And there was Naomi, sitting on the couch beside him, with her own matching cup.
The girl-vamp sat at a ladylike angle, knees together, as if she wore a dress instead of cute skinny jeans and a figure-hugging top that Claire regretfully kind of liked. Naomi’s chin was up, and her gaze was level on Eve. She didn’t look guilty. She looked a little defiant.
Michael, on the other hand, looked
deeply
uncomfortable. “Eve,” he was saying, “it’s not—”
“Like it looks?” she finished for him, very calmly. “Oh, I’m sure.” Eve stepped forward, holding out her hand. “I don’t think we’ve been introduced.”
Naomi’s eyebrows moved up, just a little, but she rose gracefully and shook Eve’s hand, making it look as if she were a foreign dignitary performing some alien custom for the sake of diplomacy. “I am Naomi de la Tour. You must be Eve Rosser. Of course, I have seen you about town.”
Eve stared straight into her face. “Sorry I can’t say the same. I don’t know you, and I don’t appreciate your being here.”
Naomi actually
blushed
, or at least, there was a hint of color in her cheeks. “I am still becoming used to human company,” she said. “And I do apologize if I seemed rude toward you. I don’t intend to be.”
“Eve—,” Michael said. She shot him a glare, and he settled back on the sofa. Busted.
“Maybe we ought to talk about what you
do
intend,” Eve said, and pulled over a straight-backed chair, which she straddled, putting as strong a difference between herself and Naomi’s oh-so-ladylike presence as possible. She looked over her shoulder at Shane and Claire. “Out. This could get messy.”
“You’re sure you don’t want backup?” Shane asked.
Michael frowned. “Against
what
exactly? Me? C’mon, man.”
“On second thought,” Eve said, “maybe they should stay. Any reason they shouldn’t, Michael?”
“Eve, don’t do this.”
She smiled, but it wasn’t a happy kind of expression. “How long has this been going on?”
Michael said nothing. Naomi, on the other hand, leaned forward and said, very earnestly, “I’ve been coming here for almost two months.”
“Really.”
Michael shut his eyes and rubbed his temples, as if he had a monster headache. “Eve, you don’t—”
“Understand? I’m sure I don’t. Why don’t you tell me? Because finding you all cozied up with a blood-drinking hottie on the couch
two days before our engagement party
doesn’t send the wrong message at all.”
“I’m not cozied up with her!”
Naomi laughed, just a little. “Indeed, he isn’t,” she said. “If I may explain … ?”
“Take your best shot,” Eve said. The muscles in her jaws were tight, and she gripped the back of the chair she was straddling so hard that Claire thought she might snap it off—and then stake somebody with it.
“As I’m sure you’re aware, there’s discontent among some of the vampires with the idea that you and Michael should marry,” Naomi said. “There is reason for this.”
Eve stared at her in utter silence. Naomi waited for comment, but got nothing.
“Not only that,” the girl continued, “I know that human society is not the same as it was when we were … among their numbers, but by our immortal standards a marriage is an
alliance
, and you, dear Eve, are allying yourself to the descendant of an ancient and important bloodline. There are many who believe that by marrying you, Michael confers upon you a great deal of … power. Implied power, if not actual. Giving this to a human is … controversial.”
“Oh, so you’re just giving us
advice
. I got it. Nice of you two to involve me in the discussion so thoroughly … Oh, wait.”
“You think I am lying about my presence here?” Naomi’s perfect eyebrows rose in disbelief. “Do not think it; I beg you. In fact, I have been acting as Michael’s advocate.
Your
advocate,” Naomi said. “I have standing in the vampire community, and I have been acting as peacemaker, if you will, to allow your marriage to go forward, should you still wish it. I came to tell Michael that I believe my blood-sister Amelie has been persuaded to give her blessing to the union.”
Claire cleared her throat. “Oliver just told us there was no way it was going to be allowed to happen.”
“Oliver is my most difficult opponent,” Naomi said. “And he is persuasive, I must admit. I have spent a great many hours trying to convince him of the rightness of my cause, to no good effect. I finally decided to go directly to my blood-sister and hope for the best.”
Eve was clearly still not buying it. She was staring holes in the other woman, lips compressed into a flat, angry line.
Michael said, very quietly, “You think it worked?”
“I can’t be completely certain. Amelie is, first and always, a ruler, and a ruler keeps her own counsel on all things. But she was most gracious and understanding. I believe that I have convinced her of the importance of allowing this union to occur.”
“Thank you,” he said, and stood up. A step took him close to where Eve straddled the chair, and her head tilted to look up at him. She kept the exact same expression. “Do you really think I was screwing around on you with her?”
“Why not?” Eve asked flatly. “Vamp girls are hot. Even I can see that.”
Naomi blushed again. “I am not interested in Michael in that way,” she said. “I am sorry you think me capable of doing something so underhanded. And …” She seemed at a loss of what to say for a moment, then looked down at her clasped fingers and said, “And he is not what appeals to me, I am afraid.”
“How could he
not
be your type?” Eve asked, momentarily distracted, and Claire was actually wondering the same thing because Michael was just … yeah.
Naomi didn’t answer; she just stared hard at her lap, and Shane was the first one to get it, though how he did, Claire couldn’t really tell. He said, “Because her type is more like you, idiot.”
“More like—Goth?”
“More like girls.”
Naomi glanced up, and Claire caught a flash of relief on her face. “In my youth it was not looked on with favor,” she said. “It is still difficult for me to speak of it.”
“Oh,” Eve said, in an entirely different tone of voice. “
Oh.
You’re
gay
.”
Naomi nodded slowly.
“I could kiss you right now,” Eve said, and then immediately held out a hand. “I mean, in gratitude, you know? You’re really pretty but—Oh man, I just totally screwed that up.” Eve took a deep breath and turned back to Michael. “Did you know she was gay?”
“Yeah,” he said. “I didn’t want you to think—I knew there wasn’t anything going on, but I get how it looked, meeting with her in private. I should have told you. I just didn’t want you to know how much resistance there was against the wedding.”
“Oh,” Eve said softly.
“Oh.”
Her eyes were shining now, and Michael’s smile was one of the most lovely things Claire had ever seen. Free of all the burden she’d seen in him over the past few weeks. Free of the guilt. And now, there was something completely
right
in it. “You idiot. You could have told me.”
“Yeah, I know.” He stood up and went to her, and took her hand. “I love you. I didn’t want to think that—that I could lose you over this. Over not being able to get Amelie to agree.”
“Idiot,” Eve repeated, but she didn’t mean it. She stood up and melted into his arms, and it looked like they never intended to let go of each other, ever again. “So it’s all good.”
Naomi was smiling at the two of them, but now a shadow seemed to come over her face. “I hope that is true. I do worry that if the human population continues to agitate, Amelie will take the side of Oliver’s cause, and not mine. But I cannot help that. Perhaps you can … ?”
“I’m not exactly Miss Popularity out there,” Eve said. “But luckily, I’ve got someone everybody respects on my team … everybody on both sides of the blood line.”
And she looked at Claire and raised her eyebrows.
“Oh, wait a minute,” Claire said. Shane put his arms around her from behind. Even if she wanted to escape, he wasn’t going to let her. “How exactly am I supposed to convince people it’s all okay?”
“Facebook?” Shane said, straight-faced.
“Flyers on phone poles,” Eve said.
“Invite them to the party,” Michael said.
Claire blinked and looked at him, head cocked. “What did you say?”
“Invite them to the party. It’s like if you’re having a gigantic house party—invite your neighbors over, and they’re not as likely to blow the whistle on you. Well, invite the humans in Morganville and give them the chance to really get to know the vampires. Show them it can work.”
“Dude,” Shane said seriously, “that just
cannot
end well.”
“No, it could work,” Naomi said. “There are precedents. And you were planning to invite both humans and vampires in any case, were you not?”
Eve nodded, still looking a little uncertain. “But—look, there are some bad feelings around here. Human pride, and all that stuff. I’m not sure it’s a good idea to put vamps, humans, and alcohol all in the same place.”
“Well,” Naomi said cheerfully, “what’s the worst that can happen?”
They were silent, considering that, because there were just so
They were silent, considering that, because there were just so many possibilities.
But in the end, it was a better idea than Facebook.
“What’s this?” The man on the other side of the counter at the camera store scowled at her mistrustfully, but he took the paper that Claire handed him. It was a nice, colorful poster, advertising the engagement party being held outside at Founder’s Square.
“Could you maybe put it up in the window of your store?” she asked, and gave him her best, most confident smile. “It’s going to be a great party. I know your customers would like to be there. It’s free!”
He stared at her. Claire didn’t know him; he was an older man, graying at the temples, and he had a square, stubborn kind of face. His sleeves were rolled back to the elbows, and she saw a fresh stake tattoo on the inside of his right forearm. “You’re that girl,” he said, and she was almost sure he’d continue,
The vampires’ pet.
She’d heard that a few times today. “The one the Collins kid is dating.”
Oh. Right. Shane had antivampire street cred. “That’s right,” she said. “I’m Shane’s girlfriend.”
“Frank said you were all right.”
Great, now she had Shane’s
dad
as an endorsement…. Well, anything that would help, she’d take it. “That was nice of him.” She managed not to make it sound like an indictment on the whole Frank Collins issue. Water under the bridge, and all that stuff. “Would you mind putting it up for me?”
“You know this ain’t going to end well, right?” He rattled the paper at her. “Glass and the human girl. I’m sorry the kid got turned, but he’s one of them now. No coming back over that line.”
She was tired of the argument. “Thanks for your time,” she said. “I appreciate you thinking about it.”
He grunted. “I guess I’ll put it up. Don’t expect me to show up, though.”
“Free drinks?”
That actually earned her a smile. A small one. “Well, you drive a hard bargain, kid. Be careful out there.”
“You, too.”
She walked out, and Shane fell in step beside her. He had a handful of flyers, but fewer than there had been. “So, was that fun?” he asked. “Kind of an antivamp stronghold, there. Captain Obvious used to be a good friend of the manager.” Captain Obvious had once been a figurehead of the antivampire underground, but he was now permanently underground, in the six-feet-under sense
.
Nobody had yet stepped forward to take up his masked identity, as far as Claire knew—not that she would have been in on the antivampire memo chain. “He give you any trouble?”
“Not once I pointed out there would be free booze.”
“Too easy,” Shane said. “How are you planning to keep the frat boys out?”
That, Claire had realized early on, was going to be a problem… . The Texas Prairie University campus was its own little world, a microcosm inside Morganville’s strange alternate reality. And on campus, few people really knew about the vampire world outside. Keeping the frat boys on campus, instead of searching for a free drunk, was a challenge, and one that required absolute attention. There had been too many near misses already. “I talked to Chief Moses,” she said. “She said the police would be checking IDs. No town resident card, you don’t get into the square at all. That should keep the aspiring partyers out.”
“You hope. So, who else we have left?”
They’d covered almost all of their particular sector of Morganville; Michael had taken the more vampire-centric neighborhoods this morning, and Eve had braved it with him, trying to show the vampires she could be well behaved and perfectly acceptable. By common consent, they’d all decided that Claire and Shane had the reputations to win over unwilling humans, or at least get them to listen.
They’d been about seventy percent successful, which was better than Claire had expected, but it had been a long day, and her feet hurt. “We should hit it tomorrow,” she said. “I need to lay down.”
He raised his eyebrows at her, and she swatted his shoulder. “Rest,” she said.
“Well, we could rest
together
. I swear, I’ll be good.” He gave her a charming, intensely hot smile. “You can take that any way you want.”
So many levels to that, she got dizzy trying to sort them out. But it warmed her, and made the walk home less of a trial … at least, until her cell phone rang. The ringtone was a dead giveaway, emphasis on
dead
… creepy organ music. She didn’t even have to glance at the image of fanged bunny slippers on the screen to know who was calling. She just sighed, thumbed it on, and held it to her ear.
“Claire! I need you here
immediately
. Something’s wrong with Bob.” Myrnin, her mad-scientist, blood-addicted boss, sounded actually
shaken
. “I can’t get him to eat his insects, and I used his favorites. He just sits there.”