Graced

by Amanda Pillar

  “Engagement ring.”

  “But we’re not really engaged!”

  Clay shrugged.

  “And it’s not a Graced tradition.” Elle shook her head.

  “It is a were tradition,” Clay countered.

  He took the ring from the box and motioned for her to raise her hand. She lifted her left hand for him, and he slid it on her third finger. It glittered against her pale skin, a golden symbol that he’d never before put on a woman’s finger, despite his years.

  It made his gut clench.

  “What stone is it?” she asked, moving her hand from side to side.

  “It’s a yellow topaz on gold,” he said. “It’s just for show, you know. To make it look sincere…”

  Elle nodded, but her eyes were locked on the band around her finger. “Color of your eyes,” she murmured.

  Chapter 44

  “I heard an interesting rumor today,” Olive said to Bjorn. Heard, spied, stolen from someone’s mind. It was all the same to her.

  The Gray-eyed male was standing in front of her chair. She had lost respect for him recently, after she’d picked from his mind that he’d confronted the wolf after the funeral. Making the yellow-eyed bastard angry at them would not further Olive’s plans. But a TK as strong as Bjorn was useful. It’s why she’d allowed him to pine after Elle. It kept him close. After all, strong Grays were few and far between, and half the time had no control over their abilities. A strong Gray could crush a person in a fit of rage. It’s why Olive always kept a tight lock on Bjorn’s mind. She had no intention of suffering an “accident.”

  “Really?” Bjorn asked. He sounded bored, but she knew he wasn’t. He was hoping it had something to do with the wolf.

  “Yes. I need you to go and do some surveillance for me.”

  Chapter 45

  Dante heard Anton’s distinctive walk well before the human made it to his side of the townhouse. Dante had claimed the western wing of the home, or at least one room of that largely unused end of the house. The drawing rooms, bedrooms and ballroom were on the eastern side, and they smelled strongly of human. It wasn’t unpleasant, not like back at the estate, but it did make him feel hungry a lot.

  As the footsteps came closer, Dante looked up from the sheaf of notes he was reading from, and stared at the wooden door. He shuddered slightly. There was just so much wood in this house. It was like walking through a snake pit; at any given moment, there was the potential for disaster. Added to the constant temptation of dinner, Dante had started to live a little on the edge.

  “Come in,” Dante called, when he heard Anton stop outside the door.

  The handle turned and Anton came inside, dressed in court finery, hand white-knuckled on his cane. He looked a little ridiculous, Dante thought, but better than most people who wore all that lace. Eyes traveling back to the cane, Dante stood abruptly and walked over to his husband. He still wasn’t used to that term.

  “You shouldn’t walk that far. Your leg must be hurting.” He grabbed Anton’s elbow and hurried him over to Dante’s now vacant chair.

  He forced Anton to sit down and then moved his papers away. He wasn’t really sure if he cared that the human might read his notes, but as Dante didn’t plan on doing any more experimentation, at least not in Anton’s lifetime, then it wasn’t really necessary. And he didn’t really need Anton to think that he was crazy. Well, crazier.

  “It’s pretty dark in here,” Anton said.

  Dante looked around and guessed that for a human, it was. He walked over to one of the lamps he’d set up on a table underneath the window and lit it. Turning the flame up, he brought it over to the bench where he’d sat Anton. The room was small, with only two tables, three chairs and a small curtain that covered a smaller window; the lamp seemed almost blindingly bright to Dante in the space.

  “Thanks.”

  “Should you walk that far?” Dante had done a little research on human injuries after discovering Anton’s. It seemed like it was a muscular problem, since Anton rubbed his thigh so much.

  Anton straightened on his chair and laid his cane across the tabletop with a firm click. “I’m not an invalid.”

  “I didn’t say you were.” Dante wasn’t sure how he’d done the wrong thing.

  “I can walk a few hallways of my own house without a problem.” Anton’s tone was frosty.

  “I’m sorry if I implied that you couldn’t.” Why did conversation have to be so difficult? He was just trying to be considerate. That was what husbands were meant to do—he’d researched it.

  “You aren’t very good at this, are you?” Anton said.

  “Good at what?” Dante asked.

  Anton rubbed his leg, but Dante wasn’t sure that the human was aware he was doing it. “Interaction with people.”

  “No, not really,” Dante admitted. Something seemed to flash in Anton’s eyes, but he wasn’t sure what it was, and he didn’t know how to ask without insulting the human again.

  Anton’s hand dropped away from his thigh. “I came over here to tell you something you might find very important.”

  Dante pulled up one of the other stools and sat down. He didn’t like the sound of that. Very important? Nothing good was ever given that label.

  “I’m not sure what you did to trigger your father wanting to marry you to another family, but I figure it might have something to do with what I heard today.” Anton’s brandy eyes were staring at him intensely.

  Distracted, Dante wondered if Anton liked the drink because it reflected his eye color. It was something to think on. Thankfully, though, Anton wasn’t the drunk Dante had feared he would be. He only seemed to drink when he was upset. Which happened a lot around Dante.

  “Kipling?”

  Dante shook his head and returned his mind to the conversation. “What did you hear today that may have something to do with my father’s rage?” He couldn’t really think of anything, apart from the servant, and that wasn’t really a big deal, not unless Anton had business dealings with the girl’s family.

  “I met a girl today who was—apparently—a newly Chosen vampire.”

  Dante felt his gaze lock on Anton’s cane.

  “She was tall, not as tall as me, but tall for a woman. She had long red hair and was quite pretty, in a sharp way.”

  Dante felt something prickle in his stomach and sweat broke out on his forehead.

  “Long red hair?” Dante asked.

  “Color of blood,” Anton said.

  Dante shut his eyes, fingering the bridge of his nose. The hair wasn’t the right length or color, but that didn’t mean much. Human bodies changed as they were Chosen. “What color were her eyes?”

  If she was Chosen, they should be a dark purple. No other hue. Not unless they’d been different to begin with.

  “Why don’t you ask me who Chose her?” Anton said instead.

  Dante felt his breath quicken. “Her eyes first, please.”

  “Very unusual,” Anton said, absently rubbing his thigh again. “The normal purple, but sometimes when she looked at me, I thought I saw green and gray.”

  Dante’s gut clenched.

  “You want to know who Chose her?” Anton asked again.

  Something almost like an emotion surged through Dante, but all he recognized was the blood pounding through him. “I don’t need to. It was me. They told me she was dead.”

  Anton was looking at him oddly. “A were apparently saved her from being cremated.”

  A were.

  “He’s her fiancé, apparently, and he’s not too happy about her new situation.”

  The stench that had been all over her, that had prompted him to Choose her then and there. Fiancé. He hadn’t thought it was that serious. Dante might be in deep shit—more deep shit.

  “She survived,” Dante said slowly.

  There was silence.

  “Did…did you love her?” Anton asked.

  Dante blinked and looked at the human closely. Anton’s mouth was pinched
, but Dante wasn’t sure what that expressed.

  An impulse had him blurt, “No, she was an experiment.”

  “An experiment?”

  Dante should have kept his mouth shut. How much should he say? Would Anton hand him over to the king?

  “To work out why Sandy didn’t survive being Chosen.” Something twitched in Anton’s face, but the human didn’t say anything, although he began digging his fingers into his troubled leg again.

  Standing, Dante walked over to Anton and shoved the other man’s hands away, and began massaging the leg.

  Anton jumped. “What are you doing?”

  Dante flicked up a glance. “Even though you aren’t an invalid, this gives you pain. You keep rubbing it. I thought I’d try and help. My hands are stronger than yours.” Dante started working on the muscle with slow and firm strokes of his fingers.

  Anton let out a groan.

  “Am I hurting you?” Dante was trying not to press too hard, but he didn’t know what would be effective or not.

  “No, it hurts in a good way.”

  Dante didn’t know if he wanted to try and work that statement out.

  “Where did you learn to do this?” Anton asked.

  “I used to keep horses”—before his father had them all slaughtered as a lesson—“and they enjoyed being rubbed down after a hard ride.”

  Anton coughed.

  Dante looked up. “What?”

  “Nothing.” Anton shook his head.

  “So where did you see the new vampire? At court?” Dante asked.

  “Yes, I was going to greet the king—try and keep up appearances—when I overheard a conversation taking place next to him. He had the new vampire on his arm.”

  Dante’s hands stopped. “It came out that I Chose her?”

  “Yes. So we’re about to have a new family member arrive.”

  Frowning, he began massaging Anton’s leg again, on the inside of the thigh. “Arrive?”

  The sound of a servant’s approaching footsteps reached Dante’s ears. They were quick footsteps; servants didn’t run, but this one was in a hurry to find him or Greystoke or both.

  Anton grabbed Dante’s hand and moved it away. “When you Choose someone, they become part of your family. You should know that.”

  Stepping away, Dante hoped he’d helped Anton’s pain. It was what husbands were meant to do, wasn’t it?

  “Yes…”

  “And your family is my family. So now I’m about to gain a step-daughter or something.”

  Slumping back on his seat, Dante pinched his nose. He hadn’t thought about that. He hadn’t thought she’d survived, so he hadn’t planned ahead. If he’d known it from day one, his whole life would have been different. Viktor might not have married him off—although Dante wasn’t going to assume that was by any means a certainty—and Dante could even now be in the possession of important knowledge. Knowledge as to why non-browns were different.

  He looked at his notes.

  “When is she coming here?” Dante asked. He was keen to see her, to ask her more. But now…he wasn’t sure if he wanted to know. He was trying to put his obsession behind him. He had a husband to worry about, a mother and a sister who seemed to like him. Oh, and an execution threat if he didn’t behave. He didn’t know what to do as it was. This was just one more entanglement.

  The servant Dante had heard approaching appeared in the doorway, looking slightly winded. “My lord, sir.”

  Anton nodded at the man, indicating he should speak.

  “Viscountess Kipling is here to see Mr. Greystoke.”

  Like his life wasn’t already complicated enough.

  Chapter 46

  Elle shifted from foot to foot, not that she needed to, but it was hard to break a nervous habit from when she’d been human. And she’d been human far longer than she’d been a blood drinker. She hitched her small bag higher on her shoulder.

  “Why are we going around the back?” she asked.

  Clay leaned down and picked up his last suitcase, waving off the hackney cab. He started heading down the small alley that lead around to the rear of Greystoke House. “We don’t want everyone to remark upon our entrance.”

  “You mean, you don’t want my gran to know we’re here? I bet she does already,” Elle muttered.

  And that thought made her hunch her shoulder blades closer together, as if she could feel an invisible stake targeted there. Gran had already been monitoring Greystoke, not that Elle was about to tell Clay that. It hadn’t been confirmed, just a suspicion she’d had, since Annabel had been involved. Annabel was only ever asked to be in on a project when they were desperate for information or control.

  They strolled slowly between the stables and the rear stone fence before emerging through a wooden gate and into a small courtyard. It was pretty, with stone walls and benches, and flowers blooming in the crisp air. The smell of the city receded a little, hints of jasmine and honeysuckle cleansing the palate, like a crisp sorbet. The cobbled path led the way through to a large terrace, where a man was awaiting them, leaning on a cane.

  It was the baron from yesterday.

  Greystoke was handsome, with deep olive skin and pale Brown eyes, almost yellow in the sunshine, she thought. She wondered if there was some latent were blood there. Trying to smile, she walked forward, hand outstretched, but she froze when movement from inside caught her attention.

  It was him.

  The Creep.

  She didn’t even think. Dropping her pack, she darted forward. By the time his foot hit the first stone step on the terrace, she had him by the throat. “You asshole!”

  He was tall; she’d forgotten that, so it was an awkward grip. She loosened her hand and then slammed her knee up, smashing it into his groin. As he doubled over, both hands hovering uselessly over his crotch, she threw an uppercut, which sent him flying back a couple of yards.

  She leaped after him. “How could you leave me to be burned alive!”

  Elle began punching, and the smell of his blood in the air made something in her snap. She didn’t think the last hit she did was that hard, but he flew back across the courtyard, slamming into a stone wall over five yards away.

  Arms grabbed her then, strong ones.

  “Let me go!”

  Clay’s voice, warm and amused, sounded next to her ear. “You’ve already damaged the vampire enough for one day.”

  Greystoke moved in front of her vision as well. “It would please me greatly if you refrained from beating up my husband.” She thought she heard him mutter, “That’s my right,” but she wasn’t sure.

  At the sound of a low groan, Elle went to spin around, but Clay had a firm grip on her arms.

  Kipling came shuffling up then, one hand on his balls, the other on his skull. “My head.”

  “That’s what you’re worried about?” Clay asked with a laugh.

  Kipling looked up and froze for a few moments, staring at Clay. Elle moved back a step, closer to the wolf, protective.

  Rubbing his skull, Kipling seemed to shake himself and muttered, “Typical dog to think more of his balls than his brains.” There was no heat in the comment, though.

  “Yeah, well, I didn’t just have my ass handed to me by a week-old baby vampire.”

  “Stop the pissing contest,” Elle snapped. She saw the baron’s jaw drop out from the corner of her eye. She hoped he wasn’t the sensitive type.

  “I should kill you.” She jabbed a finger in Kipling’s chest.

  “You can’t,” he said, but he looked a bit wide-eyed.

  “I can try.” She realized she’d started grinding her teeth.

  “Enough!” A walking stick stabbed the ground between them.

  Elle broke away and looked at Greystoke. He seemed to have a kind face, but he was standing up for Kipling. Why?

  “We are going to take this…discussion inside. Where the neighbors can’t see and the servants won’t hear so easily.” He looked at them all meaningfully.

 
; Silently, they followed him in.

  *

  “I don’t like Kipling,” Elle announced.

  Clay looked at her. “And ten points goes to you for stating the obvious.”

  “What?”

  “Points? As in, rewards for…never mind.”

  Elle was sitting on the massive bed in the room she’d been given to share with Clay, since he was her fiancé. Part of her had wanted to protest, on principle, but that would look odd, since he was a wolf. Werewolves didn’t sleep in separate bedrooms from their wives, not like human cits and vampire aristos did. And since the story went that she was meant to have been Bitten, rather than Chosen as she was, then she’d have to go along with wolf tradition.

  It was all doing her head in.

  Flopping back on the bed, she crossed her arms behind her head. “He’s an idiot.”

  “All vampires are idiots, present company excluded,” Clay said.

  He was packing his things away in the drawers and closet, which was a room unto itself. He had a stupid amount of clothes for a man who barely spent any time in civilization. Plus, from the looks of the room, aristos sure knew how to live in a ridiculous amount of space. Although, some things they did right. She had squealed like a two-year-old girl when she’d spotted the adjoining bathroom: hot running water. Delicious. She was excited about taking her first bath in the huge bronze tub.

  “Greystoke seems okay, though.” She’d gotten over her resentment that the baron had interfered with her abusing Kipling. Kipling had deserved it, but she could see why he’d wanted it stopped.

  Anyway, she really wanted that bath now. Elle felt a bit battered herself, even though Kipling hadn’t laid a finger on her. Her head hurt and she was a bit tender in the stomach region.

  “Why do I feel so sore?” she asked Clay suddenly.

  He emerged from the closet and frowned at her. “What do you mean? Was I a bit rough last night?”

  If she’d been able to blush properly, she would have. “No.” Clay had been fantastic last night, better than when she’d been human. She had a feeling it was because he wasn’t worried about breaking her anymore. Either way, she didn’t care. As long as he did it again. And again.