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“I’m what?” She felt as though she hardly knew herself. And she was willing to even take hints from strangers at this point.

“Beautiful. Wrath wouldn’t have wanted to put you in any of the others’ care, because if they’d been tempted to make a move on you, there would be serious trouble.” Tohr shrugged. “Well, and a couple of the brothers are just flat-out dangerous. You wouldn’t want to leave any female alone with them, at least not one you cared about.”

She wasn’t sure she wanted to meet any of the brothers.

Wait a minute, she thought.

“Does Wrath have a shellan already?” she asked.

Tohr finished his beer. “I think you’d better talk to him about that.”

Which was not a no.

A sick feeling of disappointment set up shop in the middle of her chest, and she went back into the kitchen.

Damn. She was getting emotional over Wrath. They’d had sex twice, and already her head was a mess.

This one is going to hurt, she thought as she cracked open another beer. When things went sour between them, it was going to hurt like hell.

Notwithstanding the whole turning-into-a-vampire thing.

Oh, God.

“More munchies?” she called out.

“That would be great.”

“Beer?”

“Naw. I’m good.”

She brought the bag in from the kitchen, and they were silent as they polished off the cookies. Even the broken ones at the bottom.

“You got anything else around here to eat?” he asked.

She stood, feeling peckish herself. “I’ll see what I can dig up.”

“You have cable?” He nodded toward her TV.

She tossed him the clicker. “Sure do. And if I remember, there’s a Godzilla marathon on TBS tonight.”

“Sweet,” the vampire said, kicking his legs out. “I always root for the monster.”

She smiled at him. “Me, too.”

Chapter Twenty-two

Butch woke up because someone was driving a gutter spike into his head.

He cracked open one eye.

No, that was the phone ringing.

He picked up the receiver and put it in the vicinity of his ear. “Yeah?”

“Good morning, sunshine.” José’s voice brought back the spike.

“Time?” he croaked.

“Eleven o’clock. Thought you’d want to know that Beth just called here looking for you. She sounded okay.”

Butch’s body went limp with relief. “Guy?”

“Didn’t mention him. But she did say she wanted to talk with you sometime today. I canceled the APB on her because she was calling from home.”

Butch sat up.

And then lay right back down.

He wasn’t going anywhere for a while.

“Not feeling too good,” he muttered.

“I figured that. Which is why I told her you’d be tied up until this afternoon. Just so you know, I left your place at seven this morning.”

Ah, Christ.

Butch tried the whole vertical thing again, forcing himself to stay upright. The room swam. He was still drunk as shit. And he had a hangover.

Talk about multitasking.

“Coming in now.”

“I wouldn’t do that. The captain’s gunning for your ass. Internal Affairs showed up here asking about you and Billy Riddle.”

“Riddle? Why?”

“Come on, Detective.”

Yeah, he knew why.

“Listen, you’re in no condition to run into the captain.” José’s voice was even, pragmatic. “You need to sober up. Get your shit together. Come in later. I’ll cover for you.”

“Thanks.”

“And I left the aspirin next to the phone with a tall glass of water. Figured you weren’t going to be able to make it to the coffeepot. Take three, turn your ringer off, and sleep. If anything exciting happens, I’ll come and get you.”

“I love you, honey.”

“So buy me a mink and a nice pair of earrings for our anniversary.”

“You got it.”

He hung up the phone after two tries and closed his eyes. Just a little more sleep. And then he might feel like a human again.

Beth scribbled her last edit on a piece about a rash of identity thefts. The article looked like it was bleeding, it had so many corrections and she saw a trend setting in. Dick’s big boys were getting sloppier and sloppier as they relied on her. And it wasn’t just background mistakes; now they were making grammatical and structural errors. As if they’d never heard