Authors: A.J. Aalto
“Stuff it, Snickerdoodle.”
“No, I tell you what to do on this trip, not the other way around,” I clarified, feeling my mood dial from
irritated
to
full-on sass
mode. “We told you how it was. You will have a Mistress, boy, or you will have a Master.”
Kill-Notch’s eyebrows shot up so fast I thought they might leave his forehead and bounce off the ceiling.
Harry let out a surprised chuckle. “Aye, be very certain whose hand you would prefer on that leash, lad; hers is almost certainly tempered by affection, and I think you should not be surprised to discover that mine is not.” He tucked his head closer to my ear. “If you’ll allow me to correct you, though, my angel, Our Mark did not confess to me your illicit affairs this evening. That information was passed on by Tara.”
I noted my total lack of surprise. She’d gone to rat me out before I even got to room 226. “This was a set up.”
“With your keen sense of observation, you will have noticed that I am unmoved. You are still very much at fault for visiting Junior’s chambers in the first place. And for toying with the very
idea
of smoking opium.”
“I don’t see why you’re so knickertwisted about it,” I retorted. “You made your damn fortune selling the stuff.”
Batten’s eyebrows shot up. “Beg your pardon?”
Harry huffed. “Really, MJ, your capacity for drawing attention to my imperfections is most unfortunate.”
“You’re a drug dealer?” Batten asked Harry.
“British India Company to China, then to San Francisco, supplying opium dens. Then laudanum and patent medicines. And then came the morphine years. Some cop you are, Kill-Notch. Can’t even spot a drug dealer,” I said. “I mean, sure, it was like a hundred and fifty years ago, but a bright guy like you shouldn't have any trouble with a cold case like that.”
“Most drug dealers don’t wear a tux and top hat,” Batten said.
“There’s one living across the street from you, by the way. He wears Gap for Kids khakis and a tie. He drives a fucking Volvo. He probably sells hits of acid on
Magic: The Gathering
cards.”
It looked like certain puzzle pieces were coming into place for Batten, who may have always wondered how Harry was so enormously wealthy. Many revenants were, simply based on the investments they’d made over time; Harry’s wealth made most of them look like paupers, though. Though most of his wealth was socked away in accounts with my name on them all over the planet, even I had little idea as to a grand total. He’d spent centuries selling comfort and pleasure to humans and accumulating the spoils of such a business. He’d finished selling morphine a decade after the end of the American Civil War.
“How’d you finally figure it out?” Batten asked, showing me his cop face. Had he truly known about the punk neighbor before me, or was he bluffing? I couldn’t tell.
“I like neither of you, just so you’re aware,” I told them seriously.
“I see you’ve got this under control,” Batten told Harry. “Think I’ll get some sleep.”
We watched Batten disappear down the hall; probably Harry wasn’t watching Batten’s denim-clad ass the way I was. My eyelids were pleasantly heavy and I felt my lips curl into a goofy, lopsided smile. When I checked, he was giving me some shrewd side-eye.
“Do you have any idea what torment awaits an opium addict who tries to rid themselves of the siren call of the poppy?” Harry asked, once again offering his arm. “It is an extremely difficult habit to shed.”
“You’re right.”
“I have nursed far too many DaySitters through rehabilitation, and I’d not like to do it again, thank you.”
“You’re right, Harry, you’re right. I’m sorry.” As I followed him back through the mazes of rooms and stairs and halls, I wondered which of his companions had been an opium addict… and worse yet, had Harry been the one to get her hooked in the first place, or had it been her own doing? Harry did a fine job of walking straight, which I only noticed because I wasn’t.
Returning once more to his room, to our bed, I braced for continued disapproval, crawling under the covers.
“What, pray tell, led you to believe that such an adventure was wise?” Harry wondered, and then, feeling a thread of insecurity through the Bond, amended, “What discomfort were you seeking to alleviate?”
He stood at the foot of the bed. I sat up, collecting the sheets around me to make sure I stayed warm. He knew the answer to this, I was sure, and he was ready to discuss Carole Jeanne. His eyes held no small amount of guilt and shame; he felt my confusion, doubt, and anger. I only had one thing to say to him.
“Thanks for the heads-up about your other ‘Sitter, Lord Dreppenstedt.”
Harry’s lips turned down unhappily but he nodded once, slowly, to accept his role and his bungled handling of the whole situation.
I swallowed hard. “For someone incapable of love, you sure are an emotional fuck up.”
He could not deny that, and moved to come closer.
My glare stalled his elegant step. I sat up straight and forced a big, fake smile. “So! Tell me
allllll
about Carole Jeanne. Do you see her every time you’re called home? Do you always exchange passionate glances in the zen garden? Do you reminisce about the old days? Hey, maybe she and I can be besties! We already have
so
much in common.”
“We should not fight about this.”
“Translation:
I
should not fight about this, because you don’t want to. So I should just shut up.”
“That is not what I meant,” he clipped, his accent rocketing toward haughty aristocrat. “You must believe it is not my desire to cause my pet injury or distress.”
“Pet?” I said. “Which one?”
He took that as I expected him to: his jaw snapped shut and he drew himself up to full height, pursing his lips with displeasure. “Though I understand your challenging my words, Dearheart, you are, for better or worse, my Only One.”
“I’m not even going to ask whether you’d rather have her! I know the answer. I’m a disaster. I always have been. One debacle after another, isn’t that right?”
“You may continue to make these cannonballs, petal, but I need not fire them back at you...”
“I’m a lousy seventh and she’s a glorious fifth.
Lah-dee-fuckin’-dah
.” I realized how childish I was being, and struggled to rein it in.
Harry blinked with surprise. “And how did you come to learn this?”
“Gee, I wonder. Could it have been Tara, the bigmouth?” My blankets felt too warm, but my toes felt like tiny shards of ice. Somewhere in the stronghold, violins struck up a powerful tune, resolutely echoing in the stones as it was joined by the cavernous rejoicing of a cello, matched by drums and singers trading lines in German, alto and soprano. Entertainment. Wilhelm was being welcomed to the dinner table. I hadn’t felt him rise from VK Delta sleep, not the way I’d felt Malas wake on an evening not so long ago, but Wilhelm’s movement through the stronghold rattled in my bones, now. It was oddly comforting. Some weight was lifted from my shoulder, and I wondered for a moment at this strange feeling until I pegged it: I was no longer responsible for my own safety, now that the master of my house was alive and moving at full power. I was completely sheltered. To get to me tonight, Wilhelm’s protection would have to be breached at Felstein; suddenly, sleep seemed entirely possible under that watchful gaze, with the master’s awareness touching on each mind in his circle.
Harry saw the softening of my face and felt me relax through our Bond; he acknowledged this with a single knowing nod.
I asked, “Is this why you and Grandma Vi spent so much time in Europe? Were you visiting Carole Jeanne?”
“No,” Harry said, linking his hands in front of him. “Violet never met her. She would have been… discontented.”
Which “she” would have been less happy
, I wondered but did not ask. Instead, I expressed my deep and nuanced understanding. “Ya think?”
He showed me his palms. “What can I do to soothe my lady’s worried heart?”
I leaned back against the headboard. “Is your Bond still intact?”
“
Mais non
,” he assured me. “Of course not. It has been dissolved for some time, or our own Bond would be perfectly impossible. Why would you ask this?”
“Maybe I’m concerned about your well-being,” I suggested.
He saw the truth in it and smiled briefly. “If your curiosity must be satisfied, my nosy one, the dissolution of this Bond was not pleasant, and the memories of that time are not entirely healed over. Seeing the familiar face of one who was once my DaySitter, and then taken from me -- having of course no choice but to step aside and allow this – does cause me some grief.”
It occurred to me that Wilhelm had not chosen to do this simply because he saw someone he wanted; it had been necessary. “What the fuck happened, Harry?”
He gave a soft, sad puff of a laugh. “She gathered no power from me, my love, if you can imagine such a thing.”
“What?” I blinked rapidly, trying not to gape. “Come again?”
“She simply was not psychic.”
A dud. I’d heard rumors of such a thing, of the match between DaySitter and revenant producing no sharing of power whatsoever, some quirk of chemistry, a metaphysical mix-up during Bonding that produced a void where a great depth of link should form. “And now? With Wilhelm?”
His lips pinched together. “It would be impolite to inquire about such things as the prince’s powers and his private Bonds, but one does hear that things are cracking along, and one does one’s best to be pleased for the pair of them.”
“But you’re managing,” I observed. “I’ve felt very little upset through the Bond.”
Harry smoothed the front of his shirt with his pale fingers, flicking away imaginary dust, dropping his grey gaze to the mother of pearl buttons the way he did when he wanted to avoid eye contact. Next would come the eyebrow smoothing, I knew. When he proved me right, I took his hand to stop him, and gave it a squeeze. For a moment, my concern for his feelings trumped my own, and that was a relief. Jealousy sucks. I gave his hand another squeeze to reassure him that we were going to be okay.
I said, “That Tara is not the person you people seem to think she is. How does a human being, a DaySitter, formally bonded to the house, manage to snow a bunch of immortals so well?”
“Oh, kitten, how can you truly believe we don’t know her?” he said with an amused laugh. “Tara has a sour heart, my love, but lacking a companion and power, she is effectively harmless. She cannot hurt you.”
“If you think that,” I said tiredly, giving up the greater strength of my fight and curling back up in bed, “then you don’t understand women at all. She knew exactly how to hurt me. How much longer do I have to see her?”
“Only until the morrow. She will not join us to Skulesdottir. Any more questions before I slip out to join Wilhelm to dine?”
“Yeah, why am I not invited? I wanna dine.”
“Jane will bring you a tray,” he said, and there was no room for discussion; I Felt his discomfort slam through the Bond and decided not to push it. Apparently, he didn’t want me anywhere near the “dining,” and in a stronghold full of primeval immortals sustained only by human blood, I supposed I could guess why that might be. “Anything else?”
“Oh, there is one more thing.” I gave him my best squinty Columbo look. “Is that a fucking bagpipe I hear downstairs?”
Harry gave a one-shouldered shrug. “It’s either an huemmelchen or a marktsackpfeife,” he said. “I’d have to see it.”
“What, you can’t tell?” I gave a faux-
pffft
of disappointment. “What good are you?”
“When I return from doing my duties, I will be happy to remind you,” he said playfully, but our shared smiles were still touched by the discomfort of our quarrel, tentative and lukewarm. Once I’d completed nestling in, Harry sat down on the side of the bed. “I shouldn’t like to play this card,” he said, “but perhaps you might understand now how I feel about you and your brawny gigolo. I may have given you my blessing, Dearheart, but it causes me no small amount of grief to stand aside and watch you repeatedly choose him over me.”
Choose Batten? Ha!
My jaw dropped and I slapped the duvet. “That was offside,” I squawked. “Time and time again, I have chased your undead ass around the cabin, striving for your attention, throwing myself into your arms. If I toyed with him, it was only ever in the complete and utter void of sexual affection I was getting from you. Make no mistake, Harry: When given options, I have
never
— not once — chosen him over you.”
Satisfaction rippled through the Bond. Harry’s lips spread in a slow, deliberately sly smile. “Yes, this I know, but how perfectly lovely it is to be reminded. Thank you, my Own.”
I gave an exhausted laugh. “You wear me out, Harry. I’m going to sleep. Do I have to wear a special outfit to bed in Felstein, milord?”
“Since you are expected to gloss up for our court date, I suppose one must turn a blind eye to your disappointing lack of fashion sense and declare that you may wear anything you like to bed.”
“Nude it is!” I popped out of bed and started ditching clothes.
“I cannot have my precious pet catch a chill,” Harry said with a cluck of his tongue.
He took my bare shoulders in both hands and gave them a pat to indicate I should stand still
just so
for him. He made quick and adept work of unbuttoning his shirt, slid it off his pale shoulders, surreptitiously watching my face to make sure I was admiring his form; classic Harry, arrogant and needy at once. He swept gracefully around my back, coming up behind me to brush my hair off my shoulders; his cool fingertips tickled the nape of my neck as they lingered there, stroking the curve of my throat affectionately where he liked to nuzzle after a feed. Through the Bond, he pushed a subtle reminder that, as much as I was his servant, so too was he mine. He draped his fine white shirt around my shoulders, turning me to face him so he could fasten the buttons. When he was finished, he kissed my forehead with his cool lips. “It may be a chilly evening. I’ll have someone come and attend the fireplace once more before I return.”