in Ana . . .”

“. . . because she’s half Human. And if Serena knows . . .”

“. . . there’s no telling who else does,” he finishes.

I drum my fingers on the table, thinking this through. “Max didn’t say anything useful about the Loyals?”

“He doesn’t know much, aside from the names of a few low-level members. The Loyals recruited him because he has ties to some of my seconds and easy access to Ana, but they didn’t trust him enough to reveal anything. He didn’t know who he was going to hand Ana to.”

“Do you think the Loyals know about Ana?”

A thoughtful pause. “It’s a possibility. But it’s more likely that they’re using my only living relative to force me to listen to their demands. They know I’m the rightful Alpha, and that no one could take me in the challenge.” He sounds more resigned than proud. “It’s not a well-thought-out plan on their part, but they are desperate. And damn annoying.” He massages the bridge of his nose.

“Can’t they just secede and form their own pack?”

“They’re very welcome to do so, and they’d make my fucking life much easier. But they don’t have the resources or the necessary leadership to do it. What they want is control of the financial assets of the Southwest pack. Emery comes from a long line of powerful Weres, and she sees it as her due. But for the past few months, the Loyals have been sabotaging construction projects, destroying infrastructure, assaulting my seconds. No one who’d resort to that should be in control of the largest pack in the country.”

“Or of a chicken coop, if you ask me.” I bite my lower lip, mulling it over. “Who is Ana’s father?”

“My mother never told me. My impression is that he already had a family, and that when she attempted to mention Ana to him, he . . .”

“Didn’t believe her?”

“Yeah.”

“Can’t blame him. So, going back to Serena. Aside from you, only Juno, Cal, and Mick know about Ana. Could any of them . . . ?” I give him a long, pregnant look that will hopefully tell him what I’m not planning to voice.

He shakes his head and starts cutting the sandwich out of its crusts. I follow the rhythm, mesmerized by his graceful hands, and recall that this is something Serena used to prefer for her food when we were . . . younger than Lowe, for sure. I would not have thought a big bad wolf would be this picky.

“Not to be a discord sower, and I promise this is only marginally related to Juno’s hankering for carving my organs out, but maybe you should investigate the possibility that one of them tattled you out.”

“I did. Despite them having risked their lives for me a dozen times over.” He says it angrily, like it was sour and painful, something he’s ashamed of, and a thought hits me: that maybe Lowe is the kind of leader who measures his strength not by the battles he wins, but by the trust he is able to accord to others. There is something about him, about the way he commands, that manages to be at once pragmatic and idealistic.

He sets the crusts aside and leans his palms on the table once more, leveling with me. “I asked. They’re not involved, and they haven’t told anyone.”

“Okay, yes, but. There is this thing people sometimes do, which you guys may not have a term for. The Vampyres call it lying.”

His look is withering. “I’d be able to tell if they were betraying me.”

“Is this the smell-a-lie thing? Does it really work?”

This time he’s less impressed by my knowledge of Were secrets. Perhaps because they aren’t secrets at all. “Not always. But scent changes with feelings. And feelings change with behavior.”

I scowl. “I still can’t believe you knew Max was lying all along and still put a guard on me.”

“I put a guard on you for your safety.”

“Oh.” He did? I had not considered that. It takes a long second for my assessment of the last five days to adjust, and . . . Oh, indeed. “I can take care of myself.”

“Against a young Were with no combat training, yes. Against someone like me, doubtful.”

I could scoff and be offended, but I like to think that I know my limits. “Does it build up?”

“What?”

“The odor. Just wondering if that’s why I smell like fish soup to you. Have I lied too much in my life?”

It’s a genuine question, but Lowe sighs deeply and leaves me hanging. He puts the food back in the fridge, with one glaring exception: the peanut butter. My gluttonous brain must be strained by the biological possibility of Were-Humans, because it dispatches my hand to scoop up a little glob from the rim, right to my lips, and it’s been so long, it’s so fucking good—

“What the hell?”

I open my eyes. Lowe stares curiously at the way I’m suckling on my index finger.

“Did you just eat?”

“No.” I flush, mortified. “No,” I repeat, but the peanut butter sticks to the roof of my mouth, garbling the syllable.

“I was told Vampyres don’t eat food.”

I can’t remember the last time I felt this degree of embarrassment. “Serena made me,” I blurt out.

Lowe glances around, to the zero number of Serenas in sight.

“Not now. But she made me try it for the first time.” I wipe my finger off on my shirt. Humiliating. “The ensuing addiction was all mine,” I concede with a mumble.

“Interesting.” His gaze is sharp, and he seems more than interested. He seems intrigued.

“Please kill me now.”

“So you can digest food.”

“Some of it. Our molars are mostly vestigial, so no chewing, but peanut butter is smooth and creamy and I know it’s wrong, but . . .” I shiver with how amazing it tastes. And with how shameful and self-indulgent food eating is considered among Vampyres. Not even living among the Humans has beaten the belief out of me. Not even watching Serena scarf down three cups of instant udon noodles at two a.m. because she felt “a bit peckish.” “This is so undignified. Can you please not tell anyone and throw my corpse in the lake after I run myself through the garbage disposal, which I’m going to do right now?”

His lips twitch into the ghost of a smile. “You’re embarrassed.”

“Of course.”

“Because you’re eating something you don’t need to survive?”

“Yes.”

“I eat for pleasure all the time.” He shrugs, as though his broad shoulders want to agree with him. We have a healthy appetite. We require nourishment. “Just pretend it’s blood.”

“It’s not the same. Vampyres don’t drink blood for pleasure. We scarf it down when we need to and then don’t think about it. It’s a bodily function. Like, I don’t know, peeing.”

He takes a seat across from me and—fuck him. I hate him so much for the way he pushes the jar in my direction, holding my eyes the entire time.

He is daring me.

And it says something about how far gone I am for this stupid, addictive nut paste that I’m considering having a little more.

And then I just do.

“What do Vampyres do for pleasure?” he asks, voice a little hoarse. I don’t want to flash my fangs at him, but it’s hard when I’m licking peanut butter off my fingers.

“Not sure.” My time among them was exclusively as a child, when rules abounded, and indulgences were in short supply. Owen, the only adult Vampyre with whom I have regular exchanges, enjoys gossiping and making caustic remarks. Father has his strategic maneuvers and soft-core coups d’état. How the others amuse themselves in their spare time, I have no idea. “Fucking, probably? Please, take this away from me.”

He doesn’t. Instead he stares too long and too intensely, rejoicing in my lack of control. When he lowers his eyes, it seems to require some effort.

“What could Serena be investigating?” His voice is gravelly. And sobering.

“She never mentioned the Weres to me, not even in passing. But she didn’t love her colleagues in the financial division. Maybe she was angling for a better job and exploring nonfinancial stories. Though she would have told me.” Would she? She was clearly hiding stuff from you, a nagging voice offers. I shush it. “I do know that she wouldn’t have gone public with a story that had the potential to endanger a child.”

I’m not sure Lowe believes me, but he strokes his jaw, carefully gathering his thoughts. “Either way, our priorities match.”

“We both want to find out who told Serena about Ana.” For the first time since this sham marriage—no, for the first time since that hag Serena didn’t show up to help me change my sheets, I feel a real, genuine burst of hope. L. E. Moreland is not just a stray breadcrumb, but a thread to hold on to and tug at.

“I’m going to give you access to whatever technology you need—not that you ever asked for my permission,” he adds with a drawl. “You should look into Serena’s communications in the weeks before her disappearance. I know you already tried, but you should cross-reference it with our data. I’ll give you information about Ana’s whereabouts that might help bring more insight. And Alex will help and monitor you.” I make a face, which has him adding sternly, “You are still a Vampyre living in our territory.”

“And here I was, thinking we were firmly in the reluctant alliance stage of our marriage.” I don’t mind the supervision. It’s more that Alex appears to be as good a hacker as I am—the one area in which I allow myself to be competitive. “Okay. Thanks,” I add, a bit sullen.

He nods once. The conversation comes to a bit of a lull, which then stretches into something of an awkward silence, which means that Lowe is done with me.

I’m being dismissed.

I give one last half-loathing, half-longing glance at the peanut butter jar and stand, pushing my hands down into the pockets in my shorts. “I’ll start tonight.”

“I’ll have Mick bring you something to put on them.”

I’m confused. Then notice that his eyes are slowly traveling down my bare legs. “Ah. My feet?” I shiver, but it’s not cold. Now that I think about it, this place hasn’t been cold in days.

“And your shoulders. And your side.”

I frown. “How do you know my side hurts?”

“Professional hazard.” I tilt my head. Doesn’t he have an architecture degree? Do I look like the Leaning Tower of Pisa? “We teach young Weres to study potential enemies for weaknesses. You’ve been rubbing your rib cage.”

“Ah.” That profession.

“Do you need medical attention?”

“Nah, it’s just more burns.” I lift my shirt and let it pool right under my bra, angling slightly to show him. “My tank top was askew, and the sun managed to get . . .”

All of a sudden, his pupils are as large as the irises. Lowe abruptly turns his head in the opposite direction. The tendons of his neck stretch, and his Adam’s apple bobs. “You should leave,” he says. Gruff. Cutting.

“Oh.”

His shoulders relax. “Go take another one of your baths, Misery.” His voice is husky, but kinder.

“Right. The smell. Sorry about that.”

I’m at the bottom of the stairs when Ana comes racing down the steps, almost crashing into me. Her eyes are full of tears, and my heart clenches. “Are you okay?” I ask, but she runs past me, straight toward her brother. She’s babbling something about bad dreams and waking up scared.

“Come here, love,” he tells her, and I turn to study them. Watch him lift her into his lap, push her hair back to kiss her forehead. “It was just a nightmare, okay? Like the others.”

Ana hiccups. “Okay.”

“You still don’t remember what it was about?”

A few sniffles. “Just that Mama was there.”

Their voices lower to soft whispers, and I turn to climb the stairs. The last thing I hear is a phlegmy, “Okay, but did you cut the crusts off?” and a deep, hushed response that sounds a lot like, “Of course, love.”