3. Just So We’re Clear, I Was a Straight-A Student

Iwasn't sure how she did it, but Liang always positioned herself at Clive's side, whereas I seemed to forever be lagging behind, the sulky teenager, angry with the world. Of course, it didn't help that every vamp we passed thought Liang powerful, deadly, brilliant, beautiful, and perfect for Clive. I wouldn't get into what they thought about me. I was already feeling down.

Russell was waiting for Clive in the foyer. "Sire, Godfrey and I had a thought."

"My study." Clive and Liang sailed ahead while Russell walked with me.

"I didn't expect you back so soon, Miss Quinn." He kept pace with me, quiet solicitude in every word and expression.

"We had a spot of trouble." I didn't want the whole nocturne to know my woes. The schadenfreude was strong in this crowd.

"I'm sorry to hear that." He held the door open for me before closing it firmly behind us.

Clive sat behind his desk with Godfrey in one chair and Liang in the other. Russell and I would either need to stand or sit farther from the action. Godfrey stood immediately, gesturing for Russell to take his chair. Liang, who had no official place in the nocturne and therefore should have moved, remained seated.

Godfrey pulled two chairs from the table at the opposite end of Clive's study and brought them to the desk, as a kind of second row. I patted his arm in thanks but ignored the chair, instead prowling around the room, restless.

Voices in a nocturne were always kept low to avoid eavesdropping. We all had excellent hearing, including any who might have an ear to a door. None of the rooms in the house were soundproofed. Clive had explained to me when I'd moved in—when the Slaughtered Lamb had been destroyed and I'd had nowhere to live—that soundproofing was the quickest way to be ambushed. If someone was coming for him, he wanted to hear it.

So I wandered the far side of his study, picking up rare treasures, examining them, and putting them back. Their discussion, like the hundreds that had come before, seemed to spiral away in too many directions. When you're a thousand-year-old vampire, like Clive, you make a lot of enemies. They'd long since exhausted primary possibilities, those he may have battled or bested. They were now exploring secondary and tertiary connections.

Most vampires were long-lived. Was it the lover of a rival he'd killed? The underling of that lover who had been brooding about his master's defeat for a century or two? The possibilities were, as I was discovering, endless.

"Yes, but I contend Leticia is older than she admits." Godfrey was leaning forward, intent.

I'd been letting their voices wash over me until now, as I hadn't known anyone they were discussing. This name I knew. Leticia was the vamp in Clive's nocturne who'd had it out for me. She'd blamed me for her lover étienne's death. Bélisaire Lafitte, étienne's brother, agreed, attacking the nocturne and luring us to New Orleans. Clive had killed étienne when he'd failed to follow Clive's order to guard me. When I was seventeen and just building the Slaughtered Lamb, I'd been attacked by a kelpie, almost killed, and it was Clive who'd had to rescue me. That fucking kelpie was nothing but trouble.

"You've mentioned this before, but I don't see how she could be," Russell responded. "She was thoroughly investigated before she was accepted into the nocturne."

"Yes, but who was doing the investigating? Remember, she arrived when we were going through a changing of the guard. Greta was returning to Europe and Nicolette was taking over the job."

A weighted silence filled the room.

"What?" I asked, moving back toward the discussion. "Why is that important?" I ignored the empty second-string chair and instead settled onto the tufted bench along the wall to the right of Clive's desk.

While Clive considered the question, Russell turned to me. "Nicolette only held the job for a few months, while we looked for a researcher who possessed the age and experience needed to do the job properly." Expression strained, he continued, "Nicolette was one of the members of the nocturne who fought on Lafitte's side when they attacked."

"You say you believed her to be older than she said. Why?" Liang rested a hand on Clive's desk, turning to Godfrey.

"Her speech," Clive said.

"Yes." Godfrey nodded, waiting for Clive to continue.

Clive blew out a breath and turned to me. "Her phrasing, but only rarely, was archaic."

"Yes." Godfrey stood, excitement forcing him to move. "And never when speaking directly to either of us. I only noticed it a handful of times over the years, and only when I overheard her deep in discussion with others."

"Exactly," Clive said. "I'd heard her once or twice use a word or a phrase that made me think of home. I thought it odd for one as young as she to use it. It happened so rarely, though, I'd assumed she'd merely picked up the expression from someone older."

"We can be magpies with language," Liang agreed.

"Sure, but doesn't that prove Godfrey's point?" I pulled up my knees, wrapped my arms around them, and wished I had a blanket in here. The cold window at my back was chilling me to the bone. "I do the same thing. I listen to ancient supernaturals chatting in the bar and sometimes pick up the expressions that interest or tickle me. If it's a fun word, like Grim referring to musicians as troubadours, I consciously make the switch in my head, wondering which troubadours I might listen to as I stock the shelves in the bookstore. I haven't altered my lexicon. I've merely overlayed a word I find more joy in."

All four vamps stared at me, Clive smiling, so I continued. "I knew the word from books, but it wasn't until I heard Grim using it that I wanted to adopt it. For him, it wasn't a fun, archaic word. It was the proper word for musicians of his time. He wasn't doing any code switching or making a joke. When I use it, I'm consciously playing with language because it's not my word. It belongs to another age."

Clive rose while I spoke and opened a cabinet door, pulling out a folded gray and white throw. He wrapped it around me before resuming his seat. A line formed between Liang's eyebrows and she blinked twice in rapid succession, a sure sign of distress.

"If, as you say, Leticia only used the archaic language when lost in a discussion with others, not with you, when she'd be more inclined to be circumspect, it might be indicative of those words being part of her own learned language. She may have known to hide her native diction when being overheard could prove dangerous. And I think it's safe to say she found you three dangerous."

"I understood you'd barely graduated high school." Liang's comment hung in the room.

Clive turned his attention to her, a troubled expression on his face. "Were that the criteria for discussion, none of us—save yourself—would be able to speak."

Liang held herself stiffly and inclined her head toward Clive. "I apologize. I intended no disrespect to anyone in the room. I was taken by how she expressed herself, given her limited, and more modern, education."

"Not happy about the ‘barely graduated' comment, but to answer the question I believe you were asking, I'm neither stupid nor illiterate. Bookstore owner equals book nerd."

"Of course," she said.

The temperature in the room dropped a few degrees, which warmed my heart. None of my guys were happy with the swipe Liang had taken at me.

"Russell, see if you can locate Greta. I need to know if she left of her own volition or if she was coerced into leaving her post. Godfrey, as this was your idea, you run with it. See what you can find out about Leticia, how old, who she's connected to, and why the hell she's aimed at me." Clive stood. "That'll be all for now." He held out his hand for me and we left without a word or backward glance at Liang.

I thought we'd be heading upstairs, but instead Clive walked us down the hall and into my favorite room in the whole mansion. The library put the Beast's to shame. Bookshelves soared to the ceiling. A spiral staircase in the corner rose to the walkway that encircled the second-floor landing. Ladders slid on rails, making it easier to find any book in a room that had to be four times the size of my own bookstore.

Every time I walked in here, I sighed. It was involuntary.

Clive closed the door, tapped and swiped at the discreet control panel. The door lock clicked, the lights dimmed, flames shot up in the fireplace, and soft music played. He guided me to the center of the room, pulled me into his arms, and we began to dance.

Resting my head on his shoulder, I breathed in my mate's scent as tension drained from my limbs. His right arm held me close, his left hand cradling my right against his chest. Slowly, we let the threats preying on both of us slide away.

A year ago—Hell, a few months ago—I'd have been in my apartment, blanket up to my nose, completely, painfully alone.

Abigail may be back, but I had allies this time around. Russell and Godfrey would do whatever they could to back me up. I had friends. Dave, Owen, Stheno, and Meg would stand beside me when the battle began. And I'd found my forever love, the one who, no matter what, no matter how prepared I was, how unlikely I'd be hurt, would step in front of me to take the hit. He wouldn't be able to help himself.

I was going to make sure that didn't happen. I was going to figure out how to be a proper necromancer. I was going to hone my considerable talents and take out my aunt, preferably before any more of my friends were hurt.

For now, though, I was going to dance with my betrothed, his quiet humming rumbling in my ear.

"In the past," he began slowly, "when I knew trouble was on the horizon, when I knew forces were gathering against me, I was steady. I knew I'd triumph. Others may be lost, some dear to me, but I never doubted I'd survive. As Stheno once told you, she and I have lived as long as we have because we put our own survival first. Always. We're ruthless and self-centered and will do whatever it takes, no matter how heinous, in order to be the last one standing."

Swaying in the firelight, surrounded by low, bluesy music, I asked, "Are you trying to scare me off?"

Pulling back, he stopped moving but kept my hand in his. "No. I'm explaining that a thousand years of muscle memory, of survival at all costs, has been altered. I'll still do whatever it takes to survive, but your safety is now tied to my survival.

"I've had millions of discussions like the one tonight, trying to ferret out the enemy and planning an attack. Since you, though, my perspective has changed. It's no longer about vanquishing the enemy in so bloody a manner that any comer pauses. Not only that. Now, there's an underlying fear that never existed before. If the battle ends and you aren't standing beside me, I'm not sure I could muster the desire to go on." He gave a quick shake of his head. "It's new and unsettling, but it's there. In my bones, in my blood, I can't live without you."

Eyes glassy with tears, I said, "It's a pretty good thing we're getting married then, huh?"

"It is, indeed."

I slid my arms around his neck and pulled him down for a kiss. Gentle, tentative—like this new love for both of us—the kiss turned heated. We grappled with the clothes in our way.

"Wait," I panted. "The doors are locked and no one can get in, right?" I looked into dark corners of the room. "No one's lurking?"

He chuckled, his lips brushing the column of my neck before his fangs skated over my skin, causing me to tremble and go up in flames all at once. "You tell me."

I reached out, found all the cold, green blips in other parts of the house, and let it go. "Must you wear so many clothes?" I tore open his shirt, revealing a sculpted chest, but his tie was still tight around his neck. I resisted using my claws to slice through it, instead using more restraint than I thought possible at the moment to slowly slide the knot down and then drop the tie at his feet.

Eyes glowing in the low light, he dove for me. We ended up naked and rolling around on the carpet in front of the fireplace, laughing and desperate for one another. Skin rising and falling against skin, lips and tongues exploring, we took our time, the need becoming almost painful. Finally, when I thought I'd lose my mind, he rose over me and slid inside. Caught in his gaze, I wrapped myself around him, meeting him stroke for stroke until neither of us could hold back any longer.

Later, stretched out on top of Clive while he lazily drew designs on my back with his fingertips, I closed my eyes and sought the little green blips again. This time, I found Liang in the hall outside the library door. Deciding I was far too content to care, I snuggled in.