Edward lost his sunny smile as I approached the car. “You’re white as a sheet. I should get you home.” He opened the rear door and ushered me inside.
“I’m meeting my uncle for lunch.” I gave him the address of the restaurant and sank back into the seat, trying to rationalize what had just happened. Ryker wasn’t a common name, but in a city with eight million people, there had to be a few.
Edward kept glancing at me through the mirror. “Are you sure I can’t take you home?”
“There’s no place I’d rather be right now,” I said, feeling like the city was closing in on me. “Just take me to the restaurant please.” I just needed to hold it together for a few more hours, and then I could go home and look for the name Caspian in the journal.
We pulled up to the restaurant fifteen minutes early, giving me just enough time to down a glass of wine before Cabot arrived.
“Good afternoon, Ms. Winterborne,” the maître d’ said as I walked inside. He grabbed a pair of menus and headed for a table at the back of the room. “Mr. Winterborne hasn’t arrived yet.”
“Perfect,” I muttered under my breath.
He seated me and placed the menus on the table. “Can I get you a drink?”
“Cabernet sauvignon, please.”
A waiter delivered my wine a few minutes later, and I wasted no time drinking half the glass before Cabot walked into the restaurant. My uncle was a handsome man. Tall with the same sable hair as Michael. He had a classical face and some of the bluest eyes I’d ever seen. He didn’t need his immortality to attract women, and I was pretty sure he kept a few in the city.
He bent down and kissed me on the cheek. As he sat, he noticed the half-empty glass in my hand. “Am I late?”
“You, late?” I smirked. “That’ll be the day.” Cabot was the most punctual person I’d ever known. He was the perfect male specimen, and he expected that same perfection from everyone else. I sympathized with his direct reports at the company.
Impatient as usual, he signaled for the waiter the second he sat down. “I’ll have the T-bone and a scotch. My niece will have the filet mignon. Rare.”
“I’ll just have the spring salad,” I told the waiter.
“And bring my niece another glass of wine.”
“I’m good,” I said. I needed to take the edge off, not give him more fuel for the fire by telling the Elders that I had a drinking problem.
After the waiter walked away, Cabot got down to business. “We need to convene the Circle immediately. The Walkers are showing up all over the city. The cocky bastards are getting bolder.”
I’d known this conversation was coming, but until now I’d been spared from participation in Circle business. Few mortal clan members actively participated in the hunt, Ethan being one, but my mother had prepared me for years, knowing that one day I’d be sitting right where I was now, with Cabot telling me it was time to serve. The Winterborne clan had one mission as far as the gods were concerned—to live among the mortals and stop the biggest threat to the city—the Night Walkers.
The waiter returned with Cabot’s scotch. Then he set a glass of wine in front of me, because what Cabot asked for he always got.
“How did the auction go?”
“Really, Cabot. Small talk? You know exactly how it went.” The auction house was probably on the phone with him a second after the gavel dropped. “We made a killing on the letters.”
Taking a sip of his scotch, he studied me for a few seconds, unnerving me with his laser-beam stare.
“Jesus, Cabot, what?” I finally said, breaking the tension. “Let up on the staring please.”
He finished his drink, and his grin disappeared. “Get used to it. If you can’t handle me staring at you, you’ll be dead the first time a vampire locks eyes with you.”
I shook my head and looked away. “Can you just tell me why I’m here? I need to get back to work.”
He laughed quietly, but it sounded bitter. “Work? You’re not going back to work today. The Circle is convening tonight, and you’re going to need a few hours to pull yourself together and act like you’re not scared shitless. You want a bunch of immortals to follow your lead, then earn it!” He was angry, finally showing me all the animosity he’d been harboring since my mother designated me as clan leader.
Two waiters approached the table with our lunch, one carrying Cabot’s T-bone and another with my salad and that filet mignon I didn’t want, seared for about thirty seconds on each side.
“Can I get you anything else?” the waiter asked.
“We’re fine,” Cabot said, waving him off.
“You know I’m not going to eat that,” I said, irritated by his arrogance and a little shaken by the way he’d just tried to put me in my place.
He leaned over the table and looked me in the eye. “You’ll eat every bite of that bloody steak. Then you’ll go home and dig as deep as it takes to find the killer inside you. If the Circle perceives you as weak, it’s over.” He pulled away and grabbed his fork and knife, that patronizing smile on his face again. “Can’t have the clan questioning your ability to lead,” he said, raising his brow and taking a bite of rare meat.
Looking down at the pool of blood circling the edges of my unwanted steak, I decided to start acting the part by being direct. “By the way,” I said, spearing a forkful of my salad while shoving the steak away. “The man who bought those letters this afternoon is a vampire.”
Chapter 10
Jakob pick up on my dark mood when I walked into the lobby and squinted his eyes at me. “Did something happen, Mora?”
Cabot had put on a real show at the restaurant, nearly getting us kicked out. If we hadn’t been Winterbornes, I’m sure his slamming his fist down on the table and berating me in front of all the other customers would have gotten us banned for life. He was furious because I’d failed to call him immediately to let him know about Caspian, but I defused his anger by telling him I hadn’t realized who the man was until the auction was over and I was heading out to meet him.
“Have you had lunch yet?” I asked on my way to the elevator. I’d barely gotten a bite of my salad at the restaurant before Cabot laid into me. “Come up to the penthouse with me. I have something to show you.”
When we got off the elevator, I headed straight for the bedroom to get the journal. If I couldn’t trust Jakob to keep my secret, I couldn’t trust anyone. Michael knew about it, but I needed to speak to someone who could advise me on what to do with it. I needed an immortal on my side.
He had a loaf of bread in his hand when I walked into the kitchen.
“Can I trust you?” I asked, knowing it was a ridiculous question.
He dropped the bread on the counter and gave me a pointed stare without wasting his breath on an answer.
“I just need to hear you say it.”
“If you have to ask, you shouldn’t trust me.” He opened the refrigerator and rummaged through it. “Do you have anything besides turkey in here?”
When he pulled his head out and straightened back up, I held out the journal. “I got the box open. This was inside.” He stared at it for a few seconds but said nothing. “It’s my mother’s journal.”
“I know what it is!”
I nearly dropped it when he snapped at me. Jakob rarely raised his voice, but today I was on the receiving end of everyone’s anger.
“I’m sorry,” he said, his face strained. “The sight of it triggered me. I guess I’m not over losing her yet.”
I’d never get over losing my mother, and I knew Jakob wouldn’t either. But how did he know about her journal? “You’ve seen it before?”
A long breath shuddered out of him as he rubbed his eyes. “Do you think you’re the only child in this building I practically raised? Where do you think she got that journal? Take a closer look at it.”
My fingers roamed over the black leather. “Oh wow. I didn’t even notice that before.” It was the clan’s insignia embossed into the grain, so faintly I
could barely see it.
He took it from me and ran his hand over the cover. “It was a gift a long time ago. There used to be a shop on Broadway that made custom stationery and journals.” He opened it but quickly shut it again and handed it back to me. “Have you read it?”
“Just the first entry. I was planning to read more tonight, but Cabot has called a meeting to convene the Circle. Said it’s time for me to serve, so I was hoping you could tell me what to expect so I don’t walk in there blind and make a fool out of myself.”
He went back to making lunch. “Turkey or turkey?”
“I’ll have turkey please, and don’t change the subject.”
He finished making the sandwiches and offered me one. “You know what the Circle does, and I know your mother prepared you well. What makes you think I can add anything you don’t already know?”
I took the sandwich and leaned against the counter next to him. No one ever spoke about it, but our doorman was more than just an indentured immortal who’d worked off his passage to this world by serving the clan. He was a tracker. A hunter with the ability to sniff out a Walker before anyone saw it coming. Jakob was a legend, and then one day he wasn’t anymore.
“You were one of them once.” I shrugged and walked over to the sink to pour a glass of water. “Come on, Jakob. You know I don’t have her killer instincts. Can’t even step on a bug. Cabot and Ethan will have a field day with me tonight.”
He joined me at the sink and wrapped his arm around my shoulders. “Your uncle and brother are ambitious, but they love you.”
“But they don’t respect me.”
“Then make them. Show them what you can do.” He walked over to the large glass bowl on the breakfast table at the other end of the kitchen. “Show me what a little fire starter you are. Go on, Mora. Start a bonfire in that bowl.”
He used to call me that when I was a kid because I’d had a bad habit of nearly burning the building down on occasion. Not on purpose. I discovered my talents early, but it took a while to understand that starting blazing fires in the middle of the living room was inappropriate. I was six when I destroyed the sofa and finally made the connection between fire and devastation. That was when my mother introduced me to Monoclaude, who’d put the kibosh on my fire skills. To this day, I’ve never gotten them back.
“Don’t waste your time, Jakob. I couldn’t light up the kitchen if I tried.”
He looked like he was about to drop the subject, but suddenly he clenched his teeth and reared back, twisting his hand as if he were gripping an object. Then he flung something at me, a ball of flames that grew as it hurtled across the kitchen toward me. My instincts kicked in, and I raised my own hand and released a sphere of light that collided with the fire. I just stood there staring at the wall of flames that it created between us in the middle of the kitchen. The fire reached the ceiling and spread to the north wall, racing down to the floor.
“Stop!” I yelled, instantly extinguishing the flames before they could spread and destroy the kitchen. My hands wouldn’t stop shaking. “I think you just undid twenty years of mastering control over my pyromania. I could have burned the place down.”
“But you didn’t.” He had a surprised look on his face. “It looks like your fire skills have evolved. It appears you’re an energy witch now.”
I glanced at my hand and remembered the strange feeling I’d gotten when I held my athame to Hawk’s neck the night before. It was like a surge of power. A surge of energy.
“Don’t ever let them forget who you are,” Jakob said, his voice stern. “You are Morgan Winterborne, queen of the House of Winterborne. Just now, you did exactly what you needed to do to defend yourself, because you’re just like your mother.”
He winced briefly and pulsed his hand as if releasing the excess heat that must have burned in his palm. “You’ve unlearned too much in this mundane world. We do our children a grave disservice by numbing them to the magic they’re born with, and it’s time you got yours back.”
I glanced at my hand again. “Where do I start?”
“Right there,” he said, nodding to the scorched ceiling. “I thought it would be harder to provoke you though.”
“So you planned this?”
For a moment he just stared back at me with his brow pulled tight. “Did you think I would let you walk into that den of lions with nothing but a pep talk and a few pointers? You must wake your killer instincts, Mora.”
“Funny,” I said with a slight laugh. “Cabot said the same thing at lunch today. He just wasn’t as nice about it as you.” I headed for the living room, shaking my head.
Jakob followed me. “He’s right. You’ll find that out tonight when the Circle convenes. In fact, I’m sure they have something planned that will erase any doubt about that.” He took my hand and traced the lines of my palm. “You’re a kind person, Mora, but you were born to be an executioner. That’s the price for all this.” He motioned around the penthouse, with its elegant interior and Central Park views.
The building, the auction house, the money. It was all payment for the clan’s services. Compensation from the gods for ridding the world of devils.
“Some people would say those two traits can’t coexist. But make no mistake, you can be kind and a killer. Your mother was. And don’t forget for a second what the enemy is. They’re abominations that wouldn’t think twice about killing every member of this clan. Man, woman, or child!”
I pulled my hand away and took a deep breath. “You’re right, but I’m still not looking forward to it.” Most of the clan couldn’t wait to reach majority so they could join the Circle. The only reason I was being admitted prior to my thirtieth birthday was because I was now the head of the clan and expected to participate in the hunt. I was one of the few mortals allowed in, Ethan being the other because his transition was only a few months away and the Circle needed new blood. It was time to accept my responsibility and make sure I didn’t get myself killed.
Thank God for Jakob and his provocation of my dormant power.
“So,” he said, taking a seat on the sofa. “Tell me about the crow.”
“Is that what it is?” I muttered.
He lost his smile. “What do you mean?”
“I mean I think we’ve created a monster. It showed up last night and nearly came through the terrace door after me. That bird is huge!”
“Did you provoke it?”
I didn’t dare tell him about Hawk showing up on the terrace and the crow appearing out of the blue to chase him off. “I didn’t do anything to it. I was leaving the conservatory last night and it was perched on the wall. I ran inside and shut the door before it got in.” I was getting good at lying, which I wasn’t proud of.
“Well, if it wanted to harm you, that door wouldn’t have stopped it.”
I glanced at the terrace door. “You don’t think it would have shattered the glass, do you?”
He shook his head. “It wouldn’t have to. My blood is inside it, so it’s immortal. It would have passed right through it.”
Now I really wondered which one of them had opened the box and put me to bed the night before.
“Call me next time it shows up.”
“I was hoping it wouldn’t show up again.”
“I’m afraid it will. Immortality can be a jarring experience when it’s fresh. Another immortal is usually there to help navigate through the transition. That bird seems to be confused. I can help it find its way.”
Otto’s voice suddenly carried across the room. “A letter has arrived for you, mistress. It’s on the table in the foyer. Shall I read it for you?”
“I’ll read it myself, Otto. Thank you.”
I got up and retrieved the envelope that had mysteriously appeared on the table. Inside was a card with a handwritten note. “I’ve been formally invited to the Circle meeting tonight,” I said, looking twice at the location. “It says we’re meeting in the grand suite at eight o’clock.” The grand suite was where my gran
dparents lived. They’d been in the Winterlands for the past month, mourning my mother’s death, and as far as I knew they were still there. “This can’t be right.”
Jakob took the card from me and read it himself. “I guess they’re back.”
You didn’t just come back from the Winterlands like you were hopping on a plane and returning from Palm Springs. It took time to come back. The Winterlands existed on the astral plane. It was a place of mourning where immortals went to heal and grieve. But the choice to go there was never taken lightly because there was no guarantee of ever getting out. When you entered the Winterlands, you left your immortality at the gate, often requiring the help of another immortal to get you out. But there was no other place in the universe where you could shed torturous grief that threatened to destroy you, and my grandparents had been gutted by the loss of my mother. Against the clan’s advice, they’d chosen to take the risk.
“Why didn’t anyone tell me?”
Jakob handed the invitation back. “I’m sure Cabot didn’t want to get your hopes up. You know the odds of coming out of that place. He probably wanted to surprise you.”
“Well, he succeeded.”
He got up to leave. “I guess I should be getting back down to the lobby before a band of thieves wanders in and ransacks the place. I’ll just clean up the mess in the kitchen before I leave.”
I laughed. “Yeah, right. A very unfortunate band of thieves if they pick this building to vandalize.” We had no need for a doorman, but Jakob refused to accept his room and board without earning his keep. As far as I was concerned, he was family and could live here as long as he wanted, free of charge.
“Never underestimate the power of stupidity.”
I beat him to the kitchen. “You cooked; I clean.” I shooed him away from the counter. “Now get out of here.”
“It was a turkey sandwich,” he said, tying the bread bag. “I didn’t even put mustard on it.”
“Exactly. There’s no mess to clean.”
I wish I could have said the same for the ceiling and walls. Of all the magical talents we Winterbornes had, I couldn’t think of one of us who could fix the place without calling a contractor.
Dark Legacy (House of Winterborne Book 1) Page 7
