The desire to be warm overtook my wolf’s caution. I slunk under the billiard table and shifted quickly, feeling stupid to hide, but I didn’t want thatvampwatching me. As my bones and joints reformed and I lay naked on the musty rug, a pale hand pushed my top and boxers under the table. Feeling equally ridiculous and grateful, I shimmied into them and rolled out and onto my feet. I sneezed.
“Pavel needs to hoover under there,” I said instead of ‘thank you’.
Dalziel rolled his eyes. But he handed over the rest of my clothes and turned away while I pulled them on.
“Thanks, for letting me in,” I mumbled. He was Charley’s father as well as a high-ranking Council member. I couldn’t afford to piss him off by being a petulant kid about this.
He inclined his head a fraction. “I presume you require sustenance?”
Startled into speech, I said honestly, “I’m starving!”
He gave me a barely-there smile and said, “To the kitchen then. You can tell me what’s been going through your mind while you eat.”
He leaned against the counter, and waved a rather effete hand towards the fridge-freezer. “Do your thing. I presume you can cook well enough not to burn my kitchen down?”
I chuckled. “Been cooking since I was a nipper. Wolves are encouraged to learn. Heaven knows, we like to eat.” I dug out sausages, bacon, black pudding and eggs, as well as bread, which I sliced to stick in the toaster. I found a frying pan easily enough, and got to work. I even threw in a handful each of mushrooms and tomatoes, mindful of how I’d called Charley out for his unbalanced food choices.
And there I went, thinking of him again. I sighed as I flipped the bacon over. Dalziel came to watch me cook, and after pulling a face at my extraordinarily early breakfast, said, “So, Charley is part Fae, according to our overnight guest.”
I sighed louder. “I know. And it absolutely sucks. Not the fun way either,” I clarified.
He snorted. “I didn’t think so.” He got a plate and cutlery out and set them on the table for me, then filled a kettle and set it to boil. “Would you like a tea or…coffee?”
“Blimey, Dalziel, anyone would think you’re concerned for me, the way you’re fussing like a mother hen,” I groused. “Yeah, I’d like a tea please.”
He dropped a teabag into a small teapot, then poured milk into a matching jug. “Don’t take it personally if I say I’m not overly bothered about your well-being per se. However,” He paused to offer me a warming plate for the cooked bacon, then slid it under the grill on the lowest heat, “I do care very much about Charley’s mental health. And the child likes you. I don’t approve of his choice, obviously—”
“Obviously,” I echoed bitterly.
“—but I want him to be…content, at least. And perhaps it doesn’t say much for my character as one of the instigators of the original Council if I’m actively opposing a young vampire’s love interest merely because he is a different species.” He was trying, but he really couldn’t keep the sneer out of his voice.
However, I felt we were making a tiny bit of progress. He stayed close by, bringing out the warming pan every few minutes for me to add another item, then came and sat opposite me while I dished everything up. My stomach growled loudly. He smirked. “You forgot the toast. I’ll make it.” He fetched a dish of butter from a cupboard too, and placed it near me, along with a side plate.
“You’re very domesticated,” I murmured between mouthfuls. Fuck me, this was good grub. It was an effort not to shovel it in like a pig.
His smile this time was the real deal. “I wasn’t born rich and privileged, Lucien. The exact opposite, in fact. I learned to cook because I had to.”
I raised my eyebrows at him. “I didn’t know muscle memory lasted that long.”
He shook his head with another grin. “You really don’t think much of me, do you? I have prepared simple meals for my human staff, and others, over the years. I’m not the monster you think I am.”
I grunted, because I didn’t think he needed to know exactly what I thought of him. I hoped fervently he wasn’t psychic, but I was fairly sure that was a rumour, not fact.
I cleared my plate in record time, then rinsed everything and stacked it in the dishwasher. Then I felt awkward, and wasn’t sure what, if anything, he wanted from me. “Thanks. That was really good.”
“You prepared it. But I am glad. I imagine you burned through a lot of energy outside.”
“Yeah, I did.” I glanced upwards then out to the corridor, but I couldn’t tell exactly where Charley’s heartbeat was located. The thick stone walls dampened a lot of my senses, another reason I felt uneasy here. I asked Dalziel outright. “Did Charley go out too?” Yes, I was currently screwed up enough I wanted him to have been searching for me at the same time I was busy putting a dozen or more miles between us.
“He passed out in the library some time ago. He was helping me research the Fae.”
I found Charley sprawled across a thoroughly uncomfortable-looking sofa, fast asleep. Someone — Dalziel, I presumed — had covered him with an ancient woollen blanket. He looked anxious even in repose, signs of tension in the tiny creases around his pretty eyes, black lashes long and stark against his pasty cheeks. My heart clenched. I no longer knew how to feel about him.Mine,my wolf snarled helpfully. I shook my head, attempting to squash the beast. That instinctual animal response wasn’t borne of logic, and I wasn’t sure following my wolf’s lead was my wisest course of action right now.
I wanted to though. I wanted nothing more than to scoop Charley up and carry him to the bedroom we’d been sharing. Lay him down and kiss and lick him until he was writhing on the sheets, a sheen of sweat sparkling like glitter on his pale skin as he begged me to tip him over the edge into orgasm. It was so tempting to ignore the constant mental itch that screamed‘Fae!’but I couldn’t. If there was any hope of getting through this substantial hiccough, I needed to be clear-headed. Fucking my way through the pain was not the way to achieve this.
So, I turned to Dalziel. “How far have you got?” I whispered.
He gestured for me to follow him back to the room he’d first shown us into, closing the door gently on his slumbering son. The huge table was now littered with piles of books, some of them ones I recognised as having picked out earlier. Dalziel indicated a small heap.
