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Lucas stood there watching me, with his wild-wolf eyes. “Take care of yourself, Edie. ”

“I will. Promise. ”

He closed my passenger door, and let me go.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

Gina groaned a few times during transit, and I felt for her. I didn’t get drunk often, but I knew how she’d feel in the morning, physically at least. Emotionally—I blew air through half-parted lips. Dating a were-bear—almost becoming one? And I thought I had the market cornered on bad ideas.

I followed Asher’s quick directions and reached a neighborhood I hadn’t been to before.

It was genteel. Not new money, but comfortably old—the houses were sprawling two-story brick affairs with dormered attics, surrounded by full tall trees. This was the land of the normal, storybook almost—strange, considering I knew Asher was anything but. I pulled into the driveway and left the engine running for Gina.

Asher met me at the door, looking like the Asher I knew best. Olive skin, dark hair, dark brown eyes. He took one look at me, and then past me to Gina, still slumped over in my passenger seat. “You want to put her in a spare room, or a spare bathroom?”

“Someplace with a lot of tile. ”

He followed me out to my car, and we retrieved her. Gina kept murmuring things that sounded sad, while Asher helped me help her down his entry hall. We made it up the stairs together, and I arranged her inside a clawfoot tub while Asher went to get extra towels. I sat on the toilet beside her, petting her hair, and Asher returned to lean against the wall.

“Do I want to know what happened?”

“Girl meets were-bear, girl falls for were-bear, were-bear says if you love me you’ll let me bite you, girl says good-bye. ” I wished I had an IV start kit and a banana bag—IV fluids with vitamins and minerals—right about then. We could’ve set her impending hangover straight in no time.

Asher’s eyebrows rose high up his forehead. “I meant at your house. ”

I looked down at Gina. Chances were she wouldn’t remember any of this, so I told him. About Gideon, and Veronica. He let out a low whistle.

“Good thing she waited until after Christmas to dump them on you. ”

“You’re telling me. ” The kind of leverage Jake would have over me, if I’d had to have a sleeping vampire and a mutilated daytimer hidden in my bedroom closet during Christmas lunch. I shook my head at the thought.

“You think she’s going to be all right here?”

“I hope so. ” She was propped up, and she looked pretty cozy. Asher’s house was warm against the winter, but I knew the ceramic tub she was curled up in was cold enough to feel good, in that way that you craved when you were wasted. I sighed and put my hands to my head.

“Want a glass of water, or a glass of wine?”

Wine would have been lovely, if I hadn’t had such a shining example of the early stages of alcohol poisoning lying nearby. “Water, please. ”

* * *

I followed Asher down the stairs. His front room had been turned into a library, with a fireplace and a wide desk. He’d already stoked a fire. “You’re the only one who lives here?” I was suddenly nervous about leaving Gina alone.

“Just me,” he said, and disappeared into what I assumed was his kitchen.

I walked around, looking at the spines of all the books. Hardbacks and paperbacks, crammed together, sometimes two deep, or perpendicular to one another—I could see all the titles, or fragments thereof, peeking out. Ancient philosophy, science fiction, modern biographies, the lives of Catholic saints.

“You read?” I asked when he emerged again.

“All the time. ” He handed the water to me. I took it without looking and kept walking around as he sat down on a leather couch. “Stop looking at my things. ”

“I can’t. ” I pulled out a hardback copy of Quo Vadis and saw two Stephen King novels stacked up behind. “It’s like you’re the Wizard of Oz. ”

“How so?”

“I’m behind the curtain now. All of this … makes you feel more humane. ”

“Don’t you mean human?” he corrected me.

“That too. ” The couch he was on was long, more than enough room for him and three of me. But I was too restless tonight to sit down. “It’s been a really long day. I need to think things through. ”

“You mean there was more?”

“Yeah. I got jumped by two weres this afternoon. ” Asher moved forward on the couch, but I waved him back. “Don’t worry, Dren saved me. And who would have thought that I’d ever get to say that aloud. ”

“What the—just what are you getting into, Edie?”

“That’s the thing. I don’t know. ” I shook my head. “It’s complicated, but I don’t think I’ve pissed anyone off. ”

An eyebrow rose higher on his forehead. “Does it have to do with you being an Ambassador of the Sun?”