by Lisa Olsen
Lee reached out to pat my hand in a comforting manner. “You find it, you be sure and let me know. But don’t go beatin’ yourself up about it none. Leaders been trying to get folks to get along now for longer’n you or I been around. I expect it ain’t in our nature to get along too smooth.”
“I can’t accept that.”
“Sure you can. The first step is realizin’ you can’t control anybody but yourself.”
That wasn’t strictly true. I could compel a large swath of the population thanks to my Ellri Sire, but imposing my will on others wouldn’t make me much better than any other petty tyrant in history. Maybe I did have to cut myself some slack and not assume responsibility for the empire vampire nation? “Fine, but I don’t have to like it,” I grumbled.
“No, you don’t,” he chuckled. “Come on, mija, let’s get you somethin’ to eat. Things’ll look brighter with a full belly, they always do.”
I let him fix me a mug of bagged blood, even though I wasn’t particularly hungry. While he pushed buttons on the microwave, I sent Rob a text with a little heart <3. Not exactly asking him where he was, but I might as well have. Almost as soon as I’d done it I wished I had a way to take it back. I so did not want to be the clingy girlfriend.
Less than two minutes later he texted me back. Love you heaps. See you in an hour, yeah?
Smiling, I sent him a smiley face and a love you too, not bothering to ask him what he was up to. There wasn’t anything to worry about, I trusted him completely. There were oceans of things we didn’t know about each other, but I knew the most important thing – Rob loved me and he’d never ever hurt me.
Chapter Eight
A couple of weeks went by and we settled into a basic routine. It was nice not to be rushing from one crisis to another, nobody making demands on me that didn’t stem from my normal work duties. I hadn’t heard from Jakob and that suited me fine.
I hadn’t gone out much, working from home mostly, except when I went along to hunt with Rob. He only asked me to go with when I needed to feed though, the rest of the time he took care of it on his own while Elder business kept me busy.
One night I woke up later than usual, a little worn out by Rob keeping me up the night before, eager to make up for lost time. I was surprised to find the space next to me vacant except for a black satin blindfold with a note that said, See you tonight. I ran my fingers over the soft material, a shiver of anticipation tingling down my spine until I realized – Where the heck was Rob? Had he set the alarm again and I hadn’t even heard it?
Maggie reported that he’d said he had some errands to run and would be back later, and I tried not to sound like a worry wart, deliberately avoiding the urge to text him. The door opened then, and I looked up in anticipation, my heart sinking when Jenessa strode in without knocking. We were definitely going to have to get the spell turned back on and I resolved to ask Rob about whether or not he’d reached his sister.
“Why didn’t you tell me about you and Rob?” she demanded, smoothing away non-existent flyaways over her sleek blonde hair. She was dressed in a simple pair of tailored trousers and a pale pink blouse that made her peaches and cream complexion appear particularly rosy. Elegant as usual, though her tone was better suited for gossiping at the water cooler. “Honestly, Anja, I have to hear about it on the street like a common subject!”
“Because it was complicated,” I dodged, wondering exactly what it was she’d heard. “I wasn’t at liberty to declare my feelings for Rob while I was supposed to be on Jakob’s arm.”
“I know, but you made it sound like you were hot for Bishop. Or are you and he still an item too?” She arched a perfectly sculpted brow.
“No, Bishop and I are just friends, we have been for a while. I’m sorry if I led you to think differently, I didn’t have a whole lot of choice.”
“I think it was romantic, lovers kept apart by a cruel fate,” Maggie ventured with a dreamy smile. “Far more romantic now that they’re together, of course.”
“I just wish you’d told me,” Jenessa insisted. “I never would’ve made a play for him if I’d known how you felt. I guess that explains his lack of interest. For a while there I thought I was losing my charm.”
“Somehow I don’t think that’s something you have to worry about,” I murmured, more worried about what she’d said before. “What do you mean you heard about it on the street?”
“Oh, it’s all anyone’s talking about. How you cast Jakob off after he killed Lodinn and took up with Rob instead.”
“That wasn’t quite the order things happened in, but close enough, I guess. Is that what people think though, that I dumped Jakob?” Technically it was true, but I hadn’t wanted to broadcast it everywhere. Where had all this come from? I knew it hadn’t been spread by anyone who’d actually been present in the house, I trusted them all implicitly. One of the extra guards had to have loose lips.
“Why else would he leave so quickly after you gave him the heave ho?”
“That isn’t why he left in such a hurry. I mean, it’s part of it. I did ask him to leave me alone, but he ran off so quickly because Lodinn told him that Carys is still alive.”
Her blue eyes stretched wider. “Oh, no wonder they both left so quickly.” So the rumor mill obviously hadn’t been privy to everything that went down that night. “I’m so sorry, that must’ve been a terrible blow to you.”
I exchanged a look with Maggie, both of us unsure what she meant. “Why would this be a terrible blow?” I ventured.
“Because with Carys back, you’ll lose your position and any chance at winning Bishop or Jakob back.”
My mouth opened and closed again without saying anything, at a loss for what to say to that.
“Why would she lose her position?” Maggie asked. “Carys has no claim to the West.”
“Oh, no, I meant by Jakob’s side as his consort,” Jenessa explained, her face still schooled into an expression of pity I couldn’t for the life of me figure out why I deserved. Hadn’t she been listening?
“Good. I didn’t want the position, remember? Hence my asking Jakob to leave.”
“No one will believe that now. They’ll think it’s a sort of sour grapes you’re circulating since he’s gone off to find his favored progeny.”
Cool beans, exactly what I needed, more rumors swirling about me. “Well, he can have her and I couldn’t care less what people think about it. I hope they’re happy together. And Bishop isn’t chasing after her, he’s gone back to Rome.”
“That’s odd. Perhaps he’s merely coordinating the search from there? I imagine the Order can find anyone they set their sights on. I can’t believe he wouldn’t pursue her after all these years. I know how devastated he was after her death.”
Cripes, was I getting tired of the subject. “It’s none of my business what Bishop does. If he decides to go after Carys, it has nothing to do with me. I’m with Rob now, remember?”
“Of course you are, and that’s perfectly understandable, you being his Sire and all.” She patted my arm gently.
Why did I get the feeling she was condescending to me? I’d always considered Jenessa to be one of my friends, but the more she talked, the more I started to fantasize about popping her in the mouth. Not that I’d ever do that in a zillion years. I opened my mouth to tell her I’d fallen in love with Rob way before I’d turned him, but decided in the end it was none of her business.
“Okay, I need to be getting down to the office. Was there some other reason you stopped by, Jenessa? Did you forget anything when you moved out?”
“Oh no, no other reason. I simply wanted to catch up with you,” she smiled. “I’m glad Jakob was able to defeat Lodinn and set your sister free.”
“Thanks.” Not that it was all Jakob’s doing. Any other time and I would’ve filled her in on all the other bits of that night, but I wasn’t in the mood to go over it again. I wanted to get on with my life. “Well, it was nice to see you again. Thanks for coming over.”
> “She means well,” Maggie ventured once she was gone, and I shook my head.
“It doesn’t matter. I don’t care what anybody thinks about what went down here that night. All that matters is that Lodinn’s dead, Jakob’s gone and I can finally start to live my life the way I want to.”
“That’s right, and you deserve every speck of happiness coming to you,” she smiled warmly. “Are you actually going to the office or working from home tonight?”
“I probably should, I feel like I haven’t been there in ages. What about you?”
“I was thinking of going down anyway, it’s easier for me to get things done with my proper desk.”
“Right, of course it is. You know, you don’t have to stick around here on the nights I work from home. If you’d rather go work down there you can, any time you want. I’ve got plenty of security to spare, or you can take one of the cars.”
“Yes, I know.” A flicker of emotions twisted her features and the brightness of her mood dimmed. “I just miss having Marcus with me. The office feels so empty when I’m there alone.” She blinked away the shine of tears, looking away, and I pulled her close for a quick hug.
“It’ll get better, Maggie, I promise. If you need to take some time away…”
“No, I’d rather keep busy,” she sniffed, offering me a watery smile. “It helps to feel like I’m being useful.”
“You are,” I assured her. “More than you know.”
* * *
I hadn’t been to the office since Lodinn’s reign of terror had landed me on house arrest, so it was quite a shock to walk into the mess the Order left behind during their short occupancy. There were maps tacked up all over the walls, empty equipment boxes cluttering up the corners, and the chairs from the conference room were all stacked out in the hallway leaving barely enough room to get by. I even found a cache of ammunition in the bottom drawer of my desk.
For once I was glad to have my team of redshirts along, and I put them to work setting things to rights. Besides the bullets, I also found a sleek laptop left behind on my desk. A quick powering up told me exactly who it belonged to – Hanna’s smiling face on the desktop background meant it could only be one vampire.
I’d only traded a few brief words with Hanna since she’d returned home. My guys retrieved her purse and a few belongings from Lodinn’s coastal house and dropped them off for her while picking up the borrowed car, and she’d called to say thanks. Despite her assurances that she was doing fine, I couldn’t help but feel like she had a long road ahead of her before she was back to her usual snarky self.
Of course, that made me wonder how Mason was holding up. I considered calling him to remind him about the laptop left behind, but instead I decided to pay him a visit. That way I could kill two birds with one stone and talk about some of the other issues on my mind.
After seeing Maggie safely ensconced and leaving Gunnar behind for company so it didn’t seem so lonely, Lee and I set off to Jakob’s building with the laptop in hand. Okay so, when I say Lee and I left, it was more like Lee and I and the half dozen thugs in suits that followed me everywhere. While I’d been glad to have their muscle when it came to cleaning up the office, all I could think was what a waste of money and their time it was for them to follow me around like a motorcade everywhere I went.
If I thought my office was trashed, it was nothing to the chaos I stepped into on the floors the Order had taken over in Jakob’s building. After we were waved through the front security desk, it took a few minutes to find Mason, sitting on his backside in a room full of computer equipment, a slow but steady torrent of obscenities leaving his lips with an impressive array of visuals.
“Is this a bad time?” I ventured, the laptop tucked under my arm.
“That all depends, are you here to jam another red hot poker up my ass?” he asked after a brief glance in my direction, his hands still busy on whatever it was he was messing with in the guts of a computer.
“That wasn’t my first thought, no.” I shook my head, trying to decide how literally to take that from the pained expression on his face. His beard had started to grow back in nicely, the burn scars only visible up near his eye and bisecting one brow. “But I could give Jenessa a call, I’m sure she’d be happy to help you with that red hot poker issue.”
“No thanks, I’m getting used to it,” he smirked. “What can I do for you, sis?”
“Just playing errand girl and hoping to catch up a bit. Recognize this?” I held out the laptop and he sprang up, light on his feet to take it from me. It was good to see he’d recovered his agility after his brush with death.
“Oh yeah, sorry about that. I forgot all about it, things have been kinda busy around here coordinating all the new equipment Bishop sent over. And now I’m playing tech on top of it all,” he scowled, kicking at one of the computer towers with the toe of his boot.
“Isn’t that Frost’s job.”
“Don’t get me started.”
“I’m sorry, I guess I picked a bad day to visit.”
“Probably, unless you feel like being pressed into service,” he muttered, setting his laptop aside and wiping his hands off on his pants.
“I should maybe take off then.” The last thing I wanted to do was make his day any worse.
Mason cracked his neck first one way and then the other. “Naw, fuck it, I could use the break. If you come with me I can halfway justify it if Frost checks up on me.”
Chapter Nine
I ventured a sympathetic smile. “They’re riding you rough, huh?”
“Rough I can handle, it’s all the goddamn…” Mason forced a tight lipped smile. “Never mind, forget I said anything. Allow me to escort you to my office, madam,” he said with a grand bow. “I do apologize for the dramatics.”
“You are such a cheeseball,” I laughed, stepping out into the hallway where Lee and the rest of my squad waited.
“Mmm, on second thought, maybe we should run out and get some cheeseballs. I - Whoa, what’s with the suit convention?” He stopped short in the hallway. “What’s up, fellas? Who’s hungry for cheeseballs?”
Lee gave him a friendly nod, the others pretty much ignored him.
“Are you in some kind of new trouble I don’t know about?” Mason cocked a brow in my direction as he led me down the corridor.
“Nope, this is pretty much standard operating procedure.”
“Good. Bishop will skin me alive if something happened to you now.”
“I’m pretty sure he has other things on his mind these days.” Carys being one of them if everyone else was to be believed, but I didn’t say that out loud. As we reached Mason’s office, I stopped at the door. “Guys, do you mind waiting out in the lobby area? You too, Lee,” I added when he moved to follow me in. “I’ll be fine, I promise. I’d like to have a few words in private with Mason.”
Lee hesitated for a moment before giving me a quick wink and a nod. “Holler if you need us, darlin’.”
“Must get awful crowded in your bed at night,” Mason quipped, lounging behind an enormous desk of chrome and glass, piled high with electronic doodads I couldn’t recognize.
“That’s about the only place they don’t follow me these days. I think it’s a bit of overkill myself, now that Lodinn’s gone.”
Mason shrugged, slumping lower in the chair. “You’re still the Elder, that means you got a babysitter whether you like it or not.”
“Yeah well, Rob obviously doesn’t think I’m in all that much danger.” It came out more petulant sounding than I’d intended, and Mason’s head tilted to one side as he studied me closer.
“Aw, is there trouble in paradise already?”
“No, I’m just used to him being glued to my hip,” I replied glumly. “It’s a little disconcerting to find him off doing things on his own.”
“What kind of things?”
“That’s just it, I have no idea. I get a text and then nothing for hours. I think if I knew I might feel better about it.
Less anxious, at least.”
“Want me to have him tailed?”
“No, of course not! I don’t want to be that girlfriend. I don’t think he’s doing anything bad, I’m just… whining entirely too much. What’s new with you?” A change of subject was definitely in order.
“Just the chaos you see before you.” He spread his hands wide. “I shouldn’t complain though, at least I got rid of Zoe. She was driving me insane.”
“It sounds like a short trip these days,” I teased. “What happened to Zoe? Did she wash out already?” The caustic bartender had quite a mouth on her, but I’d thought she had more mettle and determination than to quit already.
“Oh no, she’s still around. I stuck her with Corazon, she needs a new partner anyway.”
“Are you sure that’s a good idea? Her personality isn’t exactly light and bright, I’m not sure how great she’d be at mentoring someone.” I could only imagine the kind of training Zoe would get.
“Neither is Zoe’s.”
“And you thought pairing her with Corazon would help with that?” I’d thought Mason’s playful personality might be good for Zoe, and I assumed Bishop had thought so too or he wouldn’t have paired them together originally.
“Hey, I can only be in twenty places at once. I’ll check up on her when I’ve got time to hit the streets again, but for now all my energy’s been tied up here.”
“I guess that answers my question on where you stand on the increased violence lately.”
“What increased violence?” His brows drew together in confusion. “There haven’t been any attacks on the Order since Jakob spoke out against it.”