A beat. Then, “Excuse me?”

“Anger. You know: ire, hostility, rage, fury. You have some.”

“Oh, you have no idea. I’m angry about a lot of things.”

I leaned in, getting ready for a nice long chat. I had a wedge with this one, and she seemed willing to talk. We were going to do some digging. Hell, if she didn’t like it, she could always hang up. But I didn’t think she would, because she was the one who’d called me, and if she hung up now, then I’d just keep talking about her without her input. I loved this gig.

“Why is that?”

“This is a war,” she said. “I’m one of the few people out there who are doing something about it. Of course I’m angry!”

“A war? Isn’t that a little melodramatic? Most people will go through their whole lives and never encounter anything remotely supernatural. Or at least not recognize it. In my experience, most of this stuff prefers to stay out of sight.”

“It stays underground because it’s afraid of people like me. Not that anybody knows it.”

My own problems were temporarily forgotten, because this was interesting. Brain wheels were turning, giving me an idea. My caller wouldn’t like it. “Let me try something out on you. You’re not really angry about this so-called war you’re talking about. You’re angry because you don’t get any appreciation. Because you’re not getting enough love. Am I right?”

“What?” she spat. “That doesn’t have anything to do with it. I don’t expect anyone to hand me a medal.”

Oh, but I was just getting started. “See, I don’t think you’re as tough as you think you are. Or as tough as you work so hard to make other people think you are. I think you use violence to cover up a lot of insecurities. You have to be the biggest, baddest beast on the block. But that gets kind of lonely, doesn’t it? You don’t have a lot of friends, do you?”

“You think in this line of work I can trust anyone? You’re more naive than I thought.”

“Do you have a boyfriend?”

“As a matter of fact, I have several.” She sounded smug, bragging.

“Really? How is that working out for you?”

She actually sighed, the barest sign she’d let her guard down. “Not very well.”

“I’m sorry to hear that.”

She hadn’t called to argue with me. She’d called because she needed to vent. She needed to gush. And gush she did. “It’s so hard when you can’t count on the people close to you. They’re great guys, they really are, but I feel like they’re always judging me. Of course they are—they’re way too good for me. They deserve someone better, someone who isn’t always getting into trouble, who doesn’t have my temper. Someone prettier.”

“Whoa, hold on there, what has that got to do with anything?” I said.

“I just want people to like me. But how can I afford to be nice, doing what I do?”

I turned off the snark. “You’re a really strong woman, I can tell. You fight a lot of battles, you stand up to a lot of really bad stuff. I get that. So tell me something: why don’t you feel better about yourself? Don’t you think there’s a certain strength to be had in standing tall, in thinking you’re beautiful and acting that way? You don’t have anything to prove, right?”

“Easy for you to say—everybody loves you.” She sniffed. Now I wanted to feed her chocolate and give her a big hug.

“Honey, some days I’m not too sure about that. But ever onward, I say. I gotta tell you, I think we’re a little out of my league here and I’m really not qualified to offer you guidance. Have you thought about getting counseling?”

She huffed, and whatever moment of honesty and openness had passed. The defenses slammed back into place. “Counseling? I don’t need help. I’m not weak.” She clicked off.

I sighed. “Alrighty, then. Public service announcement here: there’s no shame in getting help. Really. Honest. We’re all in this together, and life is a little easier when we act like it. Well, it looks like we’re out of time. Alas. Now, for next week I’m trying to dig up information on a vampire-only beauty pageant held in New York City last month. Apparently it was all very hush-hush and no one’s talking about it. But I’m bound and determined to bring the winner of that pageant on the show for an interview. Join me for the next exciting Midnight Hour. This is Kitty Norville, voice of the night.”

Two weeks later, I was set to go.

Ben and I stayed awake for a long time the night before I had to fly to Montana. I was still contemplating backing out of the whole thing. If he’d told me right then that he didn’t want me to go, I’d have called it off and stayed, just for him.

But we were both trying to pretend that neither of us was that needy.

We’d made love, then made love again, and now lay sweaty and tired, arms around each other. I absently ran my fingers through his hair—scruffy and tangled no matter how much I combed it and smoothed it. It was amazing how long I could focus on his hair. I was comfortable, with his arms around my middle holding me to him like I was a giant pillow. His face nuzzled at my neck, moving along the skin, around my ear, into my hair, as he breathed deeply all the while. Like he was trying to memorize my scent.

“I can’t smell that good,” I whispered.

“Yes, you can,” he whispered back. “I’m not going to wash the sheets ’til you get back.”

I pulled away so I could look at him, and so he could see my goofy smile. “That’s so romantic.”

“It is? I was thinking it was another one of those creepy things that only a lycanthrope would say.”

“That, too,” I said. “Maybe I can get myself voted off the island early.”

“Hmm, cool.”

We kissed again, and again, and again.

Chapter 3

When Joey Provost said the mountain lodge where the show was being filmed was in the middle of nowhere, he wasn’t kidding. I arrived at the Great Falls airport, then had to wait for another, smaller airplane that would take us to the site. The lodge was accessible only via aircraft or a long, hard hike. Was it bad that I kept thinking, limited escape routes?

“Kitty! You’re here!” a female voice squealed when I entered the tiny waiting area at the far end of the concourse, and a minute later Tina McCannon had her arms around me.