The man continued to smile and held his gaze for a moment longer, then chuckled to himself as he dipped his head in a respectful semi-bow. He had a voice like dried leaves rustling along concrete in a fall wind. “Ah, Master Zackery, a pleasure to formally meet you.”
“You’ve informally met me?” Zack said.
The man lifted an eyebrow and ran his gaze down the length of Zack.
The clothes. Someone would have had to change him out of the ruined tuxedo and into the black funeral suit. An odd incongruity happened in Zack’s head because he was embarrassed, but no heat was coming to his cheeks.Guess it’s harder to blush now. Yay?
“Oh.” Zack threw his next question to Seamus. “You have a fey butler?”
“Grimsby is the estate manager,” Seamus replied.
“What’s that?”
“A fancier title for a butler with a few more responsibilities, young master,” Grimsby said. He turned toward Seamus andslightly bowed as he spoke. “Master Seamus, your inferiors have arrived. I’ve shown them to your conference room.”
“Fantastic. Take Zack to his rooms?—”
“Rooms?” Zack echoed.
“—and ensure that he has anything he might need. Zack, freshen up and then join me for the meeting,” Seamus said without stopping for Zack’s interruption.
“I’m freshly dead, and you want me to go to a meeting?” Zack asked.
“You were planning to help Roger take my coven. I thought you would want to see what it takes to actually run the thing so you could understand how ill-equipped Roger was for the position. However, if you’d prefer to pout in your room all night about the best thing that ever happened to you, be my guest.”
Seamus’s tone alone drove needles under Zack’s skin. The fact that another little pop-up was crawling toward Zack’s conscious thoughts drove the needles in further. Seamus wanted him to understand something, but picking up on exactly what he was feeling from someone else wasn’t obvious.Screw him. He’s had a thousand years to get used to his power. I haven’t had a thousand minutes to understand mine. Zack puffed up, a growl in his throat.
“Perhaps the young master would benefit from your newest guest,” Grimsby said.
Seamus narrowed his eyes. “Fine. But I expect both of you down at the meeting in no more than two hours’ time. Do you understand, Zackery?”
“Do I understand that you’re a maniacal bastard who thinks that he can somehow manipulate me into believing my boyfriend wasn’t monster enough to run the coven? Yeah, I get that,” Zack replied snidely.
Seamus grabbed him by the chin, fingers wrapping up around his jaw, and held him painfully tight. “You are wearing my patience thin.”
Zack couldn’t help a grin. “What about ‘I’ll never throw you away?’”
The gap in Seamus’s mental armor was widening. The outline of his desire for violence was growing brighter. But then it vanished. He released Zack with a small shove and stalked away. “Grow the fuck up, Zackery, before our world grinds you into ash.”
Zack wanted to claim that as a win, but he was scraped out and hollow inside. The biting remark hadn’t filled him with any real sense of glee. At least when he used to push Cal’s buttons, Cal would actually pop off and say something awful, and Zack could double down on his anger at his big brother. Seamus was taking the higher road. He wasn’t supposed to do that. He was supposed to be all evil and asshole and give Zack a fight for his life. Not tell him he needed to grow up and then just walk away like he was too busy.
And oh, fuck, Zack was never going to physically change.I’m going to be scrawny, baby-faced, and five foot sixforever. He tried to run his hand through his hair, but his fingers caught on dirt. Suddenly, every speck of filth covering him was worse than a million spiders crawling along his skin.
“If you’ll follow me, young master,” Grimsby said. With his hands clasped behind his back, he started toward the left staircase.
Since his only other viable option was to run out into the night without a clue of where to find Roger or Takashi, Zack hurried after Grimsby. They went up the grand staircase and then down a long hall. Every once in a while, bouquets in ornate vases decorated the space while providing a pleasant floral scent. There was something underneath of it that smelled, well, a lotlike Zack currently did. Dirt and dust and musty oldness. Zack took a sniff of his clothes. The oldness wasn’t clinging to him.
Paintings hung on the walls along their path. Zack had never seen this many. Visiting Chicago, even for a school trip, had been out of the question. Mom had been too paranoid to let him go to “the heart of the enemy.” And since coming to Chicago, he hadn’t made any time to do anything besides train and research.I have the time now.
Fuck, he could learn how to paint if he wanted, and he could spend centuries perfecting his art. Takashi had learned ten more languages after becoming a vampire and was on his eleventh, bringing the grand total up to fourteen with what he’d known as a mortal. Zack could do that, too. Or he could learn how to code. Or he could tackle his giant to-be-read pile.What have you chosen for yourself? Not a whole lot, but he had the time to do everything he’d ever dreamed of.
Seamus wasn’t supposed to make sense. He was the fucking bad guy.
Zack cleared his throat. “Why is a fey working for Seamus? Does he pay you, or did Anton bind you?”
Grimsby glanced over his shoulder, and in his gaze was the scream of a terrified child. “As you are, ahem,newerto this side of interactions with the supernatural, young master, I will do you this one favor. One small lesson. Do not ask fey such impertinent questions. Rudeness finds swift consequence among my kind.”
“Crap, you just called it a favor,” Zack muttered. “So I owe you.”
