Lili St Crow - Defiance

If she hadn’t been killed.

Nathalie’s fingers were quick and deft. She had the whole mess braided in a minute and a half, and her braids didn’t come out the way mine did. No, when she did it, it stayed . Just one of her many talents. I could almost hate her for it, if she wasn’t so cool otherwise.

There was a knock at the door. Nathalie let the braid fall. On the way across the room she drew her nice little baby Glock, keeping it low and ready. She sniffed, too, audibly, as she glided on soft bare feet.

Even when she opened the door, her shoulders didn’t relax.

“Room service,” Christophesaid pleasantly. “You take good care of her, Skyrunner.”

“It’s what I’m here for.” Nathalie slid the gun back in its holster and took the tray. “Do you seek admittance to the lady’s presence, Reynard?”

“Do I dare?” He grinned, rueful, and I touched the vanity’s painted surface. Ran my fingers over the heavy silver comb, the wooden box holding tissues. It felt like sacrilege to set any of my stuff on here. “If the lady is so disposed, mademoiselle .”

“That’s right, you mind your manners.” Nathalie turned smartly on her heel and marched away. “Lock the door, will you? Here, Dru. Your hot milk. And look, sugar cookies. The kitchen thinks you deserve a treat.”

“Sugar cookies?” That perked me right up. Milk and cookies, like I was five years old again. I didn’t mind, tonight. It was actually . . . soothing. To think I was safe here, finally. At last.

“I think chocolate chip might’ve been a better choice, but the kitchen apparently had other ideas.” Nat grinned, a flash of white teeth.

“I’m not even going to ask who does the cooking.” I always wondered, though. What was behind that mask of billowing steam that hid the kitchen’s interior?

“You don’t want to know.” Christophe slid the door shut. “The Broken is bedded down for the night. He’s amazingly amenable. All Robert has to do is invoke your name, and he follows like a lamb.”

Shanks had been slowly getting to know Ash, and they seemed to get along. Kind of. Dibs still refused to go anywhere near Ash if he wasn’t wounded, and a lot of the other wulfen seemed to feel pretty much the same way.

Everyone was waiting for him to go mad and start killing people. Or run back to Sergej.

Nathalie actually shivered. The vanity had plenty of room, so she slid the tray onto it, bumping aside the brush and comb and silver-backed mirror. “Jesus.”

“Quite.” But Christophe was looking at me in the mirror. “How are you?”

I shrugged. It was like he just forgot about Nathalie standing there when he looked at me. I can’t explain it, but if you’ve ever had it happen to you, you know. It’s like someone is trying to look under your skin, like you’re all alone with them no matter who else is in the room.

Like they’re seeing nobody but you, even in a crowd.

I reached for the embossed teapot on the tray, but Nathalie got there first. She poured, taking a long deep surreptitious sniff.

Because wulfen can smell poison. Most of the time.

I rolled my eyes. There were three little porcelain cups on the tray, but I could bet Christophe wouldn’t be taking a little warm milk.

He surprised me, though, by leaning over my shoulder to snatch a cookie. The draft of his apple pie smell was actually soothing. If he was here, nothing could get to me. “No weeping. If you’ve thrown up, you’ve done it privately. You’re a little pale, and you smell of old blood and resignation instead of fresh spill and fear. All in all, you’re taking this quite well.”

Is that a compliment? What do I say? “Gee, thanks”? I picked up a cookie. Perfectly round, perfectly golden, perfectly browned on the bottom. It was kind of nice to bite into it and destroy the perfection. No shortening in these ; I could taste real butter and crunch the sugar crystals. “Yeah.” My stomach tried to close up, but now I was damned if I would let anyone know I felt like heaving. “I guess.”

“Jesus, Reynard, how gruesome can you get?” Nathalie made little shooing motions with both cups. “Go away . Go sit over there and let her have a cup of milk.”

That was another reason to like her. Christophe wasn’t so intense when she was around. She was a layer of insulation, and she ordered him around with such cocky self-assurance I kind of envied her.

Christophe grinned, movie-worthy teeth glinting, and ruffled his fingers across the top of my head before grabbing another cookie and retreating to the bed. Where he dropped down, as if the whole place belonged to him, and proceeded to keep watching me.

I rolled my eyes. Nathalie fussed over me until I ate a few cookies and drank off enough milk to satisfy her. She roamed around unnecessarily putting the room to rights while I sat and ran my fingers over the vanity’s edge, and when she came back to collect the tray I tried not to look relieved.

Sometimes when she pampered me I felt even more like I didn’t belong here. Like someone was going to come in and tell me there had been a mistake and would I please leave now? And I’d find myself on the street outside the Schola, or sitting in that food court in the mall back in the Dakotas, shivering and trying to think of what to do next.

“I’ll be back at five sharp this evening.” She cast a significant glance at Christophe, winked at me. “Behave yourself.”

He waved languidly. Nathalie retreated, the silver dress over her arm and the heavy tray balanced on one spread hand as if it was made of paper. I finished off the last cookie and moved the brush and comb around.

Nat swept the door closed. Christophe slid off the bed and padded across hardwood. He threw the locks, stood for a moment, and nodded. Didn’t put the heavy iron bar in its brackets, though, just retreated to the bed and sank down again with a slight but very satisfied sigh.

I gathered myself up, as Gran would have said. Come on. Ask. I waited until I couldn’t stand it anymore. “So has anyone found—”

He beat me to the punch. “If I had any news about the loup-garou ’s whereabouts, Dru, I would have given it to you immediately. We’re still looking.”

“You wouldn’t think the king of the vampires would be that hard to find.” It was bad-tempered of me, I knew it. I just couldn’t stop myself. “If Ash could find me, he could find Graves—”

“You seem to be the only person Ash is interested in finding.” He didn’t visibly hold on to his temper, but it was close. “America is a big place; he could have your friend hidden in Canada or Mexico, for all we know. Or even further afield. It’s not beyond his power, and we don’t even know that he would keep the loup-garou with him. We’re looking. Finding Anna is challenge enough, but once we find her, we’ll have more of an idea where your friend is likely to be.” He let the sentence die. It was the same thing, said the same way almost every night.

I’d already tried tracking with a map of the US and a pendulum. Even with Graves’s coat—I’d mended the rips and tears in it, sewn up the torn-loose sleeve—spread out under the map, it was no good. There was static interference, the touch just echoing inside my head and the pendulum moving erratically instead of swinging out and locking onto his heartbeat.

I should have known Sergej would have ways of keeping even someone with the touch from finding him, or finding someone he didn’t want found. Of course he would. I hadn’t quite worked up to using my own blood in a finding yet.

That kind of magic leaves traces someone could use to hex you right back. If things kept on like this, though, I might get the courage to even do that . Even if Gran had warned me to never, ever use the red stuff unless someone was gonna die for real, no foolin’, you mind me now Dru .