Chapter 22
It had been a very long time since Yasmine last had guests over for dinner.
Eight hundred years, give or take. She just hadn’t been in the mood for the last several millenium. But as she smoothed her hand over her old tablecloth, she realized with discomfort that she was not brimming with dread at the prospect.
Which was really odd, because technically this entire dinner party was designed for her to figure out who might have torched her house.
She was inviting over suspects at worst; long-standing rivals at best. Not friends.
But maybe that was why she felt some excitement about it; it was the adrenaline of unveiling an attempted murderer, as if she were a bisexual blood-sucking Sherlock Holmes.
That had to be it. What was the alternative? That her dried corpse of a personality was suddenly climbing out of its coffin and enjoying a night of small talk? She’d been disinterested in society for millennia. What could be different now?
“Ms. Sokolov? Ms. Dragomir has arrived early.”
Yasmine looked up from the table. A very harried Rebecca was standing by the doorframe, holding a clipboard to her chest.
Bags had formed under her assistant’s normally taut eyes.
It took a lot to get Rebecca to look visibly exhausted—she was practically a Marine when it came to maintaining a good work-life balance—but then again, organizing a dinner party for immortal killers is not the most straightforward project management task.
But Yasmine thought she’d done a swell job preparing the appropriate security measures—mostly by putting Sylvia and Aster up at a nearby hotel, and ensuring they were on speed dial.
They were strictly not invited to join the actual dinner, but they had unfettered access to room service and a hired babysitter, so she doubted they minded.
“Of course she is,” Yasmine muttered, wishing her mood mimicked her tone. Honestly, she was relieved.
She needed to see her.
Originally, Yasmine wasn’t going to invite Bella either. But last night, Bella had called her and insisted on coming. It was strange. She hadn’t sounded like herself over the phone: her tone was blunt, clipped. Yasmine had tried not to worry about it.
She’d failed.
“Go, go. Stop that. I’ll finish the table for you,” Rebecca said, roughly yanking the cutlery out of Yasmine’s hands.
Yasmine laughed at her brusqueness. “What’s with the urgency?”
Rebecca turned to look at her with a frown. “I fear that Bruce has cornered Ms. Dragomir into conversation.”
***
As a rule, vampires were not very obedient individuals.
Even the most dense amongst them eventually realized that society was nothing more than a well-marketed pyramid scheme, in which only those at the top derived any real value. After coming to that conclusion, well, it’s hard not to step outside the career ladder, and start building your own pyramid.
But there existed some vampires which, like many humans, were simply not capable of scheming. Or plotting.
Or being in charge of their own affairs whatsoever.
Bruce was one of those vampires.
“...And that’s when Ms. Sokolov grabbed me off of the other guy at the bar and said— ‘Aye, Bruce, you’re better than this. You got potential.’”
The thick Boston accent carried down the hallway, and Yasmine winced.
She couldn’t really blame him for telling the (severely distorted) story of how they met. He so rarely got the opportunity to talk to other vampires. What she could blame him for was his insultingly bad impersonation of her.
Bella’s laugh split Yasmine from her thoughts like a lightning strike. It was full-bodied, genuinely cheerful. Her shoulders sagged with relief just at the sound of it.
As she turned the corner, she quickly got confirmation of what she’d heard.
The pair of them were standing under the massive steel doorway that separated the foyer from the courtyard.
Bella, dressed in a low-cut, glittering silver gown, was bent over in a fit of laughter.
Bruce, five foot seven but as big as a bear, was wearing a gleaming, victorious smile that Yasmine could unfortunately relate to.
She felt a flare of something in her gut.
If you’re jealous of Bruce, you’ve officially lost it.
“Ms. Sokolov!” Bruce said, arms outstretched as if he were going to welcome her in for a hug. Fortunately, he knew better, and dropped them. “I was just telling Ms. Dragomir here how you’re a real saint. One of God’s best.”
“I don’t know about that,” Yasmine muttered, embarrassed by the praise. “All I did was stop you from dying an embarrassing and preventable death.”
“Exactly! You saved me! Like Mother Teresa!”
Yasmine gave him a placating smile. Another thing about Bruce—even in light of his undead immortality, he had remained an adamant Catholic. She admired his faith. It sounded nice to believe in something good happening at the end of all of this.
Bella laughed again, making Yasmine’s chest tighten. She found herself unable to look at the other woman for a second, frozen for some unknown reason. It felt a bit like preparing yourself to stare into the sun.
“Gosh, you really do have a habit of picking up stray dogs,” Bella said, forcing Yasmine to finally acknowledge her. “Here I thought I was special.”
Yasmine flushed at Bella’s small, coy smile.
Dressed in their lab coats and focused so intently on their research, Yasmine had managed to somewhat ignore Bella’s general face and body for the last week.
Now it was impossible.
She was dressed like a Y2K take on a medieval princess: miniature silver swords were dangling from her ears; a small chain necklace lay over her clavicle with a diamond at its center; her heels looked sharp enough to stab a man.
Yasmine forced her eyes upward with the last vestiges of her dignity.
“You’re not a stray dog,” she said. “You’re more like one of those ravens that starts following a human around and gifting them marbles and sticks.”
“Wow, that’s exactly what every lady wants to hear. Thank you.”
Unable to help herself, Yasmine cracked a smile. Bruce carefully shut the door behind Bella, and asked for her jacket, which Bella supplied. As he turned to tuck into the coat closet, Yasmine and Bella began to walk back down the hallway, towards the main room.
“That accent is wonderful,” Bella said. “He must be a young one.”
Grateful for something inconsequential to talk about—hoping it might act as a neutralizing force to the warmth she was feeling—Yasmine nodded.
“Early eighteen hundreds. One of the guests tonight, Charlie Smith, was actually the one to turn him. That’ll be a fun reunion.”
“Oh, the drama.”
“Don’t expect much. I doubt either one of them remembers. They got in a drunken fistfight over the modern equivalent of fifteen dollars, and Charlie was so shitfaced that he tried to drink from Bruce. He ended up turning him instead.”
“Spectacular,” Bella laughed. “What were you doing there?”
Yasmine’s brows furrowed. “At a bar? Why? I drink.”
“Please. I know you drink. I’m a victim of your dreadful taste in alcohol,” Bella said, to Yasmine’s offense. “I just didn’t think you, like, hung out. Especially with other vampires. You don’t even meet up with Sylvia and Aster outside of their living room.”
Yasmine huffed. “Well, there was a time when I thought Charlie Smith and I might…” She shook her head. “It’s not even worth discussing. He’s an imbecile.”
Bella’s feet halted on the carpet. Yasmine sighed, turning toward her, already annoyed. They did not have time for this inevitable round of teasing.
Even though she’d arrived early, Yasmine wanted as much time as possible to discuss the books she’d had sent over from Pennsylvania before the guests began to arrive. Her ravenous curiosity had been killing her ever since their conversation.
To Yasmine’s surprise, though, Bella didn’t tease her. She just looked sort of… startled. Taken off guard.
“Seriously? How long were you dating for?”
Yasmine’s eyebrows furrowed. She was stunned that she cared.
“That’s what I’m saying,” she replied. “We didn’t.
He sent me an invitation to court me, I denied it.
He sent another one. Same answer. Eventually, after twenty attempts, I gave in, and joined him at the bar.
That was the first time I met him. He tried to kiss me, I turned away, and then in retaliation he got himself drunk enough to turn the innocent village clown immortal. I could never forgive him for that.”
“Oh.”
Bella softened. She looked as if she had been about to throw up, only for the nausea to suddenly pass. She shook her head, and walked back to Yasmine.
She slid her hand around the cuff of Yasmine’s sleeve, making a show of ironing it out. “Good,” she said. “You deserve to be with someone more honorable than that.”
There was something unusually melancholic in the way she said it. It made Yasmine’s stomach tighten.
“Maybe. But tragically, I don’t tend to like honorable people,” she said, thinking of Sylvia. “If I really wanted to date someone honorable, I would date Bruce.”
Bella rolled her eyes. Her fingers slipped under Yasmine’s sleeve onto the bare skin of her forearm, where her fingers began to massage idly. It made Yasmine swallow.
“Maybe you should.” Bella shrugged. “He might be good for you.”
Yasmine’s heart thudded as Bella’s fingers plied softly into her skin. What was she doing? They didn’t have time for this. And it was not making Yasmine’s life easier.
“In what possible way?” she replied. “I don’t think we have any mutual interests.”
Bella withdrew her hand, and Yasmine missed the contact with a scathing, unprompted sadness—only for Bella to slide both hands around Yasmine’s waist a moment later. She studied Yasmine’s eyes with a thoughtful frown.
“Shared interests don’t necessarily make or break a relationship.”
Yasmine sucked in a breath. It didn’t feel like they were talking about Bruce anymore. She didn’t know what they were talking about, frankly.