Page 87 of Mortdale

“The Greyvale emissary who lives in Mortdale went through the passage records for me. Ignatius’s daughter had gotten through Grayvale across the Faegard border.”

“What was she doing in Faegard?”

His gaze rolled past my face and down my body. “Not even a clue. Their emissary has come up empty handed every time I’ve inquired.”

“You think this might stop the war?”

“Hardly. Ignatius is an extremely distrusting, grieving old man. But this might hold him off a little longer until I can prove everything to him.”

“How will you do that?”

“I got permission to enlist a few lycans under the alpha’s service to track down his daughter’s remains.”

“That’s impressive for someone who was not raised in politics.”

“No politics involved. Favours, on the other hand,” he said, blowing a cloud of smoke above us and setting the cigarette between my lips. His eyes latched onto me, watching me take a long drag. Just as he pulled the cigarette away from my lips, he leaned in, breathing in all the smoke leaving my parted mouth and capturing it in a brief, sharp, wet kiss. “Feeling better?”

I nodded, feeling my nipples tighten against the cold air. “Can I have your jacket?” I asked, reaching to lower my dress that was still bunched up against my hips.

His brow was pressed against my temple. With his face buried in my hair, he said, “I’m sorry.”

“What for?”

“That you were saddled with an old, selfish vampire.”

“You’re not that old,” I yawned, resting my heavy head against his shoulder. “And you love your little girl too hard to be selfish.”

My tongue must have loosened up when his fingers had been inside me because I said, “I can…I can help you, too.”

He swallowed hard, breathing even harder. “I don’t want you to touch me.”

Oh.

Every limb in my body went into rigor. “I’m sorry, I didn't…I don’t know why I said that,” I stuttered, pushing up from his lap and quickly putting his jacket on before settling across from him.

He ran a hand over his face as he shook his head. “Willow, you don’t know what you’re saying. There’s still epimedium in your blood. I—”

At that moment the carriage came to a stop, and I shot out. My feet couldn’t carry me quickly enough to my room, ignoring all his calls. Only when I had myself locked in my bedroom did I sink against the smooth grain and bury my face against my knees, letting the darkness around me swallow me whole.

Chapter 16

Logan

She’d been pacing around the garden all day with a ball of cotton stuck up her nostril. Currently laying with her arms spread open on the grass, holding a black parasol over her head while Piper plucked an extensive amount of my expensive grass and flower petals to throw over her pliant body. Since the Cleansing, she’d stopped going to the library, snooping around the mansion, digging for answers in Theodora’s kitchens, and had taken to talking to herself in dark corners of my property. Our property, as she liked to remind me.

All this told me I should regret what I’d done to her in that carriage, but I couldn’t. Even though she seemed to have regretted it. Even though she’d told me she wanted me. As far as schemes went, she was pretty good at them and I was as good as caught. Willing prey at best.

The plants and charred soot Henry and Arthur had collected from the Basilica grounds sat in a jar submerged in a bigger jar on the other side of my study. After she’d prepared her herby concoctions and made a salad of herbs, salts, and meticulously-tied threads of various colours, lit a dozen candles around them, and carefully hand-drawn runes on the glass, she came by twice a day to check on them. And she chose the specific hour when I was not here to do so.

“Look at me,” I murmured to myself, leaning against the balcony balustrade. “Come on, just look at me.”

And whatever God there was, it must have heard me. Because she rolled on her side, and finally noticed me standing there.

Frozen still, she stared at me wide-eyed as a trail of blood slid down her cheek and dripped on the grass.

What was I even doing?

I had to tell her why I couldn’t have her. That I couldn’t afford to give Ulric any opportunity to get what he wanted from us. But I’d have to admit the truth about the worst part of my existence. She was the last person I wanted to see me how they all saw me. And if I’d relented to her request that day, in her state, she would have regretted it even more than she already seemed to. Her desire had been drug induced, I’d tried to convince myself. Because I was not a better man; I’d wanted her to touch me.