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“I don’t want him in jail for something he didn’t do,” I said.

“If you go tonight, the police will want to know how you healed yourself. What are you going to tell them?” Her eyes were very direct. So direct it made me want to squirm.

“You’re treating me like a lycanthrope who hasn’t come out of the closet yet. I’m not a shapeshifter, Cherry.”

She dropped her gaze then, wouldn’t meet my eyes. It reminded me of the looks they’d all given each other in the room where I woke up. I touched her chin, having to reach up to do it. “What aren’t you guys telling me?”

A man’s voice came from outside the showers. “Can I please come in and clean off?” It was Micah. I’d planned on running for the hills the next time I saw him, but there was something in Cherry’s eyes that kept me frozen. She was scared. And there was something else, something I couldn’t quite read.

I yelled back, “Just a minute!” Then I continued. “Cherry, tell me. Whatever it is, just tell me.”

She shook her head. She was afraid, but of what? “Are you afraid of me?” I couldn’t keep the surprise out of my voice.

She nodded, looking down again, avoiding my gaze.

“I would never hurt you, any of you.”

“For this you might,” she whispered.

I grabbed her arm. “Cherry, damn it, talk to me.”

She opened her mouth, closed it, and turned towards the door a second before Micah Callahan walked through, as if she’d heard him before I had. He was still naked. I expected to be embarrassed, but I wasn’t. I was beginning to have the proverbial bad feeling about whatever it was that Cherry didn’t want to tell me.

Micah had combed his hair. It was definitely curls, not waves. The curls were tight, but not small. The color was that shade of dark, dark brown—almost black—that comes to people who start out white blond as children, then darken. The curls fell to just below his shoulders, and, following the line of hair, my eyes found his chest. I quickly moved them up so I could concentrate on his face. Eye contact. That was the ticket. I was getting back to the embarrassment.

“I told you we’d be out in a minute.” My voice sounded grumpy, and I was glad. The fact that I was sort of clutching the towel to my body was purely coincidental.

“I heard you,” he said. His face, voice, were neutral. Not as neutral as a vampire’s can become. They are the champs of blank expression. But Micah was trying.

“Then wait outside until we’re finished,” I said.

“Cherry is afraid of you,” he said.

I frowned at him, then at her. “Why, for God’s sake?”

Cherry looked at him, and he gave a small nod. She moved away from me towards the door. She didn’t leave the room, but she got as far away from me as she could.

“What in hell is going on?” I asked.

Micah was standing about four feet away, close, but not too close. I could see his eyes better now, and they were so not human. I knew at a glance that they didn’t belong in his face. “She’s afraid you’ll kill the messenger,” he said, voice soft.

“Look, all this tap dancing is getting old. Just tell me.”

He nodded, winced as if it hurt. “The doctors seem to think that you’ve been infected with lycanthropy.”

I shook my head. “Serpentine lycanthropy isn’t really lycanthropy. It’s not a disease that I can catch. You either are cursed by a witch into snake form, or it’s inherited like a swanmane.” That made me think of the three women I’d last seen chained to a wall in the room of swords. “By the way, what happened to the swanmanes in the club?”

Micah frowned. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Without warning, Nathaniel entered the shower. I was beginning to feel positively overdressed in my towel. “We rescued them.”

“The snake leader changed his mind after I got hurt?”

“He changed it after Sylvie and Jamil nearly killed him.”

Ah. “So they’re okay,” I said.

He nodded, but his face stayed serious, his eyes gentle, like someone who’s about to tell you really bad news.

“Don’t you start, too. I cannot catch serpentine shit. It doesn’t work that way.”

“Gregory isn’t into serpentine shit,”