Bride

She distracts him. His feelings for her, they distract him.

There is something I’ll never, ever let myself live down, not until the day I kick the bucket, not until the moment I vanish into the nothingness of matter: in my weeks of living with the Weres, it never occurred to me to wonder where their clothes went when they shifted to wolf form.

It’s so, so stupid of me.

And in the aftermath of the scariest night of my life, sitting in the Nest’s stairwell, with Gabi treating the puncture wound Father’s knife cut into the flesh of my collarbone, I simply ca

“Did you think they’d transform with us? Sartorially?” Alex leans against the handrail. He’s sticking around for no reason other than to mock me. Or maybe he’s genuinely interested—I ca

“I don’t know what I expected. But Serena’s top was all tattered and stuck around her neck, and I’m just saying that it was disturbing to watch a pink shirt dangle from her while her teeth sank into Vania’s throat.” I rub my face with my palms, hoping to unsee the past two hours. When I look up again, Ludwig and Cal and another handful of seconds are walking down the hallway to Father’s office. They stop in front of us, and . . .

We all know they were interrogating Mick. I wonder if it still looks like the Aster in there: purple and green blood splattered all over the walls. The most gruesome of flowers, finger-painted by the world’s creepiest child.

“Is she still talking about the clothes?” Ludwig asks.

Alex nods with a deep sigh. Gabi bites back a smile.

“I just want to know what the hell she was thinking would happen to them,” Cal mutters.

“I didn’t think,” I say. Defensively.

“Obviously,” Alex mutters.

“Shouldn’t you be intimidated by me? Also, what are you doing here?” This must be the most Weres in Vampyre territory ever.

“It was determined that an IT expert might be of use, and frankly, you lost all of your intimidation points.”

“I can still drink you dry, nerd.”

Owen arrives to interrupt our bickering. “Are you done here, Misery? I need you with me for a moment.”

I follow him down the staircase with one last glare at Alex, mostly in silence. Owen got a bit beaten up during the fight: his black eye is courtesy of Vania, or maybe that auburn-haired guard who escorted him in. From the way he carries himself, I suspect his entire right side is bruised, too. When we turn into a dark hallway and are out of earshot, I ask quietly, “Are you okay?”

“I should ask you that.”

I mull it. “I’d feel better if I could speak to Serena.”

“She’s with the ginger. The girl, not the guy.”

“Juno. I know.”

“Apparently, she doesn’t quite have the whole turning-into-a-beast-and-then-back-into-a-person thing down, and she’s still working on controlling her . . . I don’t fucking know, wolfy impulses. Red took her for a run to—”

“I know,” I repeat. I’m still worried. “And it’s not ‘turn.’ ”

“What do you mean?”

“The Weres prefer the term ‘shift.’ ”

He gives me an appalled glance, like I’m a first-row nerd yelling Teacher, pick me! and then stops in front of a closed door. “I saw your face when I stepped into the office. You thought I was going to screw you over, didn’t you?”

I resist the temptation to avert my gaze. “You did come in holding my husband captive.”

“That was his idea. I called him about an hour after you guys drove away—we were finally able to get footage of the break-in in Serena’s apartment.”

So that’s why Lowe left after we . . . better not think about that. “Let me guess—it was Mick.”

He nods. “I showed Lowe the recordings, and he immediately recognized him. Misery, he freaked the fuck out.”

“Yeah, Mick and Lowe go way back—”

“No, he freaked out because he knew that you were with Mick. I thought your boy toy was a pretty even-tempered guy, but he’s actually bloodcurdling.”

I don’t bother to deny it. “And what did you do?”

“The Weres were still monitoring the governor to see what his next step would be, and he made a call to Father. At that point, it became clear that they were collaborating on something, and that Mick was aiding them. Lowe told me to call Father and lie—the story was that once you and Mick disappeared, Lowe contacted me to find you because he thought I might be willing to help, and instead I took him captive. You’ve seen the rest.” He squints at me. “Again, it was his idea.”

“I didn’t say anything—”

“I’m not going to screw you over, Misery.”

I nod, feeling almost close to my twin. It’s long forgotten, but familiar. “Neither will I.”

“Very well, then.” He points at the door. “You ready?” He doesn’t say what’s inside, but I already know.

Lowe is wearing a pair of jeans he must have found somewhere, and nothing else. He turns our way when we come in, but remains leaning against the wall, patient. A few feet from him there is a chair and, cuffed to it, a Vampyre.

Father.

He’s covered in blood, mostly purple, but then again—so am I. And so is Owen, and everyone else who was in that office during the carnage. When Alex arrived on the scene, his first question to me was whether all the blood was making me hungry. Once we’re back in Were territory, I plan to smear a pancake on the inside of a toilet and ask him the same.

If I ever go back to the Weres.

My eyes meet Lowe’s, briefly and for entirely too long. What passes between us is too combustible a moment not to glance away immediately.

“You okay?” he asks.

No. “Yeah. You?”

“Yeah.” He means no, but for now it doesn’t matter.

Father is blindfolded, I assume to save some moron from wandering in and getting themselves thralled within an inch of their life. The headphones they put on him must be noise canceling, but he knows exactly who’s in the room, from heartbeats and blood scent alone. His enforcers are gone, and so is his power. For the first time in his adult life, he’s defenseless. I close my eyes and wait for feelings of any kind to hit me.

None arrive.

“May I?” Owen asks cordially, pointing at Father. Lowe nods, observing him calmly as he rips off the blindfold and the headphones. Owen crouches down, sitting on his haunches. It’s my first time witnessing an interaction like this one: my brother as the active, dynamic part, and Father restrained and unmoving. Weak. Losing.