How to Break an Undead Heart

by Hailey Edwards

  “Breakfast first.” He returned to the blender, flipped it off, then poured me a tall glass of his concoction and a smaller one for himself. “You still like strawberries?”

  “I do.” Chocolate-covered strawberries were one of my favorite treats. “That explains the pink.”

  “I researched protein shake recipes. I hoped mixing in the fresh fruit would help with the taste.”

  “You stayed up working on this?” He must have made a grocery run while I was sleeping. “I can buy protein shakes at the store, and cans of soup. You don’t have to put yourself out.”

  “I don’t mind.” He stabbed bendy straws into our glasses, having realized from our last meal that silverware was part of the illusion, and joined me at the table. “You don’t have to worry about my feelings.” He handed me my breakfast. “Tell me if you don’t like it, and I’ll make something else.”

  “Here we go.” I took a hesitant sip and let the smoothie melt on my tongue. “Goddess.”

  Linus swirled his straw through his pink drink. “Is invocation this time of night a good thing or a bad thing?”

  “How do you know how to do all this?” I took another pull. “You’re like a kitchen ninja.”

  A pleased smile broke across his face. “I enjoy cooking.”

  “You know that saying?” I said around a third slurp. “Jack of all trades, master of none?”

  His pleasure dimmed a few watts. “Yes.”

  “They never met you.” The cold numbed the inside of my mouth, and the dull ache in my jaw faded to nothing. “It’s ridiculous that you excel at everything.”

  “Not everything,” he murmured, his gaze colliding with the table. “Only what I can learn from books.”

  “There are books on every topic imaginable.” I pinched my eyes closed after giving myself brain freeze. “You realize that, right?”

  “True,” he allowed. “How about this? I’m better with books than people. Books I understand. People…”

  Seeing where this was headed, I squinted up at him while my brain thawed.

  “You have to talk to people, hang out with them, observe them, to get them,” I explained gently. His mouth opened, and somehow I knew what was about to pop out. “Teaching doesn’t count. Your students don’t act like themselves around you. They want to impress you. You’re going to see the best versions of them. Same for faculty. They’re going to posture with you because of who you are.” I glanced around the carriage house. “Are you going out at all?”

  “Yes.”

  “Society business doesn’t count. Neither do covert ops.” Chatting up Volkov and doing goddess knows what else he did in the name of science was not social interaction. “Have you visited any of your friends since you arrived? Or family?”

  The hand stirring his drink stilled. “No.”

  “Why not?” I kicked him under the table. “You’ve got time to get out and have a life while you’re here.”

  “I don’t consider anyone I left behind in Savannah to be a friend, and family is…complicated.”

  “Oh.” Considering my inner circle included a pair of siblings, a house, and a parakeet, I wasn’t one to talk. Neely and Marit were friends too, but they were also human, and yes, complicated. “What about your friends in Atlanta?”

  “We’ve chatted.” Genuine fondness softened his expression. “Mary Alice is threatening to drive down for a weekend. So is Oslo. He wants to pick up some sketches I’ve been working on. I offered to scan them, but he wants the originals and doesn’t trust the postal system. He’s a bit of a conspiracy theorist.”

  “Are Mary Alice and Oslo an item?” I flexed my straw back and forth. “Or…?”

  Laughter exploded from him, lighting up his entire face until even his eyes shone bright. For a minute, I worried he might rupture something the way he was carrying on. I had never seen him do more than an under-his-breath huff of amusement. I hadn’t thought him capable of full-on belly laughs.

  “No.” He cleared his throat a few times. “Mary Alice is like a den mother to everyone who works at the Mad Tatter—the tattoo shop where I apprenticed. She appears to be a well-preserved sixty-seven, though I suspect her true age is closer to four hundred and sixty-seven. Oslo is seventeen. He’s an intern.”

  I hadn’t noticed the slight pressure building in my chest until it eased after hearing Mary Alice wasn’t…

  No. Absolutely not. No with a side order of no way, no how. Nah-uh.

  Who Linus dated was none of my business. I didn’t like him in that way. I didn’t think of him in that way. He was family. Sort of. We grew up together.

  You grew up with Boaz too, a helpful inner voice reminded me. But Linus was the Grande Dame’s son. I couldn’t trust him. Sure, he had saved my life, but—but—

  Goddessdamn Boaz for putting the idea of Linus as, well, a man, in my head in the first place.

  Groaning, I wedged my elbows against the table and covered my face with my hands.

  I was going to kill Boaz. Except I could never admit to him why he needed to die, or he’d murder Linus.

  Cool fingers brushed my knuckles. “Are you all right?”

  “Brain freeze.” I lowered my hands and smiled weakly. “Hate when that happens.”

  Except my glass was empty. Noticing this, Linus passed his over in case I wanted more. I stared at the straw, hoping he thought I was wondering if it had cooties instead of being curious if his mouth had—

  Fiddlesticks.

  Fire consumed my cheeks in a raging inferno that made my jaw heat like infection had set in. Too bad that didn’t excuse the sting racing across the rest of my face.

  “You’re flush.” Linus still held my hand. “Do you have a fever?”

  “Maybe?” Anything was better than admitting what was on my mind. Namely him. “I don’t feel so good.”

  For as long as I could remember, I had wanted one thing, and that one thing was Boaz Pritchard.

  Now I had him, some days more than others, and I was blushing over drinking after Linus.

  Ridiculous. Absurd. Impossible. Ludicrous.

  I didn’t like Linus. I didn’t want Linus. I didn’t find Linus attractive.

  He has pretty hair.

  “No,” I grumbled. “He doesn’t.”

  I clamped my jaw shut, winced, but it was too late. The words had already tumbled out for him to hear.

  “I’m calling Heinz.” Linus punched in the number he must have gotten from Taz. “He’s not my first choice, but you seem to have a history.” His mouth pinched. “This is Linus Lawson. I’m calling on behalf of Grier Woolworth.”

  Shaking my head frantically, I tugged on the cuff of his shirt. “I don’t need to go to the hospital.”

  “Her face is scalding,” he told Heinz. “She was talking to herself. I worry she might be delusional.” His shoulders stiffened. “I didn’t realize. I’ll call over there.” He ended the conversation, and his expression shuttered. “Boaz is here.”

  “He got in early this morning.”

  “I don’t have a thermometer, and my hands…” He lifted them, palms up. “I can’t determine others’ body temperatures well thanks to mine running lower than most.” He scowled at his fingers like they had individually banded together to betray him. “Call him.”

  Linus drifted to the sink and started washing the blender, the measuring cups, and the spoons he’d used, a sure sign he was agitated. Yeah, he liked to clean when he needed to think, but what was he thinking? Better yet, what was I thinking?

  “I’ll just go home.” I pushed away from the table and stood. “I’ll feel better after a nap.”

  A hundred years of sleep might clip the thorns off the prickly idea Boaz had planted.

  “I’ll go with you to the doctor if Boaz needs to leave.” He kept his back to me. “I won’t make you do it alone.”

  “That’s not…” I crossed my arms over my stomach. “You don’t have to do that.”

  “All right.” Tension curved his shoul
ders as he dried a bowl and set it aside. “Suit yourself.”

  “I need to learn to be okay alone.” I crossed to him and kept my gaze on the bubbles in the sink. “I can’t expect you or Boaz or Amelie to drop everything and run to my rescue all the time.” To prove my point, I washed out my glass. “I can do this on my own.”

  “I understand.” He swung his head toward me, his eyes searching mine. “You need to feel like your actions don’t set a domino effect into motion with everyone around you.”

  “Yes,” I breathed. “That’s exactly it.”

  “Amelie was wrong to blame you for what she did to herself.” He pulled the plug in the sink. “There’s nothing wrong with having friends who love you enough to drop everything and come when you call. The problem is those friends blaming you when the things they drop shatter.” The swirl of gurgling water held his attention. “Our actions have consequences, Grier. We are all responsible for what we do—or don’t do—and that’s it.”

  “Thanks for the pep talk.” I curled my fingers into my palm to avoid touching his hand before I left, a recent habit I ought to work on breaking. “Do you want to assign me homework before I go?”

  “No.” His forearms flexed when he gripped the sink, the strain a fine tremor in his muscles. “You should rest. I’ll bring over dinner later.” His head lifted, brow pinched. “Unless you’re going out with Boaz?”

  “No.” I rested my hand on his shoulder before my brain threw on the brakes, but I couldn’t ignore the way his muscles relaxed under that small contact, like my touch soothed him. “Dinner sounds great.”

  I lingered a moment longer, watching him for signs the black cloak might emerge as it had earlier, but he kept control of whatever I had unleashed, and it got awkward with me standing there, staring at him. There was no point in peppering him with questions. No matter what I asked, he would say it was a side effect of bonding with his wraith.

  He told me once that he had never lied to me.

  I didn’t want him to start now.

  Six

  Needless to say, I did not go to the hospital. Or to see a doctor. There was nothing wrong with me that a pint of ice cream wouldn’t fix, but I couldn’t very well explain to Boaz that I was bingeing because he had opened my eyes to an unsettling realization that had been creeping up on me for weeks.

  I liked Linus. Maybe not epic love story like, the way I used to feel about Boaz, the way I maybe still did?

  As much as I wanted to hit my favorite ice cream parlor to hide my sudden need for a double chocolate chunk fudge cone, I had obligations. Boaz had cleared his schedule to visit me, and I couldn’t duck out on him. And, yeah, maybe I was counting on the way his larger-than-life personality blocked out everything else to shore up my resolve that I didn’t like-like Linus.

  I took the stairs two at a time, the birdcage swinging from my fingers, and the porch creaked in question. I was back early, and the old house knew something was up. Linus was no slouch, and he never cut classes short. She was right to be suspicious. But there was no good way to tell her I was having impure thoughts about the guy who had violated her trust instead of the one she adored. Though impure might be too strong a word. It’s not like I was picturing him naked, I was just…picturing him. And that was bad enough, all things considered.

  “I’m not feeling so hot,” I told her, and it was the truth. “Linus let me go early.”

  Concern warped the boards under my feet until I had to choose between stopping or face-planting.

  “It’s not my jaw.” I brushed my fingers across Linus’s handiwork. “I’m just out of sorts.” The door swung open to reveal Boaz standing in the kitchen shoveling in cereal. “Have you eaten all your waffles?”

  “You say all like there were dozens of them when in fact…” his lips moved in silent calculation, “…there were only sixteen fatalities.”

  Suspicion confirmed, I made a mental note to buy more the next time I went shopping.

  Casually munching, he gestured toward me with his spoon. “I wasn’t expecting you back so soon.”

  That made two of us. Three if you counted Keet, who was thrilled to skip our lessons. The little dork was actually tweeting his heart out while hanging upside down from his perch. “Linus gave me the night off.”

  “Really?” His eyebrows climbed. “Did Mumsy need her toenails painted?”

  I cracked a forced smile. “You’re bad.”

  “I never claimed to be otherwise.” He turned up the bowl and drank down his milk. “I’ve got a while before I have to go.” Whatever he saw on my face had him ducking down to kiss me with sugary lips. “I’ll be back soon. I get four days off in two more weeks.”

  “I’ll add it to my calendar,” I grumped.

  “Are you pouting?” He tapped my chin with his hooked finger. “You can’t miss me that much.” A purely masculine gleam brightened his eyes. “Do you?”

  “Stop fishing.” I stuck out my patchwork tongue. “You just got here, and you’re already leaving.”

  “Work sucks.” His gaze fixated on my mouth. “I would quit all this if I could.”

  “Do you mean that?” Joining the sentinels hadn’t exactly been his idea.

  “I enjoy the job. I like my unit. Becky is a hoot. She’s a good partner to have at your back.” His knuckles grazed my cheek. “What I don’t enjoy is the leaving.” His voice softened. “I want to be home more often.”

  “So you can spy on Amelie?” Goddess only knew who he had watching her since I wasn’t a snitch.

  “I need to keep an eye on her.” His rough thumb glided over my bottom lip. “I need to keep an eye on you too.” He exhaled. “It kills me not being where I’m needed.”

  “Will things always be like this?” I had no idea what the career of an Elite sentinel entailed, not really.

  “I can’t say for certain.” His expression shifted into thoughtful lines. “Things are intense right now.”

  “The Undead Coalition?” The governing body for vampires balanced on the knife’s edge of an all-out civil war. Longtime members, wealthy and powerful clans, were withdrawing from the organization, forsaking the protection of the Society, and joining a movement spearheaded by the master vampire responsible for kidnapping me. The clans left behind were getting antsy. A war with this splinter cell meant pitting them against their brethren or suffering the wrath of the Society. Rock, meet hard place. “Are things still destabilizing?”

  “Yes.” He dropped his hand. “Half of the master vampires in the Coalition are in favor of maintaining the old laws. The other half are fighting over every damn thing and bogging down the system. Of those masters, half have established ties to vampires we found at the estate where you were held or to the vampires the dybbuk killed. Odds are good they’re plants meant to gum up the works, and they’re doing a damn fine job of helping chaos reign.”

  “Any fresh leads on the Master?”

  “I would have updated you if there had been.” He hooked an arm around my shoulders and led me into the kitchen. “Classified intel or not, your safety is my first priority.” He put his bowl and spoon in the dishwasher then turned back to me. “Has Linus mentioned what his mother learned from the masters involved in the attack?”

  “Four out of the six committed suicide by ingesting UV capsules prior to interrogation.” Perhaps scenting the trap, they came prepared with a pill stuffed between their cheek and gums. All they had to do was bite down and incinerate. “The others carried their secrets to the grave.”

  Boom.

  A percussive blast struck the wards surrounding Woolworth House, and the resulting tremors rattled the foundation beneath my feet.

  Panic seized my lungs in a vise as I ran into the living room. “Woolly?”

  “Grier,” Boaz snapped. “Get back here.”

  With the wards operating at full power, I had nothing to fear as long as I was in contact with the house. Before he could catch me, I bolted out onto the front porch and kicked off my shoes. I s
tood barefoot on the peeling boards, flexing my toes, reading the magic.

  Mentally, I reached for the wards, drawing their weft and warp into sharp focus. Ear-splitting dissonance near the front steps clued me in to where Woolly had been struck. I examined the area, turning over the weave in my head, but found nothing. Confident she remained secure, I scanned the yard, my gaze landing on the carriage house.

  Linus.

  Fingers trembling, I palmed my phone and jogged down the side of the wraparound porch. I thumbed the keys and pressed the phone to my ear, relaxing when it connected with a static burst of background noise that hinted at a location downtown. “Where are you?”

  “I’m at the Lyceum.” A dark undercurrent sharpened his tone. “What’s wrong?”

  “Woolly was attacked.” The planks under me shivered, and I amended, “She’s under attack, right now.”

  A furious growl rose behind me, and I didn’t have to turn to know it was Boaz and that he was pissed.

  “Get your ass back in the house.” He wasn’t looking at me, he was scanning the garden for signs of intruders. “I mean it, Squirt. There’s nothing you can do out here except make yourself a target.”

  “For once, we agree,” Linus murmured. “I’ll be there as soon as I can.”

  Hating that they had ganged up on me, and that they were right, I stomped back into the foyer and stared up at the chandelier. “What can you tell me, girl? You’ve got to give me something here.”

  Woolly projected images in my head, the chaotic jumble difficult to understand since houses and people didn’t process information the same way. One picture I had no trouble recognizing. The front porch stood out in stark relief. That was the unharmonious area I had already identified. There were other flashes too: a radiant starburst, a fallen tree limb, and two English peas. None of them made sense.

  I patted the wall to let Woolly know I was proud she had done her best. “Where’s Amelie?”

  Boaz, right behind me, no doubt to make certain I followed orders, blanched. “She didn’t do this.”

  “What?” I fully disconnected from Woolly and shook my head clear. “I didn’t say she did, but we both felt the tremors. Where is she? Why didn’t she come running too?”