by Jenna Black
Jamaal’s chin jutted out stubbornly, and the look in his eyes was downright mutinous, though he didn’t argue. At least not out loud. Anderson apparently read his expression the same way I did.
“I don’t want to lose you,” he said, “but you have no place under this roof if you can’t accept my authority.”
I squirmed and wished I could be anywhere else but here. The sudden pain on Jamaal’s face was too much to bear. He was still grieving for his friend, still furious at me, and Anderson had just delivered a threat that caused a soul-deep hurt.
I didn’t like Jamaal, of course. But I could empathize with him. I wasn’t sure what the relationship had been between him and Emmitt—had they been more than friends?—but the pain of that loss was obviously agonizing. I knew what it was like to act out when in pain. I’d spent years doing it after my mother abandoned me. I suspected Jamaal was feeling abandoned himself right now, and to have Anderson threaten to kick him out for my sake must have been like a dagger to his heart.
“So,” Anderson prompted when Jamaal just stood there looking devastated, “are you going to accept Nikki’s right to stay in my house? Or are we going to have a problem?”
Jamaal shot me a look of pure loathing. “There’s no problem,” he replied. “As long as you don’t expect me to like it, I can accept her presence.”
Internally, I groaned. I was supposed to stay in the same house with this guy? That meant I’d probably have to come face to face with him on a regular basis, which seemed like a recipe for disaster.
But I was only going to move in for a little while, I told myself. Just until I could figure out some other way to protect Steph. If putting up with Jamaal and his hostility was the price I had to pay for her safety, then I was ready to pay it.
But I had a sneaking suspicion matters were not settled between Jamaal and me, no matter what Anderson had ordered, or what Jamaal had grudgingly promised.
THIRTEEN
After dinner, I went back to my hotel and packed up my meager belongings. I hadn’t brought a whole lot of stuff, but I was reluctant to go home and pack a bigger suitcase. It wouldn’t surprise me if Konstantin was having my place watched, and I wasn’t foolish enough to ignore Anderson’s warnings. I needed to establish myself as being under Anderson’s protection before I ran into Konstantin or Alexis again. Anderson had promised to call Konstantin and “register” me as being under his protection as soon as I arrived back at the mansion.
I called Steph before I left and let her know I wasn’t going to be at my home number for at least a few days. Naturally, she tried to wring details out of me, but there were none I could give her. I just told her the same thing I’d told her at dinner last night, that a disgruntled wannabe client was giving me trouble. She was far from satisfied, but she let the subject drop, for which I was profoundly grateful.
It was almost eleven o’clock by the time I pulled up in front of the gates of the mansion again. Fate decided to screw with my head and dumped a bunch of unexpected rain on Arlington the moment the gates opened to admit me. My hands squeezed tight on the steering wheel, and I swallowed a lump of dread that formed in my throat. I did not want a repeat of the evening’s near panic attack. I sucked in a deep breath and hit the gas, concentrating hard to keep any potential flashbacks at bay.
When I parked once again on the circular drive, I was pleasantly surprised to find Maggie waiting for me under the shelter of the porch roof. She was by far the nicest of the Liberi I’d met so far, and I couldn’t help liking her. The rain pounded down relentlessly as I got out of the car and popped the trunk. It wasn’t terribly cold out, but the rain came with a generous dose of wind, and I wished I’d worn a heavier coat.
Maggie could have stayed safely under the porch roof and kept dry, but instead she beat me to the trunk and was lifting my suitcase out before I could get to it. The suitcase wasn’t particularly heavy, being a small roll-aboard and only lightly packed, but I was still surprised by how easily Maggie plucked it out of the trunk and scampered up the front steps with it.
I slammed the trunk shut and hurried to follow, eager to be out of the rain. When I caught up with Maggie on the porch, I reached for my bag.
“Let me take that,” I said. “You don’t have to carry my bag for me.”
She grinned at me. “Anderson’s got you on the third floor. Trust me, you don’t want to haul your suitcase all the way up there.”
I put my hand on the handle of the suitcase and gave a gentle tug, but she didn’t let go. I rolled my eyes. “Come on, I’m supposed to be living here now, right? So it’s not like I’m a guest and you have to carry my bag.”
“You don’t understand,” Maggie said, still grinning at me, a cheerful twinkle in her eye. She twisted the suitcase’s handle out of my grip, then lifted it one-handed over her head like it weighed no more than an empty grocery sack. “I’m descended from Zeus, through Heracles. I don’t have any storm magic, but I am seriously strong.” Yes, I could see that. “I even carry things for the guys sometimes, though it offends their masculine sensibilities so much it’s an argument every time.”
She said it lightly, and there was no change in her expression I could put my finger on, but I got the feeling that it bugged her. I guess it had to be kind of tough to be a strong woman in a household full of supernatural alpha males, most, if not all, of whom had been born in times when society accepted it as fact that women were lesser beings.
I followed Maggie up the grand front staircase, which featured a remarkably genuine-looking reproduction of Winged Victory on the landing, making me feel like I had been magically transported to a museum. When we reached the second floor, Maggie gestured with her free hand toward the long hall leading to the right.
“That’s the east wing, which is Anderson’s. The first door on the left is his study, and you can go in there whenever you want as long as the door is open. If the door is closed, knock first or he’ll get cranky. The rest of the wing is off-limits unless you’re invited or unless there’s an emergency.”
This information naturally set my suspicious mind to wondering what Anderson might be hiding in the east wing, but maybe I’d just seen Beauty and the Beast too many times. It was, as he had pointed out, his house, and it was only fair that he have his own private space within it, even if he was living with a bunch of other Liberi.
“The west wing is where Jamaal, Blake, and Logan’s apartments are,” Maggie continued, gesturing to the left and then starting up the next set of stairs. “Jack, Leo, and I all have rooms on the third floor.”
“I haven’t met Leo yet,” I said. I was beginning to think he was a bit of a recluse, because even when I’d been in the process of investigating Emmitt’s so-called “cult,” I’d rarely caught sight of him.
“He’s not very sociable,” Maggie responded. “He’s a descendant of Hermes, who was a god of commerce. If we didn’t remind him to eat and sleep every once in a while, he’d spend every second of every day sitting at his computer scrutinizing the market. We tease him about it, but the kind of money he brings in makes it possible for us to do a lot of good. And live well ourselves, while we’re at it.”
“Who’s Anderson descended from?” I asked. “You’ve told me everyone else’s ancestor, but not his.”
“That’s because I don’t know. He’s very mysterious about it. No one recognizes his glyph, and he’s not saying.”
“Any idea why not?”
“Nope,” Maggie replied cheerfully. “But if you want to see if you can pry the secret out of him, have at it.”
My only response was a soft snort. If Anderson wasn’t going to tell his closest friends, I was damn sure he wouldn’t tell me, so there was no point in even asking.
We’d finally reached the third floor, and Maggie led me down another long hallway. Even with eight or nine people living in the mansion, there were plenty of rooms to spare. Dust covers draped the furniture in many of the upstairs rooms.
The “guest ro
om” Anderson had assigned me was actually a generous suite, with a huge bedroom, a luxurious bathroom, and a cozy sitting room, complete with a rectangular table against one wall that could serve as either a desk or a dining table. It was a hell of a lot nicer and more comfortable than my hotel had been.
“Do you want to take some time to unpack and freshen up?” Maggie asked. “Or would you rather have the grand tour first?”
I stifled a yawn. I hadn’t had a good night’s sleep in what felt like forever, and the king-sized four-poster in the bedroom was calling to me. However, I doubted I could sleep comfortably without thoroughly examining my surroundings first.
“Let’s do the grand tour,” I said. “I’m going to crash if I hold still for too long.”
“All right then. Follow me!”
The tour of the house lasted the better part of an hour, and it left me wishing I’d drawn a map as we went along. I’d been right about the house’s origins—it had once been a plantation. Which meant that it was huge, with a zillion rooms, and also meant that there were servants’ corridors and staircases all over the place. Combine those classic plantation features with a century’s worth of additions and renovations, and you had a dizzying maze. Or maybe it was just my own fatigue that made everything so confusing.
By the time I got back to my room, I doubted I could find my way to the front door without help, and I was so tired my eyes ached. I locked both the door to my suite and the door to my bedroom before finally allowing myself to collapse into bed and fall into a deep, untroubled sleep.
It was still pitch dark out when I awoke. A nightlight glowed faintly from the open bathroom door, and there was a little light cast by the digital clock by the bedside, but otherwise the room was oppressively dark. I was used to the lights of the city creeping around the edges of my curtains, and to the sound of cars passing by at all hours of the day and night. Here in Anderson’s mansion, I felt cut off from humanity, alone and out of my element.
I didn’t know what had awakened me, but the shiver of unease trailing down my spine told me something was wrong. I lay still and peered into the darkness, checking to see if anything was amiss. When nothing immediately tweaked my threat radar, I almost let my eyes slide closed again. I was still dead tired.
But there’s something inherently disturbing about sleeping in an unfamiliar room, especially when that room is part of a huge, pre-Civil War mansion inhabited by supernatural beings, and I couldn’t just dismiss my nerves. I stifled a yawn and sat up, wishing the room weren’t so damn dark.
I started to reach for the bedside lamp, and then froze as my eyes picked out a man-shaped patch of shadow in the darkness. A man-shaped shadow that wasn’t looming over me, as I’d half-expected, but that was lying on his side on the bed beside me, his head propped on his hand.
I couldn’t make out his features in the dark, and so I had no idea who it was. Until he moved and I heard the telltale clicking of the beads in his hair.
With a yelp of alarm, I tried to throw myself off the bed, reaching for the lamp as I did so. I figured Jamaal knew the layout of this room better than I did, and I’d have a better chance of making it out the door if I could see where I was going. But Jamaal was faster than me, and before I could pull the chain on the lamp, he’d grabbed my arm and yanked me back onto the bed.
I tried to get in an elbow jab, but my movements were hampered by the sheets tangled around my legs. My jab missed, and moments later I found myself pinned face-down with my arm wrenched up behind my back. Jamaal was big and powerful, and my struggles were useless. I considered screaming for help, but then decided against it. I doubted anyone else in the house was close enough to hear, just as I doubted there were a whole lot of them who would be eager to help me against Jamaal, who was one of their own.
“How did you get in here?” I gasped. “I locked the doors.”
Okay, it was probably a pretty dumb question under the circumstances. It really didn’t matter how he got in my room. But I guess I wasn’t eager to face the important question—what was he going to do to me?—so I ignored it in favor of the trivial one.
Jamaal laughed humorlessly, but at least he wasn’t actively hurting me. Yet.
“There is no lock strong enough nor wall thick enough to keep Death out,” he murmured, his lips close to my ear so that I could feel the puff of his breath against my skin. The ends of a couple of his braids had found their way under the collar of my flannel night-shirt and tickled the base of my neck.
“Are you speaking literally or metaphorically?”
I felt his slight jerk of surprise. I guess he’d expected me to cower in fear at his menacing words, and there was certainly a part of me that was afraid. But there was another part of me that was getting just plain fed up with all the bullying and threatening, and that part was keeping my fear at bay.
Jamaal’s hand tightened around my wrist, although his grip had not yet gone from uncomfortable to painful. “You think because I can’t kill you that I can’t make you suffer?”
I snorted. “I’m not an idiot. But you’re going to do whatever you’re going to do no matter what I say, so I figure I might as well speak my mind.”
I no longer made any attempt to struggle against his hold. What was the point? “Fair enough,” he said, still talking into my ear. I noticed his breath smelled faintly of clove cigarettes. I guessed as an immortal, he didn’t have to worry about lung cancer. “I’ll speak my mind, too. I think you’re a lying, murdering spy who works for the Olympians.” His grip on my wrist tightened at the words, and I clenched my teeth to suppress a whimper of pain.
“I think you murdered my friend and that you’re going to string Anderson along with hopes of finding Emma while you gather information for your boss. And I think Anderson is too desperate to believe in you to think straight.”
“Ever considered that you might be the one not thinking straight?” I asked, my voice tight enough that he couldn’t miss the fact that I was in pain. He surprised me by loosening his grip.
“I’ll be watching you,” he continued, ignoring my question. “If I see even the slightest hint that you’re playing us false, there will be hell to pay.”
He rolled off of me and sprang to his feet in one fluid motion. My lizard brain urged me not to move from where he’d left me, fearing any movement might incite him, but I couldn’t just lie there on my stomach being Little Miss Submissive.
Swallowing the lump of fear in my throat, I carefully turned over onto my side and pushed up onto my elbow. Jamaal didn’t pounce, but he didn’t go away, either.
“I was speaking literally,” Jamaal said, and for a moment I had no idea what he was talking about. “Locks can’t keep me out. If you fuck with us, there’s nowhere you can hide that I can’t get to you. If you’re out of here by the time the sun rises, I’ll give you a free pass no matter what you deserve for killing Emmitt. But if you stay in this house and I find out you’re working for Konstantin…”
Before I could even think what to say, he stalked away from me. I could barely pick out his shadow in the darkness of the room, but I was pretty sure he passed through my bedroom door without even bothering to open it.
FOURTEEN
After Jamaal left, I got up and turned on the light. I’d never be able to get to sleep if I didn’t explore every nook and cranny of my room to make sure I was alone. I was not at all comforted to find that the bedroom door and the entrance to my suite were both locked. I wished I could believe I’d dreamed Jamaal’s visit, but I knew I hadn’t. If he could pass through locked doors, then I supposed he could have escaped from his basement cell on the night of Emmitt’s death, despite all the pounding and shouting I’d heard. Of course, if passing through the locked door would have earned him another date with the Hand of Doom, I didn’t blame him for choosing a different form of protest.
I made a halfhearted attempt to go back to sleep, but I failed miserably. The dark was too oppressive, and my fears were too overwhelming.
Jamaal had threatened to hurt me only if I double-crossed Anderson, but it was obvious he’d be looking for the slightest excuse to condemn me. What if I couldn’t find Emma? After all, I had as yet found no evidence of any supernatural hunting ability, and with Emma I didn’t even know how to start. Would Jamaal take my lack of progress as evidence of betrayal?
I shoved the covers away and got out of bed, turning on the light. Sleep was an impossibility, no matter how much I might prefer to escape my situation by slipping into dreamland.
It was almost five in the morning, so at least I’d gotten a few solid hours of sleep before Jamaal had awakened me. I tended to be an early riser anyway, so I tried to tell myself I wasn’t really getting up in the middle of the night, even though my body cried out for more rest.
A part of me was beginning to suspect I should cut my losses and run. Earlier, I’d talked myself out of disappearing because of all the things I didn’t want to give up. Unfortunately, I seemed to be giving up a lot of those things anyway. I hadn’t spent the night in my own home since the accident, and I’d put so little thought into my job that I hadn’t even checked phone messages. I put referring my current clients to other investigators on my day’s to-do list. It was easier to face than figuring out what to do with the rest of my life.
I decided I needed a serious coffee infusion before I made any life-altering decisions. If I’d really felt like I lived in the mansion, I wouldn’t have hesitated to go downstairs in my nightshirt. But no matter what my supposed status, I felt more like a reluctant guest at an oversized B&B, which meant I wasn’t going anywhere until I was showered and dressed.
I only made two wrong turns before I found my way to the kitchen.
The coffee didn’t magically make all my problems go away, but it was warm, delicious, and caffeinated. That was all that mattered.
I spent the remainder of the wee hours of the morning doing some basic Internet research on Emma Poindexter of Arlington, Virginia. I assumed most of what I learned was pure fiction. Depending on how old she was, she could have dozens of different assumed identities. None of which would have much to do with who she really was. Still, it was a start.
