MaryJanice Davidson: Dead Over Heels

“Says the woman with biceps and a buzz cut.”

“And a C cup.”

“That’s true,” Saul said thoughtfully, glancing at her tits. “I forgot about that.”

“Well, mention it to the next blind date.”

He groaned. “I can’t believe you’re sticking with this.”

“I will not be the only one of us unmated at age thirty! You’re eight months younger, you’ve got loads more time.”

“You’re not going to see me speed dating and fending off rapists. I’m pretty sure,” he added thoughtfully. He got up. “Another beer?”

“Yeah, please. Ohhhhhhh! And the spear splits open the side of Xerxes’s mouth! That’s gotta hurt. This used to be my favorite part.”

She heard the hssst! of Saul opening two more bottles. “Used to be?” he called from the kitchen.

“Now my favorite part is when the queen kills the traitor. He did pretty much rape her. Although she was an idiot to put herself—”

“Careful,” Saul warned.

She shut up. Who was she to judge the queen’s actions after what had happened last night? Saul was right, as usual.

“Why, why couldn’t the spear have gone three inches to the right? Killed him dead on the spot. Although,” she admitted, “that was a helluva throw. What is he, two hundred yards away? I don’t know if I could have made that throw.”

She heard Saul walk toward the back of the house—probably headed for the bathroom to get rid of some beer—and stopped with the commentary.

The phone rang, and rang again. So she picked it up in time to hear Saul answer. “Hello?”

“Yeah, it’s me, Darrell. Listen, I heard your friend has an STD, is that true?”

“Totally true,” Saul assured him. Cain felt her mouth pop open in shock and instantly abandoned her plan to hang up.

“But . . . she’s Pack, right? We don’t catch stuff like that.”

“It’s a really nasty one. Trust me, you don’t want to go anywhere near her. Things will drop off of you, I’m not kidding.”

“Thanks for the heads up. I’m sure she’s a nice girl and all, but who needs that shit?”

“Do me a favor,” Saul the unbelievably treacherous bastard said, “and spread the word.”

“Okay. Speaking of spreading the word, one of us is in the hospital—that Geoff guy?”

“Oh?” Saul asked coolly.

“Yeah, and he’s yelling about suing you and your pal for assault. But nobody knows what really happened because he won’t say.”

“Won’t he?”

“Yeah. I don’t suppose you want to say.”

“No,” Saul said calmly. “If he wants to roll the dice, that’s fine, but you might want to mention I haven’t explained the full details of last night to Michael yet. But I’d be happy to. Anytime. And if he needs me to explain it in person, I’ll be glad to visit him in the hospital. Anytime.”

There was a pause, then Darrell said, “Like that, huh? I heard he had a rough hand with the ladies. Somebody’s going to tear his throat out one of these days.”

“You might have warned me before I set him up with my best friend,” Saul said sharply.

“It was just a rumor. Nobody’s ever said anything to Michael. There’s no proof, only some talk once in a while.”

“That,” Saul said, “may change.”

“All right. Later, guy.”

“Good-bye.”

Saul walked back into the living room and had half a second to duck as an armchair sailed toward his head. He dodged it (barely) and it crashed into the wall behind him.

“You son of a bitch!”

“What? What? Is your beer warm?”

“This is not about the beer!” Four knickknacks arrowed toward him: a Hummel figurine, a glass unicorn, a music box, and a picture of his grandparents. Luckily, they all belonged to his late mother.

He hated glass unicorns. “And you damned well know it!”

Oh, shit.

“You, uh, heard?”

An antique end table soared through the air toward him and he sidestepped it with time to spare. Luckily, when she was pissed, her aim went to shit.

“You’re telling people I have an STD?” She looked around frantically for something else to throw.

“It’s for your own good,” he said, his own temper rising.

“My own good?” She goggled at him, and despite the tension he couldn’t help notice that her black eye had almost disappeared. Thank God. “How is scaring potential mates off for my own—oh my God. Oh my God! You. You! You deliberately set me up with losers and psychos and—and a rapist!”

“I didn’t know Geoff would do that,” he said quickly, though he was still racked with guilt, and longed to visit the hospital and take a bite out of the man’s face. “I figured you wouldn’t click because he’s so dominant. And so are you. So I figured you’d reject him, too.”

“Bastard! You’re supposed to be my friend .” She spied his keys hanging on the board, grabbed them, and threw them at him.

He snatched them out of the air and plunked them on a nearby table. “Yeah, well, maybe I’m tired of being your friend ,” he snapped.

“What? What’s that supposed to mean?”

“It means, you twit, that I’m in love with you . It means I’ve been in love with you since kindergarten.”

“What?” she gasped, almost wheezing.

“Didn’t it occur to you that there’s a reason I’m not mated yet, and it has nothing to do with our stupid pact? For Christ’s sake, Cain, we were seven when we made that pact, did you really expect them all to stick to it? Especially Michael, who has to provide heirs?”

“You—you—”

“Then you come to me asking me to fix you up?”

“But you never said! You never said!”

“I only dropped a million hints, idiot!”

“Don’t call me names, jackass!”

“Don’t expect me to help you hook up with some random jerkoff!”

“Fine!”

“Fine!”

“I’m not staying here another minute!”

“Fine!”

“Except they towed my car this morning so I need a ride!”

“Fine!” He snatched his keys off the table and stomped toward the front door. He’d imagined this scene a thousand times, but never quite like this. In his mind, she confessed she secretly loved him, too, and they ended up in bed, and he eventually knocked her up, and they lived happily ever after.

Not this—this screaming awful fight.

Fuck.

Five days later, Cain was still fuming, bewildered, and betrayed. She’d ignored Saul’s calls and e-mails. She’d watched 300 nine more times.

And over and over again she thought about dates one through seven, thought about the fact that Saul had cold-bloodedly set her up with the worst Pack members he could find, men he knew (because he knew her as no one else did) she would find repulsive.

She hadn’t thought he had it in him.

And the love thing? Ridiculous.

There was no way.

Right?

Right.

Because this was Saul . Sweet, stammering, beta Saul. Geeky, engineering, workaholic Saul.

Saul, who’d given her his teddy bear at age five when she’d accidentally (okay, maybe she’d lost her temper a little) ripped the head off hers.

Saul, who gave her his ice-cream cone when she dropped hers the summer they were six.

Saul, who had comforted her when her parents died the fall she was fourteen, as she had comforted him when his mother died a year later, rapidly followed by his father.

Saul, who listened impassively the spring she was seventeen when she told him about losing her virginity, then suggested she dump the guy.