Chapter 26 #2
“You were magnificent,” Luther said softly.
Then his hand was at my waist, and he pulled me to him and kissed me, quick, fierce, full of promise.
I melted into it, all thought scattering like startled birds.
For once, the victory was ours. I wallowed in him and in the moment all the way up to the room.
Once there, I felt the bottom drop out, and I was glad to have a moment to myself.
The hotel room was quiet in that expensive, padded way, like the walls had been trained not to listen.
Luther had left ten minutes after we’d arrived with the book, so he could safeguard it for the night.
He told me he’d be out long enough to arrange a car sturdy enough for a medieval manuscript, and paranoid enough for a vampire’s peace of mind for the journey back home.
I didn’t know if that meant he’d be gone an hour or ten minutes; where did one go to arrange for an armored car?
Pacing around the room, I trailed my hand over the back of the couch, but the rich, buttery leather was no substitute for the touch of an old book. “I just want to look at it,” I muttered, toeing off my heels and kicking them under the desk.
I ducked into the bedroom to look at what I’d packed and selected jeans and an old, paint-splattered band T-shirt that had made its way into my wardrobe via Maggie.
The sleek suit and blouse Luther had gotten me for today weren’t unpleasant to wear, but they felt a bit too much like a mask. Like I was wearing someone else’s skin.
Changing clothes felt nice, like I was settling back into being me and not some fancy facade, a shield against David’s vitriol.
“I can read the Latin, Belfry. I don’t even need magic for that part; I’ve been refreshing my memory all week.
” I couldn’t stop a small laugh when I realized what I’d said: I don’t need magic?
So casual, so normal already to have that be part of my thinking, part of how I assessed the world.
I know, Belfry chimed in my head, dangling from the curtain rod and preening the silk vest stretched over his tiny chest. He looked dapper as always, but I could tell he was a little off his game out here.
He’d snarked about the city, but he hadn’t gossiped, hadn’t poked at Luther like he enjoyed doing.
Now he seemed to be getting some of his usual spark back, and I was glad to see it.
Luther is being all dark-and-broody-and-responsible.
It’s very attractive. You should encourage it.
I snorted. “You would say that.” He’d be right, I did like how Luther had cautioned me to stay in the room while he secured the book. I didn’t like not getting to satisfy my curiosity immediately, but I loved how respectfully he treated the ancient manuscript.
“We’re on a deadline,” I told Belfry firmly.
“This Galamut thing is escalating. What if it escalates from goats and wildlife to humans? The answers are sitting in that book, probably written by some monk who thought ‘be not a dick’ was revolutionary theology.” I had a feeling it would say the Galamut was the ultimate dick of all, like David, but times a hundred.
You are assuming it says that, Belfry said.
It might say “be a dick, but politely.” Medieval times were complicated.
That, Belfry said with the kind of tone that came from having actually lived through it.
It was baffling to think of a bat as ancient as Luther, or to picture that the two had been a pair for that long.
“I just hate waiting.” I tugged clothes out of my suitcase, folding and refolding them with no real purpose. “And I know it’s nearby. Luther wouldn’t leave it somewhere unfamiliar. He knows the owner. Which means…”
…the safe, Belfry finished. Very boring. Very secure. Very unstealable. Well, there was that, I rather liked that nobody could steal our book. The question was, why would anyone, though? Nobody had anything to gain but us by acquiring this knowledge, right?
I sighed, flopping onto the edge of the bed.
“I respect him. I do. I just also want to crack that thing open and inhale the knowledge on those pages. We need those answers, Belfry. We need them now.” I thought of Gwen and Jackson, so cozily in love, and the image of a wolf and lynx—Kai and Freya, I’d learned—running through the street in a playful game of tag.
What if something was happening to them right now?
A knock sounded at the door, disturbing my spiraling thoughts.
I frowned, glancing at the clock, but it was too soon.
I didn’t know anything about hiring armored cars, but I was pretty sure that would take more than twenty minutes.
Luther would insist on inspecting the vehicle to make sure it was up to his standards. It couldn’t be him.
Luther had said this hotel was chosen specifically for its security and discretion.
Maybe he’d ordered food, anticipating my tendency to forget to eat when forbidden books were involved.
Not that I actually had access to one, but it was definitely taking up so much headspace that I had forgotten the time for dinner had come and gone. “Room service!” a voice called.
“Well, that answers that,” I said as I made my way to the door.
“I hope it’s something good, but knowing Luther, it can’t possibly be bad.
” My stomach rumbled, now that it had been reminded of its emptiness.
I didn’t check the peephole, because this hotel had top-notch security according to my vampire.
The wood of the door felt solid and thick, and the doorknob was polished copper.
I swung it open, blinked, and drew in a shocked gasp.
It was David. For half a second, my brain refused to process him, like reality had glitched.
My hand tightened on the doorknob, and instinctively, I tried to push it shut.
Then his face twisted, all charm stripped away, and he shoved the door wider with his shoulder.
“What the hell is wrong with you?” he snapped, barging inside.
“Do you have any idea what you did back there?”
I stumbled back a step and nearly tripped over the edge of a rug.
“Excuse you…” I snapped. How had he gotten in here?
How had he even known where we were staying?
His lanky frame didn’t appear to be packed with muscle, but I knew he was deceptively strong.
It seemed weak to step back further, but I found myself trying to put the couch between him and me.
“You humiliated me,” he went on, voice sharp and shaking. Oh yeah, I remembered that tone, the way he had a habit of trying to make another feel small when his ego got dented. I shifted my weight on my legs. I’d kick him if he tried anything.
“In front of a client. Letting that...” his lip curled, “...that vampire tear me apart while you stood there looking smug. I know exactly what kind of favors you’re trading.
” Vampire? So he knew. That caught me so by surprise that I just stood there, staring for a long second.
The stuck-up, egocentric bastard was supposed to be all human.
I had never even so much as seen a hint of interest in the occult.
He’d scoffed at books with fairy tales, while they had delighted me; one of those things he liked to put me down about.
“Wow,” I said, struggling for a comeback as I pulled my surprise back around me like a cloak. So he knew? What did it matter? He was an asshole—nothing had changed—and I needed to get rid of him. “You managed to discredit yourself back there without my help. It was honestly impressive.”
Belfry squeaked and vanished in a flutter of wings, darting under the collar of my jacket like a living brooch.
I knew I saw the bastard chase the bat with his eyes, but Belfry’s messy fluttering had confused him near the curtain.
I didn’t think he had seen where the little fellow had hidden.
David’s eyes flicked around the room. “Where is it?” I thought he meant Belfry at first, but quickly realized he was searching for the book.
“Where’s what?” I crossed my arms, heart thudding but spine stiff.
“The book? It’s safe. Why do you even care?
” There was absolutely no reason for him to be after the book now, was there?
His client might not have left that meeting with the impression that David was any good, but I knew we’d left Mr. Nanook satisfied with the deal.
David’s smile was thin and ugly, and I wondered when he’d completely lost his ability to charm.
He stepped closer and loomed intimidatingly toward me with his lanky frame.
The left shoulder seam of his suit jacket was so crooked it winked at me like a malicious eye.
“Because I have a better buyer, and you owe me,” he snarled into my face.
I was very glad the couch was still between us.
I laughed, I couldn’t help it. “Oh, that’s rich.
” I owed him? After what he’d done? He deserved a bit of humiliation and a sweeping defeat.
In fact, he was lucky that was all Luther had done to him.
I was pretty sure my vampire would have liked to sink his teeth into David’s jugular back there, if he could have gotten away with it.
Jade, Belfry whispered, tight and anxious, I don’t like this.
He trembled beneath the collar of my jacket, his warm body curled up into a tiny little ball against my neck and collarbone.
I didn’t like it one bit either, but David, as much of a dick as he was, had never resorted to violence.
He was a bully, sure, but he liked to do his bullying the academic way: with words.
“I don’t owe you anything,” I said, stepping toward the phone on the desk.
“And you need to leave before I call security and have you escorted out like the tantrum-throwing man-child you are.” It felt very good to say that because it was true, and when it came to this asshole, I really didn’t bother mincing my words.
It caught me by complete surprise when his hand lashed out.
The phone skidded across the carpet, plastic cracking as it hit the wall.
My breath caught, shock blooming too slowly.
He’d changed, and I was abruptly, extremely aware of how vulnerable I was.
I brought my hands up in front of me, the jade and gold chains of my bracelet gently chiming.
If ever there was a moment for a protection charm to work, it was now.
David loomed closer, and this time, there was no couch as a barrier; I’d given him that opening when I’d moved to the desk for the hotel phone. “I offered you the easy way,” he said, his tone much calmer now. It was a threat, I knew it. My mouth opened, but I didn’t get the chance to scream.
Pain exploded, white and absolute, and the world dropped out from under me as his fist connected, and everything went dark.