The Beast Lord grinned at me. “I doubt it will come to that.”
We drove in silence. I liked sitting next to him. The night outside the car was vast and cold, and he sat warm next to me. If something nasty crossed our path, he’d get out of the car and take it apart. Not that I couldn’t do it myself, but knowing he would be there with me made all the difference in the world. Three years ago, on a night like this I would have been driving my old car home alone, praying it didn’t die a noble death in some snow drift. When I rolled up to the house, it would be dark. My heat would be off to save money, my bed would be cold, and if I wanted to tell someone about my day, I’d have to talk to my sword and pretend it listened. Slayer was an excellent weapon, but it never laughed at my jokes.
“You still haven’t told me what you want for Christmas,” Curran said.
“Time,” I said. “For you and me.” I was so tired living in the glass bowl of the Keep.
“Check the glove compartment?” he asked.
I opened it and pulled out a piece of paper. Cordially invited . . . thank you for your reservation . . . “Is this . . . ?”
“The Black Bear Lodge,” he said.
Two weeks earlier we’d had to go to Jackson County, North Carolina, to remove a loose troll from campus. The Appalachians had a large shapeshifter population and many of their kids went to Western Carolina University. We had stayed at Black Bear Lodge, a newly built timber lodge with good food and cozy rooms with huge fireplaces. We’d spent two glorious days there, hunting the troll, drinking wine in the evening, and making love in a giant soft bed. I wanted to stay so much it almost hurt.
He got this reservation for me. A warm happy feeling spread through my chest.
“How long?” I asked.
“Two weeks. We could leave as soon as I get back and stay until Christmas. We’d have to come back for the holidays or the Pack will scream and howl, but with the ley line it’s only a two-day drive.”
Two weeks. Holy crap. “What about the petition hearing?”
“I handled it,” he said. “Remember that emergency session that ate up last Thursday? I cleared everything.”
“The Gardner lawsuit?”
“Handled it, too.” Curran leaned over and looked at me. His gray eyes glowed with tiny golden sparks. He slowly furrowed his blond eyebrows and moved them up and down.
“Is that your smoldering look?”
“Yes. I’m trying to communicate the promise of nights of ecstasy.”
I laughed. “Did you read that pirate book Andrea left for me?”
“I might have leafed through it. So how about it? Will you do me the honor of accompanying me to the Black Bear Lodge, so we can lie in bed all day, get drunk and fat, and not have to think about anything related to Atlanta for the entire time?”
“Will I get nights of ecstasy?”
“And days. Ecstasy all the time.”
Two weeks, just Curran and me. It sounded heavenly. I would’ve killed to be able to go and I meant it literally.
“Deal, Your Majesty.”
2
I STOOD IN a small concrete room and watched the undead blood lying in a placid puddle at my feet. The magic in it called to me, eager and encouraging, whispering a soft seductive song.
Sometimes the Universe smiled. Mostly she kicked me in the face, stomped on my ribs once I fell down, and laughed at my pain, but once in a while she smiled. It was Wednesday. I had gone through the entire stack of activity reports for the Conclave detailing all incidents and conflicts between us and the People that could possibly cause us trouble. No murders, no assaults, no heated exchanges of words. Nobody had stolen anybody’s property. Nobody had gotten drunk and hit on someone’s boyfriend. Hallelujah.
My work done, I locked myself in here, in a small rectangular room of stained sealed concrete. It used to be a storage room for Curran’s gym equipment, but he moved it out and gave the room to me. Nothing interrupted the light brown concrete except for the drain on the floor. Most days I didn’t need the drain.
My magic streamed out of me, like vapor from a boiling pot thrust outside into the cold. If it glowed, I’d look like I was on fire. Most of the time I kept the magic hidden inside me. Leaving it on display was extremely unwise for someone of my lineage.
I beckoned the blood with my magic. A faint tremor troubled the puddle of blood on the floor, as if something moved under the surface.
Voron, my adoptive father, always taught me that suppressing the power of my blood was the best strategy. Keep quiet. Keep hidden. Don’t practice magic that could give you away. That was no longer an option. I needed this magic. I had to be good at it. Nobody could teach me, so I taught myself. I practiced and practiced and practiced. Some of the blood came from Jim. He bought it for me on the black market. Some undead blood came from Rowena, a Master of the Dead who owed the local witches a favor. The witches knew who I was and backed me up. They saw the writing on the wall: when Roland came, I was the only thing standing between them and my father, so they made Rowena supply me with vampire blood. She had no clue what it was for. I had practiced every day the magic was up.
My progress was slow, so slow, I gritted my teeth when I thought about it. I was beginning to hate this room. It reminded me of a tomb. Maybe I should add some graffiti to spice it up. For a good time call the Consort. Beast Lord eats your food and turns into a lion in his sleep. Mahon has hemorrhoids. Boudas do it better. Warning: paranoid attack jaguar on the prowl . . .
A quiet knock echoed through the room. I jumped a little.
“Yes?”
“It’s me,” Barabas said.
I unlocked the door. “Come in.”
He sauntered in, moving with casual elegance. No matter what he wore, Barabas always managed to project an air of urbane, civilized polish that came with a sharp edge. Tall, lean, and pale, he had fire-bright red hair that stuck out from his head like a forest of aggressive spikes. If he ever frosted his hair blue, he’d look like a gas burner. And if someone looked at me the wrong way, he’d rip right through his civilized veneer and become a manic tornado of razor claws and dagger fangs. One messed with a weremongoose at one’s peril.
“If it’s bad, I don’t want to hear it.”
Barabas was one of the Pack’s lawyers, and he did his best to navigate me through the treacherous mire of shapeshifter politics and laws.
“It’s not bad.” Barabas sat on the floor, throwing one long lean leg over the other and grimaced. “Well, I take it back. It might be.”