Linus is here, so I’m okay. That was my first thought. I’m at Lethe’s came in a close second.
Poor Woolly must have been so lonely without us there, but we had to get out from under the cleaners’ feet while they did their job.
“You’ve been out.” I yawned and turned onto my side. “Where did you go?”
“How can you tell?” He capped the low-odor marker and waited. “You were asleep when I left.”
“I got used to sleeping alone for long stretches.” I shifted onto my side. “You haven’t successfully sneaked out on me in about fifteen or sixteen months.”
Concern pinched his brow as he set the marker aside. “I could sleep in my—”
“Nope.” I leveraged up on my elbow and flopped onto his chest, forcing him to put away the book. “You’re staying in my room, with me.” I kissed his shoulder through his tee. “I’ll get back in our old rhythm now that you’re here to stay. It’ll just take time.” Snuggling closer, I exhaled a happy sound. “You smell like fertilizer. Did you bury someone in the backyard?”
A chuckle moved through him as he tightened his arms around me, but there were graves out there. Just mostly belonging to animals, thanks to the gwyllgi.
“I followed up on the florist responsible for the bronze-dusted bouquet, which, as it turns out, is the outfit you hired for our wedding. I bought you something while I was there and potted it before I came back to bed.” He checked his nail beds. “I thought I scrubbed well enough.”
Linus was in the habit of bribing people for their cooperation, but he wouldn’t veil that as a gift, so Mr. Laurent must have passed muster.
“I’m sure you did.” I smoothed my hand across his chest, hiding my smile against his shirt when his breath hitched the tiniest bit. “Maud used to come in smelling like soil and fertilizer. That’s why it stands out to me. It’s comforting.”
“I find the work soothing.” He returned his hand to me and began a lazy exploration of my collarbone. “It reminds me of her.”
“You look totally and completely calm, but you’re not fooling me. You found out something bad. What is it?” I traced the edge of his jaw. “Take off the mask, Linus. I want to see.”
With a sigh, he did as he was told, and the worry lines around his mouth cut deeper. “It is bad.”
“Hit me.” I pushed up on my elbow to look down at him. “We can get through it. Whatever it is.”
“The cleaners found an avowal in the bottom of the contaminated vase.”
A muscle tremor shook my arm. “And?”
“The blood is his type, and it belongs to a Last Seed.”
“Volkov.” I despised the quaver in my voice. “Do you have the DNA results?”
“Not yet, but I expect confirmation soon.” He angled his head toward me. “A man using Volkov’s name and matching his description placed the order for the flowers. He also tracked down the teen who made the delivery and convinced him the bronze powder was glitter to add sparkle to the bouquet.”
Inhale. Exhale. Inhale. Exhale.
The breathing exercises didn’t help, not as my first meeting with Volkov replayed in my head.
The expensive threads matched his thundercloud eyes, and his wavy hair was so black the moon lent him blue highlights. He strode forward, and I leaned in, two opposite sides of a magnet caught in helpless attraction. His eyes, predator-sharp, searched my face for some unknown revelation. He invaded my personal space, crowding me against the fence. The fragrance of his skin reminded me of old coins and crushed rosemary.
No, no, no.
Linus and I had fought too hard to get here for Volkov to ruin this for me, for us.
“Last I heard, he was in Society custody.” I flopped onto my back, barely restraining the urge to kick my heels into the mattress at the unfairness of the timing when I ought to know better than anyone that life isn’t fair. “Have you tracked him down yet?”
“Bishop called earlier.” Linus shifted toward me. “Volkov was released on his own recognizance.”
“Are you kidding me?” The calm from seconds ago evaporated in a blink. “Any idea how he managed to finagle a free pass? He was supposed to serve one hundred years for his crimes, and it hasn’t been a decade. Not even half that.”
“The amnesty program is the only thing that makes sense, but I don’t have his complete records in hand yet.”
The amnesty program was born from the gaping wound left in Savannah’s heart after the Siege. Vampires who followed my grandfather ran amok, murderous in their chaos, and forced us to evacuate the city. We locked down the borders, but plenty of humans and other supernaturals were unable to evacuate because of finances or their health. Casualties were nowhere near where they could have been, but they were high enough.
Once the city was back under Society control, vampires took some heavy hits in the rights department. As in theirs got violated. Minor crimes ended up with major punishments. Immortal lives were lost. Lots of innocent vampires got tagged for crimes they were later cleared of committing. Thus was the amnesty program born. It allowed vampires who felt their rights had been violated to petition the Lyceum for a reduced sentence or an acquittal. For some, it was their first real trial.
“Your mother would remember signing off on Volkov getting sprung early,” I pointed out. “That’s not the kind of thing that would slip her mind.”
“I believe the papers were forged.” He swung his legs over the edge of the bed. “Mother has a mind like a steel trap.”
“She would have given us a heads-up.” More reason to leave her out of the loop. “Volkov couldn’t have gotten past us if we’d been prepared, and now we are, so…” I smoothed my hands over the sheets until I hooked a finger in the waistband of his pajama bottoms. “We got this.” I popped him with the elastic. “We do got this, right?”
“Yes.” He clasped my hand. “We got this.” He brought it to his lips for a tender kiss. “Even if she wasn’t personally invested in you, in us, she would be bound to uphold the ruling against him. He was tried prior to the Siege. He has no claim.”
“I should have put that together.” I gave serious thought to getting out of bed, but only managed a grunt. “I’m going to blame the fact I just woke up all cold and alone in the dark.”
“You might have slept alone for several hours, but you didn’t wake up that way.” He cocked an eyebrow at me as he stood. “You’re also a necromancer, with excellent night vision.” He spread his hands. “As to the other, I can’t help my core temperature runs lower than—”
“If you offer to sleep in your old room one more time, I will never have sex with you again.”
“Hmm.”
“Don’t hmm at me, mister.”
With deft movements, he shucked his tee and exposed his heavily inked chest to my eagerly wandering eyes.
Dang it.
“That’s not fair.” I crawled across the bed toward him. “You’re using your tattoos against me.”
“You threatened me, I merely retaliated.”
“You threatened me, and I merely retaliated.”