Chapter Twenty-Five
Grant
By the time Vlad and I make it up to the flat, they’ve got the bodyguard tied up in the kitchen, which gives me a chance to have a little mooch around the living room.
It’s nice. Really nice. A little more boho than I ever would have imagined Rachel liking—I eye the bead curtain that separates the living room from the kitchen with some scepticism—but it’s cosy and warm. A real home.
Rachel watches me take in the space, eyes narrowed. When I look at her, the twist of her lips means she’s about to say something truly venomous, but I just shrug and smile.
“It’s comfortable,” I say, and that expression drops and she blinks quickly and looks away.
Comfortable. I loved my family—love my family still—but I spent a lot of time with Rachel and Aunt Sharon growing up.
Their house was always so comfortable, cluttered, but in a way that made it feel lived in, where my mum was obsessed with making sure the place was ready for visitors at any moment.
Why she seemed to think visitors needed magazine-style tidiness is beyond me still, but she did, and it was fine.
I just liked going to Aunt Sharon’s and being able to lounge around without consequence.
I blink the memory away. My next heartbeat hurts.
I have missed my family, though I’ve trained myself not to think about them.
I glance over at Vlad, who is speaking in low tones to Asher.
Maybe it was different for the vampires turned so long ago.
It’s not that they love their families less.
Just that it was harder to keep in contact, maybe?
I purse my lips, leaning down to study a photo of Rachel and Margot sitting over on the windowsill, and push the thought away for later.
“He won’t wake,” Asher says.
Quinn is sitting on the sofa, body angled so he can see the kitchen, and Margot has perched next to him, eyeing him warily. I guess getting used to werewolves is different than getting used to vampires.
“He has a lot of magic,” Vlad replies.
“And there’s the danger of us waking him here, too. We need some help.”
Vlad sighs and pinches the bridge of his nose. “No.”
“Vladimir,” Asher growls, and I bite back a smile. Not appropriate, and it’s really kind of heartbreaking that Vlad doesn’t think he has friends at all when he’s spent centuries with Asher and Jeremiah and even Maurice by his side.
“Fine. I will call him.”
He pulls out his phone and I already know who he’s calling.
I wander over to look at the shelves of DVDs next to the TV instead.
I eye a couple I have scattered around my room at the base and then a couple I’ve been looking forward to watching.
It’s always tricky to buy things; I mostly shop in the winter, when the days are nice and short because—
A smile stretches over my face before I can stop it. I can go do that now! I don’t have to wait for the couple of months a year when it gets dark while the shops are still open but I still have to rush because they’ll be closing soon and it’s just after Christmas and no one appreciates that.
Quinn raises his eyebrows at the look on my face. “What is it?”
“When we get back, do you wanna go shopping or something?”
Understanding dawns quickly and he laughs. “Sure. I’ll bring Sam, though. I think you’ll both outlast me.”
“And then I can come see you shift?”
“You’ve seen it twice now.”
“Yeah, but not, like, up close or anything. It looks kind of painful. Is it painful? Does it—”
“Grant,” Vlad cuts me off, voice stern, and I jerk my head up, but Asher looks amused, so it can’t be that. “Come here. Maurice wishes to speak with you.”
Oh. I guess I wasn’t listening as they talked. Whatever, that’s fine. I bound over and take the phone. “What’s up?”
“Is it true?”
“Is what true?”
“What Vlad told me just now. Y-you went into the sun.”
My gaze jumps to Vlad. He told him? Ah, that explains the confused-slash-horrified look Rachel is giving me, too. Great.
“Yeah. Twice, actually.”
“Fuck.” He’s silent for a solid twenty seconds after that, long enough that I take the phone from my ear to check the call hasn’t disconnected.
“Did you want me just for that?” I ask in the end.
“N-no, I—Fuck, sorry. This is just… It’s a lot. But no. The bodyguard or whoever you have tied up there. I need you to get a feel for the magic in him.”
“Didn’t they say—”
“Vlad told me what he sensed and what he assumes, yes. I want to know what you feel.”
“Uh, okay.” I slip through the beaded curtain and stand before the bodyguard. He’s definitely out. I mean, he certainly looks that way with his head slumped forward and eyes closed, but I can sense it, too.
And I can sense all that power in him. Too much, like trying to stuff something into a box when it clearly won’t fit. It’s leaking out around the edges, bulging his death magic out into something dangerous, I think.
Dangerous for him.
“What do you feel?”
“Too much… She gave him too much of her blessing. It’s doing something to his death magic. Feels like it’s stretching it.”
“Interesting. And he’s out?”
“Yeah. I can’t feel any of our magic on him now, but he’s still unconscious.”
“Good. Get a feel for his death magic again, would you?”
I do. It slips through my grasp but doesn’t push back the way I’ve sensed that kind of magic do before. It feels like it’s stretched too thin, and when I tell Maurice that, he makes a sound of agreement.
“No doubt. She’s pushed too much inside him, and it’s likely to tear him apart.”
“But he’s alive now.”
“Yes, and if she’d given him more, he wouldn’t be. It’s a delicate balance, giving someone who is not fae a usable blessing. But from what Vlad just told me about her, I do not think this was unintentional.”
“What do you mean?”
“She wants a partner for when she rules the Otherworld. Seems like she might have decided she doesn’t want all the hassle of going after you but could make a vampire hybrid of her own.”
“But the Huntsman didn’t give me a blessing.”
“Yes. I think this is just step one.”
I wonder about Rook and Saide for a moment. They were fae first; they must have been. Their power never felt like the other vampires’. But then I don’t understand how the death magic managed to change them at all because it doesn’t seem like it should have.
“Did you need me for anything else?”
“No, except… He’s treating you all right, isn’t he?” He pitches his voice lower, and with the beaded curtain between me and the others, there’s every chance that none of them can hear.
“Uh. Yeah. Of course, yeah.” My cheeks heat. I’m happy for them all to know about us, obviously. I just don’t want to have that conversation over the phone.
“I know you were at odds before you left. And he didn’t want you to go. He’s not being as overprotective as usual, is he?”
“No, he’s been…” I glance at the curtain again, fancying I can see Vlad’s outline on the other side. I try and fail to smother a grin. “He’s fine. I mean, I’m—It’s, everything is fine.”
Maurice is silent again. This silence makes me squirm. “Grant.”
“Yes?”
“What happened?”
He doesn’t sound worried now. No, he sounds intrigued because he’s much better at reading people than the rest of them think; he just doesn’t care to.
“Nothing!” I say quickly. Too quickly. Fuck. “Look, it’s—You’ll see when we get back.”
“See?”
“Maurice,” I hiss, and now Vlad does push through the curtain.
He reaches to pluck the phone from my grip, then hesitates, hand hovering in mid-air.
The bodyguard is still unconscious, so I reach out and take it, grinning when he frowns at me.
“Look, everything is fine here, except for the fae and the souped-up vampires, so do you wanna help with that?”
“Sure, sure,” Maurice says, amused. “Put your Vladdy on, would you?”
I cast my eyes heavenward, resolutely refusing to look at Vlad as I hand over the phone. Knew that one would come back to bite me, even if it was hilarious at the time. And more a joke on Vlad than me. I was pissed off at him for not telling Maurice about me.
What’s more concerning is that Maurice didn’t know what nudes were a week ago, but there was a salacious tone to that last line. Someone’s been letting him on the internet unsupervised, which, in my experience, is never a smart idea where vampires are concerned.
“That is probably for the best, yes,” Vlad is saying when I look at him. His fingers are still threaded through mine. “As long as you are up for it, of course. Yes. Yes, I—we will await your arrival. All right. Goodbye.”
He hangs up and slips the phone into his pocket. “Maurice will be arriving tomorrow night. He will not make it before sunrise today.”
“Okay, yeah.”
Vlad’s eyes narrow as he studies my face. “What did he say to you?”
“Nothing that—He knows there’s something different between us.”
“You did not want him to know?”
“No. No, I told you I do. I just didn’t want to have that conversation on the phone.”
Or to have him sound kind of smug about it. I mean, I get it. Doesn’t mean I have to like it.
“Will it be a problem?” Vlad asks, stepping in closer. “I will tell him not to mention it if you prefer.”
“It’s not that. I think I just imagined telling them all at the base, at the same time. It’s weird like this.”
Vlad presses his lips to mine. Just once, for a second, but my head reels that he did it at all. We’ve been on a job the entire time, of course, but right here and now, we’re in the thick of it.
I sigh and press my forehead to his shoulder. “Sorry. I’m being weird. It is fine. And he’s going to tease us both, so that’s fine, too.”
“I will not allow him to tease you,” Vlad growls, and that gets a faint laugh out of me, the strange, uncomfortable feeling fading away. Things have changed. I wanted the change. It’s going to feel weird at first, but that’s fine, too.
“I absolutely deserve it,” I reply and pull him out of the kitchen. “Don’t ruin his fun.”
“Whose fun?” Asher asks. He’s sitting on the sofa. Between him, Quinn, and Margot, it’s a tight fit.
“Maurice’s,” Vlad replies. “He will be arriving tomorrow. We will see what information we can get from our captive during the day, but Maurice should be able to get more should we fail.”
“Sounds good,” Asher says, then leans around Quinn to look at Margot and Rachel, who is still standing, kind of hovering around the lot of us. “Is it okay for us to keep him here that long? We’ll have him out of your hair tomorrow night.”
The women exchange a look and Rachel nods first, shaky. “Yeah, sure.”
“Looks like we’re in for a long day then,” Asher says.