Rosie’s throat worked noisily. Finally she nodded. “Is it all right if I call my pal, Sheena though, to let her know I’m stopping out the night? I don’t remember telling her I was heading off, and she’ll worry if I’m no home later.” She recovered enough of her earlier bravado to say jauntily, “Typical me. Off with no so much as a by your leave to do a favour for a noble vampire. I’m such a wild one.” I suspected she wasn’t anything of the sort, but was giving herself a mental boost by pretending. I understood; I was the king of make-believe myself.
“Eleanor will look after you,” I said. “You’ll be safe here.” I had no right to reassure her, but I felt it to be the truth regardless.
The women departed, which left me and Dalziel. I was zinging inside from the feeding, alert and clear-headed, every sound and colour amplified like it had been in the back kitchen of the safe house. God, it felt like weeks ago, not a few days. I realised I was still hard enough to hammer nails, so I attempted to surreptitiously rearrange my dick in my jeans without snapping it in two. I needed to get laid, and fast.
When I looked up, Dalziel was staring at me. “What?” I said stupidly.You never got a boner when feeding? I’m calling bullshit, dude.
He sighed. “I’m now even more sure Marin was your mother,” he said finally. “So much seems clearer to me. But we shall discuss that later. Perhaps, right now, you wish to check on your—” His mouth twisted in that way he had when he said something that disgusted him. “—boyfriend.”
Oh my god, Luc! He’d temporarily slipped into third place in my mind while I dealt with the double whammy of meeting my first human donor and her revelation about my ancestors. My eyes darted from side to side, but I already knew he was no longer in the room: I’d seen him leave, for fuck’s sake. I just hadn’t been able to react while my mouth was full of the nectar I was pulling from Rosie’s veins.
My euphoria vanished instantly, along with my erection.Fuck.How could I have forgotten he was here, and the look of devastation in his eyes when he’d heard what Rosie had said? I did a rapid circumvention of the room anyway, even checking behind the curtains, although his heartbeat was missing, so my search was ridiculous. All the while Dalziel stood and watched me with an odd expression on his face. I could almost,almostbelieve it was compassion. Except, I knew he hated wolves.
“He’s not here,” I whispered eventually. “I don’t know what to do.”
“His vehicle is still here.”
“How d’you know?” I knew nothing. I was adrift at sea, without a life belt or even a passing plank of plywood. My lungs were tight and every breath was an effort.
“Because I’d have heard the engine start if he’d attempted to leave.”
Oh. Of course, Dalziel probably didn’t get distracted by feeding. He’d had three hundred years to become as accustomed to taking a vein as I did chomping through a burger while doing something else. It was as inconsequential to him as sipping a mug of tea.
It didn’t answer my question though. “Did he leave because of me, because of what I am?” I stammered a reply of “Of course he did,” even before Dalziel nodded.
“I suspect he went for a run. Let us check the doors.” He guided me through the ground floor, and we checked all the doors to the outside. Across the corridor was a large square room that contained a billiard table and a small bar. The far wall was dominated by a wide set of French doors. On the rug in front of those doors was a hastily shucked heap of clothes and shoes I recognised immediately. Dalziel tried the handle: unlocked. “There’s your answer,” he said firmly, and made to turn me away.
“But I can catch him, I know I can! I should go after him.”
Dalziel caught hold of me. “No, youshouldn’t.He is upset and possibly frightened right now. Something about the Fae rattles him profoundly. Let him work things out in his wolf skin, and see what conclusions he comes to. We will return to the library and concentrate our efforts on researching the Fae.”
My shoulders slumped under his palms, but I realised he was right. Hurtling out into the night to chase down a wolf shifter when he was emotionally unsettled would be madness. I didn’tthinkLuc would attack me, but the only way to be certain of that was not to give him the opportunity.
I nodded dully at Dalziel. “The library it is then.”
21
LUC
I ranand ran and ran. Across the estate lawns, into the pine forest, then over the burn I assumed the land was named for and further into the trees. When the trees gave way to open ground, I slowed to test the area for danger, loping along more steadily as I sniffed the air. It was brutally cold again, the mist rising across the landscape under the pale glow of a weak moon, but my fur coat kept me warm, and besides, I wasn’t sure right now I even cared if I froze to death.
Charley wasFae!Obviously not entirely, but that felt like semantics under the crushing weight of this discovery. Everything I’d known from the time I was capable of basic understanding was how imperative it was to avoid them. They were beautiful, dangerous monsters disguised as angels, who’d lie to you as soon as they opened their tantalising, shapely mouths. To think I’d fallen for — because who was I kidding if I said it was only sex at this point? — someone who shared a genetic background with a segment of society I hated even worse than vamps. It wasn’t something I could wrap my head around without wanting to puke.
The longer I ran, the more I shook off my human thoughts and feelings. I was still aware of them, but they hovered in the background, a low-key vibration I could ignore without too much effort. I chased a deer, because it was there and I could. I couldn’t be bothered to kill it though, and it bounded away from me on shaky limbs, its frantic heart rate threatening to topple it unless it quickly found a bush behind which to camouflage itself.You’re pathetic,my wolf growled.Run, chase, feed.
I meandered through the night, following a track here, and a path there; old, muddy byways that had been formed over centuries by man and beast, until I was footsore and weary. I knew I should rest, but I didn’t want to let my guard down in a place I didn’t know, so I turned around and began retracing my steps. Hunger drove me to take down and ingest every rabbit I could on the way back, and the meat went part way to restoring my energy. It wasn’t ideal to keep eating and moving, but if I’d slaughtered the deer, I would have feasted until I had no choice but to sleep it off. This was safer.
The little and often diet got me back to Dalziel’s estate when the dawn was still a way off, but there was a peachy-grey lightening of the sky that heralded an oncoming fall of snow. As I padded back across the wide expanse of lawn, a sharp breeze swirled the first flakes around my head, and I snapped at them, enjoying the way they melted against my muzzle. It almost lifted my sour mood, until I was in sight of the rear of the house and I remembered why I’d run off in the first place. As I neared the property, I could just pick out the slow, steady heartbeat of the man my idiot wolf still insisted was my mate. I couldn’t be arsed to argue with wolf me at that moment. He was an overgrown furball who wanted nothing more than to fight, feed, and fuck, not necessarily in that order. Whereas I was capable of more nuanced thoughts, and they weren’t pleasant at all. Unfortunately, this near to Charley they once again became prominent.
Added to my misery over Charley was the very real likelihood I’d shut myself out for the night. No way would Dalziel have left the massive French doors unlocked. His home was very much his castle, and as well as being a vampire who jealously guarded his privacy, he evidently took immense pride and pleasure in his dwelling. The place was filled with antiques and relics of bygone days, and I dreaded to imagine what his net worth might be. There was nothing for it but to seek out a sheltered space and to curl up while I waited for daybreak. Either Pavel or Eleanor would be up at a reasonable hour. I’d throw myself on their mercy, and with luck they’d let me in. I hoped it would be Eleanor. Pavel was a bloody good cook but loyalty to his master meant he might see me and refuse to open a door on principle.
I loped towards the walls where the overhang would shelter me from the snow which was now pelting down. Faint aromas from behind the kitchen door made my nose twitch appreciatively, but I moved along. I was hungry again, but the rabbits would sustain me for now.
As I neared the French windows, a shadow moved behind the leaded-light panes and I froze. A moment later, one door creaked ajar, and Dalziel’s soft tones hailed me. “Well come in if you’re coming. It’s snowing outside in case you hadn’t noticed.”
I mentally rolled my eyes. Of course I’d noticed! I ran up to the step and shook myself briskly, then hesitated and eyed him thoughtfully. I didn’t particularly want to stay wolf inside, and I wasn’t sure he’d allow me to, but shifting was my most vulnerable time.
He huffed a frustrated breath at me. “Fuck’s sake, just get in here and shift. I won’t touch you.” ‘I don’twantto touch you’was the clear message.
