“Yes.”
He nodded, gaze shifting from me to the gouges in the wood. “Did that help?”
“Not really,” I said, and nearly smiled.
“Here,” he said, pulling off his tuxedo jacket, revealing his own torn and bloodied shirt beneath. “You’re shaking.”
“I’m okay,” I said, and couldn’t manage to tear my gaze from the sweeps of blood, the magic that drifted into the air from them. “You’re hurt.”
“I’m fine. Just scratches.” He held out the jacket. “Put this on until you can get fixed up.”
I looked down, realized my dress was ripped, one of the halter straps torn and unraveling, so the top was little more than a flap of fabric waiting for an opportunity to fall.
I took it from him, our fingers brushing across dark wool.
“Thanks,” I said, and slipped my arms into the sleeves and bunched it around me.
The jacket smelled like heat and cologne and a hint of animal that reminded me of wildness and freedom. It smelled like Connor.
I looked up at him, trying to get my bearings. “Are we friends now?”
“Don’t go crazy, brat,” he said with a smile. But his eyes were dark when he looked back at the vampires clustered on the patio and surrounding his Pack mate, accusation in their eyes.
* * *
• • •
The fairies’ interruption at the peace talks had been strange but nonviolent. They hadn’t managed to break the peace, only to bend it a little. But this was real violence, an undeniable breach of two decades of peace. This was murder. And how could we help Europe’s Houses with a cease-fire if we couldn’t even manage it in our literal backyard?
I was a witness to some of it, and knew I’d need to stay and make a statement—and help my parents, if I could. I talked to Marion, got her permission to stay behind, then found two Cadogan guards to escort them back to the hotel.
I hadn’t taken all of my clothes to Paris, so I went back to my room on the third floor, changed from the stained and ripped dress into jeans, a T-shirt with a scoop neck, and a pair of well-worn suede boots with a low cuff. I stuffed the dress, clutch, and shoes into a tote bag, carried that and Connor’s jacket downstairs again.
The House swam with magic, the nervous energy of vampires and the other sups at the party. And it grew stronger as I passed the silent vampires who milled in the foyer, watching me as I walked to my father’s office.
My parents were already there, along with Dearborn, Theo, Gabriel, and Connor, everyone in small species-specific clusters. The room was quiet, and my mother’s sword lay on the conference table, unsheathed and gleaming.
I wasn’t sure if the monster was tired from the outburst or unwilling to challenge me now, but it barely surfaced. I pushed it down until the magic was a pulsing ache in the back of my head. At least that only hurt me.
I walked to Connor, held out his jacket. “Thank you,” I said softly, and still the words echoed through the room like a gunshot.
He took it but didn’t put it on.
I put the tote with my katana, then walked back to my parents, who both reached out to touch me, as if to reassure me and themselves that I was safe.
“Dearborn wants to speak to you,” my father said quietly.
“I figured.”
“He’ll have an agenda. And I suspect that agenda will be cleaning up this matter as quickly and quietly as possible, so he can report to the mayor that it was an aberration, it was handled, and it doesn’t involve the city’s Houses or the talks. The evidence, at present, only points to Riley. Based on what I know about Dearborn, I suspect he’d be more than happy to rely on that evidence and let the blame fall on the Pack.”
“Even if it’s a setup?” I asked. Because I still couldn’t wrap my mind around the possibility Riley had done this. And yet . . .
“Even if,” my father said. “Because resolution is faster than investigation. So be careful of his questions. He’ll be looking for particular answers.”
“I’ll be wary,” I promised.
“Are you ready?” Dearborn asked, the words echoing across the room. He wore a slim tuxedo, his silver hair gleaming, sterling cuff links gleaming. Even the shine on his shoes was perfect. Once again, the perfection bothered me. Maybe because his were the only immaculate clothes in the room. Everyone else’s were bloody, muddy, mussed, or torn, because they’d been part of the fray or cleaning it up. He apparently hadn’t lowered himself to get involved.
“Sure,” I said.
“Why don’t we sit?” my father suggested, gesturing to the sitting area on the left-hand side of the room. I took the end of a leather sofa, and my mother sat beside me. My father stood behind us, a unified front. Although I wasn’t the one who needed protecting.
Gabriel took a seat across from me. Connor didn’t sit. He stood behind his father, arms crossed and a grim expression on his face.
Dearborn, unsurprisingly, took the club chair at the end—the “head” position. Theo stayed on his feet and looked nearly as uncomfortable as Connor did. Except one of his own hadn’t been accused of murder.
Dearborn pulled a screen from his pocket, made some adjustment, then set it on the table. A small green light pulsed hypnotically in the middle, signaling it was recording. Dearborn sat back, crossed his legs, and looked at me. “Your version of events, please.”
A steadying breath, and then I told my story. “I was going to check on Seri and Marion. Before I reached them, I could smell blood, so I went to check it out. I saw Tomas, lying on the ground. His head . . . was a few feet away.” I glanced at Connor, apology in my eyes. “Riley stood nearby, and the knife was in his hand. There was blood on his shirt.”
There was perverse satisfaction in Dearborn’s eyes. “You saw him holding the murder weapon, covered in blood, and standing over Tomas’s dead body?”
I saw the shifters flinch, but I focused on Dearborn—and the facts.
“I saw Tomas on the ground,” I said matter-of-factly. “I saw Riley standing nearby, and Riley was holding a knife. I don’t know if it was the murder weapon, and I don’t know what happened before I got there.”
Dearborn’s gaze went hard. “Did you see anyone else?”
“No. One of the German delegates found us, screamed when she saw Tomas. And then chaos broke out, and everyone began fighting. My father arrived and broke it up.”
“The German delegate was Gerda Kreitzer,” my father said. “She’s waiting in Luc’s office.”
Dearborn nodded.
“Riley didn’t do this,” Connor said, and his gaze on Dearborn was hot. “He wouldn’t kill a vampire he didn’t even know.”
“Connor,” Gabriel said quietly, a warning to his son to tread carefully.
“All evidence to the contrary,” Dearborn said. “While I appreciate that some of you, at least, are loathe to jump to conclusions, it seems obvious to me what happened.”
“And what’s that?” my father asked.
Dearborn gave my father a weary look, as if bored by his refusal to accept the obvious. “I’m told the victim expressed concern about shifters, including Sixkiller, during tonight’s session. They had a public altercation at the party in which blows were exchanged approximately an hour before Tomas was killed. Sixkiller stewed over it, and his anger got the best of him. That, you all have to admit, is the simplest explanation for Tomas’s murder. ‘Killer’ is in the shifter’s name, for god’s sake.”
I glanced at Connor. His eyes were on Dearborn, and the fury on his face wasn’t any better masked than that on his father’s.
“It’s a family name,” Gabriel said shortly, magic drifting in the room as he spoke. “There’s history behind it that has nothing to do with this.”
“Noted,” Dearborn said coolly.
“You believe this was an attack on Tomas,” my father said, “and not on the talks generally.”
“Tomas is the only one dead,” Dearborn said. “And despite the fairies’ intervention at the peace talks, which was handled and concluded, the talks continued unimpeded. What purpose would be gained from killing one delegate here?”
“Shifting our focus?” my father suggested. “Creating animosity between the delegates to preclude the possibility of peace? Many prefer war.”
“Occam’s razor,” Dearborn countered. “The simplest explanation is usually the correct one.”
“Usually,” my father qualified. “Perpetrators are aware of that concept, too, and can alter their behavior to fit it.”