44. Wren

CHAPTER 44

Wren

“ T his decor has to be fifty years old.” Caria ran a fingertip across the scratched surface of the former VIP bar. The Devil’s Den wasn’t just tired; it was practically catatonic. “See these chairs? There’s an upcycler I know over near Spring Valley—she’d pay twenty bucks each for them.”

“They have character.”

Vee poked at a hole in the velvet seat. “It’s like everything—give it a generation, and it comes back into fashion.”

“What’s old is new again?”

“That’s right.”

And she should know—she’d been around to see it happen enough times.

Josephine unscrewed the cap on a bottle of top-shelf liquor. The previous owners of the resort hadn’t packed up before they left, and apart from a layer of dust, the bar looked the same as it had the night it closed.

“You think this is still drinkable?”

“Try it and see,” I suggested .

Six weeks had passed since Laurent’s death, and we’d begun to settle into the new normal. The kitchen was refurbished, and somehow, we’d ended up with two islands. For variety, Blane said. Josephine had helped me to collect my things from my old apartment, and thanks to her stolen body, she’d also managed to inherit the burned-out remains of Laurent’s mansion, several properties in other states, a yacht, a collection of cars, and half a strip club. Yes, she was now the proud co-owner of the Pink Squirrel. As yet, we hadn’t worked out who owned the other half or what the heck we were supposed to do with it.

Blane didn’t have time to run the place—he was too busy with the Devil’s Den. The paperwork was signed, and now the mammoth task of turning it into a luxury casino had begun. And I was helping.

He’d told me that as his partner in soul and in love, I could do whatever I wanted with my time, and after two weeks of shopping with Josephine, going on lunch dates with Vee, practising yoga with Caria, and watching too much TV while I waited for Blane to finish work, I’d quickly decided that a life of leisure would bore me to death.

Meanwhile, Caria had sworn off men. Even though she conceded that Blane seemed charming, and maybe not every man was a psychopath, she was determined to stay single for the rest of her life. Thankfully, she barely remembered a thing about the rescue, and the snippets she did recall, she assumed were hallucinations. The guards had begun drugging her after she bit one of them and kicked another in the balls, and Laurent didn’t seem to care whether she was sentient when he raped her.

When she tearfully told me what he’d done, I was so damn happy I’d killed him.

Anyhow, Blane had offered her a role as a consultant, and she was going to assist with the refurbishment of the Devil’s Den. It would be her first paid interior design job. There was still some friction between her and Josephine, mainly because Caria had met her a handful of times as Delphine, and we’d had to come up with a story where Delphine had secretly hated her brother and worked with us to facilitate Caria’s rescue. Now Delphine wanted a fresh start, which included ditching her former lifestyle and changing her name to Josephine.

Didn’t everyone deserve a fresh start?

The gift of happiness?

Marianna didn’t remember a thing about her time slip either, and Lola was none the worse for wear after her ordeal. Vee’s reprieve from photosensitivity had come to an end almost two weeks ago, when she’d had to dash home from a morning jog with severe sunburn. Blane had driven over to give her a top-up, which should keep her going until next week, and now that we knew what was needed, she and Blane had added a monthly dinner date to their schedules.

Voltaire had disappeared.

We were all twitchy, constantly looking over our shoulders, and Callahan had put out feelers to see if he showed up in Europe, but there was no sign. He had money, we knew that much. If he’d bought a new identity, we might never find him unless he chose to reveal himself.

Callahan was also keeping an eye on Laurent’s mole in the LVMPD. Caria had been able to identify him, but there was no way to bring the traitor into the light without a lot of questions being asked about the showdown in the desert. So Callahan was monitoring him. Watching and waiting for him to make another mistake. Blane had offered to remove the man’s soul, but Callahan thought he might be useful. If he was in bed with one criminal, there could be others.

We just needed a little time. Aurelia thought it might be possible to kill Voltaire someday, but we weren’t prepared yet. The key to his demise still lay stubbornly out of reach, but last week, she’d found a cryptic reference jotted in the margin of an ancient text, a strange little verse that gave us hope.

The king of the vampires was vanquished, his heart a thousand pieces.

’Twas pierced by a gift from the queen of trees, the elder of her species.

Was that where the stake-through-the-heart myth came from? Vee said she knew from personal experience that a regular stake wouldn’t work, but when I’d asked whose heart the theory had been tested on, she’d changed the subject.

Anyhow, Voltaire was tomorrow’s problem. Blane had outbid him for the Devil’s Den, and our job was to help make sure that money hadn’t been wasted. He had the business side of things in hand, he assured us, with a project manager on board and financing in place, but he wanted our thoughts on the facilities. Our job was to visit each hotel in Vegas and check out the competition, which wasn’t exactly a hardship. We relaxed in the spas, tried out the rooms, ate in the restaurants, and spent time on the casino floors. Blane had given us a generous budget to start off with, then Caria won the jackpot on a slot machine at Caesars, and now we were in profit by twenty-seven thousand bucks.

“There’s an Eames chair in the Presidential Suite, and I swear it’s an original,” Caria said as Josephine swigged from the bottle. “Do you know how much those go for? We need to check the other rooms just in case there are more of them.”

When Caria’s landlord kicked her out for late payment of the rent—she’d already been two months behind, and being abducted wasn’t an acceptable excuse, apparently—Blane had invited her to use a guest room. So had Vee, and even Marianna had offered a couch. But Caria was still racked with guilt over the rescue and insisted she’d find an apartment, whereupon Blane had pointed out that he had two hundred and fifty-four empty rooms, thirty-seven of which were suites, and she might as well use one of those for the time being.

So Caria was living in the Presidential Suite, along with a vast collection of mid-century modern furniture and Nigel, the cactus she’d carted through her last eight house moves. We’d rescued him from a dumpster outside her old apartment. The Devil’s Den was small compared to many of the casinos on the neighbouring Strip, but the rooms were a good size, and Blane thought it would be perfect as a luxury boutique hotel that catered to high-rollers and folks stuck on the waitlist for Tilt.

“We have the keys for all the rooms,” I told Caria. “Which floor do you want to take?”

“The penthouses will have the best stuff. This place is so cool, even though it gets creepy at night.”

“Blane put security in the lobby.”

Two guys, and they patrolled at regular intervals.

“I know, but if there’s a ghost on the twelfth floor, I’m not sure they’ll be able to help.”

“There’s no such thing as ghosts,” I scoffed, then saw Vee shaking her head in the background. Wait, ghosts were a thing? I needed to ask Blane about that. “Anyhow, back to the chairs…” My phone rang. Saved by the bell. “Kayden?”

Silence.

“Kayden?” My pulse sped up. With Voltaire on the loose, I was jumpy, and my mind went straight to the worst-case scenario. “Are you okay? ”

“Sarah cheated on me.”

“That’s all?”

“Damn, Wren.”

Shit! “Sorry, I’m sorry. What happened? I mean, how did you find out?”

In Hawaii, he’d asked her to marry him, and she’d said yes. How could things have fallen apart so quickly?

“I went to tell my boss about the bachelor party that trashed the fifth tee, and she was sitting on his desk.”

“Maybe he just ran out of chairs?”

“She wasn’t wearing a shirt.”

“Oh.”

“And her panties were stuffed in his mouth. I think I broke a knuckle.”

“Tell me you punched the wall and not his face.”

More silence.

“So you don’t have a job now?”

“Or anyplace to live. The lease was in Sarah’s name.”

“Do you still have a car?”

“Most of my stuff is crammed into the back of it.”

Okay. Okay, we could deal with this. Two months ago, I’d have offered my couch and silently prayed that my tips would stretch to extra groceries, but now, I had options. Two hundred and fifty-three of them, to be precise.

“Come to Vegas. I have a place for you to stay.”

Caria perked up when I told her she’d be getting a roommate. So, unfortunately, did Josephine. In fact, she looked a little too happy.

“Good luck with the furniture,” she said. “I need to visit the salon.”

“Hey, you said you’d help us.”

“You have everything under control. I have the utmost faith in you.”

What had I done?

That evening, over a dinner of pan-fried risotto and a green salad—no, I hadn’t made it—Blane chuckled as I recounted the conversation. Josephine had shown up at the Devil’s Den, primped and preened, a half hour after Kayden arrived. Her offer to “show him around” had been gratefully received, and now I was having regrets. Big regrets.

“Why didn’t you tell me that Josephine was into Kayden?”

“When she was Joseph, I didn’t think it was important. Kayden had a girlfriend.”

“This is a nightmare.”

“Look on the bright side—Josephine would never hook up with Kayden’s boss.” Blane couldn’t quite keep a straight face. “I’d throw her into Mount Malum if she even thought about cheating.”

“This isn’t funny. Kayden needs time and space to mend his broken heart, not a rebound fling with a literal demon.”

“You don’t think hot sex might cheer him up? Take his mind off things?”

I buried my head in my hands. “Kayden is my brother . I don’t even want to think about that.” But I couldn’t help it. “Can Josephine even…? She just dove into that body, and what if parts got rearranged?”

Now it was Blane’s turn to grimace. “I hadn’t considered it in that level of detail. At least I don’t have these worries with Aurelia and Decima.”

“I just don’t want anyone to get hurt. Kayden’s been through?—”

“Did I hear my name?”

Aurelia strolled in from the terrace, but she wasn’t alone. A petite brunette trailed behind her, eyes wide as she glanced around in utter bewilderment. First time in Vegas? She had the palest skin I’d ever seen, and when the light from the new chandelier hit her, she looked almost ethereal. Who was she?

Blane rose to hug his sister and then kissed the brunette on the cheek. “Megara, you look lovely as always. To what do we owe the pleasure?”

Aurelia dropped into the chair beside me and motioned to Megara to sit next to Blane. She perched on the very edge of the seat, looking ready to flee at a second’s notice.

“Lysander.”

Blane frowned. “Lysander sent you here?”

“No, we came here to get away from him.”

The frown turned darker. “Did he do something to hurt you?”

“No, no! He hasn’t laid a finger on me. I mean, maybe if he had…” Aurelia gave her head a shake. “He’s so…so nice.”

“And that’s a problem? I thought women liked that?”

“Well, we do. But sometimes, we also like a man who’ll tear our clothes off and throw us on the bed, you know?”

“Please, Aurelia. You’re my sister.”

But Blane caught my eye and smirked, and I tried desperately not to laugh. It didn’t work. Megara’s gasp was a testament to that.

“Lysander isn’t that type of man?” I ventured.

“Lysander would hang my clothes neatly in the closet, iron the sheets, and have me fill out a questionnaire with my likes and dislikes before he even touched me. There’s no spark whatsoever. None.”

“Does that matter? Can’t you put him to work cataloguing books until it’s time for him to go home?”

“He asked me to have dinner with him. And I thought it was just a platonic meeting to discuss the new filing system, but over dessert, he asked me how I like to be kissed.”

Blane paused with a forkful of risotto halfway to his mouth. “Awkward.”

“It gets worse,” Megara whispered.

“What was I meant to say? In all the romance novels I’ve read, people just work it out as they go along. And then yesterday, Meggie overheard Mom and Dad talking, and it turns out that Lysander isn’t only an exchange student. He’s also a suitor.”

Blane dropped the fork. “What?”

“He’s a prince from Realm 11,593, and I’m supposed to marry him. Then we head to the other side of the universe to run the second plane there and live happily ever after.” Aurelia slumped over the table and rested her head on her arms. “I can’t do it. I just can’t. I don’t want to live in another realm, and I especially don’t want to live in another realm with the most boring man I’ve ever met.”

“That’s understandable, but?—”

She looked up at Blane with pleading eyes. “Can we stay here for a while?”

Blane adored his little sister. He wouldn’t want to see her leave for another realm any more than she wanted to go. There was only one answer he could give. I reached across the table and squeezed his hand to let him know I agreed.

“Of course you can.”