know it.”
“I can’t see the queen throwing a knife at anyone,” she admitted. “A bottle of nail polish, maybe.”
“But one of them did.”
“Yes. My own stupid fault for turning my back on people I knew to be predators. I deserved worse for forgetting such a fundamental rule of survival.” She shook her head, disgusted. “Must be old age setting in.”
“Ha! What are you, twenty-four, twenty-five?”
“You’re adorable. Thirty.” Of course, the jailbait vampire could have a hundred years on her for all Rachael knew. “It was humbling beyond belief.”
“One of them . . . just so I’m following the sequence of events, here . . . one of them threw a knife. At your head.”
“Well, yes. But it’s not as bad as it sounds.”
“Rachael!”
“It’s not,” she insisted. “For one thing, she could have flipped the blade. Having the pointy end zip through the back of my skull would have put a sizeable damper on my day.”
Edward was pressing his hands to his face. “I’m pretty sure you’re giving me a migraine. I’m . . . I’ve got to tell you . . . aw, man, I’m having a freak-out aneurysm here! I can’t decide which thing to yell at you about first.”
“There is kind of a long list,” she admitted. “I’m sorry for adding to it.”
“So what happened next?”
“I woke up in an orange parlor.”
“What?”
“No. Stop. Let me think.” She closed her eyes, saw the room in her mind, smelled the mouse poop in her mind. “Peach. It was a peach parlor. The sofa and the walls and even the carpet. It was like waking up inside a womb.”
“Okay, that’s so weird I’m actually trying not to picture it.”
“And the vampire queen had measured my feet while I was unconscious and gave me a pair of blue flats to wear home.”
“She did not!”
“You’re right, now that I recall . . . she loaned me the shoes. She didn’t give them.”
“Rachael! Of all the weird, idiotic, and/or scary things you’ve told me, that’s the least believable. And think about the list of things you’ve told me!”
“You’re right, you’re right . . . it’s a terrible long list. No wonder you’re getting a migraine.” She stole another glance at the moon. She was closer, now. Well, of course she wasn’t, not really; it was an optical illusion. But it was a beautiful, sweet illusion and one she cherished. The moon looked closer because her Change was closer. It would come closer still, and then Rachael would be the moon, be in her. And then for three nights she would be herself, her true self.
“Oh, ya think? Listen . . . no, wait. Are you okay? You’ve got a really strange look on your face.”
I’ll bet I do. She almost laughed. “I’m fine, relatively speaking.”
“Okay, good. But like I was saying, I haven’t actually met the woman, which you’re gonna rectify for me just as soon as—”
“I certainly will not,” she said sharply. “You’re to stay away from them, Edward. We’ve both been careless enough.”
“Yeah, hold your breath and see if that’ll happen. But listen, I don’t know her, but I do know this: the queen of the vampires doesn’t just hang out in her big spooky mansion to drink smoothies with zombies who are taking care of the pregnant woman who also hangs out there (I assume for prenatal smoothies). And she sure as shit doesn’t give visiting werewolves pairs of shoes!”
“Lend,” she corrected. “She lent me a pair of shoes.”
“Whatever! Vampire queens don’t do that stuff. No selfrespecting monarch of the undead would do any of that stuff.”
“Up until seventy hours ago, I would have agreed. Now I can’t. I think that’s the trick.”
“What?”
“I think that’s why her reign is working. She doesn’t do anything the way you’d expect. It’s a pretty good trick.” More: she suspected that was Michael’s underlying motive in sending her here. Not just to keep an eye on things. To figure out why things were working the way they now were. Infinitely more valuable information to have. “It’s a trick I’ll bet my cousin would like to learn. But that’s a talk for another day. We’ve been out here as long as I dare.” She stood, peeked at the moon, held out her hand. “We have to go inside now. I have to, I mean.”
“So you can change into a werewolf.”
“Yes.” Change into always made her smile. Like it was something the Pack could take on and off, like a dress shirt. It would never occur to