He showed me a sample photo. I winced. “Bleh. Don’t I have enough randy geriatrics in my life? And she was sure he died?”
“Well, they buried him,” he said, starting the car. “So, what would that make him? A vampire? A zombie?”
“This isn’t really my area of expertise,” I said. “But it explains the health shakes.”
“Well, have you ever seen him during the day?”
“I don’t see anybody during the day.”
“Aren’t there some vampire tests we can do? We can make him touch silver, put him under a sun lamp. Oh, we can force-feed him garlic bread.”
“I like your enthusiasm. But why don’t we just ask him?” I suggested.
“Well, where’s the fun in that?” Zeb pouted. “Besides, what are you going to say, ‘Hi, I know you want to marry my grandma, who I’m not on great terms with, but I was hoping you could tell me whether you’re, you know, an undead gigolo hell-bent on killing her and taking the family fortune’? I’m sure that would improve your relationship with Ruthie. Come on, let’s sprinkle silver shavings in his pants.
“Well, what are you going to do?” he said when I ignored his proposal. “Find his lair? Do your best Peter Cushing imitation?”
I shot him the Arched Eyebrow of Bewilderment. He responded by wrapping his fingers around a pretend stake and made stabbing motions. At least, I hoped it was a pretend stake and stabbing motions, because otherwise our relationship just took an upsetting and inappropriate turn.
“Why would I do that?” I asked.
“Because he’s evil!”
I gaped at him. “Because he’s probably not one hundred percent human, we should assume he’s an evil monster?” Zeb’s face sagged into “oops” lines. “Yeah, how’s that foot taste?”
“Sorry,” he said. “Sometimes I forget that you’re not one hundred percent human.”
“Hmph.”
On the drive back to town, I tried to work up the nerve to bring up Zeb’s odd behavior, the unexplained absences and “chores” at his mama’s house. Was Zeb thinking about leaving Jolene at the altar? Was that even possible when you were mated to a werewolf?
Zeb avoided the fully exposed highways in favor of the more shaded backroads, where we were treated to fantastic scenery. Weeds almost high enough to hide the junked cars and defunct riding mowers. Trailers with rotting underpinning flapping in the wind. And there was a school bus parked next to almost every house, most of which did not appear able to run. I kept telling myself I would just blurt out the first question at the next trailer we saw, and the next, and the next. But I couldn’t bring myself to do it. I wasn’t sure if I wanted to know if Zeb was capable of jilting Jolene. I didn’t want know if he was capable of hurting someone that way, of that level of deceit. These aren’t thoughts you want to have about your best friend.
We were halfway back to the Hollow when I started feeling a little dizzy. I ignored it until the sensation turned into full-on vertigo. My throat was so dry. I looked at the clock. Crap.
“What’s wrong?” Zeb asked. “You look pale … er.”
I covered my mouth with my hand and shook my head as a hot iron fist closed around my belly.
“Remember when we were nine and we rode the Tilt-A-Nator until you threw up cotton candy in my lap?” he asked. “You looked better then.”
I braced myself against the dashboard, palms against the worn, warm faux leather. “It’s just that I—I’m getting a little, um, hungry.”
“I thought you had a special little fridge in here for blood. Didn’t you bring anything with you?”
“I didn’t think a bag lunch would be required,” I said. “I ate right before we left, but being out during the day—I didn’t realize it would be so draining.”
“What about a store? Can we stop somewhere?”
I doubled over as another cramp clenched my belly. I wheezed, “The closest store is Bubba’s Beer and Bait, and that’s about ten miles away. I don’t think he carries bottled blood. In fact, Bubba has a little sign on his door that says, ‘No Shoes, No Pulse, No Service.’ “
Zeb mulled that over. “They used to use the milk of young coconuts for a plasma substitute because of its high iron content. I saw it on the Discovery Channel.”
“Well, that will be really handy to know if we’re ever stranded on a desert island.” I smacked him. “If I can’t get blood, how the hell am I going to get a young coconut?”
“I know! I’m sorry! I’m panicking!” he cried.
“Just keep driving.” I panted. “Talk to me. Keep me thinking about something else.”
“What do you want me to talk about?”
“Anything! Your kindergartners, wedding stuff, anything!” I exclaimed, wincing at the empty churning in my stomach. “You’ve been talking my ear off for years, Zeb. Don’t tell me you’ve run out of things to say.”
After a long silent moment, Zeb’s voice came deep and clear. “You could feed from me.”
“Don’t you think that would be weird?” I said, thinking about the first feeding with Andrea. I hadn’t fed from a human since that cringe-inducing attempt. And it was a good while before I was completely comfortable around her again.
“I love you, Jane,” he said, parking the car on the shoulder. “I want to help. This is our last big stupid adventure. Let’s go out with a bang.”
“I don’t think it would be—”
“Jane.”
I sighed. “I’m not biting your neck. Too intimate.” I made an icked-out face at him, prompting him to offer his wrist. “Are you sure?”
“Do it before I change my mind!” he snapped, then yowled when my fangs pierced his skin. He tensed, then forced himself to relax, leaning back in the seat, avoiding contact beyond my mouth on his wrist. I focused on the mechanics of feeding, fangs into skin, sealing the lips around the wound to gently pull the blood to the surface. I thought fondly of Funyuns and Cokes sipped through uncapped Twizzlers, the sort of cuisine we enjoyed on afternoon trips to Hickman Lake after Zeb got his driver’s license.
When he stroked a hand across my back, I shrugged it away. More insistent, his hand curled around my jaw, caressing my cheek as I fed. I did not want to think about the pseudo-Freudian aspects of penetration and oral fixation. This was lunch. This was take-out. At least, that’s what I told myself until Zeb moaned a little, throwing his head back against the seat. This sly, creepy voice in my head whispered, You could take it all. Snuff out his life like a sputtering candle, turn him, keep him with you. A few more sips, he’s enjoying it—
“Stop,” I said, pulling away. A sleepy, almost sensual expression had settled on Zeb’s features, and he leaned back in the seat and stretched. He grinned conspiratorially at me as he rubbed his wrist.
“You OK?” he asked, his eyes glazed over and hazy again. He seemed barely able to focus on me.
“Fine,” I promised, shaking away the guilt-inducing voice in my head. “Does it hurt?”
“No,” he said, massaging his wrist, where a dark purple mark was forming. The wound was already closing up, but he would have the bruise for a while.
“Here.” I dragged my fingertip across a fang and made a tiny cut. I squeezed it over Zeb’s wrist, letting a few drops of blood fall into the closing wound. The skin immediately healed, and the bruising vanished.
“Thanks.” Zeb smiled fondly at me, stroking the tendrils of hair back away from my face. His voice sounded so far away, as if he was repeating lines he’d heard in a movie. But it was the eyes that were unnerving. They were so vacant; there seemed to be no trace of Zeb in them.
His lips parted, and his breath quickened as he leaned toward me. A zing of panic slipped up my spine as his mouth drew closer to my own. I struck out, popping Zeb on the nose with my half-closed fist. It was sort of a cross between a punch and a slap, right in the middle of his face. “What are you doing?”
“Ow!” he cried, now fully undazed and clutching his bleeding nostrils. “What did you do that for?”
“You do not kiss me, you got it?” I shouted.
“What do you mean, I don’t kiss you?” he cried, tilting his head back against my seat as I shoved a tissue at him.
“I mean, you don’t kiss me.”
“I wasn’t going to kiss you,” he insisted.
“Zeb, it’s been a while, but I’m pretty sure I recognize the ninety-five percent lean-in when I see it.”
“The last thing I remember is your fangs breaking my skin,” he said, dabbing at his nose and checking it in the rearview mirror.
“You honestly don’t remember leaning toward me with your mouth half-open?”
“No!”
I stared at Zeb for a long time, debating whether I should look inside his mind and determine whether he was lying. Ultimately, I chickened out. Looking into his head at the moment seemed so intrusive … and scary. Honestly, I wasn’t sure if I wanted to know what the hell he was thinking. Or if he was thinking. What if the reason he seemed so unsatisfied with Jolene lately was that he was having feelings for me? How could he do that to either of us? How could he change the rules of our friendship that way without even telling me? How was I going to tell him that the two of us would never, ever be more than what we were?
What if I lost my best friend?
“Just take me home,” I said finally, slumping against the seat. We spent the rest of the drive in silence, with me staring out the window, trying to ignore the nervous bundle of BFF at the wheel. As soon as he pulled Big Bertha into my driveway, I threw a solar blanket over my head, yelped, “Good night!” and dashed for the door.
“Jane, we need to talk!” Zeb called after me.
“Good night!” I yelled as I struggled to fit the key into the front door and keep the protective blanket in place.
I slammed the door behind me and threw the deadbolt in place, just in time to hear Zeb say, “All right, then.”
I closed my eyes, praying he wouldn’t come to the door and try to talk about what just happened. I leaned my head back against the glass, listening for the sound of Zeb’s car starting up and driving away. I caught sight of my reflection in the pier glass in the foyer, the oddly beautiful, pale woman in the mirror, her face flooded with relief at the sound of a Datsun’s engine revving.
I glared at the image. “You are a coward.”
My reflection was decidedly unhelpful.
14
Any male who marries more than two mates is ostracized from the pack. Most females would consider him a jinx at that point, anyway.
—Mating Rituals and Love Customs of the Were
In order to avoid thinking about Zeb and inappropriate touching, I threw myself into ferreting out more information on my future step-grandpa. I figured of the two problems, Wilbur’s past was far less likely to come back and bite me on the butt.
Gabriel found me up to my elbows in cyberspace, searching through a not-quite-legal connection to the state’s vital-statistics database. The library was granted access for archive purposes, and Mrs. Stubblefield hadn’t bothered to change our password since I was fired. Honestly, what was she thinking?
I had access to birth certificates, marriage licenses, and death certificates, the only problem being that they were in abstract form, giving the barest essentials of names and dates.
After I gave only a cursory grunt for a greeting, Gabriel cautiously climbed onto the couch next to me and watched as my fingers flew over the keyboard.
“I’m fine, thank you, dear. How are you?” he said pointedly.
I made a kissing noise in his general direction but continued my search.
“I didn’t mean to interrupt,” he grumped. When I finally looked at Gabriel, I saw that he was wearing a well-cut black suit with a blue silk tie. I’d never seen him in his “business” attire before. He would have been mouthwatering, if not for the anxious lines between his brows, the nervous glint in his eyes. “What are you doing?”
“Stalking my future grampy via an obscenely fast wireless connection,” I said, tapping away at the keys.
He blinked at the wildly scrolling screen. “Is that slang or a Jane-ism?”
“A little of both,” I said. While the search engine compiled marriage records for Goosens between 1960 and 2007, I kissed his chin and rubbed my eyes. “I’m looking up old Mr. Goosen in the state archives. So far, all I’ve found is his birth certificate, which is normal. And his death certificate, which is, considering that he’s walking around, not normal.”
He stroked a hand across my shoulders. “You know, I’ve never seen this aggressively intellectual side of you before. It’s rather disturbing and yet somehow a little sexy.”
“Which is pretty much how we define our relationship,” I said, turning back to the screen.
I heard his delicate intake of breath beside me. “Was Zeb just here? His scent seems particularly strong in this room.”
“Please stop sniffing me for evidence of other people,” I groaned, cutting off my contrived, indignant response. Instead, I quietly said, “I had to feed from him.”
“Why are you making that face?” he asked, tucking his thumb under my chin. “There’s no reason you shouldn’t feed from Zeb.”
“I sort of vowed not to feed from humans, remember?” I said. “I was doing great, six months clean and passive … and then Zeb tried to kiss me, and it all just went to hell from there.”