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I bit my lip.Elucidate?Eli could make the most mundane things sound sexy. It was one of his less-irritating traits, although it was hell on my self-control.
“NOPD wants to hire me freelance for the season,” I explained, forcing my mind away from thoughts of Eli’s voice or body or charm. “To ‘exterminate’ the troublesome biters.”
“And you plan to . . .?” Eli prompted.
“Grab the spot by the black SUV.” I motioned to a parking spot that was more challenging than usual. Carnival season had only just started, and we already had more tourists than I liked. Once upon a time, New Orleans was always tourist central, but then came the biters.
Having walking parasites eating the tourists changed things—until the city found ways to adapt.
Eli slipped his little convertible into a spot that only he could manage. The car was the epitome of elegance, silent unless Eli was in the mood to make it growl, so cutting off the engine was unnoticeable.
“Bonbon?” He turned toward me and prompted, “What will you tell the New Orleans Police Department?”
“I’d be out there anyhow. If they have some sort of grant to pay me, maybe I should con—”
“Agrant? From whom?” Eli frowned, obviously as uncomfortable as I was at that detail.
“Why me? Who wanted me involved? Why? Was it to help or harm me?” I nodded. “Their budget is shit, but . . . the grant isspecificallyto hire me.”
“That is concerning,” he murmured.
“Precisely. I need to know who funded it,” I said. “Even if I refuse, I wantthatanswer. To get that, I must meet them.”
Silently, Eli got out and came around to my door. I’d given up resisting his insistence on opening the door. He extended a hand once he’d opened the door.
Instead of pursuing the issues of who was funding the grant or that I ought to take a few weeks off, Eli pronounced, “I will not expect compensation.”
Despite myself, I laughed. “For?”
And my partner looked me in the eyes and pulled me in for a kiss that was more territorial than usual. I melted into him, wrapping around him like it was the best idea in the world to forget that there were monsters, murders, and midnight revelers out there.
When he released me, he stepped back and said, “You’re the affianced of the heir toElphame, Geneviève, and there are traditions that—”
“Short version,” I interrupted.
“Where you go, I go. Where you are hired, I shall be. Where you behead, slaughter, or defend, I shall be. As long as I am able, this is how things shall be.” He lifted my hand to his lips. “You are my warrior bride, Geneviève Crowe, and—”
“We’ve discussed this. I’m not abride.” I pulled my hand away, trying not to swoon at the thought that he would be at my side for the innumerable years to come if we ended up married. “The engagement is just a temporary state and—”
“Hush, Geneviève.” He gestured toward the cemetery with the same grace that he used when he escorted me before his uncle, the king ofElphame. “Shall we hunt?”
“Yes to hunting, no to—”
“Be aware of the traditions, Geneviève Crowe. If you end our courtship, my time in your world ends as well.” His voice held genuine fear this time. A carefully worded faery bargain or two had bought Eli a reprieve from the faery king’s edict on his heir’s matrimony.
I didn’t want that reprieve to end. Neither did he. And if I wasn’t careful, it would. So instead of marriage, we were currently planning on the world’s longest engagement. Committed enough to keep him in my life, but not committed enough to trap him in a marriage with a half-dead witch. To succeed meant keeping up the ruse that our engagement would lead to marriage.
Because, unfortunately, what most sane people thought of as “tradition” was alawto the fae, and I was blundering around trying to thwart centuries of traditions-but-really-laws without ending up married or losing the man I was falling irreparably in love with.
“I need to kill something,” I muttered.
“Yes, dear,” he murmured softly, as he offered me his arm to lead me to the cemetery wall we were about to scale.
Chapter Two
As far asnights out went, scaling brick walls and creeping around rows of mausoleums might not rate. This wasn’t adate, though. Christophe Hebert had been on a list of “possible victims of injections” that my current research assistant, Ally, had created. I checked the graves on that list with the hope that the dead were resting quietly where they’d been planted. The last three had been, so I was hoping tonight was lucky number four.
“Ally says Hebert’s mother was a significant SAFARI donor,” I told Eli as I scaled the wall landed next to him on the ground inside the cemetery walls.
