Rachel Caine: Midnight Alley

"Issued — who issued you a car?" He shot her a you're not stupid look. "The town? Amelie?"

He didn't answer directly as he slid the filter compartment shut and turned on the brew switch. The machine began wheezing and peeing into the pot. "They tell me it's standard procedure," he said. "For new vampires."

"Not there have been any for fifty years, right?"

He shrugged. It was obvious that she was making him uncomfortable with the questions, but Claire couldn't help herself. "Michael —did they get you the job, too?"

"No. I know JT. I got the job all by myself. They offered — " He stopped, clearly thinking he'd already said too much.

Claire finished it out, guessing. "They offered you some kind of job in the vampire community. Right? Or — " Oh, God. "Or they offered to make you a Protector?"

"Not right off the bat," he said, still staring at the coffee maker. "You have to work up to that. So they say."

Michael. Owning people. Skimming off of their wages like some Mafia don. She tried not to let him see how sick that idea made her feel, that he'd ever really consider doing it.

His eyes suddenly cut toward her, as if he'd read her mind. "I didn't do it. I took the job at JT's, Claire," Michael said, and suddenly moved toward her. She flinched, and he took a deep breath and held out his hand in clear apology. "Sorry. I forget sometimes — it's hard, okay, learning how to move around people when I can go so much faster. But I wouldn't hurt you, Claire. No way."

"Shane thinks — "

Light caught and flared in Michael's eyes, eerie and frightening, and then he blinked and it was gone. He obviously made a real effort to keep his voice quiet. "Shane's wrong," he said. "I'm not changing, Claire. I'm still your friend. I'll look after you. All of you. Even Shane."

She didn't answer him. Truthfully, as much as she liked him — and it verged on love — she felt something different about him today. Something complicated and agitated and strange.

Was he ... hungry? He was staring at her. No, he was staring at the thin skin of her neck, wasn't he? Claire put her hand to it, involuntary but irresistible, and Michael got a very slight pink flush in his pale cheeks and looked away.

"I wouldn't," he said, in a far different tone than before. It almost sounded scared to her. "I wouldn't, Claire. You have to believe me. But — this is hard. It's so hard."

She did believe him, mostly because she could hear all the heartbreak and sorrow in his voice. She took a breath, stepped forward, and hugged him. He was tall, the top of her head only brushed his chin. His arms felt strong and comforting, and she told herself that he wasn't warm because it was chilly in the kitchen. It wasn't really true, but that helped.

"I wouldn't hurt you," he murmured. "But I've got to admit, I want to. I spent all my life hating vampires, and now — now look at me."

"You had to," Claire said. "You didn't have a choice."

She felt his sigh go through both of them. "Yeah," he said, "Shane's right, I did have a choice. But this is the choice I made, and now I have to live with it."

He let go when she stepped back. Neither of them knew what to say, so Claire busied herself by opening kitchen cabinets to get down the four mismatched cups they used in the morning. Michael's was plain chunky stoneware, oversized, like a diner cup on steroids. Eve's was a petite black thing with a yawning cartoon vampire on it. Shane's had a happy face with a bloody bullet hole in the center of its forehead. Claire had taken one with Goofy and Mickey on it.

"How's school?" Michael asked. Neutral subjects. He didn't want to talk it out, he wanted to keep it inside. She wasn't too surprised. Michael had always been too self-contained for his own good, as far as she could tell.

"Too easy," she sighed, and poured coffee.

They were sitting down and sipping from their mugs when the kitchen door opened, and Shane — wearing pajama bottoms and a ratty old faded t-shirt — came into the kitchen. He avoided Michael, picked up his cup off the counter, and filled it to the brim. He left without a word.

Michael watched him go, face set and hard.

Claire felt the need to apologize. "He's just — "

"I know," Michael said. "Believe me. I know exactly how Shane is. Doesn't mean I have to like it right now."

###

I really need to stop being the Glass Goodwill Ambassador, Claire thought, but she knew she'd keep on doing it. Somebody had to, after all. So after she'd finished her coffee, she went to talk to Shane.

Shane's door was unlocked and slightly open. Claire pushed it and stepped inside, then stopped short. All her carefully prepared speeches flew right out of her head, because Shane was getting dressed.

The sight of him short-circuited her thought processes and completely grounded her better judgment. He'd already hauled on his blue jeans, and his back was to her. No shirt yet. She was spellbound by the ripples of muscles on his back, the gorgeous smoothness of his skin, the way his shaggy hair brushed the tops of his shoulders and begged to be smoothed back ...

The sound of his zipper being pulled up snapped her back to sanity. She stepped hastily back, out into the hall, and pulled the door almost shut, then knocked.

"What?" It wasn't a friendly response.

"It's me," she said. "Can I come in?"

She heard something halfway between a grunt and a sigh, and opened the door to find him dragging a dark gray, form-fitting shirt over his head. It looked very good on him. Not as good as the no-shirt thing, but she was trying hard not to think about that. It had made her warm and fluttery inside.

"Is that a new shirt?" she asked, desperate to get her mind off the vivid mental pictures that kept bubbling up. That got another indefinite grunt. "It looks nice."

Shane gave her an ironic look. "We're talking clothes now? Wait, let me get my Fashion for Dummies book."

"I — never mind. About Michael — "

"Stop." Shane stepped forward and kissed her on the forehead. "I know, you don't want me ripping him, but I can't help it. Give me some time, okay? I need to figure some things out."

Claire tipped her head back, and this time he found her lips. It was, she thought, supposed to be a fast and sweet little kiss, but somehow it slowed down, got warmer and deeper. His lips were damp and soft as silk, and that was such a contrast to the hard lines of his body pressed against her. The strength of his hands sliding around her waist and pulling her even closer. She heard him growl low in his throat, a wild and hungry sound that made her go weak and faint.

He broke the kiss and leaned against her, breathing hard. "Good morning to you too. Man, I just can't stay mad when you do that."

"Do what?" she asked innocently. She didn't feel innocent. She also didn't feel sixteen-nearly-seventeen, not at all. Shane always made her feel older. Much older. Ready for anything. It was a good thing Shane wasn't as dumb as her hormones seemed to be.

"Unless you want to stay home and cut class, we don't really have time to talk about it," he said, and waggled his eyebrows. "So. Wanna cut class and make out?"

She socked him on the arm. "No."

"You are such a strange girl. Ow," he said, in the way that meant he hadn't felt it at all. "You riding with Eve?"

"When she passes the snarling cannibal phase, yeah. Another two cups of coffee, probably."

"You sure you don't want a bodyguard?" He meant it. Shane didn't have a job — she wasn't really sure he could get one, after what his dad had been up to in Morganville recently. Probably better he kept it low-profile for a while. The fewer vampires — and vampire loyalists — he came in contact with right now, the better. He was still thought of as an unindicted co-conspirator to his dad's revenge rampage, and even though the Mayor had officially signed his pardon, nobody had much liked it.