Chapter 21

21

The Lady of Frostwater

I watched Melody walk away.“What do you think?” I asked Aaron.

“She is harmless.”

“Yes,” I agreed. “I don’t think she’s in league with Lady Cassandra.”

Another vampire lady was headed our way, an elderly woman in black, sparkling from head to toe with sapphire jewelry. She looked old enough to be Melody’s grandmother. She lifted the skirt of her long black gown as she walked, and her bell sleeves slid a little up her arms, revealing layers of clinking bracelets. A fat sapphire ring sparkled upon each finger.

“Lady Rosalind of Sappheiros,” Aaron said.

I remembered her from my background research. Lady Rosalind was known for her sharp mind and strong hand, and also for her massive collection of jewels, which was the envy of every vampire aristocrat. As was her territory’s location. Lady Rosalind’s planet lay at an intersection of several key portals. Her wealth and uncanny habit of always knowing what everyone was up to made her one of the vampire nobility’s most dangerous players.

She’d never married, and she had no children of her own. She was leaving everything to her two nieces.

Aaron had added a few notes to the files he’d given me. Lady Rosalind might not have married, but she was no stranger to love. Long ago, she’d been involved with none other than Emperor Ambrose Selpe. The two of them had a falling out, a consequence of Rosalind’s famous fiery temper, but she continued to love and respect him for all his days.

I saw the spark of fire in the lady’s blue-grey eyes. This was someone who never went into a conversation unprepared. And she was coming to speak to us. I wondered if I should be worried. Aaron didn’t look concerned.

Her movements were satin and steel, strong yet smooth. Her hair had gone as white as the spotless marble floors, but it was still thick and strong. Unlike the other older ladies here, Rosalind had kept it long and wore it in a braided twist high up on her head, curled tendrils cascading halfway down her back. With glossy rose-pink lipstick, dark eyeshadow, and lusciously long artificial eyelashes, she was as primly made up as any gala-gazing young lady on a husband hunt. Though Ambrose Selpe had died a month ago, she still wore a high-necked black dress and a hairnet which framed her right jawline.

“Aaron,” I said slowly. “She is still in mourning. She still loves Ambrose Selpe.”

He shook his head. “It could be a deception. For all we know, she’s the one who’s been trying to kill me whenever I go digging into Ambrose’s murder.”

Lady Rosalind chuckled as she glided to a stop in front of us. “My dear Major Pall, I do not try to kill people. When I want them dead, they die.”

Aaron gave her a cold look.

“Oh, yes. Quite frightening. I can see why Adrian chose you to be his warlord.”

“I am a soldier in the Diamond Edges. Not a warlord.”

“We both know that there’s little difference.”

I liked Lady Rosalind already. She told it how it was. I really needed some of that bluntness now.

“Do you know who plotted with Lady Cassandra? Who helped her escape?” I asked.

“If I did, do you think I would be here, dolled up to rub elbows and exchange fake smiles with the Empire’s elite?” she demanded. “No, you would have found my niece here in my place. I would have donned my battle gear and gone after that slime myself.”

“I thought vampires don’t have any female warriors.”

Her eyes burned with pride. “I am one of a kind.”

“Yes, you really are,” I said, impressed.

I could smell the musk of fury rising up from the lady through layers of silk and satin and cashmere.

“I will see the murderous traitor tortured and strung up to die.” As her fists clenched, the gigantic jewels on her rings scratched together. “This traitor will weep blood for ending the life of the most magnificent ruler the Selpe Empire is ever likely to see.”

This was no act. I believed her. I looked at Aaron and saw he believed her too. His trust meant something. It was his job to get the truth out of anyone. He was even better at reading people than I was.

“Find Ambrose’s killer. Find them all,” Lady Rosalind told us, then she turned and walked back the way she’d come.

“Are these galas always so intense?” I asked Aaron.

“Sometimes,” he replied. “But mostly people just get really drunk.”

A man in a tuxedo as black as his long hair broke away from the group he’d been talking to. He moved toward us, his gait powerful yet easy. His eyes, hazel speckled with gold, shone with a supernatural spark. I knew those eyes. And I knew that man. Ethan. He was half-mage, half-vampire. And he was my friend.

“Terra,” he said warmly, clasping my arms. “I never expected to see you here. Not that I’m not thrilled.”

“You two know each other?” Aaron asked us, surprised.

“We met on Wellspring,” Ethan told him.

Aaron snorted. “Wellspring?” He looked at me. “What were you doing at the party capital of the galaxy? Drawn in by the promises of intercultural sexual escapades?”

My cheeks warmed. “No. I was there on a job, hunting down a man who’d embezzled millions from galactic corporations, then ran off to Wellspring to blow it all on girls, booze, and gambling. Do you have any idea how many resorts Wellspring has?”

“Forty-two,” Ethan and Aaron said together.

I sighed. “Yes, forty-two. And that slippery bastard kept hopping from one to the next. It took me weeks to track him down. Weeks of undercover work.”

“Weeks of parties,” Ethan said, something close to euphoria flitting across his face.

“How ever did you manage?” Aaron asked me.

“Obviously, neither of you has ever gone to Wellspring as a woman.”

“Aaron doesn’t like wearing a dress. It makes his legs look big,” Ethan said earnestly.

Aaron nodded. “It’s true. It really is.”

“Very funny,” I told the two comedians. “Going to Wellspring as a woman is apparently an invitation for every horny man in sight—which is a lot of them, mind you—to hit on you. I had a very unpleasant encounter with a hot tub of vampires. Honestly, I wasn’t sure how I was going to get rid of them without breaking bones.”

Aaron chuckled.

“Don’t laugh too hard,” Ethan told him. “They were your men. Diamond Edges.”

The laughter died on Aaron’s lips. “Which ones?” he asked me.

“It doesn’t matter. Yes, the guys annoyed me, but they were drunk. And as soon as Ethan threatened to tell their boss, they scrammed.”

“Good.” Aaron obviously liked being feared, even by his own men. Or perhaps especially by his own men.

“I’m glad you’re here,” he said to Ethan.

Ethan expelled a soft snort. “Nothing good ever followed those words. It means you’re about to get me into trouble. Again.”

They both looked amused.

“If you’re going to hang around Aaron, make sure you’re armed,” Ethan said to me. “Trouble always finds him. Or he finds it.”

No kidding. Then again, I was no stranger to the trouble department either. The key to being a good private investigator was to find trouble before trouble found you. I was still working on that.

“Have you two been friends long?” I asked them.

“This crazy bastard isn’t just my friend,” Ethan said. “He’s my cousin.”

“Is anyone in the Selpe Empire’s inner circle not related?” I asked seriously.

“Probably not,” Ethan said. “A lot of us are related by blood or by marriage. There are some we’d rather not be related to.” He made a face.

“Our cousin Veronica,” Aaron explained. “The Lady of Frostwater is a major pain in the ass.”

As I watched the two of them laugh and joke together, I caught a different, lighter side of Aaron, a side he rarely let out.

“Give me a moment,” Aaron said. “Lord Adrian is waving me over.”

“So, you’re working with Aaron?” Ethan asked me when we were alone.

“Yes.”

“On what?”

“I can’t share the details of my cases. Client confidentiality. Sorry.”

“Of course,” Ethan replied, smiling over his wine glass. He didn’t look upset. In fact, he looked pretty amused. “Just be careful.”

“With what?” I expected another warning about traitors, like those we’d received from Melody or Rosalind.

“Be careful with Aaron,” Ethan said. “He breaks hearts. He doesn’t mean it, but it’s just what he does.”

“It’s not like that between us.”

“Keep it that way. I don’t want to see you get hurt. Again.”

“You know what happened two years ago?” I asked him.

“Yes. He manipulated you into helping him, then he turned on your friend, framing him.” His mouth tightened into a hard line. “It wasn’t Aaron. He didn’t want to hurt you. It was Lord Adrian’s doing.”

“Aaron is a grown man. He can make decisions by himself—and live with the consequences of them.”

“Terra, that’s just not how vampires operate. Especially the military. Duty is everything. Following the hierarchy is everything. And power. Above all, the quest for power. Power is the reward for that obedience.”

“I’ve heard that Aaron is Lord Adrian’s protege.”

“Yeah, you could say that,” said Ethan. “Lord Adrian has always surrounded himself with people of significance. That’s how he maintains his power. And there aren’t too many people more significant than Aaron. Aaron’s father was Ambrose’s younger brother Gabriel.”

“The one who made a move to usurp the throne?”

“Yes. His wife Kira—Aaron’s mother—was in on the scheme. They failed, and it cost them their lives.”

“Ambrose Selpe had them killed?” I asked.

“Yes. The punishment for treason against the Selpe Empire is death. Every vampire knows it, so you can’t really feel sorry for Gabriel and Kira. They knew what they were getting into. And it’s not like they were inviting Ambrose to take a long and pleasant vacation at some fancy prison resort for the rest of his life. They were planning to poison him. They failed at that, but they succeeded in killing his wife.”

“Gabriel and Kira Pall were the ones who killed Livia Selpe?”

Ethan dropped his voice to a whisper. “You mean, Livia Cross. Your aunt.”

I looked at him in surprise.

“Yes, I know.”

“How?”

He straightened. “I’m actually good at my job. And Hayden told me,” he added.

“Did Aaron know about the plot?” I asked.

“None of us knew about it. At least, none of us who are still alive. I was working for SIN back then, the day three agents were escorted out of the Orion office. Gabriel and Kira had supporters. A lot of them. They were all rounded up and executed. Aaron took his parents’ deaths pretty hard. It all went down just a few weeks before he was set to complete his university education. He was only nineteen. That’s Aaron: driven to the point of ruthlessness. He’d never missed a day of school. Never missed a day of training. But when his parents died as traitors, he spent several days getting drunk on a steady diet of exorbitantly-priced wine—and just as many nights on a mission to engage in as many bar fights as humanly possible.”

“So he was out of control,” I said.

“It was his way of exerting control over a life that had spun out of control. He couldn’t do anything about what had happened to his parents, but he could pick fights with random strangers.”

“What happened? How did he come back from that?” I asked.

“Lord Adrian,” Ethan told me. “He’d had his eye on Aaron for years, and he used this tragedy as an opportunity to finally swoop in. He took Aaron under his wing, made him his protege, as you said. And he offered Aaron the thing no one else could.”

“What was that?”

“Revenge,” Ethan said darkly. “He gave Aaron the name of the man who’d sold out his parents.”

“Aaron killed him.”

“Yes. Yes, he did.” Ethan set down his empty glass on the tray of a passing waiter. “Aaron is my friend, Terra. He is also my cousin, though he’s really more like a brother to me. But even I am not blind to the person he is. For the most part, he’s a good man, but you can’t serve Lord Adrian for so long and expect to keep your hands clean. Aaron is pragmatic. Unwaveringly so. That’s why Lord Adrian likes him. And Aaron has a talent for applying that pragmatism to his work, no matter how distasteful it is. He handles the sort of things swept under the rug and never ever mentioned in polite conversation. The sort of things you or I simply could not do. Be careful.”

Ethan bowed his head to me, then he walked off across the ballroom, weaving in and out between lords and ladies in a sea of tuxedos and gowns.

“You’re back,” I said when Aaron returned.

“And you haven’t run away.” He held out a small glass of chocolate pudding topped with a single ripe raspberry. “I brought you something.”

The dessert sang out to me, begging to be eaten. “I shouldn’t.” Prophets got a little drunk from chocolate.

“Come on.” He set the dessert glass in my hands. “I know chocolate is your favorite food.”

It was my favorite. “How do you know?”

“The garden party in Laelia. You went straight for the chocolate.”

“Aaron, that was two years ago. How can you remember that?”

“It seemed important.” He smiled. “And I have a good memory.”

I scooped up a spoonful of pudding. A medley of chocolate and raspberry exploded on my tongue, dancing across my tastebuds. “This is the best chocolate pudding I’ve ever had,” I declared.

“I’m glad you like it.” The smile died on his lips.

“What’s wrong?”

“My cousin Veronica is headed this way.” His face grew contemplative.

“You’re contemplating escape,” I said.

“It’s too late.”

“You’re afraid.”

“I am not afraid of Veronica,” he stated. “It’s just that talking to her is a one-way ticket to a bad mood for the rest of the day. She has her own unique powers. You’ll see what I mean.” His arm curled protectively around my waist as he turned to stoically face his fate.

The first look I caught of Veronica Frostwater surprised me. She wasn’t dressed like the other ladies here. Her outfit was…bizarre. She wore a compact hat with a tail of brightly dyed feathers sticking out of the back. Fuchsia, turquoise, and canary yellow, the feathers matched the colors of her dress perfectly. Yellow ribbons crisscrossed up the black corset top of the dress, culminating in a girlish bow. Beneath the thigh-length fuchsia skirt, she wore tights that shimmered dark silver under the chandelier lights. Sewn to the back of the shirt, tiered layers of alternating turquoise, yellow, and fuchsia extended down to the floor like a peacock’s tail. On her feet, she wore black buckled pumps with big bows that matched the one on her top. She certainly knew how to stand out in a crowd.

“Veronica,” Aaron said, nodding. His voice was as calm as a waveless ocean, betraying none of the unease he’d expressed just a few seconds ago.

“Aaron, dear.” Veronica strode forward, a dazzling smile on her face. She extended her hand, and Aaron dutifully kissed it. “You’ve been avoiding me.”

“I’ve been busy.”

She pouted out her lips. “You are always busy when I’m around.”

“Not just when you’re around,” he said. “I’m sure you can understand the demands of my position.”

“Oh, of course. Of course.” She turned to me and smiled. “Lord Adrian has more than enough work to keep his Diamond Edges busy, wouldn’t you agree, Terra Cross?”

So she knew who I was.

Aaron’s jaw rolled back as he gritted his teeth. “What do you want, Veronica?”

She expelled a martyred sigh. “You must excuse my cousin’s manners,” she told me. “Aaron has a talent for directness. It’s what Lord Adrian likes about him.” She turned her eyes back on Aaron. “I hear you’re working on something important right now.”

Aaron said nothing.

“Oh, Aaron. You really are no fun at all. You’re going around Orion with a private investigator. It doesn’t require an enormous amount of effort to put two and two together.”

“Terra is my date.”

Veronica let out a noise that sounded like something between a laugh and a sneeze. “The woman who lost everything because of you is your date? I might be beautiful, Aaron, but I am not stupid.”

“What you are is paranoid,” he told her.

She sighed. “And, as always, you are stubborn.”

“Goodnight, Veronica.”

She ignored him, turning her dark blue eyes on me. “You are in danger, Terra Cross. The Phantom who kidnapped your brother is coming for you.”