Page 52 of Bride

“—won’t be activated until you enter this line of code.”

“I entered it,” Lowe rumbles.

“Exactly the way I wrote it here, on this piece of paper.”

“I did.”

“It’s case-sensitive.Alpha,” he tacks on. Reminding himself that Lowe’s his boss. His verystubbornboss.

“The problem is this fucking machine.”

Lowe lifts his hand, ready to hit what has to be an expensivepiece of technology. Which leads to Alex chanting with a Dostoyevskian level of dread, “Oh my God, oh myGod.” Which, in turn, leads to Lowe promising, “It’s stuck. I’ll punch it once and it’ll fix itself.” Which, of course, leads to Alex, whom Lowe doesnotpay enough, suddenly being on the verge of tears.

That’s when I take pity on both of them and say, “I don’t think percussive maintenance is the answer to a coding error.”

They both turn to me, saucer-eyed and vaguely embarrassed. As they should be.

“Alex, are you really teaching Lowe how to code?”

“I amattemptingto.” Alex gives both of us a look. He’s usually more at ease with me when Lowe’s around, but he must know he’s momentarily on his Alpha’s shit list.

“How many times have you guys been over this?”

“A handful,” Lowe mutters, just as Alex says, “Sixteen.”

I whistle. “Big hands.” My eyes flick to Lowe’s.

“It’s fine. I’ll figure this coding thing out when I’m there. I can improvise.” He stands, and Alex and I exchange an incredulous look, the wordsdigital illiteratefloating in the air between us in Papyrus. Lowe’s incompetence might be healing the rift between us.

“I’ll call you. You’ll guide me on the phone,” he tells Alex, this time with more gravity.

“I’m concerned for your safety. There could be traps.”

“I’ll deal with them.” Lowe puts his hand on Alex’s shoulder, reassuring. I’m about to break my none-of-my-business rule and ask what this is about when Mick appears.

“Dinner is ready. Ana... cooked.” He says the last word with a small wince. “And requested everyone’s presence.” He looks at me. “Yours included.”

I frown. “Me?”

“She asked specifically for Miresy.”

“Is she aware that I don’t eat?”

Lowe folds his arms on his chest. “You do, in fact—”

“Shhhh.” I gesture frantically at him to shut his yapping mouth and turn to Mick. “I’m coming. We’re coming. Let’s go!” Lowe’s smirk can only be described as evil.

Ana is delighted to see me. She runs to me, a blur of sparkly pink cotton and unicorn ears, and wraps her little arms around my waist.

“We don’talwayshave to hug,” I tell her.

She squeezes harder.

I sigh. “Fine. Sure.”

It’s been nearly a week since the full moon, and the cumulative time I’ve spent with my husband since then wouldn’t be enough to bring a kettle to boil. But Juno came to visit one night and brought a deck of cards, and came back two nights later and brought a movie and Gemma and Flor and Arden, and both evenings felt similar: odd, but fun. I’m with Alex all the time, and Cal’s daughter Misha asked to meet me to see “a real-life leech,” and a couple other seconds stopped by because they were in the area, just to introduce themselves, and...

It’s unexpected, especially after my rocky start. I should be a pariah, Iamone, but I don’t think I fit in this place anymore poorly than I did among the Humans, or the Vampyres. In the past seven days, I’ve had more social interactions than ever before. No: morepositivesocial interactions than ever before. The Weres are being surprisingly amicable, even though they know I’m a Vampyre. And I’m being surprisingly relaxed with them, perhapsbecausethey know I am a Vampyre. It’s a new experience, being treated as what I am.

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