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So maybe he wasn’t always selfish. Only 99.9999% selfish.
In this case his reasoning was sound. I’d been in Lucas’s presence the only time I’d shifted, so he obviously had the ability to bring out my wolf. I wasn’t in a position to mess around with shifting right now. I needed to be a nice, human-shaped monster if I had a hope in hell of getting to Manitoba to sort out the Mercy situation.
A wolf might be more menacing, but I couldn’t exactly tell the jet pilot where the closest small airp
ort was if I was a quadruped.
“Fine.”
Lucas arched a brow. “What, no argument?”
“Do you want me to argue?”
“No, but you fight me on everything. I assumed this would be no different.”
“You of all people must be familiar with what they say about people who assume.” I smiled weakly, glad I could get in one more barb before saying the most dreaded words I could imagine uttering to Lucas Rain, “You’re right.”
“Whoa.” He leaned back and rested his hands on his cruelly toned tummy. “Do my ears deceive me?”
“Shut up.”
“Look, leave Desmond with me, and I’ll do everything I can to get him back in human form.”
“Thank you.” I was still waiting for him to name his price, and when none came, I didn’t know how to handle it. Was it possible for Lucas to do something nice for me without demanding a quid pro quo? I’d have gladly given whatever pound of flesh he asked for if it meant restoring Desmond, but as he walked me to the door he had yet to make his request.
“I miss you.” He leaned against the doorframe and stared at me as I backed into the hallway.
“Why?” I asked, unable to comprehend a single reason he could honestly want me back in his life.
He shrugged and looked at the carpet, appearing more lost and uncertain than I’d ever seen him. “I don’t know,” he admitted.
That made two of us.
Chapter Nineteen
It felt wrong to leave Desmond behind, but I knew it was the right thing to do. If anyone would be able to restore him to his former glory, it would be Lucas. In the meantime, I had the rest of the evening in New York to myself, and plenty of people who must have wanted a piece of it.
I should have gone to find Holden, told him how things were progressing. I’d texted him after I landed, so he knew I was back in New York, but he still didn’t know all the details of Peyton’s execution or The Doctor’s role in Desmond’s shift. There were some things I couldn’t explain properly via text message.
Part of me wanted to go see Calliope for a little insight into what was going on. The Oracle might be able to help me determine what was happening with my mother, but I really wasn’t in the mood for riddles just then.
I could have visited Keaty or Mercedes. I probably ought to have called Tyler and given him a status update, now that I was technically an asset of the US Government.
Instead of any of those things, however, I found myself wandering to Chelsea to an old rent-controlled apartment owned by the Council. It had once belonged to Brigit, when I couldn’t handle being her mentor and her roommate. But after her death it had remained in the possession of the Council, which had come in handy when I brought in another wayward vampire in need of a home.
I let myself into the foyer and was rifling through my purse to find my extra keys, when a loud crash overhead drew my attention.
Since the apartment building was populated primarily by elderly folks and a few lucky families, there could have been any number of explanations for the sound. Yet something about it made my blood run cold. It felt wrong. I jogged up the stairs to the fourth floor and down the hall to Brigit’s—I couldn’t stop thinking of it as hers—apartment.
The door was ajar, and someone inside was yelling.
Drawing my gun and disengaging the safety, I pushed the door open with my toe and raised the weapon, prepared to place two rounds in a chest or head if need be.
Nolan Tate, my vampire-slaying protégée, held a slim, seventeen-year-old-looking vampire around the throat and appeared ready to kill at the drop of a hat.
I hadn’t seen Nolan in months, not since Brigit’s death. The two had made an unlikely couple, but he had loved her more intensely than I’d realized. After she was killed, he bolted, and I hadn’t seen him since. Now he seemed hell-bent on trying to choke the life out of Sutherland, and the vampire wasn’t showing any signs of a struggle.
“Nolan, put him down.”
