Craning my neck, I peered around Linus. “Why haven’t the Elite stormed the castle?”
“Ward,” she mumbled. “On the road, not the boat.”
Well, that explained why the light show hadn’t brought them running.
Linus pinned Amelie with his stare when he asked me, “Will you be all right waiting here?”
Until he moved me and a pang shot through my side, I hadn’t noticed I was almost collapsed on his lap. “Yeah.” He laid me down easy. “I’m not going anywhere.”
In the stillness after Linus left, a small throat cleared. “What about me?”
“Oh, Oscar.” I turned my head toward him since the rest of me was dead weight. “I’m sorry we forgot you.”
“I’m used to it.” He flashed a cheeky grin. “You saved me, just like you said.”
“Linus helped.” Linus, who I owed an apology. Linus, who had been doling out second chances too, hoping I would scrounge up enough faith to believe he wasn’t a murderer despite the evidence mounted against him. Linus, who really ought to have come back by now. “You can break the ward now.”
“I think I’d rather stay here.” His gaze darted to Amelie. “Until your friend gets back.”
“Suit yourself.” I focused on taking the smallest breaths possible. “I’ll be right here.”
I wish I had blacked out, but oblivion is never so merciful. I was wide awake when boots pounded up the stairs, and I had a front-row seat when Boaz entered the room. He glanced from Amelie to me, torn in his loyalties, rocking back and forth the same way Cletus had all those days ago. I won the coin toss, but it’s not like he could have reached through the warding ring to hug her. He had no magic to break ours.
“We’ve got a medic on the way, Squirt.” He trailed his knuckles down my cheek. “Can you last that long, or do I need to carry you out?”
“I can manage.” Whatever Linus had done seemed to be holding. “Where’s Linus?”
“We detained him. We didn’t know what we were walking into, only that you were on the boat with him, and you were in distress.” He grimaced. “Godsdamn, I’m a fool. I never should have asked for your help.”
“I’m glad you did.” I leaned into his touch. “I know you see me as some High Society princess in need of rescuing—”
“Your title has never interested me much,” he said plainly. “I would have married you the first time you made goo-goo eyes at me if all I wanted from you was prestige or fortune.”
“Okay, you made your point.” A tingle ignited in my cheeks. “I wanted you bad, and you knew it.”
“I didn’t take advantage of you then,” he pressed on, determined to make his point, “and I won’t now.”
The message was clear. He wasn’t sure what part Amelie played in all this, but he must suspect her role. Separating himself from her must be killing him. They were always a unit in my mind—the siblings Pritchard. I loved them equally, if in different ways, and they had each been a staple in my life up to now.
“Medic,” announced a tall black man who ducked into the room with a red bag slung across his shoulders. “Medic.”
Boaz lifted an arm, and the man jogged over and knelt at my side. “Take care of my girl, Heinz.”
“Your girl?” The medic blasted me with a megawatt smile. “You’re Grier?” He peeled up my shirt and got a look at my side. “You’re too pretty for an ogre like him.” He palpated my abdomen. “Have you considered seeing other people?” He examined my throat next. “And when I say other people, I mean me. There’s no need to talk. Just blink once for yes.”
After his examination moved south, I asked, “What happened to twice for no?”
His chuckle was warm and genuine. “I didn’t want to leave you any wiggle room.”
“Stop hitting on her before I start hitting on you,” Boaz grumped. “What’s her status?”
“She’s stable enough for transport.” He checked with Boaz. “Meet us there?”
“I have to handle this.” Boaz scrubbed his palm over his head, his posture weary, but he pressed a lingering kiss to my lips. “I’ll join you as soon as I can. Do not leave without me. That’s an order, Squirt.”
“Aye, aye, Captain.” I saluted him as Heinz gently lifted me in his arms. “Shiver me timbers.”
“Best get her out of here.” Boaz caught my hand. “She’s clearly delusional.”
“She must be if she’s dating you,” Heinz agreed. “Come on, gorgeous.” He angled us toward the doorway. “Normally, I wouldn’t sweep a girl off her feet until I’d at least bought her dinner, but the corners are too tight for the stretcher, and the boat is trashed. Are you sure this is a steamboat and not a garbage barge?”
“Boaz.” I trapped his hand in mine. “We’re going to fix this.”
“We’ll try.” He kissed my forehead and then my nose and then my lips. “I’ll see you soon.”
“That’s enough pecking, lovebirds.” Heinz carried me away from Boaz and down the stairs. “Now that we’re alone, tell me all the embarrassing stories you remember about Boaz from childhood. He’s got serious dirt on me, and I need to find a shovel before he buries me with the other guys in our unit.”
And so I told him the story of the second time I saw Boaz naked. It involved a case of beer he polished off single-handedly, a wide-mouth glass bottle (some fancy brand of tea his current girlfriend had favored that smelled like grass), and a jar of Vaseline. It went downhill from there.
Fifteen
Heinz strapped me on a stretcher his partner had waiting for us in the street, and I grunted when they slid me into the idling ambulance. Necromancers use the same hospitals as humans, so it was a short drive. Most High Society types weren’t thrilled with sharing a communal medical facility, but most Low Society families lacked the funds for private healthcare, and there were also concerns over emergency care. It was better for us all if we could be rushed into the arms of our own kind for treatment rather than ending up in an all-human hospital after a wreck or other mundane accident.
The compromise was a private floor warded against humans and staffed with exclusive doctors. The Society kept key personnel scattered throughout each department to clean up after supernatural patients, and other factions did too. The staff was close to sixty-five percent nonhuman the last I heard.
The comingled system had worked for decades, and it saved the Society money by piggybacking off the human healthcare system. The High Society worshipped wealth and prestige in equal measure, so it was a tradeoff for the elitists. Saving money at the expense of rubbing elbows with commoners. But none of them were willing to pony up the cash to fund the startup costs of an affordable alternative so…
Basically, if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.
“So you and Boaz have history.” Heinz clamped an oximeter on my pointer finger, wrapped a blood pressure cuff around my upper arm and stuck leads to my chest. “How long has that been a thing? You guys high school sweethearts or something?”
“No.” I shut my eyes to block out the glare from the overhead lights. “More like childhood friends exploring our options.”
“There’s nothing wrong with just being friends.” Heinz’s smile flavored his voice. “Maybe it’s best if you don’t explore this thing with him.”
His teasing was doing its job, taking my mind off Amelie. A little. Okay, not really, but he was trying. I awarded points for effort. “You’d rather I explored a thing with you?”
“Absolutely.”
“As flattered as I am by your offer, I have no choice but to see where this leads now that he’s got it in his head to do something about it, or I’ll never get another moment’s peace.” Oh, to have a time machine. Or a smidgen of discretion. “Good thing you’re pro-friendship.”