Page 47 of Zomromcom

“Since I know you’ll doubt my version of events…

” After a final, light kiss to Edie’s temple, he turned back to Sabrina.

“Once the inaugural SERC representatives took office, they sent authorities to investigate the incident. I’d called one of the other reps-to-be myself as soon as I was capable of crawling to the nearest phone.

The records are sealed, however, because the Council was new and fragile back then.

Reps were worried a story about violent infighting would damage their reputation and bring bad press to all Supernaturals and Enhanced humans. ”

The witch pursed her lips, her fingers uncurling. “Convenient.”

“At the moment? Not especially.” The words were surprisingly wry. “After communications are back online, I’ll have the documents made available to everyone in this room. With one caveat.”

Kip and Lorraine froze mid-chew when that awful smile stretched across Max’s face again.

“If you disclose the incident to anyone else,” he told them, cold eyes sweeping across the living room and all its inhabitants, “you won’t live long enough to regret it.”

When his gaze met Edie’s, he shook his head.

I don’t mean you , he mouthed. You wouldn’t tell anyone .

Her lips curved, and she nudged his knee with hers.

Kip spoke through a mouthful of potato chips. “Did SERC ask you to drop out of sight? So they could keep things quiet?”

“Yes. But I was preparing to disappear even before they made their request. Janos and Jacquette each had their defenders, who might wish to avenge them. And my desire to interact with anyone of any species was…” He thought for a moment. “Minimal, shall we say.”

Everything he’d just told her—told them all—explained so much about the man she’d met three years ago, and even more about the vampire she’d met only that week.

The wrist cuff of his hoodie had folded over on itself, and she smoothed it back in place. “You’ve passed for human ever since?”

“The day I left DC, Chad was born”—he flashed her a brief, bright grin at the mention of his beer-bro persona—“and Gaston Maxime Boucher disappeared. Not even the Council knows exactly where I live now or what I’m doing, despite their repeated requests for that information.

Any communication with my remaining SERC contacts occurs via secure encrypted messages so they can’t let anything slip either. ”

Had she been the first person to learn his true name in two decades?

He turned toward the others and waited until everyone was looking at him. “Let me be clear once more: If the Council discovers my current identity or whereabouts because of someone in this room, I will find out.” He paused for emphasis, his voice subarctic. “And you will suffer before you die.”

“Take it down a few thousand notches, bro.” Lorraine munched on a cheese-topped cracker. From whence that cracker had arrived or by what means, Edie couldn’t have said. “No one here’s narcing on you to the dipshits at SERC.”

Despite Lorraine’s comment, Edie didn’t imagine anyone in the room had missed the primary target of Max’s challenging stare. Sabrina herself certainly hadn’t.

“Why did you do that, vampire?” The witch was rubbing her forehead again, the dark shadows beneath her eyes mute evidence of her exhaustion. “If you’re such a secretive recluse, why share so much private information with an entire roomful of strangers?”

“You’re the one who tampered with our cider, witch,” he said flatly. “Seems like you should know the answer to that question.”

Gwen’s mouth dropped open as she straightened in her chair. She directed an incredulous glare at Sabrina, even as a dozen Girl Explorers—whose auditory capabilities were apparently quite impressive—burst from the main bedroom and marched back into the fray.

“What did you do to the cider, Sabrina?” Riley demanded. “Tell us. Now .”

The glamour disguising Riley’s true features flickered for a split second, revealing the unearthly glow of her skin and the soft points of her ear tips. Her fingers lengthened, then shrank back to tween girl size before Edie could blink.

Their host sighed. “It’s a simple truth-telling spell. Even if you drank your whole mug of cider, it should be wearing off by now. There are no permanent effects. And it shouldn’t have done any harm whatsoever to your baby, Gwen, so please stop looking at me like that.”

“You didn’t trust me?” Kip set aside a platter of blinis and caviar, genuine hurt in his warm brown eyes. “Or Lorrie? After all these years?”

“I knew you two were hiding something, Kip. Hells, even Riley and the godsdamn Girl Explorers were keeping secrets. How could I trust you with my life, and possibly Starla’s too, if I didn’t know what those secrets were?

” The weary sadness in Sabrina’s expression vanished as she turned her attention back to Max.

“You haven’t answered my question, vampire.

Yeah, I cast a spell on the cider, but we both know you metabolized its effects more quickly than anyone else here—”

“Because you’re suuuper old,” Edie said under her breath.

“—so telling us everything was a choice you made. Not a magical compulsion.”

For the first time all night, even Max seemed tired too.

“Edie needs to survive tomorrow’s battle.

I’m the one who can best ensure her safety, so I need to survive too.

We require allies who trust us and will help watch out for us, and your accusations undercut our credibility.

I had to repair the damage you inflicted, witch.

If that meant telling my sad tale of flesh-melting, throat-ripping woe and jettisoning over two decades of secrecy, so be it. ”

“The story sounded genuine,” the witch said. “But since you told it after the spell wore off, I have no way of confirming its truth before the battle.”

His smile displayed a large number of teeth. “I guess you’ll just have to trust me.”

“Fuck.” Sabrina turned to her wife. “Star? I know you’re exhausted already, but…”

Starla slumped down onto the mattress and shook her head. “I can’t. Not if you want my help with communications tomorrow night.”

Max pointed at the telepath, his smile softening. “That reminds me—we haven’t heard your secrets yet, have we, Starla?” The words should have sounded like a challenge, but Max’s teasing tone stripped them of any real aggression. “Do you have something you’d like to tell us?”

“As a matter of fact, I do.” She offered him a cheeky grin.

“You should know better than to drink something a witch offers you. Even if that witch is my incredibly hot wife, whose motivations are both admirable and benign.” The relentless tick-tick-tick of the clock filled her brief pause. “ Relatively benign.”

Lorraine harrumph ed, shoving her blunt bangs away from her eyes so as to glower more effectively at Sabrina. “Even if you could tell we were keeping secrets, you should have had faith that they weren’t dangerous. Not to you, anyway.”

The witch dropped down onto the mattress beside her wife. Her ponytail, disheveled and limp at the end of a long day, flopped against her slim back, and the telepath smoothed it with a shaky hand.

“I can’t die tomorrow. I can’t. I have to get back to Starla.” Carefully, Sabrina settled an arm around her wife’s shoulders and eased her closer. “I needed to know tonight whether I could count on you to have my back in battle tomorrow or whether you might betray me.”

Max made a very rude, very emphatic noise. “How do we know we can trust you ? You just tricked every single one of us without compunction or apology.”

“Mini-vamp’s not wrong.” Lorraine raised a dark brow and eyed their host with disfavor. “You might be hiding something too, friend-o .”

Sabrina winced at the sarcasm in the troll’s voice.

“So here you are, witch. Your own credibility damaged by your attempt to determine ours.” A slow smirk spread across Max’s face. “And you want us to have your back tomorrow?”

“Yes,” Sabrina said, clearly biting back the urge to add asshole . “As I just said. In almost those exact words.”

“Then I have some good news for you.” Max’s cup rested on the floor by his feet, and he reached down to reclaim it. “After I poured out most of my own cider, I transferred half of Edie’s into my mug when she wasn’t looking, just in case you’d deceived us. Which you did.”

Standing, Max loomed over the Enhanced couple and pushed his mug into Sabrina’s hand.

His smile curdled into a sneer. “Drink it, witch.”

No one in the room objected. Even Sabrina’s longtime friends.

“Hey, vamp bro.” Kip was craning his neck to check the couch and its surroundings. “Where’d you pour your cider? There’s not, like, a potted plant near you or anything.”

Max never took his eyes off Sabrina. “Consider that a delightful mystery for you to solve, Kip. Later. Once our interrogator gets a literal taste of her own medicine.”

“Fine.” Expressionless, she tipped the mug and swallowed the remnants of Edie’s drink. “Now what?”

Lorraine crunched on a burrata-topped bruschetta of mysterious provenance. “Now we wait roughly, uh”—she glanced at her cousin, who held up ten fingers, since his mouth was full of bruschetta goodness too—“ten minutes? Ten minutes. And then we start asking questions.”

So they waited, steeping in awkward silence all the while.

But at least Gwen was no longer shrinking away from Max whenever he glanced in her direction, and Kip and Lorraine had stopped studying him with fascinated horror, like visitors at a zoo’s tarantula exhibit.

The Girl Explorers appeared entirely indifferent and unconcerned with his presence, as they always had.