He said, “It means not thinking about the future. It means there is no future. There’s only now, and what you can protect now. Sooner or later is always now.”
“Protect. From what?”
“Predators,” he said. “She’s sizing us up. She’ll take the news to the other Families. It isn’t like it was a hundred years ago, when Arturo settled here. There are no new cities to build. A vampire who wants to be a Master has to become o
ne by force. Or guile. If word gets out that Denver is unstable, others will come. Scavengers. If I wanted to be really sinister, I’d say that someone sent Mercedes here to stir things up. To make the situation unstable. More unstable, that is.”
“How long has she been doing this? How old is she?”
“God knows. I should get back to it.” He turned back to the elevators. Ben took my arm and drew me away, out the hotel’s front doors.
“Well, that was fun,” he said with false brightness.
“You see what we’re dealing with?” I marched along the sidewalk, quickly putting distance between me and that place. We’d parked in a lot a couple of blocks up the street. I couldn’t get there fast enough.
“Sure. There were a lot of really insecure people in that room.”
I almost laughed, except I suddenly felt like I was going to throw up. Spent adrenaline. “Yeah. Did you have to provoke him like that?” I said. I could still see the look on Carl’s face.
“He’s a bully. I love bullies. They have such big, shiny red buttons to push.”
He was such a lawyer.
“Didn’t he make you at all nervous? The wolf side, I mean. Didn’t he make you want to either grovel or crawl out of your skin?”
“Yeah, but you were with me so I felt okay. I feel okay when you’re around.”
I could have hugged him for that. But it was too much responsibility. I didn’t want to be alpha, not even of a pack of two. “That’s flattering. Most of the time I feel like I’m falling apart.”
“But you haven’t actually fallen.” His smile was tight, anxious. Using humor to combat the fear.
“You’re insufferable, you know that?” I held his arm, both gaining and giving comfort with the touch.
It didn’t entirely help.
“Oh, my God. I’m fucked. I am so fucked.” I started shivering when the cool evening air got to my sweaty skin. Or it could have been the churning in my gut. I walked faster, as if I could flee my own reaction.
Ben kept up, stayed alongside me, watching me. “I’ve never seen you like this. It’s kind of freaking me out.”
I stopped and doubled over, clutching my stomach.
Run. We can run. Get away, out of his territory, far away—
“Kitty.” Ben put his hand on my back, a comforting pressure. “Keep it together.”
Anyone passing by would have probably tsked at the scene, maybe smiled in amusement—some chick drank too much at the bars, and her attentive boyfriend was looking after her. How cute. My Wolf was right on the surface, though, fighting. Carl brought her out and I couldn’t put her back.
“Kitty.”
I concentrated on Ben’s voice, his touch, human skin against human skin. His palm slid across my shirt. Focusing on my spine, I straightened—stay upright, vertical backbone, not horizontal, not like Wolf. I took deep, careful breaths.
Ben took off his suit jacket and put it over my shoulders. I clung to it tightly, snuggling into its warmth. His arm across my back, we walked on, close together, our bodies touching. Our pack of two.
“If he finds you alone, he’ll kill you, won’t he?” he said.
“I think so.”
We’d traveled another block before he said, “Right. Just as long as I know where we all stand.”