The sales pitch was easy to imagine with all the Society’s resources at her fingertips.
Join the Undead Coalition.
Have your pick of clans—or maybe even start your own.
Just keep playing mole, stay buried, and share all the dirt on Lacroix’s plans.
“The timing is suspect,” Linus admitted. “Mother met Lacroix at the ball, and a week later your progeny arrives on your doorstep with him the logical haven.”
“Hmm. Then it’s decided.”
A wary expression crossed his features. “Dare I ask?”
Snuggling in for the remainder of the ride, I confessed, “I’m going to make Corbin an offer he can’t refuse.”
Corbin was sitting on the couch, watching television, and eating a bowl of cereal left over from Amelie’s marshmallowism days. I watched through the window, expecting a flash of red or pink to coat the small frosted pieces, but when he turned up his bowl to slurp, milk dribbled down his chin.
Plain. White. Milk.
“Are you seeing this?” I murmured to Linus. “He’s eating. Actual food.”
Volkov once ate a grilled cheese sandwich in my kitchen, but he was a Last Seed. They were born from a newly turned male vampire knocking up a willing surrogate before his sperm died too.
Deathless, even though they were made, must share more traits with LS than your standard vampire.
“Interesting.” Linus came up behind me. “The blood wasn’t enough.”
“This might explain why your mother left hunting out of his curriculum. He can’t require much blood to survive if he can still process food for nutrients.”
We watched a moment longer before Corbin felt eyes on him. He wiped his mouth dry with the back of his hand then scowled at our huddle and started for the kitchen with his bowl.
The eaves creaked overhead, Woolly snickering at us getting caught, and she opened the front door.
Once inside, I glared up at the foyer chandelier. “You couldn’t have flicked a curtain to hide us?”
The crystals tinkled with her laughter, and the sound made my heart light.
“How’s Oscar?” I glanced around, but he hadn’t come to greet us. “Still sleeping?”
The floorboards made a groaning noise that conveyed her worry over the ghost boy.
“I’ll check on him before I go to bed.” I lingered in the foyer. “What about Corbin?”
The lights brightened, giving the impression the old house liked him. How much of that was my energy coursing through him versus his own merit, I wasn’t sure.
“We’re not keeping him,” I warned her. “We’re not running a B&B here.”
Odette once accused Woolly of being a halfway house for broken dreamers. She wasn’t wrong. We had taken in our fair share of strays. I preferred to believe most would be rehabilitated during their stay, and I could release them back into the wild.
Thinking of Odette made my chest pinch until I rubbed the spot, not that it soothed the ache.
Corbin was loading the dishwasher when I came upon him. Tidy. I liked him better already.
“You eat,” I stated the obvious. “Actual food.” Well, cereal. “You couldn’t have mentioned that sooner?”
“I’m a freak of nature.” He leaned against the counter. “I didn’t want to spook you.”
“Hey, freak of nature is my line.” I dropped onto a barstool. “And you’re not going to scare me. You can’t be worse than I am. I made you, remember?”
“Hard to forget.”
Ouch. “Last Seeds can eat food. Most don’t. It’s so plebian.” I snorted. “All this means is you’re more like them than made vampires.”
“Last Seeds? What are those?” He looked at me funny. “Aren’t all vampires made?”
“They didn’t tell you anything.” I groaned, letting my head fall back on my shoulders. “No wonder you’re so confused.” Linus stood in the doorway, giving me the floor, but I waved him in. “You’re better at lectures than I am. You’ve had a lot more practice. Would you care to fill in the blanks for him?”
Linus smiled a tiny smile that told me he was aware I was teasing him. “I’m happy to be of service.”
While he began outlining Vampire 101, I slipped onto the back porch and squinted into the darkness. Hood and Lethe hadn’t been with me long, but I had grown to rely on them so much. I would have felt braver with one or both by my side, but I had to do this right. That meant I had to do it alone.
I walked until my spine tingled, took a breath, and stopped where the garden ended in a copse of trees.
“I need to speak to my grandfather,” I said in a cool voice. “Tell him the matter is urgent.”
“Yes, mistress,” two voices replied in tandem.
Keeping my shoulders squared, I walked back to Woolly as Amelie opened the carriage house door.
“Any news?” she ventured, her gaze sliding past my shoulder to the trees. “Did you find Odette?”
“Boaz was right. The house has been cleaned out.” And doctored to screw with the gwyllgi, meaning we couldn’t track her using our best resources, but I couldn’t tell Amelie that. “There were complications, so we just got back. I was going to text you before bed.” At least that had been the plan up until I had forgotten with everything else going on. “I’ll update you in a few days, unless we find her before then.”
“Okay.” She attempted a smile. “I’ll do the same. When I hear back from Boaz.”
“I’d appreciate it.” I hesitated before producing the shell from my pocket. “Does this ring any bells for you?”
“You’re joking, right?” She sobered upon realizing that no, I was not. “There are a million of these on Tybee, holes and all. It’s where a moon snail—”
“—drills a hole with its radula so it can slurp out the clam.” Odette had taught us that when we used to spend the summers gathering shells and stringing necklaces on her porch. “Just thought I would check.”
“Send me some pictures in better light,” she said after a minute. “I’ll look them over and see if it shakes anything loose.”
“Sure.” I waved then rocked back on my heels toward Woolly. “Night.”
Guilt prickled my nape as she watched me go, but I had nothing left to give her.
Linus strolled out the back door, hands in his pockets, as I hit the steps.
“You didn’t run screaming into the woods after me,” I observed. “Impressive.”
“I did consider it.” He swept his gaze over me. “Any minute now, I was going to start flailing.”
“Just make sure you wait until I have my phone ready and my camera on.” I climbed the stairs to meet him. “Can you imagine the boost in your rep when the denizens of Atlanta see their potentate shrieking and doing the ants in my pants dance?”
A tic in his cheek betrayed the smile he was hiding. “Evildoers will tremble with fear.”
“Hey, it’s my duty to send you home in better shape than when you arrived.”
The joke fell flat, and I gritted my teeth to avoid apologizing or compounding the faux pas.
“I have to go back,” he said softly and gathered me in his arms.
“I know, I know.” I rested my cheek over his heart. “I don’t want to think about it. Or talk about it. Which is why I’m amazed it keeps popping out of my mouth.”
“Corbin is ready to discuss his options.”
Grateful he didn’t press the issue, I packed away all those messy emotions and nodded. “Good deal.”
I pulled away, and he let me go. I tried not to read anything into the moment, but panic beat against my breastbone every time I thought of him packing his bags.
Lethe had advised me to give him a reason not to go.
She never explained what would happen if I wasn’t enough to make him stay.
Five
Corbin looked resigned to his fate when I reentered the kitchen and claimed the stool next to his.
“You have a couple of options,” I started. “Yo
u can stay here and haunt my attic, so no one will ever find you. You can run and take your chances on your own. Or you can go live with my grandfather, and he can teach you how to vampire.”
“How would that work?” He canted his head to one side. “There are no vampires like me.”
“We don’t know that for certain. I can almost guarantee Gramps has run across your kind during his life.” I twisted aside and leaned back against the counter. “The problem with that option is I don’t know him very well. He’s had me kidnapped, promised me to one of his Last Seed followers, and encouraged his clan to collect me and return me like a coat from the lost and found.”
Corbin waited, expecting a punchline, but I was already here. The joke was on him if he didn’t take me seriously. “You’re not selling me on that option.”
“We recently declared a truce. I don’t know if it will hold. I don’t know what it means exactly. But I can tell you there’s no love lost between the Grande Dame and my grandfather. He would protect you just to spite her.”
And because he wanted something from me. What, I wasn’t certain. But it was enough he was willing to bind me to his clan through vampire law by marrying me off to Volkov. It was enough that he smiled as I stepped all over his toes at the ball. Enough he had taken direct orders from me through a clenched jaw.
He would foster Corbin, and I would owe him a boon. What he wanted in exchange…would be nothing good.
At least he was aware Linus and I were a thing. Hopefully that ruled out any plans on his part for arranging a match.
A tiny voice in my head assured me this was yet another reason not to burn the marriage contract between Linus and me.
Bawk. Bawk.
I was such a chicken.
Cricket should have kitted me out as Yellow Belle instead of Blue Belle.
There were no nets to catch you when you fell in love. I learned that the hard way. The only thing waiting for you at the bottom after you took that leap of faith was the other person.
Choose well, and you lived happily-ever-after, or at least happily-for-now. Choose poorly, and you went splat.
Corbin considered me. “You don’t sound like you want to be on the hook for this.”
“Oh, I don’t.” I wriggled on my seat thinking about it. “The last place I want to be is between the Grande Dame and what she wants.” The second-to-last place was handing the Grande Dame exactly what she wanted, which I might very well be doing. “You’re a murderer.”
He opened his mouth to contradict me, I cut him off before the excuses started.
Undead people were still people.
“What you do might be viewed as noble among the mortal set, but a vampire was a human who paid a necromancer a small fortune to enjoy near-immortality, and you robbed them of that. I’m not saying all vampires are saints. Far from it. We’re all flawed: humans, necromancers, gwyllgi, etc. Vampires are no exception. But you’re in our world now. There won’t be any pats on the back or fang necklace stringing parties—whatever hunters do to celebrate their killing sprees—but there will be a whole heck of a lot of pissed-off vampires once they figure out who you are and what you’ve done. That means you need the protection of a vampire who can shield you from a stake to the heart until you can prove yourself to whatever clan takes you in.”
“You think your grandfather can do that?”
“I know he can, if he decides you’re worth the effort.”
“Worth the effort,” he repeated, unable to hide his disgust. “I won’t beg a vampire for shelter.”
“Then I’m glad we had this talk.” I saluted him. “You’ve just saved me the hassle of meeting with him to discuss your case. Thanks.”
Corbin shoved away from the counter and stormed out into the backyard.
“Kids these days.” I clucked my tongue at Linus, taking a moment to send the promised shell pics to Amelie. “What can you do?”
“I’m not sure.” Linus stared at the floor. “I’ve never maintained prolonged contact with my progeny.”
“I need to check in with Lethe, and then I’m going to bed.” I dusted my hands together. “Today was trash. Bag it, and set it at the curb.”
A flinch twitched his shoulders, so slight anyone else would have missed it, but I saw.
“I’ll keep an eye on Corbin,” he offered. “You go on up, shower, and dress for bed.”
The taste of foot clued me in to the colossal mistake I had made by painting today in such broad strokes with the same brush.
“There was one bright spot.” I slid off my stool. “This guy I know took me downtown and showed me this building he’s pretending he didn’t buy for me, but we both know he totally did. He even pitched me a business plan and let me use his shower.” I approached slowly. “FYI, the water pressure is ah-mazing.”
“You could have been attacked in that building, and that guy you know would have been too late.”
“I can take care of myself.” Not one hundred percent, but I was thinking in the sixty or seventy range.
“I hate that you have to, that it’s a skill you have no choice but to acquire.”
“I hate that you put your life at risk every night to keep others safe, but those are the breaks.”
“Yes.” His gaze shot up to me then, his surprise almost comical. “They are.”
I invited myself into his arms. “When are you going to stop being surprised that I want to protect you?”
That I wanted him, that he was wanted. Period.
“When the sun fails to rise, when the stars wink out, when the moon falls into the ocean.”
“Are you quoting at me?” I squinted up at him. “I can’t tell.”
“A failed attempt at being romantic, I’m afraid.” Pink suffused his cheeks. “I’m not very good at it.”
“I like that you’re practicing on me.” I felt heat on my nape. “I’m glad some of this is new to you too.”
His lips parted, like he might say more, but he cleared his throat. Twice. “I better check on Corbin.”
“I’ll do my best not to wind up outside your room again.”
“I don’t mind.”
But I did. Drool was not sexy. Bedhead, not great either. Screaming and writhing on the floor?
Ugh.
Leaving Linus to reel in my progeny before the sun rose and turned Corbin to a crispy critter, I headed upstairs to check on Oscar. Quietly, I opened the door then ducked my head in his room.
He was gone.
I chose to read that as a good sign. When he came back from wherever he went, he was always recharged. I hoped that held true this time too.
Woolly nudged the door closed, squeezing me out into the hall where she prodded me toward my room.
“Will you let me know when he gets back?”
The old house groaned assent then turned on the shower in the bathroom.
I didn’t need a shower, but I embraced the chance to wash today off me before I climbed into bed.
He has a new girlfriend. His third one this week. Just as mundane as all the rest.
Why not me? Why won’t he ask me? I would say yes. He knows I would say yes. Maybe that’s the problem. Maybe I should play hard to get. Maybe then he would see we were meant to…
The carpet squishes under my feet, and cold slime seeps between my toes. I shiver, confused, my anger at Boaz forgotten. The smell hits me then, copper and rose water and thyme.
Maud.
I collapse to my knees beside her and scoop the icy blood back into the gaping hole in her chest.
“Maud?”
The sobs start, and I can’t stop them. I’m working as fast as I can, but her heart—her heart—it’s missing.
“Wake up. Please wake up. Please, Maud. Wake up. Please.”
Shivers dapple my arms, and my teeth chatter, but it doesn’t matter. None of it matters if she won’t open her eyes. I’ll be alone again. All alone. Maud is all I have, and she’s…
She’s gone.
She’s d
ead.
Dead.
Using her blood for my ink, I start drawing a sigil, one I’ve never seen in any textbooks.
“No, Grier,” a voice pleads behind me. “Stop before it’s too late.”
“I’m not losing her too. I won’t.” I keep going, slipping and sliding, covering her head to toe in the foreign sigils. “Come on, Maud. Try. For me.”
“You have to let her go.” Footsteps pound closer. “You don’t want her back. Not like this.”
“You’re wrong.” I scream so loud my voice shreds to ribbons. “I want her back any way I can get her.”
“You don’t mean that. Please, Grier. Think.”
Snot clogs my throat as I close the sigil with a defiant swoop of my finger.
Magic explodes into the room, knocks me backward, and my head cracks against a wall.
“Grier.”
Darkness swirls around me, and I embrace it, grateful when it blinds me to the corpse at my feet.
Except it doesn’t last. I’m not passing out, I feel like I’m waking from a nightmare of my own making.
The blackness thins, swirls, coalesces, and I sob like my heart is breaking.
What have I done? What have I done? What have I done?
Her heart is gone. There can be no culmination now. How would we ever find it in time?
Goddess, what have I done?
A figure kneels on the floor, shrouded in black, hands clawing their face, their chest, their arms.
The room spins, a vortex of midnight, as all that grim power funnels itself into a new host.
I rocketed toward consciousness, soaked through with sweat and trembling. I came awake stretched halfway across my threshold, my fingernails broken and fresh claw marks on the hardwood. I swallowed and I swallowed and I swallowed, but the lump in my throat persisted. I tasted old blood and salty tears.
Chill hands hooked under my arms and lifted me to my feet, but my legs might as well have been jelly.
“I remember…” I wet my cracked lips with my dry tongue. “I tried to bring her back. Maud. I tried to resuscitate her.”
Linus shut his eyes, but it did nothing to conceal his pain, and it didn’t dull the edge of mine when I realized what this meant, what ought to be impossible but made so much sense.
How to Live an Undead Lie (The Beginner's Guide to Necromancy Book 5) Page 8
