Bitter Blood (The Morganville Vampires #13)(125)

“I did,” Miranda said. “Once I stopped being afraid of the others and really tried to talk to them, it was easier. I still have to be careful around them, but with Jenna holding on, they can’t feed on me as they could before. She can help me get out of the house. It’s perfect.”

Jenna didn’t seem to think so, but for the moment, at least she nodded.

“How’s Eve?” Michael asked. Miranda’s smile faded.

“She’s awake,” she said. “She’s waiting on the couch. We told her what happened.”

“Thanks. You saved our lives.” Claire hugged Miranda, then followed her into the living room. Eve was sitting up on the couch, and already her bruises were loads better; the ice packs on the floor were probably part of that.

She was watching Michael with a fragile kind of hope in her eyes.

He was a few steps away, as if he didn’t dare make a move. Shane came to a halt behind him and leaned against the wall, arms crossed. Claire knew that pose; it was his bodyguard look. He was, at the moment, guarding Eve, from Michael.

But Michael didn’t try to come closer.

“I hurt you,” he said. “I never wanted it, but that happened. I could tell you I didn’t mean it, and that it wasn’t me, and that’s true, but it was me, and I know you can’t forget it. I—” He spread his hands wide. “I hate myself, Eve. That’s all I can say. I hate myself. And if you want me to go, I’ll go. I’ll do anything. Anything.”

There were tears glittering in her eyes. “Miranda told me,” she said. “About Naomi. About her biting you. That you didn’t have a choice in what you did. But it felt real. You know?”

“I know,” he said. “It felt real to me, too. And it scared the hell out of me.”

“Don’t ever do it again.”

He smiled. “I won’t,” he said. “I love you, Mrs. Glass.”

She opened her arms, and he hugged her, as carefully as if she were a fragile piece of crystal.

Shane cleared his throat. “Um, you should know that Amelie tried to make him give you up,” he said. “Because Michael’s probably not going to tell you that. And he refused. So now he’s on her bad side, again.”

“Oh, baby,” Eve said, and drew back to look at Michael’s face. “How bad?”

He shrugged. “Doesn’t matter.”

And Eve’s smile was full of delight as she laid her head on his shoulder. Claire met Eve’s eyes and got a very small smile. It was a little thing, but it was a start.

“I love you, too, Eve,” Claire said. “I’m sorry.”

“Hush up,” Eve said. “Who wouldn’t want to kiss him? Forgiven and forgotten.”

That was more charity than Claire thought she could ever earn. Then Michael whispered something to Eve that clearly wasn’t meant to be overheard, and the sense of intruding on something so precious and private was more than she could take.

Shane must have felt it, too; he pushed off the wall and went up the stairs toward his room. Claire hesitated, then headed that way.

“Hey.” It was Michael’s voice, soft and a little rough, and she glanced over at him as he untangled just a bit from Eve. “That thing, the one you were working on for Myrnin. There’s something to it. I felt it. I thought you should know.”

She was—surprised, she guessed, and a little elated. “Thanks,” she said. The thing was sitting like a particularly large engine part on the dining room table, and she went back, retrieved it, and wondered, again, what exactly it would be able to do if she could really, truly make it work.

Something wonderful, maybe.

Or something awful.

She carted it upstairs, and at the hallway, she hesitated. All the doors were shut, including Shane’s. She took a deep breath, steadied herself, and began walking in that direction.

It felt a bit like going to her own funeral.

Shane’s door was shut. She knocked and got silence for an answer. He doesn’t want to talk about it, she thought, and even though she’d wanted to keep him at a distance for now, to let him understand how badly he’d hurt her when he’d failed to trust her…it ached.

So she went to her room, feeling lost and alone. She left the lights off. The exhaustion, the chill, the despair, were suddenly…too much. She just wanted to crawl into bed and cry until she died. Tomorrow, she’d have to think about how to leave Morganville behind, how to go off to a new town, a new school, a whole new world…and somehow do it without Michael, or Eve, or even Myrnin.

And maybe even without Shane.

But she just couldn’t face it now.

She dumped the machine on the dresser and didn’t even bother to take her clothes off, just stripped back the covers, kicked off her shoes, and crawled beneath…and instantly felt the warmth of a body beside her, moving closer.

Oh.

Shane’s arms went around her. It was slow, and tentative, and done in complete silence. He pulled her closer, and closer, until she was pressed against him, back to front. His lips pressed a slow, soft, burning kiss on the soft, tender skin at the back of her neck.

“I know you didn’t ask me,” he said. “I know you may not want me to go. But I’m going to Boston, and I’ll be there when you need me. You don’t have to say anything. I know I have to earn your trust back. It’s okay.”