Page 28 of Crave

“Un. Fucking. Believable.” West leaned in. “I told you the other day to back off.”

Topher raised an eyebrow. “Wow. You really do get off on controlling my every move.”

“Whatever. We both know that’s not what this is.”

“Could have fooled me.”

They faced off, a silent conversation I had no hope of interpreting taking place. Then, with one last dark look my way, West stood and headed for the restroom. Pretty sure I was getting written into his next fic as the cave troll. Topher watched him go. Something there was… off. And no matter how many times I flipped it around in my mind, I couldn’t quite define what.

“Can’t tell you much,” Topher said. “Some of them were sick, sure. But from what I could gather, the symptoms matched acute lycanthropic degenerative disease. Different stages. Towards the end, that’s some scary shit, you know?”

“Sure.” I tried to imagine what it had to have been like for him. Held as a prisoner. Tortured. Used by vampires and shifters alike. It was too much to take in, so terrible I didn’t want to minimize what he’d gone through by acting like I got it when there was no way anyone who hadn’t lived something like that ever could. More than ever, I was glad he had Cal, who’d trained for years as a psychiatrist, and was maybe the smartest person I knew, working with him to sort it out.

“Most of the ones who interacted with me weren’t what you’d think.”

“How so?”

“We make the vampires out to be monsters. We talk about them like they’re not human. Like they’re animals. Is it any wonder they want to destroy us?”

My gaze flicked to West, who’d returned to the bar in time to overhear the tail end of our conversation. His expression said the same thing I was thinking.

Not good.

The food arrived. Platters of smoked chicken, beef brisket, coleslaw and Texas-style baked beans with crisp bacon, plus a basket of bread still steaming from the oven with a generous pot of honey butter tucked beside it.

West didn’t look up. “You know the rules.”

Glowering, Topher speared a chicken breast. I raised an eyebrow. West shook his head as if to say, Not now.

An hour later after sending them off with a couple of to-go boxes filled with peach cobbler and banana pudding, I clocked out and headed across the street. Wreaths and garlands hung from every door all along Main. Over by the park, strings of red and white twinkly lights adorned the light posts to form a procession of candy canes. In every window, bright green flyers announced the date for the upcoming Yule Festival, which was our special brand of annual small-town Christmas crazy.

At Blair’s the shades were drawn, the sign on the door flipped to CLOSED. I slipped in the back by the kitchen, locking the door behind me. Imagine Dragons was playing over the sound system, the warm, buttery scent of sugar and spices thick in the air.

Lacey was bent over the counter, piping bag in hand, bottom lip caught between her teeth as she expertly piped frosting onto a row of waiting cupcakes. The bruising at her throat had faded to dull, yellowish splotches. She had on skinny jeans and an old track team hoodie she’d had since high school, the one she always wore on cold days it stormed. There was a smear of flour across her cheek. Chocolate frosting streaked the inside of her wrist like war paint. And damn, she looked good enough to eat.

“You’re here.” Dropping the piping bag, she hurried back to the storeroom.

“Um, I feel like I’m going to get thrown out on my ass for saying this in a bakery, but is there some reason it smells like wet cat in here?” Grabbing the closest cupcake, I slid onto a barstool across from her. Every available work surface from her prep tables to the front counter up by the register was covered in freshly baked desserts. Mini-strawberry cheesecakes. Decadent double chocolate fudge. The key lime with toasted coconut icing that she hadn’t made in weeks. “And by the way, are we gonna talk about you bailing the other day?”

“I didn’t,” she called.

“Oh, okay.”

“We said no strings.”

“That what you want?”

She came out from her supply room carrying a cardboard produce box. “I can’t have what I want.”

“And if you could?”

Lacey shivered when I traced the crease of her hip just over my claiming mark. Her pupils dilated, breath and heartbeat syncing with mine.

“Dallas—”

Her eyes dipped fractionally, settling on my mouth. Answer enough.

Something rustled inside the box. I looked down. Picture a nest of towels large enough for two or three bald eagles. A giant bowl of water (since, you know, eagles get thirsty.) I was about to ask if she’d taken up falconry when I spotted the soot-black ball of fur blinking up at me with huge green eyes in the very corner of the box, hiding from her new Olympic-sized swimming pool.