Page 117 of Bride

The word tears my eyes open. I’m once again on a damn bed, where I once again don’t remember lying down. My internal clock is shot, and I have no clue whether it’s day or night. I instinctively move my neck—ouch—checking for sunlight pouring in, and find...

No windows. I’m in a wooden attic, large and climate-controlled, with ceiling-high shelves full of books on every wall. There is a plate on the coffee table nearby with leftover pasta smeared all over it, and a small pile of soda cans and plastic water bottles.

I take an achy breath, feeling the drugs fade at a snail’s pace. It’s not day, not yet. Not even close to sunrise. I must have been out an hour, two tops, which means that Mick didn’t carry me that far. Mick—Mick,what the fuck, Mick?—must have decided to stash me with—

Serena.

I’m withSerena.

“Holy shit,” I mumble, trying to sit up straighter. It takes two attempts and substantive help from her to manage a still mostly prone position. “Holyshit.”

“Why, hello. How lovely of my oldest and most treasured friend to join me in my humble abode.”

“I’m your only friend,” I cough out, wondering whether my brain is making shit up. Vampyres do not dream, but they do hallucinate.

“Correct. And rude.”

“I...” I smack my lips. This dry-mouth situation needs to be addressed. Is this why Humans and Weres drink water all the time? “What thefuck?”

“Did they knock you out? I couldn’t find a bump on your head.”

“Drugged me. Mick did.”

“Mick being the older Were who deposited your lifeless body here like a sack of potatoes and brought me SpaghettiOs?”

“Notlifeless.”

“The thing about Vampyres is, you tend to look pretty lifeless.”

“Shit—Serena, you know how long I’ve been looking for you?”

Her smile is commiserating. “No. But if I may hazard a guess, I would say...” She taps her chin several times. “Three months, two weeks, and four days?”

“How—?”

She points behind her. She’s been carving lines on the side of the bookshelf, tallying time in groups of five days.

“Shit,” I whisper. There are somany. The physical manifestation of how long Serena has been gone and—

Without thinking, I half roll, half push off the bed to hug her close. I can barely hold my arms up, and it cannot be a good experience for her, but she valiantly squeezes me back. “Did you just initiate physical touch? What is happening? Did you start therapy while I was gone?”

“I missed you,” I say into her hair. “I didn’t know where you were. I looked for you everywhere, and—”

“I was here.” She pats my back. Squeezes me harder.

“Where the fuck ishere?” I pull back to study her. She’s wearing a pair of too-large jeans and a long-sleeved shirt I’ve never seen onher. She’s soft and curvy as always, but the last time I saw her she had bangs and a bob that made it just past her chin, and her hair has now grown into a completely different cut. “You look good.”

Her eyebrow lifts. “That’s a weird thing to say in the let’s-exchange-vital-info stage of a joint abduction.”

“It was a damn compliment!”

“Fine. Thanks. I was always very self-conscious of my forehead, as you know, but maybe unnecessarily? Maybe I’ll spare myself the whole monthly trim—”

“Okay, now shut up. Where are we?”

She rolls her eyes. “I have no clue. And believe me, I’ve tried to figure it out, but there are no openings and the place is really well acoustically insulated. There must be at least four or five stories underneath us, just based on listening to the pipes in the bathroom. The guards who feed me are very careful not to show themselves or come near enough for me to guess their species, but now that your friend Mick is in the picture, I’d guess we’re in Were territory. That doesn’t narrow it down by much, though.”

Emery. She has to be part of this. And Mick must have been helping her all along. He was one of Roscoe’s seconds, after all.

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