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Big palms spread out large and warm on my shoulders and I dropped my head forward, because it seemed like something nice might happen if I did.
“Hard night?” Louis-Cesare murmured, thumbs going unerringly to the worst spots with just the right amount of pressure.
“I seem to have acquired a vampire servant,” I mumbled into the tabletop. “Who made a Frankenportal system all over the city. That somebody’s using as a dumping ground for dead smugglers.”
He had been working his way up the back of my neck, making gooseflesh rise all over my arms. But at that he stopped. “I beg your pardon?”
I sighed.
“You have a vampire servant?” he asked, apparently deciding to break it down.
“Ray,” I confirmed, without lifting my head. Because I was kind of hoping he’d start up again. “You know how Cheung said we could take him, for all he cared, and he never wanted to see him again?”
“Vaguely.”
“Well, Ray remembered it verbatim. And convinced the Senate that it meant Cheung had given him away. To me.”
“But…you are not a vampire.”
“Yeah, I mentioned that. But Ray checked on it and there’s nothing in the rule books about what species the giftee has to be.”
“Possibly due to it being understood.”
“Mm-hmm,” I said, because he’d started the massage again, and it felt really, really good. Sinfully good. “But understood isn’t stated, which means the Senate can interpret the rule however they like.”
“And they chose to interpret it in Raymond’s favor due to his knowledge of the portal system.”
“Which they thought they might possibly need again. Yeah.” Sticking me on unpaid babysitting duty so Cheung couldn’t reclaim his property.
Typical.
Louis-Cesare was silent for a moment. “Where is Raymond now?”
I shrugged. “Marlowe dragged him off a few minutes ago.”
“But he just released him this morning.”
“Yeah, but that was before bodies started showing up in people’s basements. The Senate wants Ray to help them trace the currents and figure out where they were dumped into the system. They’re hoping for an eyewitness.”
“That seems…unlikely.”
“Uh-huh.” Not least of which because I didn’t think Ray really remembered all his tunnels. He didn’t strike me as an organized kind of guy. He struck me as the kind of guy who’d make a good stoner if he didn’t like money and bitching so much.
Louis-Cesare didn’t ask any more questions, which was fine with me since I didn’t feel like talking. Not with his knuckles pushing gobs of fiery pain up each side of my neck. Up and out, leaving behind a streak of absence-of-pain that was better than pleasure.
And he groaned right along with me.
It should have pisse
d me off, because it almost certainly meant he was picking up on my feelings, if not more. But I was having trouble getting worked up about it. Maybe because it was dark and the fey were singing something soft and sweet on the far side of the yard and the scent of weed was drifting on the air, probably from the same source. Or because the muscles along my spine were slowly liquefying as more pain I hadn’t even known I had was ruthlessly hunted down and pushed out.
I stayed put.
That was even true when a hand made its way up through my hair and over to my hurt cheek. I froze in anticipation of more pain, but the touch was so light, there wasn’t any. And he didn’t move his fingers, so there was no friction. They were cooler than my skin tonight, maybe because he hadn’t fed recently, or because the wound was hotter than my normal body temperature. Either way, they felt good.
They stayed in place for a long moment, as though he was gathering information by touch. And for all I knew, he could do that now. Then, without moving them, he bent his head over my shoulder and kissed the side of my neck.
“No,” I whispered, with no conviction whatsoever.
