Forty-Two
FORTY-TWO
Mia
THE HOUSE WAS quiet and largely dark when I got there, only a light in the attic bedroom and the light in the front hall—that Luca and the others always left on for me—illuminating the windows.
I went inside and turned off the porch light, locking up after myself. My hair and skin still felt clammy, even hours after getting soaked in the downpour. All I wanted was a hot shower, preferably followed by waking up to discover that this afternoon had been a bad dream.
Reluctantly, I put my work bag away and tiptoed up the stairs to the second floor, using my phone’s flashlight. Everything was dark and quiet, the bedroom doors all closed and no sound of anyone stirring. I wavered, wanting to take the excuse to slink back to my borrowed bedroom and hide away until the others left in the morning. Knowing that if I did, I’d hate myself for it later.
I stopped in front of the door to Luca’s nest, chewing on my lower lip. My light, tapping knock was probably quiet enough not to wake a sleeper. “Luca?” I whispered.
There was no response. Was it plausible that he’d be able to sleep after the news I’d texted him this afternoon? Some people reacted to stress with insomnia. Other people used sleep as a way to hide from whatever was going on. Luca demonstrated insomniac tendencies at the best of times, but that didn’t mean he didn’t flip the other direction when he got bad news.
I tapped on the door again. “Luca, it’s me. I know we need to talk, but... I guess it can wait until morning?”
No reply. No sound of movement from inside.
I lowered my hand and stood there for a few more moments before giving up and backtracking toward the stairs. I was halfway to the main floor when I realized that I’d seen no sign of Princess in the house.
That was weird.
She could have been hiding somewhere. Becoming a housecat must have been a big change for her after living on the streets her whole life. But I needed a distraction from beating myself up, and I really did want to make sure she’d arrived here safely.
Rather than head directly to my room, I kept going down the stairs to the basement. I hadn’t been down here much at all—only to stash a handful of moving boxes that wouldn’t fit in the guest bedroom. It was a huge space, partly finished near the stairs. By contrast, the back half was unfinished concrete with pipes and conduits running along the walls.
Emiel had decided to keep Princess’s litter box, food and water bowls down here, where they’d be out of everyone’s way. I felt around for the light switch at the bottom of the stairs and turned it on, blinking in the sudden illumination.
The litter box was laid out near the water heater, but the food and water bowls sat empty. Apparently, there’d been a change of plan—I really hoped everything was okay.
Feeling even more misgivings than before, I returned to the stairs and turned off the light switch before heading up.
When I got to the main floor landing, the prospect of going back to my own room and facing a night alone felt almost unbearable. Without consciously making the decision to move, I found my feet carrying me up instead of down, heading toward the attic bedroom and the light I’d seen through Emiel’s window when I’d come home.
It was an unwritten rule that no one bothered Emiel in his room. I was about to trample all over that rule, because I was stressed out and guilty and worried about Princess. Had our lunch and shopping trip only been yesterday? At the time, it had felt like Emiel and I were gaining a rapport. I guess we were going to put that fragile emotional connection to the test.
I’d never been up here before. It turned out, there was no door, which made this feel like even more of an invasion of privacy. I hesitated before my head popped into the line of sight of the bedroom, my work sneakers giving a telltale squeak on the stair tread.
“Go away,” came Emiel’s voice, in that flat, dead tone I was coming to hate.
I licked my lips, summoning my courage. “Emiel? It’s Mia. I’m worried about Princess. What happened?”
Silence fell for a couple of seconds, then Emiel appeared at the top of the staircase. He was wearing loose gray track pants and an old T-shirt that stretched across his broad chest. None of it did a damn thing to hide his mountains of muscle and overpowering maleness. The faintest shadow of stubble was visible across his shaved head.
I swallowed convulsively, cursing my oncoming heat for the hundredth time in the past few days.
“She didn’t show up for her food today,” he said.
“Can I come up?” I asked.
Another hesitation.
“Okay.”
It wasn’t exactly a warm welcome, but I mounted the last few stairs and stepped into the attic bedroom. The place was spartan. There was a desk and a chair in one corner, with a sleeping area taking up about a third of the space across from it. I didn’t see any photos or artwork... nothing to put a personal stamp on the room.
Rather than intrude any further into Emiel’s territory, I leaned against the sturdy stair railing. “Has she ever gone AWOL before?” I asked hesitantly.
Emiel went back to his bed and sat heavily on the edge of the mattress. “Sometimes,” he said. “She’s feral. She goes where she wants. Guess she didn’t want to come to the alley today.”
It sounded perfectly reasonable. Cats were notorious for not doing what you wanted them to do. I still didn’t like the flatness that had crept into Emiel’s expression since yesterday, though. It reminded me too much of how he’d looked during the cage fight.
“Guess you can bring her home tomorrow, then,” I told him, trying to keep my voice light. “There’s probably a joke in there somewhere about herding cats.”
It sounded hollow to my own ears. It must have sounded hollow to Emiel’s, too... or else my scent was giving me away. He frowned.
“Something’s wrong. You didn’t go back to the Bella Vita, did you?”
I shook my head. “No. Definitely not.” Drawing breath, I started to speak and paused, suddenly unsure. This was Luca’s private business, but it was also my business. Plus, there was a slight chance that Emiel might have a line on some heat blockers locally that Luca didn’t know about. He used pheromone suppressors, after all.
“This is a bit awkward,” I began. “But there’s a shortage of heat blockers right now. I tried to get some shipped in from a seller in Vermont, but someone’s been vandalizing the mail at our house in Jennings. When I went there to pick up the package, it had already been destroyed.”
Emiel’s frown deepened. “Luca’s due next week.”
“I know,” I said. “I’m due the week after. Anyway, I feel terrible about it, because Luca was depending on me to get the pills. I wanted to talk to him tonight, but he’s already asleep.”
At the mention of my upcoming heat, Emiel’s already closed-off body language grew even more closed off. I rushed onward into the verbal abyss, wondering if coming up here had been a mistake after all.
“I might be able to find another mail order source in time for my heat.” The words came out in a tumble. “But Luca needs his blocker within days. I don’t suppose... you know anyone in the area that might have a supply?”
Emiel’s frown smoothed into that vacant mask I hated so much. “Ask Zalen in the morning,” he said in a monotone. “You should probably go back downstairs now.”
Disquiet churned in my stomach, even though asking Zalen for help sounded like good advice. I wasn’t sure what I’d done to shut Emiel down so abruptly, but I didn’t get the sense that pressing the issue would be a good idea.
“Okay,” I said, trying not to feel hurt by the rejection. Hormones. It’s just the hormones messing with my emotions . “I’m sorry to bother you. I’ll talk to Luca and Zalen in the morning. I look forward to seeing Princess here tomorrow night.”
Emiel gave a single, tight nod. I started down the stairs, leaving him to it.
When my phone alarm went off at stupid o’clock the next morning, I groaned and buried my face in the messy pile of pillows at the head of the bed.
As my brain came reluctantly online, the events of the previous day paraded across my memory like a particularly unwelcome marching band.
“Ugh,” I said into the pillows, and dragged myself off the bed to catch the others before they left for work.
Pulling on a pair of yoga pants beneath my sleep shirt, I scraped my hair back into a messy ponytail and stumbled into the hallway. Low voices were coming from the kitchen.
“ I don’t want this heat .” Luca’s voice was a growl.
I paused awkwardly a few steps from the doorway, listening.
“ I’m sorry, Luca .” Zalen’s tone, by contrast, was reasonableness personified. “ I know you told me you had it covered. But I saw a news story about the federal seizure of the blocker shipment. I asked around, just in case your usual source fell through. There’s nothing available locally that I’ve been able to find. I can ask again. Maybe someone in the area got a line on a new supply in the past few days —”
Steeling myself, I walked into the kitchen. Luca was perched on one of the bar stools with the air of a wild animal treed by hunting dogs, while Zalen stood on the other side of the breakfast bar.
“Hi,” I said, clearing my throat when my voice cracked. “Luca, I feel awful about this whole thing...”
“I told you that you should have had them delivered here!” he snapped, and it was the first time I could remember him ever raising his voice to me.
The scent of aniseed and fennel tickled my senses. “Who should have had what delivered where?” Byron asked, strolling in.
Even at this hour, he had that alluring combination of being perfectly put together, while still somehow giving the impression of having been up to no good the previous night. It was an illusion, I was pretty sure. As far as I knew, he’d already been fast asleep in his room when I got in after work.
“There’s a shortage of heat blockers,” Zalen said. “Mia and Luca had some shipped, but the package was destroyed.”
“The gangs might still be sitting on some,” Luca said, desperation creeping into the words. “I could talk to—”
Byron stiffened. “ No, you fucking will not .”
I gasped as the alpha bark slapped across us, freezing both of us in place. Luca let out an involuntary whimper, then shook it off and shot to his feet with an honest-to-god snarl , looking even more like a trapped animal than he had before.
Zalen looked back and forth between the three of us, rubbing at his temples with a sigh.