Able’s tail thumped once against the floor in acknowledgment. He shifted position so his body was between Ant and the door, settling in to keep watch.
Viktor slipped out of bed and pulled his shirt and boots back on quickly. His mate needed rest, and frankly, Viktor was too wired to sleep anyway. Being back in the coven, surrounded by Claudius’s paranoia and archaic bullshit, made his skin crawl. The need todo somethingclawed at him.
The smart thing would be to wait for Ant to wake up and conduct the scene reading together. Do the reading, ignore any future offers of hospitality, and get the fuck out of the building.
But smart wouldn’t get them any closer to understanding what the fuck Claudius was hiding, and now that he was here, Viktor’s curiosity was at an all-time high. Viktor knew his former coven leader. More specifically, he knew how the bastard operated. Claudius would have destroyed any incriminating evidence a Justiciary member might find and hid the rest.
If Viktor wanted to give Ant actual leverage for the investigation, he needed to do some recon first. He glanced at the locked door separating their suite from the crime scene where Ronald Finch had died. That would have to wait for Ant. But the rest of the estate? That was fair game.
Viktor closed his eyes and reached for the gift he’d possessed for over three hundred years. The world shifted around him as his body phased out of normal reality. When he opened his eyes again, everything looked slightly dimmer, colors muted to shades of gray. His reflection in the suite’s mirror had vanished entirely.
Invisible. Undetectable. Not even another vampire could smell him or hear his footsteps when he moved like this, which was perfect for what he had in mind.
Viktor crossed to the suite door and tested the handle. It was still locked from the inside with the key left in the lock. He unlocked it with a soft click and slipped into the hallway beyond. The moment he was out of the room, he wanted to be back behind the door again. The idea of leaving Ant for even a moment was something neither he nor his other half was happy with. But…we’ll be quick.
Viktor moved down the corridor as fast as he could, his footsteps making no sound against the Persian runner. He passed several closed doors - guest rooms, probably, kept ready for visitors who never came. Claudius didn’t exactly run a bed and breakfast. Anyone who stayed at the coven was either under investigation, under suspicion, or about to become a meal.Or all three.
A soft scuffle of footsteps made Viktor freeze. A door at the far end of the hallway cracked open, and a young woman emerged carrying a stack of linens. She was human, smelling faintly of fear as she hurried past Viktor without a glance, her head down and shoulders hunched. Her pulse hammered in her throat,visible beneath pale skin. She was terrified, and Viktor would bet a breakfast sandwich that she wasn’t in the coven willingly.
Viktor watched her disappear around a corner, then continued deeper into the estate. The east wing connected to the main house through a set of double doors carved with elaborate ravens. Checking there was no one around to notice anything unusual, Viktor pushed through them and found himself in a grand foyer that stretched two stories high.
Nothing had changed. The same marble floors, the same sweeping staircase, the same chandelier dripping with crystals that caught the candlelight and threw fractured rainbows across the walls. It was beautiful in the way a mausoleum was beautiful - cold, perfect, and utterly lifeless.
More staff moved through the space below - humans in old-fashioned uniforms, their movements quick and efficient. None of them spoke. They simply went about their tasks with the grim determination of people who knew better than to draw attention to themselves.
Christ.Viktor had forgotten how oppressive the place felt. When he’d lived in the coven, he’d been too young and too enthralled by what it meant to be a “real” vampire to notice the way fear saturated every stone. Now, after spending decades in the human world and then falling in love with Ant, he could see it clearly. Claudius hadn’t built a home, no, he’d built a prison and set himself up as the warden.
Shaking the memories from his brain, Viktor forced himself to focus. Claudius’s office was on the second floor in his private wing on the west side. That’s where the real business happened, away from prying eyes.
Viktor took the stairs three at a time, moving faster now that he had a destination in mind. The second-floor hallway was darkerthan the foyer below, lit only by widely spaced sconces that left pools of shadow between. Paintings lined the walls here, too, but they were different. None of them portraits, but instead wide landscapes of places Viktor vaguely recognized. Estonia. Norway. The Scottish Highlands. Places Claudius had lived before settling in the States.
Voices drifted from behind a heavy oak door halfway down the corridor. Viktor remembered it used to be one of the small sitting rooms Claudius used when he didn’t want a visitor in his office. Viktor slowed, moving closer until he could make out individual words.
“It doesn’t matter what the Justiciary wants.” Claudius’s voice, and from the tone, Viktor could tell he was pissed off. “They have no jurisdiction over private coven matters.”
“With respect, they do if you committed a crime.” A second voice - male, human, with the smooth cadence of someone who’d spent years in courtrooms, threaded with nerves. “Financial exploitation through illegal vampiric trances falls under Justiciary oversight, especially when it crosses state lines.”
“Alleged exploitation,” Claudius corrected coldly.
“Fine.Alleged.But the fact remains that they sent Doctor Channon specifically because he’s the only mage in the state capable of reading historical events. If he finds evidence…”
“He won’t.”
“You can’t know that. Scene readings are admissible in court, and from what I understand, Channon’s testimony is damn near unshakable.”
Viktor pressed himself against the wall beside the door, listening intently. His hands flexed restlessly at his sides.
“Then we’ll ensure the good doctor has an unfortunate accident before he can testify,” Claudius said casually, as if discussingthe weather. “These estates are dangerous places. With so many old wards, so many unpredictable magical currents, it would be totally plausible that such a highly tuned magic user could lose his way. A tragedy, definitely, but hardly my fault.”
“Are you out of your mind?” The lawyer’s voice shot up an octave. “You can’t kill a Justiciary investigator. Do you have any idea what kind of shitstorm that would bring down on your head?”
“The Justiciary will understand the action for what it is - a warning. By the time they send another investigator…”
“It’s not the Justiciary you need to worry about,” the lawyer interrupted. “It’s thevampirehe brought with him. Viktor. Do you have any idea who that is?”
A pause. Then Claudius laughed - a cold, brittle sound. “I know exactly who he is. He’s nothing more than a coward who abandoned his coven because he couldn’t handle living by civilized rules. He spent decades playing enforcer for human gangsters. He’s nothing.”
“The last time someone attacked Channon, Viktor turned two men into human pretzels. It took the medical examiner’s office three days to get the men apart.”
