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“I’ll get it!” I headed to the front door. As I swung it open, a short, thin man with brilliant blue eyes was standing there. He was grace, fluid in motion, and his hair looked like he’d just crawled out of bed but it was a good messy. He was in his late forties, perhaps early fifties, but he looked trim and fit. Dressed in a pair of indigo wash jeans with a button-down silver shirt and a black blazer over the top, he was wearing sneakers—seemingly incongruous to his outfit, but when I took the entire picture in, he made it all work. Daniel had two bottles of what looked like very expensive wine under his arm. I nodded for him to enter and he silently slid past me.
Not sure if he’d remember me, I held out my hand to him. “Cousin Daniel? I’m—”
“Menolly. I remember.” He handed me one of the bottles, then took my other hand briefly, pressing my fingers with a light, deft touch. Just as quickly, he let go and looked around. “Am I early?”
“Not to worry—everybody’s just in the kitchen getting ready for dinner. Come on in and meet the gang.” I wasn’t sure just how he’d react when he realized he was talking to a dragon, a youkai, a demon, an incubus, and whoever else might be hanging around. But we might as well test him out and see how much he was able to stand.
As I escorted him into the kitchen, I put the bottle I was carrying on the table and he followed suit. Camille and Delilah gave delighted little waves. I grinned. Suddenly, it seemed so very cool to have our very own FBH cousin in the room with us.
“You know Camille and Delilah. But the rest—this is part of our extended family.” I turned to Smoky, getting ready to introduce him.
But Daniel surprised us all. He interrupted with a flourish. “Smoky—I hear rumors you might be a dragon? And you”—he turned to Vanzir—“you are some sort of demon, I believe. And unless I miss my guess—Morio, is it? Camille’s second husband and a youkai? And Trillian—her third? A Svartan, I gather. You are all lucky men.”
As he went around, getting everybody’s name and background right, including Hanna’s, I stared at him, openmouthed. How the hell did he know who everyone was? Something about his easy familiarity unsettled me. We needed to figure out just how our cousin was privy to all our secrets.
Chapter 10
“How the hell do you know who everybody is?” Camille beat me to it.
Daniel grinned. “I have my ways. Trust me, I know how to find out what I need to know. And I choose to never go into a situation without knowing everything I can about what it is I’m getting into.” He pointed to the wine. “I hope you like it—I wasn’t sure what to bring.”
I noticed Vanzir slipping out of the room, after a guarded stare at Daniel. He saw me watching him and shrugged, arching one eyebrow, then vanished around the corner and I heard the door close behind him.
Absently picking up one of the bottles, I glanced at the label. Château d’Yquem, 1944. Fuck, this must be one hell of an expensive wine. I glanced up at Daniel. “This looks… I’m not familiar with Earthside wines—for one thing, I can’t drink them. For another, even though I own a bar, I’ve never seen this brand.”
Daniel smiled. “Only the best for my newfound cousins. I have a few bottles of that tucked away.”
Replacing the bottle on the table, I gave him a tight smile. Something felt off here. I glanced at Camille, and she, too, had an odd look on her face.
Morio smoothly interjected himself between Daniel and me. “So why don’t you come on into the living room? Camille, escort your cousin in while I bring some appetizers.” And just like that, he maneuvered Camille over to Daniel’s side and had them walking through the foyer. He caught my eye, nodding for me to wait.
As soon as the pair vanished, Trillian motioned me over to his side, where he was getting ready to take the steaks out to the grill.
“He’s got some game going. I can feel it. Nothing demonic, nothing like that, but he’s playing a line and I have no idea what it is. That wine he brought?” He pointed to the bottles. “I know that brand, believe it or not. And that year? Those bottles? Each easily costs around thirty-five hundred dollars.”
I coughed and Delilah blinked and let out a soft “mew.”
Smoky sidled up. “Not only that, but his outfit? Might look casual but that jacket is expensively made and well tailored.”
“Right.” Trillian nodded. “Your cousin has deep coffers and I’d like to know how he got them. If I remember right, he said he’s a personal shopper? Newsflash: Personal shoppers don’t make much money.” And with that, he picked up the platter of steaks and vanished out to the porch.
I glanced at Delilah. “Okay, then. We find out what he does. Say, where did Vanzir disappear to? I saw him skulk out of here.”
“Not sure. But you know, I don’t think we want Daniel seeing the documents that are on the coffee table. I’m going to go gather them up.” Delilah made a beeline for the living room but I was faster. She was right—we didn’t need him nosing around in what we were doing.
But we needn’t have worried. By the time we got there, Camille had managed to seat him well away from the sofa and the computer. I reached the living room seconds before Delilah, but since she was better with tech than I was, I let her slide behind the computer. She quietly shut it down and gathered up the sheaf of papers, moving them to the corner desk, along with the laptop. I was watching Daniel. He knew something was up; he followed her with his eyes, his gaze landing on the computer, then darting away to once again pick up the thread of the conversation in which Camille was engaging him.
“So, Daniel, do you work out of your home?”
I recognized that tone of voice. Camille had unleashed her glamour. I glanced sharply at her and she flickered a smile to me. She knew. She knew something was up.
Startled, Daniel leaned away, his eyes flashing. A fraction of a second later, he relaxed and gave her a slightly dreamy smile. “You might say that. I don’t have a storefront, if that’s what you mean, though I do have a private office where my… clients can reach me.” Another second and the wariness was back. He was fighting her charm, that was for sure.
“So have you and Hester Lou always lived around here?” I had my own glamour, and cousin or not, I poured it on thick. Time to throw him off the track.
Again, a look of brief confusion crossed his face, but he shrugged and relaxed even further. “We were both born in Shoreline. I served a stint with the ISA, then left and moved back here. Hester bought her coffee shop well over fifteen years ago and it’s been going strong ever since. She caters to the lesbian crowd, and they have a lot of disposable income around here.”
After being Earthside long enough, I would normally have bristled at the lesbian crowd reference, but he said it in such an offhand way that there was no way I could take offense. But the mention of the ISA—the International Security Alliance—was what really caught my attention.
