She shifted, gazing out her window at the trees left to shield denuded slopes beyond from the view of bored travelers. He thought the silence companionable, until she sniffed slightly, as if upon the edge of weeping.
Even the bravest of mortals, carefully shepherded through the Gift’s first stages, might well mourn for what was lost to them—though most fledglings actively sought the blessing, carefully chosen progeny aware of their own value. For a leman, caught and claimed, it was no doubt often otherwise.
“All will be well, Beatrice.” An awkward promise, of little use or comfort to her at the moment. Yet he was helpless not to offer it.
She did not reply.
CHAPTER 31
‘South’ apparently meant upstate New York, and the last leg of the trip was spent with him checking yet another phone screen instead of paying attention to the road as mixed precipitation turned to actual snow. The wind veered a little more eastward than north, but was still stiff enough to send gouts of whirling white across the highway. If not for the weird numbness of dawn approaching in her fingers and toes, Bea might not have known the sun was on its way.
She barely cared. Huddled in the old, lumpy afghan from the back of the den’s couch—she’d forgotten its scratchiness, the gaps in crochet patched with scrap yarn, the melted cigarette hole off-center in a petal of the one granny square made with Red Heart—Bea was too busy trying to think through the warm, intense high of monster blood, attempting to gain a little perspective.
This time Sami and Felicia weren’t talking, and neither was Jare. She was left with her body’s glowing, incredibly pleasant sense of well-being, and each wave of painless warmth or burst of golden-rainbowy tracers swamping her was a distraction from the fact that she’d wasted four years of her life setting out to murder a guy who, even if he hadn’t killed her brother, was still...whatever he was.
Monster. Vampire. That funny word, sanguinant.
It was amazing he had a phone to look at, though this one was in what looked like a military-grade case. There was no reason a vampire in the rags of what had been an expensive three-piecer should look so effortlessly in control of everything around him, as if other people wearing whole, unstained outfits were the weirdos, not him.
She’d spent enough time to get a double-major degree on researching the paranormal, the occult, the unexplained. But he was something else entirely. And that term, demimonde, only used by the contacts who were into the really scary shit.
The reflex of disbelief was easy, seductive, and could probably drive her even further around the bend into cuckooland. Sure, he could still be lying—the little green things could have been working for him, he could have been pulling the strings from behind a curtain, driving her brother mad and finally murdering Jare that awful, unseasonably warm spring night. It could be a complex, long-running con, and he could be lying about everything else as well.
There was just as much evidence that he wasn’t, actually. And why would he bother? If he got his rocks off terrorizing random women, buying them entire wardrobes before strangling them, or if he was even a bloodsucking Don Juan, addicted to the chase...but that didn’t wash, either.
It was far more upsetting to think she’d been entirely wrong about Jared’s death, pursued vengeance with obsessive focus, and landed in this mess all on her own. Sure, she’d been right about a few facts—‘Chris Everly’ was really an immortal bloodsucker, he had a reason to be interested in the Noll Mountain property, her brother was truly dead, half-naked pint-size green goblins actually existed—but the associated assumptions had really chewed her ass, as Dad used to say.
That’s not where he bit you. Bea kept getting distracted by the tracers and her own increasingly bleak wonderings. All of a sudden they were off the freeway, negotiating slippery surface streets.
Finally Lukas touched a button, his window rolling down. A keypad on a concrete post festooned with carefully trimmed ivy leaned close; the Charger’s nose pointed at yet another giant gate, this one more utilitarian than the North Bluffs place.
An honest-to-gosh gated community, in fact. The sign said Saratoga Oaks, and the wide sidewalks were already sprinkled with glittering de-icer under streetlights made to look like old-fashioned lampposts, some already fading as the sky bleached to the particular predawn grey of get ready, winter’s about to kick some ass. Tiny snowflakes whirled; the storm was following them, gathering strength. These houses were much smaller than the North Bluffs mansion though clearly more expensive, heavy on the brick and brownstone, and each was determined to ignore its neighbors.
Jesus. How much real estate does this guy own?
He still barely glanced at the road, though she could feel a concerning amount of slip in the Charger’s tires. And she was still seeing tracers when the world went away, sunrise sinking her into a black hole.
High-grade ecru carpet. Bare blank white walls with peach undertones. A blocky birch bedstead, avoiding the four-poster designation only because the square pillars were so short and fat; the linens were white with pinkish pinstripes. A violently patterned afghan tossed across the foot, not quite out of place—in fact, it made the room look almost homey, almost lived-in.
Almost. The bathroom was white tile, antiseptically clean grout, black geometric accents repeating on hard surfaces and pinstriping the pile of neatly folded towels, a rosette of plain white soap, lily of the valley scent.
And a sleeping bloodsucker.
Lukas lay supine, one arm flung out, tucked under the pillow bearing a dent from her own head. His other hand rested on his bare chest, strong fingers against sharply defined muscle and burnished, flawless skin lightly fuzzed with dark hair. Head tipped back, eyes closed, mouth relaxed, he was either barely breathing—or not at all.
Funny how unconsciousness could make even a monster look vulnerable. He hadn’t moved when Bea eased out of bed, or when she grabbed the still-damp afghan and wrapped it around her shoulders, when she made a circuit of the room to inspect the invisible force-field. Each apprehensive glance returned the same answer; Bea realized she was nervously tapping the necklace, her only real option for nervous fidgeting.
At least it was warm enough to walk around in the buff, or with a crocheted laprobe reeking of mildew and winter rain. She didn’t even want to think about the heating bills for all these places. Or the window repair for the mansion.
Bea considered the bedposts. She looked at the built-in shelf the towels rested on, even gave the afghan a long hard stare. If I ever caught him sleeping, she’d thought more than once, but now she had and there was no weapon to hand.
If there was, though, what would she do?
Say you had the stake. You’re a lot stronger now, and he’s laying right there. Didn’t he say the seals would release if he…
He hadn’t murdered her brother. In fact, he’d been trying to get Jare out of the way, but pigheadedness was absolutely a dyed-in Dunlevy trait, and she should know. The truly, bleakly hilarious part was that if she hadn’t thrown herself at this guy with a red dress and a stake, he might not have ever known she existed.
Were her teeth sharper? She couldn’t really tell. A few more feedings, it takes as long as it takes.
