Wolf at the Door - By MaryJanice Davidson Page 0,59

it, anyway; God (and maybe the vampire queen) only knew how old she really was. Long blond hair pulled back in a ponytail that ended in the middle of her back. A sleek black headband keeping her bangs out of her eyes. A dark red pleated skirt, spotless white blouse (a good trick in a kitchen that had fruit everywhere), red cardigan, spotless white tights, little tiny black flats. And that face! Zow. Pale, perfect, with luminous dark eyes that were almost as pretty as Rachael’s.

Yeah. And that was one vampire. One.

He’d seen the pregnant woman before, of course, and found out her name was Jessica. It turned out she was one of the only two “normal” ones in the bunch. (Three, if you counted the baby, but who knew what was going to come rocketing out of her?) Except Jessica wasn’t just Betsy’s friend, she was sort of like Bruce Wayne . . . Edward had gotten the impression that she funded at least some of their operation with her own money.

Oh, and Betsy. Yeah, Betsy. That was the name of the queen of the vampires. Yet another illusion, shattered.

“I am pleased to meet Your Dark Majesty,” he’d said, all formal and everything (he’d practiced), and the dark majesty started laughing so hard she choked on her smoothie, and Jessica had to bang her on the back four or five times.

When she could talk, she’d greeted him with, “What’s it like, being one of the biggest geeks in the world?”

And he’d come back with, “Back off, you harpy. Why don’t you go pound some strawberries straight up your nose?”

And she’d liked that. She laughed! And her underlings had laughed, too.

The other normal person turned out to be the father of Jessica’s baby . . . and a cop! Edward was filled with admiration. The queen’s minions came from all walks of life (and death). Her info pipeline must be as wide as it was deep. Plus, her husband was Dark Dude! And if Dark Dude made less than ten million bucks last year, Edward would eat all the candles on the guy’s next birthday cake.

So: rich friends in high and low places, friends with and without pulses, plus her very own zombie army of one (so far).

And that was only what he’d been able to find out in five minutes. He hadn’t even tried to find any of that out. He felt lucky to have retained even that info; he was having a very hard time keeping from geeking out.

Every time he realized, every time the simple home truth tried to emerge that he was hanging out with vampires (and their queen!) and a werewolf (who he’d had sex with a lot!) and a zombie (who was just the nicest guy you could ever meet) and a homicide detective (who not only had knocked up his girlfriend but was fine with his baby growing up in this environment) and someone born during the Civil War (the fucking Civil War!), every time those truths started to emerge, he had to fight the impulse to utterly geek out.

Don’t you dare. It’ll embarrass Rachael. And yourself! And Rachael.

So many questions. So little time. Must . . . squash . . . inner . . . nerd.

So in an attempt to get ahold of himself, to act like an adult, or at least someone so cool they weren’t tempted to nerd up during Smoothie Time, in an attempt to somehow bring all that to heel, he’d blurted, “Too bad about all those murders, huh?”

And from there, it had stopped being silly and started being scary.

Forty-five

“This is awkward,” Detective Nicholas Berry said, “but you’re not a serial killer, are you? Or know any?”

“Not since the operation,” Rachael replied. She had liked the homicide detective (Interest. Curiosity. Lust.) at once. She didn’t hold the frisson of sexual attraction against him. Whether you were Pack or human or undead (or not), you couldn’t help it if you were attracted to someone. She never blamed people for that . . . only for how they acted on it.

“What is that, your punch line?” Betsy asked. “You trotted that one out the other day, too. Also not funny, I hesitate to point out, and yet must for the sake of our continued good time.”

“Which part wasn’t funny, the line, or the fact that she might be a serial killer?”

“Both,” the queen admitted. She turned to the detective, a handsome blond man with swimmer’s shoulders and a tan jacket