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Lauren couldn’t really blame them for it. Her mother somehow managed to be overprotective without being overbearing, but there wasn’t a doubt in her mind that Kirsten O’Shea, Queen of Alfheim, would leave a trail of dead bodies in her wake if anything happened to her daughter.
“If you can video call me once you have everything packed, so I can do a visual walk-through to make sure you got everything, I’d appreciate it. I’ll talk to Gavin when he rises and try to get an idea of what he and Mordecai want from me.” She sighed. “Even when it’s aggravating to do so, I’ve found it’s usually best to listen to Mordecai’s counsel.”
“I’m sorry you’re having to scramble, but I can’t say I’m altogether sorry Nick’s being a shit. I’d love to have you on our mountain — it’d be nice to have another female daywalker in the house.”
“How many are there now?”
“A few in the flock. Only three security shapeshifters are female. For that matter, Master only has a handful of women vampires in the coterie, and most of them are living in the valley, since they’re part of the new vampire show.”
Lauren thought back to her visit and realized she’d only seen men.
“Why?”
“That question wouldn’t be appropriate for me to ask.”
“Do you have a theory?”
“Women are smarter than men? I honestly don’t know. He was fine with the women in Zander’s coterie — vampires, security, flock, and significant others.”
“Well, for the record, I was kind of a bitch to Nick, and he broke up with me. I don’t know if I can repair what I fucked up or not, but I’m going to try.”
“That sucks, and I’m sorry.”
She unlocked her office door and saw Ambrose standing across the hall. She motioned him in, and the demigod spent the morning in her visitor’s chair while she worked, and then shadowed her without being a pain in the ass about it. She’d asked him to let her know when Gavin rose for the day, and he telepathed her while they were at a different theater, in the middle of a discussion about costumes, to let her know Gavin was up. She glanced at him without answering, and went back to her conversation.
“Please don’t do that again,” she told him when the two of them left the backstage area for her car, so she could return to the theater that housed her office.
“You asked me to alert you when the Master rose for the day.”
“Wait until I’m out of a meeting to…” She sighed. “Don’t telepath me when I’m involved in something like that unless it’s an emergency.”
She’d actually prefer people she wasn’t close to didn’t telepath her at all, but she didn’t point that out.
She was almost back to the theater, contemplating whether she should wait until she was alone in her office to call Gavin, or whether she could do so with Ambrose around, when her phone rang. She saw it was him, so she answered using the car’s system.
“Can you talk?” Gavin asked.
“It’s just me and Ambrose in the car. What do you need?”
“Queenie says you want to talk to me about where to move your things?”
Lauren pulled off the road and into a parking space near the door at the back of the theater. “I think my choices in the long term are to find my own place or move into the coterie house. In the short term, while I decide what to do, it sounds like my choices are a hotel, the yacht, or the coterie house. However, Queenie said Mordecai wants Ambrose with me — I assume that’s until we figure out if there’s going to be a learning curve with my latest developments.”
“Ambrose has another option for you,” Gavin said.
Lauren looked at Ambrose, who told her, “I was waiting for a good opportunity to bring it up. I have a small home a few miles from the coterie house, along the ridge of the same mountain. I don’t stay there often, but it’s available when I desire privacy.”
Queenie had mentioned the possibility, but Lauren hadn’t felt comfortable bringing it up. Now that Ambrose had, Lauren had questions. “Do you live there alone? You seemed to be with a wolf, when we fought.”
Ambrose smiled. “The wolf lives in the coterie house and is part of the security team. We’re having an enjoyable time when he’s off shift, but I don’t anticipate inviting him to my home. You, on the other hand, are invited. In the short term, it’s a better option than the coterie house — at least until you figure out how to shield the mind of your new pet. Plus, if your new pet wants to take flight, you’ll have the privacy to play around with that.”
“You said it’s small? Is there enough room we won’t trip over each other?”
“Great room and two bedrooms upstairs, billiard room and workout room downstairs. Bath and a half, but both are quite nice.”
“You’ll love it,” Gavin told her through her car’s speakers. “It’s light and airy, majestic and homey. If you were to build an aerie on a mountain, it’s close to what you’d create, I believe.”
“I like the finer things in life, but I also like comfort,” Ambrose said. “I don’t need a hundred rooms when it’s just me. Also, my floorplan is easy to defend, should someone come after me.”
