Lily nuzzled into Ty’s chest, breathing in his scent, hiding from the truth. It figured that she’d finally met the perfect man for her, and he turned out to be a cat-shifting vampire with issues. And that was before she even started to take her own problems into consideration.
She lay there a while, as her euphoric sexual haze turned to brooding. She tried to get back to sleep but to no avail. Finally, she got so sick of herself that Lily decided she ought to get up and do something, even if that something was merely to hunt up some coffee and wait for her companion to wake up.
Make that companions, she thought, wondering if Jaden had come back. Oh God, she hoped he hadn’t arrived during one of the louder portions of the night. Lily’s cheeks grew hot thinking about it, but there was nothing she could do now. If she’d been an accidental exhibitionist, so be it. At least the loft had screens, though that would have done nothing to muffle the soundtrack.
Gently, she set about extracting herself from Ty’s embrace. At first she worried that he might wake up, but after a few minutes of struggling with dead weight, it seemed clear that vampires slept while the sun was in the sky, whether or not they wanted to.
Finally, she got her hair free, which was the trickiest part. Breathing a sigh of relief and rubbing a little at her smarting scalp, Lily drew away from Ty. She looked down at his sleeping form, giving herself a moment just to ogle him. He looked different when he slept, Lily thought, her eyes drinking him in. He lost the wariness he wore like armor, and his sharp, handsome face was so much more open, more innocent. In sleep his figure was loose, relaxed. And as she looked, Lily felt her heart begin to ache in a way she knew she could not assuage.
She forced herself to turn away and slipped out of the bed.
Lily pulled on some clothes from the open duffel on the floor, patting herself on the back for having so quickly picked up the art of dressing in the dark. Then she padded quietly across the floor and down the winding stairs.
A breath in the blackness below gave her pause, until she realized that Jaden must be on the couch. And as it turned out, the vampire who reminded her a great deal of a sexy, sullen rock star was a snorer. Light, but unmistakable.
Lily made her way down the stairs, worried once or twice that she was going to fall.
She felt only a moment’s guilt about fishing in Ty’s pocket for money. She was no thief, but he hadn’t exactly made it easy for her to pay her own way, and she desperately needed coffee. He’d mentioned letting her out in the light before they’d found other avenues to discuss, and a frou-frou latte sounded like heaven right now.
Then there was the other thing. He’d kill her if he found out, but it had to be done. He operated under his own code, Lily knew. And so did she. There were some things she just couldn’t countenance, no matter how hard she tried.
Even though there was the sound of breathing (and snoring), the place was a little too tomblike for Lily’s taste. She hadn’t realized how much she’d needed to get out of the apartment until she slipped out the door, grabbing the key from the small wrought-iron key holder hanging just inside of it and then locking up behind herself.
She strode quickly down the hall, feeling lighter with every step even though there was no hint of natural light until she hit the front doors; whoever had chosen this apartment had chosen well. The building was a cave. Then she was pushing through the heavy glass front doors and heading out into the sunlit world, blinking as her eyes adjusted to the brightness of it all.
After spending the last few days as a nightcrawler, it was like walking onto another planet. The sky was partly overcast, with clouds scudding across and intermittently obscuring the afternoon sun. There was a biting wind, and it smelled like a cold rain might be on its way in. Lily inhaled the scent of it, along with the smell of exhaust and the faint aroma of food. City smells, she thought and, after a moment’s indecision, headed right. She hung a left at the corner, following her nose, and after a couple of blocks found herself standing in front of a small greasy spoon called Santo’s. Just a couple of doors down was a coffee shop called Brewing Grounds, which she expected would be a great place to grab that latte.
But first there was the matter of what stood between them: a pay phone.
No one paid any attention to her, a pretty red-haired woman eyeing a telephone booth—which she felt lucky to find in the age of cell phones—like it was a hungry beast that might turn and attack her. However, Lily felt like every eye was on her. She’d been told not to involve anyone else. But this didn’t exactly count, and she didn’t want to cause her best friend any more hurt than was necessary.
She made the call collect.
Bay’s assistant, Anna, readily accepted the call, but she must have been standing right by Bay, because it was the latter whose shaking voice Lily heard once the charges were accepted.
Guilt coursed through her. She should have done this earlier, even if it would have been hard to manage.
“Oh my God. Lily? Is it really you?”
“It’s me, Bay. I’m… Look, I can’t tell you much, but I want you to know I’m okay.”
“Okay?” Her voice was only slightly below the level of a shriek. “Where the hell are you, Lily? Has someone taken you? What happened? I went to your house after work Tuesday when I didn’t hear from you, and it looked like… I mean, broken glass, furniture thrown around, blood on the floor. You’re all over the local news, and the cops don’t seem to have anything to go on, except that it looks like foul play.”
“Blood,” Lily murmured. It had to have been Damien’s, shed when she’d thrown him. It would give the police no answers, and that was safer for them, she decided. No one who went looking in the quarters she was now running in would find anything good.
“Yes, damn it, blood, Lily! Where are you?”
She considered how to answer this and wished just a little that she’d considered this a bit more before she’d picked up the phone.
“I’m safe, for now. Look, I can’t really talk, Bay. There’s stuff going on that I can’t even get into, and you wouldn’t believe me if I did. But just… just don’t worry.”
“That’s insane,” Bay said, and now she sounded just as angry as she was afraid. “This whole thing is insane. I thought you were dead. I pictured you being chopped into pieces in some psycho’s basement. And now you’re calling me from somewhere, telling me not to worry? What do you think I am, stupid?”
It shamed her to have caused this, to not be able to tell Bay where she was. Though it hadn’t been her choice to be dragged into all of this. Bay had been the truest friend she’d ever had. She owed her more than a crappy phone call like this.
“Okay,” Lily said. “In a nutshell, then. The reason I hate my adoptive parents? They tried to have me institutionalized as a kid. Repeatedly. But it never stuck, because I’m not crazy. I’m, um… well, I’m psychic.”
Bay was quiet for a moment. “Ah. Okay?”
It was Lily’s turn to bristle. “You wanted the truth—you’re getting it. It’s why I have problems sleeping. The stuff I see in my dreams… Well, that’s not important. The things I can do can be destructive, and as a kid, I didn’t have much control. When the last hospital dismissed my parents as nutjobs who just had it in for their kid, my folks sent me to boarding school so they didn’t have to deal with me. They paid for my schooling as long as I steered clear of their fabulous, camera-ready life as often as I could, and since they made it uncomfortable for me to be around, I obliged them. We don’t speak. End of story. Well, that story.”
“I wish you’d told me,” Bay said quietly.
Just that simple, no doubt in her voice. And at that moment, Lily realized just how much her friend meant to her.
“You believe me? Just like that?”
“Lily. You’re my best friend. You’re also one of the sanest people I know. And in a weird way, this all actually makes sense. I always knew there was stuff you weren’t telling me, but I let it go because I figured you’d tell me when you were ready, and that must have been painful. But that still doesn’t explain why you’re gone and your house looks like a crime scene. Is there, like, a secret government agency after you?” Suddenly, her voice was more animated. “Have your parents sicced the Feds on you? Like, they want you to use your powers in a covert program to weaponize psychic powers?”
Lily closed her eyes, torn between amusement and dismay. Leave it to Bay to take all of this to the next level. Though the actual truth, Lily thought, was probably on a level even further out than that.
“Uh, no, Bay. It’s actually weirder than that. It’s… um…” She blew out a breath, knowing it was going to sound insane no matter how she phrased it. Finally, she just blurted it out. “I’m with a couple of vampires.”
Bay snorted. “That’s not funny, Lily.”
“No, really. Apparently vampires can’t be psychic, and they need me to help them find a murderer that none of them can see but me. It’s… complicated.”
The line crackled for a moment as Bay mulled this over. “Are they feeding you drugs?”
“No. I could use some coffee, though.”
The skepticism that had been blessedly absent before was now in full effect. “Where are these vampires now? It’s daylight.”
“They’re sleeping back at the apartment. It’s a little different than in the movies. They’re breathing and everything. But I don’t think I’d be able to wake them up.”
“And they let you out to just wander around during the day?”
Great. She’s going to decide I’m crazy now too, Lily thought. Still, she’d started this truth-telling business. Might as well finish it off right.
“Look, Bay. You don’t have to believe me, but I’m telling you the truth. This didn’t start off being anything I wanted, but things are a little different now,” she said, thinking of Ty, sleeping peacefully back in the bed she’d shared with him. “There’s more going on with my abilities than I thought. I’m going to wind up dead if I take off—you wouldn’t believe how complicated vampires are and how many of them there are, considering everyone thinks they’re fictional—but I don’t even really want to take off anymore. I want to know what I am. Can you understand that?”