Deal With the Devil Read online

  “Your favorite—black forest triple fudge volcano cake,” she said promptly. And though the thought of getting together with my dysfunctional family to celebrate an event that had brought me nothing but pain was off-putting, the cake tipped me over the edge as she’d no doubt known it would.

  “Well…” I hesitated.

  “What time should we expect you, dear? Would seven be too early?”

  “No, I guess not,” I said, resigned to going. Then I had another thought—more about me had changed recently than my status as a non-shifter. “Uh, Mom, you ought to be aware that things are different with me now,” I said, trying to think how I could tell her I was no longer a virgin without actually coming out and saying it.

  “Of course they are, dear. You’re a full-fledged were now and Daddy and I couldn’t be prouder.”

  “No, Mom, that isn’t what I meant.” I sighed. “You know I’m still single and I’m not, uh, currently seeing anyone. But I was seeing someone a while back and I’m not actually…we didn’t always sleep in different rooms. Do you know what I mean?”

  “Oh dear…” For a minute Mom sounded genuinely distressed. Aside from the fateful night of Engle’s ascension to pack master when she’d basically told me to suck it up and take one for the team, she’d always been extremely prudish about sex.

  “Come on, Mom,” I said, trying to sound reasonable. “I’m twenty-seven. It had to happen eventually.”

  “Well…I suppose so. Although your father might be upset.”

  “Hey, I don’t have to come if it’s going to be a problem,” I said, sensing a possible escape route. The more I thought about it, the less appealing sitting down to dinner with my entire family, all of whom knew I was no longer a virgin, seemed. But Mom was quick to squash my attempted escape.

  “No, no—you’re still our daughter no matter what you’ve done,” she said, sounding even more prim and proper.

  So I’m a bad daughter because I waited until my own good time and found a man I cared about instead of giving it up when I was still practically a child to the man you and Daddy picked to rape me? Is that it? It was on the tip of my tongue to say that or something like it but, as always, I kept my accusations and bitterness to myself. My anger was buried under so many layers of the past, so many years gone by, that it seemed impossible to bring it up now.

  I’m sure any therapist worth his or her salt would have said that I was massively repressed but the fact was, pretending that horrible night had never happened was the only way I knew how to deal with my mom and dad. Because if I did bring it out in the open it was the same as saying they didn’t love me. And though I had suspected that was true for years, hearing my parents say it out loud was more than I could bear. So I went on pretending and pretending and my mom and dad and the rest of the family all pretended right along with me.

  The only question was, now that I had told someone about my pain and faced it head-on, would I still be able to pretend? I had a feeling I was going to find out because my mom was reminding me one more time when I should be there for dinner and obviously winding up the conversation.

  “Goodbye, sweetheart. We’ll see you Thursday,” she said. “Love you.”

  “Love you, too, Mom,” I said dutifully. “See you then.”

  And that was how I found myself back in the house I’d grown up in for the first time in over a year on Thursday night. My big sister Essie greeted me at the door, her nose wrinkling as I stepped in past her.

  “A vampire? Really, Luz, couldn’t you do better than that?”

  Before I could formulate a suitably scathing reply, my mom came bustling up and took me by the arm. “Now girls, come help set the table. Daddy is outside with Frank having a cigar before dinner so we need to get everything ready before they finish.”

  My mom was about as old school as they come where serving her man was concerned so I sighed and followed her into the kitchen. But not before I’d given Essie a dirty look for being a bitch.

  Besides the fact that she had somehow gotten all of the tall genes in the family and had a perfect figure, Essie was also the favorite daughter. Worse, she knew it and wasn’t opposed to rubbing it in. I’d hated her when we were kids and somehow, despite being the only two girls, we never did bond even as we got older. Essie was deep into pack politics and seeing her man get ahead, just as my mom had always been. And I, of course, was too busy trying to make it in the human world since the were world didn’t want me. Why should I worry about which alpha had the most status and who gained or lost face during the monthly hunt when I wasn’t even a functioning member of the pack?

  The kitchen was decorated the same way it had been since I was a child—in pale sunny yellow with blond wood cabinets and cream-colored appliances. Sitting on the countertop nearest the dining room was the hugest, gooiest black forest triple fudge volcano cake I had ever seen. It really was shaped like a volcano with fudge-like molten lava running down its sides. I knew when it was cut, a cascade of dark cherries in chocolate sauce would come tumbling out of its moist crust, making even the most determined dieter beg for seconds.

  “Wow, Mom, you’ve outdone yourself.” I stopped in front of the cake, itching to sneak a fingerful of icing and knowing I wouldn’t be able to get away with it as long as Essie was in the room.

  “Well, I thought it was important to celebrate your accomplishment.” Mom smiled and turned to the stove.

  “Huh.” Essie sniffed. “Like celebrating her first steps years after she should have been walking.”

  “Now, now. It takes some of us longer than others, that’s all.” Mom nodded at the dish cabinet. “Go ahead and set the table while I get this roast on a plate, will you, girls?”

  Essie took the plates and silverware and I took the cups and napkins and for a minute I felt like I was ten again, back when everything was perfect and I had no reason to suspect my parents cared more about their standing in the pack than they did about my emotional well-being. Then Essie wrinkled her nose when I got too close to her and I was back in the here and now, setting the table for a dinner I really didn’t want to be at.

  “So seriously, Luz—a vampire? I know none of the pack was probably interested but couldn’t you at least find a human who was willing?”

  “That’s none of your fucking business,” I said pleasantly. “So how are Frank and the rugrats? Did he tell you he saw me the other night?” I was curious to know how much my alpha brother-in-law had revealed about my encounter with the pack master.

  Essie’s eyes flashed. “As a matter of fact he did. And he said you were being selfish as usual.”

  “Oh? And how was I being selfish?” I asked through gritted teeth.

  Essie stood back from the last place setting and put her hands on her hips. “You know perfectly well what I’m talking about, Luz. Pack Master Engle just wanted what was his by right.”

  “My God.” I threw up my hands. “So you’re saying I should have lain down in the dirt and let him have me right then and there?”

  “No, I’m saying you should have let him have you back when he first ascended as pack master. Do you know how much better off the family would be if you’d just—”

  “Girls, girls, what’s all this bickering?” My father walked in through the sliding glass doors, followed closely by my brother-in-law Frank. Both men smelled like they’d just been burning dirty gym socks—which is to say, you could tell they’d been smoking those stinky hand-rolled cigars Tampa is so famous for.

  “Hello, pumpkin.” Dad stooped to give Essie a fond kiss on the cheek. Then, clearly thinking that he had to treat me the same, he kissed me too—without the sweet nickname, however.

  “Hi, Dad,” I said, waiting to see if he’d blow up once he smelled my new, vampire-altered scent—if he could smell it over his own secondhand smoke, that was. But his nose barely even twitched. Maybe that was the reason for the cigars in the first place.

  “It’s good to have you here, Luz,” he said stiffly. “Yo