“He proposed an alliance, yes. The avowal was his way of leveling the playing field.”
“Why did you—?” He cut himself off before he could compound my list of what ifs.
What if I had said yes? Would I have still ended up under lock and key? What if I had kept wearing the bangle? Would it have done me any good against his brute strength? The night he came for me under the guise of returning my things, I had reached outside the wards to claim them. I had made the mistake, no bangle required. Even if I had worn it, Volkov could have removed it the second we got in the car.
The avowal contained his blood, his gift, and its magic obeyed him. I was no good to him as a thinking, feeling woman. He’d wanted a piece of arm candy with strange magic in her veins. I might have been worshipped as a queen, but eventually I would have been bled as a prized cow headed to slaughter.
Not that the Society was winning any awards on that front either. Both wanted the same thing—for me to bleed. But at least the Grande Dame was willing to educate me. She saw the value in honing her weapons. No matter my personal opinion of her, I would be a fool to turn away what she was offering.
“I wanted a clean break from him,” I managed. “After the Lyceum…” I shook my head. “He knew what I was, what was about to happen, and he told me nothing. He made it so I would have to accept his suit to receive his help standing up to your mother.”
Linus pressed his lips into a flat line.
“He convinced me to keep it until I was certain I wanted to formally refuse him.” Returning it would have meant a hard no that could never be taken back. It would have meant that if the Grande Dame had come after me instead of welcoming me back with open arms, I would have had nowhere to run. “I wonder if that’s why Volkov took me when he did?”
Linus attempted to follow my logic. “Your rejection would have been a blow to his pride.”
“That’s not what I meant.” I forced my theory into words. “He was raised cloistered with older vampires, right? Our conversations were his first with a necromancer, or so he claimed. He was a stickler for tradition.” I worked out the rest before saying, “I believe he felt he had to act fast, while the bangle was still in my possession for his claim on me to be legitimate.”
“You hadn’t said yes,” Linus agreed, “but you hadn’t said no either.”
“He mentioned in the car, on the way to the estate, that he wanted a willing partner.” Not a wife, but an equal in the profitable venture that would be our marriage. “He wanted to earn my trust.”
How he’d expected that to happen when he had all but tied a steak around my neck before shoving me into the lion’s den, I had no idea.
“I can ask,” he offered quietly. “If it truly matters, I can find out for you.”
I snapped my head toward him. “You’re going back to see him?”
“I’ll have to if I want to test the sigil again.” He wasn’t looking at me when he said it, and a flash of insight warned me off asking him what other reasons might entice him to return for Volkov. “It won’t cost anything to ask while I’m there.”
For unfathomable reasons, I got the impression that yes, he did pay for what he got. But what?
“No,” I decided. “The reason doesn’t matter. His master wanted me, and Volkov would have taken me eventually. The timing isn’t important. The outcome would have been the same.”
A slight loosening in his shoulders told me I’d made the right call to let the matter drop. “Let me know if you change your mind.”
“I won’t,” I reassured him and was rewarded with his stance easing even more. “I appreciate the offer, though.”
A few sharp knocks on the door brought my head around, and I raised my eyebrows at Linus. “Expecting company?”
“No.” He smoothed a hand down his shirt. “You?”
“I saw Amelie and Neely earlier, and Boaz won’t be home until tomorrow. That’s the extent of my social circle.”
Linus strolled over to answer. “Hello.” His eyes swirled with yawning darkness as they raked over an awestruck Amelie. Judging by her calm demeanor, I assumed this meant she lacked the magic to see him for what he truly was, what lived within him. “Can I help you?”
“Oh. Uh. Hi,” Amelie rambled. “Is, um, Grier here?”
“Yes,” I called as I loped to the door and nudged him out of the way with my hip. “What’s up?”
The sight of me knocked the stars from her eyes, and she forgot about Linus standing behind me.
“I heard about what happened on the Cora Ann.” She palmed my shoulders and shook me until I got whiplash. “Why didn’t you call?”
“I was going to, promise.” I pried her off me. “I came to consult Linus first—”
“Linus.” Her gaze slid past my shoulder. “Linus?”
“Hello again,” he said from near my elbow, his voice a low threat I didn’t understand.
“I’m sorry.” Large blotches of color splashed across her cheeks. “I didn’t recognize you, and I didn’t introduce myself, but I’m Amelie. I live next door, which you probably remember from, you know, your whole life.”
“You were worried for Grier.” He dismissed her slight with crisp acceptance. “I understand.”
“I…” Her mouth worked over what she wanted to say. “Yes. That.”
“We’ll get out of your hair,” I told him as I shuffled her into the garden. “Night!”
The door shut behind us, and I had to strong-arm Amelie, who was digging in her heels and craning her neck, onto the front porch. Maybe she was right about Linus branding her guilty by association with Boaz. He wielded politeness like a scalpel when he chose.
“You said he was taller. Thinner. That he grew out his hair. You didn’t say he was gorgeous.”
“Is he?” I bit my lip. “I didn’t notice.”
“You are a dirty, rotten liar. You have two eyeballs. You have a pulse. You noticed.”
“You remember the part where his mother is Clarice Lawson?” Speaking her name gave me the heebie-jeebies, like if I chanted it three times fast in a mirror she might appear behind me with an old-fashioned straight razor poised in her hand. “He probably peeks through my windows at night to gather intel for her.”
“Let’s do some spying of our own.” She rubbed her hands together. “Let’s peek through his windows. During the day. When he’s in his pajamas.” She sucked in a sharp breath. “Or out of them.”
“You’re terrible.” I hauled her away, the two of us giggling like the schoolgirls we once had been, and we collapsed on the front porch swing. “I’m not going to spy on my teacher.”
Except, a few hours later, we sort of did. Blame it on the night being filled with the echo of childhood horseplay. Blame it on the color in Linus’s cheeks before he unbuttoned his shirt. Or blame neither of those. Both of them? Whatever the reason, I followed Amelie out into the dawn with the avowal in hand as an excuse in case we got caught.
We checked each window in the carriage house as we passed them, clamping hands over our mouths to stop laughter from spilling out. There was no sign of him, not that I had expected him to be lounging in plain sight at this hour.
Amelie palmed the doorknob and gave it an experimental twist.
“What are you doing?” I whisper-screamed. “We can’t go inside.”
“Of course not.” Her mouth formed a smile a beat too late. “I was just pulling your leg.”
“You got me.” I laughed, the sound as forced as her expression. “This was a dumb idea. Let’s go.”
“Yeah,” she murmured, lingering in the doorway, her hand still tight on the knob. “You’re right.” Her eyes flashed at me. “We’ll go as soon as we scout his bedroom like the pervs we are.”
“Fine.” I rolled my eyes. “Let’s just be quick pervs.”
A snort escaped her. “Aren’t they all?”
But when we circled around back to the bedroom windows, there was a crack in the blackout curtains I had been counting on to protect him from our shenanigans.
His bed was empty.
Six