I paused, letting the words of his promise soak in, making sure he hadn’t twisted or bent any of them to fit his own desires. Satisfied, I nodded.
“You’re the witness,” I told Matthias before reaching out to extend my hand to my father.
Matthias glanced up and looked between us. “My Lord?”
“She’s correct,” Lord Vaughn said. “You’ll serve as the witness. The deal is made.”
He took my hand in a near bone-crunching grip. Our matching ice-fire eyes bore into one another for a long moment. My fingers screamed out for relief but I didn’t so much as breathe until he released me.
The moment he dropped my hand, he swept up from the table. His guards shuffled back into place, semi-permanent fixtures at his sides.
“I’ve had my men bring up your belongings,” he announced, gesturing at the pile of suitcases by the door. “You will be staying here until I deem it safe for you to return to the mansion.”
I groaned. I’d already pushed my luck and was too drained for another argument.
“I assume that will not cause a problem, Matthias,” my father said, more of a statement than a question.
Matthias offered a polite smile. “Not at all, My Lord.”
“Good.” Lord Vaughn headed for the front door. “I’ll leave one guard outside your door. They will change out every eight hours.”
I raised a finger. “Anyone but Jerrod.”
My father held my gaze for a moment but then nodded. “Fine.”
When the heavy door fell closed, I released the breath I’d been holding. “Well, on a scale from afternoon tea to nuclear war, I supposed that was somewhere around a back alley brawl.”
Matthias let out a low whistle.
I flashed a wry grin. “Reconsidering your urge to marry into the family?”
He stared up at me, his eyes earnest. “I may not have had a physical blade to my throat, but I assure you, it wasn’t my choice to sign up for this tournament. I have no desire to be play politics or get any deeper in the Court madness than I already am. I’m prepared to fight for my life, but I’m not interested in fighting for your hand.”
I barked out a laugh. “Way to let a girl down easy.”
He winced. “I’m sorry. That didn’t come out right.”
“Don’t apologize.” I held up a hand. “Though, I am curious. If you don’t want to win the prize, how did you end up smack dab in the middle of this mess?”
He raked a hand through his dark hair and I realized how thick it was between his fingers. “You have a complicated relationship with your father, so you’ll probably understand when I say: my mother.”
I frowned. “I hadn’t exactly pegged her as a shark.”
Matthias laughed and some of the pressure in the room lifted. “Maybe not a shark, but I promise you, behind her love of crystals and psychics and fancy clothes, she’s not an easy woman to say no to.”
I picked up the untouched glasses and dumped their contents back into the decanter. Matthias stood and took it to the kitchen. I followed with the glasses.
Exhaustion swept over me as I rinsed the glasses clean. The victory over my father had been worth the effort, but left me drained. We’d finished one battle, but the war was far from over. I’d have to figure out a way to keep my potential future child out of his grasp another day.
I could only handle one life-altering problem at a time.
Chapter 8
Despite my exhaustion, my mind refused to give in to the promising void of sleep. Dawn was fast approaching, and when Matthias led me to the guest room, he showed me how to use the automatic black-out shades he had installed on virtually every window in the condo. The high-tech material instantly made the room pitch black. As far as I knew, vampires had never actually slept inside coffins, but as I stared into the dark, I imagined the experience wouldn’t be too far off. Though, if I had to choose between the two, I’d keep the king-size bed with Egyptian cotton sheets.
Back in Beechwood Harbor, I’d had a decent-sized room in the namesake homestead, the Beechwood Manor. My room had been nice enough. The large home retained its original, hundred-year-old hardwood floors, which were always kept polished to perfection. The room had come with solid oak furnishings and a large, three-paneled window that overlooked the woods behind the house. Even when I had the shades drawn against the southern light, I kept one of the panes cracked open an inch to let the sound and smell of the ocean air inside, even in the dead of winter.
Everything about the manor was homey and comfortable. Posy, the ghostly landlady, somehow managed to see to it that the house was always clean even without the corporal use of her own hands. In the colder months—which was seven or eight months of the year—a fire burned in the stone hearth, filling the house with warmth and the sweet smell of burning wood.
I missed it, even though Washington state had never been my idea of a permanent landing place. I wistfully stared into the dark, thinking about all the times I’d slammed my door and cursed my nosey roommates. Now, I would give my left arm just to sit in the dining room and listen to them all bicker and tease one another. My heart ached, wishing for sound of the ocean. The gentle roar of the waves was usually the perfect distraction to tame my overworked brain.
I doubted even the ocean could help me tonight, though.
Barely twelve hours into my return home and I’d already been put on house arrest, set up to be fought over like a piece of meat in a pit of crocodiles, and had my room turned into a crime scene. Oh, and on top of that, my best friend was missing, likely kidnapped, and there was a chance that whatever monster had gone full-blown Sweeney Todd in my bedroom had meant to use his blade on me and found Ivan and Jupiter instead.
“Stars,” I hissed into the darkness. “Could it get any worse?”
A dangerous question, but it begged to be asked all the same.
I shifted on the stiff mattress. Had anyone ever slept on this bed? It sure didn’t feel like it. Apparently, Matthias wasn’t used to entertaining overnight guests.
Eventually, I drifted off to sleep but it came it fits, none of which lasted longer than an hour. When I woke up for the dozenth time, I checked the clock on my phone. It was three o’clock in the afternoon. “That’s as good as it’s going to get,” I mumbled, slapping the phone face down on the bed beside me.
Whatever goon my father had charged with rounding up my suitcases had missed one. Naturally, it was the one that contained my pajamas. When I’d mentioned this to Matthias after my father’s departure, he’d brought me a pair of baggy sweatpants and an oversize t-shirt for me to wear. The shirt was a soft, faded grey with the monogram HH on the front, in big navy blue letters that were cracking and peeling at the edges. Hartford House, I assumed. I padded to the bathroom and turned on the lights, momentarily surprised by my own reflection. It had been a long time since I’d worn a boyfriend’s clothes.
Not that Matthias was anything close to a boyfriend.
Still … the faint smell of cologne clinging to the fabric was kind of nice.
Lacey!
I shucked off the sweats and climbed into the shower.
It took two washes to rid my locks of the copious amounts of hairspray keeping my temporary spiral curls together. After the second rinse, I relaxed against the warm stone tiles and let the hot water run down my back. That was one clear advantage over the Beechwood Manor; endless hot water. Between the ancient water heater in the old house and the janky plumbing, it was risky to take anything longer than a five-minute shower. All it took was someone using the kitchen sink or flushing a toilet for the steamy spray to go from sauna to polar plunge.