by Lauren Dane
He put everything aside and settled across from her, knees to knees on the bed. “Thank you. The present is fantastic.”
“I got us reservations at some swanktastic place you Vamps salivate over. The one with the celebrity chef who’s really one of you. Whatever it’s called. We’ll eat there before the piano thing.”
“I know a secret, Rowan Summerwaite.”
“I bet!”
“You listen to people you care about.”
She screwed up her features. “That’s a secret?”
“You listen to me enough to know I love Beethoven. The cravats, ties, shirts, all of it designed to please me. And it does. You please me very much.”
She ducked her chin. “Oh. Well. Good. I mean. That’s the point and all.”
He didn’t bother to hide his amusement. “It is the point, indeed. I’m glad we’re in accord.”
“Your mother sent over some basket of crap with an invitation to their house for dinner.”
“I know you have work to do. You only need to go for an hour or so,” Clive told her.
She rolled her eyes. “It’s a Vampire social event thing. It’s going to take hours upon hours and if I left early, I’d offend your parents. So. Back to reality. I already did some work as I’ve been up for hours. Dinner at your parents’ isn’t until ten so I plan to stop in and have a pint on the way.”
“Why do I get the distinct feeling this pint is also work related?”
She shrugged. “You’re very suspicious.”
“I am when it comes to you. How much time do we have before leaving for this pub where you’re going to terrorize someone or make someone cry?”
“It might be some rich guy dumbass pub Roth Wesslyian goes to after work on Thursdays. Naturally, I’d like to shake him up a little more. Nervous people make mistakes.”
“We know it’s Roth then? Who sent last night’s guest?”
“I think it’s him. The signs point to him being involved on some level. Even if all he did was give someone a heads up that I was in town. It’s an awfully big coincidence that this all happened after I revealed myself across the street from the Motherhouse. Genevieve is going to meet us at the pub in an hour. She tells me she’s got news so I guess we’ll see what she found out then.”
“Give me fifteen minutes, then we’ll rush to get out the door.” He whipped her shirt off and took her to the bed with his body on hers.
“You can have twenty. Make some magic with those extra five minutes.”
And he did.
* * *
“Stop looking at me like that,” Rowan muttered under her breath. Clive had that look in his eyes. Like he wanted to bend her over something and give it to her.
Usually she’d be amenable to such a thing but it wasn’t the time.
“You don’t mean that.” He gave her the sex voice, the cad.
“You just had it less than an hour ago. What have you been doing since we’ve been apart?”
“Nothing, which is why I want you so much.”
Hmpf. Well, it wasn’t like you could complain about a man like Clive saying something like that.
“Rein it in, thundercock.”
He nearly choked and she considered it a job well done.
“This is not a pub. It’s like cosplay of what people who’ve never been to a pub think a pub is. You think they’d have caught a few episodes of EastEnders to know better. Anyway, the music in here is okay and they know how to pull a pint. I’d set half the people in here on fire after an hour, though. Of course Roth drinks here. Look at these assholes. Halfway across the world and douchebags are still douchebags. I hope they tip well.”
Genevieve walked in like a cloud of boho perfection. Dark hair caught back, away from her face, some flowy dress thing that managed to look effortlessly elegant, she stopped at the table to sit after a tip of her chin in Clive’s direction.
“Vampire,” she said.
“Witch,” Clive replied.
“Oh for fuck’s sake. We don’t have time for this stuff.” Rowan had zero plans to play referee in this little game.
“You’re very gruff.” Genevieve winked and everyone relaxed.
“I hate dick measuring and posturing. It’s boring and a time waster. This is Clive Stewart, Scion of North America. Clive, this is Genevieve Aubert, magic wielder and member of the Conclave Senate.”
Once that was out of the way and Genevieve got her vodka lemon, they got down to business. “So tell me what you found, if anything,”
“The magic on him had a very distinct signature. Like a fingerprint. I’ve seen it before, though I can’t elaborate on how or why,” Genevieve said.
Rowan sighed heavily. More fucking secrets meant more complications. It also meant the conspiracy thing was for sure and big and would really gulp up huge swaths of her life.
“Can you at least tell me if it’s connected to the magical black market? Or tell me who did it so I can find them myself?”
“This doesn’t come from anywhere good. Or sanctioned.”
“You did one of your cone of silence things right?” Rowan asked Genevieve.
“Yes, speak freely.”
“You’re telling me you have your own bullshit mess with factions trying to stir shit up to break the Treaty, yes or no.”
Genevieve didn’t speak. But she nodded.
“Roth bought his way into the black market. Question is—one of them anyway—did he know in advance and get involved with this little revolution on purpose? Is the black market a front for this group?” Rowan asked her.
“Mainly the black market is like all such things. It’s a shadow economy that’s most usually not about politics at all, but profit. However, another common factor with guerilla politics and the shadow economy is both thrive on secrets.”
“So you don’t know how deep the rot is. There’s a connection, but not a unified conspiracy.”
“I can’t give you names. But if you had names, I could steer you away from dead ends.” Considering how powerful and connected the Auberts were in the Conclave, what she offered meant some of this stuff went very high up there as well as within the Nation and Hunter Corp.
“Fair enough. Thank you.” Rowan lifted her pint in Genevieve’s direction.
David texted her that Roth and his girlfriend got out of a car out front.
“I think it’s time to turn the heat up under Roth’s ass,” Rowan muttered. “He’s on the way in. He won’t see me at first. He’ll come in and be seen. He’ll choose that high top over there instead of a booth. Again, needs the attention.”
Clive’s eyelids went half mast a moment as he watched her. She knew he found her sexy when she did her job. She let him hear the change in her heartbeat, knowing that made him hot too.
Roth walked in with Julia Porter, his girlfriend and the mother of a total moron Rowan had removed from Hunter Corp.
Julia had been talking shit, Rowan knew. Not that she cared. Everyone talked shit. That’s how the world worked on a certain level. But her shit talking had contained threats to Rowan and those she protected.
That Rowan did care about a great deal. Especially when she was banging the dude who paid people to make those threats a reality.
They preened around until settling just where Rowan knew they would. In the center of the room where everyone would see. Backs to the doors like amateurs.
They chatted while Rowan waited, knowing it wouldn’t be too long now before Roth’s social climbing beady little gaze got to where they sat.
And when it did, he physically reared back, jumping to his feet.
Rowan smiled at him, showing teeth. Clive hissed at her side, having seen her very threatening—and Vampiric—gesture.
She waved, but kept her seat. Julia l
ooked around and when she recognized Rowan, she began to rush over, probably to squawk about her stupid kid losing her job. But Roth reached out, grabbing her wrist to halt her progress.
Smart of him.
“He’s not reacting like an innocent man,” Clive muttered. “I can smell the panic on him from here.”
Of course he could. She’d laid out all the groundwork for it. He was panicked because he must be figuring out the sorcerers he’d been dealing with had no plans to protect him. Or at the very least he suspected it.
“I like him panicked.”
“Like candy, all that emotion.” Genevieve watched as they tried to decide if they should come over or not. It wasn’t as if they were friends. But a wave, even if they were co-workers who didn’t really like one another, would be appropriate. Or even a head tip.
Certainly not a fevered, whispered discussion Rowan was sure Clive could hear from where he sat.
“The end is near, Roth,” Rowan said. “Run, rabbit run.”
He rushed out after tossing some money onto the table, pushing Julia in front of him as they went.
Rowan texted David, who was waiting to tail them, along with Susan’s valet.
“Thank you for your help, Genevieve. This connection is important and it would have taken me a lot longer—if I even could have pulled it off—without you.”
Genevieve said, “I spoke to your friend in Venice. She was a lot of help. I may have convinced her to be more active in Conclave politics. We could use more voices like hers. I reassured her there was no problem that she’d given you the information she did about the type of magics used by your common enemy.”
Donna Goldoni would be an excellent person to have on the Conclave, but she had little patience for nonsense. And politics was all about nonsense.
“I appreciate that. I’d hate to get them into trouble when they went out of their way for me,” Rowan told her.
“Pieces to a puzzle. We each have our own, but we can’t solve it unless we share. My cab driver said that to me on the way over.”
Rowan narrowed her gaze a moment. “Was he a kooky old man with stuffed dead animals in the cab?”
Genevieve’s eyes widened a moment. “Uh. No. This is something I’d generally avoid. Someone you know?”
As well as anyone could know a sage, Rowan supposed. “I see him from time to time. He gives good advice that I don’t always understand until after things have happened.”
“Sages.” Genevieve rolled her eyes.
Carl probably wasn’t even in Europe. Rowan was sure he had sage stuff to do and cabbies liked to toss out bits of wisdom so it was just a coincidence.
Probably.
They said their goodbyes outside the front doors with Rowan and Clive headed one way and Genevieve the other.
Chapter Nine
The driver Clive had attempted to saddle her with waited patiently for them, door open.
“It’s weird, you know? Being served like this.” She got in and Clive followed.
“You grew up at the Keep. How many servants work there?” Clive smirked.
“I was one of the servants when I grew up at the Keep. Don’t ever forget that, Clive because I sure as hell can’t.”
He paused and she regretted being so snippy with him. He was only teasing. But before she could apologize, he squeezed her hand.
“I do sometimes forget. Which I suppose is a testament to your strength. I apologize.”
“I shouldn’t have snapped at you. I know you meant to be lighthearted.” Apologizing sucked, but he deserved one.
“If someone had told me two years ago that I’d be hand in hand with my wife, who is a Hunter, so in love I’d move mountains for her, I’d have laughed in their face.” Clive scooted a little closer to Rowan and she allowed herself to lean into him.
“Before you killed them?”
He laughed. “Depends on who said it and how it was delivered.”
“I find laughter tends to tip people off balance. It ups the scare factor. Also some people need to understand how ridiculous they are before you punch them in the throat.”
“Of course you do.” He kissed her and she harrumphed even though she was in a very good mood once again.
“You’re fucking kidding me that they live here, right?” They pulled up to a gate, which slid open to let the car pass.
Here was Kensington. A stone’s throw from the palace. No big.
“They have an actual country manor but they love the city too. They’ve had this house for several hundred years now.”
“Does the queen come over for tea?” Rowan asked as a joke and then realized it probably wasn’t. Because Vampire families as old as the Stewarts probably did indeed have tea with the queen and others in the royal family who knew of the existence of Vampires.
And because this neighborhood was all super rich people with loads of power and those types all ran with one another.
“When she was young, the Queen Mum used to go horseback riding with my mother.”
Rowan cursed under her breath, but by the time they got out, she’d pulled herself together so she didn’t gape at the facade of the beautiful pinkish stone house. Columns as big as oak trees, marble, a front garden with a fountain.
“If I was watching a period movie about English rich people in the time when everyone wore fancy clothes and had picnics while the poor toiled away in factories, I’d totally imagine this place.”
“I’m sure that was a compliment.” Clive brushed invisible lint from his lapel.
“It was.” Mostly.
She was so unfit for this stuff outside diplomatic areas. She wasn’t meet the parents who live in a giant mansion material!
The door swung open silently to reveal a dour-faced man in a black uniform. He bowed to them both.
“Scion Stewart, Ms. Summerwaite, please, come in.”
“Thank you, Hill.” Clive placed the palm of his hand at her back to steer her inside. It anchored her, steadying her pace. “Are they in the salon?”
“Your father is in his office, finishing up some business and your mother is in the salon, yes. Follow me.” Hill led them, though Clive certainly seemed capable of knowing the way.
Hill left them with a quick bow as they entered a beautifully appointed room with comfortable seating scattered in clusters throughout.
“There you are.” Antonia came toward them and Rowan sighed her relief that the voice had been retired. Her clothes were far more modern and her hair not so fluffy.
But she shared Clive’s eyes, the near amusement around his mouth.
She bared her throat to him, an act of deep intimacy and affection as well as one of fealty.
Clive kissed her cheek and stepped back. “Where’s Father so we can do the official introductions and I can have a drink.”
Antonia gave him a steely glare. “Really, Clive. This is one moment you know I’ve wanted a long time. Stop being so grouchy and let me enjoy it.”
Rowan couldn’t help but like the woman.
Hill came into the room though Antonia hadn’t said a thing. It meant, like a lot of humans in the service of Vampires, he had a mental connection to his employer. Usually it came from blood sharing. Theo gave his blood in very small amounts to the closest of his human staff. It extended their lives, kept them strong and healthy. He also took theirs as a tithe of sorts.
That dual sharing of blood allowed him to poke at them without leaving his couch. Annoying, she remembered, to get the Theo version of a missive dropped into her head any time of night.
She hadn’t felt that in a long time. That sense of never truly having privacy. Always at his mercy and his whim.
Powerlessness had left a metallic taste in her mouth from a very young age. So she worked and struggl
ed and got beat down a lot and struggled and worked some more until she now could stand toe to toe with those most powerful of beings.
She’d used the feelings to forge an armor no one could get through but this dude beside her. She’d given him her blood again. Willingly. Each time she did, their connection and bond would strengthen and deepen.
It wasn’t anything like what Theo and Antonia were doing.
But the powerlessness had left a lot of fucked-up bullshit in her head. Enough that she looked at Hill and liked her in-laws just a little less, though she knew Hill would tell her he was not abused. That he loved his position.
Sometimes it would be so much easier if anything in her life could be either good or bad. No gray. No complication.
Instead, she’d chosen to re-enter this world of intricate rituals and puffery. She’d let Theo back into her life and heart. Clive she’d bonded with, cementing her into a lifetime more of this.
Panic hit, just a slight twinge, that she’d never be what Clive truly needed. He came from this world. No, he ran it.
Rowan knew how play this game. No matter how ill fitting the suit got sometimes, Rowan loved Clive enough to wear it when he needed her to, to remember sometimes she was Rowan Clive’s partner, as well as the Vessel and the Hunter.
“Rowan, would you like a drink?” Clive directed her attention away from the rabbit hole of examining every single one of her choices.
She’d made them. And looking at this man who stood before her, knowing how much he gave for her when he was the most uptight, rigid person she knew, let her breathe through it.
“Let’s wait for your father.” She straightened her spine. “Crazypants over there is right. Don’t be a jerk. Let her have her memory.”
“Crazypants is a very apt nickname, you must admit.”
Rowan turned in the direction of the voice and got snagged in the charisma and intensity of the Vampire who’d just entered the room.
“Charles Stewart. Patriarch, House Stewart,” Hill said before moving discreetly in the direction of the cart Rowan bet had drinks ready under the cover.