And I didn’t plan to let her bust me. The great thing about being a raven shifter from a noble family is that I’d inherited a knack for creating illusions. Not all ravens developed the ability, just those of us from the strongest families. My ex-girlfriend’s father belonged to one of the noble British raven clans, and she’d also inherited the gift. No surprise that both of our fathers had been giddy over the idea of us marrying.
Casting those thoughts from my mind, I used magic to make myself appear to be a pigeon. Maybe it was a little demeaning, but no one ever looked twice at a pigeon. Sky would recognize my animal form at a glance, but she was still learning to break illusions. Since New Orleans wasn’t a familiar place, it was easier to blend in without her noticing something off.
It didn’t take long for my target to arrive. I knew something was wrong before Skylar even emerged from the vehicle. Carriages didn’t have interior lights, but hers glowed like it contained a bonfire. It pulled up to the curb and then the footman stepped down to open the door. Sky emerged in a burgundy cocktail dress—that was way too fucking short for dinner with a vamp and definitely not what she’d left the hotel in—and designer flats.
She also glowed from head to toe.
Sky made no effort to conceal her true self from the mortals, and no nosferatu with a lick of common sense would try to take a bite out of her now. Her radiant wings shone in shades of gold, plum, and cerulean, thin wisps curling off of them like iridescent antennae.
Aguillard stepped out next, squinting and shielding his eyes.
My girl was so bright even pureblood vampires without sun sensitivity struggled to remain within range of her light. Just when I thought I couldn’t love her more, she threw another curveball.
Aguillard escorted her inside, though I caught him suggesting she turn down her glow so as not to disturb the mortal patrons, but Sky’s reply was lost behind the closing doors.
During the first tedious hour, a variety of tapas—accompanied by a cocktail Sky wasn’t yet old enough to drink—arrived to the table. I recognized caviar, but not much else of the fancy appetizers. Aside from masago on sushi, Sky had never had caviar before, she’d told me once, and I’d hoped to introduce her myself to the glorious bites of high-quality salty goodness.
Once their server cleared the first round away, the actual meal began to arrive, which meant the pair had seven courses ahead of them. From what I picked up of the discussion by reading their lips, the asshole ordered for her. Who did that? Assholes did that. Wine was poured for them both. Then they ate with excruciating slowness, savoring every mouthful like it was ambrosia instead of an overpriced crawfish bisque and salad.
Either Sky knew I lurked nearby and was trying to prove a point or the guy was really laying the charm down thick. Twice, people had stopped by their table and requested a photo. Not that I could blame them. Most mortals visited New Orleans to catch a glimpse of a high-society vampire, but Skylar’s wings stole the show. Everyone loved a faerie.
As the waitress arrived with the next course, fried soft shell crabs, a lean raven with gleaming silver feathers landed on the post beside me. Uncle Hiroto.
I was so busted.
“Follow me,” he croaked, then took off into the sky. Left with no choice, I flew after him
He landed on the roof of an adjacent seafood restaurant and took his human form. I followed his example and sighed.
“I know, I know. I shouldn’t be following her.”
“No, you are wise to do so.”
“Then why—?”
“Aya is keeping an eye on her while we speak. We’ve had an update to the case.”
“Yeah? A new lead on Rebecca?”
Hiroto shook his head, his features pinched and worn. “Serious trouble. One of Thibodeaux’s informants gave up some valuable intel, and it led to a corpse in the bayou.”
Oh no. I braced myself, waiting to hear the worst. A senator with a vampire daughter might have gone easier on the paranormal community, but a man with a dead daughter was bound to hold a grudge the Sanguine Court didn’t need. I had vampire friends. A lot of vamp friends, and dudes like Victor were standup, awesome guys who didn’t deserve the labels asshole racists applied to them.
“Baroness Aguillard isn’t busy with sexual conquest in the tropics. Someone murdered her. Pieces of her corpse were found in a bayou not too far from New Orleans.”
“Well, shit. Pieces?”
“Ah. We managed to recover one of her hands, and it was still wearing her signet ring with the House Aguillard crest. She never took it off.”
“Could have just placed her ring on another random hand. They run prints yet?”
“Confirmed match. They’re dragging the bayou now for the rest of her, but the gators might have already claimed the remains. This changes things for us. I sent word to the Sanguine Court to notify them of the permanent loss of our baroness and that another representative will be needed immediately in her place.”
“What does that mean, exactly?”
“It means that Skylar is now dining with the new Baron of New Orleans and any moment, he’ll be made aware of that fact.”
My gaze turned to the restaurant across the street. “Just like that? He gets promoted?”
“Unless the baroness chose another to ascend, but that requires disowning her current heir. And we’d know about that. Nothing remains secret for long in vampire circles. They love the gossip too much. Lord Jacoby would be the only serious contender for the position. He’s an ass, but he’s fair and doesn’t let his personal opinions interfere with his work.”
“Oh.” Vamp society hadn’t been my field of study, though Jada could rattle off a thousand facts about them. My preference had been ghosts and hauntings—the cool, incorporeal shit that required more than strategic stake placement.
“But wait, doesn’t that make her son a suspect? I mean, he had something to gain from killing his mother.”
“It does, except her remains were pulled out of a swamp on Lord Jacoby’s property. We now have two credible suspects to investigate.”
While Skylar enjoyed an expensive dinner with a vampire baron, Uncle Hiroto and I paid a visit to Garrett Jacoby outside the city. His manor occupied the lot of a former plantation, sitting on twenty acres of private land. Two SBA vehicles parked on the circular drive. We pulled up behind them and made our way to the door.
Garrett Jacoby greeted us instead of sending a servant. He stood a few inches shorter than Hiroto and me, a slim man adorned by a combination of traditional flair and modern sophistication, contrasting some of the other nobles I’d seen who dressed like Anne Rice characters unaware of the new century. He paired his designer jeans with a bloused scarlet shirt and wore his ivory lace cravat beneath a jewel-blue waistcoat. A matching silk ribbon tied back his shoulder-length dreadlocks. Because I spent too much time checking out clothes, I recognized his gator skin loafers and coveted them on sight.
Damn. I dreamed of a day when I had fifteen hundred bucks to blow on a single pair of shoes.
“Ah, thank you so much for coming. Please, come in, come in.” He gestured with a grand sweep of his arm and ushered us inside. “I still can’t believe this has happened. I spoke with Charlotte not more than two weeks ago,” Jacoby said, a frown etching thick lines across his brow.
The interior of the place lived up to my expectations, complete with a chandelier in the foyer and a carpeted horseshoe staircase.
“This way, please.”
We veered to the left, passing through a lavish parlor and then a wide hallway, until we followed Jacoby into an office with wood paneled walls. A cool breeze blew through the opened patio doors.
“Have a seat, gentlemen. Might I pour you a drink?” He gestured to a decanter on the desk. “Ah, but wait, you are on duty. Would water suffice?”
“Nothing for me, thank you,” Hiroto said, and I mirrored his polite refusal.
“Very well then. How can I be of help in this matter?”
“Can you tell
us exactly what circumstances brought you and the baroness together the last time you saw her?”
Lord Jacoby’s eyes narrowed. “Am I under suspicion, Chief Maki?”
“Just clearing up a few matters of confusion,” Hiroto said, maintaining his poker face like a champ. “It’s important that we know the final activities of the deceased to understand when and where she went missing. So please, any information you have is vital to the success of our investigation and bringing her murderer to justice.”
“Very well. She and I met for dinner in the city and then we paid a visit to her lawyer.”
“And the reason behind this visit?”
“That is a personal matter.”
“Lord Jacoby, let me be frank,” Hiroto began. “You may very well be the last person to see the baroness alive, and now her remains have been uncovered on your property. You can imagine how this looks. So, with that in mind, does this visit to her lawyer have any bearing on her death?”
Rather than answer right away, he moved to the counter and poured himself a drink. Golden amber liquid splashed into his glass, carrying a whiff of warm, sweet and spicy brandy to my nose. While not my preferred drink, I couldn’t deny the smell was enticing and nostalgic. It made me think of Christmas.
“Charlotte was a good person. I would not be a lord if not for her. She made me what I am, and I mean that in every definition of the word. I considered her more than a friend. A sister. Perhaps even a mother.”
“I see.”
“No, you do not see. Many years ago when my ancestors fled her father’s plantation, she was the one who came and granted their freedom. I held nothing against her for the role her family played in the enslavement of mine. But she has spent decades making reparations for the barbarism of her people.”
Hiroto said nothing. A heavy silence fell over the room before Jacoby cleared his throat. “I take great offense to any implication that I may have played a part in her death.”
“I haven’t implied anything yet, Lord Jacoby. What I am doing is gathering all of the information I can to uncover the truth. Why did you and Baroness Aguillard visit a lawyer?”
Jacoby sighed. “Charlotte tired of her responsibilities. You must know this, having dealt with the fallout of her extended…absences.”
“I imagine years of cleaning up after the mistakes of others must grow tiresome, yes.”
“Not years. Decades. Centuries. She came to me a month ago and expressed a desire to step down from her authority, and she asked if I would take her place.”
“You mean she was going to pass over her son?” I asked.
“Charles is not much better than her when it comes to his interests. The pursuits of pleasure trump the rigors of responsibility. Charlotte recognized this.”
My thoughts returned to Sky, sitting across from Charles in a fancy dress. The cold claws of jealousy curled into my heart. In the few nights since our arrival to New Orleans, I hadn’t even had the chance to take her out anywhere fancy.
My weeks of preparation for her birthday dinner seemed mediocre compared to the high-end cuisine that asshole presented her at his lousy “needs a six-month wait on the reservation list” restaurant. I’d called every day for weeks to see if they had any cancellations.
I snapped back to the case at hand to catch the tail-end of Hiroto’s question.
The vamp scoffed. “Believe me, if I planned to kill Charlotte—which I’ve already said I did not—I wouldn’t be foolish enough to do it before she submitted the documents to the court.”
I removed a notepad from my back pocket. “We’ll verify that with her lawyer. Name?”
“Natalia Wallace.”
Hiroto’s brows jumped up beneath his salt and pepper hair. “A wizard?”
“Yes. Charlotte enjoyed blood-binding her legal documents for an additional level of protection. There was some trouble a time ago with forgeries and theft of signet rings.”
If Jacoby wasn’t an immortal with money, or if his victim had been human, he’d probably already be in jail. Leaning back in my seat, I studied his body language and expression. Tension filled his shoulders, and pain shrouded his amber eyes.
Did we have a talented actor on our hands or a friend in mourning?
“Did she have any enemies?”
He shook his head. “The occasional woman spurned, upset her husband offered his neck or his dick to her.”
Hiroto shifted uncomfortably. I cleared my throat and considered how to word my next question. “Did she make it a habit to sleep with men belonging to other women?”
“No. It isn’t that she preferred married men, but that many people sought her company. Do you verify the relationship status of every woman you bed? Charlotte was a…talented woman and had no shortage of lovers and friends.”
In other words, he’d probably slept with her too. I absorbed all of this and wrote down my notes, taking in the way his jaw clenched and jotting suspicions that they were also lovers.
“I’ll have to ask you to stay in town for the duration of this investigation,” Hiroto said. “I’ll be in touch.”
“Might I offer you a different perspective, Chief Maki?”
“If you’d like.”
“Has the Sanguine Court been informed of her death?”
“They have,” my uncle replied.
“And who did they appoint?”
Hiroto and I looked at one another, because only one person made sense.
Skylar was out with our new chief suspect, and this one wasn’t exactly in the clear just yet.
8
Finding Loopholes
By the time I caught up with Sky at the hotel, it was almost sunrise. I was ready for the shift to be over, and couldn’t decide if my first official ten hours on the clock had me looking forward to employment at PNRU or dreading it. Then again, working on campus wouldn’t likely be as exciting.
Unless another magical villain provoked my girlfriend into fucking it up. That was always a possibility and something to anticipate. Sky drew danger to her like a magnet, attracting nosferatu nobles and evil fairies in the past two years.
I found her stretched out across my bed with the television on. She’d changed from her dress into leggings and a tank top, her damp hair pulled back into a ponytail. Judging from the warmth still wafting from the open bathroom door, she hadn’t been asleep long. The room smelled like her soap.
Ama peeked out of her hut, made a disgruntled mutter, then promptly went back to sleep. That was another problem I’d need to address, but not right now.
Not wanting to wake Sky, I took advantage of a clear bathroom and crept inside to clean up. The hot shower washed away the stress of the day, but when I emerged a few minutes later in a T-shirt and boxers, Sky was drowsily watching the door.
“Hey.”
“Hey.” I lingered in the vacant space between the bathroom and her empty bed, feeling awkward.
She pushed up to a sitting position and rubbed her eyes before looking at the clock. “How’d things go with the investigation?”
“How’d you—?”
“Aya told me. She was here when Lord Aguillard—sorry, Baron Aguillard—dropped me off.”
“Told you about that, did he?” Rich prick asshole.
“Over dessert, yeah. Then he insisted we finish before having me brought back.”
“Dude found out his mother died and stayed to finish dessert.”
Her face fell. “Yeah. I mean…he was quieter after that, so I don’t want to jump to conclusions, but I couldn’t imagine sitting down for dinner after someone tells me my mom or dad was killed. I offered to get my own lift back so he could handle his personal business, right? But then he said he wanted to make sure I got home safe, because the streets are too dangerous for fae until he cleans up the city.”
“Did he not see you can glow as bright as the sun?”
I knew I’d fucked up before her brows even rose. “He did, but how did you know he did?” The smile on her fac
e turned satisfied and so fucking smug she should have been a cat sidhe instead of an air elemental.
Shit. Did I lie and say Aya mentioned it? No, that wouldn’t work. Besides, I’d never lied to her before and I didn’t plan to start now.
“I checked in on you, okay?” Her smile didn’t fade. “As per protocol when on an op. Two-man teams.”
“I knew it! Were you the pigeon on the lamp post or the gull we passed on the street?”
“Goddammit.”
Her smile widened. “Which one?”
My shoulders dropped. “The pigeon.”
“A fat one. Damn, I should have guessed. Put a wager on it maybe.” She patted the space on the bed beside her. “You gonna stand there all night?”
“Technically it’s day.” But I moved over and sat beside her. “How long have you been here?”
She crawled closer then slid into my lap. “A little over an hour. I tried to wait up for you.”
“I appreciate that.” My pulse picked up when Sky scooted closer and an easy silence fell between us.
“Were you jealous?”
“Pfft. Far from it.”
“Good.” Sky’s mouth skimmed my cheek then traced my jawline. Soft lips found my pulse and lingered to nibble my neck. “Gabe, there is no vamp who will ever compare to you.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah.”
Her fingers trailed up over my abs, beneath my shirt. The intimate touch made my muscles tense and my dick pop to full attention.
Fuck. There had to be something I could do to alleviate some of the tension.
Then it came to me, the idea colliding with my thoughts like a thunderbolt hurled from Olympus. I couldn’t make love to her the way I wanted, not without her consent, not without initiating the second part of binding our souls together in shifter matrimony, but I could certainly do other things. We’d skirted the line once before.
Inspired by our holiday naughtiness, I flipped Sky onto her back on the bed. She flailed, shrieking in surprise before staring up at me, eyes wide.
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