And she could imagine turning on him, on all of them, because if Shane died, if the vampires
killed him
, she would hunt down every single one of them. Claire knew it wasn’t rational, wasn’t right, but she didn’t care.
If the vampires came after Shane, they came after her, and she’d fight back any way she could.
“Something’s wrong,” Shane croaked. “Really wrong.”
She gulped down tears, and nodded silently. She rested her head against his chest, closed her eyes, and listened to the strong, sure beat of his heart.
The one she’d almost stopped, by trusting Myrnin.
Shane stroked her wet hair, trying to comfort her,
her
, when he was the one who’d been knocked around. “It was my fault,” she managed to say. “Really. I told him… . What did he
say
?”
“To me?” Shane asked. She nodded. “Nothing. I turned around and he was right there, and he didn’t say a single word except
Sorry.
” He swallowed and winced. His voice had a raspy burr at the edges. “Look, I’ve fought before—you know that—but he wasn’t fighting. He was there to kill me, plain and simple, no hesitation. Assassination. Like he was under orders.”
“Orders,” Claire repeated. And whom did Myrnin take orders from? Nobody, really. Nobody except … “Amelie.” She said it out loud, very softly, and it sounded sad to her own ears. “Amelie ordered it.” But that didn’t really matter, not as an immediate thing; Claire felt the burn of outrage, but she’d never really been under any illusions about Amelie’s loyalty toward her. What
really
hurt was Myrnin. After all that she’d been through for him, done for him, he’d turned on her. He’d tried to take Shane away.
Didn’t he understand how that would tear her apart?
“Hey,” Shane said. “
Hey
, Claire, I’m here. I’m right here.” His fingers stroked her wet, cold cheek, and she struggled to focus on his face. “It’s all right.”
It wasn’t. She clung to him fiercely, until they both stopped shivering from the cold, until she felt the warmth of their bodies drying the soaking-wet fabric of their clothes. It wasn’t like Shane to just sit like this with her, not when they ought to be getting up, drying off… but he didn’t seem to have any more will to move on than she did. Maybe, deep down, he was just as shocked and scared as she felt.
“We need to think about why they’d do this,” Shane said. “I know I piss people off, but this is a little much even for vamps.”
“It’s something we did,” Claire replied. “Something we know. Something
only
we know.” But by the time she finished saying it, she’d realized what it was, and so had Shane.
“The boy, out in the desert,” he said. “The letter from Blacke. So that’s top secret, eyes only? If all it said was
run
…”
“I don’t think it’s so much what it said,” Claire said slowly. “I think … I think it’s because we know Amelie too well. We know how she thinks, a little. More than any other humans, anyway.” She swallowed hard. “I think she wanted to keep us from talking to anybody else about what we’d seen, or thought would happen.”
“Me,” Shane corrected her. “She wanted to stop
me
.”
That quieted her; obviously, it was true. Myrnin had gone after Shane like an arrow; he’d had the
chance
to kill her, but he hadn’t even tried. Why spare her, if both she and Shane knew the same dangerous things?
You know,
some voice deep inside her whispered.
You know how Myrnin feels.
Claire shuddered. She didn’t.
Really
, she didn’t. And she didn’t want to know, either. But if Myrnin—if he’d refused to kill her, he wouldn’t have had much problem killing Shane, for exactly the same reason.
Then why had
Oliver
stepped in to save them, of all people? It made no sense. It left Claire feeling vulnerable and shaken in ways that all her time in Morganville hadn’t. If Amelie had turned on them …
She wrapped herself more closely around Shane. He made a faint, pleased sound in the back of his throat and pulled her over on his lap. Their lips met gently at first, then more urgently. Shane’s mouth tasted of rain and the bittersweet memory of coffee, and Claire found herself whimpering a little, wanting more than this, so much more, wanting to know he was alive and
with her
. The kiss strengthened, and Shane’s hands stroked fire down her skin. Suddenly, she felt stifled by the damp clothes. She wanted them
off
.
“Hey,” he whispered, and grabbed her hands as she reached for the hem of her shirt to yank it off. “Wait.”
She stopped and stared at him, stricken. The smile on his damp, kissable lips reassured her. So did the hungry, hot look in his eyes.
“Upstairs,” he said. “Got to get you dried off and warmed up properly.”
It
sounded
innocent, but oh, it wasn’t. Not at all.
She climbed up to her feet and offered him her hand. He raised his eyebrows, took it, and rose to put his arms around her and kiss her, again.
“He could try it again,” Claire said. “If Amelie’s turned against you, I swear, Shane, I swear that I’ll—”
He shook his head and kissed her, warm and sweet and full of promises. “Don’t think about it now,” he said in that husky whisper. “Whatever happens, we’ll be ready for it, Claire. Both of us.”
And then he led her upstairs, into the stillness of her room, where he promised her again. So many things.
Oliver knocked on the door two hours later. They were both up and dressed, and Claire was heating up soup for Shane—it was about the only thing he could get down his bruised throat. Claire opened the door and stared at him—glared, really—and said, “You knew what was going on. You knew about Myrnin. Was it Amelie?”
“May I come in?” Oliver asked. He didn’t wait for an answer, just pushed past her and walked down the hall. Claire cursed under her breath and locked up behind him. Around her, the house’s energy gathered, protective and menacing, but not quite sure who the enemy might be. It responded to her moods, even more than with the other residents. That might be useful, right about now.
Oliver had stopped at the couch, and was looking down at Shane, who was deliberately ignoring him as he stared at the flickering television. “Are you all right?” Oliver asked. Shane pointed to his throat. “Nothing permanently damaged, I trust.”
Shane flipped him off.
“Ah, I see you haven’t lost your sense of social decorum and excellent manners.” Oliver shot a glance at Claire and raised his eyebrows very slightly. “
Is
he all right?”
“No thanks to Myrnin.” She was so angry right now that she was almost vibrating with it. “What the
hell
, Oliver?”
“Not entirely Myrnin’s fault, I’m sorry to say. There was a fear that having the two of you knowing … what you know might be too great a risk. Count your blessings. Myrnin fought to save your life.”
“
My
life. Not Shane’s.”
Oliver just shrugged. “As you can see, he lives and breathes. No harm done.”
Shane silently pointed an index finger at his neck, which was an angry dark red, heading toward purple.
“No permanent harm,” Oliver amended. “Let that be an indicator of how serious this situation is, and how very serious we are about keeping even a whisper of it from the general public—and by that, I mean vampires as well as humans.
Silence
, do you hear me? You were never there, and you never saw anything. Or I promise you, your reprieves will be over.”
“But we don’t
know
anything!” Claire almost screamed it at him. She was so angry she wanted to attack him with her bare hands, and it was only the fact that Shane, usually the hair-trigger one, was sitting quietly on the couch that held her back. Well, that and the fact that Oliver wouldn’t have had the slightest problem crushing her like a bug. “What are you all so afraid of?”
Shane looked up at that, at Oliver.
Who hesitated for a moment, and then said, “I hope you never have to know the answer to that, Claire. Don’t go out tonight. Wait until tomorrow to leave this house. I have some … persuading to do.”
Then he left, quietly. She heard the door unlock and Oliver called back, “Lock it behind me.” Then he was gone.
Claire screamed out her frustration, dashed down the hall, and slammed the locks home with so much force she bruised her hand. Then she banged her fists on the wood, and kicked it for good measure.
Shane had followed her, and he put his hands on her shoulders. She turned toward him, staring up into his face. God, that bruise looked really bad. He’d almost died.
No, he’d almost been
killed
. By
Myrnin
, of all people. How screwed up was that?
“Relax,” he whispered. He moved his hands up to cup her face in warmth. “Just relax. The door didn’t piss you off.”
“Says the guy who punches walls.”
“Yeah, well, the walls had it coming.”
She had to laugh, but it came out as more of a cross between a bark and a sob. “God,
what is going on
out there? What are they not telling us?”
“Don’t know,” Shane said. “But for once, I vote we don’t ask, because it’s way out of our pay grade.” He kissed her forehead, then moved down to kiss her lips. “God, you taste good.”
“This is what you’re thinking about? After that?”
“When I get nervous, I focus on the positive. Like you.” He took her hand and led her back toward the living room, where he had her sit down on the couch as he retrieved two glasses of iced tea (Eve had taken to making it, for some reason), and put a movie into the player. She was too tense to relax, but Shane clearly wasn’t; he stretched out on the sofa, and after a few moments of feeling foolish, Claire finally settled down next to him, with his warm, heavy arm around her waist, pulling her close against him.
She had no idea what the movie was, and in a matter of moments, she really didn’t care, either. Shane’s hot kisses on the back of her neck ensured that. So did the sneaky, wonderful moves he made with his hands.
Within an hour, they were asleep together, curled up under an afghan, while the movie played on without them.
When they woke up, it was to the sound of plates clattering in the kitchen, and the smell of pizza. Claire was the first to stir, and her yawning and stretching made Shane mumble something that sounded happy, and burrow in closer to her, but she smiled and slipped out from under his arms.
Shane cracked his eyelids open just a slit and said, “No fair, you’re leaving.”
“Well, there’s pizza,” Claire said. “Get up or I won’t save you any.”
Pizza was almost as magical a lure as tacos, apparently, because he was on his feet in thirty seconds, shaking his head to flop his hair back into its usual I-don’t-care style.
Oh God, his neck looked horrible. No way of disguising
that
. Claire stepped close to him and whispered, “We can’t tell them. You remember, right? Oliver said—”
“Right, ’cause I’m so good at taking orders from walking fangs,” Shane whispered back. Even his whisper sounded raw and painful.
“Shane, you
can’t
!”
“Fine. I won’t.
You
explain it.”
That was the best he was willing to offer, so Claire pushed through the kitchen door, still casting him doubtful looks, and found Michael and Eve standing at the counters, filling plates with pizza from a box. There were two larges, and Shane made straight for the one with everything. He grabbed a slice and started eating it standing up.
Eve rolled her eyes and slid a plate down the countertop. “Honestly, were you raised in a pony pen or something? Plates! Learn them; love them… .” Her voice trailed off, and her expression turned shocked. “What the
hell
happened to you, Shane?”
Michael looked up from preparing his own plate and saw it, too. His blue eyes widened. “Damn,” he said. “You okay?”
Shane gave him a silent thumbs-up.
“Shane! What happened?”
He pointed at his throat and looked pitiful. Oh, of course. He was seriously dumping this whole thing on her, Claire realized. She had no choice but to step in. “He can’t talk,” she said. “Well, he can, but it hurts.” All true. “He got in a fight.” Also true, although it hadn’t been so much
fight
as
attack
. “The good news is he won.”
“Dude, someone tried to choke you. That goes a little further than most fights,” Michael said. He sounded genuinely concerned. “Was it about the flyers?”
It was a perfectly good explanation, but Claire couldn’t help but flinch from using it. For one thing, Michael and Eve already felt bad enough about the tension in town. “I don’t think so,” she said. “It was … personal.”
“You know, you really need to stop trying to make new friends, Shane. You’re not good at it. And aren’t we enough for you?” Eve batted her thick eyelashes at him and smiled, but Claire could tell she was still alarmed, and worried. “Here. Have a Coke. That’s good for a sore throat, right?”
“Good for everything,” Shane croaked, and took the extended cold can with good grace. “Thanks.”
“You owe me a dollar,” Eve said. “I’ll add it to the five thousand you already owe me, though.”
He blew her a kiss, and she stuck her tongue out at him, and that was the end of the subject, thankfully.
They sat at the table together, eating; Michael and Eve did most of the talking. Shane, of course, stayed quiet from necessity; Claire just couldn’t think what to say, because today’s events had crowded out all her small-talk skills, and she was afraid of saying anything for fear of blurting the wrong thing. Oliver had made it clear enough what the penalties for that would be.
Oh God, we already told Eve that Myrnin was freaking out,
Claire remembered—they’d said it at the coffee shop, but at least they hadn’t spilled anything more than that. If the breaking news was that Myrnin was acting weird, well, nobody was going to interrupt regularly scheduled programming. Hopefully.