"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 br**sts and the sweet dark smoothness of her skin. Frankly, the shirt emphasized that her br**sts 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 you—Was 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."