Boaz flung his arm around me as the doors shut, tucking me against his side as much as the harness allowed. The chopper lifted into the sky, and my former prison shrank until only a speck remained. Not until the night was thick and black around me, a blanket of safety, did I let my eyes slip closed.
Seventeen
The nightmare woke me. For once, that was a good thing. Probably. I hoped. I sat there with my spine pressed into a corner and my eyes screwed shut. I swallowed the foul taste coating the back of my throat. Herbs and copper. Nasty combination. Tears brimmed behind my eyelids while hope and fear collided in my gut. There was no going back once I opened my eyes. If it had all been a dream… If I woke to Lena staring at me…
“Woolly?” At the sound of my voice, the lights snapped on overhead, banishing my fears this might not be real. Warmth rolled in tracks down my cheeks, and I hiccupped when I said, “I missed you, girl.”
The floorboards arched under my palms like cats eager to be petted.
“I’m sorry I left you.” I pressed my cheek against the wall. “I didn’t mean to go away.”
However long I had been gone, it was too long.
Heat blasted from the floor register, its swirling warmth as close to a hug as the house had to offer.
The growl that rumbled through my stomach caused the curtains to flutter with laughter.
“Laugh it up.” I elbowed the wall and immediately regretted my life choices. “You’re not half as funny as you think.”
While she chuckled at my expense, it hit me that I could eat, actually eat without fear, for the first time since Volkov snatched me. That was all the epiphany required to get me moving. Using the wall for support, I propped my feet under me. I made it two steps outside the bedroom before strong arms enveloped me. Boaz lifted me and spun me in dizzying circles down the hall.
“I thought you were never going to wake up.” He planted a hot kiss on my forehead. “How are you feeling?”
“Physically?” I directed my focus inward and sought out each individual ache. I paid special attention to the faded pink line down my wrist, what should have been a nasty scar, but found the skin smooth. “Good.”
“How about up here?” He knocked on my noggin gently then poked me in the chest. “And in here?”
“I’ll let you know when I figure out that part,” I promised. “Right now, it just feels good to be home.”
“Where are you rushing off to?” He kept hold of my hand as I started walking away. “Got a hot date?”
“As a matter of fact, yes I do.” I tugged on my wrist. “With whoever can deliver breakfast the fastest.”
“I’m not sure that’s such a good idea, Squirt.” His grip turned to iron. “How about I cook instead?”
A flutter started behind my breastbone, a sharp breath hissing between my teeth.
Not again. Not now. Not when I’m home and among friends.
“It’s okay, Squirt. You’re home. Nothing can hurt you here.” Boaz turned me loose and took a healthy step back, giving me room to breathe. “How about I sweeten the pot. How does breakfast in bed sound?”
“No.” My gorge rose, and I shook my head until I teetered off balance. “Never again.”
The stricken look on his face as he battled the urge to interrogate me eased the knot in my throat.
“Amelie told me to text the second you got out of bed.” He reached for his cell. “Do you mind?”
“You really have to ask?” The true miracle was that she hadn’t been camped outside the door beside him.
“Come on down, Squirt, I’ve got all I need in the kitchen to create the perfect welcome home meal.” His thumb flew over the keyboard. “Frozen blueberry waffles and imitation maple syrup. The breakfast of champions.”
Rolling my eyes with the knowledge he believed that, I took the stairs. Amelie must have already been on her way over, because I bumped into her on the bottom step.
“Grier.” She flung herself at me and squeezed until I gasped for air in a good way. “I was so worried.”
“Me too,” I admitted, fresh tears wavering in my vision. “Are you ready to eat?”
“Eat?” Her nose wrinkled in Boaz’s direction. “Tell me he didn’t con you into waffles.”
Woolly chimed before I got out my answer, and we moved our reunion to the living room.
The Pritchard siblings exchanged wary glances, and the foreboding sensation remained when I pressed my eye to the peephole in the front door and spotted Mr. Hacohen standing there in his trim, navy suit with a hand tangled in his corkscrew mane.
“This can’t be good,” I murmured, opening the door and frowning at the Grande Dame’s messenger boy. “Yes?”
“You’ve been summoned.” From the same leather folio as before, he pulled out a linen envelope. “The Grande Dame has sent me to fetch you.”
“I’ll need a minute.” I shut the door in his face with no small delight and leaned against it, tearing into the envelope, which revealed what Mr. Hacohen had relayed almost verbatim. “I assume she wants all the details while they’re fresh in my mind.”
“How did she know you were awake?” Amelie scowled at the letter. “Did she bug the house while you were gone?”
“No,” Boaz answered, and I didn’t ask how he knew that was true, but I believed him. “Think about it, sis.” He peered through the nearest window at the vibrant sunset. “Mom always gets her summons at dusk. The real surprise here is the Grande Dame let her sleep this long.”
The scent of grapefruit wafted from the paper, and the sweetness cloyed. “Heard any updates?”
Boaz hesitated, which told me he was up to speed but wasn’t sure I ought to be yet.
“I deserve to know,” I said as I tore the card to shreds, “and I’d rather hear it from you than her.”
“Thirty-four casualties. Twice that many popped UV capsules to keep us from interrogating them.” The vampiric equivalent of cyanide pills. “Volkov is our only high-level capture. The other survivors were maids, kitchen workers or groundskeepers. The odds of them knowing anything are slim.”
I ignored the clenching in my gut. “He survived?”
“Oh yes.” The calculating smile stretching Boaz’s lips made me shiver. “I made certain of it.”
Amelie sidled closer and wrapped an arm around my waist to offer me support.
Finally, I was going to get my question answered. “Who is the master?”
“We don’t know.”
“How can you not know? Volkov was the ringleader. Doesn’t that mean his clan was behind this?”
“The thing about Last Seeds is they last forever. Ancients, true immortals, grow weary of ruling their own corners of the world. They can sleep for hundreds of years at a stretch, and sometimes when they rise, their entire clan has disbanded, been absorbed, or just plain died out over time.”
“Are you saying you suspect an ancient was behind my kidnapping?”
“There were five different clans in residence at that estate. None of them allied as far as Society records go. The Mercia heritor took his own life rather than let us get our hands on him. Whatever—or whoever—they were protecting, it’s got to be big if clan masters are offering up their best and brightest to the cause.”
“I should have tried harder.” Lena was too loyal to her master. But there were others. I should have figured out how to widen my social circle and focused on weaker links instead of being one. “I had no idea the operation was so large.”
“Neither did we. Not until we got a chance to examine what bodies remained.”
Young vampires died very human deaths. Things didn’t get weird until they passed the century mark.
“Legally, we had no proof you were behind those walls.” His mouth flatlined. “You still had Amelie’s cellphone on you when you were taken, but those coordinates only proved you were in the area.”
“Rookie mistake,” Amelie said, “not patting her down first.”
“Old vampires are hesitant
to embrace modern technology.” Boaz made it sound like a good thing. “Their survival as a species hinges on an influx of made vampires who educate them about the current era. Volkov might be young, but he would have been sequestered in his clan home until about five years ago with people who remember Alexander Graham Bell’s first telephone call, back in 1876, like it was yesterday.” He rolled his shoulders. “Your abduction might have been an act of opportunity rather than one of forethought. I’m not saying it wasn’t on Volkov’s to-do list already, but your falling out the night of the inauguration might have bumped it up to the top.”
“Why couldn’t you isolate the cell’s exact location?” Surely sentinels had the resources. “That’s possible, right?”
“We’re assuming Volkov’s driver called ahead to announce their arrival, and one of the younger vamps on staff cautioned them to pat you down and dispose of any electronic devices on your person. They tossed your cell about thirty minutes away from the estate, but that still gave us a small-enough search area that, after consulting the property records at the Lyceum, it only took a matter of hours to tighten the net.”
Hours to find me and weeks to extract me. Volkov had planned his trap well.
“The servant who answered the door belonged to one of the smaller clans, one who’s never given the Society a reason to look at them twice. Their master denied us entry and refused to meet with us to discuss terms. Had we realized they meant an unrecognized master, we could have gotten a warrant to search the premises. As it was, all we could do was sit on our hands and pray you’d find a way out.”
“Is that all?” I kicked up an eyebrow. “Dr. Heath made the front gardens sound mighty appealing. She mentioned the roses were particularly worth seeing.” Speaking her name reminded me. “She was one of yours, wasn’t she? How is she?”
“Yeah, Becky’s in my unit.” His face split in a grin. “She’s an old pro at UC work.”
“Your unit?” My knees almost buckled. “The draft.”
“I’ve been active for about three weeks. Thanks to my years of service, it was more of a lateral transfer. No boot camp for me. They paired me up with Heath and put me straight to work.” The twinkle in his eye spoke of his fondness for her, or for his new position, or maybe both. “Sentinel Elite work is a lot like being in the army.”
“You’re an Elite?”
“Don’t look so surprised.” He puffed out his chest. “HQ took one look at this package and had to have it. Story of my life.”
“Color me impressed.” And also suspicious. Very suspicious. Boaz had been dead set against joining the sentinels. Yet here he was, content and ranked much higher than any entry-level soldier could have dreamed. “Whose idea was it to infiltrate the estate? Yours or the Grande Dame’s?”
“She might have suggested we make the op official.” He worked his mouth like he was tasting something sour by giving her even that much credit. “She knew I was going in with or without sanction. Only the Elite has clearance for that kind of thing, so I offered up my services.”
“Question.”
“Answer.”
“Smartass.”
“Always.”
“There are vamps in the Elite?” That seemed unlikely.
“No, but there’s a solid market for magical augmentation.” He snorted. “I laughed my ass off when Becky got her first stiffy. Took her hours to will it away.”
“That explains her cover story as a newly-turned vampire. The scent of my blood gave her a dental erection.”
“We figured it was a matter of time before you tried to ink your own sigils for protection.” Boaz’s conversational tone didn’t fool me, not with that look in his eyes. “We put her in place as a precaution in case the temptation of your blood overwhelmed your guards’ good sense.”
“They didn’t hurt me or feed from me.” Easing away from Amelie, I edged toward the stairs, eager for a slice of calm before I got in front of someone who wouldn’t back down from the hard questions. “I was treated well, all things considered.”
“Volkov wouldn’t still be alive otherwise,” he promised. “Last Seed or not.”
Well, okay then.
Eighteen
My first order of business was tossing out every single pink thing I owned. Considering how much of my closet still belonged to fifteen-year-old me, that was a lot. A whole lot. I would have to make time to buy a new wardrobe now that I had the cash for it, but that wasn’t a priority at the moment. The nicest thing I had left was the dress Volkov had bought me, which I stuffed into a trash bag along with the other clothes to donate. That left me in dark-wash jeans too loose for my waist and a niceish plum-colored sweater that hung off my shoulders thanks to the weight I’d lost during captivity. At least the matching flats still fit.
Doing my best St. Nick impersonation, I flung the bag over my shoulder and headed downstairs to meet the Pritchards.
Amelie sat on the couch next to Boaz. She stood when I entered the living room. “Can we talk before you go?” She fidgeted with one of the silver bands on her fingers. “I know Mr. Hacohen is waiting, but it won’t take but a minute”
“Sure.” I tossed Boaz the remote. “Turn on the TV and don’t leave this couch.”
I led her into the kitchen, and we each claimed our usual barstools.
“There are some things I’ve been meaning to say.” She linked her fingers to keep them still. “When Volkov took you…” Her knuckles whitened. “I worried I might not get the chance.”
“Let me go first.” Hers wasn’t the only conscience in need of unburdening, and all those days spent locked in my own head had given me nothing but time to think. “I’ve been a crap friend, Amelie.”
“Grier, no.”
“Amelie, yes.” I flattened my palms on the granite countertop. “We made all these big plans when we were kids. We had our whole lives planned out from renting our first apartment together, attending the same college, working in the same city so we could do lunch dates every Friday. I was even willing to sacrifice my self-respect and marry your brother so that we could be real sisters.”
A snort escaped her. “The way I remember it, you were eager to fall on that particular sword.”
“Again—” I had to shake my head “—you are way too invested in my nonexistent love life.”
“I’m your best friend.” She reached over and took my hand. “It’s my job to look out for you. I’ve kind of sucked at that lately.”
“I’m not done yet.” I stopped her there. “Let me get this out in the open.”
Amelie mimed zipping her lips, the action giving me the nerve to continue.
“I got…sent away…and that path dead-ended for me. I lost my shot at having that perfect life, and when I got home and saw you had kept going, accomplishing all our goals without me, I didn’t know how to deal.” I scratched my nail over a speck of glittering mica. “I was hurting so much, being back here, trying to pick up my life when there wasn’t anything left to hold on to, and seeing how well you’re doing made me jealous.”
“I should have tried harder to understand. It was just easier pretending none of it ever happened. That things were back to the way they used to be. Even when I offered to help you talk it out, I hoped you’d keep turning me down because I didn’t really want to know what they did to you in there. My imagination is bad enough. I was sure the reality was worse, and I couldn’t deal. I’m not as strong as you.”
“You have to know that I’m proud of you. You do know that, right?” I covered her hand with mine until we ended up in a contest to see whose hand came out on top. “You stayed the course. You’re living your dreams. You’re on your way to achieving all your goals.”
“Not half as proud as I am of you.” A fat tear rolled down her cheek. “You survived.”
“Some days I’m not so sure,” I admitted with a sad little laugh. “Mostly I try not to think about, well, anything, really. I live in the moment. But then I come home from work, and it’s quiet. Th
ere are no crushed herbs perfuming the air, the house doesn’t rattle on its foundation when Maud blows something up in the basement, there are no strange guests wandering through the house all hours of the day and night.”
“You’re lonely.”
The lights overhead dimmed in agreement.
“Yeah.” I patted the nearest wall. “I guess I am. We both are.”
“Pinky promise time.” She whipped hers out and waited for me to pony up mine. “We both need to get out more. Starting this Friday night, you and me are going to find trouble to get into at least once a week. Deal?”
“Deal.”
“Are y’all done jawing in here?” Boaz stomped around the corner, giving us fair warning. “Our ride is waiting.”
I twisted on my stool until I faced him. “Our ride?”
A grin twitched in his cheeks. “You didn’t think I was letting you go alone, did you?”
“Yes?” I had Mr. Hacohen as an escort after all. “Did the invite specify either way?”
“Don’t know,” he said, shrugging. “Don’t care.”
“I have to go. My first tour leaves in an hour.” Amelie groaned. “Meet you back here after work?”
“Pick up Mallow on the way, and you’ve got yourself a deal.” I launched myself at Amelie before she could wriggle off her stool, and clung to her like kudzu on a brick wall. “I love you, Ame.”
She clung right back. “Love you too, Grier.”
“Group hug.” The eight-hundred-pound gorilla in the room joined in and squished us until our eyes bulged. “Now that my girls have kissed and made up, let’s get this show on the road.”
“Eww.” Amelie elbowed him in the ribs. “Brother cooties. I’ll have to shower after this.”
“Too late.” He pressed a smacking kiss to her forehead. “You’ve been colonized, little sis.” He got me on the ear when I turned my head to escape, then licked his lips. “That was waxier than I imagined.”
“Whatever.” I shoved him, and he stumbled into the wall. I jumped up and ran to him, hooking my arms under his. “I’m—”
How to Save an Undead Life (The Beginner's Guide to Necromancy Book 1) Page 20