“You held your own,” Connor said, which was high praise from a shifter. But Lulu wasn’t moved.

“Oh, I know. I’m a Bell, and I can handle a blade. And tonight I did what needed to be done. Hopefully it actually gets us somewhere.” She glanced at me. “But I think I got it out of my system. I just want to make art and drink good wine and binge unhealthy television. Is that so wrong?”

I smiled at her. “That’s the cool thing about being a grown-up. You get to set your own boundaries.”

“A novel idea,” she murmured, and I guessed she was thinking about our parents. Then she pushed back her plate and slid me a glance. “I think we also need to talk about the elephant in the room.”

“What elephant in the room?” I asked. But I could see it in her eyes, the concern and worry . . . and the thread of fear behind it. They mixed shame and guilt in my belly.

Her fingers stayed tight around mine. “The . . . berserker thing.” She dropped her voice to a whisper. “Your eyes went red. Really, really red.”

I had a moment of panic. She’d just told us she didn’t want to be involved in any more magical drama. I couldn’t tell her now, couldn’t confess that I was brimming with magical drama. Wouldn’t that just push her farther away?

“Fairy magic,” Connor said, looking completely unruffled by the lie. He’d always been very good with a bluff. He stretched his legs under the table and nudged my foot with his to keep me from talking—and to offer comfort.

She tilted her head. “What?”

He lifted a shoulder, the move utterly casual and confident. “It does freaky things to vampires.”

Connor Keene, former teenage punk, had lied to protect me. I stared at him—equally shocked by the action and suspicious that it was part of some ploy.

But then again, he’d protected me the first time, too.

We’d been in high school—or Connor and Lulu had. I was still homeschooled by tutors at night at the House. There’d been a party at Cadogan our parents were attending, so we’d gone to get pizza at a place called Saul’s, one of my mother’s favorites.

Lulu had left her phone in the Auto, and she’d gone outside to grab it. “Two minutes,” she’d said, and made us promise to order her favorite twisty breadsticks if the waiter returned while she was outside.

Five minutes later, she wasn’t back yet.

I’d gone outside to check on her. And I’d found her on the ground, eyes closed and skin pale.

I’d had a bad moment of panic, thinking she’d been killed. But her chest was still rising and falling, so she was still breathing.

A man had stood over her, rifling through her backpack while his partner in crime yelled through the window of the apparent getaway car for him to hurry up and get in. But he didn’t move. Just looked down at Lulu with lust in his eyes as his fingers rifled blindly through her bag.

The rage rose so suddenly, so blindingly, that there’d been no way to fight back against the monster. I’d jumped forward, sent us both to the ground. I’d ripped Lulu’s bag out of his hands, tossed it aside. And then I’d pummeled him. Beaten him for hurting her, for stealing her stuff, for the look in his eyes as he’d surveyed her small form. And for whatever reasons the monster had had, whatever had fueled and driven its rage.

I couldn’t stop.

Connor found us outside, pulled the driver out of the car, then pulled me off the attacker. And he’d held my arms while I screamed and writhed, until the monster receded and I could breathe again. Until I was just me again.

And then the shock set in as I’d stared down at the man on the concrete with a mix of horror and fear.

Connor hadn’t been horrified, only worried about Lulu, about me. “You protected her,” he’d said as he’d waited for me to calm down, and then as we waited for the cops.

In the hospital, the attacker had raved about monsters attacking him, and the CPD assumed he’d meant vampires and shifters. He’d been partially right.

Connor was the only one who’d seen my eyes, who’d seen my rage. And for seven years, he hadn’t spoken a single word about it.

Lulu sat back and crossed her arms, looked between me and Connor. “I think I knew it did something, but not to this degree.”

“It was the blood,” I said quietly, hating the omission but making it, anyway. “The fairy blood. It has a different kind of lure to vampires. It’s more powerful, harder to resist.” That part, at least, was absolutely true.

“Could be your genetics, too,” Connor said. “Magic helped make you, after all.”

Possible contender for Understatement of the Year. “Could be,” I said, sipping my beer and hoping Lulu hadn’t noticed the blood had probably drained from my face.

Connor still hadn’t shifted his legs, broken that connection between us.

“He’s into you.”

I jerked, looked up at Lulu. “What?”

“Ruadan.”

It took a moment for my brain to switch gears. And when it did, her confirmation of my fear didn’t make me feel any better. I’d seen his interest, too, of course. But I knew it wasn’t romantic, even if I couldn’t explain to her how I knew.

“Explain,” Connor said, with more than a little force behind the word.

Lulu studied me, gaze narrowed in concentration. “I don’t know. He just looks at her . . . I guess, maybe, covetously? But I thought he was with Claudia.”

Connor’s body wasn’t relaxed anymore. He shifted, too, sitting up and leaning over the table, icy blue eyes intent on mine. “Covetously?” he asked.

“It’s the same old, same old,” I said. “He’s political, and probably thinks there’s something I can get him.” And that was all I was willing to say aloud.

Connor clearly didn’t believe me, but he was wise enough not to push the issue.

“We have to talk to the Ombudsman, my parents. Tell them what we’ve got, and what happened tonight.”

“We don’t have anything,” Connor said. “We have a pin, some speculation”—he glanced up, gaze settling on my face—“and a bruise. None of that is going to free Riley. None of it is going to convince the Ombudsman that he’s got the wrong man, especially if the other option is creating a supernatural war.”

I didn’t disagree that our case was weak, but we couldn’t sit on this.

“Your dad will freak out,” Lulu said.

“She’s twenty-three,” Connor said.

Lulu snorted. “Like that matters. You’ve met him before, right?”

“He’s more than four hundred years old,” I said. “A lot of ego accumulates in that time. And, no, he won’t like it. But he’ll get over it. Something’s going on. Something bigger than Riley or the talks. Something involving the fairies. They need to know.”

Then it would all be out in the open. Which I realized I’d prefer. I didn’t mind investigating carefully. But this was an entirely different kind of sneaking around, and it felt beneath all of us.

“I think we’re ready to go here,” Lulu said, glancing around.

“I’m ready,” I said.

“I’ll pay,” Connor said, and pressed the credit chip on his key fob against the circle on the table. It beeped, then glowed green.

Lulu frowned at it. “I wonder if the chip reader finds satisfaction in its life.”

“Would you?” Connor asked.

“That’s a pretty profound question for a shifter.” But when Connor narrowed his eyes at her, Lulu lifted her hands. “All in fun, my friend. All in fun. You’re like the protective older brother I never had. And never really wanted.”

FIFTEEN

“The burger was good,” Lulu said, when Connor joined us again in the parking lot.

“They have a good hand with food,” he said, then looked at me.

Time to do the right thing, I told myself, even if it stings a little. “I’m not admitting we needed you, but thanks for helping us out there. It was . . . moving toward ugly.”

“You’re welcome,” he said.

I nodded, feeling like there was more to be said, but not entirely sure what that should be.

“Lis will be right there,” he said, and walked a few feet away, gravel crunching underfoot. Apparently, I was supposed to follow obediently. Which I did, eventually.

Lulu watched us with lifted brows, but went to the car, climbed inside.

“Thanks for being cool about Lulu. About the breakup.”