Over The Moon

This story is, yawningly,

for Cindy Hwang, again, who asked me,

and Ethan Ellenberg, again, who made it happen,

and my kids, who stayed out of the way, mostly.

Acknowledgments

Stories may pop full-blown into a writer's head, but there's a helluva lot more to making a book than that, or me, the author. There's the editor, who calls you up and asks if you want the project. There's the agent, who wades through the eight-point-font paperwork and looks out for you and points out what's good and what's not so good and why you can't write that story for this guy, but you could write the other story for this guy. There are the copyeditors (who think I'm not the sharpest knife in the drawer) and proofers (who think same, and are right) and PR staff (I don't know what they think), the sales guys and gals (ditto), the book sellers (they seem fond of me!), and finally, the readers (it's a toss-up). Pull any one of those people out of the equation and… no book. Worse, no royalties!

So thanks, thanks, thanks to the unsung heroes of publishing. Since my name is on the front cover, I get most of the attention and the credit, and the blame if something goes wrong, which is only fair, because it's always my mistake in the first place. But, as above, without the whole gang, there's no book, typos and all.

What would I do without all of you?

Author's Note

This story takes place after the events in Derik's Bane and Undead and Unpopular. Also, in the real world, in our world, there are no such things as werewolves, but about vampires, I'm reserving judgment.

Also, the opinions ("I hate kids.") of the characters in this story do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the author, the editor, Berkley Sensation, or Penguin Putnam.

Finally, you are required to let the air out of your tires before driving out on a Cape Cod beach, and the people who don't do that? Deserve whatever happens to their tires.

Who does the wolf love?

—Shakespeare, Coriolanus, Act II, Scene I

He is mad that trusts in the tameness of a wolf, a horse's health, a boy's love, or a whore's oath.

—Shakespeare, King Lear, Act HI, Scene VI

A lawful kiss is never worth a stolen one.

—Maupassant

Don't mess with the dead, boy, they have eerie powers.

—Homer Simpson

Chapter One

Burke Wolftauer, the Clam Cop, dusted his hands on his cutoffs and observed the black SUV tearing out onto Chapin Beach at low tide. Crammed with half-naked sweaty semi-inebriated humans, the Lexus roared down the beach, narrowly missing a gamboling golden retriever. It roared to a halt in a spume of sand and mud, and all four doors popped open to let a spill of drunken humanity onto the (previously) calm beach.

All of which meant nothing to him, because the full moon was only half an hour away.

Burke dug up one more clam for supper, popped it open with his fingernails, and slurped it down while watching the monkeys. Okay—not nice. Not politically correct. Boss Man wouldn't approve (though Boss Lady probably wouldn't care). But never did they look closer to their evolutionary cousins than when they'd been drinking. Homo sapiens blotto. They were practically scratching their armpits and picking nits out of their fur. A six-pack of Bud and a thermos of Cosmos and suddenly they were all miming sex and drink like Koko the monkey.

All of which meant nothing to him, because the full moon was only half an hour away.

Now look: not a one of them of drinking age, and not a one of them sober. Parked too far up the beach for this time of the day, and of course they hadn't let any air out of their tires. They'd been on the beach thirty seconds and Burke counted an arrestable offense, two fines, and a speeding ticket.

He licked the brine from both halves of the clam shell, savoring the salty taste, "the sea made flesh," as Pat Conroy had once written. Clever fellow, that Conroy. Good sense of humor. Probably fun to hang out with. Probably not too apelike when he knocked a few back. Guy could probably cook like a son of a bitch, too.

Burke popped the now-empty clam in his mouth and crunched up the shell. Calcium: good for his bones. And at his age (a doddering thirty-eight) he needed all the help he could get.

Then he stood, brushed the sand off his shorts, and sauntered over to the now-abandoned Lexus. He could see the teens running ahead, horsing around and tickling and squealing. And none of them looked back, of course.

He dropped to one knee by the left rear wheel, bristling with disapproval at the sight of the plump tires—tires that would tear up the beach in no time at all. He leaned forward and took a chomp. There was a soft fffwwaaaaaaahhhh as the tire instantly deflated and the SUV leaned over on the left side. Burke chewed thoughtfully. Mmmm… Michelins…

He did the same to the other three, unworried about witnesses—this time of year and day, the beach was nearly deserted, and besides, who'd expect him to do what he just did?

He walked back up the beach to retrieve his bucket and rake, using an old razor clamshell to pick the rubber out of his teeth. He belched against the back of his hand and reminded himself he wasn't a kid anymore—he was looking at half a night of indigestion.

Worth it. Yup.

Chapter Two

Serena Crull heard someone come close to her hole and went still and silent as… well, the grave.

This was an improvement over what she had said twelve hours earlier, upon tumbling ass over forehead into the eighteen-foot-deep pit: "Son of a biiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii… ooommpph!"

This had been followed by: "Shit!"

And: "Son of a bitch!"

And: "Ow."

Which had been followed by roughly twelve hours of sulking silence. She had tried climbing out: no good. She'd just pulled more slippery sand down onto herself. She hadn't bothered to try jumping: she wasn't a damned frog. She'd once jumped down, but it was only a story or so and, frankly, it had hurt like hell. Not to mention she hadn't stuck the landing. Jumping up? Maybe in another fifty years.

Then the sun had come up, and she'd really been screwed. She scuttled into a corner (or whatever you call the edge of a hole that gives shelter), pulled some sand over herself, and waited for the killing sun to fall into the ocean one more time. What she would do after that, she had no idea.

And she was starving.

She was dying and she was starving.

Okay: She was dead and she was starving.

From above: "Hey."

She said nothing.

"Hey. Down there." Pause. "In the hole."

She couldn't resist, could not physically prevent her jaw from opening and the nagging voice from bursting forth, it was just so exquisitely stupid, that question: "What, down the hole? Where else would I be? Dumb shit."

Longer pause. "I'll, uh, get help."

"Don't do that. I'll be fine."

"Someone'll have some rope in their truck."

"Why don't you have rope in your truck?" she couldn't resist asking.

"Don't need it."

It was amazing: the man (nice voice—deep, calm, almost bored) sounded as indifferent as a… a—she couldn't think of what.

"I don't, either."

"Don't either what?"

Nice voice: not too bright. "Don't need a rope. I do not need a rope. No rope!" No, indeed! A rescue right now would be disastrous. She could picture it with awful clarity: heave and heave, and here she is, thank goodness she's safe, and what the hell? She's on—She's on fire!

As her hero, Homer Simpson, would have said: "D'oh!"

"How did you even fall in there?" her would-be rescuer was asking. "It's impossible for there to be a deep hole on the beach. The sand would fill it up."

"I'm not a marine biologist, okay?" she snapped.

"Geologist," he suggested. "You're not a geologist."

It was amazing: she'd spent the day alone, in hours of silence, terrified of the sunlight, hoping she wouldn't face an ugly death, and now she wanted her rescuer to get the hell lost.

"Get the hell lost."

Pause. "Did you hit your head on the way down?"

"On what?"

"You seem," he added, "kind of unpleasant."

"I'm in a hole."

"Well. I can't just leave you there."

"Oh, sure you can," she encouraged. "Just… keep going to wherever you were going."

"I didn't really have anywhere to go."

"Oh, boo friggin' hoo. Is this the part where I go all dewy between my legs and talk about how I'm secretly lonely, too, and how it was meant to be, me falling on my ass and you hauling me out? And then we Do It?"

"Did someone push you down there?"

"Shut up and go away. I'll be fine."

"Maybe the fire department?" he mused aloud.

"No. No. No no no no no no."

"Well. You can't exactly stop me."

She gasped. "You wouldn't dare."

"Even if you are crazy. I can't just not help you."

"Go away, Boy Scout."

"It's just that I can't hang around too much longer."

"Great. Fine. Have a good time, wherever you're going. See ya."

"I have this thing."

"Okeydokey!" she said brightly, her inner Minnesotan coming out, which was an improvement over her inner cannibal, which wanted to choke and eat this mystery man, claw strips of flesh from his bones and strangle him with them, then poke a hole in his jugular and drink him down like a blue raspberry Slushee Pup. "Bye-bye then!"

"But I could maybe keep you company until it's time to… for me to go." Another pause, then, in a lower voice: "Although that might not work either."

"Aw, no," she almost groaned. "You're going to talk down my hole, then go away?"

"Yeah, you're right. That won't work."

"For more reasons than you can figure, Boy Scout."

"I don't have a cell phone, is the thing."

"Me neither. Aw, that's so sweet, look how much we have in common; too bad we're not having sex right this second."

Pause. "You keep bringing up sex."

"Yeah, well. It's been a long fargin' day."

"Fargin'?"

"Shut up, Boy Scout."

"It's just that you don't have to worry."

"That's a humungous load off my mind, Boy Scout."

"Because the thing is, I can't… you don't have… it's that I'm not attracted to you at all."

She clutched her head. "This. Is. Not. Happening."

"I don't mean to hurt your feelings."

Insanely, he had. "Hey up there! For all you know, I'm an anorexic blonde with huge tits, skin the color of milk, and a case of raging nymphomania."

Another of those maddening pauses. "Anyway, that's not really the problem. The problem—"

"Bud. I so don't need you to tell me what the problem is. Please get lost."

She heard a sudden intake of breath, as if he'd come to a quick, difficult decision, and then there was a whoosh and a thud, and he was standing next to her.

Chapter Three

Five minutes later she was still screaming at him. Right at him. The hole was only about three feet in diameter. They were chest to chest. And she was loud. Really loud.

"… left your brains up there, Boy Scout, not that you ever were that heavy in the smarts department in the first place!"

"It just seemed like a good idea, is all."

"Seemed like a good idea?"

"Wow. You're really loud. While you're yelling, I'll make a step, and throw you out."

"You'll make a what and what me what?"

"Make a step with my hands. Like this." He bent forward to show her, and they promptly bonked skulls.

"Ow!"

He could feel himself get red. "Sorry." And red wasn't the only thing he was getting. What had he been thinking? She was right: he'd left his brains up there with the seagull shit.

"This was your solution?" she scolded, rubbing her forehead. "No cell phone, no rope, and now we're both down here?"

"It's really small down here," he said, trying not to sound tense. "It didn't look that small from up top."

"It's a hole, Boy Scout. Not a cavernous underground lair."

He scratched his arm, and when his elbow knocked against the side of the hole, sand showered down, which made him itch more.

"Can you breathe okay?" He tried not to gasp. "Is there enough air down here? I don't think there's enough air down here."

"Oh boy oh boy. I am not believing this. You actually took a terrible situation, made it worse, then made it more worse. Are you all right?"

"It's just that there's no air down here." He clutched his head. "None at all."

"You're claustrophobic and you jumped down into a hole?"

He groaned. "Don't talk about it."

"But why, Boy Scout?"

"Couldn't just leave you here. But you're not really here." He sniffed hard. Her hair was a perfect cap of dark curls (he thought; there wasn't much light down here) and under normal circumstances he would find that extremely cute. He sniffed her head again. "I don't think you're here at all."

"Boy Scout, you have lost what little tiny cracker brains you had to begin with." She managed to fold her arms over her chest and (he thought) glare at him. "If this is some elaborate ploy to impress me in order to get laid—"

"I can't have sex with you. You're not here." He gasped again. "I can't breathe. How can you breathe?"

"Well, apparently I'm not here," she said dryly. "And don't get me started on why the whole oxygen thing isn't a problem for me. IWhat are you doing?"

He stumbled around and was scrabbling at the sandy walls, digging for purchase and doing nothing but pulling a shower of sand down on them both.

"Boy Scout, get a grip!" She coughed and spat a few grains of sand at his back. "You're just making it worse!"

She was yammering at his back and he didn't hear, couldn't hear, sand was everywhere, in his mouth, in his ears, in his eyes, and it was so close, it wasn't a hole, it was a grave and it was filling up, filling up with him in it.

He clawed at the wall, pulled, yanked, scrabbled, tried to climb, and he could hear the woman yelling, screaming, feel her blows on his shoulders and they were as heavy as flies landing.

Then the moon was there. The moon came for him in the grave and took him out, took him up and out, and he was able to gouge himself out of the grave with two ungainly leaps and then he was screaming, screaming at the moon, howling at the moon, and she wasn't screaming anymore, the grave was full and she was quiet, at last she was quiet and he ran, ran, ran with the moon and his last thought as a man was, "What have I done?"

Chapter Four

"It's around here," Burke said, so ashamed he couldn't look up from the sand.

"Around here?" Jeannie Wyndham, his pack's female Alpha, poked at the small dunes with a sneakered toe. "That's pretty vague for a guy with a nose like yours. Is this the spot or isn't it?"

"I… think it is. It's hard to tell. I can't smell her at all. I can just smell me. And I'm all over the place. After I got out of the gra—hole, I just ran."

Michael, his pack leader, was crouched and balanced on the balls of his feet as his yellow gaze swept the area. He said nothing, for which Burke was profoundly grateful. He couldn't have borne a scolding, as much as he deserved one.

"Burke, give us a break," Jeannie said, sounding (no surprise at all) exasperated. "You stumbled across a woman who needed help—"

"And I left her to die."

"—and you did what you could. You guys areEvery werewolf I've ever met is such a screaming claustrophobe you should all be on tranqs, but you jumped into a hole to try to save her before you Changed. She didn't have a chance in hell anyway."

Burke could think of several chances the poor dead woman might have had, but it wasn't prudent to correct Jeannie, so he stayed silent.

"There, I think," Michael said. There was a deep depression in the sand, a jumble of footprints—and wolf tracks, leading away. "You're right, Burke. I can smell you all over the sand, and a few other people—tourists who just came out for the day, people just passing by—and that's it. Certainly there's no scent of a woman who'd been trapped in the bottom of a hole for over twenty hours."

"Well, if you can't smell her, and Burke can't smell her…" Jeannie trailed off, then mumbled, "He needs a girlfriend."

"I'm not making it up."

"Of course not," Michael said with a hard look at his wife. She stuck her tongue out at him, and he continued. "But there have been, ah, concerns. You've lived alone most of your life. No one sees you. The only time any of us see you is if I summon you—God knows I don't do that unless it's a real emergency, or to meet a new baby—"

Burke didn't say anything, but he knew where Michael was going. Werewolves were not solitary creatures. They were designed to mate young and drop lots of pups. Rogues—even gentle ones—made everyone nervous. Now they thought that the stress of never having children had driven him over the edge. If he hadn't been so miserably ashamed, he would have laughed.

"At least yesterday was the last night of the full moon," Jeannie said, shading her eyes as she watched the sun dip into the ocean. "Or there'd be no talking to either of you in another five minutes."

"I came back to the mansion as soon as I could," Burke explained. "When I woke up this morning, I was in Vermont." No surprise. He had run and run and run, but had never managed to leave his shame and guilt and horror behind.

"Well, no one's around. Why don't we do a little digging and see what, uh, comes up?" Jeannie asked with faux brightness.

Burke knew, as did Michael, that despite the deepening gloom there were people around, but no one was close. And in any case, digging holes in the beach wasn't exactly suspicious behavior. Hell, people paid money for clamming licenses just to dig at the beach.

He dropped to all fours and began to scoop out great handfuls of sand with his hands, ignoring the shovels Jeannie had brought.

"Cheer up," Jeannie said, shifting her weight uncomfortably from foot to foot. "There probably isn't anybodyI mean, we might not find anything."

"And if we do find anything, it wasn't your fault."

"Excuse me," Burke said politely, "but it was entirely my fault. I appreciate you coming out here with me."

"Like we're going to let you dig around in the dark by yourself, thinking you'll stumble across a corpse? Yuck, Burke! Besides, the whole thing's a joke. You're only the nicest, gentlest, quietest werewolf out there. You'd no more kill a woman than I'd break Lara's arm."

"Not that she couldn't use that sort of thing," Michael said shortly; he was saving his breath for digging.

Burke grunted and kept digging. He knew Lara, a charming creature and the future pack leader, and frankly, he wondered how Jeannie had kept from breaking the high-spirited girl's arm. The cub wasn't even in her teens yet, and some of her exploits were already legendary, like the time she jumped off the roof of the mansion and used her quilt as a parachute; except it hadn't worked out quite the way she planned and she'd come down like a stone, breaking one ankle and scaring the holy old shit out of her parents.

Heh. That had been a day.

"How long—are we—going to dig—before we decideBurke isn't a killer?" Jeannie panted.

"Until we find the—" Burke froze, reached deeper, and felt his fingers closing around… a forearm. He leaned back and pulled, tears stinging his eyes from the sand. Yeah, the sand and the thought of that poor woman dying alone, dying in the dark, dying as the sand filled her nose and lungs and finally stopped her heart.

Dying alone.

"Oh my God!" Jeannie screamed in a whisper as he stood, pulling the body free from the sand until it was dangling from his strong grip like a puppet whose strings had been cut. "Burke! Oh my God!"

"YouI guess we'd better try to find her family," Michael said, recovering quickly, which was why he was the boss and Burke was the Clam Cop. "If we can't, we'll give her a proper—"

"Oh no you don't!" the body snapped, swinging in the air and kicking Burke in the shin. "You didn't dig me up just to plop me into another grave. And you" she snarled, as sand showered from her hair, her face, fell from her shoulders and her clothes and fangs—fangs?—and hit the beach. "I'm starving and it's all—your—fault!" So saying, she lunged forward, fastened to Burke's shoulders like a lamprey, and sank her teeth into the side of his neck.

Chapter Five

It took the combined strength of Jeannie and Michael, plus a lot of tugging and yelling and threatening, before the dead woman was pulled off. Everyone was scratched and bleeding before it was over.

"Don't talk to me," the dead woman said, wiping the blood off her chin and backing away from them. "Don't talk to me, don't look at me, don't bury me."

"But… you…" Jeannie groped for the words and ended up waving her arms in the air like a cheerleader who'd forgotten her routine. "You can't… you…"

Michael cleared his throat. "Ma'am, you're dead. You have no scent, you have no pulse. You, uh, should lie down and be dead."

"Aw, shut the hell up." She whirled and pointed a dirty finger at Burke, who had been trying to figure out if he was terrified or relieved. "And you! The number of your gross offenses against me grows by the hour! The half hour! Now leave. Me. Alone!"

She whirled and stomped away, her fists clenching as she heard all three of them hurry after her.

She turned back. "Leave. Me. Alone. Any of that unclear? Any of you not speak such good English?"

"I get it!" Jeannie cried with the hysterical good humor of a Jeopardy! contestant. "You're a vampire!"

"No, she isn't," Burke and Michael said in unison.

The body stomped her foot, and all three of them took a step back. "Of course I'm a vampire, morons! What else would I be? A Sasquatch? Nessie?"

"There are no such thing as vampires," Michael said gently. "I think you must have gone into shock when you were buried and that protected you until we could rescue you—"

"Rescue me?"

"And the whole thing has been too much for your system and now you think—"

"Oh, what crap. I don't need to breathe, ergo, I didn't suffocate, and I couldn't get out of the hole during the day. Ergo, I wasn't buried alive. Are you honestly telling me that werewolves don't believe in vampires?"

"The existence of one doesn't prove the other," Michael said stiffly. "I believe in witches, but that doesn't mean I believe in leprechauns."

"How'd you know they were werewolves?" Jeannie asked, examining the scratch on her left elbow.

"Because Boy Scout lost all his little tiny marbles, went into a screaming fit worthy of a Beatles fan, turned into a wolf, and jumped out of a twelve-foot hole. Call me crazy."

"Crazy," Jeannie said brightly.

Burke touched the bite mark on his neck, which was already scabbing over. It would explain a lot: her relative calm at being in such a fix, her utter lack of scent, and, of course, her walking and talking after being buried alive for more than twenty-four hours.

All his life, he had been told legends of wolves and fairies and water witches, and a grizzled beta had once claimed to have seen a demon, but never had he heard of a vampire, or even seen one.

Until, obviously, now.

"You're alive," he said, and it was impossible to keep the relief out of his voice, though he tried. Despite his efforts, both Jeannie and Michael turned and gave him odd looks.

"Newsflash, Boy Scout: I've been dead for forty years. Sorry about the… you know—" She gestured vaguely in their direction: all three were scratched, bitten, disheveled, sandy. "I was hungry and the thirst got a little away from me. Now, I gotta go. I'd eat a rat just for the chance to have a hot shower."

Without another word, she turned and moved off into the dunes.

Burke looked at his pack leaders. "Good-bye," he said simply.

Michael stuck out his hand and they shook. "I guess we won't be seeing you for a while. If ever."

"What?" Jeannie asked.

"I don't know," he replied honestly. "I guess it's up to… to… I don't even know her name."

"We'll keep your house for you. Everything that's yours will always be here for you."

"What?" Jeannie asked again.

"Thank you, Michael. I appreciate your help tonight. Do I have your leave to go?"

"You have my leave, O brother, and good hunting and many cubs," he replied, the formal good-bye of a pack leader releasing a beta male from his care.

"You're going after her? You've decided you're going to be mates and live happily ever after even though she's dead and you don't even know her name?"

"Good-bye, Jeannie."

"Burke!" she yowled, but he ignored her and loped off into the dark, a true rogue, now.

Chapter Six

Somehow, Boy Scout had flanked her, because he was waiting for her in the parking lot, the fluorescent lights bouncing off his black hair, making it seem very like the color of blood.

"I have a shower," he said by way of greeting.

"One side, Boy Scout. I've seen all of you I'm gonna."

"And a house. You could stay there and… and rest during the day and do your business at night."

Hmm. Tempting. Credit cards could be traced, a decent hotel wouldn't take cash, and she didn't want anyone to see her coming and going. Shacking up with a stranger for a night or two wasWait. Had she lost her mind? Because she was actually mulling it over. Crazy guy's offer. As if he hadn't left her in the biggest fix of her life just last night.

Well. Second biggest.

Although, her gentler self argued, he had tried to help her. Badly, but the effort counted for something, right?

"Please," he said, and that did it. She was undone; it wasn't the "please," it was how he looked when he said it: miserable and hopeful all at once.

"Oh, all right," she grumbled. "Maybe for the night. I hope one of these cars is yours."

"It's not. But my house is just over the dunes, past the Beachside Motel." He pointed at a row of lights in the distance and she sighed internally. It had been a rough couple of nights, and she wasn't up to a hike, undead strength or not.

She opened her mouth to bitch, only to feel herself be swept off the warm pavement and into his arms. "It's not far," he promised her, and went loping through the lot and into the dunes.

"Boy Scout, you're gonna break your fargin' back!" she hollered, secretly delighted. When was the last time she had been picked up and carried like a bride over the threshold? Her mama had died when she was a toddler; her dad was too busy working two jobs to pick her up; cancer had taken him her first year at the U of M. After that… "I weigh a ton!"

"Hardly," he said, and the sly mother wasn't even out of breath. He raced with her across the sand, past the motel, up a small hill covered with stumpy, stubbly bushes, and then he was setting her down on a sandy porch. She turned and looked, and could barely make out the lights of the parking lot. Boy Scout could move. But then, she'd seen evidence of that just the night before.

He opened the door and made an odd gesture—half wave, half bow.

She walked into the house. "No locks, huh? Doncha just love the Cape."

"No one would dare," he said simply. "Will the lights hurt your eyes? We can leave them off if you prefer."

"No, the lights are fine."

Click.

They blinked at each other in his living room, both getting their first good look at the other, and both entirely pleased by what they saw.

For her part, she saw a tall, thin, black-haired man with gray eyes—the only gray eyes she'd ever seen, true gray, the color of the sky when it was about to storm. He was dressed in dirty shorts, shirtless and barefoot, and as tanned as an old shoe. Laugh lines—except he never laughed, or smiledaround those amazing, storm-colored eyes. His legs were ropy with muscle and his arms looked like a swimmer's: lean and strong. His hands were large and capable-looking. His mouth was a permanent downturned bow; even when he tried to smile, he looked like he was frowning. She liked it, being in a generally bad mood herself; sometimes it was nice to be away from perpetual smilers, and Minnesota had more than its fair share.

Burke saw a tall woman (she came up to his chin in her bare feet) with a classically beautiful face, strong nose, wide forehead, pointed chin. Black eyes, skin the color of espresso. Long, slim limbs. Wide shoulders that made her breasts almost disappear. Unpainted toes and fingernails; filthy linen pants and a T-shirt so dirty he had no idea what the original color was. And if he closed his eyes he couldn't see her: she gave off no scent of her own, only sand and sea. She was like a chameleon for the nose; she took on the smells around her, the smells he loved. He thought her accent was the same way: she didn't sound like much of anything. She didn't drop her R's like the locals, had no Midwestern twang, no Southern drawl. She didn't sound like anything. Or, rather, she sounded like just herself, and that was exactly right.

And there it was: that sense of rightness about her, the sense that she was for him and he was for her. Even though only one of them knew it.

That was all right. He was a patient man.

She mistook his silence for something else and glanced down at herself, the first time he had seen her self-conscious: "Ugh, look at me. I must stink as bad as I look."

"You're beautiful."

"Ugh, stop it right now."

"But you are," he said, puzzled.

Her brown eyes narrowed as she studied him. "Boy Scout, get those thoughts out of your head right this minute."

"Thoughts that you're beautiful?"

"Uh-huh. I'm not beautiful; it's the vampire mystique. It's like… like a hormone I give off. Makes it easier for me to bite you. Any vampire can do it."

"You don't smell like anything; how can you be giving off a hormone?"

"Because, trust me, I'm not beautiful. I've got a big nose and big feet and tiny tits and my hair never grows so I always look like a shorn sheep."

He was dizzy with the wrongness of her self-perception. "Huh?"

"This will never work out. Not in a thousand years."

"Huh?"

"Look at us."

He smiled.

"No, really look."

"I don't care that you're a vampire."

"You don't even know what a vampire is, or does."

"So? You'll show me."

"And the age difference?"

He shrugged.

"Boy Scout, I've got at least fifty years on you! I was thirty when I died!"

"So call a nursing home."

"And…"

"And?"

"You're white."

He waited for the rest of the explanation, and she had to resist the urge to put her fist through his television set. "I'm black, you're white. Are you listening?"

"You mean—You're a bigot?"

"I'm not! Everybody else is! And don't even tell me how trendy it is to be black or to have a black girlfriend because trends are cyclical, they are, and one day you'll wake up and I won't be trendy and then where will we be?"

"Miss," he said patiently, "do you want that shower or not?"

"Boy Scout, you're not hearing a thing I'm saying, are you?"

"You have eyes like chocolate," he said dreamily.

"You don't even know my name."

"Oh. Well. Mine's Burke Wolftaur."

"Of course it is. Great disguise, by the way, werewolf. Running around on the beach right before a full moon, got the word wolf in your damned last name, real bright."

He shrugged. "I was on my way back to my house; I would have made it in plenty of time if I hadn't run into you."

"Oh, so it's my fault you're a dumbass?"

"Yes. And all the packs' names go back to the same roots. There are hundreds of Wolfs, Wolftons, Wolfbauers, Wolfertons, right here on the Cape."

"I repeat: great disguise, dumbass. I'm Serena Crull, by the way."

"Cruel?" he asked.

"C-R-U-L-L."

"Oh."

"Well, at least my name isn't Serena Vampireton, ya big putz."

"The bathroom is down the hall and on your left. I'll find some clean clothes for you."

"Had lots of lady friends stay over, hum?"

"No, you'll have to make do with my clothes."

"Ah, let the fashion show begin!"

"You'll be lovely," he said flatly, as if stating a fact: It will rain tonight. It was too cloudy to stargaze. You will be lovely.

"Boy Scout, you are one weird white boy, anybody tell you?"

"Never to my face," he replied, and went to find her something to wear.

Chapter Seven

Burke shut the fridge and turned around, then nearly dropped the gallon of milk on his foot. Serena was standing right there and he hadn't heard a thing.

"That's disconcerting."

"Thanks, Boy Scout. If that's for me, don't bother. I don't drink… milk."

"It's for me, actually. I can still taste the sand from last night." He poured himself a large glass and drank it all off in a single draught, like it was beer. He could use a beer, but there wasn't a drop in the house. He scowled at the gallon container, then poured himself more.

"How are you feeling?" he asked.

"I was about to ask you the same thing." She grabbed a napkin from the small pile on the kitchen table, stepped forward, and wiped his upper lip. "I can't hardly see where I bit you anymore."

"Fast healer. Fast metabolism."

"Honey, tell me." She stepped back—almost too quickly, he thought, as if she was afraid. Not that he could exactly tell—it was maddening not to be able to smell her emotions. And tantalizing. But mostly maddening. "So?" She whirled in a small circle. "How do I look? Ready to call Vogue?"

"You look fine," he said, which was a gross underestimation. She was wearing one of his white strappy T-shirts, which only emphasized her small, firm breasts and the sweet dark smoothness of her skin. Frankly, the shirt emphasized that her breasts were all nipple, which made him want to pull it off to see, which made him want to—

"Fine," he repeated, wrenching his mind back on track. Trying, anyway. "You look fine."

"Well, the sweatpants were never gonna work, so I found a pair of your shorts." As it was, they came down to her knees and made her look irresistibly cute; she wiggled her bare toes and he smiled. She was still damp from the shower; water glistened in her tight cap of black curls.

He hurriedly drank more milk. Pity that wasn't what he was thirsty for.

"Well, I appreciate the clothes and the shower and the late-night snack—" She tapped her throat by explanation and he nodded. "But I'd better hit the trail, as they said in the old Westerns right before they killed all the Indians. Excuse me: Native Americans."

"Hold on. I want to help you."

"Help me out of these shorts, maybe," she joked, and he hurriedly looked away so she wouldn't realize how close she was to the truth. "Naw, I think we've bugged each other enough for one night—well, two nights. Don't you?"

"You can't do it by yourself."

"Do what?"

"Whatever it is you came here for. You're not a native, and you're not a tourist. Something brought you to the Cape. I want to help you with it."

"Why?"

Because you're beautiful. Because I was a coward. Because you know what I am and you're not afraid. Because I know what you are and I'm not afraid. Because. Because.

"I feel bad," he said carefully, "about last night."

She waved his cowardice away with one nail-bitten hand. "That? Forget it."

"Never."

She raised her eyebrows at his tone. "I mean it. I made a fuss, but it was no big. It was sweet—yet dumb—of you to jump in at all. You couldn't help your nature, any more than I can help biting people on the neck. And I quit apologizing for that about thirty years ago."

"Still, you're rogue." Like me.

"Rogue?"

"Out here by yourself. Alone. You don't have the pack to. help you. But I'll help you."

"Boy Scout, I really don't think you will."

"On my word as a former member of the Wyndham Pack, I will."

"Boy Scout, you don't want any of this, trust me."

"I left you once and it almost killed you."

She snorted. "Not even close."

"I can't leave you again. At least—" He groped for a way to lighten the moment, make a joke. What would a real person say? "At least not until we get you some decent clothes."

"You're sweet, but you shouldn't offer to jump into something when you don't know what it is."

Patiently, he went over it again. "I don't care what it is. I want to help you. Frankly, I don't see you leaving this house without me right behind you. I'm an excellent tracker." A bluff, with her lack of scent, she could probably lose him in half an hour.

She scowled, then shrugged. "Have it your way, Boy Scout. You rang the cherries: I'm not a tourist. I'm out here for a reason. In fact, I'm out here to find a vampire and kill him. How 'bout that?"

"Oh, murder?" He put the milk back. "That's fine with me." To his amusement, she was so shocked she sat down.

Chapter Eight

"See, the thing is—"

"It's fine, Serena."

"But see, it's like—"

"Do you want to leave now? Or do you need to, I don't know, rest?"

"Listen to me. I… we… have to find the vampire who—"

"Who sired you?"

She made a face, her dark nose crinkling like she smelled something bad. Since he hadn't taken the garbage out for a day or two, it was entirely possible. Perhaps they shouldn't be having this meeting in the kitchen. Perhaps another room. Like the bedroom. Ah, the—

"Boy Scout, you're not listening. Nobody says 'sired'; a vampire makes you or he kills you. In fact, a lot of us say we were killed, even if we were made. Are youWas that a yawn?"

"I haven't been sleeping."

"It was a yawn! What, I'm boring you?"

"I'm just not interested in the details."

"The details like who we're going to murder."

"According to you," he said coolly, "our victim is already dead."

That gave her something to think about, he could see; she leaned back in her kitchen chair and stared up at the ceiling for a minute. Finally she brushed her ear—a charming monkey gesture—and said, "Well, okay. Technically, the guy we're going to stake doesn't breathe and doesn't have a pulse, or not much of one, and he's been running around dead for at least sixty years. But still. It's a very serious thing."

Burke managed to conceal another yawn.

"I can't believe," she said, shaking her head, "that you don't at least want the details."

"Oh, sure, I want them. Who, when, and how, I suppose. He's probably going to be a hard kill." He smiled and Serena shrank back in her chair. "You certainly were."

"Okay, first of all, when you grin like that, you've got about a million teeth. Second of all, the who is the vampire who made me, yeah. The when is as soon as I track the mother down, and the how—we have to stake him in the heart or throw him into a tanning bed or something like that."

"Crosses? Holy water?"

"Will hurt him but probably not kill him. And don't be waving any of those things around me, Boy Scout."

"Does the stake have to be made of—"

"Any kind of wood. And it has to be through the heart. Anywhere else, he'll just get right back up and keep coming." She added bitterly, "Don't ask me how I know this."

Burke ground his teeth. "Did he hurt you?"

"Huh? No. I mean… not physically."

"But you want him dead for making you dead."

"No. For making my friend dead. I want him dead for lying. He lied. He didn't tell me the truth. I mean the whole truth. He let me believe that whoever he bit would be a vampire. He didn't tell me… didn't—" She covered her face with her hands and went silent.

After a minute, Burke said, "He bit you."

"Yes."

"And you came back."

"Yes."

"You were lonely."

Serena's hands came down; her eyes were big with wonder. "Yes. Once the hunger—the being new, the being crazy of a new vampire—once that wore off, I found my friend. My best and greatest friend, Maggie Dunn."

"She missed you."

"She was so happy that I was alive. Sort of alive. You know. And—"

"You talked to your friend. Or Maggie asked you. It doesn't matter."

"That's right," she choked. "It doesn't matter."

"You thought, or she thought, being a vampire would be a fine thing. Friends forever. And your sire—the one who made you—he obliged. He didn't tell you—what? Did he not perform all the rituals? Did he do it wrong out of spite, or to keep his pack's numbers down?"

"He didn't tell me, and I only found out later, that being a vampire… it's like the measles. It's something you catch. Or don't catch. You could get bit by the same vampire a hundred times, and ninety-nine of those times, nothing would happen. Or he'd drink too much and you'd die. But that one time, the hundredth time, you'd come back. I thought—I didn't know it was a fargin' virus. I didn't know it was a damned head cold. And he didn't tell me. Didn't warn us."

"Your friend didn't come back."

"My friend." She took a shuddering breath and obviously wasn't used to it, because she almost tilted off her chair and onto the floor. "My friend died screaming. And I let it happen."

"And this was…"

"Nineteen sixty-five." She smiled. It was a wobbly smile, but it was there. "Free love, you know."

"Why… now?"

"I finally found him, that's why now. There's a new regime in place, and the king helped me track him down."

He blinked, processing this. "The king."

"King Sinclair. The king of the vampires. He made the Minneapolis librarian track Peter down for me."

"Peter?"

"Innocuous name for such a scum-sucking son of a bitch, isn't it? Anyway, the old boss didn't give two shits for problems like mine. I knew better than to even ask—we all just kept out of his way. It was a bad time for most of us. But then—"

"Things changed."

"I heard the new king and queen—"

"There was a coup for power? The old leader lost? Was killed?"

"Yeah. So I let things settle down a bit and then I went to St. Paul andNever mind all that, point is, I got an address, I even got the name of the restaurant he runs."

"Your leaders—they know what you'll do when you find Peter?"

She nibbled on her lower lip. "The king does. He understands this kind of stuff. I got the feeling—I think he keeps the queen out of a lot of the bloodier stuff, you know? She's kind of new to the game."

"Ah." He knew about new mates, having seen (from a distance) Jeannie's struggles to fit in with the pack. He didn't blame this Sinclair fellow at all for keeping his woman out of the boring bloody details.

"That's it? 'Ah'?"

"There is nothing else, right?"

"Yeah, but… that's it? You got nothin'?"

"Do you know what my mother told me every night before I went to bed?"

"Uh… stop being such a chowderhead?"

"No. She repeated the family motto: Kill or be eaten."

"Swell."

"Isn't that your situation, as a vampire?"

She shifted in her chair. "I—I don't think of myself—I mean, I don't think I've ever killed anyone. It's a myth that vampires have to kill you to feed. Half a pint and we're good for the night. Sure, we're a little bit nuts in the beginning—a brand-new vampire is pretty much out of her mind for a few years. But you get ahold. It's like anything—you deal."

He touched his neck, which had entirely healed, and smiled at her. "Good to know."

"But it sounds like being a werewolf is really, really stressful. No wonder you live away from it all."

"That's not why I live away from it all," he said, and got up to put the milk away, and they both knew the discussion was over.

Chapter Nine

Before she realized it, the night had disappeared and the killing dawn was lurking around the corner. Serena could hardly believe it. They'd spent the entire night in the kitchen, plotting.

Born and bred on the Cape, Burke knew the local geography and tourist traps, and recognized the name of Pete's restaurant, Eat Me Raw. He told her it was "up Cape" in "P-town," whatever the hell that meant. Not for the first time, she thought it wasn't so crazy, hooking up with the Boy Scout.

"We could drive there now," he said, looking at her doubtfully, "but you'd have to ride in the trunk. And stay in the trunk until the sun goes down."

"Tempting offer, but no thanks. Let's just crash here and we'll hit the road first thing tonight. You've got a whole day," she teased, "to come to your senses."

Without a word, he got up and escorted her to the basement of his small, pleasantly untidy house. It was a finished basement, cool and dark, partly used for storage. Part of the basement had been made into a bedroom, with one small south-facing window, which he efficiently taped a dark beach towel over.

"All rightey then," she said, looking at the neatly made double bed. The room screamed "guest room"; there was no personality to it at all. In fact, Burke's entire house (well, the parts she had seen) had very little personality, as if occupied by a ghost, or someone who didn't care much one way or the other. "Good night."

"Good night." He stood very close to her for a moment and then (she thought—hoped?) reluctantly moved away. "Call me if you need anything."

"Oh yeah. You betcha." She cursed her Minnesotaisms, which surfaced in moments of stress.

The door shut. She was alone in the sterile guest room. Which was too bad, because she hadn't been laid in about twenty years (the thirst tended to take over everything, including the sex drive and the need for manicures) and Burke would obviously be a—

But that was no way to think. That way was trouble, pure and simple. She had a mission to complete and when Pete was dead, when his lying head had been cut off and she'd kicked it into the ocean, when Maggie had at long last been avenged, then… then…

Well. She didn't know. But that was for later. For now, she climbed between clean sheets and, when the sun came up (she couldn't see it, but she could sure feel it, feel it the way bats felt it, the way blind worms in the dirt felt it), she slept.

And dreamed.

This was delightful, as it hadn't happened often. She hadn't known vampires could dream at all until it started happening to her about five years ago.

In her dream (wonderful dream, delightful dream) she and Maggie (Maggie!) were walking around in Dinky town, just a few blocks away from the apartment they'd shared as college students. It was the fifties, and they both wore black capris and white men's shirts tied around their twenty-year-old midriffs. Maggie wore ballet flats on her little delicate feet (oh, how she'd envied Maggie her feet) and Serena wore saddle shoes, which were the slightest bit too tight, but who cared? The sun was shining and oh, it was good to be young and alive and eating ice cream cones and welcoming the admiring glances from the fellows on the sidewalk in June, in Minnesota, in summer, in life.

"Place has twenty flavors of homemade ice cream, glorious hand-cranked ice cream like Grandma makes, and you always pick vanilla." Serena took another bite of coconut chip and tried not to look smug.

"Never mind my choices, let's talk about yours. You've given up happiness for how many decades, and for what? To avenge me? For what? Because you feel guilty?"

The ice cream suddenly tasted like ashes, and Serena had to fight the urge to spit out the bite. "I don't want to talk about that now. This is supposed to be a nice damned dream."

"Tough noogies, chowderhead." Maggie brushed her bangs out of her eyes and Serena noticed the ragged bite marks—chew marks—all around her friend's neck. Something had been at her, and hadn't been nice about it, either. "You managed to literally stumble into some happiness, and what? Did you jump on him and try to make a baby?"

"I can't have—"

"Or did you drag him down into your sick old shit?"

"Maggie, he has to pay!"

They both knew the "he" Serena was talking about. "Sure he does. But do you?"

"I don't know what you—"

"You never did, honey. That's why I'm the scholarship student, and you're running around dead on Cape Cod. No lover, no home, no nothing. Just your bad old self. And for what?"

"Maggie, I can hear you screaming in my sleep. Vampires don't even dream and most of the time I dream about that."

"That's on you, honeygirl." Her friend looked at her with terrible affection, the vanilla melting in her fist, the blood running down her blouse front. "You didn't want to spend eternity alone; who would? So here we are, both dead. But now you've got another chance—and you're wrecking that one, too. The first time was piss-ignorance. Not your fault. But this? Willful."

"It's not—"

"Well, you always were the stubborn one." Her friend grinned, all teeth and gums and blood. "And I was the pretty one."

"Maggie—"

"See you 'round, honeygirl."

Maggie vanished. The stores vanished. The old-fashioned (at least, to her twenty-first-century eyes) cars vanished. The sidewalk patrons vanished. There was only her, and her stupid coconut chip ice cream cone, and her too-tight saddle shoes, and—

—the guest bedroom.

It was night again and the thirst was on her; her mouth felt like dust, her mouth felt dead. Dead. Like Maggie, long dirt and bones in her lonely grave. The grave Serena had helped put her in. Had led her to.

She shoved back the blanket and was on her feet, then up the stairs and headed for the door. She had to drink before she could think, and she certainly wasn't going to chomp Burke again, poor boy. She had enough guilt on her shoulders without—

"Where are you going?"

"Don't sneak up on me, Boy Scout," she said without turning around. "Bad habit."

"But where are you going?"

"Breakfast. Well, supper. Can't say when I'll be back."

She hadn't heard him cross the room, but suddenly his arm closed over her elbow.

"Rules of the house," he said simply, looking down at her with his storm-colored eyes.

"You have to eat what the host serves." He tugged the neck of his T-shirt down, exposing his jugular. "Me."

Chapter Ten

In a perfect world, she would have logically reasoned out why it wasn't appropriate to bite the boy, the infant—cripes, how old was he?

In a perfect world, she would have used her superior vampire strength to shake him off and gone traipsing down his porch and onto the beach, picked some drunken tourist and slaked her thirst, then come back and coolly discussed Pete's upcoming murder.

Neither she nor Burke lived in a perfect world; they yanked toward each other at the same moment (a clam between them would have shattered), mouths searching, tongues exploring, and then she reared back like the beast she was and bit him, pierced the vein with her teeth and sucked.

And nearly reeled; his blood was the richest, most satisfying drink she had ever had in all her years of being undead. In all her years, period. He tasted like salmon fighting upstream, like rabbits fucking under the moon, like wolves bringing down cattle.

They staggered around his living room in a rigid dance, fingers digging into each other's shoulders, and he pulled her (his, really) T-shirt off with one rip down the back. Not to be outdone by a mortal, she did the same. She hoped he had a stash of Clark Gable-type T-shirts somewhere, because he was now short two.

They tripped and hit the couch, Burke on the bottom, and she broke free and groaned at the ceiling. A bad idea with a full mouth; she caught a rill of blood with her thumb, then sucked on it.

"Good?" he asked.

"Burke. Oh man. You just don't know."

"It's my high-fat diet," he said seriously, staring at her tits. "Um. All nipples. Come here."

"Your high-fat diet includes nipples?"

"Shhh." His arm circled around her and he pulled her down, sucking greedily, even biting her gently, and she wriggled against him, pushing at her shorts, pulling at his.

She kissed the top of his head and shoved her breasts harder into his face, delighting in the feel of his mouth on her flesh. "Oh, Burke." She sighed.

"Mmmph."

"Not to put any pressure on you. But Reagan was in the White House the last time I got laid."

Her nipple slid from his mouth with a popping sound and he replied, "That's the opposite of pressure. It's been so long, you probably don't remember what good sex is."

"Come on!" she screeched, delighted. "It's like riding a bike."

"Hardly," he grunted, seizing her by the thighs and levering her over his mouth. She clutched the back of the sofa to keep her balance and promptly went out of her mind as his tongue searched, darted, stabbed. She couldn't imagine the upper-body strength he had, how he could so effortlessly hold her entire weight just above his mouth. The sheer physics of it was—was she thinking about physics?

Get your head in the game or you'll miss it. Good advice. Not to mention, she could feel his tongue all over, not just where… where it actually was. Umm. She shuddered all over and thrust against his face, no more able to stop her movements than she could have given up blood. And her orgasm was upon her like the finest rush imaginable, surging out of nowhere and shocking the shit out of her—she had never been one to come in less than five minutes, never mind less than five seconds.

She lost her grip but he did not, and the momentum brought them both tumbling to the floor, smashing the coffee table in three pieces on the way. Neither of them especially cared. They had one goal, and that was Serena's penetration: a shattered coffee table could not have been more irrelevant.

Burke crushed her lips beneath his mouth and shoved her legs apart with his knee; she locked her ankles behind his back as he pushed into her with no niceties and no apologies—just what she wanted, needed, silently demanded. Their bellies smacked together faster and faster, and they clawed and bit their way to mutual orgasm.

"Oh man," she said when she could talk.

"Hush."

"I'd fall down, if there was anywhere to fall."

"I knew you'd wreck this by speaking."

"Aw, shut it."

He brushed splinters out of her hair. "You owe me furniture."

"Ha! After that, you owe me a hundred bucks."

"Is that the going rate these days?"

"I have no idea," she admitted. "I just said that to sound tough." She was silent, considering. "I have no idea why I just said that, either."

"Well. You are tough." He gently disengaged from her limbs, picked her up like a doll and put her on the couch. He looked rueful as he examined the various shredded cloth that had been two outfits only five minutes ago, then said, "I'm ready for a burger or a steak or something. Are you—" He touched the bite wound on his neck. "Full?"

"Sure. Like I said before, we only need a little bit. But maybe you shouldn't be jumping around like that," she warned, getting up to put a hand on his arm—too late, he had already darted into the kitchen. "Sometimes viepeople are a little light-headed after I—"

He snorted, his head deep inside the fridge. "Eggs would be good. Eggs with a side of eggs. And a hamburger. Two hamburgers."

"I can hear your cholesterol going up, just listening." She was amazed at how energized he was. Werewolf, she reminded herself. All the time, not just during the full moon.

He brought down a bowl, rapidly cracked a dozen eggs into it, found a fork, and started whisking.

She came over to him and stared at the eggs. "Do you miss solid food?" he asked.

"No. The smell of it makes me ill. I can't believe you're going to eat half the food in the house."

He cocked a dark brow at her. "Half?"

Chapter Eleven

"It's good that we got the sex out of the way," she said as they sped toward Eat Me Raw. "Now we can focus on—you know."

"The murder?"

"Right." She was a little taken aback at how coolly he said it, like it was a fact of life, something unpleasant but unavoidable, like taxes. "The sex thing would have just distracted you."

"That's probably true," he said cheerfully.

"But you know," she felt compelled to add, as she was compelled to ruin all good things in her life/death, "there's nothing in it for us. I mean, no future."

He was silent, concentrating on the road.

"It's not like I can give you a family. My ovaries quit working the same day everything quit working. Not that I ever wanted a family," she added in a mutter. "I hate kids."

"Me, too."

"Liar!"

He blinked at her. "Well. I don't hate them. I don't hate anything. But I must admit, they bug the shit out of me."

"Me, too! I mean, I know we all had to go through it, and kids have to learn, blah-blah, but do they have to learn right next to me? You can't go to a restaurant anywhere and have a nice glass of wine without some toddler throwing Saltines in your hair."

"And the parents…" he prompted.

"Oh, man, they are the worst! Always obsessing about when their kid takes a shit, or doesn't take a shit, or is a slow talker, or talks too much, and showing you meaningless crayon scribbles and going on and on about what geniuses their little Tommy or Jenny is. Ugh!"

"Try being in a pack, and knowing the baby barfing all over your shoes is destined to be your boss someday."

The sheer horror of the idea consumed her for a moment. "Okay," she said at last, "that's bad."

"Making nice to a toddler who takes a dump in the corner, because she's going to be the pack leader someday."

"Man!"

"And the parents, who are your bosses right now, think it's swell when the kid breaks a window by throwing her baby brother through it. So there's broken glass everywhere, the baby's laughing and shitting, the kid's laughing, and the parents are all 'isn't she a genius?' and 'isn't he a brave little man?'"

"I don't know how you stand it!"

"That's why I live alone. Lived alone," he corrected himself.

She let that pass. "Is it weird for a werewolf to not like kids?"

"Extremely. As in, perversion. We're supposed to be married by the time we can legally drink, and have two or three cubs by the time we're twenty-five."

She snickered at "cubs."

"But, I like my privacy. I like the beach. I like being able to sleep late on Saturdays and watch dirty movies on HBO whenever I want."

"Sing it."

She settled back in her seat and enjoyed the ride. He had an old pickup truck, beat-up blue with new tires and sprung upholstery. He had had it, he told her, for fifteen years.

Then she thought: I am riding in a blue truck with a near-stranger to go kill Pete, and I'm… happy?

Postcoital happiness, she decided. Strictly hormonal. She used to get the same high from eating chocolate.

"So, what's the plan?"

He blinked at her again. "You're asking me?"

"Okay. We go to the restaurant. We find Pete. We take him out back and kill him."

"With the handy stake you happen to have in yourpocket?"

She glared at him. She was dressed, once again, in his gym shorts and a T-shirt, one so old it was no longer black, but gray. Barefoot. He was slightly more respectable looking in faded jeans, loafers, and an orange T-shirt the color of a traffic cone. "It's a restaurant," she said, faking a confidence she didn't feel. "We'll find a big sharp knife and cut his lying head off with it."

Burke shrugged.

"You really don't have a problem with this?"

"He killed you and your friend and who knows how many other girls. I'll eat his heart and have room for a big breakfast."

She opened her mouth, and promptly closed it. Other girls? Horrifying thought! Of course Pete hadn't stopped with Maggie. And it had been years. Decades. How many—

"And he doesn't have to kill them," she said out loud, bitterness like acid on her tongue. "You don't have to kill them. People give more blood to the Red Cross."

"Yes, Serena."

"He didn't have to! I would have—I would have forgiven him for what he did to me, but he didn't have to kill Maggie, too." She sobbed dryly into her hands, amazed that after all this time, she could still cry for Maggie. For herself. She felt Burke's hand on her shoulder, firm, as he pulled her across the seat and into his side.

"You're right, Serena. The beast doesn't have to kill to feed. You're not an animal like I am."

That thought shocked her—she had never thought of Burke as an animal. Not once. She was the bad one. He was—he was Burke.

She rested her head on his shoulder and watched as his reliable blue Ford ate up the miles.

Chapter Twelve

"Party town," she commented, staring at the throngs of people, the dozens of cars crammed taillight to headlight all along the streets.

"Yes," Burke said, illegally parking the truck. "It'll be like this until Labor Day."

"Provincetown. P-town?"

"There you go. You sound like a local."

"I'm not moving out here after—after. I can't stand the accent."

"Yah, sure, you betcha," he teased. "Because you don't have an annoying twangy Minnesota accent. You sound like an extra from Fargo."

"Shut up. I hate that movie. And can we focus, please?" She opened the door and hopped out of the truck, but he was already out and coming around the front. He took her hand in a firm grip and led her to the front door of Eat Me Raw.

"Wait! Shouldn't we… uh… be subtle?"

"We're here to kill the beast," he said. "It's best to get it done."

"So we'll just go in there and ask for him?"

"That was the plan, right?"

"What if he's not here?"

"If he's like most restaurant owners, he's here seven days a week, two-thirds of every day. Night, I mean. Good place to troll for victims. And here?" He gestured to the teeming crowds, the bars, the bright lights, the chaos. On a Tuesday night, no less. "Who would notice a vampire here? Or a missing girl right away?"

"Nobody missed me," she admitted. "I didn't have any family, and nobody believed Maggie. The cops assumed I'd hit the road. Maggie wouldn't let it go and they finally listed me as a Missing Person."

He scowled. "That sucks. I would have knocked over houses to find you. Strung men up by their balls."

Touched, she said, "That's so sweet, Burke."

He shoved open the door of the restaurant and walked in. She felt as though they were actually pressing against the noise from the bar. It was a typical New England raw barbright lights and dark wood and yakking tourists. Burke shouldered his way past them and walked up to the hostess stand.

"I'm sorry," the hostess practically screamed, "but there's a ninety-minute wait!"

"We'd like to see the owner!" Burke bellowed back. His voice climbed effortlessly over the din and several women (and not a few men) turned to look. "Tell him an old friend from Minnesota is here!"

"Scream a little louder, why don't you?" she muttered, knowing his werewolf hearing would pick it up. "I'm sure the cops will never be able to find a witness or ten."

As the hostess yelled into one of those cell phone/walkie-talkie things, he turned to her and replied, "We're here to kill a dead man. Tough case for the cops to solve. His birth certificate, assuming they can I.D. him when we finish, is probably just a bit out of date. Legally, he probably doesn't exist."

"He shouldn't exist," she muttered.

"I'm sorry!" the hostess yelled. "He's not in the bar right now!"

"She's lying," he said. "I can smell it."

"Well, let's—"

"It's all right, Annie," a stranger said, materializing beside the hostess. "No need to cover for me this time. I'll be glad to talk to these people."

Serena felt Burke jump, and knew why: no scent. She looked at Pete and was a little surprised. The boogeyman, the monster, the thing that haunted her dreams and stole her rest was a balding man in his early forties. Well. Who looked like he was in his early forties. What little hair he had left was going gray. His eyes were a light mud brown, and his nose was too small for his face. He was neatly dressed in a dark suit the color of his hair. He looked like a nurse shark: harmless, with teeth.

He smiled at her. She was startled to see he knew her at once. "Sorry about your friend."

She tried to speak. Couldn't. And she knew—knewwhy he was smiling. He thought he was safe. His turf, his town. All these people. He thought they wouldn't touch him. And he was old. For vampires, age meant strength. He thought if worse came to terrible, he could take them.

"Let's step outside," Burke said, and seized Pete by the arm.

"I don't think so," the old monster said loudly. "I'm needed here. I—hey!" They tussled for a moment, and then Burke literally started dragging him toward the rear of the restaurant. Serena could see shock warring with dignity on Pete's face: make a fuss and get help? Or endure and get rid of them outside?

She could see him try to set his feet, and see his amazement when Burke overpowered him again, almost effortlessly. She could also see the way Burke's jaw was set, the throbbing pulse at his temple. It wasn't just werewolf strength; Burke was overpowering the monster with sheer rage.

"Killing girls," Burke was muttering, as the armpit of Pete's suit tore. He got a better grip. "Killing girls. Killing girls!"

A few people stared. But this was P-town and nobody interfered. New Englanders were famous for minding their own business.

"What the hell are you?" Pete yelled back. "You're no vampire!"

"I'm worse," Burke said through gritted teeth. They were in the kitchen now, the smell of sizzling chicken wings making Serena want to gag. "I have to kill to eat."

Before any of the staff could react—or even notice, as hard as they were all working—Serena hurried ahead. She figured she might as well contribute to the felony kidnapping in some small way, so she held the back door open for them. Burke dragged Pete out, past the reeking garbage rollaways, past the illegally parked cars, past the boardwalk, onto the beach. Serena bent and picked up a piece of driftwood, one about a foot long and shaped, interestingly, like a spear. She could feel the splinters as she held it in her hand; it was about two inches in diameter.

Pete swung and connected; the blow made Burke stagger but he didn't loosen his grip. "Your pack leader didn't authorize this," he said. "You'll start a war."

Ah, the monster knew about werewolves—that was interesting. Of course, it made sense… Pete would want to know who he was sharing the killing field with.

"Serena's my pack. And you're all rogues. Don't pretend you're Europe. Nobody will miss you."

"Nobody missed you," Pete leered at her.

"Not then. But now, yes." She hefted the driftwood, then hesitated, hating herself for it but unable to resist. "Why? Why me, and why Maggie?"

"And Cathie and Jenny and Barbie and Kirsten and Connie and Carrie and Yvonne and Renee and Lynn and so many I've lost count. Why? Are you seriously asking me that? Why? Because that's what we do, stupid. You're—what? Fifty-some years old and you don't know that?"

"We don't do that," she retorted, and gave him a roundhouse smack of her own. "We don't do that! We don't have to! You did it because you wanted to!" Each shout was punctuated with another blow; Burke and Pete were skidding and sliding in the sand. The sea washed over their ankles. She had to scream to be heard over the surf. That was all right. She felt like screaming. She was, literally, in a killing rage. "You wanted to! She never did anything bad and you wanted to!"

"It's what we do," Pete said again, black blood trickling from his mouth, his nose. "The king won't stand for this."

"Who do you think sent me, bastard? He's getting rid of every one of you tinpot tinshit dictators. He won't stand for your shit and neither will I!"

"Then why," Pete said, and spat out two teeth, "why are you still talking?"

Good question. She kicked him in the balls while she thought of an answer. She had the stake. She had the anger. She even had a henchman. So why was the monster still alive?

"We don't do that," she said at last, and dropped the stake. She was condemning who knew how many more women to torture and death… Maggie was counting on her, wherever she was, and—and"We don't do that and I don't do that."

"Ha," Pete said, and grinned at her through broken teeth. "All the way from Minnesota. Long trip for nothing."

"Not nothing," Burke said. "She came for me. She just didn't know." Then he broke Pete's neck, a dry snap swallowed by the waves. Pete's mouth was opening and closing like a goldfish in a bowl, and then—Serena couldn't believe it—and then Burke literally ripped the monster's head off and tossed it away like a beach ball. The sound it made was like a chicken leg being pulled from a thigh. Times a thousand.

She spun away from their little group of evil and tried to be sick in the sand, but couldn't vomit. The sound—and the look on Pete's face when his neck broke—and the sound—

Burke briskly washed his hands in the surf and knelt beside her. She leaned against him and wiped her mouth.

"I knew you wouldn't," he whispered into her ear. "I told you: I'm the beast, not you."

"I just—couldn't. He was smirking at me and he knew I couldn't and he just—I just—" She closed her eyes and heard the snap of Pete's neck breaking again. This time it didn't make her feel sick. This time it made her… not exactly happy. More like… peaceful? "Oh, Burke. What if you hadn't come? What if I'd never met you?"

"But I did. And you did. And Maggie can rest. No more bad dreams."

"How did you know I—?"

He kissed her on the temple. "How could I not know my own mate?"

She clung to him, ignoring the surf wetting their legs, their knees. "Your mate? You still want to—?"

"Since you were in the hole and told me to go away. I couldn't leave you then. How could I leave you now? You're for me and I'm for you."

"Just like that?"

He shrugged.

"Just like that," she answered herself. The events of the past two days flashed across her mind: all he had done. For her. Had anyone ever… ? Who else could have done so much for her, but the man she was destined to be with?

"I'll outlive you," she said tearfully.

"On the upside, I can't knock you up."

"No kids," she said, cheering up.

He kissed her again. "No kids."

They rose as one and walked to the truck, not looking back when the surf covered Pete's body—both pieces—and took it away.

As predicted, nobody missed him, except the liquor rep, and she quickly found a new client.

No one in the bar who saw Burke and Serena ever forgot them, and no one in the bar ever saw them again. Drifters, in and out of P-town, one of several thousand tourists who came through Cape Cod each summer. Nothing special about them.

No, nothing at all.