Chapter Twenty-Seven
Grant
For a moment, we all just stand there. Weirdly, I’m breathing hard, even though I haven’t particularly moved. Vlad tears his gaze away from the shattered window—and the screams and smell of smoke already coming from below—and looks at me. Relief shines clear in his eyes.
Yeah, I’m glad Harold didn’t decide to go through me, either.
Not sure how that would’ve ended. I’d like to think I’d be able to defend myself the way I saved Vlad when those fae were attacking him in the hotel, but that run-in with Eirian just proved to me that my magic might not be as robust as I thought.
Or I might not be so adept at wielding it. Bit of a sting after fifteen years, but oh well.
“Oh, fuck,” Asher says, and the bedroom door creaks open behind me. Quinn looks through the gap.
“What happened?” he asks, then looks at the window. “Ah.”
“How many people are out there?” Vlad asks. He’s keeping a careful distance from the window and from the sunlight falling across the carpet. I move so Quinn and the others can come out of the room, and Margot swears for a full ten seconds when she sees the mess.
“D-did he…?” Rachel begins.
“Yeah,” I mutter. “Better than the alternative.”
“The alternative?” Her voice goes from small to irritated, and I shrug. What did she think he planned to do?
“Fuck, there’s enough of them already,” Asher says. He ducks back inside and leans against the wall. “Oh, we’re fucked.”
“We need to clean up the mess in the kitchen,” Vlad replies, head cool despite everything. “It would be best if we were not found here at all, if you are all—”
Margot shakes her head. “No. I mean, clean up, but there’s someone I can call. You think we’re the only people who know about vampires here?”
That seems to settle Asher, at least a little, but I dart into the kitchen before he can.
It’s not really that much of a mess in here, at least not compared to the window in the living room, and it’s surprisingly easy to convince the wooden chair to piece itself back together and then wrap my magic around it until it sticks.
I set it upright and poke the backrest. “Huh.”
“Impressive,” Vlad says from the doorway.
I flush. “Wasn’t hard.” It was like the wood wanted to be that shape, honestly.
“It is not something the rest of us would have achieved.” Vlad takes a step or two closer. “Thank you for protecting the others. I believe you just saved them, or at least saved Asher and me from injury.”
“No, that—That’s what I’m supposed to do.”
“Hm.” Vlad pulls me in and kisses the side of my head. “Thank you, all the same.”
I don’t think it’s just that. His hand on my shoulder is a little tighter than usual, and he lingers for a second or two before he sighs and goes out into the living room.
He was frightened for a moment there, but he didn’t tell me to get inside, and he didn’t just tell me off for putting myself in danger.
I slip back into the living room. Margot is still on the phone. Rachel paces the floor as Quinn sweeps up broken glass. Vlad looks at me sharply when I wander over to the window, but though his entire body tenses, he doesn’t say anything as I step into the sunlight.
It washes over me in a warm wave, and I let out a contented sigh as my magic reaches out, hungrily pulling it in.
I don’t know that I’ll ever get that strange high I did the first time ever again—not like I’m about to go fifteen years without being in the sun a second time around—but it makes me want to smile all the same.
I don’t, though. Not appropriate. Instead, I listen to the voices below. There’s a police officer there already, though she’s on her radio, a few paces away from the crowd. When she frowns and darts a look up at the flat, I step back.
“…this morning on the beach. What do you think is making them all do that?”
I look in the direction of that voice. Three middle-aged women stand on the edge of the crowd, one trying to peer over, another looking faintly green.
“I’ll be right back,” I say, then leave the flat before anyone can argue.
I clatter down the stairs and take a moment to compose myself at the bottom.
Will my power hide me? I tug at it, trying to convince it to make me…
not invisible. Just unnoticeable. Because I have a sinking feeling something really bad already happened today.
I slip out the front door and no one gives me a second glance. Harold fell a few feet away, straight onto the pavement, and down here, the crowd seems denser than it did from above. I pretend to gawk myself and meander over towards the women I heard.
“So young, too,” one says. She clicks her tongue against her teeth. “Such a waste.”
“It’s all that time on the internet, making them do things. Social media. It’s not safe.”
“Oh, give off, Angie,” the woman I heard from upstairs says. “It’s not that. Otherwise, it’d be happening other places, wouldn’t it?”
The woman who looks like she feels sick shakes her head. “Barely heard mention of it happening here. It’s not on the news.”
Okay, that’s my cue. Has to be. “Um, hi,” I say, giving the three now-surprised women my best tremulous smile. “I was just wondering… Do you know what’s going on here? I mean, I just moved here, but I’ve heard—”
“Oh, don’t you worry about a thing,” Angie says.
She pats me gently on the shoulder. Out of the corner of my eye, I see Margot edging around the crowd.
There are three police officers now, though one looks more important than the rest, and she’s making a beeline for them.
“No one would harm a sweet boy like you.”
“Harm?”
“Christ, Angie,” the first woman hisses. She gives me a smile too, though it is incredibly strained. “You’ve heard about all the young men… hurting themselves?”
I swallow hard and hope I look pale enough that this is all working. “You mean the ones who’ve been set on fire?” I ask, pitching my voice low.
All three women nod and Angie pats my shoulder again. “There was another one this morning,” she says miserably. “On the beach. Again. They all keep going down to the beach.”
“Not this one,” the second woman says, looking at the crowd again. “First one so far inland.”
I wrap my arms around my middle, but before I can think of anything else to say, someone’s hand lands on my back. I’m surprised to see Rachel. She’s staring past me at where Margot is talking to the police officers.
“Thank you,” I say to the women.
They all nod and I step away from the crowd.
“This is all so fucked up,” Rachel says. Her hands are shaking and she doesn’t seem to know where to look. “Margot’s handling the police. We tried to report Jakob for this months ago, but there are only a few of them who know the truth and they’ve done fuck all about it, so…”
I frown at her. “Are you okay?”
“Am I—” Her voice hitches on what I think is a sob, but she presses her lips together and shakes her head. “No. No, I’m not.”
“Okay. Okay, do you want to go back inside, or somewhere else…”
“Quinn was going to come and get you, but I said I would. Your… Whatever he is. He’s stressing out in there. And I need a break. Like, I just need to walk around and get some fresh air and be away from all of this for five minutes.”
She looks at me when she says it, not at the crowd. Not at the ashes that were once Harold. I swallow thickly and shove my hands in my pockets.
“That’s not a good idea. Eirian’s still out there.”
“And I’m not a vampire or a werewolf or a whatever the fuck else. I’ll be fine. Go inside. They’re waiting for you.”
She storms off before I can say anything else. I’d chase her, but I’ve left my phone in the flat, so instead I signal to Margot, who watches Rachel go with narrowed eyes. I sigh and head back inside.
Low murmurs come from the bedroom, but Vlad is sitting on the sofa, faintly scowling with his gaze fixed on the window.
They’ve covered it with black bags, looks like, all the shattered glass swept away.
My magic pushes out to keep the light at bay; until it’s fixed, or until we’re gone, I won’t risk the light hurting Vlad.
He’s blinking too much already, and even more so when I step between his legs and tip his chin up.
“What did you hear?” he asks.
I shake my head. “It hurts?”
His expression shutters. “I’m fine.”
“Vlad…” I make my tone as stern as I can. All things considered, the last two days have been some of the best of my life, even if some people tried to kill me. I’m not having him push this away just because things are getting complicated.
They’re not even getting complicated for us, after all. Nothing between the two of us has changed.
Vlad sighs and pushes his cheek against my hand.
I rub a thumb over his cheekbone. His beard is coarser than the hair on his head, but still soft, though I don’t think I’ve ever seen him groom it.
I’ll have to ask about that. See if I can help, maybe?
It might be nice to sit at night and brush his hair.
“I stared out too long. I wanted to be certain you were safe.”
“You can feel that I’m safe,” I say, and my magic is already reaching out, but when it brushes up against Vlad, I gasp and draw it back.
He frowns up at me. “What is it?”
“Asher told me about what happened on the beach. My magic hurt you.”
“Ah.” Vlad lifts his head and I drop my hand. “That. Yes.”
“I don’t—I don’t understand why. I don’t want to hurt you. I’d never—”
“I know,” Vlad says, voice ringing with utter conviction. “And I admit to fearing some incompatibility, should we try to strengthen our bond.”
“But we have the bond already.”
“We do.”
“So shouldn’t we be fine?” Vlad using my magic has to be different to the bond that exists between us. It has to.
“We could be. I do not know. And I will not hesitate to do the same again, should it be needed, but—”
“Oh, absolutely not.”
“Grant!”
“What? No! What would you say if you were in my position? There’s not a chance you’d be letting me pull your blessing into me, knowing that.
” I shake my head and push away to pace.
No way. I don’t understand it. My magic didn’t hurt him before and I’d never want to hurt him, so why is this happening?
Not like Maurice will know. Hell, not like even the Huntsman will know, probably, because it doesn’t seem like he knows definitively about Asher and Quinn, and I’m sure he knows much more about wolf magic than whatever the fuck is going on with me.
Vlad gets to his feet and steps in my path, so I have to stop so I don’t bump into him. I glare up at him instead, and for some reason that has him smiling and cupping my face in his hands.
“All is well,” he murmurs. “We will both be careful, won’t we?”
“Yes.”
“There is no long-lasting damage. I healed through rest.”
“Sure, but—”
“I will not do it again unless necessary.”
“Absolutely necessary.” I narrow my eyes when his smile doesn’t wilt at all. “I mean it. Not just when I, I don’t know, trip over my own feet or get a paper cut or—”
“Of course.”
I groan and wrap my arms around his waist, leaning my cheek against his chest. “Another vampire died on the beach this morning.”
Asher’s head pops around the bedroom door. “This morning?”
Of course he was listening, though he has the grace not to react when Vlad turns so I can look at him properly. “Yeah, apparently. Plus, some people have noticed that no one official seems to be talking about what’s going on. That’s less surprising, I guess.”
“Why would they kill another one?” Asher asks.
“Eirian is likely running more experiments,” Vlad says and casts a significant look at the window. “I believe she now knows that giving a vampire her blessing is not enough to protect them from the sun.”
“Great,” Asher mutters. He opens his mouth again, but before he can say any more, the door to the flat slams open and Margot comes running in.
“Rachel,” she says, breathing fast. “She’s not come back?”
I shake my head and pull out my phone, checking the time. “She’s been gone for like forty-five minutes.”
“Yeah, and I followed her probably a minute after she left and nothing. I’ve been to every spot she’d go. She’s not there.”
“She may well be fine,” Asher says, tone immediately grounding. “We’ll take a look, okay? I’m sure it’s all okay.”
Margot shakes her head, breaths coming fast. “No. I know something is wrong, I know—”
Quinn gently takes her by the shoulders and guides her to the sofa, then sits next to her. I turn in a circle and spot the laptop sitting on a bookcase. “Does she have her phone on her, do you think?”
“Yeah,” Margot says. “I tried ringing her, and it rang and rang, but she didn’t answer.”
Not off, then. I grab the laptop and take a seat next to Margot. “Tell me she’s got one of those find my friend things turned on.”