Scarlett’s smile widened. “When you want to blend into the night, black is necessary.”
I was getting quicker at putting two and two together. “You were out hunting Blackwell.” Hell, Mory and I hadn’t escaped that stuffy dinner. We’d been set up and let go.
“You could have waited until after dessert,” Desmond said. His tone was almost teasing, but in a tired way. “My guests were displeased.”
“Kandy totally played me,” I said. “Mory?” My chagrin whiplashed into concern.
Scarlett shifted to the side, and I saw Mory curled on her side sleeping on the bed.
“Okay, so it looks like there is more room on the bed … and, though I’ve made it fairly clear I don’t have an issue being in your arms, my mother is, like, right there.” I mock-whispered the last part to make it clear I was neither whining nor complaining.
“I, too, have no issue with holding you,” Desmond said. His murmur was pitched low for my ears only.
“But …”
“There was some issue with putting you down, Jade,” Scarlett said. “Have you been intimate with the alpha, sugar?”
“Mom?!?”
“Exchanged bodily fluids?”
“I know what being intimate means!”
Scarlett sighed. I shifted my legs to the floor, not that they wanted to move, and attempted to sit up in Desmond’s lap. He helpfully wrapped his hands around my waist to steady me. His thumbs almost touched at the small of my back. God, I could really get used to a set of male hands that could make me feel slim like that.
“What was the issue?” I asked, pausing to absorb the pain twisting through my joints and bones.
“Same issue when we tried to remove the fledgling,” a cool voice said from the deep shadows by the door.
I flinched. Kett stepped into the moonlight filtering in through the open window. He was dampening his magic so much that I hadn’t tasted it underneath Scarlett’s and Desmond’s.
“Stop doing that!”
“His presence was agitating the alpha further.” Scarlett was using a tone that one might normally reserve for a rabid dog. “But I felt it necessary for him to be nearby, just in case.”
“What the hell is going on?” I asked. “Give me all the information at once and quickly.”
“You bound the fledgling’s magic,” Kett said.
“No. Yes,” I answered. “For her own protection.”
“We cannot remove her from the room without her going into convulsions.”
“What?” I shot to my feet without another thought of my pain.
“I believe you need to remove the necklace,” Kett continued.
I raced around the bed to Mory, aware of Desmond rising from the chair and stretching behind me. My dress was hanging off me in shreds of purple silk. Thankfully, I was wearing a good bra and matching underwear.
“I used the necklace as a shield. A personal ward for Mory,” I said.
“Yes, ingenious,” Kett responded.
“Her brother Rusty, or his spectral energy or whatever, came to her call. But the connection was hurting her, draining her.”
“She is young.”
I reached for the necklace, which was still glowing with juiced-up magic. Kett cradled Mory’s head in his hands, and together we got the necklace untwined. As I pulled it from Mory, the taste of the fledgling’s magic filled the room.
“Toasted marshmallows,” I said.
“Yes?” Kett asked. “I have never tasted such.”
I brushed the hair from Mory’s forehead. She was still too thin, but she looked healthier than she had in the alley.
I looked up at Desmond, who’d — unfortunately — pulled on some track pants. His chest was still a welcome sight. He was watching me. I looped the necklace around my head and he inhaled a long breath, then exhaled in relief.
“The bond?” I asked. He nodded, then he ran his hand through his hair and over his face as if trying to wake himself up.
“Where’s Kandy? I saw her in the alley, and —”
“Fine,” Desmond answered. “Healing, but fine.”
Scarlett spoke up. “We were tracking Blackwell from the festival with Kandy on point. And suddenly Desmond was … hurt.”
“Practically incapacitated,” Kett added.
“I was never off my feet, vampire,” Desmond growled.
“Sienna’s spell.”
“What was it?” Scarlett asked.
“Fire in my veins. I couldn’t move.”
“A fireblood spell.” Scarlett murmured, pulling her spellbook to her lap. She flicked on the side-table lamp, not noticing the three of us reel back from the sudden light. Some warning would have been appreciated. She was making notes. That wasn’t weird at all.
It was also interesting that no one seemed shocked that Sienna was alive. While I was relieved to not be bombarded with questions before I’d had a chance to sort through my own feelings, I was also a little put out imagining that they’d had discussions and — obviously, by their outward calm — made decisions that they were once again keeping from me.
“Were you wearing the necklace then?” Kett asked. I shook my head.
Yep. They were putting something together. A puzzle that I didn’t even see the pieces of yet.
“Kandy, Kett, and I continued after Blackwell, but Desmond turned back to track you.” Scarlett didn’t look up from her spellbook. “The alpha assured me you weren’t dying.”
Yeah? Thanks, Mom.
“I had to transform to shake off the second hit,” Desmond said. “It helped that you dealt with it more easily.”
I nodded.
“We lost Blackwell,” Scarlett added. “He turned the corner and disappeared.”
“Disappeared?”
“Magic and all,” Kett said. If the user was powerful enough, the vampire could feel magic like I could. Not the glimmers and residual energy I could pick up, but anything strongly imbued.
“He wore an amulet. Called it his most precious possession. He seemed put off that I noticed it on him. It tasted, just a little, like the portal.”
“A transportation device,” Kett said, practically gushing — in his icy, offish way — over the idea. “Did it bear a ruby?”
“A red stone, yes. So let me get this. Desmond feels what happens to me through the life debt bond?”
“We already established that via the skinwalkers.” McGrowly was back in pissy mode.
“Excuse me?” Scarlett interrupted. “Skinwalkers?” Her voice was as steely as I’d ever heard it. Her eyes were on Kett, who oddly and actually appeared to avoid her gaze. “You said you were seeking some sort of treasure.”
“And we found it,” Kett answered smoothly.
“Off topic,” Desmond said.
Scarlett actually pointed a finger at Kett. Then, as if nothing had interrupted, she continued her conversation with me. “The bond has intensified. Which is why I questioned you about …”
Yeah, yeah. Intimate relations.
“The necklace seems to dampen it.”
Okay, good to know. “But I don’t feel anything. I mean … do you think I’m … pushing the spell, or fear, or whatever into Desmond through the bond?”
“Perhaps,” Kett answered.
“But I don’t feel … I mean, I can feel the magic of the actual bond, but I don’t feel Desmond specifically.”
“It must be connected to how your magic works,” Scarlett said.
“Yes,” Kett added. “You’ve said you visualize it as solder or mortar when you’re making the trinkets?”
Yeah, and while draining the skinwalker spells into the jade rocks, and making my knife, and so on. That would mean that the bond, though active until I fulfilled its parameters — namely to bring Hudson’s killer, Sienna, to justice — only went one way. And I couldn’t blame the bond for my practically attacking Desmond twice.
But I could blame him for returning the advances so enthusiastically on the life debt. Damn, that was a sour twist.
“So each time I … we …” I couldn’t finish the thought. Couldn’t look at Desmond. My cheeks flushed with mortification. Had I inadvertently been compelling Desmond to kiss me? Jesus, that kind of coercion was damn close to assault.
“It could have been the necklace, Jade,” Scarlett said as she crossed the room and gestured Kett toward Mory. “The necklace might block the intensity of the bond. You’re usually never without it.”
Kett picked up Mory and exited the room with Scarlett trailing after him. Her head was bowed to her open spellbook, her look thoughtful. She seemed to remember something, turning back at the door to blow me a kiss. Then she shut the door behind her leaving Desmond and me alone in the room.
I looked at my feet. My pretty shoes were scuffed. I felt like crying but I wasn’t going to cry over my shoes. “Just what every girl wants to hear about the boy she’s been kissing,” I finally said.
Desmond sighed. “Don’t be dramatic, dowser. I’m the alpha of a large pack, all of who are tied to me with fealty bonds. Their magic is my magic, otherwise the bond between you and I could never have existed in the first place. I’m not easily compelled.”
He crossed to me. I tilted my head to look him in the eyes, but he was looking at the necklace. “Just keep the necklace on, yes?”
I nodded.
He crossed by me to the door, opened it, and stepped out.
My stomach churned, but I wasn’t sure if I was disappointed or anxious.
“You haven’t forced anything on me, Jade,” he said over his shoulder. “I extracted the life debt from you. I was angry, and frustrated, and you seemed uncooperative. Any man would give his left arm to kiss you, dowser. Don’t go thinking otherwise.”
I nodded again. He left, shutting the door behind him with a soft click.
He didn’t — I noticed — kiss me goodnight.
∞
I couldn’t sleep. Not even after I texted Kandy and received an obscene emoticon in response. I was relieved the green-haired werewolf was well enough to be cracking jokes, but it didn’t settle me. The room was too hot even with the window open, and was too chilly with the air conditioning on. Though that might have just been my thing, not being a fan of air conditioning in general. This heat wasn’t an issue in Vancouver, which is exactly where I should be … making cupcakes … or trinkets.
Trinkets.
I had to keep my necklace on to mute the life debt bond between Desmond and me, but now I’d also inadvertently dragged Mory into a shitload of trouble. She had needed all the protection she could get from Sienna, and — if I wasn’t mistaken, because hell if I had any idea about how necromancy worked — from her dead brother, Rusty.
Maybe Rusty’s ghost, or shade, or spectral energy hadn’t known he was killing Mory in order to go after Sienna. But maybe he was beyond caring. Maybe he’d never cared about killing in the first place. The tribunal had found him equally as guilty as Sienna for the werewolf murders.
I could make Mory a necklace of her own if I could find the glimmers and bits I needed. A lot of the Adept came and went from this house. I should be able to cobble together something temporary at least.
I pulled on a crumpled
Keep Calm and Eat a Cupcake
T-shirt and short shorts — that rolling/packing trick never actually worked for me — and didn’t bother with shoes. The clock informed me it was just after 5:00 a.m. That seemed like a sane time to be up to me, but when I padded out into the hall, the house was very quiet.
I chose to explore further into the house rather than immediately backtrack to the rooms I’d already seen. Though I skipped Scarlett’s room, which was right next to mine. I gathered — after I came across three more empty bedrooms — that I was in the guest wing. The fact that Desmond needed a guest wing was mind-boggling. He didn’t come across as a big-Thanksgiving-or-Christmas-gathering sort of guy.
A glimmer in one of the bedrooms led me to three thin gold bangles that must have dropped behind and underneath a dresser.
In the next room, I found a Montblanc pen. I had no idea what I could do with a pen, but I took it anyway.
I hadn’t made a magical object without motivation yet. Kett had been coaxing me to do so, but it seemed that unless I was in danger, I stuck to making cupcakes, not trinkets. It helped that Scarlett was currently occupying my crafting space, because I was still sickened by how Sienna and Rusty had used my trinkets to fuel and aid their killing spree. I’d left all the trinkets hanging in the bakery, though I’d wanted to destroy them initially. I also kept a daily count — yeah, maybe that was overkill — but I hadn’t made anything new.
I backtracked through the hall until I arrived at Scarlett’s room. A knock gained me a sleepy permission to enter, and I found my mother curled up in bed looking perfectly mussed.
“Oh, good,” I said. “I was worried there’d be a vampire in your bed.”
“Why would there be a vampire in my bed?” my exhausted mother asked. “Vampires don’t sleep.”
“What? At all?”
“They do that fugue state thing that bothers you,” Scarlett said. “I believe that’s like sleep for them.”
“Wow, life must be insanely boring for them. How do you fill all those hours? Months? Years?”
“I think you will discover that most vampires prize their immortality above all else. They do not have the comfort of reproducing without great cost, so very few choose to attempt it.”
“Kett was turned, not born.”
“Yes,” Scarlett said. “Again, as far as I have gleaned, that is a painful process that is rarely successful. Are you waking me for a lesson in vampire reproduction?”
“God, no. I was wondering if you had any jewelry. I want to make Mory a necklace.”
Scarlett regarded me. Her normally sunny demeanor was dim and her expression more neutral than I usually saw it. Then she swung her legs off the bed and padded over to the bureau.
Speaking of vampires, Kett had taught me — inadvertently — to milk the silence in a conversation a little more. To pause when someone was obviously thinking and let them broach their own concerns instead of constantly drilling for conflict.
Scarlett lifted a padded, embroidered-silk roll out of the top drawer of the high bureau. Yeah, she’d unpacked. No, I hadn’t. My mother untied, then unfurled, the roll to reveal an impressive collection of necklaces, bracelets, and earrings.
“You travel with this? I’ve never seen you wear half of it.”
Scarlett shrugged and crossed to climb back into bed. “When you travel as much as I do you learn how to pack.”