A Monster and a Gentleman (26 page)

“Because I’m the damned fool who loves you.”

Maeve felt the smile work across her face. “I thought you were only starting to fall in love with me.”

“That was before I thought I’d lost you. I love you. I love you to distraction.”

“That is good, because I love you too.”

Oren tipped his forehead to hers. “This probably won’t work.”

“Nope,” Maeve agreed.

“But I want to try.”

Maeve’s heart was tripping with joy, but she pushed him back to look into his eyes. “I am not human. I will never be human.”

“I wouldn’t want you to be.”

“I will do things that will be hard for you to understand.”

“Oh, trust me, we’re getting to that. I’m going to need to know what the deal is with the Encino men you created.”

“Encino men?”

“
Encino Man
is a movie. Cave man in ice who wakes up?”

Maeve laughed. She had seen that movie.

“And how do you know I did that? Maybe they were like that when I got here.”

Oren raised one brow.

“Okay, it was me. It was that or kill them.”

“Then if I were them I’d think that was a pretty good option.”

“We have two cars full of bodies we need to do something with.”

“That’s…ah.” Oren rubbed his temples. “Okay, the best bet is going to be to drive them down towards San Diego, towards Camp Pendleton. If we put some of those clearly military-issue guns I saw through the car window, there’s a possibility that the military will handle the investigation. Not all those injuries are from bullets, but unless the military knows that monsters exist, they’ll probably find another excuse. They have a much longer reach than LAPD, and if they know these men are from Blackwolf, that may take the whole organization down.”

Maeve blinked in surprise. “That’s…brilliant.”

“Thank you.”

“I didn’t expect you to help us do this. I know things like this are hard for humans to accept.”

“For some people, yeah. And I’m not saying this won’t keep me up at nights, but I’ve done some really bad things. About the only thing I didn’t ever do was kill someone. I stopped pretending to live in a world that was fair and safe a long time ago.”

Maeve kissed him, kissed the imperfect, funny, loving, kind, devious human she loved.

“We should go,” he said as he broke the kiss. His eyes sparkled in the moonlight. “These woods may be lovely dark and deep, but we have promises to keep, and miles to go before we sleep.”

Maeve’s heart melted a little more. “That’s beautiful. You have a beautiful way of saying things.”

Oren grinned. “And I’m totally original too.”

Chapter Sixteen

Maeve

It was nearing dawn. Finally, a night that had started with love but been filled with death would end. Runako and Luke had driven the cars to the edge of the military base where they’d abandoned them, creeping to the ocean and swimming a few miles before taking to the sky.

Michael and Henry were with Akta, the other human women and Oren, who’d gone to explain what Maeve had done. Maeve had said that she needed time to rest after using so much energy.
 

It wasn’t rest she needed.
 

She needed to keep her Clan safe.

In the madness of the night, there was one person they hadn’t dealt with.

Vernell Neuberger, the location scout. She was the third human on the list and the only one Maeve hadn’t touched.
 

It was easy enough to find her address on the papers still scattered across Oren’s table. When she called a cab—something she’d always wanted to do—she found out that the address was not far from Oren’s home.
 

The cab agreed to wait for her after she handed him some of the cash Henry had given her. The driver settled into his seat, listening to music as Maeve made her way up the steps to Nell’s home.

The front door was locked, but Maeve found an open window.
 

The woman was asleep in her bed, peaceful and dreaming. She had no idea of the harm she’d done.

Maeve had to know why they’d been betrayed. Had to know what had motivated the woman.

Nell jerked awake when Maeve took hold of her. There was a moment where their gazes met before Nell’s eyes rolled back in her head. It was right there, the past that explained her actions.
 

Maeve saw her talking to Henry, touching him, trying to entice him. Henry turned away. The same scene played over and over again, the woman wanting Henry, even as she feared him.
 

In that past, Maeve saw an imagined future, the woman’s fantasy—she would be on Henry’s arm, she would be at the center of it all when the world turned its attention to them. She would give interviews, meet important people.

A woman who’d never had the talent to be an actress or the drive to be a producer, but who craved that success and fame.

In Henry, she’d seen a way to have it, but Henry didn’t want her.

Maeve released the woman, bowing her own head. Greed and envy. A petty woman’s greed and envy had killed men tonight.

“Wha…what are you doing here?” Nell sat up in bed, eyes wide. “Did, uh, something happen?”

“Men died tonight. Men died because a selfish woman didn’t care who was hurt as long as she got what she wanted.”

Nell’s gaze darted away. She lunged for the side of the bed, but Maeve grabbed her.

Holding the sides of Nell’s head, Maeve ignored the flailing fists that struck her back and sides. She opened herself to the Everafter, letting it flow through her. Bit by bit she let it in, a river, a sea crashing through her mind.

And then Maeve let it flow into Nell.

The woman’s mouth opened on a soundless scream. Her eyes flickered as her brain struggled to process what was happening. It was more than she was meant to hold, more than she could bear.

Maeve could see it in her eyes, the moment when Nell gave up trying to control something so much greater than she was. Her mind gave in to it, relinquishing its individuality to join with greater the consciousness.

Maeve could have done much worse and, maybe, for all the damage Nell had done, she
should
have done worse. But dawn was coming, and all Maeve wanted was Oren’s arms around her. She wanted a moment away from the worry and death.
 

Tomorrow would come, and with tomorrow more joy and sorrow. She, more than anyone, knew that time never stopped and that there was nothing sure in this world.
 

But for now she loved and was loved, and that was enough to make time slow down, if only for a little while.

Maeve smoothed the sheets over Nell. The woman lay on her back, eyes open, gaze darting from point to point, as quick and frantic as a hummingbird.

Maeve had shown her mercy, allowing her mind to join with the purity of the world itself, but it had come at a cost. Nell ceased to exist—now there was only a body being run by a functional brain stem and a mind that was lost to the Everafter. Nell was gone, and in her place was a shell of madness. It was a kind of death, but a painless one.

Maeve slid back out the window, brushing herself off as she made her way back to the cab.

“You done?” the driver asked as she climbed in.

Maeve lay her head back against the seat. “For now. Take me home.”

The eastern sky was yellow with sunlight as Maeve climbed from the cab. Oren stood in the open door of his home, waiting for her.
 

He didn’t ask questions, didn’t demand answers.

He opened his arms, and Maeve went gratefully into his embrace.

About the Author

Lila Dubois is a tech writer by day and a romance writer by night. She’s living her own version of a romance novel with her Irish Farm Boy, who she imported to Los Angeles. Having spent extensive time in France, Egypt, Turkey, Ireland and England, Lila speaks five languages, none of them—including English—fluently.

To learn more about Lila, please visit
www.liladubois.net
or email her at
[email protected]
.

Look for these titles by Lila Dubois

Now Available:

Sealed with a Kiss

Calling the Wild

Monsters in Hollywood

Lights, Camera…Monster

My Fair Monster

Gone with the Monster

Have Monster, Will Travel

A Monster and a Gentleman

Glenncailty Castle

The Harp and the Fiddle

Coming Soon:

Monsters in Hollywood

The Last of the Monsters

Glenncailty Castle

The Fire and the Earth

The Shadow and the Night

She’d always heard Hollywood was full of monsters.

She didn’t know they meant
actual
monsters.

Have Monster, Will Travel

© 2012 Lila Dubois

Monsters in Hollywood, Book 4

All of Hollywood is talking about Calypso Production’s new top-secret action movie, and Joanna is tapped to be the Production Designer. There’s just one
big
issue: the lead actors are monsters. Literally.

Bound by tradition and discipline, Tokaki’s clan of shapeshifers has maintained the old ways even as they’ve retreated from the human race. When members of another clan come up with a plan to expose and explain their hidden existence, he agrees to help. As the warrior who trains all others, he knows how to inflict both the maximum, and minimum, amount of damage. Because of this experience he’s asked to become something they call a “stunt coordinator.”
 

When Joanna and Tokaki meet it’s electric, and not just because Joanna watches him shift from a massive white tiger into a handsome, naked man. Tokaki is fascinated by the outside world, especially Joanna, who’s colorful in more ways than one. When he takes Joanna to a hidden temple deep in the Chinese mountains, neither expects she’ll be risking her very life. In order to save the woman he loves, Tokaki must turn to his family for help, risking the secrets his clan has kept for a millennium.
 

Warning: This title contains an artistic woman, a demanding warrior, and sexy misuse of temple grounds.
 

Enjoy the following excerpt for
Have Monster, Will Travel:

“I know you.” The lightly accented voice was close, almost whispering against her ear.

The shiver morphed into a total-body skin prickling.

Jo turned, her bags bumping the man behind her. She was eye level with his chin and his sexy lips. They were thin and sharply defined, a salmon-rose color compared to the tapioca of his skin.

Jo always thought of people in food terms when she found them attractive.

The Farmers’ Market was crowded, but still, the Asian man was standing too close. Jo shifted her bag forward, so it rested in front of her, smiled slightly in his direction and turned away.

“I know you.”

Jo turned back. “Sorry, I think you’ve got the wrong girl.”

“No.” He shook his head once.

Jo cocked her hip to the side and winked, trying to ease out of the situation in a fun and playful way. The skin on her arms was prickled into goose flesh despite the heat. “Good lookin’, I’d remember you. I’m sad to say I think I’m not your girl.”

He was wearing a pair of jeans too big for him—she could see the fabric bunched under the belt on his hips. His T-shirt seemed equally big, the shoulder seams hanging on his upper arm. At first glance it made him seem smaller than he was, but he topped six-foot and his forearms were ropes of muscle. He was an XL in XXL clothes.

“You are one of my human women.”

“Come again,
kimosabe
?”

His eyebrows drew together in a straight black line. “I remember your body.”

“Is that an insult? Usually I can tell, and I’m pretty damned sure I’d remember you—”

Jo examined him more closely as she rattled on. She started from his feet, working her way up. When her gaze met his she felt a shock of awareness, so powerful it was almost a physical touch.

She recognized him then.

“Oh, oh, oh, oh.” Jo staggered back a step. She nearly went down as the totes on her right shoulder fell down her right arm, catching on her wrist but tangling in her legs.

He reached out and caught her by one shoulder.

“You’re one of
them,
” she hissed.

He leaned closer, his hair swinging forward to brush her cheek. “Them?”

“The monsters.” Her voice was a bare whisper.