Page 42 of Bride

“Did you run away from Juno?” Lowe whispers.

Ana nods, mischievous.

“Then you better hurry back to her.”

She pouts. “But I want to—”

“Liliana Esther Moreland! Come here at once, it’s an order!”

Ana stamps a kiss on Lowe’s cheek, mutters something delighted about how prickly it is, and then slips out in a flurry of blue and pink fabric. My eyes stay with her, and then on the ajar door, long after she disappears.

Dizzy.

I feel dizzy.

“Misery?”

I turn to Lowe. “Ana...?” I swallow. Because, no. That’s not the right question. Instead: “Liliana?”

He nods.

“Esther.”L. E. Moreland.“I didn’t... I had no idea.”

Lowe nods again, eyes somber. “Misery. You and I need to talk.”

CHAPTER 10

He is not reckless, or negligent, or quick to trust. But he recognizes a formidable ally when he sees one.

Many rooms in the house would be perfectly adequate for a discreet conversation, but we find ourselves sitting at the kitchen table, a mug of black coffee in front of Lowe, steadily steaming as the sun outside struggles to rise.

My night was sleepless, like most. His, too, going by the dark shadows under his eyes. His face is etched, as carvingly beautiful as usual. He hasn’t shaved in a while, and it’s clear that he could use some rest and a two-week stretch without a coup.

I have the sneaking suspicion he’s not going to get either.

“I couldn’t figure out why you’d accepted,” he tells me between sips, almost conversationally. Every other interaction we’ve had has been fraught with tension, on the heels of him catching me in compromising situations. Now... We’re not fast friends, but I wonder if this is Lowe when his energies are not fully focused on trying to protect his pack. A steady, reassuring, bulky presence. His mouth even twitched into an almost smile when he saw me make my waydown the stairs, as he gestured for me to take a seat across from him. “Why you’d do itagain.”

“You thought I had a martyrdom complex?” I hug my legs to my chest, watching his lips as they close around the rim of his mug. “I have no allegiance to the Vampyres. Or the Humans, with a single exception. And I’m going to find her.”

He sets the mug on the table, and asks, bluntly: “You’re sure she is alive?”

“I hope she is.” My heart twists. “If she isn’t, I still need to know what happened to her.” If I don’t, no one else will think of her again. No one else will even know her name aside from a handful of orphans who bullied her for being cross-eyed, colleagues who never got her sense of humor, people she dated but felt tepid about. It’s not acceptable. “She’d do the same for me.”

Lowe nods without hesitation. Loyalty, I suspect, is a painfully familiar concept to him. “Do you know what article she was writing? What prompted her interest in Ana?”

“No. She usually talked about the stories she was working on, at least in passing. And she covered financial stuff.”

“Crimes?”

“Sometimes. Mostly market analysis. Her degree was in economics.”

Lowe taps his finger on the edge of the table, mulling. “Anything on Were-Human, or Vampyre-Human relationships?”

“She’d grown up as the Collateral’s baby companion. She wasn’t touching that shit with a ten-foot pole.”

“Smart.” He stands, goes to the no-blood fridge. His broad shoulders shrink the kitchen as he gathers a few items that he carries back to the table. A jar of peanut butter that has my mostnefarious interests perk up. Sliced bread. Some kind of berry jelly that just stumps me.

Serena loved berries, and I tried memorizing their names, but they’re so counterintuitive. Blueberries? Not blue. Blackberries? Not black. Strawberries? Straw free. Raspberries? Do not rasp, or make any noise at all. I could go on.

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