Bride

It’s been storming for three days straight when he finally returns from a meeting with the leader of the Big Bend huddle. Two of his seconds are already inside his home, waiting for him with wary expressions.

“The Vampyre woman—she backed out.”

He grunts as he wipes his face. Smart of her, he thinks.

“But they found a replacement,” Cal adds, sliding a manila folder on the counter. “Everything’s in here. They want to know if she has your approval.”

“We proceed as planned.”

Cal huffs out a laugh. Flor frowns. “Don’t you want to look at the—”

“No. This changes nothing.”

They’re all the same, anyway.

Six weeks before the ceremony

She shows up at the start-up where I work on an early Thursday evening, when the sun has already set and the entire bullpen is contemplating grievous bodily harm.

Against me.

I doubt I deserve this level of hatred, but I do understand it. And that’s why I don’t make a fuss when I return to my desk following a brief meeting with my manager and notice the state of my stapler. Honestly, it’s fine. I work from home 90 percent of the time and rarely print anything. Who cares if someone smeared bird shit on it?

“Don’t take it personally, Missy.” Pierce leans against our cubicle divider. His smile is less concerned friend, more smarmy used car salesman; even his blood smells oily.

“I won’t.” Other people’s approval is a powerful drug. Lucky me, I never got the chance to develop an addiction. If there’s something I’m good at, it’s rationalizing my peers’ contempt toward me. I’ve been training like piano prodigies: tirelessly and since early childhood.

“No need to sweat it.”

“I’m not.” Literally. I barely own the necessary glands.

“And don’t listen to Walker. He didn’t say what you think he did.”

Pretty sure it was “nasty bitch” and not “tasty peach” that he yelled across the conference room, but who knows?

“It comes with the territory. You’d be mad, too, if someone did a penetration test against a firewall you’ve been working on for weeks and breached it in what, one hour?”

It was maybe a third of that, even counting the break I took in the middle after realizing how quickly I was blowing through the system. I spent it online shopping for a new hamper, since Serena’s damn cat seems to be asleep in my old one whenever I need to do laundry. I texted her a picture of the receipt, followed by You and your cat owe me sixteen dollars. Then I sat and waited for a reply, like I always do.

It didn’t come. Nor had I expected it would.

“People will get over it,” he Pierces on. “And hey, you never bring lunch, so no need to worry someone’ll spit in your Tupperware.” He bursts into laughter. I turn to my computer monitor, hoping he’ll peace out. Boy, am I wrong. “And to be honest, it’s kind of on you. If you tried to mingle more . . . Personally, I get your loner, mysterious, quiet vibe. But some read you as aloof, like you think you’re better than us. If you made an effort to—”

“Misery.”

When I hear my name called—the real one—for a split, exceptionally dumb second, I experience relief that this conversation is going to be over. Then I crane my neck and notice the woman standing on the other side of the divider. Her face is distantly familiar, and so is the black hair, but it’s not until I focus on her heartbeat that I manage to place her. It’s slow like only a Vampyre’s can be, and . . .

Well.

Shit.

“Vania?”

“You’re hard to find,” she tells me, voice melodic and low. I briefly contemplate slamming my head against the keyboard. Then settle for replying calmly:

“That’s by design.”

“I figured.”

I massage my temple. What a day. What a fucking day. “And yet, here you are.”

“And yet, here I am.”

“Why, hello.” Pierce’s smile gets a notch slimier as he turns to leer at Vania. His eyes start at her high heels, travel up the straight lines of her dark pantsuit, stop on her full breasts. I don’t read minds, but he’s thinking MILF so hard, I can practically hear it. “Are you a friend of Missy’s?”

“You could say that, yes. Since she was a child.”

“Oh my God. Do tell, how was baby Missy?”

The corner of Vania’s lips twitches. “She was . . . odd, and difficult. If often useful.”

“Wait—are you two related?”

“No. I’m her father’s Right Hand, Head of his Guard,” she says, looking at me. “And she has been summoned.”

I straighten in my chair. “Where?”

“The Nest.”

This is not rare—it’s unprecedented. Excluding sporadic phone calls and even more sporadic meetings with Owen, I haven’t spoken with another Vampyre in years. Because no one has reached out.

I should tell Vania to fuck off. I’m no longer a child stuck on a fool’s errand: going back to my father with any expectations that he and the rest of my people won’t be total assholes is an exercise in futility, and I’m well aware of it. But apparently this half-assed overture is making me forget, because I hear myself asking, “Why?”

“You’ll have to come and find out.” Vania’s smile doesn’t reach her eyes. I squint, like the answer is tattooed on her face. Meanwhile, Pierce reminds us of his unfortunate existence.

“Ladies. Right hand? Summon?” He laughs, loud and grating. I want to flick his forehead and make him hurt, but I’m starting to feel a frisson of worry for this fool. “Are you guys into LARPing or . . .”

He finally shuts up. Because when Vania turns to him, no trick of the light could hide the purple hue of her eyes. Nor her long, perfectly white fangs, gleaming under the electric lights.

“Y-you . . .” Pierce looks between us for several seconds, muttering something incoherent.

And that’s when Vania decides to ruin my life and snap her teeth at him.

I sigh, pinching the bridge of my nose.

Pierce spins on his heels and sprints past my cubicle, running over a potted benjamin fig. “Vampyre! Vampyre—there’s a— A Vampyre is attacking us, someone call the Bureau, someone call the—”

Vania takes out a laminated card with the Human-Vampyre Relations Bureau logo, one that grants her diplomatic immunity in Human territory. But there’s no one to look at it: the bullpen has erupted into a small panic, and most of my coworkers are screaming, already halfway down the emergency stairs. People trample each other to get to the nearest exit. I see Walker dart out of the bathroom, a strip of toilet paper dangling from his khakis, and feel my shoulders slump.

“I liked this job,” I tell Vania, grabbing the framed Polaroid of me and Serena and resignedly stuffing it into my bag. “It was easy. They bought my circadian rhythm disorder excuse and let me come in at night.”

“My apologies,” she says. Unapologetic. “Come with me.”

I should tell her to fuck off, and I will. In the meantime, I give in to my curiosity and follow her, straightening the poor benjamin fig on my way out.

The Nest is still the tallest building in the north of The City, and perhaps the most distinctive: a bloodred podium that stretches underground for hundreds of feet, topped by a mirror skyscraper that comes alive around sunset and slides back to sleep in the early hours of the morning.

I brought Serena here once, when she asked to see what the heart of the Vampyre territory was like, and she stared open-mouthed, jarred by the sleek lines and ultramodern design. She’d been expecting candelabras, and heavy velvet drapes to block the murderous sun, and the corpses of our enemies hanging from the ceiling, blood milked from their veins to the very last drop. Bat artwork, in honor of our winged, chiropterous forefathers. Coffins, just because.

“It’s nice. I just thought it’d be more . . . metal?” she mused, not at all intimidated at the idea of being the only Human in an elevator full of Vampyres. The memory still makes me smile years later.

Flexible spaces, automated systems, integrated tools—that’s what the Nest is. Not just the crown jewel of our territory, but also the center of our community. A place for shops and offices and errands, where anything one of us could need, from nonurgent healthcare to a zoning permit to five liters of AB positive, can be easily obtained. And then, in the uppermost floors, the builders made room for some private quarters, some of which have been purchased by the most influential families in our society.

Mostly my family.

“Follow me,” Vania says when the doors swish open, and I do, flanked by two uniformed council guards who are most definitely not here to protect me. A bit offensive, that I’m being treated like an intruder in the place where I was born, especially as we walk parallel to a wall that’s plastered with portraits of my ancestors. They morph over the centuries, from oils to acrylics to photographs, gray to Kodachrome to digital. What stays the same are the expressions: distant, arrogant, and frankly, unhappy. Not a healthy thing, power.

The only Lark I recognize from personal experience is the one closest to Father’s office. My grandfather was already old and a little demented by the time Owen and I were born, and my most vivid memory of him is from that one time I woke up in the middle of the night to find him in my bedroom, pointing at me with trembling hands and yelling in the Tongue, something about me being destined for a grisly death.

In fairness, he wasn’t wrong.

“In here,” Vania says with a soft knock to the door. “The councilman is waiting for you.”

I scan her face. Vampyres are not immortal; we grow old the same as every other species, but . . . damn. She looks like she hasn’t aged a day since she escorted me to the Collateral exchange ceremony. Seventeen years ago.

“Is there something you need?”

“No.” I turn and reach for the doorknob. Hesitate. “Is he sick?”

Vania seems amused. “You think he’d call you here for that?”

I shrug. I can’t think of a single other reason he’d want to see me.

“For what? To commiserate? Or find solace in your filial affection? You have been among the Humans far too long.”

“I was thinking more along the lines of him needing a kidney.”

“We are Vampyres, Misery. We act for the good of the most, or not at all.”

She’s gone before I can roll my eyes, or serve her that “fuck off” I’ve been meaning to. I sigh, glance at the stone-faced guards she left behind, and then walk into my father’s office.

The first things I notice are the two walls of windows, which is exactly what Father wants. Every Human I’ve talked with assumes that Vampyres hate light and relish darkness, but they couldn’t be more wrong. The sun may be forbidden to us, toxic always and deathly in large quantities, but that’s precisely why we covet it with such intensity. Windows are a luxury, because they need to be treated with absurdly expensive materials that filter everything that might harm us. And windows this large are the most bombastic of status symbols, in a full display of dynastic power and obscene wealth. And beyond them . . .

The river that slices The City into North and South—us, and them. Only a few hundred feet separate the Nest from Were territory, but the riverbank is littered with outlook towers, checkpoints, and guard posts, heavily monitored twenty-four seven. A single bridge exists, but access to it is closely surveilled in both directions, and as far as I know, no vehicle has traveled across it since well before I was born. Past that, there are a few Were security areas, and the deep green of an oak forest that stretches south for miles.

I always thought it smart of them not to build civilian settlements next to one of the most sanguinary borders in the Southwest. When Owen and I were children, before I was sent away, Father walked in on us wondering why the Vampyre headquarters had been placed so close to our most lethal enemies. “To remember,” he explained. “And to remind.”

I don’t know. Twenty years later, it still seems pretty fucked up to me.

“Misery.” Father finishes tapping at the touch screen monitor and stands from his luxury mahogany desk, unsmiling but not cold. “It’s good to see you here again.”

“It sure is something.” The past few years have been kind to Henry Lark. I examine his tall frame, triangular face, and wide-set eyes, and I’m reminded of how much I take after him. His blond hair is a little grayer, but still perfectly slicked back. I’ve never seen it anything but—never seen Father less than impeccably put together. Tonight the sleeves of his white button-down may be rolled back, but meticulously so. If they’re meant to trick me into thinking that this is a casual meeting, they’ve failed.

And that’s why, when he points at the leather chair in front of his desk and says, “Sit,” I decide to lean back against the door.

“Vania says you’re not dying.” I’m aiming for rude. Unfortunately, I think I just sound curious.

“I trust that you’re healthy, too.” He smiles faintly. “How have the last seven years treated you?”

There is a beautiful vintage clock behind his head. I watch it tick eight seconds before saying, “Just peachy.”

“Yes?” He gives me a once-over. “You’d better remove them, Misery. Someone might mistake you for a Human.”

He’s referring to my brown contacts. Which I considered taking out in the car, before deciding not to bother. The problem is, there are many other signs that I’ve been living among the Humans, most not so quickly reversible. The fangs I shave to dull points every week, for instance, are unlikely to escape his notice. “I was at work.”

“Ah, yes. Vania mentioned you have a job. Something with computers, knowing you?”

“Something like that.”

He nods. “And how is your little friend? Once again safe and sound, I trust.”

I stiffen. “How do you know she—”

“Oh, Misery. You didn’t really think that your communications with Owen went unmonitored, did you?”

I clench my fists behind my back and seriously debate slamming the door behind me and returning home. But there must be a reason he brought me here, and I need to know it. So I take my phone out of my pocket, and once I’m sitting across from Father, I lay it face up on his desk.

I tap on the timer app, set it for exactly ten minutes, and turn it toward him. Then I lean back in the chair. “Why am I here?”

“It’s been years since I last saw my only daughter.” He presses his lips together. “Is that not enough reason?”

“Nine minutes and forty-three seconds left.”

“Misery. My child.” The Tongue. “Why are you angry at me?”

I lift my eyebrow.

“You should not feel anger, but pride. The right choice is the one that ensures happiness for the largest number of people. And you were the means to that choice.”

I study him calmly. I’m positive that he really does believe this bullshit. That he thinks he’s a good guy. “Nine minutes and twenty-two seconds.”

He looks briefly, genuinely sad. Then he says, “There is to be a wedding.”

I jerk my head back. “A wedding? As in . . . like the Humans do?”

“A marriage ceremony. Like the Vampyres used to have.”

“Whose? Yours? Are you going to . . .” I don’t bother finishing the sentence—the sheer thought is ludicrous. It’s not just weddings that have gone out of fashion hundreds of years ago, but the entire idea of long-term relationships. As it turns out, when your species sucks at producing children, encouraging sexual walkabouts and the search for reproductively compatible partners takes precedence over romance. I doubt Vampyres were ever particularly romantic, anyway. “Whose?”

Father sighs. “Yet to be decided.”

I don’t like this, not any of it, but I’m not sure why yet. Something prickles in my ear, a whisper that I should get the hell out now, but as I’m about to stand, Father says, “Since you chose to live among the Humans, you must have been following their news.”

“Some of it,” I lie. We could be at war with Eurasia and on the verge of cloning unicorns, and I’d have no clue. I’ve been busy. Searching. Scouring. “Why?”

“The Humans recently had an election.”

I had no idea, but I nod. “Wonder what that’s like.” A leadership structure that’s not an unattainable council whose membership is restricted to a handful of families, passed down from generation to generation like a chipped china set.

“Not ideal. As Arthur Davenport was not reelected.”

“Governor Davenport?” The City is divided between the local Were pack and the Vampyres, but the rest of the Southwest region is almost exclusively Human. And for the last few decades, they’ve chosen Arthur Davenport to represent them—as far as I can recall, with little hesitation. That jerk. “Who’s the new guy?”

“A woman. Maddie Garcia is the governor-elect, and her term will start in a few months.”

“And your take on her . . . ?” He must have one. Father’s collaboration with Governor Davenport is the driving force behind the amicable relationship between our two people.

Well. Amicable might be too strong of a word. The average Human still thinks that we’re gagging to suck their cattle dry and mind-scramble their loved ones; the average Vampyre still thinks that Humans are cunning but feckless, and that their main talent is for procreating and filling the universe with more Humans. It’s not like our species hang out, aside from very limited, highly artificial diplomatic events. But we haven’t been overtly murdering each other in cold blood for a while, and we’re allies against the Weres. A win is a win, right?

“I have no opinion,” he tells me, impassible. “Nor will I have the opportunity to form one soon, as Ms. Garcia has refused all my requests for meetings.”

“Ah.” Ms. Garcia must be wiser than I am.

“However, I am still tasked with guaranteeing the safety of my people. And once Governor Davenport is gone, in addition to the Were threat that we constantly face at the southern border, there might be one at the north. From the Humans.”

“I doubt she wants trouble, Father.” I pick at my nail polish. “She’ll probably just leave the current alliance as it is and cut down on the ceremonial bullshit—”

“Her team has informed us that as soon as she takes office, the Collateral program will be no more.”

I freeze. And then slowly look up. “What?”

“We have been formally asked to return the Human Collateral. And they will send back the girl who’s currently serving as the Vampyre Collateral—”

“Boy,” I correct him automatically. My fingertips feel numb. “The current Vampyre Collateral is a boy.” I met him once. He had dark hair and a constant frown and said “No, thank you” when I asked if he needed help carrying a stack of books. By now he might very well be as tall as me.

“Whatever it might be, the return will happen next week. The Humans have decided not to wait for Maddie Garcia to take office.”

“I don’t see . . .” I swallow. Gather myself. “It’s for the best. It’s a stupid practice.”

“It has been ensuring peace between the Vampyres and the Humans for over one hundred years.”

“Seems a little cruel to me,” I counter calmly. “Asking an eight-year-old to relocate alone inside enemy territory to play hostage.”

“ ‘Hostage’ is such a crude, simplistic word.”

“You hold a Human child as a deterrent for ten years, with the mutual understanding that if the Humans violate the terms of our alliance, the Vampyres will instantly murder the child. That seems crude and simplistic, too.”

Father’s eyes narrow. “It’s not unilateral.” His voice grows harder. “The Humans hold a Vampyre child for the same reason—”

“I know, Father.” I lean forward. “I was the previous Vampyre Collateral, in case you have forgotten.”

I wouldn’t put it past him—but no. He might not recall the way I tried to hold his hand as the armored sedan drove us north, or me trying to hide behind Vania’s thigh when I first got a glimpse of the Humans’ oddly colored eyes. He might not know how it felt, growing up with the knowledge that if the ceasefire between us and the Humans broke down, the same caregivers who’d taught me how to ride a bike would come into my room and drive a knife through my heart. He might not dwell on the fact that he sent his daughter to be the eleventh Collateral, ten years a prisoner among people who hated her kind.

But he does remember. Because the first rule of the Collateral, of course, is that they have to be closely tied to those in power. Those who make decisions concerning peace and war. And if Maddie Garcia doesn’t want to throw a member of her family under the bus in the name of public safety, that only makes me respect her more. The boy who took over when I turned eighteen is the grandson of Councilwoman Ewing. And when I served as the Vampyre Collateral, my Human counterpart was the grandson of Governor Davenport. I used to wonder if he felt like I did—sometimes angry, sometimes resigned. Mostly expendable. I’d sure love to know if, now that years have passed, he gets along with his family better than I do with mine.

“Alexandra Boden. Do you remember her?” Father’s tone is back to conversational. “You were born the same year.”

I sit back in my chair, unsurprised by the abrupt change of topic. “Red hair?”

He nods. “A little more than a week ago, her little brother, Abel, turned fifteen. That night, he and three friends were out partying, and found themselves near the river. Emboldened by their youth and feeble-mindedness, they challenged each other to swim across it, touch the riverbank that belongs to Were territory, and then swim back. A show of bravery, if you will.”

I’m not invested in the fate of Alexandra Boden’s bratty brother, but my body goes icy cold nonetheless. All Vampyre children are taught about the danger of the southern border. We all learn where our territory ends and the Weres’ begins before we can speak. And we all know not to mess with anything Were.

Except for these four idiots, clearly.

“They’re dead,” I murmur.

Father’s lips curl up in something that looks very little like compassion, and a lot like annoyance. “It’s what they deserved, in my frank opinion. Of course, when the boys couldn’t be found, the worst was assumed. Ansel Boden, the boy’s father, has strong ties to several council families, and petitioned for a retaliatory act. He argued that their disappearance would justify it. He was reminded that the good of our people as a whole comes before the good of the one—the basic principle Vampyre society relies on. Birth rates are at our lowest, and we are facing extinction. This is not the time to stoke conflict. And yet, in an unbecoming display of weakness, he continued to beg.”

“Disgusting. How dare he grieve for his son.”

Father gives me a scathing look. “Because of his relationship to the council, he came close to having his way. Just last week, while you were busy pretending to be Human, we were closer to an interspecies war than we’ve been in a century. And then, two days after their dull-witted stunt . . .” Father stands. He walks around the desk and then leans back against its edge, the picture of relaxation. “The boys reappeared. Intact.”

I blink, a habit I picked up while pretending to be Human. “Their corpses?”

“They are alive. Shaken, of course. They were interrogated by Were guards—treated as spies, at first, and then as unruly nuisances. But they were eventually returned home, whole and healthy.”

“How?” I can think of half a dozen incidents in the past twenty years in which borders were breached and whatever was left of the offenders got sent back in pieces. It mostly happens outside city limits, in the demilitarized woodlands. Regardless, Weres have been merciless to our people, and we have been merciless toward Weres. Which means that . . . “What changed?”

“An intelligent question. You see, most of the council assumed that Roscoe was growing tender in his old age.” Roscoe. The Alpha of the Southwest pack. I’ve heard Father talk about him ever since I was a child. “But I’ve met Roscoe once. Just once—he was always clear about his disinterest in diplomacy, and people like him are like skull bones. They only harden with time.” He turns toward the window. “The Weres are as secretive as ever about their society. But we do have some ways to obtain intel, and after sending over some inquiries—”

“There was a change in their leadership structure.”

“Very good.” He seems pleased, as though I’m a student who mastered the transitive property well ahead of expectations. “Maybe I should have chosen you as my successor. Owen has shown little commitment to the role. He appears to be more interested in socializing.”

I wave my hand. “I’m sure that when you announce your retirement he’ll stop carousing around with his councilman heir friends and become the perfect Vampyre politician you always dreamt he’d be.” Not. “The Weres. What kind of change?”

“It appears that a few months ago, someone . . . challenged Roscoe.”

“Challenged?”

“Their succession of power is not particularly sophisticated. Weres are most closely related to dogs, after all. Suffice to say, Roscoe is dead.”

I refrain from pointing out that our dynastic, hereditary oligarchies seem even more primitive, and that dogs are universally beloved. “Have you met them? The new Alpha?”

“After the boys were returned safely, I requested a meeting with him. To my surprise, he accepted.”

“He did?” I hate that I’m invested. “And?”

“I was curious, you see. Mercy isn’t always a sign of weakness, but it can be.” His eyes take a sudden faraway bent, then slide to a piece of art on the eastern wall—a simple canvas painted a deep purple, to commemorate the blood spilled during the Aster. Similar art can be found in most public spaces. “And betrayal is born of weakness, Misery.”

“Is it, now?” Always thought betrayal was just betrayal, but what do I know?

“He is not weak, the new Alpha. On the contrary. He is . . .” Father pulls back into himself. “Something else. Something new.” His eyes settle on me, waiting, patient, and I shake my head, because I cannot imagine what reason he might have to tell me all of this. Where I could possibly come into play.

Until something worms its way through the back of my head. “Why did you mention a wedding?” I ask, without bothering to hide the suspicion in my voice.

Father nods. I think I must have asked the right question, especially because he doesn’t answer it. “You grew up among the Humans, and did not have the advantage of a Vampyre education, so you may not know the full history of our conflict with the Weres. Yes, we have been at odds for centuries, but attempts at dialogue were made. There have been five interspecies marriages between us and the Weres, during which no border skirmishes were recorded, nor Vampyre deaths at the hands of Weres. The last was two hundred years ago—a fifteen-year marriage between a Vampyre and his Were bride. When she died, another union was arranged, one that did not end well.”

“The Aster.”

“The Aster, yes.” The sixth wedding ceremony ended in carnage when the Weres attacked the Vampyres, who, after decades of peace, had become a little too trusting, and made the mistake of showing up to a wedding mostly unarmed. Between the Weres’ superior strength and the element of surprise, it was a bloodbath—mostly ours. Purple, with a sprinkling of green. Just like an aster. “We don’t know why the Weres decided to turn on us, but ever since our relationship with them irreparably broke down, there has been one constant: we had an alliance with the Humans, and the Weres did not. There are ten Weres for every Vampyre, and hundreds of Humans for both our species combined. Yes, Humans may lack Vampyres’ talents, or Weres’ speed and strength, but there is power in numbers. Having them on our side was . . . reassuring.” Father’s jaw clenches. Then, after a long time, relaxes. “Certainly, you can see why Maddie Garcia’s refusal to meet with me is a concern. Even more so because of her relative warmth toward the Weres.”

My eyes widen. I may be a bit checked out of the Human cultural landscape, but I didn’t think diplomatic relationships with the Weres would be on their statecraft bucket list for the year. As far as I know, they’ve always ignored each other—not too difficult, since they don’t share important borders. “The Humans and the Weres. In diplomatic talks.”

“Correct.”

I remain skeptical. “Did the Alpha tell you this when you met?”

“No. This is intel we obtained separately. The Alpha told me other things.”

“Such as?”

“He is young, you see. Around your age and built of a different stock. As savage as Roscoe, perhaps, but more open-minded. He believes that peace in the region is possible. That alliances among all three species should be cultivated.”

I snort out a laugh. “Good luck with that.”

Father’s head tilts to the side, and his eyes zero in on me, assessing. “You know why I chose you to be the Collateral? And not your brother?”

Oh, no. Not this conversation. “Tossed a coin?”

“You were such a peculiar child, Misery. Always uninterested in what went on around you, locked in a vault inside your head, hard to reach. Withdrawn. The other children would try to become your friends, and you’d stubbornly leave them hanging—”

“The other children knew that I’d be the one sent to the Humans, and they started calling me fangless traitor as soon as they could form full sentences. Or have you forgotten when I was seven, and the sons and daughters of your fellow councilmen stole my clothes and pushed me out in the sun right before midday? And those same people spat on me and mocked me when I returned from ten years serving as their Collateral, so I’m not—” I exhale slowly, and remind myself that this is fine. I am fine. Untouchable. I’m twenty-five and I have my fake Human IDs, my apartment, my cat (fuck you, Serena), my . . . Okay, I probably don’t have a job right now, but I’ll find another soon, with 100 percent fewer Pierces. I have friends—a friend. Probably.

Above all, I’ve taught myself not to care. About anything.

“The wedding you mentioned. Whose is it?”

Father presses his lips together. Several moments tick by before he speaks again. “When a Were and a Vampyre stand in front of each other, all they see is—”

“The Aster.” I glance down at my phone, impatient. “Three minutes and forty-seven seconds—”

“They see a wedding between a Vampyre and an Alpha that was supposed to broker peace, but ended in death. The Weres are animals, and always will be, but we are on the road to extinction, and the good of the most must be considered. If we let the Humans and Weres form an alliance that excludes us, they could completely wipe us out—”

“Oh my God.” It suddenly dawns on me, the crazy, ridiculous place where he’s heading, and I cover my eyes. “You are joking, right?”

“Misery.”

“No.” I let out a laugh. “You . . . Father, we cannot marry our way out of this war.” I don’t know why I’ve switched to the Tongue, but it takes him aback. And maybe that’s good, maybe this is what he needs. A moment to think this madness through. “Who would agree to this?”

Father looks at me so pointedly, I know. I just know.

And I burst into laughter.

I only ever laughed out loud with Serena, which means that it must have been well over a month since I last did it. My brain nearly hiccups, startled at these newfangled, mysterious sounds my voice box is producing. “Did you drink rotten blood? Because you’re unhinged.”

“What I am is charged with ensuring the good of the most, and the good of the most is the furthering of our people.” He seems somewhat offended by my reaction, but I cannot help the laughter bubbling in my throat. “It would be a job, Misery. Compensated.”

This is— God, this is funny. And mental. “No amount of legal tender would convince me to— Is it ten billion dollars?”

“No.”

“Well, no lower amount of legal tender would convince me to marry a Were.”

“Financially, you will be set for life. You know the council’s pockets are deep. And there is no expectation of a real marriage. You’d be with him in name only. You’ll be in Were territory for a single year, which will send the message that Vampyres can be safe with Weres—”

“Vampyres cannot.” I shoot to my feet and begin pacing away from him, massaging my temple. “Why are you asking me? I cannot be your first choice.”

“You aren’t,” he says flatly. He has plenty of faults, but lack of honesty was never among them. “Nor our second. The council is in agreement that we must act, and several members have offered their relatives. Originally, Councilman Essen’s daughter agreed. But she had a change of heart—”

“Oh, God.” I stop pacing. “You’re treating this as a Collateral exchange.”

“Of course. And so are the Weres. The Alpha will send a Were to us. Someone important to him. She will be with us for as long as you are with him. Ensuring your reciprocal safety.”

Bonkers. This is absolutely bonkers.

I take a grounding breath. “Well, I . . .” Think everyone involved has lost their mind, and whoever shows up to that wedding is going to get slaughtered, and I cannot believe your sheer presumption in asking this of me. “. . . am honored that you eventually thought of me, but no. Thanks.”

“Misery.”

I walk to the desk to pick up my phone—one minute, thirteen seconds left—and for a brief moment, I’m so close to Father, I feel the rhythm of his blood in my bones. Slow, steady, painfully familiar.

Heartbeats are like fingerprints, one of a kind, distinctive, the easiest way to tell people apart. Father’s was pressed into my flesh on the day I was born, when he was the first person to hold me, the first person to care for me, the first person to know me.

And then he washed his hands of me.

“No,” I say. To him. To myself.

“Roscoe’s death is an opportunity.”

“Roscoe’s death was murder,” I point out evenly. “By the hand of the man you’d have me marry.”

“You know how many Vampyre children were born this year in the Southwest?”

“I don’t care.”

“Fewer than three hundred. If the Weres and the Humans join forces to take our land from us, they will wipe us out. Completely. The good of the most—”

“—is a cause I’ve already donated to, and no one is showing me much gratitude.” I meet his eyes squarely. Slide my phone into my pocket with determination. “I’ve done enough. I have a life and I’m going back to it.”

“Do you?”

I stop halfway through turning around. “Excuse me?”

“Do you have a life, Misery?” He looks at me when he says it, pointed, careful, like he’s pushing a sharp weapon a mere millimeter into my neck.

I need you to care about one single fucking thing, Misery, one thing that’s not me.

I push the memory away and swallow. “Good luck finding someone else.”

“You feel unwelcome among your people. This could rehabilitate you in their eyes.”

A frisson of anger runs through my spine. “I think I’ll hold off on that, Father. At least until they have rehabilitated themselves in mine.” I take a few steps backward, cheerfully waving my hand. “I’m leaving.”

“My ten minutes aren’t up yet.”

My phone chooses that very moment to beep. “Exquisite timing.” I flash him a smile. If my blunt fangs bother him, that’s his problem. “I can safely say that no amount of time will change the outcome of this conversation.”

“Misery.” A pleading edge is creeping into his tone, which is almost entertaining.

Too bad. So sad. “See you in . . . seven years? Or when you decide that the key to peace is a joint Were-Vampyre MLM scheme and try to sell me dietary supplements. Do have Vania fetch me at home, though. I do not look forward to reorganizing my résumé.” I turn around to find the doorknob.

“There won’t be another opportunity in seven years, Misery.”

I roll my eyes and open the door. “Goodbye, Father.”

“Moreland is the first Alpha who—”

I slam the door shut, without first walking out of the office, and turn around, back toward Father. My heart slows to a crawl and thuds in my chest. “What did you just say?”

He straightens up from the desk, full of confusion and something that could be hope. “No other Were Alpha—”

“The name. You said a name. Who . . . ?”

“Moreland?” he repeats.

“His full name—what’s his first name?”

Father’s eyes narrow suspiciously, but after a few seconds, he says, “Lowe. Lowe Moreland.”

I look down at the floor, which appears to be shaking. Then at the ceiling. I take a series of deep breaths, each one slower than the other, and then run a trembling hand through my hair, even though my arm weighs a thousand pounds.

I wonder if the blue dress I wore at Serena’s college graduation would be too casual for an interspecies wedding ceremony. Because, yeah.

I guess I’m getting married.