Chapter 9 #2
He grunted and stood, offering his hand as she stepped into her heels. “No jacket?”
“No.”
Gideon grunted again, gesturing for her to lead the way.
She shivered as they climbed to crooked stone steps to ground level. The day was clear, but frigid. Thank Ghandi there wasn’t any wind, but there was humming. Was that Thaddeus?
Ophelia exchanged a glance with Gideon, and they headed behind the library. The ancient vampire had his back to them, busy at one corner of walled garden. Thorny hedges lined the waist-high stacked fieldstones, and a crumbling fountain stood at the center of the space.
“Mustn’t let the cold in,” he muttered to himself, wrapping thick black paper around a tower of stacked boxes. “Winter is coming,” he giggled.
Great, he was in batshit mode. Ophelia turned to leave and Gideon stopped her. “Ah, Thaddeus? Pardon the intrusion, but if you have a moment?”
“Moments are all we ever have, my dear boy,” he said, fastening the paper with a bungee.
“Life is ever fleeting.” He turned to them and smoothed the tower’s top with a gnarled hand.
“Honeybees, for instance, only live four to six weeks. Less if you’ve been unlucky enough to be born a drone.
Then they chew off your wings and evict you from the hive to die when the queen’s finished with you…
or so they hope.” His smile was gruesome.
Gideon’s brow furrowed. “Ah, yes, that’s fascinating, but—”
“Did you know that each worker has a specialty? Some make up her retinue, others are nurses, guards, foragers, or scouts. Thousands of them teeming within a single hive, bound to a single queen via the pheromones she emits, influencing the entire populace’s behavior.
” Gideon drew a breath to speak, and Thaddeus raised a finger, cutting him short.
“However, those same pheromones also signal when a queen is past her prime. Any idea as to what happens then, child?” he asked Ophelia.
She shook her head, not caring, but she’d been down this road before, and they were in it now. “Nope.”
“The workers secretly create new queens. Several at a time, in hopes she won’t be able to sniff them all out and kill them before they mature.”
Gideon’s lips pursed, and he looked thoughtful. “And if they do?”
“Well, then if all goes well, they swarm, leaving with a portion of the populace and start a new hive somewhere else.” Thaddeus shrugged. “Others follow suit. Eventually, the old queen is left with nothing, and the original hive dies out.”
“And if it doesn’t go well?”
“Ah. One might call that something akin to a failed coup.” His eyes lingered on Ophelia, and the overwhelming desire to run came over her.
“Wow, great, thanks for the National Geographic short. Boy, I am starving. Breakfast?” she asked, tugging on Gideon’s sleeve. He grunted, something passing between the two men before he followed her from the frost-riddled garden.
Ophelia rummaged around in her purse. She had no idea what the fuck all that was about, but she didn’t like it. Whatever. Thaddeus was off his rocker. Why else would he wax poetic about frickin’ honeybees in the middle of February? The stupid things were probably all dead.
Somehow that didn’t make her feel any better.
At this time of the morning, the streets were still, only the odd car passing them. Gideon kept his head down, shoulders rounded and pensive as they walked toward Main Street side by side. Ophelia lit a cigarette, and he glanced over with a frown, never a fan of the habit.
Oh fucking well. It wasn’t like it was gonna kill her. She blew out a stream of smoke with a little shimmy in his direction. He didn’t quite smile, but the edges of his eyes crinkled like he wanted to.
“Brat,” he murmured, his hungry gaze skating over her. A whisper of desire coiled in her belly at what that endearment had always been prelude to.
What the— Ophelia stumbled as she took another drag, shocked at her body’s response to him flirting. She hadn’t felt that in over a decade. Ghandi, she’d been pretty positive she was totally dead from the waist down. Okay, poor choice of words, Phe.
She swallowed heavily, her steps slowing at the implications and her limbs trembling. Could she…? Her eyes flicked to him, and he coughed into a fist, forcing a smile before he looked away.
“Gideon, I—”
“You said Dam? were rare and cloistered because of their tribal affiliation,” he interrupted. “Why put any of you through that torture? If your tribe was so reviled, why not just kill you as you come into being?”
“I-I’m not sure.” Ophelia frowned, grateful for the reprieve on the chat about her bedroom issues, but not wanting to examine anything Citadel related too closely. “And I really don’t want to talk about it or bees anymore.”
Gideon’s lips pursed. “Fair enough. That’s it up ahead, isn’t it?” He waved a hand at Cups’s pink-stuccoed brick face.
Shit, it looked busier than she would’ve thought for a Tuesday morning, but they were up far earlier than she usually was. “Yeah.” Her voice wavered, wishing she had offered him ramen.
Too fucking late now.
Gideon stepped in front of her and the bell above the door tinged as he held it, his big black trench billowing with the movement.
She paused, taking one more drag before she ground out the butt beneath her stiletto.
Ghandi, she didn’t want to do this. The scant makeup on her face left her feeling far too exposed.
Her pulse ticked up. Gideon raised a mocking brow, like he was daring her to go inside, and she scowled, anger replacing anxiety. She pushed past him and went into Cups.
Gideon attempted to shake off his black mood as he followed Ophelia into the café.
The implications of the little nature special they’d just been privy to were enough to drive him to distraction.
His gut said that Thaddeus was quite mad, but Gideon was also positive it’d been a message.
Unfortunately, that meant that Ophelia’s escape was more than an insult to the Vampire Court, it was a threat.
Kremlyn would be incensed by the loss of his “property,” but Vesper…Vesper would seek to make an example of Ophelia, lest risk more dissent.
Gideon shook his head, the look of shocked terror in her eyes at his flirtatious banter hitting harder after the fact.
He wanted to destroy this entire town and flee with her across the ocean.
Gods, if only she wasn’t pledged to the blasted node.
Vengeful spirits weren’t anything to trifle with, and should she break her covenant, the node’s ire would follow them wherever they might go.
It didn’t help that she was parading around so scantily clothed, and he itched to take her over his knee for smoking, but now wasn’t the time to press the issue.
Not yet anyway.
A yokel standing by the door gave a low whistle as she passed, and Gideon growled. His knuckles whitened as he fought not to jack the man up by his throat and evict him from the premises to beat him bloody.
Given the yokel’s hasty retreat, he was smart enough to clearly read Gideon’s intent.
The door swung shut behind the uncouth delinquent, and Gideon rolled his shoulders beneath his coat.
So much for shaking off his black mood. He breathed through his fury as he took in the establishment.
Like the rest of what he’d seen of the town, it was touristy, but clean and apparently as popular in the morning as it had been last night.
Why, Gideon couldn’t imagine. The decor looked like a cupcake had vomited, yet the kitschy little tables were full, and the line to the counter exceedingly long.
He joined Ophelia at the end of it, his bulk definitely not an asset moving between the clientele. More than one of the tables’ jostled occupants glanced up at him only to look away just as quickly. The hum of conversation dropped, and the feel of eyes on him prickled the back of his neck.
“Is it always this welcoming?” he murmured into Ophelia’s hair as he positioned himself behind her, a hand at her slim waist.
“Oh, this is nothing,” she replied dryly, slightly recoiling at his touch before easing against it. “You should see what it’s like when you’re not here glowering.”
His mood darkened.
The door tinged again as someone else entered. “Chase!” an unfamiliar voice said a moment later at his shoulder.
Gideon turned, and a slim redheaded man in a ridiculously puffy jacket recoiled. “Oh! I’m sorry, I thought—” His eyes fell on Ophelia. “Never mind, even better. Excuse me.” He went to push past, and Gideon thrust out an arm, blocking the man’s progress.
“And you are?” Gideon growled, annoyed at being mistaken for whomever this Chase person was for a second time.
“Gideon, this is Felix Simms, Havers’s mayor,” Ophelia said, a hand on Gideon’s forearm. “And technically, my boss.”
Ah. The warlock who’d reportedly slayed the dragon. Gideon frowned, eyeing the man. Even given how powerful the node was, he found that highly unlikely. “How unfortunate.”
“And here I was about to say the same.” Felix flicked an unruly curl from his eyes, karma sparking in their depths. Perhaps he wasn’t as effete as he seemed.
Ophelia snorted. “Felix, this is Gideon Sperry, Fayet’s prosecutor.”
Felix paled. “You’re here already?”
“Excuse me?” Gideon’s gaze narrowed at the warlock.
“I, uh, can I speak with you for a moment, Ophelia?” Felix asked, his throat bobbing.
“I don’t believe she’s on the clock until after eight a.m., and her eating takes precedence over whatever task you have in mind,” Gideon growled.
Ophelia glanced between them. “Um, can it wait until after breakfast?”
“No. No, I don’t think it will.” Felix sucked in his cheeks. “Ryland showed up about an hour ago with…cargo in tow.”
They both looked at Gideon, the tables around them suspiciously quiet. He had the sudden urge to create a scene.
“Oh.” Ophelia’s hand tightened on his forearm and she wet her lips. “I’m assuming said cargo wants a lawyer?”
“Mmm. You would be right.” Felix said, the spry man’s body language all but telling Gideon to fuck off.
Ophelia’s eyes flicked to his, and Gideon’s knuckles whitened at her unspoken request for him to give them a moment. Fine. He stepped around them to the tchotchke-laden counter, beyond irritated at the man’s gall. Work should not cut into Ophelia’s personal time.
“A bottle of water, two black coffees, a breakfast special, and garlic bagel with cream cheese, smoked salmon, and extra capers,” he said to the frumpy woman at the register, handing her his platinum card. “Actually, add a cheese danish to that.” Ophelia needed the calories.
The cashier did a double take at him, then shook her head before she swiped it.
That was getting old, fast. So was the franticly whispered conversation between Felix and Ophelia. The muscle in Gideon’s jaw jumped and he breathed through his temper.
“For here or to go?” the cashier asked, handing his card back.
“To go,” Ophelia said, joining him. “Have you checked your phone?”
“No. I’m not on the clock yet, nor are you.” He shot a pointed look at Felix putting in his order, and the man blatantly ignored him.
Ophelia gave a long suffering sigh. “Gideon, please.”
He frowned and pulled the annoying device from his jacket pocket.
He’d silenced the blasted thing after that last call with Vesper.
There was a single alert from the Justice Detainee Information System.
He frowned, the lack of anything else gnawing at him.
He scrolled through the alert, his brow rising.
It appeared that the “cargo” Felix had mentioned was one Patrick Montgomery.
He’d been taken into custody and booked at the Havers County Jail roughly an hour ago.
Gideon was certain the Vampire Court would’ve gotten the same alert and arranged for someone to run point.
Patrick Montgomery was too important to the case to do otherwise.
That they hadn’t pinged Gideon to do so spoke volumes.
They knew he was turning on them and were cutting ties.
He re-pocketed his phone, his mind churning.
“Anything?” Ophelia asked, turning from the counter with a drink tray and a to-go bag.
He caught the eye of a woman eavesdropping, and she quickly looked away. “No, which is worrisome. Shall we? My car’s right outside, and I’m assuming we’ll need to drive.”
Ophelia wet her lips. “Drive?”
“Mmm,” he hummed, taking his coffee and the bag from her, then ushering her toward the door. “I believe it would be wise to take a detour to Havers County Jail.”
“Actually, it’s more of glorified drunk tank,” Felix piped from right behind them as they left the café. “You mind if I tag along?”
“Yes,” Gideon said, pulling Ophelia to his side as he took a sip of his coffee. It was far better than he’d expected.
She shot him a look, and his temper mellowed at her annoyance. “But don’t let that stop you,” she said sweetly to Felix.
The warlock glanced between them. “Okay, so, how long have you two been fucking?”