I can’t get comfortable in the bucket seat of the Bimmer.
How could I when Bran is driving us to Duval House in my car where it’ll surely get back to Julian Locke?
My Pledging is right around the corner. Instead of the distant annoyance I was feeling about it before, it’s now hovering on the horizon like a storm cloud. What will Julian do?
Better yet, what the hell will I do?
Everything has become far more complicated.
“What do you think your brother wants?” I ask.
“With Damien, it’s always hard to say.” Bran is relaxed in the driver’s seat, one hand on the leather steering wheel, the other wrapped around the stick shift.
“And Sky—” I start.
“Don’t worry about Sky.”
“Easy for you to say. She’s not known for showing restraint. You just snapped her neck in the middle of the restaurant because, well…why? Because she called me trash? I’ll admit I was really hoping you’d set her straight but—”
“No one is allowed to speak to you that way.” His gaze cuts to me quickly before returning to the road. The leather steering wheel groans beneath his grip. “If someone does, you’re to tell me.”
A thrill blooms in my chest. Kelly has always looked out for me, but not in this live-or-die kind of way. The protection of an older sister is much different than the protection of a vampire like Bran.
“Sky will take it out on me,” I say.
“I won’t let that happen.” He guides the Bimmer off the road and onto the black pavement of the Duval House driveway.
“As if you could stop it. Sky is like a trap-door spider just waiting for the perfect time to pounce.”
He laughs.
“I’m serious!”
“I know you are.” Another car passes us, the headlights sweeping over his face. “Sky won’t hurt you. It wouldn’t be worth the risk of my wrath. She knows that.”
“Does she?” I ask, frowning at him. “Why would she know that?”
Bran and I have only been fucking around a few days. I don’t know why Sky would know anything about me other than the fact that I’m Bran’s neighbor and I might annoy him sometimes.
He doesn’t look at me as he follows another curve in the driveway.
Duval House finally reveals itself nestled among the hardwoods at the back of a sprawling, well-manicured property.
It’s seriously straight out of an English period drama.
Several spotlights are trained on the front of the estate, giving it an ominous feel. Matching flags with the Duval House crest fly from the twin towers on the north and south ends.
Almost every window is lit golden in the night.
Bran ignores the fork of the driveway where the pavement winds back to a parking lot and a six-stall carriage house. Instead, he turns us toward the house and drives beneath an attached porch.
“I wish I was fancy enough to have a drive-thru porch.”
“It’s called a porte cochère.”
I like hearing his tongue roll over the French syllables.
I almost tell him to say it again but don’t want to look like a simpering dork.
When Bran climbs out, someone is at the driver’s side in an instant.
“Come, mouse,” Bran calls.
The stranger climbs in behind the wheel and looks at me, waiting.
“What is happening?”
Bran ducks down into the open doorway. “This is Lance. Lance is going to park your car. You are going to get out of the car and follow me. Now, mouse.”
Lance gives me an awkward look.
“Be gentle with her, Lance,” I say.
He nods. “You have my word, Ms. MacMahon.”
Lance knows who I am?
“Mouse.”
I scurry out of the car.
There’s another guy at the massive double doors, holding one of them open for us.
“This is some white glove service,” I mutter.
It makes me wonder again why Bran would ever leave Duval House. It never made any sense. It still doesn’t.
The side entrance comes in on a sitting room that must be the size of my entire house. There are wingback chairs and red velvet settees and several leather side chairs positioned in front of a fireplace where a low fire crackles on the bricks.
The people in the room lurch to their feet and bow their heads as we breeze past, but Bran doesn’t give them a second look.
We cross a foyer where the black and white marble floor gleams beneath two chandeliers. We pass a grand staircase that has a landing halfway up where the staircase branches off into opposite directions.
When you’re a human living in suburbia, it’s easy to forget the opulence and the elegance of the supernatural houses. I try not to gape around like a fish out of water as Bran guides me with his hand at the small of my back.
“Why did you leave here?” I blurt out. “This place is amazing.”
“It’s crowded,” he answers distractedly.
“Do you still have a room here?”
“I have many, yes.”
“Where?”
“Damien and I shared the north wing.”
“The entire wing? How could that possibly get crowded? You probably had more room there than at your house and—”
Bran takes a fistful of my shirt and yanks me to a stop. I bounce off his chest from the sudden shift in momentum, so he hooks an arm around my waist, drawing me back in to keep me on my feet.
“Hey! What—”
Damien is suddenly in front of us.
Damien Duval is the type of man that if I didn’t know about the things that go bump in the night and I passed him on a sidewalk, I might think he was a college student studying history or poli sci. He has that kind of air about him, just this side of arrogant and the kind of intelligence that makes most conversations with him hard to keep up with.
I immediately flash back to a few nights ago when I overhead Damien and Bran in Bran’s kitchen. Damien was worried about the Lockes throwing their weight around, and thought I might somehow be significant. ‘Special’ was the word he used.
“Bran,” Damien says and then his gaze trails me up and down.
I can’t help but shiver beneath the weight of it. Bran yanks me behind him and says, “No.” Damien isn’t the least bit put off by the threatening rumble in his brother’s voice.
“We need to talk.” Damien is heading in the opposite direction before I can blink. “Alone,” he adds.
Bran sighs.
“What am I supposed to do while you’re gone?” I ask and eye the people lingering in the foyer. We’re a half-football-field away but I’m sure they can hear us. I don’t know if I relish the idea of being alone in the Duval house.
“Jimmy,” Bran calls.
A young woman is beside me in a second. “Jessie, hi,” she says.
Jimmy, short for Jimena, is currently third in-line at Duval House. In chunky heeled combat boots, she stands several inches taller than me. She smells like rose oil and paint thinner and there is a rainbow of dried paint on her long, brown fingers.
“Look after my little mouse for me,” Bran tells her.
“Of course.” She smiles down at me with a warm gaze even though I’m absolutely certain she has better things to do.
Bran swivels around and is gone.
“Sorry,” I say.
“For what?” Jimmy hooks her arm through mine and steers me away.
“I’m sure babysitting wasn’t on your agenda for the night.”
“And I’m sure being thrown into the lion’s den wasn’t on your agenda either.” She says the latter with an aye, aye-ther. I’ve always thought people who pronounce it that way are too fancy for me.
“Everything about the last few days has been unexpected,” I mutter.
“So I’ve heard.”
“You have?” I gaze up at her. “What have you heard?”
She guides me through open pocket doors where stained glass is inlaid in the transom windows above. Classical music plays through a sound system while a coffee steamer hisses from the far side of the room.
It’s a massive library with a full coffee bar and a winding iron staircase that goes up to the open second-story loft.
“Whoa.”
It’s so big, and the stacks so plentiful, you could easily get lost in them.
There are work tables set up equidistant from one another on my left. Matching library lamps with pull chains sit on each of the tables and cast golden light around the room. A plush red rug with the Duval crest runs down the center aisle. Six iron chandeliers hang from the vaulted ceiling. There are sitting areas with overstuffed leather chairs dotted around the room.
It’s somehow cozy and huge all at the same time.
“Can I get you a coffee?” Jimmy asks. “We have anything you could possibly want.”
I follow her to the bar where two humans mix drinks for a couple waiting at the far end.
It’s late at night and if I drink coffee, I’ll be up till the sun rises, but I guess that might just be my life now.
Though there is a distant nagging voice in the back of my head that reminds me I have a job and a shift to work tomorrow.
“How about tea?”
“Sure.” Jimmy leans against the bar. “We have a passion fruit tea.” She gives a chef’s kiss. “It’s excellent.”
“I’ll take that.”
“Scott,” she calls and the guy pouring foamed milk into a cup looks up. “Two passion fruit teas, iced, please.”
“Coming right up,” Scott says.
“So,” I say, unsure of exactly what to say. I don’t belong here and while no one stands and bows like they do when Bran’s around, I still get the feeling everyone is whispering about me.
I trail off in a nervous laugh and Jimmy saves me.
“Is Bran being nice to you?” she asks.
I snort. “Does he know how to be nice?”
Jimmy laughs flashing gleaming white teeth. “One of the reasons I aligned myself with Bran and the Duval House when I came to America was because Bran can be both brutal and restrained. He’s good at knowing when to push a button, when not to.”
Oh, don’t I fucking know it.
“Why did you leave your house overseas?” I ask, wanting desperately to move the conversation away from me and my buttons.
“Our matriarch died.” Jimmy waves her hand dismissively. “It was a long, brutal feud over lovers and cattle, as most vampire wars are.” She laughs again. “Anyway, the house started to fall apart afterward. New leadership took over but it wasn’t the same. I had known Bran for decades at that point so I asked if he’d have me and he and Damien said yes.” She holds her arms out like voila. “Here I am.”
“Do you like Duval House?”
She scans the library, her long lashes nearly hitting the arched line of her brow. “I do. It’s much more structured than the house I came from. More order. On the other hand, I’m a free bird. I don’t like being tied down and Bran and Damien have always been good about letting me do my thing when I need to.”
I nod at her paint-splattered hand. “Like art?”
She wiggles her fingers. “Art among other things.” Her attention wanders to a pretty girl sitting on the arm of a velvet sofa. The girl smiles back. From my vantage point, I can’t tell if she’s human or vampire. I think human, if I’d have to guess, judging by the looseness to her posture. Vampires always have this edge of alertness to their bodies, as if they could attack at any moment. Or be attacked.
“Jimmy!” someone calls from the pocket doors.
“Stay here at the bar,” Jimmy tells me. “This should just take a minute.”
Jimmy darts away.
Scott is just scooping ice from a cooler into my cup when the air is disrupted beside me and I turn, thinking it’s Jimmy or Bran.
A chill runs down my spine.
It’s Sky.
Mother son of a bitch.
It’s impossible to tell she was just lying dead on a restaurant floor not that long ago. She’s obviously healed. There isn’t a bruise anywhere on her skin. There is, however, a very clear thread of disdain on her face.
She reaches over the coffee bar and snatches a bottle of vodka. If I’d known you could get a spiked drink, I might have changed my order.
She twists off the cap and pours two sloshes into a white ceramic mug. She sips from it, keeping her gaze trained on me the entire time.
“Hi Sky,” I say. “Nice to see you on your feet.”
Internally I cringe. What the hell? Do I have a death wish?
I think having Bran’s protection has embolden me, but where is Bran now? Not here. Not here to protect me.
Sky reaches across me and I shrink away like I’m afraid to get burned. She dips her hand inside a large glass canister and pulls out a bag of organic fruit snacks. Except on closer inspection, I see the label mentions they’re “made from legally acquired blood.”
Blood fruit snacks. I did not know that was a thing.
Sitting on one of the bar stools, Sky crosses one long leg over the other knee and leans back. She tears off a corner from the bag and plucks a bear-shaped gummy from inside, then puts it between her teeth and tears off its head.
The hair rises at the back of my neck.
“Did Bran ever tell you why he left Duval House?” she asks.
If words were ever used as a weapon, Sky has just racked a bullet in the chamber.
Scott sets my tea in front of me. “Enjoy,” he says.
I pick it up, swirl the straw inside. The ice clinks together. “I don’t think he did, no.”
“Mmmm.” Sky decimates another bear with the cut of her teeth. “I know why. Do you want to know why?”
Shit.
Yes, I do.
Very much so. It’s a question that’s plagued me ever since he moved in next door. But I thought the answer might be a bit of drama between him and his brother. Or maybe something political.
Now I have the very distinct impression the answer might gut me.
Sky leans over. Her breath smells like vodka and strawberries as she says, “He left Duval House because of you.”
