I couldn’t help smiling—and it was stupid. There was a strange vampire in town, and my own hasty words meant that we had to go confront him or her. But Adam wanted me with him on an adventure.

“I’m coming,” I said. I glanced at the clock. Six hours of sleep was plenty.

6

Adam put on one of the suits he had for work, power suits designed to let people know who was in charge. That they looked spectacular on him was a bonus for me and a matter of indifference, if not embarrassment, for him. I’d chosen this one, so the colors were right—steel gray with faint chocolate stripes that brought out his eyes. The tie he wore with it was the same chocolate brown. He might not care about looking pretty, but he did care about the impression of power he made.

People who were impressed by him were not so likely to try to screw him over, in business or with fang and claw. He enjoyed fighting, though I didn’t think he’d ever admit it to anyone else. What he didn’t like was the way fights could spill over onto the people he was responsible for: the people, human and other, who worked for his security company as well as the pack. He preferred to stop trouble before it happened when he could—thus, the suits.

After some serious consideration, I put on a blue silk blouse, a pair of black slacks, and shoes I could run in. Next to Adam, I didn’t look underdressed, precisely—I looked like his assistant. But that was okay. Adam and I worked best together when he took point and I faded into the background. It suited our personalities. Adam was a “what you see is what you get” kind of guy, but I was happy to be sneaky.

We pulled into the Marriott parking lot, and I looked up at the balconies and sliding glass doors outside each room. The sky was still dark, but it wouldn’t be in an hour.

“Unusual hotel for a vampire,” I murmured as I got out of the car. The Marriott was covered with huge windows. Not that there was much choice; the Tri-Cities had mostly grown up during and after the Second World War, when the old hotels of small-windowed rooms, chandeliers, and ballrooms had given in to the practicality of the motel, efficient and graceless—with lots and lots of windows. Still, it seemed to me that the Marriott was awfully light and airy for a vampire to feel comfortable with.