“What do you know about Hemlock House and Oleander Cottage?” I asked Ares, keeping my voice soft as I took my headphones off.
He looked up, taking his glasses off so he could see me. Apparently, he only needed them for reading. “Hemlock House was the first official Necroline property in Orphium. Roman is actually the one who sold it.”
Of course, I knew that already. It was why I asked. “Would you ever buy the property back?”
Ares sat back in his chair, narrowing his eyes at me. “Maybe. But Oleander Cottage is the real problem. Even I couldn’t exorcize the spirits haunting that place. Roman had me try twice before he sold it.”
Ares held my gaze for what might be an uncomfortably long amount of time for someone else, but simply lit a fire in my core that reopened the smut factory, as I imagined what we’d do together tonight. He was definitely going to wear those glasses while we did it.
“I always thought Eryx could do it, though. But Roman insisted that he go nowhere near the place,” he continued. “I got the impression he had higher information on the matter.”
“A spirit?” I asked.
Ares shook his head. “No, a Seer.”
I made a noncommittal noise in reply. Without moreinformation, it was futile to speculate on what a Seer might or might not have predicted.
“Why do you ask about the houses?”
I shrugged, turning my screen towards him. “Rhiannon wants to buy them. They’re expensive, but we have more than enough, especially if we drain the last of the funds from the Consulate.”
Explosives were expensive. The account that had once seemed like it would last forever was practically gone, and I wasn’t the least bit sorry about it.
Ares nodded. “It would be a good buy. If anyone could survive Oleander Cottage, it would be you.” His tone was clipped.
Fear rose up inside me, dousing the heat that had mounted in me only moments before. I knew I should ask what was wrong if I wanted to know, but like a coward, I couldn’t seem to form the words.
All the sex we were having was divine, but the more he fucked me, the more fearful I became. We’d been screwing like wild hares every chance we got, but I thought it was leading to more. If it wasn’t, I might die of shame, I wanted him so much. It would be just like me to let love finally be the thing that killed me.
Love?Terror dug its claws into me. I couldn’t think like this.
Instead, I asked a less controversial question than “what’s wrong?” “Did you want to buy them?”
He’d gone back to his spreadsheet and looked up again with a little sigh. He sounded so annoyed with me, but I truly couldn’t say if it was in my head or if he actually was irritated with me. “Not at all. Have at it.”
And with that, he went back to typing. I tried telling myself that he was in the middle of something important. That this very likely had nothing to do with me whatsoever and not to make everything about me. But rational thought wasn’t actuallyhelpful in moments like these. I was so used to rejection, so prepared for it, that I saw it everywhere I looked.
It wasn’t that I didn’tknowthat. It was that no matter how hard I thought about it logically, I couldn’t make it go away. Tears filled my eyes, but I couldn’t cry. Not here. Not in front of him, when he would soften at the sight of my sorrow and confuse me all the more.
I bit back my emotions, shoving them as far back inside myself as they would go. I didn’t want to dwell, so I shot off several text messages and finished answering my emails. Now that Rhiannon and Lara were back, the Consulate wanted us on several new jobs. I was having trouble fending them off. We couldn’t take any commissions from them right now. My phone buzzed back almost immediately, and I let myself become engrossed enough in my communications that the edgy feeling I had about Ares faded into the background.
Rhiannon and Avaline swept in. They’d spent the morning working on alterations for what everyone would wear to the Gala, and they had the invitations that Ares had procured for them. They were stolen from some human aristocrats who were vacationing in Palladiere this weekend, our only bit of cover for the night, as our group would be recognized immediately upon arrival.
I felt guilty for feeling jealous that I didn’t get to dress up for my part in things, but such was life. Still, I wasn’t keen on watching the fashion show they obviously had planned, so I excused myself to go to the training room to check my weapons for the thousandth time.
Lara was there already, weighing swords as though one of them might magically become the weapon she wanted most. “Hey,” I said softly, not wanting to startle her, even though I was sure she heard me coming.
She replaced the sword on the rack and turned to me. Apparently, she and Briony had been shopping, because Lara wore the same brand of sweatsuit the teenager wore, just inblack. I sat down on the floor, leaning against the floor-to-ceiling mirrors, and watched the rain fall outside the window.
“Are you going to leave after we get the swords back?” I asked Lara. It was so much easier to be straightforward with her than it was with Ares.
Lara sat next to me, leaning against the mirror. “No.” I nodded, and we sat in silence for several long moments. “Sorry, I’ve been a bitch about pretty much everything since I got out of the Asylum.”
“Me too,” I replied. “Sorry you’re such a bitch, I mean. I’m not sorry about anything.”
Lara laughed, a sweet, rich sound. Her smile transformed her face from stoically handsome to absolutely dazzling.
“Do you want to talk about it?” I asked. “The Asylum, I mean. I haven’t asked because I wanted to give you time, not because I don’t care.”
