“I figure it’s going to take some time for you to adjust to your normal routine.” He signaled for the waiter, and in moments she was back in his car, her date ending earlier than she’d expected. Earlier than she suspected Mike expected.
* * *
She turned in the foyer that led from the elevator to the front door of her penthouse. Mike stood there, his expression curious, tinged with anticipation.
And right next to him stood a hulk of a werewolf, muscular arms folded as he glared at her.
“Do not invite him in,” Zane warned her. “You and I need to talk.”
She arched an eyebrow and looked at Mike. There was no way in hell she would let a wolf order her about. “Would you like to—”
Zane snarled, and in a flash, her clutch flew out of her grasp.
Mike’s head reared back to avoid the missile, his expression clearly surprised.
Vivianne covered her mouth. “Oh, I’m so sorry,” she gasped. She’d nearly smacked her date in the head with her bag. Her eyes narrowed as she glared at Zane. No, he’d nearly smacked her date in the head with her bag.
“Uh, that’s...fine,” Mike said as he bent to retrieve her purse. He handed it to her. “You were about to say?” he prodded her.
This wasn’t going to work. Not tonight. She had a furious, impatient werewolf ghost, or spirit, or phantom, or hallucination, or whatever the hell he was, effectively blocking any attempt she made at communicating with this man. Frankly, the effort to ignore him and pretend everything was normal was exhausting.
“Would you like to do this again sometime?” she finished gently.
Mike’s disappointment was quickly replaced with a smile and a nod. “Sure.”
He leaned down to kiss her, and Zane’s nose blocked her view of her date for a moment.
“I swear, if this turns into some sort of twisted voyeur experience, you’re going to need to make me some popcorn. Just saying.”
Vivianne tilted her head away from Zane, and Mike’s lips landed on her cheek. “Uh, thanks for a great evening,” she said, then turned and unlocked her door, stepped inside and gave him a shaky wave. She closed the door, then leaned back against it, shutting her eyes.
That had to be the most embarrassing, weird and frustrating—
“Can we talk now?”
She opened her eyes to glare at the six-foot-three-inch wall of infuriating male. He arched an eyebrow, and with his scruffy brown hair, and a short beard that framed his jaw and—wow, he had really nice lips. The bottom one was slightly fuller, and a mental image of her sinking her teeth into it surprised her. Mainly because it wasn’t an image of her ripping him to shreds like she tried to convince herself she wanted to, but because the image was playful and sexy and all kinds of wrong.
His brown gaze met hers, and for the first time she realized he had hazel flecks, green and gold shards the gradually lightened the longer they stood there, staring at each other.
She frowned. This...man, if she could call him that—was he even real? She reached out, swiping her arm across his body, and he closed his eyes as her arm swept through his body. She felt...nothing. No, maybe there was a slight change in air temperature. Or was she desperately clutching at any detail to justify what was going on?
Was he just a hallucination? But she didn’t really know him... She’d never heard his name before today. Would she hallucinate about a guy she never knew existed?
“We need to talk,” he told her quietly.
She shook her head. “No. You need to go away.”
She moved away from the door and walked right through him, hearing his swift inhalation as she passed. She strode up the stairs.
“I can’t,” he exclaimed as he followed her. Damn, he was so big. Even as some insubstantial existence, he seemed to swallow up her awareness, and she found it was hard to focus on anything else. Just like it had been hard to focus on Mike with this large, attention-consuming presence next to her.
Normally she was repulsed by the werewolves. They were animals, reverting to their inner beast with ease and frequency, their civility only a thin veneer, and their fragrance quite odious. Zane, though, smelled of something different. His scent was earthy, woodsy, with notes of myrtle, cedarwood and almond. How was that even possible? How could find a lycan’s scent be almost attractive? She slammed the door shut on him, hearing him growl in frustration before he floated through the timber.
The fact that she was having these reactions to him was what freaked her out the most. She could see something that wasn’t there. She could hear his deep, smooth voice in her head, but if he really was a lycan, she would never, ever find him attractive. And she did.
Which meant she really was going crazy.
“You’re not here,” she muttered, as she crossed to her bed and picked up the nightgown that one of her staff had placed at the end of the bed before they’d left for the day. Unlike her father, she didn’t like to be surrounded by servants, and wanted them gone by the time she came home. This was her space, the only place she could be by herself. She didn’t want to worry about who was watching her for whom, and as a Prime, that happened.
“Oh, I’m here,” Zane told her.
She wasn’t going to argue with him—because that would make him, or the hallucination that was him, all the more real.
She kicked off her shoes and didn’t bother to put them away. Instead, she marched into her en suite and closed the door. She looked into the mirror over the vanity for a moment. She looked...spooked.
Her shoulders sagged. It was a good thing she hadn’t invited Mike in. She couldn’t afford to let anyone see her like this, or guess at what was going on with her—whatever that turned out to be. Her vision blurred for a moment, and she blinked, tilting her head back. Marchettas didn’t cry. That’s what her father had said, the night he’d turned her.
Marchettas were the strongest of their kind, he’d said. It was why they’d become so successful, so powerful. Tears were a weakness. Feelings were a weakness. If someone in the Nightwing colony guessed that she was losing her mind, that she was mentally deteriorating, it would be a bloodbath within the colony until a new Prime was selected. And that was the internal strife.
If the other vampire colonies scented blood, a scandal or a weakness, they would pounce. If a shifter breed, like the lycans or the bears, suspected the Nightwing colony was weakening, there would be territory wars. Whichever way she looked at it, if she gave in to these hallucinations, if she let herself indulge in an annoying, frustrating, rude companion that nobody else could see, feel or hear, she was leading her people down a path to bloodshed and death. Despite what everyone thought, she really did care for Nightwing, for her colony. They were as close to a family she was ever going to get. She needed to protect them, if only from herself.
Tomorrow, she’d visit Ryder Galen. His family were shadow breed healers, and maybe he could figure out what was wrong with her. She just hoped she could trust him.
She got ready for bed, removing her makeup and brushing
