Their room was shadowed and quiet. She eased over to Chloe’s small bed first and bent down to check on her. Chloe was sound asleep, her thumb half out of her mouth. Grace swallowed hard, tucked Chloe’s light summer blanket around her and eased over to check on Max. He had crawled to the head of his crib and lay sideways, his feet propped up on the side bars. He was also sound asleep.
Her eyes watered. She hated when that happened. She pushed the edge of her fist against the bridge of her nose as she touched the downy wisp of hair on Max’s head. His hair hadn’t really started to grow in yet; he looked like a bald, happy little Charlie Brown.
Maybe the Nightkind King had spoken the truth. Maybe he hadn’t known or approved of what the other Vampyre had done. Maybe they didn’t hurt children, and Chloe and Max had been perfectly safe the whole time. Maybe she had overreacted.
But she couldn’t afford to risk Chloe’s and Max’s lives on a string of maybes. And she couldn’t afford to risk her own life either, not when they depended on her so much.
Khalil coalesced beside her and looked down at Max too. She turned and gripped his forearm. “Thank you.”
A creature that was not known for having a compassionate nature also did not suffer from an overabundance of conscience. But as Khalil looked into Grace’s full gaze and sincere, grateful expression, he might have experienced a twinge or two.
He turned his gaze to the sleeping baby. Thank you, she said, and that was not something a Djinn heard often. A bargain kept the scales balanced. There was no need for gratitude in such an exchange.
He frowned, reluctantly searched for foreign words and found them.
“You’re welcome,” he said.
Once Khalil disappeared, all the tension spilled out of Grace. Suddenly her body ached twice as much as it had before. She stopped in the half bath to brush her teeth. Then she turned off the lights as she made her way to the office/bedroom, and she stretched out on the futon. She didn’t bother to put down the futon or take off the brace, even though it felt hot and tight on her leg. She had learned the hard way that when her knee ached this badly, just rolling over in her sleep might make it flare with a burning, grinding pain.
A gust of wind rustled through the trees, billowing the lace curtains in the nearby window and licking along her sweat-damp skin. The scent of green growing things drifted into the house, along with a hint of the nearby river. She stared at the shadowed ceiling, listening to the small familiar sounds of the old house settling into place. She wasn’t sure how she knew, but she sensed that, while Khalil had left, he had somehow kept a tendril of connection with them. She could feel his presence in the distance, like a touch of brimstone.
A ghost walked through the downstairs. She hardly paid attention, other than to note that it was one of the old women from the kitchen. For the first month after the accident, she had gone through her days braced for the terrible possibility that Petra or Niko might appear, but neither did, and after a while she had stopped looking for them.
Her eyes were dry and felt full of grit. She closed them and willed herself to sleep. She was wretchedly tired. She was always wretchedly tired. According to the doctor, that too would pass, as she healed emotionally and physically.
The children were recovering from their own loss. Petra’s friend Katherine had kept Chloe and Max while Grace had been recovering in the hospital. Too young to understand why Mommy and Daddy were never coming home again, they had been subdued and clingy when Grace had been well enough to bring them home. Now, months later, they had recovered enough to laugh and play, but they were each still prone to crying jags, and sometimes Chloe retreated into herself and refused to talk. It broke Grace’s heart to see her that way.
Outside, something snapped. Grace bolted into a sitting position and yanked the curtains aside to stare into the night. Her pulse thundered in her ears.
—pulled a sword—
—Vampyres, walking up her driveway—
The killing. The golden monster that Rune had become had split the Vampyre’s body with claws as long as scimitars. For one moment bright red liquid sprayed everything around them. Then the blonde Vampyre’s body, along with her blood, had disintegrated to dust, and Grace had been left staring at the empty space where the woman had stood.
Just outside her window, a raccoon waddled out from the bushes underneath the nearby trees, followed by three half-grown kits. The breath shook out of her as she watched the animals wander across the lawn. She knew where the raccoons were headed. They were going to check out the trash bins beside the garage. Living on a five-acre property meant the wildlife was opinionated and abundant. Just as the rest of her family had done for years, Grace kept the trash bins latched, but the raccoons never gave up hope.
She let go of the curtain and put a hand to her forehead. Then she clenched that hand into a fist.
Get a fucking grip, already, she told herself.
Okay, but how?