himself in some sort of sexual stupor? Had he never gotten dressed after bluff sex? And why did he care?
I am totally marrying that chick. Assuming she’d even have me.
Right. But first things first: duty called. Only yesterday, when he had no idea things like bluff sex existed, he had met a zombie and figured it was past time to call Boo. But now he was glad he hadn’t.
The zombie hadn’t hurt him, right? Hadn’t hurt anybody as far as Edward could see. In fact, the shambling undead thing had gone out of its way to be polite and helpful. It might be premature to call Boo. He needed to do more recon.
And it had nothing, at all, to do with the fact that once Boo flew to town and kicked some collective undead ass, his work here would be done. There’d be nothing to prevent him from going back home.
It had nothing to do with that. He just didn’t want to waste Boo’s time. He wanted to be sure before he loosed the beast on an unsuspecting undead populace.
It had nothing to do with wanting more bluff sex. And how he couldn’t wait to watch Rache put away, oh, half a dozen Subway foot-longs.
It didn’t.
It didn’t.
So: he’d recon. Right now.
Twenty-seven
Though they never knew, Rachael woke up the instant Edward did. The only difference was, she knew exactly where she was, how she’d gotten there, and why she was naked.
“Bluff sex,” she mused aloud, and shook her head. And laughed at the sheer silliness of it. The man was good for a laugh, if nothing else. And he was good for plenty else; nothing never entered into it.
Her good humor lasted until she picked up her cell and saw a cryptic text from one of two people who had her texting info: “There’s been another one.”
Cain, with an update. Definitely not Edward.
“Shit,” she said, her good mood vanishing. She’d decided against her chat with the vampire queen, and there was a fresh corpse to rebuke her laziness. Whoever you are, I’m so sorry. If it’s any consolation, I won’t allow it to happen to anyone else. This I so swear.
Yeah, sure. If it’d been her ghost being appealed to, she wouldn’t have been impressed or appeased, either.
Time to see the queen. Right now. Bluff sex would wait. Edward would wait. The lemon icebox pie she knew Call Me Jim was baking upstairs would wait.
She dressed in a blur of motion and ran out to her car in her bare feet. She was so keyed up she never would have noticed, but the vampire queen sure did.
Twenty-eight
She was in enough of a hurry to drive, and parked her car on a slant in the driveway. She hurried up the driveway and, to her relief, didn’t even have to ring the doorbell or knock on the door. The dead man had opened it for her.
She slowed. She stared.
The man was not a vampire, and he sure as shit wasn’t Pack. He was dead. Newly dead. Newly dead and walking around. But not a vampire. She . . . she didn’t understand it.
“I don’t understand this.”
“Ah, you’re back. Tina told me you’d be coming by. I’ve got Antonia’s things right in here, if you’ll—”
“Someone is murdering humans to make your friends fight with my family, I think.”
The zombie blinked. He was quite handsome for a corpse, with black hair and eyes the color of wet leaves. He was wearing surgical scrubs, which added just the right surreal note to their odd meeting.
“Oh. Well. In that case”—holding the door wide for her—“you’d better come in and talk to Betsy and Sinclair.”
And in she went.
Twenty-nine
Horror-struck, Edward was frozen to the spot. He felt like he was in a nightmare. He prayed he was in a nightmare. It wasn’t real, right? None of this was real. He hadn’t seen . . . any of it. He hadn’t seen it. It didn’t happen.
It was happening. Right now.
Rachael had driven right up to the mansion, exactly like she knew where it was.
She’d parked the car in the driveway at a hurried slant, not caring if someone was blocked . . . she’d been there before and wasn’t worried about pissing someone off with a crappy parking job.
She’d gone right into the mansion. Right in. Someone had been watching for her and held the door for her. Held the fucking door for her! It was that last that seemed to shriek the implication at him.
He plunged his hands in