On all those points, Linus agreed, but Volkov was cunning. “He could be counting on that.”
“I wish I had better news for you, but this kicked up more questions than it brought answers.”
“There’s one more thing.” Linus removed the diamond ring from his pocket. “Someone threw this at the ballroom window where the gwyllgi children are schooled. Eva found it and brought it to us.”
“Destroying any fingerprints in the process.”
As much as it was an innocent mistake, he couldn’t disagree. “Yes.”
“Could the gwyllgi get a scent off it?”
“No.”
“Then chances are good the kid didn’t ruin the evidence. It sounds like our unsub is the careful kind. God, I hate those. They’re the worst. It’s like they don’t want us to catch them or something.”
“We captured two vampires on River Street.” Linus pocketed the ring. “They were attempting to abduct Grier.”
“Then they deserve what’s coming to them. Grier’s a nice girl. I still don’t know what she’s doing with you.”
The darkness in his core snickered and writhed, but he didn’t counter it. “That makes two of us.”
Grier ought to be ready to hit the street. Perhaps after their patrol, they could drop by for an update from Boaz. Maybe Bishop would have news for them by then too. Ending the transmission on that note, Linus crossed the yard back to Woolly, her warm welcome chasing away the chill. For now.
Six
I licked my fingers clean as Linus entered the kitchen, and yeah, it was a tad staged, but it did the job. His eyes darkened, and his focus lingered on my mouth. He might not have a sweet tooth, but he enjoyed tasting my favorite treats on me. “Where did you go?”
“I checked in with Bishop.”
Noticing he remained frozen in the doorway, I crooked my finger, determined to thaw him. The polite kiss he dropped on my mouth left me hungry for more. Angling his head, I deepened the kiss, pressing inside with a sweep of my tongue over his. The sound rising up the back of his throat gave me chills, and I linked my arms behind his neck, hauling him closer.
“Keep going.” Lethe leaned in, absorbed in the show. “It’s like watching a documentary on how necromancers mate.”
That doused us with a frosty dose of reality, and he withdrew.
Once I got my id under control, I glared at my bestie. “You can’t help yourself, can you?”
“Oh, no. I totally can. I just don’t want to.” She rested her head against Linus’s shoulder. “Can you make me some popcorn before you pick up where you left off?”
“Rumor has it you and Hood are back in the baby-making business,” I said, annoyed. “How’s that going?”
I meant to shock her into an admission, not to hurt her, but my snark flipped the switch on her mood.
“Lethe?” I put my hand on her leg. “Did I say something wrong?”
Straightening, she shook her head and let me off the hook. “Who told you?”
“I overheard the pack talking,” Linus confessed. “I told Grier. I apologize if I overstepped.”
“It’s not that.” Lethe pushed sugar granules around on her plate. “I should have told you guys.”
“You would have when you were ready. I’m sorry we jumped the gun. It’s just exciting to think of Eva having a little brother or sister.”
Shoulders hunching, she blew out a sigh that scattered her artwork. “You heard the rest, didn’t you?”
“There was talk of Eva being an unfit heir,” Linus admitted. “I didn’t expect that.”
“Neither did we, but we should have.” She put on a brave face. “I’m not worried.”
I flicked cinnamon at her. “Liar.”
“Okay, I’m mildly terrified she’ll get challenged before she’s old enough to come into her full power. Once she’s an adult? No one will be able to take her on and live to tell the tale unless she shows them mercy. You can bank on that.”
“Are you sure you’re not already pregnant?” I squinted at her, teasing her. “You arranged for a lot of tastings. Maybe you’re having twins this time.”
A smile trembled on her lips before it wobbled off her mouth.
“The thing is…” Lethe shuttered her expression. “We’ve been trying. Pretty much since Eva was born. We wanted her to have a playmate, and we knew with her accelerated growth rate we had to act fast.”
I twisted in my seat to face her. “What are you saying?”
“It’s been fifteen months and change since we got serious about it, and we’ve got nothing to show for it but some very rewarding practice sessions.” Her mouth quirked to one side. “The truth is, I’m not sure I can get pregnant again.”
The solid bedrock of our friendship crumbled underneath me. “I never meant for—”
“This is why I didn’t tell you.” She threw up her hands, shoved off her stool, and began pacing. “I didn’t want you to blame yourself.”
“Lethe,” I whispered, unable to find my voice.
“We haven’t told anyone. Not even Eva. Especially not Eva. We don’t want her to think she’s responsible.” Lethe stopped in front of the fridge and slumped against the door. “I may not be able to get pregnant without your help, which sounds all sorts of kinky.”
The sultry wink she attempted was ruined by the sheen of tears in her eyes.
Lifting my pocketknife, I flashed the blade. “I’m ready whenever you are.”
“As much as I appreciate your readiness to knock me up, I want to do it the old-fashioned way. Eva has grown faster than we ever dreamed. Thanks to Hood, she’s got a classroom full of peers to help her past each milestone. As far as we’re concerned, there’s no pressure to produce a spare.” She thinned her lips. “I hate that word. Spare. As if second-born children are just placeholders and not contributing members of a family, of a pack.”
“Even with the drama, it sounds like you still want more kids.”
“Truthfully? I would have fifty if I could afford to feed them.”
“Stress could be a factor,” Linus said softly. “It’s clear you’re worried about the pack accepting Eva as your heir. You might unconsciously not want to conceive a child the pack might view as a worthier successor. It’s not unheard of for siblings to fight for the title.”
Ambition could ruin any hope of the siblings bonding, and that would be a misery for their parents.
“I can’t say I haven’t considered that very thing.” Lethe ground the heels of her palms into her eyes. “I don’t want Eva to have to fight for every scrap of respect she’s given. We all do, when the time comes, but she’s a kid. Other kids—older kids—are already picking on her when there are no adults around, and I can’t do a damn thing about it without exacerbating the issue. I don’t want her brother or sister to become an enemy.”
“You’re doing the best you can for Eva.” I had no doubt of that. “You’ve had her in self-defense classes since she was a toddler.”
Eva took ballet and Brazilian jiu-jitsu twice a week. Half the time, she was the pinkest, frilliest, girliest girl in the world, and the other half she was in a black gi with blood in her eye. Her parents chose the style for its emphasis on ground fighting, a necessary skill to avoid being penned beneath an attacker, and Eva was a natural. Even at her age, I pitied anyone who took her on and thought it would be an easy win.
“Please don’t let it drag you down this close to your wedding. I didn’t intend to mention it at all since Hood and I decided to let nature take its course. I don’t want you to feel bad or guilty or sad.” Shoving off the fridge, she let a growl rev up her throat. “Gwyllgi are such freaking gossips. Always speculating. Always looking for a weakness to exploit. Always begging me to kick their asses. Ugh.”
A text caught Linus’s attention, and he checked his phone before putting it away. “We should go if we’re going to catch Boaz after we patrol.”
Lethe made gagging noises. “Why on earth are you trying to catch up with
Bo-ass?”
“He interrogated a couple of vamps for us.” I skimmed over the details since she hadn’t been interested in them earlier, not that I could blame her with worry for Eva preying on her mind. “We need to pick up our results. That’s all.”
Gawking at us, she pegged me with a stare. “You didn’t handle it personally?”
“Hello?” I lifted the empty bag and shook it. “Churros? They were hot and fresh.” I crumpled the paper into a ball. “They would have been cold and sad if I’d interrogated the vamps first.”
“Oh, well, that’s totally understandable. Churros just don’t reheat well, you know? I thought about picking up an air fryer to see if that helps. Then I could buy in bulk from Esteban and keep them in the fridge. The one in my room, not the one in the kitchen, obviously.”
“If you do, report back. I’ve been curious about those too.”
Linus cleared his throat.
“I’ll let you know what we find out,” I promised her, taking the hint. “See you at dawn.”
Twenty minutes later, the vast presence that was Savannah’s consciousness tickled my senses when I stepped out of Moby and onto the street. She had decided it was great fun to shadow me while I worked, and I enjoyed the company. I think she did too.
Patrol was my favorite part of any given night. Not only did it feel good to keep the city and her citizens safe, but it gave me an excuse to scout locations for my Haints. As it happened, Linus wasn’t the only one who went the franchise route. Cricket just had no idea Haint Behavin’ operated in Savannah, catering to supernaturals rather than her human clientele. How Cruz managed the legal jargon for that one, I had no clue, but I had loved being a Haint, and it made me smile to know I still was one.
And, since I could see ghosts and sense spiritual energies, business was booming. I wished I had more time to be directly involved in the day-to-day running of the business, but Marit had things well in hand. So well, in fact, she had banned me from the Haints until Linus and I returned from our honeymoon.
Our secret honeymoon, the one detail of this whole wedding Linus refused to surrender.
“You’re brooding.”
Yanked out of my thoughts, I glanced over at the shadowy presence by my side. “Maybe a little.”
“Lethe?”
“Nope.”
“Eva?”
“Also nope.”
“Boaz?”
“Definitely not.” I scuffed the soles of my shoes against the pavement. “I was thinking I miss leading tours every night, talking up Savannah’s history—the spooky side of it, anyway—that kind of thing. I wish there were more hours in the night, so I could do both.”
“I didn’t have a life in Atlanta until after I assembled my team.”
“You think I should organize one here?”
“It helps to spread the work across several shoulders. The potentate is always the official, but having deputies, for lack of a better word, makes the city safer and your life easier.”
I tapped a finger on my bottom lip. “If only there was someone who could help me with the logistics...”
“If only,” he agreed dryly.
A scraping noise kept me from flirting back, the rattle and clang of metal on asphalt too loud to ignore.
“We’ve got company.” A distinct thrill zinged down my spine that whispered vampire. “Cletus, if you don’t mind?”
The wraith peeled away from the shadows overhead and circled around behind his target. Through our bond, I watched the vampire drag a steel baseball bat behind him in an invitation to get physical.
Without saying a word to Linus, I led the vampire off the beaten path to avoid being seen by humans.
The vampire followed, his bat making an ear-splitting racket that would wake anyone nearby if we didn’t get him silenced quickly. After checking to make sure I had room to maneuver, I turned to wait on him.
“You’re prettier than he said you would be.” He lifted the bat, rested it on his shoulder. “For now.”
“Aww. Thanks.” Using my pocketknife, I sliced across my palm. “You’re not so bad looking yourself.” The coppery scent of my blood hitting the air dilated his eyes. “Now that we’ve gotten the compliments out of the way, what do you want?”
“You.”
“I’m spoken for. Sorry about that.”
“You’ve got a mouth on you.” He bared his fully extended fangs. “I like that.”
Goons must study from the same How to Insult Women for Total Morons handbook. “Who hired you?”
Done playing with me, he charged. I didn’t move except to draw a sigil on my forearm that solidified the air around me into an impenetrable barrier. He hit it, bounced off, and landed on his butt. Hissing, he leapt to his feet and tried again. I probably shouldn’t have yawned to show my boredom, or faked buffing my nails on my shirt, but I was high on sugar and feeling no pain.
The vampire couldn’t say the same as Linus materialized from the darkness, his moonlit scythe gleaming, and hooked the curved edge around the vampire’s throat. “She asked you a question.”
After spitting at me, the vampire stilled. “You can take your questions and shove them up your—”
Linus kept his tone light. “Finish that thought, and it will be your last.”
“I’m going to live forever.”
“No.” I hated to break it to him. “You’re really not.” I reopened the wound on my palm then dipped my index finger in blood. Careful of Linus’s blade, I swiped a paralytic sigil on the vampire’s throat to freeze him from that point down. Potentates definitely got all the cool toys. “You might have made it a few more centuries if you hadn’t been a total idiot, but now we’ll never know.”
“Bitch,” he howled. “What did you do to me?”
“Nothing yet.” I drew a sigil on his forehead to force the truth out of him. “Cooperate, and I’ll walk away.” Behind him, Linus lowered his weapon but kept it in his hand at the ready while I activated the magic. “How does that feel?”
“The smell of your blood makes me hungry,” he said dazedly. “I want to drain you.”
“Yeah, I have that effect on vampires.” I tried again. “What is the nickname your mother called you?”
“Tiddlywinks.” He blinked, almost in slow motion. “I was a bedwetter, and she thought it was funny.”
Mommy issues, ahoy!
No grown man would admit that, so I felt good about the sigil’s effectiveness.
“Now that we’re all best friends, tell me who sent you.”
“Danill Volkov.”
“Why did he send you?”
“To break your legs.”
“Ouch.” Sympathy pangs radiated through my kneecaps. “That would have hurt.”
“I wouldn’t have killed you,” he reassured me. “I don’t do that.”
“You’re a real saint.” I rolled my eyes. “Did he send other vampires after me too?”
“I don’t know.”
“What were you supposed to do with me after you broke my legs?”
“Send him pictures.”
“Do you have his number or his email address?”
“Yes.”
“Which?”
“Both.”
Now we were getting somewhere. “Can you give them to me?”
Polite as can be, he rattled off the information while I wrote it all down. “Thanks.”
“Can I bite you?”
“Uh, no.” I checked with Linus. “Are we done here?”
“I am if you are.” He put away his scythe. “We’ll compare what he said against what Boaz has learned.”
“Sounds like a plan.” I turned back to the vampire, picked the scab on my palm, and drew the paralyzer sigil on his forehead to lock down his entire body. “We’ve got to go, but sentinels will be here shortly.”
I told him I would walk away if he cooperated. I never said he was going anywhere.
Seven
As much as I respected what the Lyceum
stood for, I hated riding the elevator down its dark maw. I still couldn’t quite shake the fear that once I hit bottom, it would digest me rather than spit me out on the surface when I was done.
Linus, always in tune with me, rested a hand on my shoulder where he coiled a length of my hair around his finger. His touch anchored me, and his support gave me the strength to keep coming back here. Maybe one day it wouldn’t be so triggering, but I wasn’t holding my breath.
“We got a name,” Boaz said as he joined us in a conference room, “but you’re not going to like it.”
“Volkov.” I beat him to the punch, but the name still hit me hard. “Another vampire came after me tonight.” I leaned forward, bracing my forearms on the table. “This one had orders to break my legs. They’re escalating. Quickly.”
“You’re about to tie the knot,” Boaz pointed out. “Volkov must want you in hand before the wedding.”
“I’ll break his hands if they get anywhere near me.” I rolled my shoulders, forcing out the tension. “Volkov always did his own dirty work.” From flirting with me to kidnapping me, he enjoyed having a starring role in his schemes. “Why switch it up now?”
“He’s a fugitive.” Linus mirrored my posture. “He can’t rely on his forged papers to protect him in Savannah.”
“First the avowal and now this.” I traced a gouge in the wood with my fingernail. “It doesn’t add up for me.” I flattened my palm before I got in trouble for defacing Lyceum property. “I can see Volkov sending an avowal to replace the original, but not without his blood.” The use of bronze powder was inspired, its presence guaranteeing I received his first message in time. “I could see Volkov kidnapping me or lashing out, but I don’t see him paying someone to do it for him.” He was the type of man who would punish me for bad behavior but snap the neck of anyone else who dared touch what he viewed as his. “I want to believe you’re right, that it’s a matter of him outsourcing his dirty work but…”
“Trust your gut.” Linus traced my knuckles with a cool fingertip. “We’ll all keep an open mind.”
How to Kiss an Undead Bride Page 8
