His memory was a little fuzzy. He was pretty sure there was a massive hole in it, somewhere. “You were lying in a box, your douche of a brother was there, some cute chick, and a guy in motorcycle leathers.”
She nodded. “Yeah, that’s pretty much when I came out of a coma.”
He frowned. “Why were you in a coma? You’re a vamp.” Vampires, like werewolves and other shifters, had the ability to self-heal. He’d never heard of vamps succumbing to a coma.
She started pacing again. “It wasn’t a normal coma,” she murmured. He rolled his eyes.
“I gathered that. I don’t normally float around coma patients.”
She shot him an annoyed glance. “I was put in a coma by a witch because I was attacked—by one of your kind.” She said the last words with bitter animosity.
Fleetingly, the thought of her being attacked, of being hurt by another, bothered him. But fortunately he was able to tamp that down, squish it into a dark place where nobody would know a werewolf briefly cared about what happened to a bloodsucker.
“Rafe Woodland,” he said quietly, a fragment of memory surfacing among the murk of his brain.
Her eyes narrowed. “How did you know?”
“Your douchebag of a brother brought you to our camp, looking for revenge.”
“I was attacked on Nightwing land,” she said, frowning. “He had every right.”
“He had no right,” Zane corrected her harshly. “Rafe had been cast out of Woodland. Whatever he did, he did on his own. Woodland wasn’t to blame.”
“He practically killed me,” she exclaimed. “He bit me.”
“And your brother bit me,” Zane snarled. “What should his punishment be?”
Vivianne’s eyes widened, and he watched as realization crept in. He nodded. “Yes, I’m that mangy mutt, that measly little mongrel who cost you your river access,” he snapped in disgust.
Her mouth opened, but no words came out as she struggled to process his words. Her doorbell rang downstairs, and she clapped her hand over her mouth. “Uh-oh.”
She whirled and ran over to scoop up the red dress, stepping into it quickly and dragging it up over her body, slipping the robe off her shoulders as she did so. There was a tantalizing glimpse of golden skin, and then she turned, contorting as she pulled the zipper up and slipped into her shoes at the same time.
Zane frowned. “What are you doing?”
“I’m going out,” she muttered, checking her reflection in the mirror, spritzing herself with some fragrance, then plucking up the clutch purse she’d placed on the bed.
“You’re going out?” he repeated, incredulous.
“Yes, I’m going out. I’m going to have dinner with a good-looking man, have some conversation that doesn’t involve—” she waved her hand in his general direction “—weird, freaky stuff, and I’m going to have a nice evening that I’m going to enjoy like a normal woman.”
She hurried over to her bedroom door as the doorbell pealed again from the floor below. She hesitated, then turned back to him.
“Wait a minute, were you stuck with me all of the time?” Her gaze darted toward her en suite bathroom.
His lips quirked. “Yep.”
Her cheeks bloomed with heat, and her mouth parted, then she snapped her lips together. “That wasn’t gentlemanly,” she hissed as she backed out of the room.
He chuckled. “That’s because I’m no gentleman.”
* * *
Vivianne forced her gaze to Mike’s. “So, it sounds like a lot happened when I was...away?” She sat for a moment, digesting the information. Woodland had a new alpha prime, light warriors had been discovered after hundreds of years of folks believing they’d been completely wiped out, and one of the most prominent men in Irondell society, Arthur Armstrong, was now dead.
“It’s great gossip, isn’t it?” Zane chirped, his hands cupping his chin as he leaned on the table between her and Mike.
She glared at him. He’d appeared in the car—God, what an awkward trip that had been, with him chattering away in the back seat. She tried to ignore the lycan—a difficult task seeing as he was six foot three, built and ripped, and mildly gorgeous. For a lycan.
“Who is managing the Armstrong interests?” Arthur Armstrong had been a wily competitor. She’d tangled with him on a few occasions. Sometimes he’d won, sometimes she’d won. She wanted to know who Nightwing were up against now.
Mike grimaced. “Armstrong Enterprises is no more. His sons discarded his name and wiped it out of the family tree. Everything is now Galen Inc.”
“As in, Ryder Galen? Doesn’t his wife work in our legal department?”
Mike shook his head as he chewed on a morsel of steak. “She left when your father stepped in to run the business. She now works as Galen’s legal counsel.”
“Darn,” Vivianne muttered. “She was good.”
“Good for Ryder,” Zane said, nodding.
He knew this Galen? Vivianne didn’t know if that was good or bad. If the lycans were in any way affiliated with Galen, then that was probably bad news for vampires.
Zane twisted in her direction.
“How is the wine?” he inquired, then frowned. “Please tell me that’s wine, and not blood.” He made a gagging sound, and she pursed her lips.
“What’s it going to take to re-open the river channel to market?” she asked, determinedly focusing on the handsome vampire in front of her, and not the annoying werewolf at her side.
Mike shrugged. “Not sure. It’s difficult to get them to the table. They’re very eager to strengthen the relationship with Woodland, and apparently that lycan your brother killed was well liked.”
“Aw, now that’s sweet,” Zane said, sniffing as he dabbed at his eye. “They did that for me? That warms the cockles of my dead little heart.”
Vivianne’s gaze dropped to the fork in her hand. It was so tempting...
“Go on, you know you want to,” Zane said, indicating the fork with a lift of his chin. “I’m sure Wheezy Whistler here would love to see you go batcrap crazy on empty space. They can’t see me, remember?” He blew a kiss at Mike, who smiled, oblivious, at Vivianne. “See?”
Vivianne forced herself to place the fork gently on the plate. “Find out what they want. Then make sure we get it.”
Mike nodded, then glanced down at the fork. “You don’t like your meal?”
“It’s fine.” It was the company she had issues with. Oh, not Mike, he seemed nice enough. She
