Bride

“The last attempt at an arranged marriage before ours,” I explain. “Where the Weres betrayed and massacred the Vampyres.”

“Ah. The Sixth Wedding. It was an act of revenge. At least, that’s what we are taught.”

“Revenge?”

“For the Vampyre groom’s violent treatment of his Were bride during the previous marriage.”

“They don’t tell us that,” I snort. “Wonder why.”

“Are you going to argue about it?” the governor asks, like we’re his personal source of entertainment.

“No,” we say at once, giving him harsh looks.

He clears his throat bashfully. “It’s time for di

Lowe doesn’t have the Machiavellian, manipulative skills of Father, but he’s nonetheless crafty at guiding the conversation where it needs to go without giving too much away. The governor’s wife is mostly silent. So am I: I stare at my risotto with mushrooms, which according to Serena are different from the fungus she once got under her foot, though I can’t really recall in what way. I lazily wonder why Humans and Weres keep throwing food at me, and listen as the governor informs us that he and my father are “great friends” who’ve been meeting in Human territory about once a month to discuss business for the past decade—despite the fact that Father visited me once per year when I was the Collateral; I’d love to be shocked, but I’d rather save the energy. The governor has never been in Were territory, but has heard beautiful things and would love an invitation (which Lowe doesn’t extend). He’s also going to transition to a lobbying position once Maddie Garcia fully takes over.

Then Lowe moves the conversation to his mother. “She used to be one of Roscoe’s seconds,” he says, switching our plates once he is done with his di

“Ah, yes. I met her once or twice.”

“Did you?”

The governor reaches for a piece of bread. “A lovely woman. Je

“Maria.” I hear the displeasure in Lowe’s tone, but I doubt anyone else can. “I was under the impression that most of her dealings were with someone in charge of border affairs? Thomas . . . ?”

“Thomas Jalakas?”

“That sounds right.” Lowe chews my risotto in silence. “I wonder if he remembers her.”

I tense. Until the governor says, “Sadly, he passed a while ago.”

“He did?” Lowe doesn’t act surprised. Paradoxically, it makes his reaction more believable. “How old was he?”

“Young, still.” The governor sips on his wine. Next to him, his wife plays with her napkin. “It was a terrible accident.”

“An accident? I hope my people were not involved.”

“Oh, no. No, it was a car accident, I believe.” The governor shrugs. “Unfortunately, these things happen.”

Lowe’s stare is so intense, I suspect he’s going to confront him. But after a moment, it relaxes, and the entire room breathes out in relief. “Too bad. My mother talked of him fondly.”

“Ha.” The governor downs the rest of his wine. “I just bet she did. I heard he got around.” Of all the things he could have said, this one is the most wrong.

Lowe calmly dabs his mouth with his napkin and rises to his feet. He unhurriedly walks around the table, toward the governor, who must realize the error of his ways. His chair screeches against the floor as he stands and begins retreating.

“I meant no offense— Ow.”

Lowe slams him against the wall. The governor’s wife screams, but stays put in her chair. I run to Lowe.

“Arthur, my friend,” he murmurs in the governor’s face. “You stink like you’re made of lies.”

“I’m not— I don’t— Help! Help!”

“Why did you have Thomas Jalakas killed?”

“I didn’t, I swear I didn’t!”

Four Human agents storm inside the room, weapons already drawn. They instantly point them at Lowe, shouting at him to let the governor go and step back. Lowe gives no sign of noticing them.

“Tell me why you killed Thomas, and I’ll let you live.”

“I didn’t, I swear I didn’t—”

He leans in. “You know I can kill you faster than they can kill me, right?”

The governor whimpers. A drop of sweat trickles down his red face. “He— I didn’t want to, but he was talking to journalists about some embezzling my administration was involved in. We had to! We had to.”

Lowe straightens. He dusts himself off, takes a step back, and turns to me as though we are the only two people in the room and four firearms are not still trained on him. His hand leisurely finds my elbow, and he smiles—first at me, then to the guards.

“Thank you, governor,” he says, leading me away. “We will see ourselves out.”

“I have several people tailing him,” Lowe informs me once we’re in the car. “And Alex is working on monitoring his communications. He knows we’re onto him, and we’ll be alerted as soon as he makes the next move.”

“I hope ten wolves are currently shitting in his backyard,” I mutter, and Lowe half smiles and puts his hand on my thigh in an easy, absentminded way that would only make sense if we’d been driving places together for years.

“It just doesn’t add up,” I vent. “Say Serena really did just interview him for a financial crime story. Maybe she was the journalist he was talking to. Where does Ana’s name on her pla

“Misery.”

“Yeah.”

“There is another possibility. Regarding Serena.”

I look at him. “Yeah?”

He appears to painstakingly line up the words. When he speaks, his tone is measured. “Maybe it wasn’t Thomas who told Serena about Ana, but the opposite.”

“What do you mean?”

“Maybe Serena found out about Ana from another source, and then used the information to blackmail Thomas over his relationship with a Were and force him to tell her about financial crimes he might know about. Maybe she wanted to break the story, but changed her mind when she realized that she was in danger of being targeted by Governor Davenport. Unlike Thomas, she wasn’t a public individual, and she had the option to disappear.”

I shake my head, even as I realize that some of this is a distinct possibility. “She wouldn’t have left without telling me, Lowe. She’s my sister. And there are no digital traces. She wouldn’t know how to avoid them. She’s not me.”

“She’s not. But she did learn from you for years.” He looks deeply sorry to have to say this.

I let out a laugh. “Not you, too, trying to convince me that Serena didn’t care about me as much as I cared about her. She wouldn’t leave me here to picture the worst. She always told me everything—”

“Not everything.” His jaw tenses. Like this conversation is painful for him, because it’s painful for me. “You mentioned that you had a fight before she left. That sometimes she’d leave for days on her own.”

“Never without saying.”

“Maybe there was no time. Or she didn’t want to put you in danger.”

I wave it away. “This is ridiculous. What about Sparkles? She abandoned her cat.”

“Tell me something,” he asks. I hate how measured and rational he sounds. “Did she know you well enough to predict that you’d go looking for her and find the cat?”

I want to say no so bad, my lips almost hurt. But I can’t, and instead I remember her last words to me:

I need to know that you care about something, Misery.

And she did leave something behind. Something that needed caring for. The damn fucking cat. God, what a wacky plan this would be.