Authors: Melissa Schroeder
Mr. White sighed and shook his head. His blue eyes twinkled
behind his spectacles. “I hate to lose you, Lady Cordelia. You are my best
writer, but I wish you luck."
He gave her a hug. "Make sure he treats you like the
prize you are," he whispered in her ear.
Before she could respond, he pulled away.
“I apologize for the interruption, Mr. Blackburn.” With a
nod to Nico, he left them alone.
It took a few moments for her to compose herself. She knew
that Nico was not happy. She turned to face him, and he was as distant as he
was before they married.
"Would you care to explain?"
"I needed money, Nico. You of all people can understand
why I would have to work."
"I understand that. I cannot understand why you would
not tell me you were working."
She blinked at his tone. She had heard him unhappy, teasing,
but she had not heard him with anger vibrating beneath the surface as if he
could barely hold onto his temper.
"I don't truly know. With everything that happened, it
slipped my mind."
"Are you working on another article?"
She widened her eyes. "What?"
"Are you writing another article? I think the question
is easy enough to understand."
"What would I be writing an article about?"
"Vampires."
She stared at him then rolled her eyes. "I would not
write an article and expose you or your family. What do you take me for? Even
if I had wanted to—which I do not—no one would believe me."
He ground his teeth together. She could actually hear them
move against each other. It was starting to become a nuisance. She hated that
she heard conversations and the sounds on the street in the middle of the
night. Every day, the ability grew, and she found herself more and more
aggravated by it.
"So you
did
think about it."
"Nico, stop it. You are starting to irritate me."
"You.
You
are
irritated?" He stalked from behind the desk, his frown threatening.
"I think I have more of a right to be irritated."
She took a step back from him, then stopped herself. She
crossed her arms beneath her chest. "What are you talking about?"
"A strange man just showed up at my house demanding to
see you in person because he wanted to make sure you were not in danger."
Her heart softened. Mr. White had never been that talkative,
but he had been a fatherly figure, one who paid more than he should have for
her articles. She knew he did it to help her. She would always have a soft
space in her heart for the man. A confirmed bachelor, he had never wanted to
marry, but he had taken her under his wing as if she were his own daughter.
"And do not get that dreamy-eyed look on your face. I
want an explanation."
She blinked. What on earth was he talking about? "Want
an explanation?"
"I demand one."
"I explained myself earlier. I worked for him, writing
articles about the
ton
." Why was
he so upset about the fact she had been employed?
He studied her for a moment, his teeth mashing together.
“Oh, will you stop that. I can’t stand hearing you grind
your teeth together.” The noise was driving her mad.
"I was an assignment."
That was the problem. She nodded. "Yes, you were. There
was a question about where your money came from. Of course, I did not know you
had hundreds of years to acquire it."
Her voice was almost as loud as his was.
"And so I was just an assignment you felt you needed to
seduce."
She frowned at him, confused. "Seduce? Really Nico, do
you think I knew what to do with you? You're the one who made the
advances."
"But now I know what really attracted you."
"What is that?" He’d admitted he was first
attracted to her because she was a Carrier. Did he suspect her attraction was
also based only on instinct?
"My money."
She wanted to roll her eyes and laugh. Why would anyone want
Nico just for his money? Did he not see his appeal? Apparently not because he
was staring at her as if she was a snake in his garden.
"Your money? Nicodemus Blackburn, you are a
numbskull."
He paid no attention to her name-calling. "I demand to
know if my money is why you followed me into the room that night."
She could see the anger in his eyes but couldn’t stop
herself from saying what she was thinking. "In a way it was."
He took a step closer and towered over her. "Explain
yourself."
"First, stop looming over me.” She waited until he took
a step back. “Second, if you did not have the money, I would not have been
following you for a story. And I was hiding from Hurst. I did not know where
you had gone because I was trying my best to avoid him. But I can assure you
that your money would not be enough to compensate for your personality."
She shouted the last of the statement. He blinked and took
another step back from her. He looked confused and a bit wary. Good. She was
sick of men pushing her around. First her father, then her brother, and now
Nico.
"You were not totally honest."
Honest
? He was one
to talk.
She snorted. "I think not saying I was working as a
reporter is a little bit less of a fib than you not telling me I was marrying
into a family of vampires."
"I—"
She didn’t want to hear any more excuses from him. "No.
I am done with this conversation. Really, Nico, if you think a woman would put
up with your temper, your mood swings and secretiveness because of your money,
you are not as smart as I thought you were."
"What do you mean?"
How could she get it through his thick head? "Your
personality makes it very hard to like you, let alone love you. Nicodemus
Blackburn, you do not have enough money to make me pretend to like you. You are
bossy and you often irritate me so much that it takes everything I have not to
throw something at you." She marched toward the door. "Even if you
had as much gold as Midas, it wouldn’t be enough to make me pretend to like
you."
She walked out the door, slamming it hard enough that the
figurines on the back wall shelves jumped. She heard them jangle against each
other.
Cordelia ignored the looks the staff gave her as she walked
away from the room. The nerve of the man. She stomped up the stairs. Was the
man blind? For over a month now, she had been enthralled by him, and he
questioned why she was married to him?
It had started as a marriage of convenience, but she was in
love with the stupid man.
She burst into her room, happy that the maid was not there.
She shut the door and walked over to her bed. She was so tired. Nights out
until the wee hours of the morning had her body aching for a good rest.
Now she had nothing to do. She was exhausted from their time
out in the
ton
the last few nights,
but sleeping all day was not something she liked to do. From an early age, she
had worked in some way or other. She was testy and overemotional because she
needed something to do.
Her mother-in-law had offered to help Cordelia find her
birth father. He might not want to know her, or he might have moved on, but she
needed to know where she came from. With a sigh, she decided to take Adelaide
up on the offer and set out to find her father.
*
*
*
*
What in the world had come over the woman? Nico was still
staring at the door several moments later. The emotional outburst was so unlike
her. Or what he knew of her. He knew her family life had been horrific from the
little tidbits she had told him. Being called the “Scottish bastard” growing up
was far from the ideal environment for a girl to be in. Now, though, he wasn’t
too sure that she had told him that much. She had allowed him a peek into what
had formed her into the woman she was today, but he had no idea what else lay
behind the shield.
A writer. Of course it made sense. She would never take
payment to be someone’s paramour, and she would never put herself on the
marriage mart. The first, because she had too much backbone, and the second,
because she knew her background. Normally, she would have never married someone
like him.
Not that he was a prize. He shook his head. They needed time
together. He had kept her in the dark for the most part about his world. He did
not need her to know about binding.
Someday she would probably figure it out. Binding was the
ultimate in mating, where you bound your life forces together for eternity.
When Nico lost his brother, it had been because Demetrius had lost his mate.
They had been bound the night of their wedding. It had been his brother’s death
sentence.
He shook away the thoughts and realized it was getting late
in the day. He hadn’t heard from Saint or the other men working the stews
today. As if summoned by his thoughts, the door opened without a knock. Of
course it was Saint.
“This plan isn’t bloody working.”
Nico blinked. Saint was abrupt most of the time, but this
was beyond his usual behavior. “Indeed?”
“We need to find Neal.”
Nico sighed. “Yes, but a man who is dead…how can you find
him?”
Before Saint could answer, Cordelia came marching back in,
irritation still rolling off her in waves. She opened her mouth to yell at him,
but she noticed Saint pouring himself a brandy.
“Lord…er—Saint. I did not know you had arrived.” She gave
Nico a nasty look.
“I only just arrived, Lady Cordelia.”
The monster of a man who rarely displayed any kind of
manners smiled at Cordelia.
Nico frowned at her. “We were working on the case.”
She ignored his admonition. “I am looking for your mother.”
“I believe she and my father should be here for dinner.”
“Fine.”
She looked at Saint. “It is nice to see you. Please join us for
dinner.”
He nodded, still smiling until she left. Saint grinned at
him.
“Ouch, cousin, you have a woman there you better be careful
of.”
“You did me no good. What is all that smiling anyway?” As
soon as the words were out of his mouth, he wanted to kick himself. He sounded
jealous, and he wasn’t. Not really.
“I have learned to be very careful of a mated Carrier. They
can be…dangerous.”
“You do not act like that around others.”
“She will have the sight.”
Saint said it with enough conviction that Nico paused.
“How do you know?”
“We know each other. We can sense the gift in someone else.
It is just going to get worse now that she is breeding.”
“You can sense it? What a bunch of…wait, what did you say?”
He shrugged and took a healthy drink of his brandy. “She’s
breeding.”
“You’re sure?”
“Positive. There is a reason she is so…unsettled I guess is
the best word. Her emotions are going to get the better of her.”
“Did you take a blow to the head? She cannot be breeding. We
have only been married a month.”
“That means nothing, Nico. You know that a Carrier is very
fertile right after the first feeding.” Saint studied him. “This is good news.”
“It makes her an even larger target.” Learning that his mate
was carrying one of their offspring should have made him happy, but with Neal
on the loose, he only felt fear.
“True. I think we need to formulate a new plan. This one is
not working and after a month of Mades leaving behind a trail of Carriers raped
and murdered, the Borns are getting very restless. There is talk of segregation
again.”
Too many Mades were important in their society and had
earned the place, Malik being the most important.
"I will call on Gray. Hurst is ready to make his way
about in society now, so we might need to reintroduce him. It might help."
Saint nodded.
"Have you told her of this? That there is a threat to
her and you?"
Nico shook his head. "She knows some, but I don’t want
to horrify her with every detail. She knows to be careful, especially after her
brother tried to have her abducted.”
Saint shook his head. "You will never learn, Nico. She
knows. Or she will. Then, there will be hell to pay."
"What do I tell her? There is a man who killed my
sister-in-law because he wanted my brother to suffer a long and tortured death?
And now this same man is after her and wants to kill her to punish me?"
"And kill you."
He said nothing. How could he admit to Cordelia all the
danger he’d brought into her life?
"You have not bonded with her. Nico, what on earth are
you thinking?"
"That I do not want to leave her vulnerable. If we are
bonded, her life is more at risk."
Saint studied him for a long time then shook his head.
"That is not what you fear, but I am not in the mood to argue. I believe I
will get notes around to Gray and Hurst, and then we can have our meeting
tonight. I am ready for my own bed and the Highlands out my window."
He left Nico alone to his thoughts. Just what was Neal up
to? The man was a viper, one ready to infect anyone with his venom. Making an
army of Mades would be a plan Neal would love. It was perverted, and it would
send fear racing along the upper classes of Mades.
But, why was he waiting? Was it to drive them crazy, to
pretend that it wasn't him? After one hundred years he had surfaced, but what
was the reason? Why did he wait?
With a sigh, Nico sat down at his desk and started to work
on the books. If he was going to have a meeting tonight, he would have to deal
with the Blackburn business first.
* * * *
The man known as Neal Pearson to most, but to his mother as
Michael, watched the rain patter against the window of his townhouse and
thought about his next move. It had been three months since he had put his plan
into action. The Mades were terrorizing everyone, and Nico Blackburn had no
idea who he was.