Bitter Blood (The Morganville Vampires #13)(49)

“You’re super nice to her, all of a sudden,” Claire said.

“Ha. If I was super nice to her, she wouldn’t have bruises on her arm right now,” he said. “But I’m willing to forget to hate her, every once in a while. She’s had it rough these past couple of years.”

“So have you.”

He flashed her a smile. “I never did have much, so having it rough came with the territory. I was conditioned for it. And you’re forgetting the most important thing that’s different.”

“You don’t have a fashion addiction to skintight clothes?”

“I have you,” he said, and the warmth in his voice took her breath away. She let go of his arm and crowded in close as they walked, and he hugged her close. It was awkward making progress that way, but it felt so sweet. “Okay, and I don’t have a fashion addiction. Valid point.”

“You don’t think she knows something about a plot to hurt Michael and Eve, do you? The way she said that back there…”

“I don’t know,” Shane said. “I don’t think she’d hide it; she’d really like teasing us with it, but she’d give it up. She’d want to, I think. It’s not as if she wants Michael dead, anyway. She always had a little bit of a thing for him.”

“And you,” Claire said, and elbowed him. “More than a little bit.”

“Ugh. Please don’t say that or I’ll lose my will to live.”

“I love you.” It came out of her spontaneously, and she felt a little jolt of adrenaline, then a little burst of fear right on the heels of it. There had been no reason to say it now, walking down the street, but it had just seemed…right. She was a little afraid that Shane would think it was clingy, or fake, but when she glanced over at him, she saw he was smiling—an easy, relaxed smile, uncomplicated and happy.

It wasn’t something she saw very often, and it made her feel glorious.

“I love you, too,” he said, and that felt like some kind of milestone to her, that they felt easy enough with each other to just say it whenever they wanted, without feeling awkward about it, or afraid.

We’re growing up, she thought. We’re growing up together.

He put his arm around her, and they walked close together, all the way home. The setting sun was lurid reds and golds, spilling into the vast and open sky, and it was as beautiful a thing as Claire had ever seen in Morganville.

Peaceful.

It was the last of that, though.





EIGHT





AMELIE




I knew of no one, vampire or human, who could detour Myrnin from a course once he had decided on it, whether it was mad, manic, destructive, or simply single-minded. So when the guards informed me that he had refused to stop at the checkpoint to the hallway of my office, I did not bother to order them to try to detain him. It might have been possible for a few moments, an hour, a day, but Myrnin wouldn’t forget. He would simply start again, and sooner or later, he’d succeed.

I pressed the button on my phone—still such an awkward and common device, to my mind, nothing attractive about it—and informed my assistant that upon his arrival she should not stand in his way. Poor thing, she had taken enough abuse lately, from humans as well as from vampires.

Only I could handle Myrnin with any measure of success.

He exploded through my doorway with the force of a tropical storm, and indeed the riot of colors about his person reminded me of that…so many shades, and none of them complementary. I did not bother to catalog all the offenses, but they began with the jacket he had chosen. I had no name for that particular hue of orange, other than unfortunate.

“This is my last attempt at making you see sense,” he said. Shouted, actually. “Damn you, how long have we worked, how many sacrifices have we made? To see you throw that all away for him…”

I had already decided, well before his grand entrance, what my first move would be, and with an economy of motion, I slapped him full across the face. The force of it would have felled a strong mortal; it certainly made Myrnin pause, with the mark of the blow blushing a very faint pink in the shape of my fingers.

He blinked.

“You may save your well-rehearsed speech,” I said. “I’ll hear none of it. This ill-advised intrusion is at an end.”

“Amelie, we have been friends for—”

“Don’t presume to tell me how many years. I can count as well as you, or possibly better on the days when you’re insane,” I snapped back. “Sit down.”

He did, looking oddly watchful. I paced. I’d been doing that more frequently than was my normal habit, but I put it down to raw nerves. Morganville lately had seemed exasperating, a broken toy that would never be put right no matter how much time and love I lavished on the repairs.

Myrnin said, “You even move like he does now.”

“Silence!” I whirled on him, snarling, and knew my eyes had gone deep crimson.

“No,” he said, with an eerie sort of calm. Myrnin was many things, but he was rarely calm, and when he was, it was time to worry. “There are some people who may say this is a good match for you, that you needed a strong right arm to calm the fears of the vampires and subdue the human population. I am not one. Sam gentled you, Amelie. He made you feel more a part of the world you rule. Oliver will never do that. He feels no responsibility for those he crushes, and—”