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Alexei sat at the dining room table, an iPad under one massive hand and a delicate china cup in the other.Whatever he was drinking smelled like caffeinated heaven.“You can’t risk being photographed looking like that.”
Ouch.Only family or someone in her modeling agency would be so blunt.“I’ll be fine after coffee.”She headed for the espresso machine.
“No caffeine so close to a shoot.Your rules, not mine.Are you going to the spa before the flight?”
“Geez, I am now.”
“I sent a crew to the collision site.”
“A crew from the official family business?Or from the Maronov mafia?”
“We’re not mafia.”His exasperated answer was one he could wind up and repeat as often as he said it.“We’re demon alliances.Our family’s leadership comes with responsibilities as well as benefits.”
“To better organize our crime.That’s what the humans call mafia.What kind of benefit are we talking about with the mogul and my missing amethysts?”
“There will be no evidence that you were at the crash site, no clues for police to conclude anything other than a rich man in a fancy sports car took a corner too fast.”
Relief surged through her veins, waking her up more than an espresso triple shot.“Thank you.”
“Would you like me to send a crew to the sex club to take care of any loose ends?”
Her stomach clawed its way toward her throat.“No.”She couldn’t risk Petra, an innocent human, being caught in the cross hairs of a supernatural war.
He studied her for a long, annoying moment.“No more tracking the amethysts alone.”
“Stop playing at boss.It might work with your mob crews, but not with me.”
He flipped through articles on his screen, probably combing headlines for additions to his collection of woo-woo magic weirdness.“I’m worried for your safety, cousin.You know what happens if someone breaks a blood vow with Baba Yaga.”
“Everyone knows.A horrible death.I’m fully aware of the timeline counting down on finding the amethysts, going through the goblin glass, and killing some mysterious beast.”She straightened to her full five feet, ten inches.She could do this.One crisis at a time.“I’ll track the next amethyst—the one in Paris—and then figure out what to do about this one.”
“Anything you’re not telling me?”
She swallowed a curse.How did he seem to sniff out lies?“I’ve been over every detail of the three blood vows Baba Yaga forced me to swear.”But she’d left out the part about the crone spelling the only existing goblin glass to self-destruct five days after Vori’s twenty-sixth birthday.She’d need to make it back to the human realm before the glass closed for the last time, or she’d be stuck in Kradnovtl forever.
The weight of his stare might’ve been suffocating for anyone else.“What about your realm’s laws requiring you to have a consort?Or are you hoping for an exemption?”
“Riiight.”She choked out an ugly snort.“A special exception?For me?Their princess?After almost every royal was massacred by the mad king?”
“You shouldn’t call him that.”Alexei’s expression hardened to brimstone-solid lines and angles.“He was—”
“My father.Don’t remind me.I know demon law is all patriarchy pride, but I hated that man.”
“You don’t know that he’s dead.”
“My deranged daddy is definitely dead.Otherwise, he would’ve crossed any realm to drag me back, to make sure I birthed little golden-blooded goblins, to carry on the whole divine-power lie.Or to sacrifice me to satisfy his forgotten gods.Since he hasn’t done either these thirteen years past, he’s dead.”
“So who would be on the goblin throne?”
“His half brother, my uncle.Which means he has the crown centerpiece amethyst I’ll need for Baba Yaga.”
“Yousteal from family?”The sarcasm bled through each of his words.
“Keep your wings on.I pay you back for what I steal—mostly.And my uncle Lenneck doesn’t need the amethyst as much as I do.He doesn’t have an evil witch counting down his days to a messed-up due date.Or maybe he’s already dead.”
Alexei stared as if he could sense secrets beneath her supermodel and goblin skins.“And the queen consort?Your mother?”His soft voice betrayed the way his words sliced at Vori.
Grief—the kind with jagged edges that should’ve been smoothed by years of doubt—stabbed at her all over again.“I don’t know.”Because any other answer might rip her apart.
