“Lennier assured us that he was dealt with,” she replied tartly enough to express her doubt.
This was the key, he realized. He didn’t know how old she’d been when her father had been attacked, but from that moment on it had changed her. She didn’t want to go out there now and stop the Chimeras just to protect Dusters. She was doing it because of what had happened to her father.
Grayson, still holding the rapier slack at his side, gently knocked his blade against hers. The joined silver sang out and lifted some of the weight in the air.
“You miss him.” Saying anything else, like I’m sorry, would have been too empty a response for what she’d just shared.
Her rapier caught his and shoved. The unexpected attack threw his arm up high to the side, leaving his whole front unprotected. The tip of her rapier landed on the underside of his chin, the point pressing against his skin.
“More than you miss your father, I’m sure,” she said, a victorious smile tugging at her lips.
“You’re right,” he answered, the motion of his jaw pushing the tip of her blade more firmly against his skin. He didn’t miss his father one bit.
“But, Chelle,” he started to say, unwilling to walk away from all she’d revealed just yet. “Not all gargoyles are like the one who hurt your father. Or the ones who have killed Dusters. Think about Luc. He’s trustworthy, and there have to be others like him.”
She kept her blade at his chin but eased off a bit. “Perhaps. However, the majority of them are simply criminals being punished for their sins.”
Her eyes quickly darted to view Grayson’s mouth, and in that moment her carefully composed guard faltered. She parted her lips, unable to shield her interest in the shape of his mouth.
“I’m a criminal,” Grayson said, his heart gaining speed and his body growing warm from the way Chelle was looking at him. “I took a life, just as brutally as any rogue gargoyle. Why trust me?”
She knew what he’d done in London, and yet here she stood with him in the abbey vaults, wanting him at her side. Standing so close.
Grayson acted before he could think, and before Chelle’s unusual vulnerability disappeared. He leaned forward and kissed her, fast and hard. He pulled back almost immediately, certain he would see her closed fist coming toward his nose. It wasn’t. Her lips were soft and parted in surprise, her eyes fixed on his.
So he kissed her again, more gently this time, his hand hitching up her chin so he had a better angle. Chelle tasted like tea and sugar, like the fresh snap of spearmint leaf. He wanted to kiss her forever. He couldn’t believe he’d actually found the courage to do it.
They dropped their rapiers, which fell to the floor with a clatter that echoed through the vaults. Her fingers, small but fierce, pressed against his stomach and curled into his waistcoat. She pulled her mouth away from his, but, to his continued surprise, she didn’t appear angry.
“Who says I trust you?” she asked before rising onto her toes and kissing him again.
H?tel Bastian was nearly as tense as gargoyle common grounds had been the afternoon before. Ingrid had been summoned there with a blood-red square of thick cardstock that required no signature—it was the color of the Alliance, and the few words in black ink were in Vander’s script: Come to rue de Sèvres as soon as you can. It’s important.
Mama had been busy in the abbey, and so, before Ingrid had needed to explain another outing, Marco had whisked her away in the landau.
Alliance headquarters practically throbbed with apprehension. Whether from Axia’s impending Harvest or the anticipated arrival of the group from Rome as early as the next day, Ingrid wasn’t sure. Vander had shown her quickly to the medical room, which provided an escape from the hum of unrest throughout the town home.
“This was important?” Ingrid now asked, seated on one of the metal tables with her legs stretched out before her. The hem of her dress and petticoats were bunched up around her knee, exposing her calf. She had reluctantly rolled her silk stocking to her ankle so that Vander could inspect the fang marks that had punctured the two strawberry ovals.
“See? I told you they had healed,” she said, as Vander’s spectacled eyes ran over her calf one last time. The demon mark was still there, as plain as ever, but the wounds inflicted by Axia’s demonic fangs were gone.
Ingrid tugged up the stocking while Vander watched. Her face grew warm.
“Good,” Vander replied. “I was hoping you were well enough, because I need you to leave Paris. Tonight, if possible.”
Her hand stalled out and she stared at him. “Vander, what is it?”
He stood in front of her, his arms crossed over the brass buttons of his waistcoat. He looked a little green around the gills.