Chapter 11
CHAPTER ELEVEN
bloom
I dragged Harper off the couch the next morning, ready for war in brown leggings and a light pink sweater that had to have been made from a blanket.
Yes, both articles of clothing needed to be washed. I’d dug them out of a work bag I’d left on the floor of my closet many months earlier. They smelled mostly fine, though.
The various piercings in my ears (I had four in one and six in the other, thanks fast vamp healing) were dotted with the silver earrings I’d been given as a joke by my sisters one year, and my hands were equally decked out in the anti-werewolf metal.
The silver chain around my throat seemed like the perfect touch.
The bun I put all of my hair up in put everything on display. The bite wounds on my neck had finally healed, too. I was pretty sure Mav would miss seeing them there because of his possessiveness.
That aspect of my plan was simple:
What would an Alpha who had everything want?
Whatever he couldn’t have.
Assuming I didn’t accidentally get myself seduced in the process of making him want me more, I was going to make him want me enough to bite me by the time I needed more blood.
Hopefully.
Anyway, I woke Harper up and waited for her reluctant ass to put on the clothes I’d brought her.
No way in hell was I letting her stay home alone so she could ruminate on how much she wanted more blood. If she’d lost her job, I’d get it back for her. The werewolves needed me enough to make it happen, and she was amazing at her job anyway. If I was her, Steven would’ve been dead way sooner.
Okay, fine. I would’ve just quit.
I waited while she fixed her hair and put my colored contacts in—thank god her eyes had been brown before she turned, because it was difficult to make red eyes look the right shade of blue with contacts—then dragged her out the front door and down our apartment complex’s stairs.
It was only about a twenty-minute walk to the business sector.
“How’s your bloodlust?” I checked as we walked. The sidewalks were free of snow and ice, which was good.
“Um, manageable?” she mumbled, still half asleep. “Since when do you wear eyeliner?”
“Since I have ass to kick.”
“Does paperwork have an ass?”
“I wish I was talking about paperwork.”
She looked over at me in concern while I pulled her down the sidewalk toward our favorite coffee shop. “What are we doing?”
“Getting coffee.”
“We don’t leave this early to get coffee, Bloom.”
“I’m having a meeting over the coffee.”
“With who?”
She wasn’t going to like this part of the plan. I didn’t either. “Velour.”
She stopped abruptly. I continued pulling her with me, and she took tiny steps to slow our movement as much as possible. “I don’t want to see him again, Bloom.”
“You’re not going to. You’re going to wait outside. I hate the guy, but I need his help if I’m going to save your life. It’s the only way my plan will work.”
Harper resumed walking at a normal pace, so I didn’t have to drag her. “What’s the plan?”
I explained it to her.
She eyed me when I was done, looking severely unconvinced. “How late were you up?”
“All night.” I was convinced enough for both of us. Or desperate enough, at least.
“Again? Don’t you remember what happened last time you pulled an all-nighter?”
It would be pretty hard to forget being tackled, bitten, and imprisoned. “I’m really hoping for a repeat.”
She snorted.
The shop was close, so we made it there pretty quickly. I’d planned to arrive after Velour, so he wouldn’t have time to run.
It helped that I no longer had to be in hiding, so I could tap into my speed if I needed to. Which he couldn’t do.
“Wait outside,” I murmured.
“You’re bossy when you decide to try to be a badass,” Harper whispered back.
“There’s no trying required.”
“Sure.” She rolled her eyes. “I’ll order the lattes on the app so you can grab them when you’re done.”
“You don’t have to do that.”
“Let me help. Even badasses need sidekicks.”
It was kind of hilarious to imagine her being my sidekick. I was the paperwork girl. Pure, undiluted sidekick material. She was usually the confident go-getter of the two of us.
I found Velour immediately, sitting at the table closest to the door. He had light skin and messy blond hair that fell below his chin, looking much greasier than I’d ever seen it before, and there were dark circles under his eyes.
He and Harper had only been screwing, but he wasn’t a complete monster. What he’d done to her was enough to keep anyone up at night.
His gaze went back to the doorway as I took the seat across from him. “How is she?”
He couldn’t have seen her, but he could smell her on me.
“She’s fine, for now. She should have at least another two weeks.” My voice was as flat.
He peeled his eyes off the entrance and looked at me, lowering his voice below what a human would be able to hear. “You haven’t turned her in.”
“We both know what’s going to happen if I do that.” I spoke as quietly as he did.
He clenched his jaw and jerked his head.
Anyone who turned a vampire or was turned by a vampire was dead. Period.
“She’s going to devolve in a few weeks. Everyone knew you were fucking. The Guild and the families are going to find out what you did when she does. Unless we figure out a way to stop it,” I said.
“If there was a way to stop turned vampires from devolving, someone would’ve told us.”
“Would they? Turning vampires was outlawed after the war, more than a century ago. Born vamps were nearly wiped our during that war. How many of us are there who’ve been alive since before?”
We both knew the answer.
Very, very few.
Vampires hadn’t lost because we surrendered. We lost because our numbers dwindled so low that there weren’t enough of us left to fight, so our people went into hiding and the werewolves gave up.
At least, that was what we’d been told.
Everyone knows there are two sides to every story, particularly in something as awful as war. Maverick had claimed he ended the fighting, so I wasn’t sure if what I’d been told was the truth.
“What are you saying?” Velour frowned.
“You need to find an ancient vampire. Figure out a way to prevent her from devolving. Stopping that is the only way to save her life—and yours, when Neve finds out you’re the one who turned her.”
“How am I supposed to do that?”
“That’s your problem, not mine.”
He dragged a hand through his hair. “My mom has mentioned a few old family friends. I’ll have to leave the city to find them, but if you think there’s a chance they know, I’ll do it.”
My gaze caught on a human on the side of the room. She had her phone up, like she was…
Taking a picture.
Oh, shit.
There were definitely werewolves outside, who had been following me for my “safety”. Maverick’s enforcers. They would tell him about my meeting.
But a photo on the internet of our meeting was much worse.
He was going to need to leave town for another reason now, too.
Harper walked stiffly into the coffee shop, and both of us looked over. Her jaw was tight, but she forced a smile as she came up and sat down on the couch next to Velour.
He went still as she sat next to him and wrapped an arm around his waist, saying loudly, “Hey, honey.”
“What—” he began.
“The Alpha is going to kill you if he thinks you’re on a date with Bloom,” Harper muttered. “Play along if you don’t want to get your throat torn out by a possessive werewolf.”
Velour slowly lifted an arm over her shoulders. “I’m so sorry, Harper.”
“Fuck you,” she muttered.
There was no anger behind the curse. Just exhaustion. Fear, too.
“Text me updates every other day,” I told him in a low whisper, standing and raised my voice. “We need to get to work, Harper.”
Harper forced a smile and gave Velour the world’s fastest peck on the cheek before she and I both strode up to the counter to grab our lattes.
“Sorry. I didn’t factor that in,” I said on our way out.
“Learning how to be a badass takes time. Do you have any hand sanitizer? I’d like to bathe in it.”
“I’m sorry.”
“It’s fine. If facing that fuckwad will give me even a sliver of a chance to survive this, I’ll do it every day.”
My throat swelled with emotion. I swallowed it down with a swig of coffee. It tasted way more bitter than usual, which was irritating. Needed a lot more sweetener.
My phone was vibrating against my thigh, through my bag, but I ignored it.
Making Maverick think about me was part of the plan.
Also… I was slightly afraid of what he was going to say and/or do about my meeting with Velour.
Fifteen minutes later, we stepped off the ridiculously-slow elevator and into Darkwood Investment.
I inhaled subtly, and goosebumps broke out on my arms. The whole floor reeked of vanilla. It definitely hadn’t smelled like that the last time I was there.
We turned the corner, and I stopped abruptly when I found Maverick sitting casually on the edge of Susan’s desk with his eyes narrowed directly at us.
I had no idea where Susan had gone, but I didn’t blame her for vacating the premises when the Alpha showed up.
“Hey, Sugar.” There was something dangerous in Maverick’s voice.
“Where’s my office?” I stepped past him, Harper walking beside me.
“Where’s your date?” the Alpha’s voice was sharp. I didn’t miss the way he sniffed as he fell into step with me, not that he tried to be discreet about seeing if I smelled like Velour.
I didn’t.
Everyone stared at us as we walked.
I tried not to shrink under their attention. They were my coworkers, but many of them were my friends. I knew them all by name, and had talked and laughed with most of them.
I knew what they were thinking when they looked at me now.
Monster.
What everyone thought of me didn’t matter. Not when my best friend’s life was at stake and I was going to be moving soon anyway.
I forced myself to focus on my conversation with Maverick.
“Harper’s ex probably has things to do, but I’m glad to hear that your enforcers called you to report something that didn’t put me in any danger,” I said.
“How long had you been dating him?” Maverick asked Harper.
“Not long.” She didn’t bat an eye at the question.
They’d never actually been dating.