Chapter Twenty-Two #2
Beckham clenched his hands into fists. “Leave us out of it. Leave Lyra out of it.”
Ah, the real problem.
“Lyra came to us,” Graves said. “She inserted herself into what we were doing.”
That had Beckham swinging around with fury on his harsh features.
He looked terrifying in the moonlight. The shadows devoured his face as he all but snarled at them, “Do you think me an idiot? I know that you pursued her because of her connection to us and allowed her to continue in your dangerous games for your own amusement.”
Reyna put herself between them. “Enough. We talked to Lyra about this already. She made her own choices, Becks. I was younger than her when you pulled me into your orbit, if you’ll remember.
You can’t raise her on parents who were war heroes and not expect her to go out there and find adventure on her own. ”
Beckham looked like he was still prepared to launch across the room at them. Not a good idea. Graves could handle one vampire. Though, Beckham Anderson hardly looked like the type of vampire anyone wanted to handle.
“We won’t help you,” Beckham said.
“I helped you when you had nothing else,” Graves reminded him.
Beckham moved forward a step. Reyna put her hand against his chest. “Please,” she whispered. Then she put her back to her monster of a husband and lifted her chin. A queen in her own right to the king at her back. “You helped us, but we paid for that help. What will you pay us for our help?”
“What would you like?” Graves asked with a smirk that said he’d already won if they were going to negotiations.
“For Lyra to be left out of this,” Beckham said.
“I cannot control your daughter,” he said.
“Bullshit.”
“I could,” he acquiesced. “But not for long enough and it works best with people who want what I’m making them do. Going against the grain is twice as difficult and more expensive than the information I want from you.”
“What is it that you want?” Reyna demanded.
Graves’s finger slid down a black leather volume with almost glee before he said, “The back way into Visage.”
The room was deathly still at that proclamation.
Visage, once the largest company in the world, employed humans as blood donors to vampires, pairing them with the blood type they were when they were human to curb their baser instincts.
It had gone defunct before Kierse was even born, and her grasp of the history was slight.
But the main building had been bought and repurposed into Amberdash Tower in Midtown, the very place where the party was being held later this week.
“There aren’t any,” Beckham growled.
But Graves wasn’t looking at Beckham any longer. His eyes were on Reyna, whose head hung low. Her eyes were closed, and she sighed heavily.
“There is one,” Reyna corrected.
“What?” Beckham asked, taken aback. “We sealed them.”
“Just one.”
Kierse took another sip of the wine. “Amberdash owns the old Visage building now. The party is in that tower. It will be highly secure.”
Graves nodded at her before continuing, “If you give me access to the old tunnel system, I’ll bring you a dose of what you’ve been looking all over the country for.”
Reyna’s head jerked up in shock. “You have one?”
“It’s probably more valuable than the tunnel system.”
“What’s the catch?” Beckham asked.
“Must there be a catch?” Kierse asked.
Beckham and Reyna exchanged a glance that said there always was one.
Graves tipped his head at them. “I asked too much the last time we worked together. So, why don’t we call it even?”
Beckham went utterly still, but Reyna couldn’t mask her confusion. As if they couldn’t believe that Graves would barter with them seriously. Kierse saw then that they’d been preparing for this meeting as if it was the worst case scenario. To them, it must have been.
They didn’t know Graves the way that she did. The changed man he had become since she met him. This may not be amends for whatever had happened between them, but it was a start.
“He’s serious,” Kierse said before either of them could deny it. She put her hand on his. “He’ll make the trade.”
Reyna met her gaze, and something in her softened. “I’ll show you.”
Graves nodded at her. His eyes lifted to Beckham. “And you?”
“It’s her deal,” Beckham said. “She’s the queen here.”
The hardened manipulator left Graves’s features for a second when he met Kierse’s gaze. The mask slipping as the real Graves broke through the cracked surface. “I know what you mean.”
They shook, and Kierse saw the magic of the geas bind them to the deal. For a second, her head swam with a swift sickness that took her over at the sight of the magic between them.
Then Graves was there with a hand on her back. “Are you all right?”
“I… Yeah,” she said, quickly straightening. She’d learned too long on the streets not to show weakness that to do so in this vampire king’s home was horrid. “Yeah. It’s nothing.”
But fuck, it had hit her so fast. It was the binding. The way the magic had joined them together for their agreement. A consensual agreement and still it had tossed her in a riptide and let her fight for air. She needed to get this under control.
Graves kept his hand on her back as he steered her out of the room. Lyra and Quint stood on either side of the kitchen island as if they were going to spring across and tear each other’s throats out. Or…fuck. One or the other. Or both.
“It was nice meeting you,” Reyna said, offering her hand again as Graves and Beckham spoke quiet threats.
“You, too.”
Reyna tugged her closer for an embrace, her fangs right at Kierse’s supposedly rounded ears. “If I can give you a bit of advice, don’t become a pawn to them. You have to rise above or they’ll devour you.” She smiled like they were old friends when she pulled back. “I hope we see you again.”
“Next week, then,” Graves said, shaking Beckham’s hand.
Then they said their goodbyes to Lyra before taking the elevator down. It wasn’t until they were in the limo again that Graves finally relaxed, slinging an arm across her shoulders.
“That went better than I thought,” Graves said.
“What did you think would happen?”
“I thought he’d throw a punch.”
Kierse laughed. “You were practically asking for it.”
His head fell into her neck, where he pressed a kiss. “Honestly, it’s good to see them happy.”
“Who knew you were a hopeless romantic?”
“Hardly.” His nose brushed against her neck. “You don’t usually see happy endings in my line of work.”
“And for yourself?”
His face was bleak. “Never.”