by Melissa Marr
“Newly infected, aren’t you?” I muttered.
“Reborn,” the woman said. “He was reborn during your lifetime.”
“Potato, pa-tah-to.” I didn’t lift my sword or my gun.
Her gaze was still fixed on me, and I realized that her fangs were retracted. There was nothing but control in her form and face. Her voice was steady, and she gazed upon me with the surety that she had no reason to fear. I’d never met a draugr as old as her. If she wanted to kill everyone in the bar, we would die.
I still said, “Exit now, or we’ll need to call the body bus.”
The woman pressed her lips together. She looked around, and I resisted the amateurish impulse to see where her gaze fell. Watch the scary lady. Eli could tell me later what she’d been studying.
When her attention re-settled on me, she said, “I knew your father, Geneviève.”
“Cool. That makes one of us.” I pasted a smile on my face.
Two of the draugr laughed. Lucky me. I was amusing to corpses. It wasn’t exactly a life goal, but to be honest, I wasn’t sure what my goals were. Don’t die? Don’t wake up a walking corpse? It was more of an un-list than a to-do list. I really ought to have a bucket list that contained things other than “don’t kick the bucket.”
“You’re special, Geneviève,” the dead woman said. “A hy--”
“No.” My sword raising ended her words. “I am a witch, one who very much dislikes dead things.”
“We can speak about your heritage here, or we can sit down like civilized women and address it later. We will address it,” the woman said in a tone very much like an order.
I really disliked orders.
“Not here. Not now.” I didn’t add “not later” aloud although I had exactly zero interest in talking to her later either. I had a lousy temper, and chatting with something old enough to kill me with her elegant pinky finger wasn’t a great plan.
“We shall plan a luncheon,” the dead lady said. “I will answer your questions, and you will not attack me.”
One of her corpse guards moved forward, and I was left in the unenviable position of deciding how much I wanted to expose myself and how much I wanted to avoid being touched. Most of the people in the bar weren’t looking at me. Fear blurred recall anyhow, so I could explain away my speed.
I opted for expediency, and raised my gun.
“We did not inject those people, Geneviève,” she said. “I wanted to tell you myself, so you would understand the seriousness of it. I’ve watched you and respected your work from afar, but I require your aid directly.”
“What?”
“I am hiring you. Several of my subjects were kidnapped. Milked like serpents.” The draugr woman sounded increasingly agitated. “And left to starve to death. Do you have any idea what they must have suffered?”
I swallowed. It sounded awful. I could admit that. Mildly, I said, “My kills are always clean.”
She nodded. “Yes. I do find your work for us helpful, Geneviève. I would gladly compensate you for it, but I was worried that you’d be affronted.”
I faltered at that. “What?”
“Pay? Donate?” The draugr woman frowned. “Be your patron? What is the word?”
“For . . .”
“Cleaning up the troublesome ones.” She smiled, showing blood-stained teeth. “You are a most effective bougie-man.” She paused, frowned again at the shortened version of bourgeois. “Not bougie. Booger-man? You are a good threat.”
I gaped at her, truly at a loss in that moment. Bougie? Booger? I was neither bourgeois or snot. I shouldn’t be amused by a corpse attempting slang either. I killed her kind, had lopped off a draugr’s hand a few moments ago. Now she was offering to pay me.
“I am called Beatrice,” she pronounced. “When you have knowledge of this problem, speak my name, and they shall find me. You may not consider yourself my subject, but you are of me and I am your ally in this. I’ve brought you a gift as a token of my regard.”
“Subject?” I echoed. “Gift?”
I was fairly sure I didn’t want to ask the question at the tip of my tongue. Still, I needed confirmation. “What are you? Who?”
“Don’t be daft, Geneviève. For now, however, you may simply consider me your patron.” She looked at me with a vaguely amused look and withdrew an envelope which she tossed to me.
I let it fall to the floor. My hands were occupied with weapons. “My . . . patron.”
Then the woman, Beatrice, ripped the head off the woman, the draugr prisoner. “Marie Chevalier. She was let loose after an unwilling transformation. Injected.”
Beatrice dropped the head next to the corpse’s body and said to the remaining draugr, “Guard my exit. Do not injure her even if she strikes you.”
I felt more than saw Beatrice flow. She was there, and then gone. The ease of her exit was like a gentle ocean current, and with it, I felt an underlying certainty that she could shift that gentle ripple into the edge of a storm. I’d once thought that the corpse that impregnated my mother was old. He was an infant next to Beatrice.
The young corpses stayed for a moment, and then turned to walk away once she was a few blocks away. I felt her pause and send a pulse of energy toward me, an energy I’d thought of as solely my maternal heritage.
And then I was standing alone in the doorway with a sword in my hand and a lot of questions in my mind.
I called dispatch. “No human injuries.” I paused. “Marie Chevalier. Recent walker. Killed a security guard at Cypress Grove a couple nights ago. I didn’t kill her.”
I disconnected. Honestly, I wasn’t sure what to say. Dead lady brought me a gift? My surprise patron saint beheaded another draugr for me? I grabbed the envelope Beatrice had tossed to me, and then I stood clutching my phone.
When my phone buzzed, I stared at it and then at Eli. It rang. Buzzed again. Patrons in the bar were freaking out in general, and I heard Eli’s staff going around verifying that no pictures had been taken. Honestly, I couldn’t process the events of the last few moments.
I walked toward my friends.
“Cupcake?” Eli prompted.
A message from Tres appeared. Associate dead. At morgue in 15 min. Injection. Come?
“Geneviève?”
I held up a hand to Eli. I needed to process the mystery of Beatrice, but right now, I’d have to hold off on that.
In his recent message, Tres was all business, but I scrolled to see the other texts he’d sent. One per day. Friendly, slightly flirty, and then simply, “Grab a drink?”
I lifted my gaze to Eli. I hated to admit it, but Tres’ reaction to me was a bit beyond weird. I had no information for him. I didn’t know him.
“Tres texted. Again.”
“Twice in one day?” Eli said. “Do you not find it . . . strange?”
“Who’s Tres?” Sera asked.
“Son of a dead man,” Eli said.
“Client.” I stared at Eli and added, “I’m meeting him tomorrow.”
“Geneviève,” Eli started.
And part of me thought I was making a mistake. There was something off. “Donkey balls.”
Sera met my gaze. “Eli worrying for a reason?”
“I don’t know. I just . . . wanted to help him, but . . .”
“He’s fixating on Geneviève,” Eli said.
“Shit crackers.” I sighed and nodded. “First situation first. . . The dead chick back there says their kind aren’t injecting anyone. She paid me.” I motioned to the money I’d dropped on the table. I wasn’t going to leave a thick bundle of cash on the floor either.
Eli pocketed it. “I will handle this.”
“Police will come by for . . .” I gestured at the body.
Eli nodded.
I glanced over as one of the bartenders spread a sheet over the remains.
Honestly, I should’ve done that, but I wasn’t sure what to do. Being hired by the same kind of thing I killed was weird as fuck. How was Mrs. Chevalier con
nected? To Chaddock? Why inject people with venom? I glanced back toward the door. One weird thing at a time, or maybe the same weird thing. Either way, I needed to deal with the next dilemma on the list.
“Tres texted about another body with an injection site,” I said.
Eli glanced at Christy. He withdrew the same folded stack of cash that she had handed him from pool hustling before the draugr arrived. He extended it to her. “Mind the bar?”
She nodded and took the cash.
Even though I knew better, I started, “I could handle it—”
“Do. Not.” Eli snapped. “You know something is peculiar here, and I accompany you for work.”
I hesitated. Texted Jesse: “Job thing came up. S and C at bar. Come to them?” I paused, sighed, and added, “Eli with me.”
“Be right there,” Jesse texted back.
I held my gun out to Sera, butt first, and said, “It’s loaded with my special bullets.”
Both of them opened bags and pulled out their own guns. Christy said, “We’re good. Keep your gun.”
I wasn’t quite ready to confront my feelings about my draugr encounter. I was equally unable to address my feelings about Eli. And I hated to admit that Tres wasn’t the only one acting strangely. I had a nagging urge to help him, see him, rescue him. It made no sense. Why was everything so complicated? I walked to the passenger door of Eli’s car. He was there, opening it, treating me the way he always did.
When he got in, I said, “You confuse me.”
“You infuriate me,” he replied in the same tone.
I sighed as he steered us into traffic. New Orleans, like anywhere at night, had traffic that was wretched at the best of times. Almost no one walked in the dark.
“What?” I asked.
“Your guilt is unnatural.”
I stared out the window. “I know.”
“I want to help, but you push me away.”
“I cannot—"
“Will not,” he interjected. “You will not let me in. Nothing and no one is stopping you. You, Geneviève, are making this choice for me. You decided I couldn’t handle it. My opinion doesn’t factor into the decision. Only yours.”
“So, I should do what? Risk our friendship? Use you until there are too many feelings? Should I be with you knowing it will hurt you eventually?”
Eli glanced at me. “Yes.”
I wanted to hit him. I knew better. Punching someone because they pissed you off was shitty. Doing it while he was driving was even stupider.
“Go enjoy your boy toys, and in the end, you’ll see that I could have been here all along. The fae are not so . . . narrow. I do not begrudge you the flings you need to find peace.”
“Liar.”
He drove in silence for several minutes. “I do not lie to you.”
My anger bubbled inside me. I knew the fae didn’t lie.
So, when he pulled into the morgue parking lot and put on his gloves, I decided to test my theories. He opened my door. I stepped out, but instead of taking his steadying hand, I wrapped my arms around him. He didn’t resist as I turned him so my back was to the half-lit lot.
I shoved him a bit forcefully into the side of his car and took a wrist in each hand, squeezed them, and held him in place. Electric surges, magic that grew between us like sparks before an inferno, threatened to overwhelm me. I didn’t retreat.
When Eli opened his mouth to speak, I kissed him.
And he didn’t refuse me. He parted his lips and let me have control. I gave him none of the affection he deserved. No kindness. No soft touches. No words of regard. I told myself he was no different than a stranger in a bar.
But he tasted like honeysuckle wine, and I wanted more. It wasn’t Eli who couldn’t handle what we could be. It was me. I wanted Eli. Even in the moment, I couldn’t tell myself he was anyone else. I wanted him. No one else.
My body pressed into him, toe to hip. We were sealed tightly together. I felt his muscles hard against me, and the realization that he might be able to overpower me made me moan a little. So few people could overcome me physically with my fucked-up ancestry. Eli could. If he knew I wanted that, he would.
And he wouldn’t judge me for it.
My hand slid into his silken hair, clutching to be sure he wouldn’t escape.
No mercy.
My magic was the only thing I kept in check.
I felt his body respond, so I hitched my leg up, pressing closer to his obvious arousal. He made a noise that eroded a little more of my self-control. I tried to pretend he was not Eli. I tried to pretend we didn’t fit. I was simply proving a point. I was using him. He was just a body, replaceable, meaningless. I wasn’t emotional.
Eli might not lie, but in this, I was. Eli mattered to me. I knew that, and now that we were hip-to-hip and mouth-to-mouth, I also knew that the chemistry we had was extreme.
I was . . . so very fucked.
Nothing had felt as natural as kissing Eli. I kept my eyes closed, but I could smell the unique scent of Eli, taste him, and my body was awash in need that was more than simply sexual. It made me pause.
As soon as I felt his arms lift, his hands grip my hips to hold me to him, I tried to step away. I managed to pull back enough to stare at him. He looked as shaken as I felt.
“Still right here, peach,” he said lightly. His grip tightened, and he bit my throat gently, kissed my neck, and whispered into my ear, “I’m still here. Trust me. Trust this.”
Casually, or at least as casual as I could be, I said, “If I can’t use my magic, and you can’t leave your hands where I put them, it wouldn’t work, so stop pretending it could.”
I stepped away, and he let go. I wanted to prove that he couldn’t accept being used, that he’d demand more, that he wouldn’t give me that kind of control. So, I turned and walked away from the pretty little blue sports car and the gorgeous man leaning against it.
Honestly, I needed distance or I wouldn’t stop touching him—and he needed not to know that. My attempt to prove that he wouldn’t settle as he claimed he would was far from well-advised. If I hadn’t retreated, I’d have shoved him onto the hood of the car and made a spectacular and very public mistake.
That was the secret I’d kept from him—and myself. I might not do relationships or feelings, but I was already there. If I went any closer, I’d break at least one of our hearts. I’d spent so long claiming I was protecting him, but the reality was that letting Eli into my heart or my bed would destroy me in the end.
I was three steps away when he answered, “If you don’t trust my control, I suppose you’ll need to use handcuffs then.”
Chapter Seventeen
My pace quickened as I walked across the dark and light patches of the parking lot without replying to Eli. I was not running. Clearly. I was simply walking quickly. And what was there to say to that? The image of Eli handcuffed to my bed was enough to short-circuit my already lust-soaked brain. Eli wasn’t the one to finally kiss me, despite the fact that I’d granted him a kiss in a bargain. He’d kept his word. He didn’t cross the lines I’d drawn. That was all on me.
And now my lips tasted of honeysuckle wine. His kiss was on my lips like a lingering drink of liquor. I licked my lips, trying to drink the last drops of his kiss.
A moment later, Eli was at my back as I walked. He hummed to himself, as if we were out for a walk at the park instead of going to see a corpse. A guilty whisper in my mind reminded me that I ought to have a little more respect for the dead. This wasn’t a date. Nice girls don’t go to the morgue on their dates.
Or practically dry hump their friends in parking lots.
Of course, if I was a nice girl, a lot of things in my life would be different. I was who I was, and for the most part, I was fine with it. No walk of shame here. Not now, not ever. I straightened my shoulders and strolled across the badly rippled and cracked asphalt. I kept my lazy saunter up until I was at the side entrance to the morgue.
Three men in suits waited at t
he door like rumpled male Fates who weren’t sure which of them had the scissors. Two of the three looked confused and wary as I approached. The third, Tres, looked at me in hope.
“Miss Crowe,” he said warmly. “I was starting to think you hadn’t received my messages.”
I nodded and cleared my throat. “I had work to handle.”
“Are we still meeting tomorrow?” Tres asked as his gaze raked over me.
I squirmed, wondering what exactly the three men had seen. I wasn’t embarrassed, but it was a bit unprofessional to stop and maul my associate as I had. Perhaps, though, it was no worse than planning to meet my client for reasons that had nothing to do with the case.
“Shall we continue?” Eli said from behind me.
My body heard that question differently than the people with us, and I repressed a shiver of need.
“Lead the way, Mr. Chaddock,” I said as I motioned to the building. The door itself was atypical for the city—it appeared to be a basement floor entry. The illusion was a result of the way the asphalt was built up in the front of the building. There were no deep basements in a city prone to floods, but the morgue was in a new building with architectural oddities, so the men had descended several steps. In the mini stairwell, they were tucked in where they were reasonably secure, illuminated by the greenish light over the thick steel door. It was foolish to be outside in the dark.
“Why aren’t you inside?” I asked.
Tres smiled, and it looked a little creeptastic. Then he sobered and said, “I just arrived, and when I saw the car, I waited for you. That is quite a memorable vehicle.”
“Mr. Chaddock.” Eli stepped forward, ignoring the flattering remark on his car. “Thank you for letting us know about the latest development.”
His professional-sounding voice reminded me that this was a work call. My body might feel half-high on the honeysuckle kiss I just had, but . . . I paused, glanced at Eli, and realized that I did feel off. This wasn’t the place to address it, but I would need to address it later. A warm glow had eased over the edges of my usual attitude. I felt calmer, languid, as if I’d been soaked in hot honey until every muscle was loose.
