He staggered out the door.
Allie brushed at her dress and muttered a curse when she noticed the run in her left stocking.
“Send Jake the bill,” Bruce suggested. His eyes twinkled with appreciation. “That was quite a show, honey. Hard to believe a little thing like you can fight so well.”
“You did it for the girl,” Nathan said, glancing toward the table where Pepper sat with Miss Yellow-Dress.
Allie smoothed her hair. “Jake needed taking down a peg, that’s all.” She kicked off her pump and removed the ruined stocking. “Get me a drink, Kolya, would you?”
Kolya sauntered off, and Allie went to join Pepper and Miss Yellow-Dress. It was obvious that the girl had been crying, and Pepper was doing her best to comfort her. The girl’s long hair had fallen out of its pins, and her rouge was smeared. A fresh drink sat on the table before her.
“It’s all over now, sugar,” Pepper was saying. “That bad man won’t hurt you again. Allie made sure of that.” She looked up with a smile. “And here she is now.”
Allie slid into a chair opposite the girl, pushing aside the empty glasses. “You mind giving us a little privacy, Pep?”
“Sure thing, darlin’.” Pepper went off to join a friend at a nearby table, leaving Allie alone with the girl.
“Are you all right?” Allie asked.
Miss Yellow-Dress met her gaze, and for the first time Alley saw that her eyes were a rich combination of brown, gold and green, large and expressive and filled with confusion.
“I…” She swallowed. “Thank you so much for what you did.” Her voice held the slight trace of an accent, made somewhat indistinct by the lingering effects of alcohol.
But Allie barely heard her. She was struck by a realization that had utterly escaped her until this moment, an awareness that made her skin prickle in a way it hadn’t done since a certain meeting in an alley off East Forty-second Street.
“What’s your name?” she asked.
The girl hesitated. “Ruby.”
“Ruby what?”
“Du…Dubois. Ruby Dubois.”
Kolya arrived with Allie’s drink, and she took a fortifying mouthful before she spoke again. “This is your first time at a speak, isn’t it?”
“Y-yes.”
“How old are you, Ruby?”
“Six…almost seventeen.”
“Do you understand the risks you took tonight?”
The girl stared at Allie’s glass. “Yes.”
“Does your family know where you are?”
“No.”
“Then hadn’t you better call them and let them know?”
“No! I mean…” Ruby hunched her shoulders. “I don’t want him to find out. Anyway, I’ll be home before he knows I was gone.”
“He?”
“My brother. He’d kill me if he knewI’d come here.”
I’ll just bet he would, Allie thought. “Why didn’t you fight harder when Jake tried to take you out? You could have overpowered him, just as I did.”
“I beg your—”
“I know what you are, Ruby.”
The girl’s eyes widened. “You do?”
“Sure. Amazing how easy it is to tell once you’ve got the knack.”
“Then you…you’re one of us?”
“Try again.”
“Oh.” Ruby flushed with mingled fear and excitement. “You’re a—”
Allie pressed her finger to Ruby’s lips. “You’re the only person here who knows.”
“Not even your friends?”
“That’s right.”
“But the way you fought…Didn’t anyone notice?”
“It’s amazing what people will accept if you act casual enough about it.”
Ruby considered that for a moment, chewing on her lower lip. “If you’re…one of them, why did you help me?”
“You mean, those old, outdated prejudices?” Allie buffed her nails on her thigh. “They bore me.”
“Oh.” Another thought captured her attention. “Do you know any other loups-garous?”
Once more Allie thought of golden eyes and a strong, grave face. “Not many.”
“I’ve never met anyone from the pack,” Ruby said eagerly. “My brother won’t let me.”
“Your brother?”
“Gerald. Gerald Dubois.”
“Don’t know him. Anyway, I thought all werewolves belonged to the pack.”
“Not us.” She sighed. “My brother doesn’t trust many people. He likes living alone.”
It was painfully obvious that Ruby was desperate to confide in someone, desperate enough that she would reveal all sorts of personal information to the first person who seemed to be on her side. Allie found herself prepared to encourage the girl for reasons she couldn’t quite acknowledge.
“What’s he like, your brother—besides being so eager to protect you?”
“He’s always serious. He almost never laughs. I know a lot of it’s because of the War. He was my age when he went over. I hardly remember what he was like before.” She ran her finger through a puddle of whiskey on the table. “He wants me to marry a rich man and become a member of New York society.”
“Human society?”
“He thinks I’ll be safer that way.”
“Because he doesn’t trust other werewolves.”
“Yes.”
“But you want to be one of them.”
“I want to be free.”
Allie felt an unwelcome stab of pity. She knewwhat itwas like to feel trapped, confined to a narrowlife with the obliviousworld going past you day after day. She’d been confined by her own body. Ruby was being asked—by her own kin, no less—to deny her very nature.
They had
