Master of Darkness (15 page)

“Hey, Joe, we're home,” Eden called as they came in the door. She seemed puzzled when she didn't get an instant response. “Where are you, Joe?”

Laurent rather hoped that this Joe person had left.

She walked into the middle of the living room. “He couldn't have gotten out.” Then she smiled. “I bet he's sleeping on one of the beds.”

Laurent didn't sense another human, but there was—something.

“I picked up some fresh clothes for you,” Eden said, and pointed toward a pile of bags on the floor.

“Thanks,” Laurent answered absently. He was impatient to put Eden to work on the laptop, but there was no way he was letting it be hacked into while they had company.

The
something
he sensed was psychic, but the shielded mental impression he got didn't feel vampire. Plenty of the hunters had psychic gifts; this Joe was likely one of them.

Laurent opened the coat closet by the door and tucked the laptop case behind boxes of
equipment. It wasn't an ideal hiding place, but it would have to do for now. When he turned around, he glanced at the shopping bags. He was rather touched that Eden had been so thoughtful. Pity the bags were empty.

“I guess Joe must have needed a change of clothes.”

She laughed, and glanced up from reading her e-mail. “Right. Just tell me he isn't the type who likes to chew up shoes or anything.”

“Not as far as I know.”

Her comments piqued his curiosity even more. There was something about this Joe's mental signature that was starting to tickle his memory. Something that reminded him of some of the folk who hung out at the other bar he frequented in Los Angeles. There was a group of loud, boisterous, biker types who came in sometimes, led by a fellow named Shaggy. And he was a—

“Why don't you go check on Joe?”

“I think I will.”

Eden's attention was very much on her computer. Laurent was glad of this as he walked down the hall to confront the werewolf lurking in his bedroom.

The male impatiently watching the door was barefoot and wearing what Laurent guessed were
his
new jeans and blue shirt.

“Hello, Joe,” Laurent said.

“Hello, Wolf,” Joe answered, coming smoothly to his feet.

While they had the same build, Joe was an inch or so taller, a little leaner. His attitude was neutral, but with a strong dose of curiosity.

“I didn't know werefolk worked with the hunters,” Laurent said.

“You know damn well we don't,” was the reply. Joe got to the point. “Where's Sid?”

So, he'd been caught out at last. Or had he? The werewolf thought his name was Wolf. Laurent decided to bluff. “Right here.”

Joe looked him up and down and took a few deep breaths. “You look like a Wolf,” he said. “You smell like a Wolf. But you're not Sid Wolf.”

“What makes you say that?”

Joe took a step closer, an alpha-to-Prime gesture. “For one thing, Sid's my partner. And more importantly, Sid's a girl.”

Sid was a girl? What sort of name was Sid for a female?

“Just checking to make sure you really know her,” Laurent lied smoothly. “Why's she called Sid, anyway?”

“It's short for Sidonie,” Joe replied, with just a hint of suspicion.

“And you are her—partner?”

“We
work
together.”

Laurent didn't miss the slight affront in the werewolf's voice. He held up a hand. “I wasn't suggesting—”

“You better not be.”

Werefolk were notoriously touchy about even a hint that they might be fooling around with any species but their own.

“She's my best friend,” Joe went on. “Which is why I'm asking you where she is.”

“I have no idea,” Laurent said truthfully.

“She didn't tell you where she'd be after she turned this case over to you?”

“She's—an independent female.”

Or so Laurent gathered from Joe's comments. He didn't know why Clan Wolf would allow one of their precious females out of the house, but if they chose to let their breeding stock roam free, that wasn't his problem. It might actually help him to continue his masquerade for as long as he needed to get Eden to do the work for him.

What he needed right now was to pacify Joe, and somehow hustle the pup out before Eden took any notice.

The werewolf was not at all happy. “She didn't come home this weekend. Her mom's worried. I'm beginning to worry.”

“She's a vampire,” Laurent pointed out. “Dangerous by nature—even if she is a girl.”

“I know you've been passing yourself off as Sid, which isn't such a bad idea—”

“How do you know that? And why isn't it a bad idea?”

“I listened to your girlfriend's taped mission reports, where she keeps referring to you as Sid Wolf. When dealing with humans, disinformation is not a bad thing. Especially when they're hanging out with hunters. But I'd like to know your real name.”

“Laurent,” he answered without thinking. He cursed himself for not coming up with an instant alias, something that sounded more like a Clan boy moniker.

The shock that surged through Joe sent Laurent back a step.

“What?”
he demanded.

The werewolf stared at him intently for a few moments, taking long, deep breaths. “Yeah,” he said at last. “You're Laurent.”

Chapter Seventeen

E
den ran a hand through her short hair. Now that the adrenaline rush from earlier in the evening had worn off, she was pretty much running on empty. But she still had the energy to smile fondly at the memory of Wolf kissing her when he got in the car.

She wanted to call him back to her for another kiss when he went into the bedroom, but made herself stay at the computer. She had to keep distance, perspective.

She managed to concentrate on her e-mail for a while, but eventually the low murmur of conversation from the bedroom caught her attention.

It was several more seconds before she thought,
Conversation?

Wolf had gone into the bedroom to check on his pet wolf. Who was he talking to? More importantly, who was talking
back?

The most logical explanation was that the voices were coming from a radio. But logic really didn't come into the picture when dealing with the supernatural.

Eden got up and walked to the bedroom as silently as she could, then put her ear to the door. She considered it gathering intelligence. One of the voices definitely belonged to her vampire lover. She did not recognize the other male voice, who said:

“…she keeps referring to you as Sid Wolf. When dealing with humans, disinformation is not a bad thing. Especially when associating with hunters. But I'd like to know your real name.”

“Laurent.” A pause.
“What?”

Another pause. “Yeah. You're Laurent.”

“What the hell is going on here?”

Laurent whirled to face Eden, who was standing in the doorway, quivering with fury. He wasn't surprised to see her, or at her outrage. Or her question. But he wasn't at all happy with her timing. He was grateful that she didn't seem to be carrying a weapon.

“Not now, sweethear—”

“Who are you?” She was glaring over his shoulder. Then her furious gaze came back to him. “Who are
you?”

“He's Laurent Wolf,” Joe answered for him.

Her attention swung back to Joe. “How did you get in here?”

Hearing himself named Laurent Wolf made Laurent cringe. It made dark things buried deep inside him clamor for his attention, claw to get out. That name didn't belong to him, even though the Clans were matrilineal. He didn't
have
a name. Not even Laurent of the Manticore had ever been officially bestowed on him.

“You let me in,” Joe said. “Don't you remember?”

When Laurent noticed the way that Joe was smiling at Eden, the jealousy that jolted through him was as strong as it was unexpected.

“I did no such thing.”

Eden was furious, and totally oblivious to the werewolf's attempt at charm. Good.

“I think explanations—and introductions—are in order,” Laurent said, trying to grab control of the situation.

“Does your mother know you're here?” Joe asked him.

Laurent's world shattered at that question.
The only thing he was able to grab hold of was the front of Joe's shirt, just before he slammed the werewolf up against the wall.

Joe managed to grab the thumb and little finger of the hand that was choking him and twisted hard.

The vampire could have crushed Joe's throat if he wanted, but he stepped back instead. Joe was left panting and in pain, but at least he could breathe. From the way the Prime had reacted, Joe's guess was that mentioning the prodigal son's mother was a touchy subject.

“Sorry,” he ventured.

The woman had moved farther into the room. She was confused, concerned, but mostly she was sending off sparks of anger.

She stepped up to Wolf, and after a second's hesitation, she touched him on the arm. “Wh—”

He turned a glare on her that was pure animal.

Joe tensed, prepared to go to her defense if necessary. But Wolf brushed her hand off and left the room. Vampires could move lightning-fast when they wanted to. Only a moment after Wolf left the bedroom, the apartment door slammed shut. Hard.

Leaving Joe in the awkward position of
being alone with a vampire hunter suffering from a not completely unjustified sense of betrayal.

She turned her outrage on him. “What's this about? And who are you?”

He wished she hadn't gotten back to that. Though she was between him and the exit, he edged closer to the door. “I take it you don't know where Sidonie Wolf is?” he inquired. After all, he was here looking for his partner, not to get involved in the case the vampire and hunter were working. “She's about five-foot-nine, blond, blue-gray eyes. Looks very much like her brother, come to think of it.”

She was staring at him so hard, he didn't think she actually heard him.

She took in his bare feet. He saw her recognize the clothes he was wearing. Then her gaze settled on his name pendant.

“Yeah,” he said, as she finally came to an unwilling conclusion about what he was.

She took a step back. He didn't sense revulsion, or killing hostility. But she wasn't happy or friendly, either. There were also a lot of weapons in the place, and she was a trained killer. Her kind didn't like his kind any more than they did vampires. Even though she was working with vampires and had mated with Laurent Wolf—which
made her almost family—the revelations of the last few minutes might tempt her to revert to her hunter roots.

“You're extinct!” she said, stunned.

“That's what we want you to think.”

She stayed stunned. And he used the edge it gave him to make his own quick exit before she came out of it.

Once out of the apartment, he considered following Laurent. But since he believed the Prime really didn't know where Sid was, he let trailing the lost Wolf go. Laurent might be intriguing, but Sid was priority number one.

Eden didn't know what to do. Other than sit down on the bed, because she couldn't make her legs work. She loved lava, but she didn't like earthquakes. And the last few minutes had shaken her world somewhere around a ten on the Richter scale.

Wolf had lied to her. He'd been lying to her for days, even as they fought together and laughed together and made love.

It shouldn't hurt, but it did. She was being clawed apart from the inside.

Wolf wasn't Wolf. Or not the Wolf she thought he was. Why was this knowledge crushing her?

“Why didn't he tell me?” She spoke into the silence of the room, and almost expected a ghost to step out of the shadows and answer.

What she heard instead was the memory of her aunt's voice.

“They're insidious. And subtle. They don't even notice their own arrogance, because, after all, they are Prime. Prime users. Prime takers.”

He'd been mocking her, silently laughing at her because he wasn't who she thought he was. It would have been such a simple thing to correct her mistake when he showed up at the meeting place and she assumed he was the Prime she'd been told would meet her.

“Big joke. Ha. Ha.
Bastard
.”

Then she remembered the werewolf saying,
“When dealing with humans, disinformation is not a bad thing. Especially when associating with hunters.”

And now she knew that the supernatural world was even bigger than she'd thought. She'd come face-to-face with a shapeshifter, and what was she supposed to do about it? This revelation—complication—was Wolf's fault as well. She should immediately report the existence of Joe's kind to the other hunters.

But she didn't want to.

That was wrong. Being around Wolf had
changed her, tainted her. She was starting to see things from his point of view, and—

And from his point of view,
she
was the one that needed to be watched out for. The one never to completely trust.

Her ancestors had hunted his ancestors. His had hunted hers. Everybody had long memories.

And that was the way it was always supposed to be.

But here it was, the twenty-first century. Apparently werewolves still walked the earth. Vampires took drugs that helped them blend into the world. They had day jobs. Apparently Clan women had equal rights.

The rules had clearly changed. Why hadn't anybody told the hunters?

It wasn't fair.

She was an anachronism. A joke.

“Oh, woe is me,” she muttered.

And why the devil had Wolf stormed out of here before she had the chance to yell at him about his deception? She
needed
to yell at him. Every fiber of her being needed to confront him, and—

She needed to see him, to talk to him. He had been so upset. The look in his eyes had been so—devastated.