Suzanne McLeod - The Cold Kiss of Death

My mouth almost dropped open. The Fabergé egg was some cherry!

I’d all but forgotten all about it—probably because I’d never wanted it in the first place, or ever considered it mine. The Earl had given it me during the Mr October thing, not so much as a present, but more a sort of gem-studded blackmail note, an added inducement to get me to take his blood-bond. And while I’d realised it was valuable —it was Fabergé, after all—I’d sort of imagined it was a recent one, or an expensive copy, not a lost original.

And how the hell did Hannah even know about it?

‘Oh and before you say you don’t have it, Genny’—her smile hardened—‘just remember I used to look after the Earl’s business activities. I know he gave you the Fabergé since I arranged its delivery to you myself. On his behalf, of course.’

I narrowed my eyes at her thoughtfully. There was something wrong with what she was saying, only I couldn’t quite work it—

‘I have contacts, Genevieve,’ Hannah carried on, her voice brisk and businesslike. ‘I can arrange for a quick sale at a good price; sixty per cent to you, forty to me, and the services of Darius here whenever you need them.’ Her look turned sly and she touched a finger to the base of my throat. ‘On his own, or, if you prefer, a ménage à trois?’

I didn’t bother answering that one.

‘Here are my details,’ she added, holding out her hand palm up.

Darius produced a card from somewhere, reminding me of a well-trained magician’s assistant. She placed it on the counter next to the G-Zav pills.

‘Call me tomorrow and we’ll set up a meeting to arrange the sale.’ She smiled. ‘I think this could be a very profitable and enjoyable relationship for both of us.’

I stood sipping my vodka and watched them leave, then turned on my computer.

‘The egg’s worth how much?’ Grace spluttered coffee, her brown eyes widening with shock.

I snagged a clean dishcloth from under the sink, rinsed it under the tap and held it out to her. ‘Ten to twelve million quid, if you believe Google,’ I repeated, grinning at her wide-eyed amazement. ‘It’s a Fabergé, after all.’

‘Goddess!’ She blinked, then took the cloth and dabbed thoughtfully at her baggy jumper.

I studied her, worried about how tired she looked. The bruised circles under her eyes and the slight grey tinge to her latte-coloured skin made her look a good five years older than her actual twenty-nine, and her plump shoulders were on their ‘been working too long’ downward slump. I wished she’d take a break and not push herself so hard all the time, only that argument was older than all our more recent ones about me and the vamps. But since my place is nearer to HOPE than her house in Wimbledon, at least she’d agreed to crash with me if she was on back-to-back shifts, rather than camp out in her office at the clinic. Although tonight that plan wasn’t working out too well. When she’d finally got away after her emergency, it was only to end up helping me in my cleaning frenzy as I tried to rid my flat of the nasty lingering presence of my uninvited visitors.

‘It’s a good job the egg wasn’t still here then,’ she said, throwing the cloth into the sink. ‘People have killed for much less than that.’

I snorted. ‘Tell me about it.’

Luckily, the egg was locked away in a bank vault rather than cluttering up my flat, otherwise I’d probably not have seen it again in this life—or much else, once Hannah and her lap-dancing fang-pet had disposed of me.

Fae might be hard to kill, we might live for centuries, but we’re not immortal, and certainly not where that amount of money is involved.

Grace dried her hands and then shoved them into her short, curly hair and shook her head. ‘Grrr, I hate it when things like this happen to you.’ She dropped her hands and narrowed her eyes at me. ‘So, what are you going to do about it, Genny?’

‘I’m not sure yet,’ I said, keeping my tone casual. ‘I suppose try and find out who the egg really belongs to now the Earl’s dead and take it from there.’

‘Which means talking to that vampire, Malik, doesn’t it?’ She pressed her lips together and gave me her concerned look, the one that had disapproval skirting round its edges.

‘Grace, I can’t survive on these.’ I poked at the G-Zav tablets sitting on the counter between us. ‘You know what I was like before I bought the Disguise spell—some days I couldn’t do much more than sit and shake, the cravings got so bad. And I can’t use the spell any more, not now I know the truth about it.’

She gazed at me for a moment, indecision wavering on her face, then sighed. ‘I know you can’t, Genny. It’s not morally right to use someone else’s body like that, not even a vamp’s.’

‘And Hannah Ashby’s little visit on top of all the invites from the vamps sort of means I can’t stall any longer, however much you want me to,’ I said quietly. ‘I need to sort it all out and Malik appears to be the best way.’

‘I’m not disagreeing, not now. It’s just—Oh heck, Genny, you know what the vampires are like, better than I do,’ she said, frustrated, then she threw her hands in the air in reluctant acceptance. ‘What am I saying? Of course you know better than me, you were brought up with them, although Goddess knows what that must have been like.’

‘I’ve told you!’ I gave her a teasing smile, trying to lighten her mood. ‘Not much different from any other child’s whose father is still living according to eighteenth-century Russian aristocratic traditions, with nannies, private tutors, servants, learning how to dance, dressing for dinner ...’

‘Exactly.’ She laughed, sounding slightly dismayed, and crossed her arms. ‘There’s just no way I could ever imagine dinner.’

‘Okay, I admit it,’ I said drily, ‘I was the only one whose meals turned up on a plate instead of on two feet, but hey, I was a kid, I didn’t know any different, so to me that was normal.’

And okay, occasionally someone would get too enthusiastic over their ‘food’, but accidents happen—as Matilde, my stepmother would say—and then the ‘accidental meal’ would continue to walk around—looking confused and a bit misty—even after the ‘leftovers’ had been ‘disposed of ’ ... but nearly everyone has phobias, don’t they? Spiders are Grace’s, mine just happens to be ghosts.

‘And dinner was always very civilised,’ I grinned, just to distract Grace a bit more. ‘Wrists only, of course.’ Which was true; anything else was behind closed doors. My father had strict rules about that. So I’d never seen anything like Hannah and Darius’ vamped-up sex show until my first visit to Sucker Town. My father would have been horrified, same as Grace was when I’d told her about it, albeit for different reasons.

‘Yes, it was so civilised that you ran away when you were fourteen,’ Grace said, her voice still concerned, but with a thread of reproach for my teasing.

‘Yeah, well,’ I sighed, instantly apologetic, ‘as I told you, it wasn’t so much to do with my father as with a mistake he made.’ Like arranging for me to marry another vampire, a future I was utterly happy with, until the vamp turned out to be a psychotic sadist.

‘Are you sure that you’re not making the same mistake with this Malik?’ Her forehead creased with worry.

‘I’m not planning on getting that close to him’—despite the traitorous thoughts my libido occasionally had—no, I was aiming to keep any future association between us at arm’s length. Literally. Malik coveted my blood, had done since I was four; I needed his protection and his venom, so the wrist was as good a meeting place as any. It was what I’d planned to tell him when he next put in an appearance—only now it looked like I’d have to go and find him. Which would give him the upper hand—not such a great negotiating position.