“So how’s it going with the pack lately?” I asked, after the waitress came and took our orders and sushi menus, giving Diego doubtful looks the whole time. I was hoping to get the conversation started on his business and keep him out of my own.
“Oh, you mean the were version of the KKK?”
“Come on, Diego—I was angry when I said that. Let it go and I’ll let the things you said go. What do you say?”
He sighed. “All right. But only because you’re my favorite sister.”
“Gee thanks. I’ll be sure to tell Essie she comes in second place.” Essie, short for Esperanza, was my perfect older sister and the only other girl besides me in a family full of boys. Why our parents chose such Hispanic-sounding names for all of us when they didn’t seem to give a crap for the culture otherwise was a mystery, but I was glad I’d gotten a relatively short and easy one.
“I’ll tell her myself.” Diego frowned. “You should see her. Now that Frank is up for pack master she thinks she’s the Queen of Sheba or some shit. Them and their perfect kids—makes me sick, ya know?”
Now here was news I was genuinely interested in. “The pack mastership is up for grabs?” I meant my family’s home pack, not Los Lobos, the pack Diego ran with.
He nodded and took a sip of his pink lady, another favorite he’d picked up from me. “Uh-huh. And about time. They’ve had the same leader for…how long now?”
“Fourteen years,” I said automatically. That was exactly how long it had been since I had last visited the hunting grounds of my family’s home pack. Exactly how long it had been since that fateful night when James Engle had ascended as pack master and I’d first failed to change. It was burned into my brain like a brand. Don’t think about it! I pushed the bad memory aside quickly. “So, uh, what happened to what’s-his-name? The current pack master?” I said, trying to sound casual.
“Who, Engle? He’s still around but not for long. Decided to step down voluntarily and retire to Miami. Of course, everybody thinks it’s ‘cause he’s too much of a pussy to fight if another wolf challenges him. Fucking mariposa.”
“Keep your voice down,” I murmured. Two well-dressed South Tampa ladies who lunch were sitting at the table beside us, scarfing down sushi they would probably purge later. They were already eyeing Diego with distaste and his colorful language wasn’t helping any.
“Sorry.” Diego gave them a little wave, displaying the LOVE and HATE tattoos on his fingers, which nearly made them choke on their volcano roll. “Anyway,” he continued, turning back to me. “Engle is all ‘I want to choose my successor for the good of the pack’. But first, of course, he’s taking this all-expenses-paid trip to Hawaii. Said he needs time to consider the candidates in a clean environment. Like Hawaii is so much cleaner than Tampa.”
“It might be, you don’t know,” I pointed out, but I was running on autopilot. An idea had popped into my brain—one that held a scary kind of appeal. And if the pack master really was going to be gone it just might work.
“Hell, Luz, that’s not the point,” Diego complained. “The point is, it’s the other pack members, like Mom and Dad, who are funding his little vacation. Of course Frank and Essie are all supportive because they think Engle is gonna pick Frank hands down, but a lot of people are pissed.”
“I’m sure they are,” I said absently. “So you’re sure he’ll be gone this coming full moon? He’ll be in Hawaii?” There was no way in hell I would go anywhere near James Engle for the rest of my life. But if he was really going to be gone then maybe I could reclaim part of my heritage. A part that I had thought I’d lost forever fourteen years before.
“He’ll be in a five-star hotel in Honolulu,” Diego said. “That’s why they’re having a scaled-down hunt this month. Essie wants me to run with them instead of the Lobos since Frank is acting as temporary pack master while Engle’s gone.”
“Are you going to?” I asked, toying with the iced tea the waitress brought me along with Diego’s second pink lady.
He shrugged, making his tattooed arms ripple. “I might. Dad is putting on the pressure, saying how important it is to show Frank support and how great it would be to have a pack master in the family. Mom and Dad always did care more about pack status than anything else—you know?”
“I know.” I swallowed a lump that wanted to rise in my throat. God, how I knew. My parents would do anything for pack status. Anything at all. Even… I pushed it away. If Engle really was stepping down and moving on, then I had a unique opportunity. I cleared my throat. “Maybe I’ll come out to the hunting grounds this full moon, too.”
“You will?” Diego gave me a blank look. “Uh, no offense, Luz, but what are you gonna do there if you do?”
I took a sip of tea. “It’s been a long time. Maybe I should try again.”
He frowned. “You think that’s a good idea? I mean, it’s kinda public, Luz. Maybe you should just try in private this time and if it doesn’t work…” He trailed off, shrugging.
“No.” I shook my head. “I think I should come to the hunting grounds. I think I can do it this time—I think I’ll be able to shift.”
Diego covered my hand with his. “C’mon, Luz—you know how you get when you try. You can’t breathe and you get all shaky. It scares the shit out of me.” Diego had gone with me several times during the full moon when I’d attempted to shift and needed some moral support. We always picked a private spot, which was a good thing because the result was always a massive panic attack on my part.
“It won’t be like that this time,” I said stubbornly, trying to convince him as much as myself. “I’ll be able to control it. I’ll be calm.”
“And how are you going to manage that?” He gave me a suspicious look.
“The same way I passed the Bar exam.” I tried to sound nonchalant.
“What—by taking blood from that goddamn vampire? Hell no!” Diego was practically yelling and the ladies who lunch both shot him looks that could kill before getting up and taking their half-eaten sushi to another table that was across the restaurant.
“Keep your voice down!” I said again. “And stop judging. Jude is a really nice guy. And let me tell you something—he saved me from being kidnapped and you don’t want to know what else last week.”
“He what? Who almost kidnapped you? What happened?”
I sighed. I hadn’t meant to let that particular cat out of the bag, especially knowing how protective my little brother could be. Running with Los Lobos had enhanced his alpha-male tendencies to truly annoying levels.
“Okay, I’ll tell you but only if you swear not to tell Mom and Dad.” Taking a deep breath, I gave Diego a highly edited version of my near abduction in which Jude frightened away my attackers instead of ripping one of their heads off and, of course, leaving out the incredibly sexual “healing” he’d done for me afterward.
I also failed to mention the fact that my would-be kidnappers had talked about the value of my virginity to whoever had hired them. Diego, being a were, knew I was still a virgin just by the fact that my scent had never changed. But my lack of a sex life wasn’t exactly a standard topic of conversation between us. I mean, we’re close but you have to draw the line somewhere.
Despite the way I’d downplayed what had happened, my little brother was highly pissed. First he wanted to know why I hadn’t called him immediately. Then, why hadn’t I gone to the police—which is always a second choice for shifters after pack justice. However, if humans are involved in an altercation it’s standard policy to call the boys in blue rather than just shredding the human in question to bits. Hey, they may be weaker than us but they outnumber us about a thousand to one so we have to live by their rules—mostly, anyway.
I fielded Diego’s questions as well as I could but when he started saying I should move out of my apartment and come back home to my parents’ house, I put my foot down.
“No, no, and hell no,” I said, taking a bite of my spider roll the waitress had deposited quietly on th
e table while we fought. “I couldn’t wait to get out of there and I’m not going back under any circumstances.” I’d had some damn good reasons for wanting to get out of the house as a kid and I was in no hurry to go back now as an adult.
Diego glared at me. “Pack law says Dad could have you declared a female in danger and make you come back. Hell, as a male in your family, I could do it.”
“Don’t you dare.” I leaned forward, pointing my chopsticks in his face. “You do that to me and I swear to God, Diego, I will never forgive you.”
“What’s the big deal? It’s a safe place and it’s family. I bet Mom and Dad would be glad to have you—Mom even kept your old room the same.”
“I’m not going back. Ever. And I don’t want to hear anything else about it.”
“But you could still be in danger! You don’t even know who hired those cabrónes in the first place.”
“No, but Jude is taking care of it so I’ll be fine. You don’t need to worry about me.”
“It always comes back to that fucking vampire.” Diego was so upset he put down his chopsticks and pushed away his geisha roll. “Dios, Luz! What did he do, brainwash you?”
It was on the tip of my tongue to say, “No, he loved me,” but I held back at the last minute. For one thing, I wasn’t sure Jude’s stated intention to “have” me really constituted love and I was still mixed up about what we were doing. And for another, I didn’t think admitting to my pissed-off and overprotective little brother that I was falling for a vamp was really going to help anything.
I took a deep breath, trying to compose myself and cool down. “Look, let’s not talk about this anymore. Obviously we’re never going to see eye to eye on it so let’s just agree to disagree.”
“No, Luz—I can’t do that.” Diego picked up his chopsticks again and stabbed at a piece of sushi—it was a piece of my sushi in fact, but I decided to let it slide. “Agreeing to disagree—that’s like, let’s not talk politics or religion. But you dating a vampire, that goes way deeper than all that other shit.”
“We’re not dating,” I protested. “Well, not exactly. I told you, he gives me some of his blood and I give him some of mine. And it calms me down when I need to be calm. You don’t know how much that means to me, Diego. Maybe if you’d stop and think about it a minute you wouldn’t be so quick to condemn.”
He shook his head. “So his blood calms you down. What does your blood do for him—speed him up? Is your blood like crack for him or something?”
“Of course not.” I was indignant. “He just likes…likes the taste of it, that’s all.” I remembered Jude’s deep voice murmuring about how good I tasted, though he hadn’t been talking about my blood at the time.
Diego looked at me skeptically. “So that’s it? He likes the taste of it? The most powerful vamp in the city—hell, in the whole damn state as far as I can tell—and he just wants to hang out and take a little sip of your blood once in a while ‘cause it’s tasty?”
“He says it’s powerful,” I said defensively. “Because I’ve never shifted—I have a lot of untapped energy.”
“Energy, huh? So it is like a drug!” Diego said triumphantly.
“My blood is not a drug!” Now I was the one getting dirty looks from other customers, but I was too upset to care.
“Yeah it is—for him it is. He’s probably getting high every time he bites you. Luz, do you have any idea how strong bloodsuckers are? Do you know how much damage a cracked-out vamp could do? You need to stay away from him!”
“Save it.” I was so angry at that point that I was past talking to him rationally. “I know what I’m doing, Diego, so you can shut your mouth about it or leave.”
“Fine, I’ll leave.” He stood up so quickly he knocked over the spindly chair he’d been sitting in. Reaching for his wallet, he threw some bills on the table. “You better watch yourself, Luz. If Mom and Dad find out what you’re up to, you could find yourself yanked back home whether you want to come or not. You going out with a fucking vamp brings shame on the whole family.”
“Listen to yourself.” I stood up too. “You sound just like them. All they care about is status and their standing in the pack. I never thought you’d be like that, little brother. Never thought you could be that shallow.”
He sighed and ran both hands through his hair. “Damn it, Luz—it’s not shallow to be worried about you after what you’ve been telling me. Think about it—not only is Jacobson dangerous in his own right, but you got fucking attacked and almost kidnapped after you started hanging out with him.”
“I told you—Jude protected me. He saved me.”
Diego grabbed my arm and started walking me toward the nearest exit. “Did it occur to you that you might have been attacked because you were hanging around with Jacobson? That maybe they wanted to hurt him by grabbing you?”
Actually, it hadn’t and I suddenly felt really stupid for not thinking of that possibility. But my brother didn’t give me a chance to say anything about it.
“I told you about what he did to the Clear Water pack master,” he continued, pulling me out of the restaurant, much to the apparent relief of everyone else inside. “You don’t think they want some justice for that shit? I mean, he fucking skinned the guy, Luz. I know you probably don’t believe me—”
“Oh, I believe you.” I shook his hand off my arm and turned to face him, the hot August sunshine beating down on my head like a golden hammer. “I know he did it but I don’t care. Do you understand me? I don’t care.”
Diego looked at me, a shocked expression in his dark eyes, so much like my own. “I can’t believe you. How can you say that? How can you turn your back on your own kind for a fucking vamp?”
I could feel myself trembling all over—the overwhelming heat and humidity of the August day was making me nauseous and bad memories were pressing on my brain like a fist behind my eyes. “Do you know what my own kind did to me?” I asked him. “Do you have any clue? I know you were too young to understand at the time—”
“C’mon, Sis. We don’t have to talk about that.” Diego looked extremely uncomfortable. “They don’t even do that shit anymore. Can’t you just let it go?”
I wanted to shove it in his face, to make him see. But the memory was too bad, too disgusting to say out loud. In fact it was so bad I spent most of my time pretending it hadn’t happened at all. Instead I took a step toward him to make him meet my eyes. “Fine, we won’t talk about it. But you should know that this vampire you hate so much has shown me consideration and respect I never got from my own family or the pack. So excuse me if I don’t give a damn what you say about him.”
Diego tried one more time. “But he’s not right, Luz. I’m telling you, even the other vamps avoid him. I don’t know why but you know it can’t be good.”
I frowned. “You know what? I don’t care what other vampires think and I don’t care what our kind thinks either. And I wish to God I hadn’t told you anything since you’re acting like such a macho jackass.”
“Dios, Luz, come on—I’m just worried about you!”
“Let me worry about myself.” I dug in my purse for my keys and started toward my car. “I’ll be fine.”
I heard him swearing in fluent Spanish as I walked away but I refused to go back and say anything else.
It was the second time I’d fought with my little brother in a week and this was a bad fight—maybe one that couldn’t be healed. Not unless I was willing to give up Jude, that was, and increasingly, I found myself completely unwilling to do that. He had come into my life when I was stuck in a rut and dragged me out of it. And he’d treated me the way I’d always wanted to be treated—like a fully functional adult female with a brain in my head. Not to mention the way he touched me with such gentleness and care and the things his blood made possible for me.
It wasn’t like I didn’t still have some reservations about him and his business methods but hell, everyone has their little faults. Skinning people alive and rippin
g their heads off is more than a little fault, whispered a voice in my head but I shut it up savagely. The point was, I had decided to give Jude the benefit of the doubt. He might come off as violent and frightening to some people—okay, to practically everyone—but he had always been gentle and kind to me. And damn it, I liked him.
As I threw myself in my car and stared out the windshield through a haze of angry tears, I decided then and there to go through with my plan. I would see Jude later this week and do another blood exchange. And then I would show up at my family pack’s hunting ground next weekend on the night of the full moon and show everyone that they couldn’t hurt me anymore. That they would never be able to hurt me again.
I just hoped Diego was there to see me shift for the first time. Because once I did, even he wouldn’t be able to deny the power of Jude’s blood or the fact that I was doing the right thing.
Chapter Seven
“Why hello there. You must be Miss Luz.”
“Uh, yes. Yes, I am.” I stared blankly at the little old black lady wearing a pink and purple flower-print housedress who was standing in Jude’s front doorway, staring at me.
“I’m Rosie, the maid.” She gave me a smile that lit up her whole face and showed teeth that were too even and white to be anything but false. “I think I was having the day off last time you came.”
“I guess so.” I still felt rather at a loss. Jude had never told me he had a maid though I supposed it wasn’t that surprising. After all, it was a hell of a big house and he surely had better things to do with his time than spend it cleaning. But what really shocked me wasn’t that he had domestic help. It was the fact that, under the sweet scent of a generous application of baby powder, my nose was telling me that Rosie was a were—and a full-blooded were at that.
I was sure she could tell the same thing about me but she didn’t say anything about it. Instead she looked me up and down, still smiling. “My, don’t you look nice? Let me just admire you for a minute.”