She bit the inside of her cheek to suppress a nervous smile. Voice pitched high, she said, “I have to go. Love you!”
Before her mother could demand to know anything else, Zia reached over to swipe her finger over the call button on the dashboard.
Jittery with nerves, she pulled to a slow stop in front of the intimidating gates. The workers had just finished putting in lights around the employee parking lot on the other side. They were slightly dimmer than a normal street light, but they still threw shapes through the bars of the iron gate.
Zia held her breath as she waited. Would she have to get out of the car and go up to the intercom built into the massive stone fence? Surely Mr. Bounds would have informed the guards that she was coming early, right?
Only a handful of seconds passed before there was a quiet beep from the tiny device on her dashboard one of the guards installed when she first got the job. A small green light flashed on the box built into the fence, and then there was a brief, blinding flash of magic as the intricate wards that sealed the property at night were momentarily lifted.
Whoa, that’s some serious firepower.
She was not quite a gloriana, but Zia was not powerless. She never liked doing too much spellwork, but she had a knack for sigils and enough power to open up a lot of lucrative paths after high school. Greenwitches weren’t in incredibly high demand, common as they tended to be, but sigilworkers were. There were endless uses for them — in particular those who could channel some really heavy duty magic.
Her father was a sigilworker, and two of her brothers had gone on to work for the Elvish Protectorate’s government, doing gods knew what in secret labs and research facilities. Her father had always been vague about the specifics of his job, and now her brothers were, too.
Zia wanted no part of that life. She took no joy in staring at sigils every day, trying to get them to do as she wished, and she would have withered under the watchful eye of the government, telling her what to do and when to do it and who to talk to about it.
That didn’t mean she couldn’t appreciate a good, nearly impenetrable ward, nor the power that went into creating something of the sort that surrounded the estate.
Whoever crafted the ward built into the fence must have been almost mind-bogglingly skilled. Not only was it layered with enough power to blow her hair back, but it was nearly undetectable until it was altered for her sake — allowing her to drive through the gates.
It was marvelous work, but as soon as she stepped out of her car, Zia had to let all thoughts of wards and sigils go.
Caldwell was waiting for her.
A black golf cart was parked beside her usual spot, and the massive vampire was casually sprawled behind the wheel, one leg out and his tattooed arms crossed over his chest.
When she closed the door of her car, he tilted his head in her direction. “Morning, Miss North.”
“Good morning, Caldwell.”
Goodness, it was hard to shake the feeling that she was in trouble when he looked at her. Caldwell had such a stern, intense expression, he looked like he was about to either ignore her completely or give her the scolding of her life.
Even more nervous, she adjusted the fit of her knit hat over her curls and said, “Mr. Bounds asked me to come early.”
“I know.”
Of course he knew. He was head of security for the entire estate.Ugh.
“Right, okay, well… I should probably get going.” Feeling awkward, Zia shoved her hands in the pockets of her puffy coat and turned towards the dark path through the trees, her pulse thumping. The workers hadn’t gotten to the path yet, as they had mainly stuck to the areas most frequented by staff, but she wasn’t about to ask Caldwell for a ride.
There was a low humming noise, then the peculiar crunching sound of rubber tires over gritty asphalt. Zia glanced up in time to see Caldwell pull up just ahead of her.
One hand resting on the wheel, he jerked his chin toward the passenger’s seat. “Hop on, Miss North.”
She glanced at the path again and swallowed. “Oh, you really don’t have to—”
“Boss’s orders.” Caldwell’s expression was utterly impassive when he added, “He doesn’t want you walking by yourself in the dark.”
Mr. Bounds asked him to pick me up?
Zia felt her cheeks heat. It meant nothing, of course. He was just being courteous, but that deep coil of heat refused to cool down. The knowledge that Mr. Boundsthoughtof her at all was strangely heady.
Fighting the urge to hide herself in her thick scarf, she muttered, “Okay, I guess.”
She gingerly climbed into the golf cart. Caldwell made sure she was completely in before he set off. It was notable only because Mr. Eisele rarely did the same. She’d lost track of the number of times she nearly fell out of his cart when he put his lead foot on the gas.
Caldwell was incredibly intimidating, and she sometimes got the feeling that he was laughing at her behind that hard face, but he wasn’t any worse than the surly groundskeeper.
