Page 54 of Kissed the Mark
“I don’t think you should call them likethat. Listen, Olympia, it’s not that I meant to hide it from you,but I knew it would be so serious when they found out—I beheadedhim there at the scene, but there was so much confusion…”
“Jesus, right there? You ripped his headright off?” I asked, followed by: “WHERE THE HELL ARE YOUGUYS??”
“Someone’s coming. I can smell it,” shesaid, turning in circles like she didn’t know what to do withherself. “And yes, I took his head off with a big shard of glass.It wasn’t easy and it wasn’t pretty.”
“Someone lupine?”
“Yes.”
“We should have gotten out of Faerie sooner.Why did you let us linger for so long if you knew they’d come afteryou there?”
Before Leandra could answer, three menemerged from between the trees. Two of them, I recognized asleaders from my last visit, and one was new. “This vampire helpedyour newest member, Melanie,” I said to them. “She’s being chasedand she needs your help.”
“She’s not one of the pack,” the white guyfrom my last visit said. “We won’t offer her anything.”
“Oh, bite me,” Leandra muttered. “I told youit was too good to be true.”
“You know how Bill Dyer got murdered by avampire?Thisvampire killed the vampire that murderedhim!”
The wolves were still as statues for amoment. “Delilah will want an audience with her,” the Black wolfsaid finally.
“I told you,” I said to Leandra.
Blindfolds were looped over our eyes, and wewere led away.
?
As I had anticipated, Delilah said yes totaking in Leandra, though I wasn’t sure if it was for the reason Ihad presented to the wolves that found us in the forest.
When she had seen the elder, Leandra hadimmediately fallen to her knees in supplication. “I am at yourmercy, friend,” she said to the elder werewolf, her gaze neverleaving the ground. “I did not do what I did with the expectationof a reward, so whether you see fit to kill or shelter me, I accepteither outcome.”
“How did you know to do that?” I asked, asLeandra poked around the fire at the visitor hut they had given us.She took another bite of a huge chunk of raw meat wrapped inpaper—another present, a find from one of their recent hunts. Theblood dribbled down her chin.
“You fairies are bound by tricks andpromises,” she said between bites. “Vampires: power, hierarchies.Werewolves are simple, and kinder. They are bound by honor anddeference.” Leandra’s warm eyes reflected the flickering of thefirelight. “They may be the best of us all.”
I pulled the blanket closer around myshoulders, basking in the warmth of the place. There was no way toadmit it, but I admired Leandra’s knowledge about these things; Iwanted her to share what she thought of witches, ghosts, demons.She’d had a lot of time to meet people—time she might never getagain.
I had asked her a lot of questions inFaerie, but I was scared to ask them here. They must have been onboth our minds:How long will this werewolf pack let you stay?When will other people figure out where we went? When whenwhen?
Leandra polished off the last of the rawmeat and licked at the butcher paper. She folded it neatly and setit aside, dabbing at her face. “Thank you,” she said, “for notletting them take me.”
“I think you’ve rescued me a few times,” Ipointed out lightly.
“I wouldn’t have thought to come here. Itwas a good idea.”
My cheeks were warm, maybe from the fire andmaybe from something else. I never knew how to respond tocompliments, and it appeared I wasn’t going to learn today. “Ican’t—” I started, and then thought better. The kettle over thefire began to whistle, and I picked it up with a cloth, pouring thehot water over my tea leaves.
“You can’t what?” Leandra asked.
“I can’t believe you were trying to stay inFaerie for that long as a prisoner to get out of all this.” I blewon my tea, more for something to do than any expectation it wouldmiraculously be acceptable drinking temperature. “I can’t believewe acted like lovestruck fools there. I can’t believe you didn’tjust tell me you killed Matt Rivera during the airport fight.”
Shedding her own blanket, Leandra leanedback from the fire. She was dressed in gray sweatpants and a hoodiethat Delilah had provided as a replacement for her messy, ripped upclothes, and she looked nothing like herself, though of course shewouldbe stunning even in people’s loungewear. “I’m not atthe point where I have a lot of options. Faerie wasn’t half bad.And I guess I have trust issues.”
“That seems like an understatement.”
The vampire tucked her chin into her leg andsighed. “I was here in the fifties when there was this huge scandalabout these two Seelie fairies that had gotten into it, and onekilled the other. They were totally shunned by all the otherfairies around here and eventually tried in their home court, eventhough the Seelie had been from different cities.” A tentative handreached for my own. I let her intertwine our fingers. “I was scaredyou’d think I just—murder people all the time. My people. And Idon’t.”
“A hundred twenty-four years into yourexistence and you still care what people think?”
