“I would appreciate that.” Linus called Gilly while the teen got his grandfather out of the back to mind the store. Once she arrived, they followed the teen up the incline to his car. After strapping on nitrile gloves, she accepted the baggy with shiny particles clinging to the plastic for processing, sealed it within an evidence bag, and made her exit. “Can you give me a description of the man who placed the order?”
“Oh, sure.” He scratched behind his ear. “Tall. Built. You could tell he works out. Like a lot. Black hair and weird eyes. Intense. Yeah. He was intense.” He snapped his fingers. “He had an accent too. German or—”
“Russian.”
“Yeah, maybe.”
“Thank you for your time.” Linus passed him a card with Detective Baker’s forged credentials. “Call me if you think of anything else, or if Mr. Volkov visits the shop again.”
“I didn’t hurt anyone, did I?” He leaned against the rusted fender. “I didn’t think it was a big deal.”
There was no point in admitting that yes, someone did get hurt. The boy would beat himself up over it more than enough without Linus heaping more guilt on him for a crime he couldn’t explain.
“In the future,” he said instead, “I would suggest running special requests by your grandfather first.”
“I’ll do that.” He sagged on his bones. “Please. I have to know. Did I hurt anyone?” He wet his lips. “You’re a detective. You wouldn’t be here if something bad hadn’t happened.”
“A friend of the woman who received the bouquet had an allergic reaction.” He stuck close to the truth to make remembering the lies easier. “She’s recovering, and neither she nor the recipient hold the incident against you.”
“Good.” He exhaled. “That’s good.” He jolted. “Not good I’m off the hook, but good she’s okay.”
Aware the boy’s reaction was likely a combination of both, Linus left the reprimand at that.
“Thanks again.” Linus stepped up to the curb and dialed Morrison. “I’m ready for pickup.” He gave the location and waited on his ride. This time when Morrison asked where to, he was glad to say, “Home.”
Proving he earned every penny of his salary, Morrison took him not to Woolworth House but to the Woolworth heiress herself.
Four
Moonlight slanting across my face in the wrong direction woke me, and my heart gave a solid kick at my surroundings until I registered a familiar smell. Turning my head, I found Linus propped against the headboard while highlighting passages in a book thicker than my wrist.
Linus is here, so I’m okay. That was my first thought. I’m at Lethe’s came in a close second.
Poor Woolly must have been so lonely without us there, but we had to get out from under the cleaners’ feet while they did their job.
“You’ve been out.” I yawned and turned onto my side. “Where did you go?”
“How can you tell?” He capped the low-odor marker and waited. “You were asleep when I left.”
“I got used to sleeping alone for long stretches.” I shifted onto my side. “You haven’t successfully sneaked out on me in about fifteen or sixteen months.”
Concern pinched his brow as he set the marker aside. “I could sleep in my—”
“Nope.” I leveraged up on my elbow and flopped onto his chest, forcing him to put away the book. “You’re staying in my room, with me.” I kissed his shoulder through his tee. “I’ll get back in our old rhythm now that you’re here to stay. It’ll just take time.” Snuggling closer, I exhaled a happy sound. “You smell like fertilizer. Did you bury someone in the backyard?”
A chuckle moved through him as he tightened his arms around me, but there were graves out there. Just mostly belonging to animals, thanks to the gwyllgi.
“I followed up on the florist responsible for the bronze-dusted bouquet, which, as it turns out, is the outfit you hired for our wedding. I bought you something while I was there and potted it before I came back to bed.” He checked his nail beds. “I thought I scrubbed well enough.”
Linus was in the habit of bribing people for their cooperation, but he wouldn’t veil that as a gift, so Mr. Laurent must have passed muster.
“I’m sure you did.” I smoothed my hand across his chest, hiding my smile against his shirt when his breath hitched the tiniest bit. “Maud used to come in smelling like soil and fertilizer. That’s why it stands out to me. It’s comforting.”
“I find the work soothing.” He returned his hand to me and began a lazy exploration of my collarbone. “It reminds me of her.”
“You look totally and completely calm, but you’re not fooling me. You found out something bad. What is it?” I traced the edge of his jaw. “Take off the mask, Linus. I want to see.”
With a sigh, he did as he was told, and the worry lines around his mouth cut deeper. “It is bad.”
“Hit me.” I pushed up on my elbow to look down at him. “We can get through it. Whatever it is.”
“The cleaners found an avowal in the bottom of the contaminated vase.”
A muscle tremor shook my arm. “And?”
“The blood is his type, and it belongs to a Last Seed.”
“Volkov.” I despised the quaver in my voice. “Do you have the DNA results?”
“Not yet, but I expect confirmation soon.” He angled his head toward me. “A man using Volkov’s name and matching his description placed the order for the flowers. He also tracked down the teen who made the delivery and convinced him the bronze powder was glitter to add sparkle to the bouquet.”
Inhale. Exhale. Inhale. Exhale.
The breathing exercises didn’t help, not as my first meeting with Volkov replayed in my head.
The expensive threads matched his thundercloud eyes, and his wavy hair was so black the moon lent him blue highlights. He strode forward, and I leaned in, two opposite sides of a magnet caught in helpless attraction. His eyes, predator-sharp, searched my face for some unknown revelation. He invaded my personal space, crowding me against the fence. The fragrance of his skin reminded me of old coins and crushed rosemary.
No, no, no.
Linus and I had fought too hard to get here for Volkov to ruin this for me, for us.
“Last I heard, he was in Society custody.” I flopped onto my back, barely restraining the urge to kick my heels into the mattress at the unfairness of the timing when I ought to know better than anyone that life isn’t fair. “Have you tracked him down yet?”
“Bishop called earlier.” Linus shifted toward me. “Volkov was released on his own recognizance.”
“Are you kidding me?” The calm from seconds ago evaporated in a blink. “Any idea how he managed to finagle a free pass? He was supposed to serve one hundred years for his crimes, and it hasn’t been a decade. Not even half that.”
“The amnesty program is the only thing that makes sense, but I don’t have his complete records in hand yet.”
The amnesty program was born from the gaping wound left in Savannah’s heart after the Siege. Vampires who followed my grandfather ran amok, murderous in their chaos, and forced us to evacuate the city. We locked down the borders, but plenty of humans and other supernaturals were unable to evacuate because of finances or their health. Casualties were nowhere near where they could have been, but they were high enough.
Once the city was back under Society control, vampires took some heavy hits in the rights department. As in theirs got violated. Minor crimes ended up with major punishments. Immortal lives were lost. Lots of innocent vampires got tagged for crimes they were later cleared of committing. Thus was the amnesty program born. It allowed vampires who felt their rights had been violated to petition the Lyceum for a reduced sentence or an acquittal. For some, it was their first real trial.
“Your mother would remember signing off on Volkov getting sprung early,” I pointed out. “That’s not the kind of thing that would slip her mind.”
“I believe the papers were forged.” He swung his legs over the edge
of the bed. “Mother has a mind like a steel trap.”
“She would have given us a heads-up.” More reason to leave her out of the loop. “Volkov couldn’t have gotten past us if we’d been prepared, and now we are, so…” I smoothed my hands over the sheets until I hooked a finger in the waistband of his pajama bottoms. “We got this.” I popped him with the elastic. “We do got this, right?”
“Yes.” He clasped my hand. “We got this.” He brought it to his lips for a tender kiss. “Even if she wasn’t personally invested in you, in us, she would be bound to uphold the ruling against him. He was tried prior to the Siege. He has no claim.”
“I should have put that together.” I gave serious thought to getting out of bed, but only managed a grunt. “I’m going to blame the fact I just woke up all cold and alone in the dark.”
“You might have slept alone for several hours, but you didn’t wake up that way.” He cocked an eyebrow at me as he stood. “You’re also a necromancer, with excellent night vision.” He spread his hands. “As to the other, I can’t help my core temperature runs lower than—”
“If you offer to sleep in your old room one more time, I will never have sex with you again.”
“Hmm.”
“Don’t hmm at me, mister.”
With deft movements, he shucked his tee and exposed his heavily inked chest to my eagerly wandering eyes.
Dang it.
“That’s not fair.” I crawled across the bed toward him. “You’re using your tattoos against me.”
“You threatened me, I merely retaliated.”
“You threatened me, and I merely retaliated.”
“You won’t hurt my feelings if you require special accommodations.” He gazed down at me, black spilling into his eyes. “I’ve accepted my…limitations. It won’t offend me if you can’t.”
“You asked for it.” I hopped off the bed and headed to the closet. “Remember, you brought this on yourself.” I pulled out the inflatable mallet Lethe won at a fair last week. I traded her a pack of bacon for it, and I had no regrets. “Hold still, and it won’t hurt as much.” I swung the mallet in a dramatic arc, really putting my back into it, then tapped him on the head just hard enough to make it squeak. “Well?”
Staring at the mallet, he rubbed his head. “I’m confused.”
“That’s the head trauma talking. Sir Bonks-A-Lot does that to people.”
The primary reason I bribed it out of Lethe’s hands was the fact she chased me all over the house, bonking me on the head until I slipped, hit a doorframe, and gave myself a goose egg the size of my fist. The woman was a menace, and she had to be stopped.
“Grier,” he sighed.
“Okay, fine. I expected you to revert during your time in Atlanta. I’ve noticed you backsliding for a while now, but I haven’t done anything about it. I knew you would undo all my hard work during the quiet times you spent alone in the city. I figured I should store up the lectures, the bribes, and the threats for when you came home for good.” I twirled the mallet. “Every time you insult my devotion to you, you get bonked. I’m sorry, but those are the rules.”
“Who made these rules?”
“Me.” I squeezed the handle and made the mallet squeak. “And my friend here.”
His troubled expression deepened. “There’s something I need to tell you, about Boaz.”
“This ought to be good,” I snarked, but he didn’t laugh. “What’s wrong?”
“Mother has created a position for him at the Lyceum. She plans to keep him on indefinitely.”
“Okay.” I waited for the other shoe to drop. “What about it?”
“She asked if…” He toyed with the highlighter he’d picked back up at some point, capping and uncapping it. “She wanted to know if that would pose an issue for you.”
“Uh-uh.” I tsked him. “There’s more. I can tell.”
“She also asked if there was any chance of him jilting Adelaide and running away with you, if that’s why they haven’t married yet.” He tossed the marker onto the nightstand. “She worries he’s waiting for you.”
“Your mom is a piece of work.” I traced the plastic ridge on the handle with my thumbnail. “And you said…?”
“That you love me.”
“Good boy.” I reached up and patted his cheek. “What else?”
Amusement curled his lips. “That you would never leave me.”
“Wow.” I tossed the mallet and clapped for him. “All your home training is really paying off.”
Linus gathered me against him, breathed me in, and I barely dared to move. Even now, it was so rare for him to initiate contact aside from a light touch here or there. I wanted to view it as progress, but the time apart had been rough on us both. It would take time to ease him back into our pre-Siege routine. I was just glad Sir Bonks-A-Lot was here to help whenever he needed a gentle reminder.
“I want to climb back in bed and forget someone tried to poison my BFF.” I pressed my face against his chest, and it muffled my voice. “But I have butt to kick.”
“You have your hands full planning the wedding. I can tackle this for you, if you like.”
“Nope.” Chin propped on his sternum, I gazed up at him. “You are potentate non grata. This is my city, and it’s my problem.” I traced the length of his spine with my fingertips. “However, I might be convinced to let you help.”
“What is that quote about the student becoming the master?”
“You’ve spent way too much time around Hadley if you’re misquoting Star Wars.” His Atlanta apprentice was a bona fide geek with a love of all things science fiction. The older the better in her book. “She would be proud to know you’ve retained some of it.”
Hadley wasn’t actually Hadley. Hadley Whitaker died a few years ago, and her death remained a secret. Boaz’s little sister, Amelie, took her place as part of the complicated bargain he made with Adelaide and her father while arranging their marriage.
“She mailed me something borrowed for the wedding.” I laughed when his eyebrows climbed higher. “It’s an enamel pin, a super rare collector’s item from the ’50s to celebrate the release of Bridezilla Versus the Wedding Planner from Mars. I know because she included its certificate of authenticity and a veiled threat.”
“Veiled because you’re getting married?”
“You get me.” I kissed him. “You really get me.”
“Are you still okay with her attending the wedding?”
Hadley and I had been best friends in what felt like a past life, was a past life as far as she was concerned. We had gone on to claim cities hundreds of miles apart and lead such divergent lives I could barely remember how before felt anymore. We hadn’t grown up together so much as we had grown apart together, but neither of us had seen it that way until it was too late.
None of that made me love her less, but we were taking our new friendship slow.
“I want her there.” I stepped out on the same wobbly limb. “Are you sure you want Boaz to attend?”
His gaze shifted to the floor, where the inflatable mallet waited. “Yes.”
“Are you saying that because you don’t want to get bonked again or because you’re being honest?”
“Can my answer be both?”
“Hmm.”
“I thought we agreed not to hmm at one another.”
“Did we?” I pulled back and tapped my chin. “Maybe I bonked you too hard that first time.”
“Boaz is an old friend of yours, and he’s—maybe not happily but—engaged to a new friend of yours. I’m not going to let my insecurities stand in the way of you having everyone you love around you on The Big Day.”
“Pretty sure you’re only saying that to avoid another bonk, but I’ll take it.” I headed to the dresser for shorts, a sports bra, and a tank top. Lethe and I had learned long ago to stash a change or two of clothes at each other’s houses, and I kept mine in this room. “The drill sergeant who trained me for this potentate gig forces me to run
five miles before work every day. You in?”
“Sure.”
I was halfway to dressed when I noticed he hadn’t moved. “Well?”
A blush painted his cheeks, and I wanted to pinch them and plant a smacking kiss on his lips.
“You’re watching me change.” I turned it into a slow strip tease that ended when I tripped over my shorts and landed on my back like a turtle. “How can you handle this much sexy?”
“I carry bandages with cartoon breakfast foods on them and antibiotic ointment in my pockets at all times.”
Really playing up my injury, I held out my hand. “Help me up?”
Concern tightened his features, and he reached for me. “Are you hurt?”
“Sucker.”
I clasped forearms with him and let him pull me into a seated position. From there, I leaned into his midsection and used that grip and a little oomph to send him flying over my shoulder. He hit the floor with a satisfying thump, but he flowed into his countermove before I could react. The next thing I knew, I was pinned beneath him and feeling good about it.
Hooking one leg over his hip, I flexed my toes against his back. “How do you feel about alternate means of getting in our cardio?”
Much to my amusement, he required no bonk on the head to prompt the correct answer.
When he was done with me, I was a boneless, breathless puddle of woman. And when I was done with him, his skin held a sheen of sweat, and his heart punched beneath my cheek.
All in all, it wasn’t a bad way to start the night. I could definitely get used to this.
* * *
Downstairs, the smell of smoked sausage mingled with sizzling bacon and fresh coffee. I followed my nose and ended up in the ridiculously large dining room where the pack took all their meals, schedules permitting. Lethe sat at the head of the table with Hood on her right. All so she could call him her right-hand man and mean it. She was such a goober.
“I heard you broke in the mattress in your room.” Lethe winked at me. “Nice work.”
How to Kiss an Undead Bride Page 5
