She smiled politely at Claire and held out a slender hand. Claire took it and shook. Naomi's felt cool and strong.
"Uh . . . it's nice to see you," Claire said, which was kind of a lie, because it was unsettling to see any vampire show up at your back door. "What can I do for you?"
"May we sit?" Naomi indicated the kitchen table with a very elegant gesture, and Claire couldn't shake the idea that this girl - not much older physically than she herself was now - had grown up in a time when elegance and perfect manners were survival tools, especially for girls. Especially for royal girls.
"Sure," Claire said, instantly marking herself as part of the unwashed rabble, definitely not throne-worthy, but she tried to sit down with at least a little bit of grace. "Can I get you any - well, anything?" They had a little extra type A in the refrigerator, not that it was Claire's to offer, but she didn't think Michael would mind. Then again, she felt weird about offering blood as if it were a cup of tea. There were limits to being social.
"I thank you, it is most generous of you, but no, I am not hungry," Naomi said. The way she sat, straight-backed and yet somehow perfectly at ease, made Claire feel sweaty and round-shouldered. "I am very pleased to see you again. I am told you are doing very well in your studies." Her polite smile deepened a little, bringing out charming little dimples. "And that sounds as if I'm your terribly ancient maiden aunt. I am sorry. This is awkward, is it not?"
"A little bit," Claire said, and couldn't help but smile back. Naomi felt like a real person to her - someone who had lived a real life, and still remembered what it was like to have human feelings. "Things are going okay; thanks for asking. And you - how's your sister?" She scrambled to remember the name, some kind of flower. . . . " Violet?"
"I am gratified you remember. Violet is fine. She's taken up the opportunities Morganville presents with an alarming amount of enthusiasm. She's painting now." Naomi rolled her eyes. "She's not very good, but she's very determined. It always irked her when we were children that she was forbidden to do anything but ladylike watercolors. Every time I see her these days, she looks as if she's fallen face-first onto a paint palette."
"When we met before, you said - I think you said you were Amelie's sisters?" Meaning sisters to the town's vampire Founder, Amelie the all-powerful. Claire, looking at Naomi, could believe it; there was something about the way she held her head, the posture, even the glossy, pale hair.
So she was a little surprised when Naomi shook her head. "Oh, no, we are not sisters in the sense that we were born in the same family," she said. "Sisters in our second birth, if you will. We are both of the same generation turned by Bishop, and there are not so many of us left, so by tradition we look on each other as family. Violet is my true sister of my mortal life. Amelie is our sister of immortal life. I know it's a bit confusing."
"Oh." Claire wasn't very clear about the vampire concept of family.... Apparently they traced it through who had made them vampires in the first place, so Bishop had a lot of kids, some of whom were what Claire considered good - like Amelie - and most of whom were definitely not. It mattered, but Claire wasn't really sure how much, or how it ranked against a human family relationship. Not enough to keep them from occasionally killing one another, but then, the same could be said for natural-born siblings. "I just wondered."
"At the time I met you, I wasn't used to speaking with mortals. It had been a very long time, and we were still . . . not as well as we could have been. But we're much better now." Naomi showed a full smile, and it was just a tiny bit unsettling. My, what big teeth you have, Claire thought. Not that Naomi had done anything wrong, not at all. She didn't even show a hint of fang. "So of course, I first want to apologize for any possible discomfort I might have caused you during our initial meeting. None was intended, believe me."
That was, in terms of what had gone on in Claire's life, a really long time ago, and it struck her as oddly funny. She tried not to let it show. "No, really, it was fine. I'm fine."
"Ah, you relieve me." Naomi settled back in her chair, as if she really was relieved, which Claire sincerely doubted. "Now that I'm reassured on that point, I can proceed to my second. I came to pay a call on my youngest relative."
Again, Claire went blank. "Um . . . excuse me?"
"Michael," Naomi said. There was something that turned warm and even sweeter in her voice when she mentioned Michael's name, and that wasn't vampire at all.... That was something Claire understood completely. "I have been missing him."
It was purely a girl-appreciating-a-hottie reaction.
And just like that, it all became crystal clear for Claire. There was, after all, a hidden vampire angle to what was going on with Eve and Michael.... He must have been seeing Naomi. On the side. Without telling anyone, or at least not discussing it in front of Claire and Shane, and Claire was pretty sure that Eve wouldn't have been just Oh, fine about it if she'd really known.
The pretty blond reason for Michael's erratic behavior was sitting across the table and smiling at her.
Claire stood up, all in one rushed motion. "I'll go get him," she said. She knew it sounded rude, and saw surprise on Naomi's face, but she didn't care, not at all. "Stay here." And that was probably even ruder, that somebody with royal whatever blood was being told to stay in the kitchen like the help. Good.
Claire burst through the kitchen door. She must have interrupted some intense guy talk, because both Michael and Shane stopped talking and straightened up the way people did when they felt guilty. Michael hushed his guitar strings with a flat palm.
"You have a visitor," Claire said. She spat the words out flat and hard, straight at Michael, and she thought he must have been able to hear how fast her heart was beating. Maybe her face was red. It should have been; she felt hot all over. "It's Naomi."
If she'd had any doubts at all about it, the sight of his face when she said the name erased them. That was the most shocked, caught-red-handed expression she'd ever seen, and God, in that moment she hated him.
Shane looked over at his best friend, but by the time he did, Michael had managed to wipe away all guilt from his expression and just look curious. "Oh," he said, and stood up, leaning his guitar against the arm of the chair. It seemed to her to be not just careful, but too careful, as if he was afraid to be seen rushing. As if he felt he had to slow down and make sure he didn't make mistakes. "Of course. Thanks, Claire."
She glared at him, and avoided him as he went past her toward the kitchen. She headed straight for the steps, prepared to run all the way up, but Shane's voice stopped her. "Hey," he said, keeping it low. "What the hell?"
"You go ask. You're always telling me not to try to analyze," she said, and went up, wondering if she should tell Eve, wondering if that would lead to the ultimate Glass House apocalypse. She didn't, only because she heard the shower running. Eve tended to shower when she got unhappy. There wouldn't be any hot water for anybody else, not for a while.
Claire passed up the bathroom, closed and locked her door, put her headphones on, and blocked out the world with the loudest, saddest music she could stand.
Oh, Michael, how could you?
If the knowledge hurt her, how awful was it going to be for Eve?
Chapter Two
CLAIRE
Claire expected a blowup - daily - of the Michael/Eve relationship; Eve didn't mention Naomi, and neither did Michael, and the tension kept spinning up inside of Claire like twisting rubber bands.
Shane hadn't said much about Naomi's visit, either, though Claire could tell it troubled him. When Claire had tried to talk about it, he'd gone back to his old refrain. Ask Michael. Yeah, right, like she was going to get in his face and ask, when she already knew.
He also said stay out of it. And that was probably good advice. But Claire couldn't just see this all heading for the cliff and not at least try to turn the wheel. It might be wrong, it might be messy and crazy and a very bad idea, but she had to do it.
So she took Eve out for an ice-cream soda at Marjo's Diner, which Eve happily accepted, because there were no better ice-cream sodas available in the known universe, and Eve never turned down something ice-cream based. It was, Claire thought, a good thing Eve ran on so much nervous energy, with all that sugar craving.