going on, exactly, Meena? Abraham wouldn’t tell me anything. He said you’d tell me. If you chose to.” He didn’t mention how angry this information had made him. What had Holtzman meant, if Meena chose to tell him?
And why had Meena chosen to tell Holtzman anything instead of him? He was the one who’d saved her life at St. George’s, not Holtzman. Was this all because he refused to believe her theory about Antonescu?
But who could? It was crazy. Demons were inherently evil. They were not capable of free will. He didn’t care what Saint Thomas Aquinas had written eight hundred years ago.
“Look, I appreciate the coffee, but can we just go inside?” Meena said, suddenly looking less mulish, and more tired. “It took me forever to get a cab from the train station, and now I’m late, and I’m sure everyone is wondering where I am.”
“Abraham’s already inside,” Alaric said. “He’s told everyone he’s your lawyer.”
Meena rolled her eyes and tossed her coffee cup into a nearby trash can. “Great. My lawyer. Now it looks like I did something wrong.”
Alaric caught her by the wrist as she started to walk past him and into the building. Her bones felt as small and fine as a bird’s.
“Did you do something wrong?” he asked, his gaze burning down into hers. He didn’t want to ask it. He knew it was wrong of him, and he probably shouldn’t have.
But he couldn’t help it.
She reached up with her free hand to push some bright copper hair from her eyes. Eyes that, he saw, were suddenly brimming with tears. “I guess that depends from whose point of view you’re looking at it. Yours? No. My own? Yeah. Yeah, I definitely did.”
He felt a sudden wave of tenderness toward her that, had it been anyone else, he’d have ignored. He tried to ignore it. She’d violated every rule in the book.
Then again, so had he, at one time or another.
But this was different. She’d also put herself in danger. And then she hadn’t called him. It hurt his feelings … even though he’d go to his grave before he’d admit it.
But now she was shaken and upset about something. And she’d called Holtzman. He wanted to be the person she turned to when she was shaken and upset. Not Holtzman.
How could he have let everything go so wrong? And how could he possibly fix it?
She looked pointedly down at the wrist he was holding. Instantly, he released it. She turned away and started to walk past him, into the building.
He should have let it end there. But he couldn’t.
So instead, he reached out and wrapped an arm around her shoulders, pulling her toward him in an embrace that was awkward as much because she wasn’t expecting it as because Alaric Wulf was not used to hugging people, and wasn’t very good at it.
“It’s all right,” he said, in what he hoped was a soothing voice. He stroked her hair. The fine threads, a little coarse from all the dye her friend Leisha had been using on them lately, were hot from the sun. “Whatever it is. It’s going to be fine.”
She finally seemed to realize what he was doing and stopped trying to pull away. To his surprise, he actually felt her relax in his arms. Something warm and wet touched his neck, and he realized, with a shock, that it was her tears.
“I don’t think so, Alaric,” she whispered. “I really don’t. Not this time.”
He didn’t know what to do. He’d gotten so accustomed to her giving him the cold shoulder that for her to completely drop all her defenses and melt against him like this was a little unnerving. He almost preferred the hostile glances and sarcasm. It was certainly better than tears. Hundreds of women had cried in front of him before, and it had never bothered him.
But this was awful.
He tightened his grip and said, lamely, “It can’t be that bad.” Then he wanted to kick himself. Actually, it really could be that bad. What did he know?
A squad car pulled up beside them. A Freewell police officer got out from behind the wheel, then walked around to haul a surprisingly tall and colorfully dressed—for suburban New Jersey—drag queen from the backseat.
“Honey,” the drag queen said to Meena as the officer escorted her into the building, “you save me a piece of that boy’s ass. I will be right out to get it.”
Alaric looked skyward, thankful he had taken Holtzman’s advice not to bring his sword.
“I think we should go inside and find Abraham,” Meena said in a small voice, stepping away from him.
“I think that’s an excellent idea,” Alaric said, and hurried to open the door for her. He didn’t understand the look Meena gave him when he did this, one that seemed to be of mingled shock, gratitude, and something else that he could not identify.
But it did not make him feel any better.
Meena, followed closely by Alaric, walked into the impeccably clean, high-tech Freewell Police Department. She wondered why every head in the room did not swivel toward her as she came in. That’s how loudly her heartbeat was slamming inside her ears. She felt as if everyone in the whole world must be able to hear it.
But apparently, she was the only one who could.
She could see Abraham Holtzman sitting in the conference room the polite receptionist led them to, speaking to a sleepy-looking woman in a beige suit, and to David’s parents, who appeared decades older than they had the last time Meena had seen them.
Of course they did. Because their son was dead. Although they didn’t know it yet.
Meena swallowed and tried to plaster a warm smile of greeting on her face.
It was difficult to do so, however, when she was so hyperaware of Alaric Wulf behind her. She’d never forget the look in his eyes when he’d seen the scarf she’d tied around her neck to hide the ugly bruise David’s bite mark had left behind. She’d thought he was going to throw the coffee he was holding right into her face.
That he was only half wrong about how the bite had been acquired—since she had seen Lucien last night—caused her cheeks to burn. She wondered if he noticed.
“Ah, here’s Ms. Harper now, along with one of my associates, Mr. Wulf.” That gaze of Abraham’s was like a pair of lasers beneath the overhang of those shaggy eyebrows, so unkempt that they gave the appearance of a disordered mind.
And yet Meena knew better than anyone that Dr. Holtzman’s mind was very ordered indeed.
And that meant she was in big trouble. Because though she’d finally done her duty and reported last night’s “vampire-related incident,” she’d only reported one of them. She was determined to keep Lucien’s name out of it for as long as she could.
But
