RODINA’S BROTHER, RU, was in my passenger seat looking like a carbon copy of his sister except for an inch taller and a little more muscle on his slender frame. Oh, and he’d dyed his pale blond hair a deep rich brown so that it looked black in the darkened car. I wasn’t sure how I felt about the hair color, and Rodina hated it, because it made them not look alike. I guess that was weird for triplets; Rodina had requested that I not think of them as twins even in my own head because she and Ru could hear it, and their brother being dead didn’t change the fact that they were triplets, not twins. Since Rodrigo had died taking a shotgun blast to the chest to save Nathaniel, Damian, and me, I could call the remaining siblings triplets.
“Where are we going?” Ru asked.
“Back to the wedding shop so I can get dressed for date night.” I texted Edward and Peter, and I had missed seeing Edward and Asher dressed up together in their matching but opposite-color best man outfits, damn it. Peter assured me that he had pictures, though, which made me happier. He also asked if I needed any help at the crime scene. I was pretty sure that was Edward dictating that one. I assured them that I was done with crime for the night and off for date night. They were already at the gym with the bodyguards getting ready to work out. They would get to test themselves against real shapeshifters for the first time since they’d both been contaminated. I was sorry to miss the workout, especially after seeing what Peter had done to Kane, but like they had said, I couldn’t leave the love of my life hanging on date night.
Jean-Claude was suddenly in my head saying, “I adore being the love of your life, ma petite, I cannot wait to see you tonight.” I was in the dimness of the SUV grinning at my phone like an idiot with Ru sitting still and quiet beside me.
“So wedding shop, then Guilty Pleasures?” he asked.
“Yes, can you please text Rodina and Ethan?”
“If you lower your shields Ethan can read your mind, and Rodina and I always know when you are thinking of Jean-Claude.”
I fought not to frown, because I hated that so many people were so far into my business in a way that I couldn’t prevent. “Just text them, please, let’s at least pretend to be normal.”
“I’ll text them, but why does part of you persist in wanting to be normal?”
I glanced at him, but his face was bent toward the phone typing with his thumbs. “Didn’t you ever want to be normal?”
“We were trained to be part of the Harlequin from birth, this is my normal.”
I started the car and reminded him to buckle his seat belt automatically but realized it was already fastened. Rodina would have made me order her to do it. “You and Rodina are the only people I know whose parents were both Harlequin; everyone else was an adult when they were inducted, or invited, or whatever.”
“There were others born to Harlequin over the centuries, but it has always been rare since the female half of the couple would be unfit to serve our dark mistress’s bidding during the latter stages of the pregnancy.”
“So, there are other Harlequin that were born into the family business?”
“Yes,” he said.
I glanced at his profile as I drove out of the parking lot and headed for the I-70. “You don’t want to talk about it, or them.”
“No, I do not.”
I wanted to ask why so badly, but the topic obviously upset him, so I was willing to let it go, but he knew what I was feeling, and what I really wanted. “One of them was our friend, and the other was our enemy.”
“You don’t have to talk about this if you don’t want to, Ru.”
“You wish to know.”
“But you don’t have to tell me.”
He looked at me then. “You are my master, my queen, you have but to ask and I must do it.” He shivered. “You really don’t like being reminded that if you give a direct order I must obey it.”
“Nope,” I said, and concentrated on driving.
“I do not understand your push for us to find lives of our own, but I appreciate that you mean well by it.”
“I mean well by it, let me translate that for a second, that means that my good intentions are turning out not so good for you and Rodina, right?” I glanced at him in time to see him smile.
“We are having something of an identity crisis.”
“Rodina said she needed for me to give her purpose.”
“Yes, that is exactly what we lack. A purpose. We were literally raised from birth to serve the queen of the Vampire High Council as her bodyguards, spies, and assassins. When she fell into her deep sleep the rest of the vampire council took over as our masters, sending us out into the world to further their goals and those of all vampirekind.”
“But you’re not vampirekind, you’re wereleopards.”
“Our master was a vampire, and his interests were ours.”
“I guess my interests must seem boring compared to traveling the world spying and killing people.”
“We did not always travel the world, once we helped curate all the treasures that the vampire council had accumulated over the eons.”
“That must have been a hell of a collection.”
“It was, only the British Museum comes close in scope, but even they are missing so much of the most ancient history. They have to buy it as artifacts, but we were able to collect it in person when it was new and had people who spoke and wrote the languages on it all.”
I thought about that for a few seconds as we drove through the night. There was too much light to say it was dark, but it still had that intimacy that a car gets after dark that daylight never seems to give it. “Are there members of the Harlequin who could decipher archaeological finds that no one else could?”
“Yes.”
“If I ordered some of you to do it, would that be interesting to you?”
“We can safely travel to the United Kingdom, but in most of the rest of the world we would not be welcome.”
“Vampires aren’t, but shapeshifters can travel to more countries.”
“But how would we explain that we have lived for thousands of years, Anita? Humans would know that we either had ties to a vampire or to something else that was ageless and very illegal in their country.”
“I bet the British Museum would jump at a chance for you and Rodina to visit them.”
“Would you come with us?”
“I don’t know, the idea’s too new, I’d have to talk to Jean-Claude and find out how the vamp politics are going there.”
“You truly want us to be happy, I can feel that it makes you hopeful to offer us this chance to do something that interests us.”
“I like my people to be happy, why is that so strange to everyone?”
“You have no idea how selfish and petty most people are, Anita.”
“I’m a cop, I know people are shitty, but I try not to be.”
He made a small sound that was almost a laugh. “I will talk to Rodina about your idea, perhaps that will brighten her mood.”
“You seem down, and she seems depressed or dangerous. You’re both in weird moods, what’s up?”
“It is our birthday today.”
“Why should that make you depressed?” The moment I said it, I realized why. “Shit, it’s all three of your birthdays and you’re missing your brother.”
“Yes, and this year we have been dreaming of him.”
“The same dreams?” I asked.
He shook his head. “No, but at least once a night Rodrigo is in our dreams.”
“I guess with the birthday and all, that would be natural.”
“It did not happen last year.”
I glanced at him, then back to the road. “Maybe you’ve had time to process the loss?”
“Perhaps, but it is unsettling to see him when I close my eyes and then when I wake it’s as if the loss is fresh again, like for a second I forget he’s dead, and then I remember.”
“That sounds awful, I can’t imagine having to do that about any of the people I’ve lost.”
“Thank you.”
“My therapist might know a grief counselor for the two of you to see.”
“This doesn’t feel like grief, Anita.”
“What does it feel like?” I asked.
“I feel haunted.”
I looked at him, then back to the road. “Does Rodina feel the same way?”
“Her dreams make her miss Rodrigo more; mine . . . I did not always agree with the choices my siblings made, but they were my family, so I went where they went, did what they did. You give us both too many choices to be ourselves, too many decisions that we do not make together. Rodina feels like she is losing me as well as Rodrigo, and I feel disloyal to my sister. I loved Rodrigo, but I was also afraid of him. I realize now that I went along with many things because I did not want to be his victim, or Rodina’s. It was much better to be their ally.”
“I saw Rodrigo’s cruel streak when he killed Domino.”
“I am sorry for reminding you of your loss.”
“No, that’s not what I meant, Ru. I meant that Rodrigo was frightening.”
“But he was my brother and I loved him.”
I thought about my own family. “Family is so fucking hard sometimes.”
“I miss Rodrigo terribly and if I could have him alive again, I would, but he hates you in my dreams, threatens you and Jean-Claude and Nathaniel and Micah and anyone that I feel an emotional closeness to, he wants to do terrible things to them, and I don’t. I stand up to Rodrigo in my dreams in a way that I never did in real life.”
“We work out our issues in our dreams a lot more than we think,” I said.
“I suppose so,” he said, voice soft. He was hunched over as if something hurt. I didn’t think it was physical, though sometimes a broken heart feels that real, and no one breaks your heart like family.
I didn’t know what to say that would make that level of pain better, so I didn’t try. I just reached across the car and touched his leg. He was a shapeshifter and even more than for most people touch was comforting to them. I meant it to be a light pat, but his hand covered mine, pressing it against his thigh. I turned my hand under his until we were holding hands.
He held my hand and then his shoulders started to shake, and I realized he was crying. “I feel lost, Anita, so lost.”
I squeezed his hand and said, “I’ve got you, Ru.”
He wrapped both of his hands around mine and cried without looking at me. We drove like that in the dark car until we were almost at Until Death and Beyond Bridal, and then Ru just pulled himself together and stopped crying.
“I need to wipe my face, but could you please keep holding my hand after I do all that?”
“Of course, whatever you need.”
He let go of me and drew Kleenex out of his jacket pocket, dried his face, blew his nose, and settled his clothes and the weapons under them back in place, and then he reached his hand out to me and I took it. We held hands on the seat beside him until I pulled off the Riverfront area where the streets were mostly cobblestone, narrow, and full of weekend pedestrians who seemed utterly confident that I wouldn’t run them over. When I’d left for the murder scene the sidewalks were full of a few happy, strolling tourists taking pictures of all the vampire-run businesses and waiting for them all to open for the night. Now the streets and sidewalks were packed like sardines in a can because everything was open. Once the Riverfront had been called Blood Square and all the businesses had been very adult like Guilty Pleasures, but as vampires became more mainstream, businesses that were also more mainstream started to open up. First it was fancy restaurants where vampires might not be able to eat food, but they could cook it. People who weren’t vampires would pay just to have restaurants where most of the staff were. There was even a new restaurant where vampires brought human dates, and the humans ate while the vampires played culinary voyeur. Jean-Claude was actually a silent partner in the restaurant. The chef had only become a vampire in the last two years, but unfortunately it was in a country where vampires were still illegal monsters and could be killed on sight. The chef was one of the most famous in the world, a very big deal, too famous to hide, so Jean-Claude invited him to America to open both a regular restaurant, Liberté, and Voyeur.
Ethan and Rodina were driving just behind us as I searched for parking. I needed two spaces not that far away from each other ideally. Bodyguards can’t do their job unless they’re with you, but on the nights that Jean-Claude was onstage the parking was even worse than usual on the Riverfront. Even though I was headed to him soon, I didn’t want to reach out mind-to-mind to him in case he was interacting with the audience, even just giving his voice to introduce someone else. Hard to dance or interact with the audience when someone else tries to peek into your head. We finally found me a spot to park and let Rodina and Ru be my bodyguards to the shop while Ethan found a parking spot somewhere else.
“When Claudia said she was thinking of keeping three to four people on you until the higher alert calms down, I thought it was overreacting, honestly, but now I’m glad she did it, because I have to leave you here while I park,” Ethan said through the window of the black SUV that was part of a fleet we’d gotten for security to use on the job.
“I guess so,” I said. The car behind him started honking its horn.
Ethan started to say something, but the horn sounded again. I motioned him to just go as the three of us moved closer to the parked cars to let Ethan and the impatient line of cars behind him ease past.
“So, you’re going to go to the bridal store to get professional hair and makeup done, before going to Guilty Pleasures. I’d have dressed differently,” Rodina said.
I looked at her hooded sweatshirt and black tac pants and boots. I was dressed almost the same except I’d opted for jogging shoes instead of the boots. Ru was wearing almost the same thing as his sister except his sweatshirt zipped up the front. I was wearing one almost identical to it. I laughed.
“If you’re going to be part of my regular rotation we gotta start planning our outfits so we don’t all match.”
Rodina said something, but I couldn’t hear her over the traffic, the groups of people on the sidewalks. I shook my head and she finally stepped closer to me. Ru started looking outward for trouble as the three of us huddled closer so Rodina could repeat herself.
“I said, we’re accustomed to matching a hell of a lot more closely than this.” She gave a glance toward Ru still searching our surroundings for bad guys, so that he didn’t see the dirty look she gave him. I think she was referring to his new hair color, and not just their missing triplet.
“Are you fit for duty tonight?” Ru asked.
“What?” she asked.
“Are you fit for duty, or do you need to take the night off?” he asked, still without looking at her.
“I’m . . .” She stood a little straighter; I hadn’t even noticed her shoulders were hunched until she stopped. “I’m ready for duty if you are, little brother.”
“You taught me to always be ready for duty,” he said.
She let out a long breath and then smiled at me. It even filled her eyes, though with black eyes you have to work hard to get them to look friendly, but she suddenly managed it. “Let’s get inside so the beautification can happen in time to ogle Jean-Claude.” She didn’t say get me inside in time, but I didn’t ask her if she wanted to ogle Jean-Claude, I mean, who wouldn’t?