Cade called as I was walking in my front door. “Morning, love. Good news. I’ve found him.”
I tried to ignore the skip in my heart at the word “love.” He’d said it before. I’d assumed he was just being British, but I was starting to think it was something else.
Either way, I had bigger issues. “Hey. I’m really glad to hear it because I need to get this hunt wrapped up quick.”
He must have caught a note of something off in my tone because his voice dropped an octave. “What happened?”
“Um, you know how you said to try not to let my cousins get under my skin?”
“Shit. Are you safe?”
“I mean, for now. Farand sent me home though. Told me not to bother coming in again. Something about getting me sent east to shovel pig shit.” I warmed with remembered fury at the confrontation. “I, ah, might have irreparably burned what was passing as a bridge.”
“You’re home now?”
“Yeah. Where’s Morris?”
“Holed up in a house near the same graveyard where I encountered him before. The family living in it are all glamoured to hell and back, enough that it’s a borderline violation of the Détente.” Cade sighed, sounding tired and annoyed. “All right under Torsten’s nose too, but neither Maria nor Aron knew anything about another vagabond in the area. They’ll be furious if they have to pay the elves to have the Darkwatch do a coverup.”
“Goddess.” I thought through the ramifications quickly. “That means we could get away with an execution.”
“Precisely. No record of entry, no permissions granted by the Master of the City or his second, the egregious glamouring, likely at least a few human deaths…the only thing that bothers me is whether Callista is aware of all this.”
“I mean, he ran the bounty through her, and she has her damn Watchers. Assume she knows at least some of it. Plus, Morris has to know you’re planning something yourself, since you haven’t followed your usual pattern and left town.”
“So we need to throw them off.”
What would throw off the Watchers, Morris, and Farand all at once? Easy-peasy. “Hey—do you want to come over here and plan the hunt?”
He was silent for just long enough to make me nervous. Had I broken his trust too badly?
“I mean, if the daylight is an issue I can come to you. I just thought it’d be easier to plan in person.”
“Daylight’s not a problem. It’s a risk to you for me to be there if Callista has Watchers on me. And I wasn’t expecting to be invited to your home.”
I winced. “I can be a little cagey.”
He laughed. “You could be a vampire, love. But it won’t be easy for Morris to follow me in the day. He’s still too badly injured to withstand much sunlight. If you’re comfortable with it, then yes, I’d love to see your home. And you.” A growl entered his tone. “Maybe for more than planning? If that’s okay with you.”
It was my turn to laugh, although I had to swallow down a sob. Somebody wanted me. Valued me. Cared about me. Desired me. All of a sudden, the heat warming me wasn’t rage.
I’d started the day reckless, might as well continue. “Yeah. Cost of admission is an orgasm.”
“Well then. That’s a price I’ll happily pay. I need to get a few things ready here, but I’ll come by later this afternoon. Sound good?”
I agreed then hung up and went about tidying the house in a flurry. There wasn’t much to clean, but dishes needed to go in the dishwasher and the sheets could use a change. A bit useless maybe, given what I hoped to do in them. But they’d been on the bed a week, and while Cade might enjoy the extra scent, I had standards.
Next up was getting ready to go. Where, I didn’t know. But I wasn’t naive enough to think I could stay here, not without paying a price. One way or another, my life was about to change.
I could always unpack bags, but I couldn’t unfuck myself. I’d pissed all over Farand earlier. Justified or not, I was supposed to be happy with being shat on and even though I’d only spoken the truth, there’d be repercussions. Farand had been clear on that. I hoped I could prove myself useful enough to Callista for her to bribe the queens to forget about a half-elf they didn’t even want to acknowledge as existing anyway, but if I couldn’t, I needed to be ready to skip town.
For better or worse, I didn’t have much. My clothes fit in two suitcases, weapons in another. Personal effects in a shoulder bag.
With the house in order and my shit packed and ready to go, I poured myself a glass of orange juice and sat at the dining table to muse on a question that had popped into my mind as I put black sheets on my bed: whether I’d let Cade glamour and bite me at some point.
I enjoyed being glamoured. I didn’t mind being bitten. I just hadn’t known Cade well enough to feel comfortable with it, and we didn’t have an arrangement like Maria and I had.
But he’d had me captive and strung up, ready to sample like a buffet, would have been within his rights to take what he wanted, given I’d attacked him first…and resisted. I’d seen him fight his instincts off. He had the control. I was trusting him to go on a hunt with me. One where I might well be injured.
Surely I could trust him to give us both a little more enjoyment?
A click at the front door pulled my attention. Frowning, I stood and peered down the hallway. The front door was unlocked when I was certain I’d locked it behind me when I came in. I always did. Then I was scrambling for the bedroom and the bag in which I’d just packed all my weapons, my body and instincts registering the threat before my mind could.
The door swung open, and the bells on it jangled as I skidded to a stop just shy of the hallway to the bedroom. There was a muttered “Make it quick,” as two men burst into my apartment, guns with silencers drawn and pointed at the floor. They came up fast enough when the men spotted me.
The room flooded with the burnt marshmallow scent of elven Aether, much stronger than anything I was capable of.
Elves. Monteagues, from the dark hair and tawny skin of both of them, which meant this wasn’t a Darkwatch mission. The Darkwatch used mixed triads, one member from each of the high Houses. This was personal, and if these two and their spotter outside were all Monteagues, they had to be Farand’s friends.
“Stop,” the foremost ordered in a hard voice. “Stand where you are.”
I froze. The scar through his eyebrow gave him a competent cast I didn’t dare fuck with. “What’s this about? I haven’t done anything.”
He snorted as his companion took a step to the side to get a clear shot at me. “Maybe, maybe not. Frankly, I don’t give a shit. I’m just here to pay off a debt.”
“What debt?” My heart hammered in my chest because I suspected I knew the answer.
“You pissed someone off,” the second elf said.
“How the fuck could I piss anyone off? I’m a fucking low-blood. I don’t have enough power to—” The words stopped even as I was saying them because I realized what this was about.
It wasn’t power or the lack thereof. It was that Farand felt like he’d lost face. I’d embarrassed him and the rest of the office when he was already out of favor. He must not have been able to get me fired like he’d threatened because I hadn’t actually violated the terms of my exile.
But he could make sure I had an “accident.”
Goddess, that was quick. I was expecting to have at least another day before having to deal with retaliation, had hoped that Cade and I could get the hunt done in that time.
I slowly raised my hands with the belated realization of how fucked I was. “Look, gents. Whatever Farand told you—”
“Oh good, you do know what this is about. Consider yourself served.”
Without any further ado, both elves took aim. I tried to dodge into the living room as they fired. There was a pop-pop. Twin punches hit like a burst of fire. Then pain radiating from my thigh and flank.
I hit the floor before I could register what had happened. The bells on the door jangled again as they both slipped out.
“Shit.” Pain flared as I forced myself to a sitting position and checked the damage.
A bullet was still lodged in my left thigh. Grimacing, I felt for an exit wound in my back and found one. Through and through, nearly missed me entirely. They’d been rushing and not aiming to kill, or I’d be dead. This was meant to be a punishment, a reminder Farand could take my life anytime he wanted to and would probably get away with it. A scare to get me to bow my head for real.
Fighting off the pain, I considered my options. Few and far between.
I couldn’t go to a hospital. Not for gunshot wounds. There’d be a mundane police report. An investigation. It’d violate the Détente to draw human attention to Otherside matters, and then I’d be dead anyway. I had a first aid kit, but I’d be hard-pressed to use it, given that I’d likely pass out from the pain of digging in my own thigh for the bullet and I was about to find out what lead poisoning felt like.
It’d be a shame for my blood to go to waste, pooling on the carpet in slow ebbs. That made my choice easier. I forced myself to my feet and staggered back to the kitchen, where my phone was still on the bar counter. The blood on my fingers made it hard to unlock and dial, but I managed.
Cade picked up immediately. “Lya? Everything okay?”
A pang hit me, and I grunted, sliding to the floor before I could answer. “Hey. Dinner bell.”
“What the hell are you saying?”
“Get it while it’s hot,” I panted, teeth clenched through another wave of pain. A human probably would have been fine. In a lot of pain but fine.
For better or worse, I wasn’t fully human.
Lead was poisonous to elves, much like silver was to vamps and weres. I’d gotten a little more elf in my DNA than human, which meant that not only was I susceptible to slow-healing damage from lead-based weapons or ammo but also that the lead in the slug had started poisoning me as soon as it’d lodged in my body.
Poetic justice maybe, given that had been my plan for Cade.
“Where are you?”
If I didn’t know any better, I’d think he was frantic. Who knew though? “Still at home. High-blood bastards picked my lock and let themselves in.”
More poetic fucking justice.
“Are you alone? What happened?”
I laid all the way down on the floor, moving in small jerks until I found a position that didn’t hurt as much—not that it helped the burning sensation of lead poisoning, which was hitting me far worse than the relatively minor bullet wounds. Cade was still talking, saying something about stay there, and I tried to laugh. Where the hell was I going to go like this?
All that came out was a pained cough.
“Stay on the phone,” Cade’s small voice ordered. “I’m on my way.”
Maybe if he’d tried that tone in person, backed up by glamour, it would have worked. But I hung up and started crawling to the bathroom, where I kept a patch kit and Vitamin C tablets that would stave off at least a little of the damage. Chills shook me before I was halfway there, rattling me hard enough that I fell to the floor.
I had to get this bullet out, and I sure as hell wasn’t going to wait for him to save me.
As I dragged myself into the bathroom, the inane thought that it was going to be a pain in the ass to get the blood out of the carpet made me snort.
More important concerns, Lya. Focus.
I made it to the bathroom. Pulled open the cabinet. Yanked out the big first aid kit then groaned when I realized all the glasses were still in the kitchen. The Vitamin C was an effervescent powder, something the mundanes marketed as cold and flu prevention. I needed to dissolve it in water, but the kitchen suddenly seemed a long way away as my teeth started chattering and my skin burned.
Get the bullet out.
I fumbled with the heavy tweezers I’d added to the kit for just this purpose, not having reckoned on how badly lead poisoning would affect me. I’d trained with substances. Not lead. The elves wouldn’t handle the shit if they didn’t have to, and I wasn’t enough of a reason to have to.
My attempts to position the tips of the tweezers kept catching them on the edges of my wound, and I tilted my head back as my stomach rebelled at a particularly bad tear. I was damaging myself almost as much as the lead was. Didn’t matter.
Grasping the damn tool in both hands, I tried again.