“Get out!” She took a step, swinging the lamp.
I didn’t move. “Who are you? What are you doing in this apartment?”
“Who the hell are you?” she demanded, her voice rising. Her chest heaved, and I noticed she was wearing only a pair of shorts and a tank top. I also saw how pale she was and the damp tendrils of hair clinging to her face.
She inched toward the nightstand where a cell phone lay. “I’m calling the police if you don’t leave.”
I stared at her. She wouldn’t call the cops if she was here illegally. But Sara had never mentioned anyone staying at the apartment. Neither had Brendan or my mother, who were taking care of the building for Sara. It made no sense.
“I’m Roland. Why are you in Sara’s apartment?”
She froze, and her eyes widened. “Roland? Sara’s friend?”
“Yes.”
She lowered the lamp, holding it against her chest, almost like a shield. “I’m Sara’s cousin, Emma. She’s letting me stay here for a while.”
Cousin? Disbelief and suspicion filled me. “Sara doesn’t have any cousins.”
She swallowed and nodded. “Yes, she does. My name is Emma Grey, and I’m from Syracuse.”
She looked past me at Pete. “You must be Peter.”
“Yeah.”
“My wallet is on the kitchen counter. You can check my ID if you don’t believe me.”
Pete went to the kitchen. Emma and I stayed where we were, watching each other. I shifted from one foot to the other, and she reacted by taking a step back. Her reaction bothered me. Why was she so afraid of me? If she really knew Sara, she had to know we wouldn’t hurt her.
Pete came back and held a driver’s license out for me to see. “Emma Grey from Syracuse, like she said.”
I took the card from him and studied it for a moment. No one smiled for their DMV photos, but there was a sadness in the face on the card that tugged at me.
I looked at Emma again. “Sara’s never mentioned a cousin in all the years I’ve known her.”
She bit her lower lip. “You can check with her if you want. Or you can call Nate.”
“I believe you.” Her wary expression told me she was hiding something, but she was telling the truth about who she was. “I don’t know why Sara didn’t tell us you were coming here.”
Emma shook her head, her eyes troubled. “I…asked her not to tell anyone about me. I just want to be left alone.”
Emma
Werewolves. There were two werewolves standing less than ten feet away from me. The fact that they were in their human forms did little to dispel the terror clawing at my gut. They were hunters, and for two decades, the fear of them had been ingrained in me. Friendly or not, it was impossible not to feel threatened by their presence.
I should have recognized them. Sara had pictures of them in her apartment at Westhorne, and she talked about them all the time. But I’d been too shocked, waking up to find two strange men in my room.
The red-haired one named Peter smiled at me. They were both tall and well-built like most werewolf males, but he seemed less intimidating than his friend. Roland was another matter. The way Sara talked about her best friend, I’d imagined a sweet, smiling boy. He wore a smile, but the intensity in his blue eyes unsettled me. It was as if he could see through me, right into the darkness of my past.
“You can put down the lamp. We won’t hurt you,” Roland said, reminding me of the heavy weight in my hands.
With trembling hands, I set the lamp down on the nightstand and straightened to face Sara’s friends again. No one spoke for a moment, and I wasn’t sure what to say to them. I felt exposed without the lamp between us, as small as it was.
“Are you okay?” Roland asked, startling me.
“I’m fine.” Or I would be when they left.
He ran a hand through his dark hair, his gaze sweeping up my body. “You don’t look okay. Are you sick?”
I must have looked pretty bad for him to ask that. I shook my head. “It was just a bad dream. I’m good now.”
“That must have been some dream,” Peter muttered.
“It’s a little scary being alone in a new place,” I lied. I was less afraid of their presence, but I wouldn’t be able to relax until they were gone. I looked from Peter to Roland. “Why are you here at this hour? And how did you get in?”
“I have a key,” Roland answered. “My mother and I took care of the place for Sara and Nate over the winter.”
I remembered Sara mentioning the woman who watched the place for her. “Judith?”
He nodded. “That’s her.”
I crossed my arms over my chest. Sara trusted him with her place and he seemed like a nice enough guy, but I didn’t like the idea of anyone else having a key to this apartment while I was here.
“You don’t need to watch the place anymore,” I told him. “You can leave the key here with me.”
He opened his mouth, and for a moment, I thought he was going to argue. But then he gave a small nod and removed a key from the set in his hand. He held it out to me.
I shook my head and pointed at the dresser closest to the door. “You can put it there on top of the dresser.”
Frowning, he did as I’d asked.
I swallowed hard. I hated the fear that clogged my chest, but what if Sara was wrong about her friends? They might be good people, but they were werewolves, and werewolves hated one thing above all others. They also had incredibly sensitive noses. What if they smelled me and somehow sensed what I used to be? What would they say if they knew I’d once been their mortal enemy?
I knew Nate’s story, how he’d been made a vampire just to hurt Sara. Roland and Peter were okay with him and held no animosity for him. But Nate had been a vampire for a week. I’d been one for twenty-one years, and in that time, I’d done unspeakable things. Somehow, I didn’t think the werewolves would be as forgiving if they knew exactly what stood before them now.
I cleared my throat. “Thank you for coming to check on me. It’s late and I-I’m very tired. I’d like to go back to bed.”
Once again, Roland looked like he was going to say something, but he seemed to change his mind. “No problem. Sorry we frightened you.”
I shook my head, attempting a smile. “It’s my fault for asking Sara not to tell anyone I was coming here.”
Peter gave me an apologetic smile and headed down the hallway to the front door. Roland looked at me for a moment longer, and then he followed his friend.
I waited until they were at the door before I walked to the bedroom doorway. The hallway was dark, but there was enough light from the bedroom to see Peter’s quick wave before they let themselves out.
I let out a long breath and sagged against the doorframe. When I heard the faint sound of their feet on the steps, I ran to the door and slid the deadbolt. Leaving the door, I went to the living room to peer through the drapes at the two figures getting into a classic Ford Mustang. The car rumbled to life, and they drove off.
It wasn’t until the taillights disappeared from sight that my strength deserted me. I slid down the wall and sat on the floor with my knees drawn up to my chest as I fought to stop the panic attack hovering at the edges of my frayed composure.
I’m okay. I’m safe. It was my first night on my own in a strange place, and I’d woken up to find two strange men in my room. Anyone in my shoes would have reacted the same way, especially someone with my past.
Except there was no one else with a past like mine. Nate and I had talked for many hours, and he was the only person who could even remotely understand what I was going through. As far as we knew, we were the only two people in the world to have been made human again after being a vampire. It was like being reborn and given a new lease on life.
It was also lonely and isolating to not be able to share your experience, your guilt, and your crushing fears. Nate had been a vampire for a week, and it had affected him so profoundly he couldn’t even come back to the place where it had happened. What did that mean for someone like me?
I still wasn’t sure why I’d agreed to come here when Sara offered it to me. She and Tristan would have set me up anywhere in the world, and I came to live in the home of a former vampire in the heart of werewolf territory. Either I was looking for some twisted form of penance, or I was trying to prove I was stronger than my demons. Perhaps both.