Reginald had once been a man of stature, but age had shrunk and withered his athletic frame. White hair had largely replaced the original black, and his father’s eyes were a troubled deep brown. Anton and his father didn’t really look anything alike. Anton took after his mother’s side.
“You’re to marry,” his father repeated.
“No.” He couldn’t seem to get past that word, that single uttered no.
How could his father have done this to him? Agreed on his behalf without consultation?
A fire crackled in the grate, adding warmth to Anton’s numbed body, but he barely noticed it. He hardly recognized the room—the hundreds of books that usually made him feel welcome like long forgotten friends; the leather chairs for easing a man’s aches, and the air of love and friendship that clung to the very walls—he was so wrapped up in the horror of his father’s news.
Marriage.
Not even a child-bearing contract, but marriage. Anton could have performed stud duties had they been required, provided he got at least one heir out of the bargain, but this?
“Son, I’ve arranged the dowry and contracts.”
Anton choked on air. “Dowry?”
“Your partner is to have one, being immortal. It’s the law.”
Being immortal?
“You’re marrying me off to a vampire or werewolf?” Anton couldn’t believe it. And it probably wouldn’t be a werewolf, this being Pinton and as such, leech infested. “I was just engaged,” Anton said, “but she died. I’m in mourning.” He dropped his head into his hands, one foot tapping a continual and erratic beat against the carpeted floor.
His father scratched his white hair and frowned. “Always found that business a bit odd myself.”
Anton looked up. “Mourning?”
“No, you being in a relationship with that hussy.”
Anger bubbled up through his chest. “What?”
Annabel had been perfect.
Okay, he thought to himself, maybe she hadn’t been perfect. But she’d been his. And she would have quit being a whore, he knew it. Once she’d told him about her profession, they would have discussed it and she would have gathered she didn’t need to do it anymore. She would have become a baroness.
How would you feel though, his mind whispered, when you kept meeting other aristos that she’d fucked? Anton brushed the thought away. It wouldn’t matter—couldn’t matter now. She was gone.
Frowning, he thought back to what his father had said. He hadn’t told Reginald about Annabel’s profession; had never seen the point, since she’d been dead when he’d learned about it.
His father shrugged, seeming to watch the thoughts flitter across Anton’s face. “She was a whore.”
Anton’s jaw sagged again.
“Don’t look so surprised. I had her checked out. Couldn’t understand your instant infatuation with her. Always thought you preferred boys.”
Anton’s eyes went wide. “Boys? You thought I was a pedophile?”
His father waved a hand through the air. “Men. I didn’t mean to imply you were a kiddie fiddler.”
Anton slumped back in his chair, feeling rather like oozing onto the floor in a puddle of woe. “I’ve always liked both; men and women.”
But he’d only ever been in love with a woman.
“Well, I just remember your sister finding you with that stable hand. You’d gone for a man, rather than a girl, for the first time. Seemed to show a preference.”
“Father!” Anton felt heat rising into his cheeks.
Red also tinged his father’s face and he muttered, “Just saying.”
It wasn’t that Anton preferred men to women, or women to men. It was as he said, he liked both. Could have sex with both, provided he found them physically appealing. And he hadn’t really found anyone appealing for a long time. Not since he’d met Annabel and she’d swept him away with a tide of longing, lust and love so strong that it was like he’d never felt before.
Well, he amended, ever honest with himself, he hadn’t found anyone attractive except for one person. And he didn’t even want to go there. Couldn’t go there, because that bastard had taken Annabel from him.
“Why marry me off, Father? Couldn’t you have gotten the heir from Darla?”
Reginald coughed into his hand and looked uncomfortable.
Anton sat back and eyed his parent, thinking over their conversation. “You’re marrying me off to another man?”
Men marrying men wasn’t uncommon. Anton wouldn’t have blinked if he’d been told a friend was marrying another member of the same sex. But those marriages occurred when someone was solely orientated that way, or when they were in love. Anton wasn’t either.
Reginald tugged at his loosely tied cravat. “As I said, I thought you preferred boys, I mean, men.”
“So you’re marrying me to one? A vampire or werewolf one?” It wasn’t like he was a racist. He wasn’t. But when you were born into the upper echelons of society and you were a minority even there, it left you feeling bitter toward the majority. And that meant he didn’t really like vampires—before that bastard had killed Annabel.
“The family offered the marriage contract—I didn’t approach them.”
“It’s not the only time I’ve been proposed to.” And it wasn’t. He had come to accept that he was attractive to women and men—he had enough bed offers, which he normally declined, to show that. But he’d never said yes to marriage, because he’d wanted love or something like it. He’d wanted what he thought he’d have with Annabel.
He’d also wanted children.
“As I said, they offered.”
“And just like that, you accepted? It had better have been a bloody good offer.” Like for a new title, or a life free of debt, or for something that was worth more than a gold ring on his third finger.
His father didn’t reply.
“Did you at least make a clause that says I can have a child-bearing contract?” Anton asked.
“Of course! There is one for both of you. He is his father’s only son as well, but like you, there is a sister.” Which meant there wasn’t really any need to produce offspring, not unless their sisters failed to do so.
An uneasy feeling settled in his stomach. “So what was the offer?”
Reginald sighed, the sound coming as if from the very depths of his being. “They’re going to clear the debt.”
“Debt?” He knew that the estate owed some coin, but that was normal. Nothing a good season couldn’t fix.
“Of fifty thousand groats.”
“Fifty thousand?” His stomach hit somewhere below the rugs under his feet. Maybe even the bedrock.
His father’s leathery face flushed.
“How?” Anton’s voice was strangled.
“A bad investment.”
He thrust a hand through his hair. “On what?”
“There was a shipping enterprise, but the ship sank. We owed a lot of money to the Kiplings, and—”
“Wait. Did you just say Kipling?”
His father nodded.
No.
Chapter 32
Don’t eat anyone.
That was the last thing Clay had said—no, thought—to Elle, and he sure hoped she kept her fangs to herself. But who knew with Chosen vampires? They were a bloodthirsty lot; they weren’t like their makers. Well, they weren’t supposed to be like their Choosers. Vampires nowadays weren’t like how they used to be; they drank blood every day because they wanted to, not because they actually needed it. But that was another story.
Clay knew.
Just like weres weren’t like they once were; but they were closer to their original ideal than the vampires. Scratching his head, Clay settled back into the booth of the stinking bar he’d taken refuge in after the funeral. Cloying smoke hung low in the air and the less than pleasant odor of unwashed bodies permeated the walls, tables and booths. Ale wenches zigzagged through the taproom, their breasts more exposed than not, their eyes flashing and
their bodies adding to the unwashed smell, but this time, with a hint of sex.
Clay winced at the stench of a particularly smelly customer and sighed to himself. He’d wanted to go straight back to the parlor for Elle, but he knew he couldn’t. Olive was already suspicious of him, and he hadn’t done anything suspicious. Yet. No doubt she was having him followed. It’s what he’d do.
“Wolf.”
Clay looked up at the hulking mound of humanity that stood in front of the scarred wooden table. He was dressed from head to toe in black, with a red armband tied with a no-nonsense knot.
Clay raised an eyebrow in acknowledgment. “Human.”
He wanted to say “Graced,” but from the look of those cold Gray eyes, he probably shouldn’t.
The hulking idiot—who did look rather like Muscle B, come to think of it—took a seat at the other side of the table, uninvited. He caught the arm of a passing waitress and, after eyeing her exposed chest, ordered himself a tankard of ale. More fool him, Clay thought, carefully avoiding taking a swig of his own. It tasted like a sick horse’s piss, or what he thought it would taste like, anyway.
“Well,” Clay said, folding his hands over his stomach, “what do you want?”
“The Green Lady isn’t too happy with you right now.”
“Who?”
Muscle B’s newly arrived ale hit the table with a careless thunk, as the waitress appeared to be distracted by Muscle B’s hand up her skirt. Idiot. Between the ale and the wench, Clay would take the ale. It might have more resemblance to urine than mead, but it would be fresher than the wench—she’d already had at least five customers that had bought more than beer from the smell of her.
“The Green Lady.” The man withdrew his hand from the barmaid’s skirt and focused on Clay.
“I obviously don’t know who you’re talking about.” Clay shoved his tankard back and forth across the wooden table, careful not to knock it over on the bumps and grooves that scored the surface.
“You do so; I’ve seen you speaking to her.” The man’s dark hair curled high on his forehead, contrasting with his light eyes.
Ah, so he was Muscle B.
“Are you talking about Olive Brown?”
“Who else?” The man shrugged.
“Who knows? ‘Green Lady’ is a bit of a generalized term.”
“There is only one Green Lady, and Olive Brown is it.”
Clay had a feeling he was about to step into something he didn’t want to—worse than trodding into a pile of shit someone had just thrown out of their window.
“I don’t want to know,” Clay said.
“Fair enough.” The man took a swig of his drink, and to his credit, he didn’t flinch at the flavor. Maybe that’s what he thought mead should taste like. Poor bastard.
“So, are you ever going to get to a point or are you just gonna sit there?” Clay asked.
“The Green Lady—”
“Just say ‘Olive,’ it’s quicker and that way I won’t forget who you’re talking about.”
“—Olive wants to know how you met her granddaughter.”
Clay squinted through the smoke at Muscle B, and noticed some emotion flash through the human’s eyes. “No, she doesn’t.”
Clay was good at reading people—he had to be after the millennia he’d spent wandering around—and he knew Muscle B was lying. Olive didn’t want to know squat about how he knew Elle. She probably figured he’d bumped into her during his efforts to find and meet Emmie. The only thing Olive wanted to know was that her granddaughter was well and truly dead.
“Yes, Olive wants to know,” Muscle B insisted.
“No, she doesn’t.”
Muscle B pokered up.
“So why do you want to know?” Clay smiled then, showing his teeth. He saw Muscle B’s eyes drop down to his pearly whites.
That seemed to stump his interrogator, so Muscle B went back to his main issue. “Olive wants to know how you met Elle.”
Clay took a sip of ale and swore mentally when the sour taste hit his tongue. He’d briefly forgotten about not drinking the swill.
Feeling less charitable due to the taste in his mouth, Clay snapped, “Cut the bullshit. You want to know, not Olive.”
“I swear, it’s Olive—”
Clay leaned forward. “I don’t have to be a telepath to know when someone’s lying.”
He saw Muscle B swallow.
“She was meant for me,” the man blurted.
“Who was? Meant for you how?” The idea of Elle with this muscle-bound freak made Clay’s stomach churn.
“Elle. She’s my cousin.”
“That doesn’t explain anything.” Clay snorted.
“Well, she’s sort of a cousin.” Muscle B shrugged.
“Sort of? That only tells me you want to have sex with your cousin. How was she meant for you?”
Werewolves liked to breed outside the pack, to spread their genes. Although nowadays, wolves thought the sole reason was to prevent inbreeding. It was almost an anathema to want to marry within your own family. There were good reasons for that.
Muscle B’s hand clenched around his tankard. “Not have sex with. Marry. Have children.”
“But she’s a half-blood,” Clay protested without thinking.
“Yes, but she has a good line. I kept hoping she’d develop some…ability…but it never seemed to happen. I trained with her a lot.”
“Wait—you’re Bjorn?”
The man’s eyes seemed to brighten. “She spoke about me?”
Clay didn’t like that light. “Not really. She seemed pissed at you, to be truthful.”
Bjorn looked away. “I was tough on her, but I needed to know she was strong. For our sons.”
Something like jealousy reared its ugly head within Clay. “Sons that you would never have had; I can’t see her agreeing to have children with her cousin.”
Bjorn’s hand was clenching tighter and tighter around his tankard. “You only met her once or twice, so what would you know about her?”
A little evil rose up from within that jealous beast. “I know plenty. We got along really well.”
Bjorn’s face blanched. “She would have never, never gotten to know a werewolf well.”
“Whatever you say, bucko.” Clay grinned again. He began sliding to the side of the booth. “As much fun as this pointless conversation has been, I must be off.”
“But—”
Clay stood, decided his earlier response was foolish. “But what? You wanted to know how I met Elle. It was in a bar fight. Then I bumped into her on the street. We talked. I figured out who she was from chatting with Olive. I noticed she had a busted shoulder. Asked how she was. End of story.”
“Right. I’m going to keep an eye on you.”
“Do that. But bear in mind, I’ve got a lot of time on my hands. You don’t.”
With that, Clay walked away. Now he knew he was being watched, he was going to have to be more careful. He just didn’t know how he was going to help Elle.
Chapter 33
Don’t eat anyone.
It had seemed laughable when Clay had thought it at her an hour ago. Eating people—as if she would do something like that. She may have woken up a little different, okay, a lot different, but she’d never been tempted to hurt someone, not unless they deserved it.
And there’d been plenty of people who’d deserved it.
But now his instruction just seemed cruel.
Her stomach was clenching in a way it never had before, and her skin felt too tight, like it was stretched for tanning. Elle also couldn’t stop staring at her hands, which were fisted in her lap. The skin was so white it was translucent; she could see the little blue veins running beneath the surface and each and every pore on her skin. Her nails also seemed different; stronger, sharper. She’d managed to cut herself when she’d scrabbled into her hiding space, and the smell of her blood had caused her stomach to do an odd flip-flop. But it hadn’t been an appealing smell, not real
ly. It was a very different odor to that of human blood, at least, how she remembered it, anyway—not as metallic, sweeter.
Still, she’d sucked the wound out of reflex. It had tasted different, too; not like copper, almost like an exotic fruit she’d never eaten before, but could somehow imagine. It wasn’t filling, like a piece of candy that tasted great but left the hunger pangs behind. Elle tried to compare the flavor to her memory of the Creep’s blood, but it was a red haze. Mostly of anger, but also of fear and pain.
She’d always been taught that Graceds couldn’t survive being Chosen, but she had. Did that mean it was only purebloods that couldn’t make the transition? And if so, what had happened to all the other Hazels who’d been Chosen or Bitten before? There would have had to have been plenty. Most Hazels weren’t recognized by their Graced ancestors; they wouldn’t know it was a real danger to agree to being Chosen. So if other Hazels had been Bitten or Chosen, then where were they? What had happened to them?
Elle wasn’t sure she wanted to know the answers to those questions. Suddenly, her hiding space under a cluster of unused tables and cloths seemed flimsy. All it would take was for a vampire or wolf to walk into the room and she’d be undone. What would they do if they found her? Hand her back to Gran—who had been suspicious at best—or just eliminate her anyway, because she was different?
Elle didn’t like the answer that formed in her mind.
Or maybe she was just being paranoid.
And why would the vampires or weres care? A part of her mind wanted to know. Gran insists they don’t know about Graceds, so why would your previous eye color matter?
Although, Clay obviously did know about Graceds. Otherwise, how would he have known she could hear him think?
Elle frowned and shook her head. Why was she worrying about some vampire or wolf finding her when she didn’t even know if she was going to make it out of here alive? Or if Clay would even come for her?
Elle looked up from her fisted hands and at the tiny woven threads of the red cloth that covered her sanctuary. Her mind was starting to grow a bit fuzzy around the edges.
Why, that annoying part of her brain intruded again, hadn’t Gran realized she was awake? And how hadn’t Gran “heard” the conversation between her and Clay?
Graced Page 16