Page 67

“Perhaps,” he said, but he’d failed to hide the note of sadness.

“I can’t get involved.”

“I see that.”

“No, you don’t understand. I can’t, Victor.”

He sighed. “I’m sorry, I did not mean for you to become involved.”

“I’m not involved.” I laughed. “I just run a hotel. Why would I be involved?”

“Well, it’s just that . . . you did explicitly claim me in front of the royal family, and as they know I am aware of their machinations, they likely suspect you are now aware too. Why else would you so vehemently vow to keep me safe?”

“Oh, I don’t know, because I didn’t want them to chop off your head? Isn’t that enough? Can’t I just be a normal person who doesn’t want people to chop heads off other people? Why does it have to be anything more? Why does the end of the world land at my feet every single time?”

“Every . . . time?” Victor hesitated. “Has this unlikely scenario happened before?”

“What? Pfft. No,” I blustered, sounding a lot like Zee when he was trying to hide something. I stood, grabbed my whiskey off the sideboard, and gulped it down. A fire blazed in my chest, and it wasn’t just the alcohol. But that was fine. Everything was fine! “Good talk. I need more whiskey.”

Reynard blurred in front of the door, blocking my path with his tall, stoic pillar of vampire stubbornness. “Adam . . .”

“Victor?” Oh, there were the shivers again. But no, I was not going to let the fact I wanted to straddle Daddy Vampire and ride his cock like a bucking bronco distract me from being mad at him and this situation. And the stupid prophecy that kept trying to put me in the middle of saving the world.

“I cannot run from this,” he said, all sensible and manly. “Neither can you.”

“I have been running from this my entire life,” I admitted, skimming so close to the truth I could taste its ash on my tongue.

He stepped close and tilted my chin up. The wards didn’t tingle. He had no intention of hurting me or stopping me from leaving, if I truly wanted to. “Dance with me.”

“Erm . . . what?”

His arm eased around my waist, and like two jigsaw pieces, he drew me closer until we clicked, our bodies touching in all the right ways through our clothes. I clutched at his back, scrunching his shirt, and grabbed his firm arm.

“What if you no longer had to run?” he whispered, shifting his hips in a tentative rhythm. “Would you then be free?”

I scrunched his shirt harder, holding him tighter, and ached from the impact of his words. I’d trusted before and been betrayed. I’d loved, and had my heart broken. But this felt different. This world was different. I was different. Victor was different—and so was Zee. Maybe, just maybe the SOS Hotel would be my last stand, with the two halves of my heart beside me?

A thump rattled the door, jolting me from the moment.

Reynard’s exasperated sigh brushed my ear.

“Kitten-shoo-in-there?”

“Zee?”

“Imshofuckinwashted.”

I leaned back and winced at Reynard’s resting vampire face, as Zee called it. “I can send him away?”

Reynard blinked, rolled his eyes up, and blinked again. “If he dies of alcohol poisoning I will get the blame.” With a second heavy sigh, he stepped aside and opened the door.

Zee tumbled into the room, wings flapping, but managed to right himself, and spin, holding up a bottle of whiskey in one hand and a flask in the other. His big grin beamed. “Eh voila!” he proclaimed, slurring a little. “I come with gifts. Well, I don’t come with gifts.” He winked. “Not yet.”

“Uh, thank you, Zee, but maybe you should⁠—”

Zee swooped in and flung an arm around Reynard’s shoulders, rocking Reynard. “Bloody Bish,” Zee said, shoving the flask into Reynard’s hand. “Also, wait . . .” He pushed off Reynard, and tried to get his hand into his tight pants pocket. For some reason known only to him, to get whatever he needed out of his pocket required he spin on the spot, with his wings and tail flailing.

Reynard danced back, avoiding a tail in the face. I ducked under a wing.