He shook his head slightly. “She will not be pleased that I’ve … taken your life. There might not be any latitude in her moral code for that infraction.”
My stomach hollowed. Not because Jade and I were any great friends, but because of what Kett was possibly being forced to give up. The vampire, as far as I could tell, didn’t have many people he loved. Perhaps even fewer than I did.
“Kett …”
“It’s no matter that time won’t fix, reconstructionist. As with all things.” And with his use of my title rather than my name, he erected a barrier of cool detachment between us.
I shifted my shoulder from his and removed my hand from his knee, reaching for the reconstruction still at his fingertips. Allowing the transition from intimate conversation to professional interaction without hesitation.
I was better at keeping myself distant, after all. It was easier for me. Effortless, even. And some barriers weren’t meant to be breached.
“When I first called the magic forward,” I said, easily falling into my professional patter, “I thought I’d made a mistake somehow. But I’ve examined the reconstruction multiple times. I don’t believe it’s been compromised.”
“You thought you impressed your own magic into the scene? Doubtful.”
“Jasmine said the same.” I rested my fingers on the edge of the cube, carefully not touching Kett. “It’s … disturbing.”
“I shall survive the viewing.”
He was trying to be playful again, but I shook my head. “No. I simply meant that I won’t watch it again. I … I … have gleaned all I can.”
Kett was silent for a moment. Then he simply said, “Show me.”
I nodded, then triggered the reconstruction, allowing the magic to flow so that Kett could view it in his mind’s eye.
I shifted back on the couch, folding my legs underneath me. Suddenly cold, I found myself wishing I was tucked into bed between Jasmine and Declan. The vampire didn’t seem to generate any heat, so he wasn’t helpful in that regard. But I shoved the childish thought away. A girl was missing, and that trumped any chill I might have.
I glanced out the window. The rising sun was brighter across the lake, lightening it from the eastern horizon.
“Again,” Kett said.
I brushed my fingers across the cube, triggering the scene once more and trying to not run a memorized version of its events in my mind at the same time. The kidnapping in the park would undoubtedly be lodged in my memory for as long as I lived. Though perhaps that was something I would lose when I was remade in the vampire’s arms. When I was as cold as he was. But the thought filled me with sudden sorrow. Ruby and Coral deserved every ache of my distress and all my stifled tears.
Kett was watching me, not the reconstruction.
I shook my head, negating my tumultuous emotions and ready to move forward.
The vampire nodded as if sensing my transition. “I suggest you look for more missing children.”
My chest hollowed. “More?” I asked.
“If he was feeding from them,” Kett said grimly, “there will be more.”
I stood up, clutching my pashmina shawl around my shoulders and pacing across the ever-brightening room. I was unable to absorb the implications of Kett’s assessment and stay seated. “You’re saying it’s a … predilection?”
“I’m saying he might be addicted to witch blood. Or to taking the life essence of a child, specifically.”
I pressed my hand to my chest, trying and failing to fight the terror that the idea of Yale kidnapping more children evoked.
Kett continued despite my obvious distress. His tone was completely dispassionate, though he held himself stiffly. “He had surrounded himself with adult children, which would seem to be at odds with a predilection … as you call it.”
I steadied myself on one of the room’s barrel-backed armchairs. I breathed deeply, then met Kett’s silvered gaze. “Tell me he dies for this. If he’s … killed her. Ruby. If he’s hunting children.”
“I’ll destroy him myself,” Kett said darkly. “Killing children is outlawed. And has been for many centuries.”
“Yeah,” I said nastily. “I imagine the Adept wouldn’t take too kindly to their children being hunted.”
“Indeed,” Kett said coolly.
I closed my eyes, aware that my anger toward Kett was unfounded. And completely unprofessional.
Suddenly beside me, he laid his hand on the back of my neck. His cool touch calmed me further.
“Or perhaps I shall take you, Wisteria.” His breath brushed across my neck and ear. “Infuse you with the power in my blood, and let you wreak vengeance on Yale yourself.”
I opened my eyes.
He brushed his fingertips across my cheek, then settled his hand on my shoulder. The red of his magic was flecked within the silvery-blue of his eyes. He dropped his gaze to my neck, as if he might be watching my pulse.
My heart rate slowed even further. I turned my head toward him, deliberately brushing my lips against his ear. “Promise.”
His fingers flexed, momentarily crushing my collarbone, then instantly releasing. “Always.”
“Good.”
Thus fortified, I stepped away from the embrace, crossing into the bedroom to wake Jasmine. I couldn’t look for other missing children without her. And I certainly couldn’t wait for her to wake up on her own. I could, however, order her an omelet with extra cheese to soothe her distemper.
Jasmine turned her head toward me as I entered the room, as if she might have been lying awake, staring at the ceiling. Or listening to Declan snore softly. Even with the drapes drawn, the room had brightened enough for me to see her pensive expression.
“What does he think?” she asked, keeping her voice hushed.
“That there might be more missing children.”
“Goddamn it.” She flipped back the covers, swinging her legs off the bed. But before she stood, she reached back for her pillow, then used it to beat Declan across the back.
Her brother was sprawled across the second bed with the sheet up only to his waist. Leaving inches upon inches of tanned skin to ogle. Or for me to ogle, at least. Apparently, he’d done something to annoy his sister.
He only grunted in response to the pillow beating. So Jasmine stood and pummeled him with the down-filled weapon a while longer.
“What?” he asked blearily.
“We’re getting up.” Jasmine hit him a few more times for good measure.
“Good for you.”
“And you are going to get us some coffee.”
“Order it from room service.”
“Oh no, buddy. If I’m up, you’re up. And being useful. Wisteria likes good coffee.”
I interjected. “I’m sure the hotel’s blend is —”
Jasmine held up her hand to silence me. “You’ve got ten minutes, Declan.”
“Ten minutes,” he mumbled. “Got it.”
Jasmine hit him one last time, then tossed the pillow onto his back. She crossed around the bed, leaning into me to whisper, “He’s sad.”
“I think he’s sleepy.”
Jasmine shook her head as if I were an idiot, then crossed through to the bathroom.
I glanced at Declan, who appeared to have gone back to sleep. But I knew it was exceedingly unfair to ogle him when I’d just been attempting to flirt with Kett in the next room. I turned away, stepping back out into the living room and partially closing the door behind me. It was odd that Jasmine thought Declan was sad just because he preferred to sleep past dawn. Though perhaps I had missed something in our interactions the previous night.
A dark-haired, slim woman abruptly appeared between me at the bedroom door and Kett at the far window.
I flinched, involuntarily glancing toward the main door to the suite, though it seemed highly unlikely that she could have opened and closed it without me noticing. I forced my gaze back onto the woman, which was where my attention should have been in the first place — on the
threat that had just apparently teleported into the room.
Though how a vampire could have appeared that way without the use of magic — or at least not any magic I could feel — was a mystery to me.
Kett turned from the window, eyeing our uninvited guest with a sneer. “A text message would have been more appropriate.”
She strolled across the space between them, laying her hand on his arm. She was about three inches shorter than me, with dark-brown hair pinned back except for too-short, curled-under bangs. Those were even more dated than her oversized cat’s-eye sunglasses, high-waisted cigarette pants, and ballet flats.
“There was a time when we didn’t need such mundane means to communicate, my boy.”
“Thankfully, those days are long gone.”
She lifted her face to his, whispering, “For now.”
A shiver ran down my spine.
She laughed scornfully, as though responding to my unease. There was something so practiced, so completely arrogant, about her that I easily shook off my instinctual fear and stepped farther into the room. Despite the fact that I was still clothed only in a silk shift, hand-knit socks, and my pashmina, I squared my shoulders and lifted my chin, indicating without speaking that I expected to be formally presented.
Kett’s gaze flicked to me. A slow, satisfied smile curled his lips.
The dark-haired vampire swiveled her head — the movement utterly inhuman — to gaze at me over her shoulder.
“Her?” she asked derisively.
“Do you bear a message?” Kett asked.
“Do you have manners?”
“None learned from you.”
She laughed mirthlessly. “From your connection to the human world, then.”
Kett sighed.
I wasn’t certain I’d ever heard him express so much emotion in a single breath. And in that moment, I understood that the dark-haired vampire’s use of the endearment ‘my boy’ had been intentional.
I was standing before Kett’s maker.
I suddenly found myself hoping that I was wrong about her ability to teleport. Then I fervently wished that teleportation wasn’t the ‘gift’ she’d inherited from her maker, Kett’s grandsire. Because the idea of a vampire who could teleport and who was more powerful than the executioner himself was nightmare inducing. Even for me.
“Wisteria Fairchild,” Kett said, blithely offering introductions as if I hadn’t just been silently, and rather rudely, assessing every inch of his maker. “Scion of the Fairchild coven. Reconstructionist.”
“And your chosen,” the dark-haired vampire added mockingly. She removed her sunglasses, keeping her gaze riveted to me.
Kett inclined his head.
“You always had a thing for witches.”
“This time, the choice was not my own.”
“Yes. You’ve made your dissatisfaction well known,” the woman said. “And now I see why.” She eyed me.
Kett stiffened angrily.
I threw my head back, laughing. Two could play the haughty game, and I’d learned that game from teachers who could run circles around the dark-haired vampire. She was out of practice, and my mother personified arrogance and disdain.
I stopped laughing as abruptly as I’d begun. Then I eyed Kett’s maker coolly.
She frowned.
Kett’s lips twitched. “Estelle, maker of Kettil the executioner and elder of the Conclave, child of Ve.”
I noted, as I was sure Kett intended, that Estelle held no titles of her own. So she wasn’t an elder of the Conclave, even though she was older than Kett — by his own accounting — by at least a hundred years.
“Ve?” I asked.
“Still your tongue, witch,” Estelle snapped. “His name may not bless your lips.”
I raised an eyebrow in Kett’s direction.
He inclined his head slightly. “You will call him grandsire.”
“Not if I have any say in it,” Estelle said, smoothing her hair back from her face.
“Audrey Hepburn,” I blurted out, finally putting together what was so familiar about Estelle’s contrived look. She would have been better off channeling some of the famous actress’s charm, not just her iconic style.
Jasmine abruptly pushed through the bedroom door, shouldering past me. “What the hell is going on in here?”
Behind her, the faint sound of the shower emanated from the bedroom’s en suite. I was relieved that Declan wouldn’t be too quick about joining us and potentially complicating the situation even further. What with his penchant for blasting vampires.
Estelle’s dark gaze fell on Jasmine. Her expression turned predatory, sweeping over my best friend’s tousled blond curls and voluptuous curves, barely contained within a bright-blue tank top and cotton pajama pants printed with all different kinds of cheese.
“Oh, yes.” Estelle sighed affectedly. “I like this one.”
She stepped forward, already lifting her hand toward Jasmine as if to beguile her.
Kett placed his hand on Estelle’s arm, halting her forward momentum.
She frowned, glancing down to where he held her in place. “You dare?”
“I do dare,” he said. “Test me.”
A fierce, almost gleeful anger spread across Estelle’s face. And for a heart-stopping moment, I thought she was about to slaughter all of us. Then her features smoothed, and she smiled.
“Illuminating,” Jasmine said. Then, completely ballsy, she reached forward, offering to shake Estelle’s hand. “Hi, I’m Jasmine.”
Kett loosened his hold on his maker. Estelle glided across the room, clasping Jasmine’s hand in her own as if it were something precious. “Hello, darling one. I’m Kett’s sire.”
“Pleased to meet —”
Estelle shrieked. Sweeping Jasmine’s curls back from her neck, she carefully lifted my cousin’s chin. Red flooded the whites of her eyes, but whether from blood or magic, I wasn’t sure. Still holding Jasmine’s chin, she spun back to snarl at Kett.
“It wasn’t me,” he said mildly.
“A witch,” she snapped. “In your territory!”
“He has been destroyed.”
“What’s up, almighty vampires?” Jasmine took a step back from Estelle. “Us mortals don’t follow.”
“Your bite marks,” Kett said.
Jasmine lifted her hand to her neck. The bites had healed months before — and without scarring, thanks to Rose and some liberal doses of my mother’s salves.
“Though …” Kett said, feigning thoughtfulness. “His maker still lives.”
“Tell me,” Estelle demanded, then she turned to Jasmine. “I shall make him pay for the transgressions of his progeny, my sweet witch. To ravage someone as lovely, as full of light as you, is dreadful. Such blood should be savored, cherished.”
“Yale,” Kett said bluntly.
Estelle stilled, withdrawing her hand. She’d been about to caress Jasmine’s cheek. “Yale,” she echoed darkly.
“Yes, Yale. Your maker’s new favorite toy.”
Estelle didn’t take her gaze from Jasmine. Narrowing her eyes, she nodded thoughtfully. “These things can be managed.”
She turned back to Kett. “I approve of this one,” she said. “The same blood runs in her veins. You may make her my grandchild.”
“She would not survive the transition,” Kett said, though not unkindly.
Jasmine shrugged. “This isn’t news to anyone.”
Estelle frowned, then shook her head at Jasmine as if she’d spoken out of turn. “I say she would.”
“Your ability to sense magic was always wanting.” Kett somehow managed to even sneer with a sense of detachment.
A terrible energy shifted between them, causing me to grit my teeth and Jasmine to take another step back. It was obvious that Estelle wasn’t accustomed to anyone questioning her, especially not her own progeny.
Behind me, Declan stuck his head into the room, echoing Jasmine’s entrance. “What the hell is going on in here?”
His hair was wet, his shoulders dappled by water as if he’d just stepped out of the shower. He was, in fact, completely naked except for the towel he held cinched around his waist.
Estelle sighed as if heaven had just opened its gates to her. Then she abruptly appeared beside me, facing Declan. I hadn’t seen her move. And, again, I hadn’t felt any magic. She was just suddenly standing shoulder to shoulder with me.
Declan flinched.
“You …” She reached for him dramatically. “You, I will take myself.”
“The hell you will,” Declan snarled.
Estelle’s magic shifted, stilling in that way that Kett’s energy did when he was planning to take some sort of most-likely bloody action. Terror raked my brain as I twisted, stepping back and thrusting myself between her and Declan.
Her lip curled in a snarl. She lifted forward on her toes, perhaps readying to grab me.
I slammed my hand against her chest and — impossibly — shoved her across the room. She slammed against the bar that ran the length of the far wall, the dark wood crumpling beneath her impact.
“Oh,” Jasmine moaned. “That’s going to be difficult to explain.”
Estelle vanished and reappeared again, standing suddenly before me and shoving her nose against mine. “You dare, witch,” she snarled.
Calmly, I pressed my fingertips against her chest, now intentionally channeling all the magic I could into the bracelet on my wrist. “Declan and Jasmine are under my protection. You will not touch either of them without explicit, uncoerced permission.”
Declan snorted, indicating with that single sound that he’d die before he gave a vampire permission to touch him.
Estelle stepped back — not from any unease, but simply to get a better look at the magical artifact I wore on my right wrist. I allowed my arm to follow her, keeping contact. Her chest was as hard as Kett’s, though she was slighter in build. Almost gaunt.
“The bracelet isn’t as easy to dismiss,” Kett said wryly. He hadn’t moved from the window. The sun had fully risen behind him, casting a rosy glow across his shoulders.
“Neither is the dowser’s power,” Estelle said. Her tone was neutral, so I didn’t get a sense of how well she knew Jade. Her gaze flicked back to me. “The boy is enchanting. I trust you can empathize with my reaction. Might I suggest you keep him near?” She glanced over at Jasmine. “In fact, keep both of them near. They will slake your newborn thirst well.”
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