It was no mystery how Tal had gotten inside — she had a set of spare keys — but she didn't normally abuse the privilege of having access to Alice’s home. Especially as she knew Alice had problems with people entering her apartment unexpectedly.
When Tal didn’t respond immediately, Alice pulled her watch from her bag. “It’s six in the morning!”
Tal shrugged. Her shiny, crow-black hair hung loose over her shoulders. “You said you’d tell me everything about the dead vamp. So I thought I’d wait for you.” She turned and headed toward the living area.
“I did say that,” Alice muttered. But she was tired. Bone tired. She’d kind of thought that the telling would occur at a later point in time.
Tal stopped in the open plan kitchen and living room and a delicious — and completely out of place — aroma wafted through the air. Alice wavered on her feet. Tal flicked a hand at the bench in front of her. “I thought I’d bring you some dinner, as I doubted that those lug-head guards would actually feed you.”
A lump formed in Alice’s throat as she stared at the pots Tal had placed on her kitchen counter. No one had ever tried to look after Alice, no one but her Aunt Zara and Tal. And Alice had resisted their care for years, struggling to make it on her own, but it was times like this that Alice knew she was lucky. Even though she had pushed away their help, they still cared enough to ignore her and help anyway.
“I was right, wasn’t I? They didn’t feed you.” Tal’s eyebrows set in a frown. “I am going to have words with those idiots.”
Alice shook her head. “Suddenly, I’m starving.”
Her best friend’s expression lightened. “Well, I brought you some stew. It was left over from my dinner.”
Alice’s face fell. “Didn’t you stay at the restaurant?”
Tal’s mouth quirked in a half-smile. “Wasn’t so much fun to ogle all the passers-by without you there to scowl at me.”
“I don’t scowl.”
Tal laughed and served up two bowls of stew, then cut some slices from a loaf of bread. It smelled absolutely divine.
Alice raised an eyebrow. “You made bread?”
“Are you kidding? I got this on the way over.”
“You’re eating, too?” Alice asked, grabbing one bowl.
“It’s time for breakfast, idiot.”
Alice kept her thoughts behind closed lips. Stew wasn’t really a breakfast food, but then, Tal had different notions about appropriate cuisine. For Alice, it was technically dinner. So that made it acceptable.
Tal wagged a finger at Alice. “Stop glowering at me.”
“I already said I don’t scowl.”
They sat down on her battered couch. Alice curled her feet up underneath her, but Tal kicked her feet up on the coffee table. She quickly removed them after Alice glared at the offending body parts. Tal knew better, but she always liked to try and push the boundaries, to see if Alice could veer away from her structured existence.
Today was not the day.
“Fussy.” Tal scooped up some stew with her bread. But she didn’t put her feet back on the table. “So, tell me. What happened with the dead vamp?”
“Two bodies have been found in public parks now. Both dead vamps. Both murdered.”
Tal’s brows drew together. “That hasn’t made the papers. Two? In how many days?”
Alice finished her mouthful. “Three. The Guard wants to keep it quiet to begin with; they’re trying to work out who the victims are.”
“They don’t know yet?”
“They know one.”
“Give me all the details.”
Alice thought about how Captain Dinya would lecture her for not keeping the information confidential, but Tal knew how to keep her mouth shut. And she had an amazing mind. Tal was a professor of mathematics at Pinton’s Royal University, and there were very few people in the entire country who could challenge her intellect. Alice had never met someone who could see patterns the way Tal did. Maybe she could help the case.
When Alice finished, Tal sat, tapping her spoon on the side of the bowl. Fast, slow, then fast. “So you need more samples of sperm? Would you be able to tell the difference between human, vamp and were?”
“I assume so; there’s enough physiological differences in general that there should be variances.”
Tal pursed her lips. “I can probably get you some samples.”
Alice scrunched her nose. “Tal!”
“What? It’s not like I haven’t slept with a vampire before. And I wouldn’t mind adding a were to the mix.”
Alice shuddered. “But vampires like to bite.” She didn’t even want to think about what weres could do to a human during the throes of sex.
Tal shrugged one shoulder, then grinned. “What can I say? I am just that fantastic a best friend. I am willing to do what it takes to help solve this murder.”
Chapter 16
Pinton City
Elle slammed a book down in front of the man who’d forever changed her life.
“What do you call this?”
Dante Kipling glanced down at the volume, its beautiful painted cover gleaming between them, an accusatory text. He then eyed Elle like she had lost what few marbles he’d thought she had, and quickly shifted his paperwork into a pile and pushed it to the edge of the table. Like he was afraid she was about to go on a rampage and destroy everything in sight.
“It’s a book,” Dante spoke slowly.
“She knows it’s a book,” said Baron Anton Greystoke. He stood in the doorway behind her. Dante’s husband had followed her down the hallway, cane clicking while he had lectured her on how Dante’s intentions were no doubt utterly noble. While Elle appreciated Anton’s loyalty, she could have done without it right now.
Elle was shaking, she was so angry. Now her abilities as a Green had awakened, she could have just slipped into Dante’s mind and ripped the thoughts from his stupid brain. But that would be a breach of privacy. Both he and Clay had lectured her about that on more than one occasion. Power corrupts and absolute power...
Yeah, she’d heard enough of that over the last few months.
It wasn't like she didn't know it was a bad thing. Her grandmother had been the best example of the dangers of abusing power that anyone could ever need to keep themselves in check. Personally, Elle thought ‘evil’ too light a word to describe the dead woman. Shaking her head, she dragged her thoughts back to the moment: Dante was interfering with the one thing that Elle had utterly forbidden him to.
“It’s a book on anatomy.” She was aware that the way she said the word sounded more like ‘bestiality’, but it was almost as bad. At least in this situation.
Dante tapped the chair next to him, looking pointedly at Anton. He only turned back to Elle once Anton had taken a seat, by which time steam was fairly pouring out of her ears.
“Yes,” Dante said. “It is in instructional book on human anatomy.”
She bit out each word. “I found it in Emmie’s room.”
Elle probably shouldn’t have been snooping about in her seven-year-old sister’s room, but she had been and that was that. Elle’s mother, Melissande, and Anton’s mother, Beatrice, would no doubt lecture her about her lack of respect for personal boundaries, but this was Emmie. The kid was not allowed to have personal boundaries. At least not with Elle.
Dante blinked. She’d come to learn that this was his ‘innocent’ look. Like a sociopathic vampire who only cared for two people in the world could even understand what ‘innocent’ meant.
Emmie — or even Elle — was not on his extremely short list of ‘cared for’ individuals, but Elle did know he was fond of her sister, the strange Teal-eyed stepniece he’d gained through Choosing Elle.
The family relationship was complicated.
“This book is an important educational tool,” the vampire said.
“She is seven years old,” Elle hissed.
“And she is very clev
er for her age.” Dante tapped a long finger against the book’s cover. Coming from Dante, that was a massive compliment. The vampire may have the empathy of a gnat, but he was a genius. And he’d been studying human anatomy for longer than Elle had been alive.
Elle flicked his hand away, and opened the book to one of its three hundred and seventy-two offensive pages. There, on page two hundred and sixty-five, in detail, was the human circulatory system marked out in beautiful hand-drawn brilliance.
Elle stabbed a finger downward. “This!”
Dante looked at it, as did Anton. Then they both turned to her. Even Anton appeared confused.
“...is the human circulatory system?” Dante finished, one eyebrow raised.
“You are giving her medical texts. I told you that we didn’t want her to be encouraged to use her...ability. Giving her this is going to make her want to practice. We can’t risk it!”
“It is just a book.” Anton’s tone was placating.
Elle whipped her head round to stare at the human baron. “He is putting her in a risky — tempting — situation. She could kill herself from using her healing ability.”
There’d never been another born with Emmie’s Teal-colored eyes. At least, no one that Elle or her grandmother had heard about. They didn’t know what Emmie could do — what her limits were.
Dante stood, placing both hands on the table between them, and leaned forward. “All I am doing is giving her knowledge. She has agreed not to use her ability to heal because it is dangerous for her, and you, if people were to find out. But keeping her in ignorance is also harmful. What if the reason she gets so drained by her use of power is because her body is reacting instinctively? What if she actually knew what was required, and could then direct her gift to fix that specific problem, rather than fixing every tiny health issue a person may have?”
“She only healed my shoulder when I busted it,” Elle said.
Dante nodded. “That’s because you had an injury her ability could hone in on.”
“She promised she won’t heal anyone,” Elle protested.
“On purpose,” Anton commented.
Elle slumped into an empty chair as the two words hit home. “She’s only a kid.”
Dante sat slowly, violet eyes locked on her unique purple, Green and Gray irises. “But she has a power she cannot control,” he said. “She really needs to be in medical school now.” He held up a hand as Elle opened her mouth to protest. “But she is too young, I know. That doesn’t mean we can’t provide a basic level of education that may help her during her accidental healings.”
“I don’t want her practicing.”
Dante pinched the bridge of his nose. “If you were a doctor, would you be able to operate on someone in your first year of medical school?”
Elle frowned. “I don’t know. No?”
Dante sighed. “No, you wouldn’t. If I had been allowed to go to medical school then I wouldn’t have been allowed near a live patient for five years. That would be after I learned all the theory and worked on cadavers. Of course, medical school is too low-brow for an aristo or a Kipling, but I had access to slaves.”
Elle decided not to read between the lines. And forced herself to not remember how she’d been ‘recruited’ as a test subject for one of Dante’s experiments. “Do you have a point?”
He seemed to realize he’d said something wrong, but the idiot probably didn’t know what exactly.
“That she needs to have a thorough working knowledge of the human body before she is allowed to practice her healing ability on anyone. That means books. Pictures. More books. Theory. Maybe even access to a cadaver or three.”
No doubt under Dante’s supervision. Which wasn’t necessarily a bad thing, provided the person was already dead. And Elle did know the city’s coroner.
She wondered how she could convince Alice to let a kid into the morgue.
“I’ll think about it,” Elle said.
“Give Emmie the book back.” Dante sighed. “And stop slamming it around. It was not cheap. I bought it especially for her, and I’m not worth what I used to be. I’m a married man now.” The Creep — Elle’s favorite nickname for Dante — smiled.
“Ugh.” Elle stood and picked up the book. Dante’s relationship with Anton was complicated, but he wouldn’t do anything to jeopardize it, even if it was something simple like spending too much coin. They were only just learning the boundaries of their marriage, and Dante was discovering that he actually liked his husband, which was more than he felt about most people, Elle knew.
Turning for the door, she stopped as she reached the threshold. “By the way, I need to speak to your sister.”
“Misty?” Dante’s face seemed to get even paler, if that was possible.
“Who else?”
“Do you have to speak to her?” The poor vampire looked a little worried. Viscountess Kipling was a difficult woman to like: flighty, vain, and narcissistic. The complete opposite of Dante who was largely emotionless, brilliant and completely unsociable. But then, Misty was on Dante’s short list of ‘cared fors’, even if he didn’t realize it. He’d ask his sibling over.
“It’s about work.”
Anton snorted. “Work? As in City Guard work? Good luck getting Mistique to help you there.”
“Just invite her over for a tea or whatever it is you aristos do. I’ll ask her then.”
Dante shook his head. “Anything that goes wrong, I’m blaming on you.”
Chapter 17
Oberona Mountains
Byrne watched surreptitiously as the young woman tried — rather badly — to tie a diaper around the very new infant. Who didn’t have a name. What parent didn’t have a name for their cub? And where was the father? Was she traveling to meet him? She had no baby bump that he could see, and he couldn’t smell any blood on her, so she wasn’t bleeding after giving birth. But vampires were different, and like weres, tended to heal within hours of a physical injury. Although this wasn’t necessarily an injury...
He was giving himself a headache.
The little girl was kicking and whimpering and did not seem at all pleased about the way things were progressing.
“Do you want some help?” Byrne hid his smile behind a hand. The woman was wearing gloves while changing a diaper. He didn’t want to think about the hygiene issues.
Hannah was muttering under her breath, and while politeness suggested he not listen in, he couldn’t help it. Besides, she knew he was a were; she should know he had super hearing. But really, when she said things like, “The stupid memory said this was how it was done,” he couldn’t stop himself from leaning a little closer.
Everything about this woman was interesting. It was a good thing that Fin was almost comatose in the cart, otherwise he’d be all over the pretty vampire, charming her out of her pants and into his pine needle bed. The fact she had a cub would probably just be a bonus. Like Byrne, Fin loved kids.
Go figure.
But there was clearly something special about her. She was a vampire, but with her Black eyes, she was also Graced. He could see how someone might think her eyes were a very dark Brown, but his eyesight was excellent; there wasn’t even the hint of color to those obsidian depths. The cool, icy leech scent was tempered, too — possibly by the urine staining her shirt — but it was definitely there. A Graced vamp. Byrne had never met one. From what he’d heard, most of them had been killed shortly after the Civil War, and that was before his time.
And the cub — she was also Graced. Green eyes, but completely human, which was unexpected.
“I almost had it!” Hannah’s was voice raspy, like a purr. It danced through his head and he almost wished he had Fin’s boundless charm. But facts were facts. Byrne clearly wasn’t the kind of guy who jumped in and out of women’s beds — his sexual dry spell pointed that out all too clearly. And this Hannah wasn’t his mate.
Fin would no doubt be laughing his ass off at Byrne i
f he were well enough. The human thought that the whole idea of ‘finding your mate’ was absolute fiction, and for vamps, humans and some weres, it was. But for weres who were tenth generation or more, the ability to track your mate by some kind of psychic sense of smell was a very real phenomena. A couple of years ago, Byrne had talked with a wolf he’d known forever: the other were thought the reason later generations of weres had this ability was due to their interbreeding with Graceds. That the psychic ability had mutated in pure were offspring, to the point where all it provided was a clue as to who a were would mate with for life.
But considering Byrne was thousands of years old — not that he’d admitted as much to the idiot human — and he’d never found his perfect partner, he hadn’t believed it would happen. After all, finding that mythical person who was ‘perfect’ for you? The chances were pretty slim.
Maybe he should just settle for Miss Right Now. But he was pretty sure that wasn’t going to be the cute, black-haired Graced vampire unsuccessfully tying a diaper around the poor unnamed cub before him.
“There!” Hannah picked the cub up, and the diaper fell off. The vampire’s face drooped comically.
“Here,” Byrne leaned forward to take the babe from the woman’s arms. She stepped back, like he’d pulled a knife on her.
“Don’t touch me.” Hannah’s voice wavered, and he caught the distinct scent of fear on the air.
“I won’t. But can I take the cub?”
She clutched the infant to her chest. “Why?”
“So I can eat it.”
To his surprise, she snorted a laugh and handed the cub over. She took care to ensure that her gloved hands didn’t touch him, Byrne noticed. Curiouser and curiouser.
“I’ve changed a few nappies in my time,” Byrne said, trying to sound conversational. He was so used to spending his time bickering with Fin that he’d almost forgotten how to have a normal discussion.
“You have?” Hannah’s eyes went so wide, he couldn’t differentiate her pupil from her iris.
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