Page 27 of Newly Undead in Dark River

“Relax, Darlin’. Let me walk you the rest of the way to the Counsellors office.” He put out his arm like a proper southern gentleman, and I placed my hand in the crook of his elbow. He leaned forward and sniffed me. “You smell like a shapeshifter. No wonder you had such a big smile on your face. Shifter blood is something else.”

My face was flaming. Every drop of that shifter blood was now in my cheeks. “Judge-” I started, but he waved me away.

“Don’t stress it. We are not, what’s the human terminology now? Baes?”

It sounded so ridiculous coming out of his mouth, I couldn’t resist the laugh that honked from my mouth.

“Let’s never use that term again, okay?” I said, patting his arm.

He just grinned. “Done deal. As I was sayin’, we aren’t a couple. I know you were askin’ Beatrice about me the other day.”

I mumbled something incomprehensible, and he just smiled wider. Geez, that grin was like a punch to the sternum every time. “I care for you, Rainy Day. But I’m not the kind of man you pin all your hopes for the future on. That’s much more the good Sheriff’s speed. I am a good time.”

“Not a long time?” I quipped, even though I thought I was getting the ‘let’s just keep it casual’ speech.

“That’s the problem, Raine. We’re here for a very long time. Not to sound cliche, but immortality can be a curse.”

He was being serious. He never used my name. We walked in silence for a little while, until I was standing in front of another stone building that looked like a rich person’s hunting lodge.

I turned to him and fell into the midnight blue of his eyes. I reached up and ran my hand down the hard edge of his jaw.

“I’m not asking for anything from you, only what you want to give. Just a warm body on cold nights. Believe it or not, not every girl is looking wants you to put a ring on it.”

He laughed and kissed me hard. I’d kissed three hot guys in less than fifteen minutes. That had to be a record, right?

When he pulled back, he looked down at me with sad eyes. “I know, but some girls make you wish you could.”

With that, he was gone too.

Jesus. I was definitely going to need therapy, and it had nothing to do with my turning. I pushed through the doors of the Dark River Counselling office. And stopped dead. The place looked like nothing I had ever seen. It was like a junk store had exploded, or someone had picked the most cliche thing from every decade and put it in pride of place. A hand-shaped swivel chair in electric green from the 2000s sat beside a floral couch, a crocheted throw in mustard and brown over the arm. Brass ducks from the fifties hung beside a replica of Andy Warhol's cans of soup. There was a lava lamp and a Persian rug. There was a hall, but the entryway was covered in a beaded curtain. A picture of Batman, the Joker, and Harley Quinn hung on the opposite wall. What the actual hell?

A laugh dragged my eyes back to the beaded curtain. The young guy from the Council, who had the presence of someone far more ancient than his young face belied, was there. “It is a bit much, yes? But what is the point of being ancient if I cannot fill a room with whatever I want?” His voice was young, and he had an almost American accent except for a hint of something else. But his speech pattern was overly formal, which led to me to believe English wasn’t his first language. Looking into his swirling eyes, which were so dark brown that I wasn’t sure they weren’t black, made me feel the centuries that pressed down on his shoulders.

“Uh, sure. Sir. I’m here for my therapy session?”

He clapped his hands together. “Excellent. Given the circumstances of your turning, we thought perhaps we’d wait a few weeks before we started your obligatory sessions, allow you to settle in a little. I am sorry that it was marred by such violence.” His face turned feral, showing every ounce of the violence he’d just apologized for, and I was glad it wasn’t directed toward me. There was something primal and predatory about this guy. But he didn’t make me feel unsafe. But then, no one had, and one of them was my maker and blinded me for forty-eight hours. I wasn’t the best judge of character, obviously.

“Come on back. You’ll have to see me once every two weeks for a little while, but I promise it will be quite cathartic for you.” He led the way through the beaded blinds and back into the building toward what I assumed was his office.

As we stepped through the door, I swallowed back a laugh. If the waiting room had been a mishmash of different decades, this room was worse. An honest to goodness fainting couch in teal blue clashed with a thick pile green carpet. The walls were covered with nineties-style motivational pictures, and a barker lounger sat opposite the couch. There was a chrome and glass desk in the corner, with a MacBook on top. The walls were yellow. Like canary yellow.

“Holy shit.”

The Council guy laughed. “It is something, right?”

“It’s definitely something, Sir.”

He laughed again, doubling over as he tried to draw breath. He stood and wiped at his face. “Please, call me Nico. Won’t you take a seat?” He was still chuckling to himself. “Watching the first reactions to this room is one of the joys of my role.”

I sat on the fainting couch and resisted the urge to swoon like a mid-century maiden. It was actually incredibly uncomfortable.

“So, how are you settling in to our little town?” Nico asked, relaxing into his comfy looking barker lounge. I eyed it longingly as I shifted around, trying to find a position that wouldn’t result in my ass going numb.

“Everyone has been very kind. I really like working at the Immortal Cupcake.”

“Hmm,” he murmured contemplatively, scribbling on a notepad that appeared from nowhere. It had a picture of Hello Kitty on it. “Anything you’d like to bring up? Are you sleeping well? Sleep is very important, even when you are dead.”

This whole thing was trippy. Nico looked about nineteen, and he was covered in tribal tattoos. If it weren’t for the heavy presence of his gaze, it’d be like sitting on the therapist’s couch with my younger brother.

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