Bride

All in all, it’s not the most auspicious of starts.

In the week following my arrival, I spend an unhealthy amount of time mentally slapping myself over the way I handled the kerfuffle with Max. I don’t care whether the Weres think I’m a deranged monster, but I do mind that whatever crumb of freedom they might have been inclined to give me has been swiftly vacuumed up.

I’m escorted everywhere: as I take a stroll by the lake; to grab a blood bag from the fridge; when I sit in the garden at dusk, just to experience something that’s not my en suite. I am but a cornucopia of regret. Because we’re all bad bitches—till a scowling Were stands outside the bathroom door while we’re washing our hair.

Till we lose our chance to snoop around.

So much time on my hands, and so little to spend it on. It’s the Collateral life I’m familiar with, just with significantly fewer Serenas to keep me busy. I should be bored to death, but the truth is, this is not too different from my routine in the Human world. I have no friends, no hobbies, and no real purpose aside from earning enough money to pay rent in order to . . . exist, I guess.

It’s like you’re—I don’t know, suspended. Untethered from everything around you. I just need to see you go toward something, Misery.

There might be something stunted about me. After the Collateral term was over, Serena and I were free to venture into the outside world, to be with people who weren’t our tutors or our caregivers, to fall in love and make friends. Serena jumped right into that, but I could never bring myself to. Partly because the closer I’d let someone get to me, the harder it’d be to hide who I was. Or maybe spending the first eighteen years of my life becoming acquainted with the cruelty of all species didn’t quite set me up for a bright future.

Who knows.

So I sleep during the day, and spend my nights napping. I take long baths, first for Lowe’s sake, then because I grow to truly enjoy them. I watch old Human movies. I walk around my room, marveling at how pretty it is, wondering who the hell thought of this beamed ceiling, sophisticated and cozy and stu

I do miss the internet. There is a concern that I might want to moonlight as a spy, and to prevent me from transferring classified and confidential information I could come across while in Were territory, I don’t really have access to technology—with the exception of my weekly check-in call with Vania, which is heavily monitored and lasts just long enough for her to sneer at me as she ascertains that I’m still alive. Of course, this is not my first rodeo, and I did try to smuggle in a cell phone, plus a laptop and a bunch of pen testing gadgets.

Your honor, I got caught. Whoever went through my stuff had the gall to confiscate half of it—and to pluck out all the ante

Lowe is rarely around, and never within sight, although sometimes I’ll feel his low voice vibrate through the walls. Firm orders. Long hushed conversations. Once, memorably, right as I slid into my closet for my midday rest, a deep laugh followed by Ana’s delighted screams. I drifted asleep moments later, second-guessing what I heard.

On the fifth evening, someone knocks on my door.

“Hi, Misery.” It’s Mick—the older Were who was talking with Lowe at the ceremony. I like him a lot. Mostly because, unlike my other guards, he doesn’t seem to want me to go stand outside and get struck by lightning. I love to think that we bonded when he took his first night shift: I noticed him slumping against the wall, pushed my rolling chair into the hallway, and bam—instantly BFFs. Our three-minute conversation about water pressure was the apogee of my week.

“What’s up, friendly neighborhood warden?”

“The politically correct name is ‘protective detail.’ ” There is something off about his heartbeat—something dull, a slight drag that’s almost despondent. I wonder if it’s related to the big scar on his throat, but I might be imagining it altogether, because he smiles at me in a way that turns his eyes into a web of crow’s feet. Why can’t everyone be this nice? “And there’s a video call for you, from your brother. Come with me.”

Any hope I have that Mick will take me to Lowe’s office and leave me alone to snoop around dies when we head for the sunroom.

“Ready to come back?” Owen says before “Hi.”

“I don’t think that’s an option, if we want to avoid . . .”

“Pissing off Father?”

“I was thinking full-on war.”

Owen waves his hand. “Ah, yes. That, too. How’s marital life?”

I’m very aware of Mick sitting across from me, intently monitoring everything I say. “Boring.”

“You got hitched to a guy who could kill you any second of any day. How are you bored?”

“Technically, anybody could kill anybody, anytime. Your obnoxious friends could pull out a garrote on you tonight. I could have poured triazolopyrimidines in your blood bags a million times over in the past twenty years.” I tap my chin. “As a matter of fact, why did I not?”

Something flickers in his eyes. “And to think that we used to like each other,” he murmurs darkly. He’s not wrong. Before I left for Human territory, every Vampyre child who chose to be a dick about my soon-to-be Collateralship tended to encounter curiously karmic events. Mysterious bruises, spiders crawling in backpacks, mortifying secrets bared to the community. I’d always suspected it was Owen’s doing. Then again, maybe I was wrong. When I returned home at eighteen, he seemed less than happy to see me, and he certainly didn’t want to associate with me in public.

“Can you please just be terrified to be living among the Weres?” he asks.

“So far, Humans are worse. They do shit like burning the Amazon rainforest or leaving the toilet seat up at night. Anyway, anything you need from me?”

He shakes his head. “Just making sure you’re still alive.”

“Oh.” I wet my lips. I doubt he gives a fuck about whether I continue to exist on this metaphysical plane, but this is a good opportunity. “I’m so glad you called, because . . . I miss you so much, Owen.”

A stutter of incredulity flashes on his grainy face. Then understanding dawns on him. “Yeah? I miss you, too, honey.” He leans back in his chair, intrigued. “Tell me what ails you.”

Every Vampyre in the Southwest knows that we are twins, if only because our arrival was originally celebrated as a dazzling source of hope (“Two babies at once! In the prestigious Lark family! When conception has been so difficult, and so few of our young come by! All hail!”) and later briskly swept under a thick rug of truculent stories (“They murdered their own mother during a two-night labor. The boy weakened her, and the girl dealt the final blow—Misery, they named her. More blood flowed on that bed than during the Aster.”). Serena had known, too, when I first introduced her to him after she pestered me to meet “The guy who could have been my roomie for years, if you’d played your cards better, Misery.” They’d surprisingly hit it off, bonding over their love for roasting my appearance, my clothes, my taste in music. My general vibe.

And yet, even Serena wasn’t able to shut up about how unbelievable it was that Owen, with his dark complexion and already receding hairline, was even related to me. It’s because where I take after Father, he . . . well, I suppose he looks like Mother. Hard to say, since no pictures seem to have survived her.

But whatever the differences between Owen and me, those months sharing a womb must have left some mark on us. Because despite growing up with fewer interactions than a pair of pen pals, we do seem to understand each other.

“Remember when we were children?” I ask. “And Father would take us to the forest to watch the sun set and feel the night begin?”