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He clears his throat. “Shall we clean ourselves up and return to the party? I have to say, I suddenly feel like I could stay out all night.”
“Me too.” The energy and adrenaline have me feeling so fucking alive.
We get cleaned up, get dressed, and step back into the real world.
4
Absolon
“Mr. Stavig,” Yvonne calls out as I walk down the hall. I pause and she catches up to me, Odin trailing behind her as if he’s her dog now. “That guest you are having over for dinner tonight. Is he human or vampire?”
“Vampire,” I reply.
“So you won’t need me to make you anything?” she asks, and I catch the disappointment wafting from her. I know it must be terribly boring to be a cook for a host of vampires when we rarely ever sit down to eat food.
“I’m afraid not,” I tell her, hoping to placate her with a quick smile. “But if I do need anything, I’ll be sure to let you know.”
That seems to make her happy for now. She gives me a pleasant nod and scampers off toward the kitchen, Odin hot on her heels. I know I shouldn’t be insulted that he’s choosing to spend all of his time with my housekeeper, because I know she’s feeding him scraps, even though she says she’s not. She doesn’t know I can smell it when people are lying.
I can also smell it on Odin’s breath. Keeping him on a raw food diet is proving to be next to impossible in this house.
I ignore his lack of loyalty and head down the stairs toward Dark Eyes, knowing my guest, Onni, could be showing up at any minute. Punctuality isn’t a strong suit among vampires, but jetlag could mess up his schedule.
I walk through the doors, feeling the power of the protective wards brush through me, and spot Wolf closing the door to the Dark Room.
“You manage to find someone on the list?” I ask, nodding at the door.
“There’s always someone,” he says.
Even though we have designated nights for feeding, we operate off a list of trusted human volunteers. I’ll never quite understand why humans want to be fed on when they get nothing out of it, but I don’t judge their fetish either. And if it weren’t for them, the vampires wouldn’t be able to live in San Francisco. A safe place to feed means that vampires can coexist with humans without suspicion. If every vampire had to go out and kill to stay alive, a lot of dead bodies would start piling up, and fingers would start pointing. That’s happened in most cities across the world, but not in this one, thanks to me.
“Glad that his dinner is sorted then. Where’s Ezra?” I ask, adjusting my cufflinks. “Can’t entertain guests without a bartender.”
“He had to go out,” Wolf says. “You could always try your hand at it. I have a hard time believing you weren’t a bartender at some point in your life.”
He gives me his namesake grin and then heads toward the bar to make me a drink.
“You’re correct,” I tell him, following him over to the bar. “I did it briefly in Copenhagen. But only because I was trying to get close to a witch that frequented the bar. My drinks were bloody awful.”
“I have a hard time believing that too,” Wolf says, and from the damn twinkle in his eye I can tell he’s not done with me. He grabs a bottle of Lapraigh from the wall of bottles behind the bar and then grabs a glass. He pops off the cork. “See, it’s easy to do. First you take off the cork, then you pour yourself a glass.”
I stare at him, refusing to be amused. “Very funny,” I say stiffly.
He winces as he pours the scotch and pushes the glass toward me. “Wow, you’re grumpy when Lenore’s not around, you know that? I forget what you were like for hundreds of years.”
“And you’re a fucking wanker when Amethyst isn’t around,” I snipe right back, taking the scotch. Two can play this game. Lenore and Amethyst are both out tonight having a girl’s night bar crawl or something dreadful like that. I won’t deny that I’m not at my best when I don’t have Lenore around me, but he’ll deny it until the cows come home that Amethyst affects him in a similar way.
“Amethyst?” he says casually. Too casually. “I didn’t even notice she was gone. Having a girls night, are they?”
I just blink at him. He knows they are. And I’m not going to push it either. Whatever Wolf feels for Amethyst is none of my business. Heaven knows that Lenore is constantly bringing them up around me, like they’re subjects of some reality dating show and not people living in this house. She’s convinced they’re soulmates, and whenever I mention the fact that human and vampire relationships never end well, she ignores it. Turns out my half-witch is an incurable romantic.
