by Kayleigh Sky
Jessa’s voice rose. “Isn’t it?”
After feeling nothing about Wen before, a knot in his belly and balls told him everything. And it was his fault. He was to blame. That room with its crimson beds was evidence he’d known nothing about Wen.
Otto stepped on the gas, and Jessa buckled up.
“They found a body at Frenn’s consignment store. It sounds like Wen.”
What an idiot Jessa was. Otto’s words hit him like a shockwave. Buffeting him and leaving him sick and dizzy.
You aren’t to blame.
But he was. Bettina was wrong.
“You should stay, Jessa.”
“Keep going.”
“I am.”
He let his head fall back and shut his eyes. Under the numbness in his chest, a dull pain throbbed in time to his heart.
“He wasn’t who you thought he was, Jess.”
Jessa kept his eyes closed. Wen wasn’t bad either.
“I might be wrong,” Otto said. “I hope so.”
If Wen was alive…
Well, Jessa would marry him. Wen wasn’t an obstacle to Jessa’s happiness. He was using Jessa, but not maliciously. Rune had gone to Wen to arrange their marriage. Maybe Wen had dreamed of marrying Anya until Rune tempted him away. Jessa had never seen Wen as a whole person. He was a duty or a sacrifice. Not somebody with dreams and strange secrets. Wen wasn’t Jessa’s savior.
And neither was Otto.
Jessa didn’t need anybody to take care of him. He had his jewelry business, and there were other donors besides Isaac.
He opened his eyes and looked at Otto.
“Was Solomon there?”
“I don’t know a lot. Nobody’s being held though, so I’d say no.”
Wen had come for brunch with the family before Rune and Uriah had left for Rune’s job a few days ago. He’d been his usual distant self, though he’d given Jessa’s hand a quick squeeze. Now… To think that… That he was gone, just like that.
Jessa shoved his hands into his armpits.
“So they wanted Mateo and Mateo’s dead. Now what?”
Otto turned at the bottom of the mountain and sped up. “Whoever killed Mateo wanted something. Either something he had or to keep something he had a secret.”
“Like that room?”
“The killer already knew about it. It wasn’t an accident he took Isaac and Mateo there. He wanted someplace private. Someplace to ask questions. Acalliona wasn’t a drainer, but drainers are in every part of this. Stick close to me when we get there,” Otto added, glancing sideways.
Jessa bit back on a laugh, but it escaped anyway. “You know I’m stronger than you right? My hero,” he added.
Color rose in Otto’s cheeks, but he flashed Jessa a grin. “The offer to arm wrestle’s still open.”
“I’d still win.”
“You’re supposed to let me win. I’m the hero.”
I know.
A hero Jessa had to lose. This was the predictable complication in every damn romance, except this one didn’t have a happy ending. Which made it real life actually and not a romance at all.
He didn’t want to think about it anymore though, so he closed his eyes again, and the rhythmic whistling of the tires on the pavement lulled him to sleep. Otto’s hand brushing his hair off his face woke him up.
“I’ll do this however you want,” Otto said. “I can go in first and you can wait, or come in now.”
“Now.”
He owed Wen to be the one person in there who actually cared about him.
He got out of the car and waited for Otto, who showed his badge to the cop at the door. The place was a wreck of shattered glass and torn canvasses. The artwork, which had hung on cables, lay in shards. Holes gaped in the wall where the display cases had been ripped from their bolts. Jewelry littered the carpet like the detritus tossed by a wave.
“Damnit,” Jessa muttered.
One of his necklaces hung from the skeletal frame of a broken display case.
“You the guys from Comity?”
A cop stood in a door in back.
“Yeah.”
Otto stepped over the wreckage, and Jessa followed him, but when he reached the door, Otto turned back.
“Are you sure?”
“I have to.”
But some force rose to push him back while he struggled to step into the other room. Otto went around him, the cop turning with him, and Jessa stood like a plaster cast. His limbs ached, stiff and brittle, as though all it would take to shatter him was one sharp tap. But the tap he got was like the weight of Celestine coming down on him.
Otto returned and blocked his view. “It’s Wen.”
“I know.”
Closer to him in death than in life.
He patted Otto on the chest and pushed by. A human in a suit stood in a circle of cops in uniform, and a voice rose from somewhere near the floor. “… got interrupted before he could do much.”
Otto went to join them, and Jessa let his gaze roam. Without seeing Wen, it was hard to make this real. The room he stood in was stuffed with tables and folding chairs and large enough to seat thirty. A whiteboard hung from a wall, and an accordion door to a studio like Rune’s stood partway open. The floor was cement, and a large kiln stood in a corner of the room. Jessa let his gaze drift back to the cops.
“Were they—”
“Cuttin’ ’im up?” somebody said. “Yeah, I think the plan was to burn ’im.”
“God, what a stink that woulda been.”
“How long since anyone’s seen the owner,” Otto asked.
“Yesterday. You think the owner’s involved?”
“Gut feeling.”
A prickly heat ran over Jessa’s body and evaporated the air in his lungs. His head swelled, and voices boomed inside it.
Why… Why… Why Wen?
His body took him across the space, and he pushed his way into the huddle. “Why not let him go?”
Heads turned, and Jessa swayed, but Otto didn’t touch him. He stared hard-eyed at Jessa and shook his head. “I don’t know, Jess. It’s a good question.”
Jess.
Grown and strong. The son of a king. He gritted his teeth and looked away from the black holes in Wen’s neck. “Isaac said he was unconscious, but somebody came back and got him. It makes no sense to do that.”
“Makin’ sure he didn’t spill his guts about something probably,” somebody said. “Though why they didn’t just kill him there is kinda strange.”
God, he hadn’t known Wen at all.
Forcing himself not to look down again, Jessa turned away and wandered to the studio. The setup was functional and cold. Rune’s space was stuffy and dark and hot and colorful. Here, nothing cluttered the space. No statues. No vases. No tubs of glass. Maybe somebody should burn it down. Let Wen go. He was a corpse. A clue on the floor. They didn’t know him.
You didn’t know him.
“Jess.”
He swallowed. “I’m okay.”
“Frenn had a safe. Whoever brought Wen here broke into it. The kid working here before doesn’t know what was in the safe other than a few pieces of jewelry, and at least some of that jewelry is still there. So somebody took something but not the rest, or they got nothing, but either way they were looking for something.”
“And they killed Wen. Why were they even at Comity House if this was just a robbery?”
“The answer is in whatever they took.”
Jessa turned with a frown. “What if it was Solomon who brought Wen here?”
“I’m guessing he did and staged it to look like a robbery. Typical overboard shit, trashing the place like this. I’m betting there was something in that safe, something Frenn came back for, because he isn’t the only one who wants it.”
The fog.
“Wen was involved,” Jessa murmured.
“Oh yeah. But I don’t think he knew what he was up against.”
“I didn’t see any signs. Wen just seemed like…
Wen.”
“This isn’t your fault.”
You aren’t to blame.
Was Wen? Or Isaac, for hiding Mateo? Or Mateo, for setting somebody up with a vampire masquerading as a drainer? How far back did this go?
He was a part of it without knowing how or why. And now—
“Jones.” A cop from the outer room appeared. “A call just came in from King Dinallah. He wants you to return to Senera Castle right away. A car will pick you up and take you to him.”
Otto frowned. “How the hell did he find out about this already?”
The cop shrugged.
“Spies everywhere,” he said, and Jessa remembered his own adventure in spying when he’d skulked outside of Rune’s study, listening in on Wen’s complaints about Rune’s agreement to let Jessa work with Otto. His excitement had deafened him to Wen’s tone. He’d tuned it out and wrapped himself in a Jackson Stork fantasy. Everything had just fallen into place for him. But now, the memory of Wen’s voice reverberated inside him. I don’t want that filthy human near him. The sound had stretched thin and metallic. But it hadn’t been the sound of greed, or a desire for jewels or precious art.
It had been the sound of hate.
41
Called to the Manor
The clouds, gray edged and billowy white, chased the car. The gloom, tumbling across the sky, pissed Otto off, so far from the blistering summers he remembered when he’d burned his feet on the boiling sidewalks.
It was Zev he was really pissed at though. And Wen for getting himself killed. Not that Otto wanted competition from him, but Jessa was a prince. And a drainer. Not that that mattered, because that wasn’t the only reason being with Jessa wouldn’t work. Jessa was royal and a vampire. Otto was human and a cop. An ex-cop really, and one who sucked at his fucking job, because now two more people were dead. It was too much to ask Jessa to forgive. Wen might not have been the love of his life, but he’d still been ready to marry him. Wen being dead didn’t make Jessa free.
He glanced sideways before he veered onto the exit to Comity. Jessa sat staring outside.
“I’m sorry, Jess.”
“Me too. I didn’t know him.”
“Not your fault. People are fucking mysteries most of the time. It’s hard to know what’s in a person’s heart.”
He caught Jessa’s frown before slowing at an intersection. A few raindrops splattered the windshield.
“Have you ever… been with somebody?” Jessa asked. “Lived with them?”
Otto shook his head. “Not my thing.”
“Why isn’t it?”
Because I’m obsessed. Bitter… Empty.
Being with somebody was about making plans and believing those plans would play out and you’d keep loving the same guy or girl, and you’d stand together when life ripped you bloody. But his mom and dad had fought nonstop, and after his mom died, his dad had sunk into the booze as though he’d had no idea how to get through the day without her anymore. And after Maisie’s murder, Otto and his dad had found nothing to say to each other, because there’d been only Maisie between them, and that had been a bottomless pit Otto had known to steer clear of, and his dad probably had too. Somehow, when Otto wasn’t looking, the space between them had filled his whole life.
“I just never really thought about it,” he finally said.
As the road curved up the mountain, Jessa braced his hand on the dashboard and Otto noticed the nail polish again. It wasn’t chipped yet. He must have put it on fresh when Otto took him to the movie. Where the heroine was betrothed to someone else, and the hero drowned.
Just like real fucking life.
Duty and responsibility, and if you tried to get away from it…
“You don’t have to come with me to see Dinallah. You can stay and make arrangements for Wen. Mal could probably help you, I’m guessing.”
“Wen has family. I should have married him. Now they’re still where they were before. Marrying into my family was supposed to be a step up for them. I guess that’s ruined too.”
“Jess…” The flat tone of Jessa’s voice got to him. “You need some time.”
Jessa laughed. “I wonder who they’ll find to marry me now. Who’s going to run Comity House? And what’s going to happen to the donors? Wen took care of them.”
“We can figure it out.”
“Wen’s family will figure it out. I won’t have anything to say.”
“You have influence, Jessa.”
“Not really. I still don’t know why the King thought I could help. Wen didn’t. And he didn’t want me around you either.”
Otto shot him a look. “What? How do you know that?”
“He said. Don’t take it personally. He didn’t like humans. I never saw that. I guess I wasn’t looking.”
How easy was it to hate? Otto had never thought twice about it. Vampires had murdered half the human population over an accident. One of them had murdered Maisie and stolen his dad’s will to live.
And Otto… Otto was a shell. The only reason he’d rescued Jessa in the parking lot was because he hated bullies. That and not knowing Jessa was a vampire. And now? How the fuck was he supposed to give up everything that had gotten him this far?
Hate and revenge.
“You deserve somebody who loves you, Jess.”
“I’m a drainer, Otto. I’ll take whoever Rune finds for me.”
“Well, for fuck’s sake. Just live alone. It’s better than a loveless marriage.”
“I could’ve loved Wen.”
“Is that what you’re telling yourself now? I get it. People look a hell of a lot better when they’re dead sometimes. They don’t contradict you. They don’t bitch at you. They don’t pretend they’re doing you a fucking favor when it’s the other way around.”
The waspish sound in his voice surprised him, welling from somewhere in his chest and chasing a strange chill through his body. What the fuck was that about? He had no idea. But he didn’t have time to worry about it before he took the last turn to the castle.
“Think about whether you want to come with me.”
Jessa frowned. “Gem Fest is in two days. We were going to that anyway.”
Otto sighed and pulled up at the steps. Right. “I’m gonna go pack a few things then.”
Jessa’s leaning over and nuzzling Otto’s face surprised the hell out of him. So was hearing him say, “You aren’t to blame. Somebody wise told me that.”
Before Otto had time to respond, Jessa climbed out of the car and darted up the steps.
Otto wanted to believe Jessa, but even if he weren’t to blame for Wen, he’d never be free of Maisie.
He shifted the car back into gear. When Jessa disappeared inside, he drove away. Traffic was light, and he made it home in twenty minutes. His neighborhood looked desolate as cold wind blew bits of paper down the street. Otto grabbed a bag from his hall closet and stuffed it with a few clothes. On his way back down the hall, he reached for the closet door to close it but held onto its edge when his gaze flicked to the shoe box on the shelf. The cliché shoe box filled with cliché family photos. Well, not filled exactly.
Dropping his bag, Otto grabbed the box and pulled off the lid. It didn’t take him long to shuffle through his few photos to find the last photo he had of Maisie, sitting on his couch, legs crossed, arms stretched across the top. Smiling at him. She wore her white dress with the giant red and yellow roses on it, bangles on her wrists, and her necklace. Whoever she’d been about to meet, she hadn’t been afraid of him. Opening his bag, Otto stuffed the photo in a pocket inside and headed out.
42
Interlude
By the time Otto returned to the castle, the car Dinallah had sent for them was idling by the front entrance. Jessa stood on the driveway with a bag slung over his shoulder, waiting for Otto. They got into the car and a few hours later arrived at the manor where another one of the King’s butlers took them to a room lit by an array of candles and a fire in the fireplace. The bed was co
vered in puffy comforters, the air warm and spicy.
After a short and fitful sleep, Otto woke to light creeping in through a gap in the drapes. It was pale and clear and lit Jessa’s profile with gold. Otto stared at the bumps on his skinny nose and the curve of his skinny upper lip. A parade of faces that had kept him company in bed marched through his memory. Nothing warmed him but the body beside him.
After a moment, he rolled away and went to the window. Their room overlooked a mountain range, dark in the early light, laced with thin mist in the hollows. “It follows me.”
Twisting his head, Otto gazed back at the bed. Jessa’s mouth was slightly parted. A wave of tenderness rushed over him at the sight. No reminder he was staring at a vampire worked to dim his emotions. The pointy little fangs had grown on him. The comical hisses.
With a sigh, Otto padded across the thick rugs and shut himself in the bathroom. By the time he’d showered and wrapped himself in a towel, Jessa sat naked on the side of the bed. Violet colored shadows smudged the skin under his eyes. His nipples were a fresh pink, highlighting the red in the hair between his legs. His soft penis lay against the cushion of his balls. Would Otto ever have that sweet flesh in his mouth again?
“I don’t feel anything.” Jessa’s voice was dull, but fear wriggled like a living thing in the shadow of his eyes. “I’m glad I didn’t love him though. That would be worse. I just accepted everything about him. I can’t believe I got it all so wrong. I can’t trust myself.”
“Why not, Jess? You said yourself he did good things. People do bad things for a lot of reasons that don’t make them bad people. We aren’t one or the other. We’re both, and sometimes the line between isn’t all that easy to see. You do your best, and maybe Wen did too.”
Jessa’s gaze didn’t waver, but it brimmed with doubt.
Approaching cautiously, Otto sat beside him, and Jessa’s shoulder met his as the bed sank underneath them. The strands of his hair, tangled from sleep, slipped across Otto’s skin like silk. His lips were dry from breathing through his mouth. Stray freckles grew darker in the growing light. Otto leaned in and Jessa met him. The kiss was soft and dry and sweet. Otto leaned away until his eyes focused on Jessa’s. The russet of autumn leaves or wild honey.
