Lips pursed, she appeared thoughtful. “You’re allowing her brother access to her, correct?”
“I am.”
That was hardly a newsflash considering his “higher-ups” had assigned him to shadow me.
While the Grande Dame was as high up as it got, the Elite operated outside the laws of the Society. She might have been responsible for his appointment, but I doubted it. She wanted us kept apart, not thrown together. A more plausible scenario, in my mind, was she caught wind of his new duties and turned him into a special project. Still, even with him tucked under her wing, she wouldn’t be privy to all the details of his assignments.
As easy as she made it to vilify her, I fell into the trap of underestimating her all too often.
As I got to know her son better, I was learning about her too. Not through direct conversation, but small tells when Linus talked about her, interacted with her, gave away more than either of them realized.
“What makes you believe foul play is involved?”
A chill swept down my spine. “I didn’t say I did.”
“Why else would you be here?” Her smile was red as blood. “You must be desperate to come to me.”
“I saw her house on Tybee. It’s empty. And whoever made it that way left behind bronze powder.”
“To incapacitate your guards.”
“And prevent them from picking up the scent of the person responsible.”
“Odette Lecomte is a seer of some renown,” she allowed, though she downplayed Odette’s fame to suit her pride. “There are several members of the High Society who depend on her services. I doubt anyone would complain if I launched an inquiry under the circumstances.”
“I would appreciate any help you can offer.”
Nodding that, of course, I should be thankful, she asked, “How are the gwyllgi?”
“Hood required medical intervention.” Hanging around me was bad for his health. “He’s fully recovered.” I flexed my hands in my lap. “Thanks for asking.”
“Lethe Kinase is the firstborn daughter of the Atlanta alpha. We can’t afford an incident with her, her unborn child, or her mate.”
The edge of her concern being political shouldn’t have surprised me. “I’ll do my best to keep them in one piece.”
“They’re your friends. I can tell by the bite in your voice. That means you’ll do better than keep them in one piece. You’re loyal to a fault.” She made it sound like a bad thing. “They couldn’t be in safer hands.”
The backhanded compliment didn’t bother me half as much as the knowledge of how well she read me.
“Oh, don’t look so surprised.” Laughter quirked her mouth. “I’ve known you since you were a child. I’ve witnessed your stubborn streak rear its ugly head more times than I can count. Maud may not have given birth to you, but you are her daughter in all other ways.”
A lump tightened my throat, and I almost hated her for giving me the opening I couldn’t resist walking through in light of recent events. “You told me you knew how she died.”
“I do.” She lost focus, and her voice went soft as a whisper. “She was stabbed in the heart with a slender blade, likely an athame, perhaps one of her own. The killer carved open her chest and removed the organ.” A fragility overlaid her usually sharp features. “That’s how my sister died.” She tried for a laugh, attempted to rebuild her façade, but its cracks gaped too wide. “The lie was close to the truth, you see. An attack on her heart did kill her.”
Heat rolled in wet tracks down my cheeks, and she watched the tears fall, her own eyes dry.
Mouth a brittle line, she thinned her lips. “Have you opened the box?”
“No.” The thought had never crossed my mind.
Nodding as though she expected my answer, she said, “I recommend you leave it sealed.”
“Why would I—?”
“I’m tired,” she said, rising. “You should go.”
“All right.” I let her usher me out into the hall then leaned against the door after she shut it.
A grim certainty hollowed out my stomach, and I rubbed the knot until I made it worse.
The gold box she had given me, the one holding Maud’s heart… It was empty. It had to be.
Until this moment, I hadn’t realized I was holding on to the hope that the Grande Dame had exerted her influence to locate the missing organ. I had wanted to believe I still had a piece of Maud with me, almost as much as I wanted to pretend the box and its gruesome contents didn’t exist.
The Grande Dame had given me the box, I assumed, to punish me. But had she meant for it to give me closure instead?
While I doubted she had spent the days of my incarceration pacing the floors of her home and weeping at the injustice of it all—that wasn’t how one became the Grande Dame—it did appear more and more that she had seized the first real opportunity to have me released without it blowing back on her.
She dethroned Balewa and reopened my case. She exposed her own—albeit fictional—ailment to the entire Society to have her evidence of a heart attack accepted as fact. And foisted Linus on me as a tutor and guardian since his status as potentate guaranteed his ability to protect me.
The uncomfortable possibility that Linus’s difficulty in putting his feelings into words had been learned at her knee occurred to me in a flash of insight that made disliking her harder than it had been before I walked through her door.
I didn’t trust her. I would never do that. I had known her too long and understood, the same as Linus, that she hungered for power more than she craved affection.
But maybe, just maybe, she wasn’t the monster I wanted to imagine her.
Mulling that over, I hit the elevator, crossed the lobby, and nodded at Lethe.
She fell in step with me. “You good?”
“Not yet, but I’m getting there.”
We got in the van, and Hood glanced back at me. “Abercorn?”
“Yeah.” A tired laugh sawed out of me. “Abercorn.”
Linus stood with his back facing the street when we arrived at the building. A large suitcase sat near his feet like an obedient pet while he worked the locks. Sensing he had company, he turned from the door.
I held Hood’s gaze in the rearview mirror. “Make a couple of loops?”
“Sure.” He cut his eyes to his mate. “Hop up here and keep me company, gorgeous.”
Lethe draped herself over his seat. “How about you find somewhere to park then join me back here?”
“I would say don’t do anything I wouldn’t do,” I said, “but don’t do anything that requires stain remover works too.”
“Don’t be silly.” Lethe glanced over her shoulder at me. “That’s why Hood suggested leather.”
Wiping my hands down my pants, I scooted out the door while touching as little upholstery as possible.
Linus didn’t call out a greeting, and he didn’t close the distance. He stood there, watching my approach.
Mouth dry, I nodded to the luggage. “Going somewhere?”
His gaze swept over me, assessing, and he frowned. “Upstairs.”
“Not Atlanta.”
“Unless an entire city exists on the second floor of this building, no. Not Atlanta.”
“I worried you might leave, after we fought.”
“Friends fight,” he said softly. “Friends also make up, and life goes on.”
That was what I told him the first time I forgave him. He remembered it word for word.
“Sometimes they don’t,” I repeated his lines, proving I remembered too. “And it doesn’t.”
Head down, he said, “I won’t leave.”
His mother would be less than thrilled if he left before she granted her permission.
Chin lifting, he amended, “Not until you tell me to go.”
“I don’t know what to do.” All I knew for sure was I wanted to break his suitcase over my knee if it kept him from leaving. “This is the start of a cycle. You omitting things, me finding them out, me getting hurt, you apologizing.” I exhaled through my mouth. “I don’t want that kind of relationship. Not again.”
His nod of agreement came slow. “You deserve better.”
“That’s the problem.” I met his gaze, a rich navy, and held it. “I’m becoming convinced there isn’t anyone better.”
He visibly startled, black wisps clouding his irises, and he parted his lips on a question he didn’t ask.
“How do we do this?” A raw quality scraped through my voice. “How do we make this work?”
“You’re a strong woman, Grier. This only has to work if it’s what you want. You don’t need me.”
“If you believe that,” I said, “maybe we should call it quits and walk away before we’re in too deep.”
“Any deeper and I’ll drown.” He sucked in a breath like he was preparing for that exact fate, but he didn’t budge even an inch.
“Is love supposed to feel like your heart is outside your body?”
A preternatural stillness swept through his limbs, but he was listening.
“That’s how I feel when I’m with you, like my heart is standing beside me instead of inside me. Each hit, each cut, each bruise hurts me too, like it happened to me instead of to a wholly separate person. I drive myself crazy thinking in circles about Atlanta, and I must be plucking your last nerve, but part of me died with Maud that night, and the rest of me wasn’t sure about how to start living again after Atramentous.” I swallowed hard. “I’ve been on life support since you arrived. Now I’ve been told it’s getting cut, but not when, and I can’t help but fixate.”
Linus shifted his weight forward, leaning toward me, but he kept his feet planted on the sidewalk.
“I’m so tired of hurting.” I studied the position of the moon overhead to give my tears a chance to dry. “I worry sometimes if it slacked off that I wouldn’t feel at all, but that’s no reason to stay in a relationship that promises pain. I’ve done that. Loved a man who was bad for me in every single way. Forgave him all the bad times because the good times were so good.”