Smiling, I put a hand on his shoulder, leaning in to give him a professional kiss on the cheek and making him redden. I knew he was talking about Inderlanders and humans working together, and I hoped he was right. “Let me know if something changes.”
He nodded, pushing the door open for me, and my hair blew back in the draft. “You too.”
It was almost eleven, right about the time I usually got up, and feeling a faint sense of rejuvenation, I strode into the sun. “You want some coffee, Jenks?” I said loudly, knowing he wouldn’t be up for at least ten more minutes. Junior’s was only a couple of blocks away, and a grande, skinny double espresso, with a shot of raspberry, extra hot with no foam, would have a much-appreciated dose of fat and calories in it. “Yeah, me too,” I said, taking the stairs with an extra bounce to pull a tiny groan from my bag. My car could stay at impound a few minutes more.
But as I took to the sidewalk, my fast pace quickly faltered. The streets were more empty than usual, and the people who were out moved with a fast, furtive pace, very unlike the angry frustration inside the security of the FIB. Pamphlets skated down the gutters, and new graffiti was everywhere. Some of it I couldn’t match to a Were pack, making me wonder if it might be vampire, as odd as it would be. The scent of oil-based smoke was a haze between Cincinnati’s buildings, visible now that the sun was up, and I tugged my shoulder bag higher, uneasy.
No one was meeting my eyes, and the obnoxious men who usually refused to shift an inch out of their way so we could actually—I don’t know—share the sidewalk maybe, were quick to make room as if afraid I might touch them. It wasn’t just me, though. Everyone was getting the extra space. Tempers were short, and there were lots of quick accelerations when the lights turned green. Most telling, the usual sign-toting beggars were off the streets.
The wind lifted through my hair, sending the escaping strands of my braid to tickle my neck, and realizing I’d been out of touch for almost an hour, I turned my phone back on. “Oh,” I said, pace faltering as I saw all the missed numbers. David.
Wincing, I stopped, shifting myself up the steps at Fountain Square to get out of the foot traffic. Guilt swam up from the cracks of my busy life. I was not a good female alpha, too involved in my own life’s drama to include much of anyone else’s, but damn it, when I agreed to it, David had said it was only going to be him. That had been the entire point. He’d added to the pack since then, not that I could blame him. He was a fabulous alpha male, and I was beginning to feel as if I was holding him back.
Sighing, I hit send and tucked my increasingly dilapidated braid out of the way. He answered almost immediately.
“Rachel!” His pleasant voice sounded worried, and I could picture him, his clean-cut features and tidy suit he wore at his job as an insurance adjuster making his alpha status clear. “Where are you?”
Head down, I rested my rump on one of the huge planters, feeling about three inches tall. “Ah, downtown Cincy,” I said hesitantly. “I tried to call yesterday, and then that wave came through and—”
“Ivy said you were at the FIB. I need to talk to you. Do you have some time today?”
Talk to me about me being a lousy alpha, no doubt. “Sure. What’s good for you?”
“She also told me what happened at the bridge yesterday. Why don’t you tell me these things?” he said, adding to my guilt. “Okay, that’s funny. Look up.”
I took my fingers from my forehead, head lifting.
“No, across the street. See?”
It was David, standing at the corner beside a newspaper box and waving at me. He was in his long duster, heavy boots, and wide-brimmed hat, which made him look like a thirtysomething Van Helsing. It suited him more than his usual suit and tie, and being an insurance adjuster wasn’t the cushy, pencil-pushing job it sounded like. He had teeth, and he used them to get the real dirt on some of the more interesting Inderlander accidents. That’s how we had met, actually.
“H-how . . .” I stammered, and he smiled across the street at me.
“I was trying to get to the FIB before you left,” he said, his lips out of sync with his voice. “I’ve got coffee. Grande, skinny double espresso, shot of raspberry, extra hot, and no foam okay?” he said, taking up a coffee carrier currently sitting on the newspaper box.
“God, yes,” I said, and he waved me to stay where I was. Smiling, I ended the call. Not only did he know I liked my coffee, but he knew how I liked my coffee.
Motion easy, the medium-build man loped across the street against traffic, one hand holding the tray with the coffees, the other raised against the cars. Every single one of them slowed to let him pass with nary a horn or shouted curse, such was his assurance. David was the apex of confidence, and very little of it was from the curse I’d innocently given him, accidentally making him the holder of the focus and able to demand the obedience of any alpha, and hence their pack members in turn. He wore the responsibility very well—unlike me.
“Rachel,” he said as he reached the sidewalk and took the shallow steps two at a time. “You look beat!”
“I am,” I said, giving him a hug and breathing in the complicated mix of bane, wood smoke, and paper. His black shoulder-length hair pulled back in a tie smelled clean, and I lingered, recognizing the strength in him in both body and mind. When I’d met him, he’d been a loner, and though he had firmly established himself as a pack leader now, he’d retained the individual confidence a loner was known for.
“Thanks for the coffee,” I said, carefully wedging it out of the carrier as he extended it. “You can hunt me down any day if you bring me coffee.”
Chuckling, he shook his head, his dark eyes flicking down from the huge vid screen over the square, currently tuned to the day’s national news. Cincy was in it again, and not in a good way. “I didn’t want to talk to you over the phone, and I’ve got the day off. You got a minute?”
My guilt rushed back, my first sip going bland on my tongue. “I’m sorry, David. I’m a lousy alpha.” I slumped, the coffee he’d brought me—the perfect coffee he knew was my favorite—hanging in my grip. It was never supposed to have been anything other than the two of us. The larger pack just sort of happened.
Blinking, he fixed his full attention on me, making me wince. “You are not,” he admonished, coffee in hand and leaning against the planter, looking like an ad for Weres’ Wares magazine. “And that’s not what I wanted to talk to you about. Have you heard of a group called the Free Vampires?”