Lili St Crow - Reckoning

“ Anna is a spoiled child. She’s never grown up.” Amazingly, Bruce almost snarled, his lip lifting and white fangs flashing for just a moment, the aspect curling through his hair. “But speaking of that doesn’t help this situation. We didn’t find her body, or Anna’s, but we’re still looking. The whole place is a mess.” He took a deep breath, shoving the aspect down. “If he had both of them, we would know. He would be walking in daylight and we would be under siege.” Bruce’s dark eyes glittered. He looked like a wreck, too—his clothes were singed and torn, one half of his face deeply bruised, and he slumped wearily. “Please, Reynard. The Order needs you .”

“ My little bird needs me more. I told you, keep her safe and you have my allegiance. This? This is not safe.” Christophe straightened, and now I could see his clothes were in rags too. Vampire blood smoked on him, the steam rising hard to see because of the fume of rage covering him .

“ We don’t even know—” Bruce began, helplessly, his hands spread. Trying to smooth the waters, like he always did .

Christophe rose with slow, dangerous grace, balanced on the very edge of the roof. “I know. If she was dead, ibn Allas, I would be, too. I would kill them all until they dragged me down. My heart is still beating, therefore , she is still alive.” The lines on his face smoothed out. The gleam closed itself up in his fist, fingers clenching, his face settling into chill certainty .

If he’d ever looked at me this way, I would’ve never let him touch me. I would have been too busy backpedaling and getting out of his way .

“ Give us time. We’ll help, we’ll bargain with the Maharaj —”

“ Don’t mention the djinni-children to me; they don’t care for our troubles.” Christophe laughed, a bitter little chuckle. “And your help gave Leontus the chance to betray her. I took you at your word, Bruce. I believed you when you said he would guard her all the more carefully because of Eleanor’s death. I believed him .”

“ I believed him too!” Bruce yelled, but it was too late. Christophe had already leapt, straight off the ledge, plummeting into the screaming wind —

I sat straight upon the loveseat, my fingers clawing at empty air like I was going to grab Christophe’s sweater and pull him back. One of Gran’s quilts slid to the floor in a heap. I did actually throw myself backward, hitting the high hard back of the loveseat and giving myself a good jolt.

Graves tore out of the sleeping bag and leapt to his feet. Sometime during the night he must’ve crept downstairs, because he was on the floor next to the loveseat. My heart hammered, pounding in my throat, and my fangs tingled. For one nightmarish moment I didn’t know where I was, and the scream caught in my throat.

The deep thrumming rattling everything not nailed down was a growl. It came from Graves’s chest, and his eyes were wide, green, and blank. The Other—the thing wulfen use to change and loup-garou use for mental dominance—rippled under his skin, his shoulders bulking up as he hunched them, ready for attack.

I clapped my hand over my mouth. The touch throbbed inside my head, little invisible fingers soaking in the anger radiating from him in red-violet waves. Beyond that, the glow of the wards sparked, bright blue. Out in the meadow, nothing. Just static, the formless buzz of the country before your ears adjust and start hearing the wind and the crick and the animals again. It’s like they have to shift between city and country tuning.

Morning sunlight filtered through the shutters, bars of gold with dust dancing in them. Graves’s growl petered out. He half-turned, glanced at me with that empty green-glowing gaze, and for the first time since I’d met him, Goth Boy looked completely dangerous.

I swallowed, hard. “I’m okay,” I managed through my clenching fingers. “I just . . . I had a dream.” About Christophe . The words stuck in my throat. “Jesus. What are you doing ?”

He just stood there. The anger leaked away, bit by bit. Sense stole back into his mad green eyes, and for a moment I wondered why I wasn’t scared of him, especially since he looked ready to rumble.

I mean, I was apprehensive , yeah. But he hadn’t been fixing to hurt me. No, he’d been focused on the door.

In case something was coming through it.

Something like that makes you think. It really does. Unfortunately, I couldn’t figure out what I was supposed to think about it.

Graves eyed me sidelong for a long while. Finally, the last of the anger died down. I saw it creep back into him, sinking under his caramel skin. You couldn’t see the marks of torture on him anymore, and the anger was something new.

Not anger. Rage. He didn’t have that before . I was the one who had that before .

I guess being tortured by vampires will do that to you. Guilt bit me hard, deep inside my chest, again. “Graves?” It was hard to talk, because my fangs were out and my hand was clapped so tight over my mouth I could barely move my lips.

I didn’t want him to see. To remember that he’d seen me with my face in Anna’s throat, drinking her blood.

He crouched, suddenly, and his hands moved. I almost flinched before I realized he was smoothing out the sleeping bag. “Nothing. Not doing nothing.”

A high dull flag of red stood up on each sculpted cheek under a screen of dark stubble. The stubble was pretty new; he’d been a smooth-cheeked boy when I’d met him. He still needed a few meals to replace muscle mass; wulfen metabolism burns pretty hot to fuel the change. It would burn in him to give him their strength and speed, even though he wouldn’t get hairy.

Not much, anyway. No more than any regular boy.

The tingling through my fangs receded. I finally peeled my hand away as he started rolling the bag up. My hair was probably sticking up all over, but I felt loads better. Not even stiff, but as if I’d taken a deep, refreshing nap. And there was the quilt—he must’ve brought it downstairs and covered me up. I searched for something to say. “You didn’t, um, want to sleep upstairs?”

Way to go, Dru. State the obvious .

“No.” The rage flushed through him again, retreated. “I didn’t.”

The touch was stronger now, and if it wasn’t for Gran’s training I probably would’ve been seriously disturbed by how strongly his anger rang in my skull. “Graves—”

Now why did I sound breathless?

“Look.” He finished rolling up the sleeping bag, snapped the elastic loops over it, and glared up at me. “I know I’m just a loup-garou , all right? I know . I’m just the deadweight holding you down. You dragged me along and I’m glad about that. I’m even glad I got bit by that thing up there. I handled everything they threw at me, and told him to go fuck himself more than once. Sergej .” He all but spat the name, and his face twisted up, bitterly. “So quit treating me like a little kid, Dru. I ain’t been a little kid for years. I’m not as Billy Badass as some of those stuck-up djamphir , but I’m learning and I’ll be hell on wheels when I’m done. You won’t ever have to worry again.”

Where did that come from? My jaw had dropped. I stared at him. What the hell?

“You don’t think I can hack it.” He leapt to his feet, carrying the sleeping bag with him. He’d slept in his coat, too, and it flapped as he moved. I’d stitched it up, clumsily, and now I was wishing I’d done a better job. “Well, I’ve got news for you. I already have. Whatever it takes to make you see, I’m gonna do it. You get me?”