Kitty Raises Hell

He arced a brow and glared back at me. “I’m going to tell Roman no. I’m going to tell him to leave town. We’ll stop this thing on our own, Kitty.”

“How? Do you have any ideas? Know anyone who can do a good exorcism? Because I don’t think you do.”

He had the grace to bow his head, because I was yelling now. A week’s worth of stress had piled up and burst out. The bartender—human, normal, she may not even have known what Rick was—glanced our way, then went back to wiping down the bar.

“I’m sorry,” he said.

I wiped away angry tears that had leaked out. Crying was the last thing I wanted to be doing right now. “You have to protect your own little empire, I understand that. But I keep wondering what that means to you. You’re practically immortal. When you protect yourself and your people, you’re protecting something that could last for centuries. I won’t live for a fraction of your years. So do you look at the rest of us and think, well, we’re all going to die in a few years anyway. Do we all seem expendable to you? Disposable?”

“Kitty, no. It’s not like that.”

My turn to look away.

He leaned forward, like he was going to say something else. Explain to me how vampires saw the world, once and for all. But he looked up.

Roman had arrived.

Tonight, along with his overcoat he wore a button-up shirt, black, something soft and rich, probably silk, and tailored slacks. Touchable clothing. He held his hands folded in front of him and quirked a wry smile.

“May I sit?” he said. We were both staring at him like idiots. Rick hadn’t heard him approach. His vampiric sixth sense hadn’t warned him that Roman was here—maybe because my blubbering had distracted him.

Quickly, I straightened and took a sip of coffee, pretending that nothing was wrong.

Rick gestured, offering Roman the empty chair opposite him. Roman sat.

“Have you had a chance to discuss my offer?” he said.

“I’m afraid we can’t accept.”

“You can’t accept,” I muttered. Unable to look at either one of them, I turned away and glared at a spot a foot out from my face, which I tried to keep a mask.

Roman acknowledged my addendum with a very slight tilt of his head.

“You don’t trust me?” he said, to Rick.

“Of course not,” Rick said. “Not unless you want to tell me how you’re co

I rolled my eyes at the assumption Rick was making. Roman remained inscrutable.

“I understand,” he said. “But you realize you have very few options here.”

“So you say.”

“What does our esteemed alpha werewolf say about this? She has a greater stake in this than you do.”

“She might, but I don’t trust—”

“I can speak for myself,” I said, glaring at Rick. “To be honest, I think I’m up shit creek. But if Ricardo here says we can handle this without you, who am I to argue?” That came out snottier than it probably should have, but I was in no mood to be polite.

“You aren’t very diplomatic, are you?” Roman said, sounding amused.

I agreed with a tight-lipped smile. “You know what the worst part is? We know this is revenge against me, but it’s not just coming after me. It’s about pain and chaos, so it’s going to kill my pack one by one. It’s going to destroy the places I love, and the people I love, until I have nothing left. And that’s evil.”

Roman glanced at Rick, as if to say that was all the explanation we needed. It was all the explanation I needed—I’d do anything to stop this thing in its tracks—but vampire politics trumped my own issues, apparently.

“I can’t let you stay in my city,” Rick said.

“Very well. If that’s where you stand, I can’t argue,” Roman said. I wondered how I was going to chase after Roman and beg him to help me behind Rick’s back. I wondered what I could give him that Rick couldn’t.

Roman stood, businesslike, without hesitation. He wasn’t going to waste his dignity by trying to talk Rick out of his decision. “It was good to meet you both. You have such interesting reputations.”

I almost giggled at that. “That’s what everyone says.”

He held his hand out for Rick to shake, but Rick didn’t. Instead, they held a minutelong staring match. I couldn’t tell who broke contact first, because I was the one who blinked. One moment they were locked in a battle of wills. The next, Roman was holding his hand out to me.

“Kitty,” he said.

I did shake his hand, because maybe Roman was only trying to be polite. The pressure of his hand was firm, steady. Not unpleasant. Not challenging. Just polite. Then he let go, gave us one last smile, and was gone.

I found a slip of paper palmed in my hand.

I curled the hand into a fist and pretended not to notice. Sitting there, my hands on the table in fists, Rick must have thought I was very angry.

“Kitty, I’m sorry,” he said again, and would keep saying, as if that made everything better. “I’ll do everything I can to help, you know I will.”

“Everything except letting in the one person who claims to know how to stop it.”

“If I let him in, if he gained a foothold in Denver, we’d never get him out again. You know that.”

I did. Part of me, a big part, agreed with Rick. Roman was a stranger, therefore untrustworthy. Who knows what havoc he could wreak here in the long term?

“But you wouldn’t even listen to him,” I said.

Rick sat, not really looking at me, his jaw taut, body braced. This hadn’t been easy for him. Him becoming Master vampire of the city hadn’t been any easier than me becoming its alpha werewolf. We were floundering. Which meant he couldn’t, under any circumstances, give an inch to someone like Roman. Rationally, I understood, but I wasn’t being particularly rational about this.

“Kitty—” he said, starting another round of apologies. I held up my hand to stop him.

“I understand, Rick. Really I do. I need to go check on my people. We both need to work on stopping this. Without outside help. So, I’m going to go.”

He bowed his head, acquiescing.

I left the club, not knowing if we were still friends. Not knowing if we’d ever be able to talk to each other after what he’d done, and what I was about to do.

I walked to my car, about three blocks away, before daring to look at the scrap of paper in my hand. It had a number and street marked on it, about a mile away, toward Capitol Hill. Looking around, I took a deep breath of air, trying to catch the cold scent of vampire. To see if Rick had sent anyone to follow me. I didn’t sense anything. I drove to the address Roman had given me.

It was on the corner of a block of run-down houses. Cars crammed the curb on both sides, making navigating the two-way street difficult. This late, though, no one else was out and about. I had to park a block away, slipping into a spot on the curb in front of a driveway. It was late, and I didn’t plan to be here long. I hoped no one would mind.

Roman found me before I could backtrack to the location. The address was just a landmark, not a destination.

“I wasn’t sure you’d meet me,” he said, approaching me on the sidewalk.

“It’s like you said, I don’t have to many options.”

“What will Rick do when he finds out you’ve gone behind his back?”

“I don’t know,” I said. I took a deep breath. “I don’t really care. He’s not in charge here—we’re supposed to be partners.”

“You assumed he’d say yes. That he’d do what was necessary to help you.”

I looked away. I didn’t want to go so far as to say I’d assumed, but I’d definitely hoped. Whatever my bravado, Rick wouldn’t be happy about me talking to Roman like this.

Roman gestured for me to join him, and I fell into step beside him. We walked along, at midnight, in a part of town that really wasn’t meant for walking late at night. But we were a couple of monsters, confident that anything that might try to bother us simply couldn’t.