“Did you?”
“I did,” I said. “And now I have to go to the Conclave meetings.”
“I’m there as a supportive spouse-to-be.” Curran grinned, flashing his teeth.
“So why did your father mess with the convoys?” Roman asked.
“No reason. He does it to aggravate me. He’s an immortal wizard with a megalomaniac complex. He doesn’t understand words like ‘no’ and ‘boundaries.’ It bugs him that I have this land. He can’t let it go, so he sits on my border and pokes it. He tried to build a tower on the edge of Atlanta. I made him move it, so now he’s building himself ‘a small residence’ about five miles out.”
“How small?” Roman asked.
“About thirty thousand square feet,” Curran said.
Roman whistled, then knocked on the wooden table and spat over his shoulder three times.
Curran looked at me.
“Whistling in the house is bad luck,” I explained.
“You’ll whistle all your money away,” Roman said. “Thirty thousand square feet, huh?”
“Give or take. He keeps screwing with her,” Curran said. “His construction crews obstruct the Pack hunting grounds outside Atlanta. His soldiers nag the small settlements outside the claimed area, trying to get people to sell their land to him.”
My father was slowly driving me insane. He’d cross into my territory when the magic was up, so I would feel his presence, then leave before I could get there to bust him. The first few times he had done it, I rode out, dreading a war, but there was never anyone to fight. Sometimes I woke up in the middle of the night because I’d feel him enter my land, and then I’d lie there gritting my teeth and fighting with myself to keep from grabbing my sword and running out of the house to hunt him down.
“Don’t forget the monsters,” I said. “They keep spawning outside the boundary and then raid Atlanta.”
“Most of the time we can’t tie it back to him,” Curran said. “When we can, she calls him on it. He apologizes and makes generous reparations.”
“And then we all somehow end up eating in some seafood joint, where he orders the whole menu and the waiters serve us glassy-eyed,” I said.
Curran finished his coffee in one gulp. “Last week a flock of harpies attacked Druid Hills. It took the Guild six hours to put them down. One merc ended up in the hospital with some kind of acute magical rabies.”
“Well, at least it’s rabies,” Roman said. “They carry leprosy, too.”
“I called Roland about it,” I said. “He said, ‘Who knows why harpies do anything, Blossom?’ And then he told me he had two tickets to see Aivisha sing and one of them had my name on it.”
“Parents.” Roman heaved a sigh. “Can’t live with them. Can’t get away from them. When you try to move, they buy a house in your new neighborhood.”
“That’s one thing about having both of your parents murdered,” Curran said. “I don’t have parent problems.”
Roman and I looked at him.
“We really do have to go,” I said.
“Thanks for the coffee.” Curran put his empty mug on the table.
“No trouble,” Roman said. “I’ll get started on this wedding thing.”
“We really appreciate it,” I said.
“Oh no, no. My pleasure.”
We got up, walked to the door, and I swung it open. A black raven flew past me and landed on the back of the couch.
Roman slapped his hand over his face.
“There you are,” the raven said in Evdokia’s voice. “Ungrateful son.”
“Here we go . . .” Roman muttered.
“Eighteen hours in labor and this is what I get. He can’t even pick up the phone to talk to his own mother.”
“Mother, can’t you see I have people here?”
“I bet if their mothers called them, they would pick up.”
That would be a neat trick for both of us. Sadly, dead mothers didn’t come back to life, even in post-Shift Atlanta.
“Nice to see you, Roman.” I grabbed Curran by the hand.
The bird swiveled toward me. “Katya!”
Oh no.
“Don’t you leave. I need to talk to you.”
“Got to go, bye!”
I jumped out of the house. Curran was only half a second behind me, and he pushed the door closed. I sped down the wooden path before Evdokia decided to track me down.
“Are you actually running away from Evdokia?”
“Yes, I am.” The witches weren’t exactly pleased with me. They had trusted me to protect Atlanta and its covens, and I had claimed the city instead.
“Maybe we could skip the Conclave tonight,” Curran said.
“We can’t.”
“Why?”
“Because it’s Mahon’s turn to attend.”
The Kodiak of Atlanta was brave and powerful and the closest thing to a father Curran had. He also had an uncanny ability to alienate everyone in the room and then have to defend himself when a brawl broke out. He took self-defense seriously. Sometimes there was no building left standing when he was done.
“Jim will be there,” Curran said.
“Nope.” The Pack rotated Conclave duty between the alphas, so if something happened at the Conclave, the leadership of the Pack as a whole wouldn’t be wiped out. “Jim was at the last one. You would know this if you hadn’t skipped it to go fight that thing in the sewers. It will be Raphael and Andrea, Desandra, and your father. Unsupervised.”
Curran swore. “What the hell is Jim thinking with that lineup?”
“Serves you right for pretending you don’t have parent problems.”
He growled something under his breath.
Mahon and I didn’t always see eye to eye. He’d thought I wouldn’t make a good mate for Curran and that I was the reason Curran left the Pack, and he’d told me so, but now he’d come to terms with it. We both loved Curran, so we had to deal with each other and we made the best of it. Although lately Mahon had been unusually nice to me. It was probably a trap.
“We make it through the Conclave and then we can go home, drink coffee, and eat the apple pie I made last night,” I said. “It will be glorious.”
He put his arm around me. “The Conclave is only a dinner.”
“Don’t say it.”
“How . . .”
I glared at him. “I mean it! I want a nice quiet night.”
“. . . bad could it be?”
“Now you ruined it. If a burning giant busts through a window while we’re at the Conclave and tries to squish people, I will so punch you in the arm.”
He laughed and we jogged down the winding forest path to our car.
• • •
BERNARD’S WAS ALWAYS full but never crowded. Housed in a massive English-style mansion in an affluent northern neighborhood, Bernard’s restaurant was one of those places where you had to make a reservation two weeks in advance, minimum. The food was beautiful and expensive, the portions tiny—and the patrons were the real draw. Men in thousand-dollar suits and women in glittering dresses with shiny rocks on their necks and wrists mingled and had polite conversation in hushed voices while sipping wine and expensive liquor.
Curran and I walked into Bernard’s in our work clothes: worn jeans, T-shirts, and boots. I would’ve preferred my sword too, but Bernard’s had a strict no-weapons policy, so Sarrat had to wait in the car.
People stared as we walked to the conference room. People always stared. Whispers floated.
“Is that her?”
“She doesn’t look like . . .”
Ugh.
Curran turned toward the sound, his eyes iced over, his expression flat. The whispers died.
We entered the conference room, where a single long table had been set. The Pack was already there.
Mahon sat in the center seat facing the door, Raphael on his right, Desandra three seats down on his left. Mahon saw us and grinned, stroking his beard, which used to be black but now was shot through with silver. When you saw the Kodiak of Atlanta, one word immediately sprang to mind: “big.” Tall, with massive shoulders, barrel-chested and broad but not fat, Mahon telegraphed strength and raw physical power. While Curran held the coiled promise of explosive violence, Mahon looked like if the roof suddenly caved in, he would catch it, grunt, and hold it up.
Next to him, Raphael couldn’t be more different. Lean, tall, and dark, with piercing blue eyes, the alpha of the bouda clan wasn’t traditionally handsome, but there was something about his face that made women obsess. They looked at him and thought of sex. Then they looked at his better half and decided that he wasn’t worth dying over. Especially lately, because Andrea was nine months pregnant and communicating mostly in snarls. And she wasn’t at the table.
Desandra, beautiful, blond, and built like a female prizefighter, poked at some painstaking arrangement of flowers and sliced meats on her plate that was probably supposed to be some sort of gourmet dish. She saluted us with a fork and went back to poking.
Curran sat next to Mahon. I took the chair between him and Desandra and leaned forward, so I could see Raphael. “Where is Andrea?”
“In the Keep,” he said. “Doolittle wants to keep an eye on her.”
“Is everything okay?” She was due any day.
“It’s fine,” Raphael said. “Doolittle is just hovering.”
And the Pack’s medmage was probably the only one who could force Andrea to comply.
“Boy.” Mahon clapped his hand on Curran’s shoulder. His whole face was glowing. Curran grinned back. It almost made the Conclave worth it.
“Old man,” Curran said.
“You’re looking thinner. Trimming down for the wedding? Or she not feeding you enough?”
“He eats what he kills,” I said. “I can’t help it that he’s a lousy hunter.”
Mahon chuckled.
“I’ve been busy,” Curran said. “The Guild takes a lot of work. Outside the Keep, it’s not all feasts and honey muffins. You should try it sometime. You’re getting a gut and winter isn’t coming for six months.”
“Oh.” Mahon turned, rummaged in the bag he’d hung on the chair, and pulled out a large rectangular Tupperware container. “Martha sent these for you since you never come to the house.”
Curran popped the lid off. Six perfect golden muffins. The aroma of honey and vanilla floated around the table. Desandra came to life like a winter wolf who heard a bunny nearby.
Curran took one muffin, passed it to me, and bit into a second one. “We came to your house last week.”
“I was out on clan business. That doesn’t count.”
I bit into the muffin and, for the five seconds it took me to chew, went to heaven.
The People filed into the room. Ghastek was in the lead: tall, painfully thin, and made even thinner by the dark suit he wore. Rowena walked a step behind him, shockingly stunning as always. Today she wore a whiskey-colored cocktail dress that hugged her generous breasts and hips, while accentuating her narrow waist. Her waterfall of red hair was plaited into a very wide braid and twisted into a knot on the side. I wouldn’t even know how to start that hairdo.
I missed my long hair. It was barely past my shoulders now and there wasn’t much I could do with it, besides letting it loose or pulling it back into a ponytail.
Curran leaned toward me, his voice barely above a whisper. “Why didn’t those two ever get together?”
“I have no idea. Why would they?”
“Because all the other Masters of the Dead are in relationships. These two are unattached and always together.”
Shapeshifters gossiped worse than old ladies. “Maybe they did get together and we don’t know?”
Curran shook his head slightly. “No, I had them under surveillance for years. He never came out of her house and she never came out of his.”
The People took the seats across from us.
“Any pressing business?” Ghastek asked.
Mahon pulled out a piece of lined paper.
Half an hour later both the People and the Pack ran out of things to discuss. Nothing major had happened, and the budding dispute over a real estate office on the border between the Pack and the People was quickly resolved.
Wine was served, followed by elaborate desserts that had absolutely nothing on Martha’s honey muffins. It was actually kind of nice, sitting there, sipping the sweet wine. I never thought I would miss the Pack, but I did, a little. I missed the big meals and the closeness.
“Congratulations on the upcoming wedding,” Ghastek said.
“Thank you,” I said.
Technically, Ghastek and the entire Atlanta office of the People belonged to my father, who had been quietly reinforcing them. Two new Masters of the Dead had been assigned to Ghastek, bringing the total count of the Masters of the Dead to eight. Several new journeymen had joined the Casino as well. I made it a habit to drive by it once in a while and every time I did, I felt more vampires within the white textured walls of the palace than I had before. Ghastek was a dagger poised at my back. So far that dagger remained sheathed and perfectly cordial, but I never forgot where his allegiance lay.
“Ghastek, why haven’t you married?” I asked.
He gave me a thin-lipped smile. “Because if I were to get married, I would want to have a family. To me, marriage means children.”
“So what’s the problem? Shooting blanks?” Desandra asked.
Kill me.
“No,” Ghastek told her. “In case you haven’t noticed, this city is under siege. It would be irresponsible to bring a child into the world when you can’t keep him or her safe.”
“So move,” Desandra said.
“There is no place on this planet that is safe from her father,” Rowena said. “As long as he lives . . .”
Ghastek put his long fingers on her hand. Rowena caught herself. “. . . as long as he lives, we serve at his pleasure. Our lives are not our own.”
Nick Feldman walked through the door. The Order of Merciful Aid typically didn’t attend the Conclave. Not good. Not good at all.
“Here comes the knight-protector,” Raphael warned quietly.
Everyone looked at Nick. He stopped by the table. When I first met Nick, he’d looked like a filthy bum who cleaned up well when the occasion demanded it. When I saw him again, he was working undercover for Hugh d’Ambray, my father’s Warlord, and he’d looked like one of Hugh’s inner circle: hard, fast, without any weakness, like a weapon honed to unbreakable toughness. Now he was somewhere in between. Still no weaknesses, short brown hair, leaden eyes, and a kind of quiet menace that set me on edge.
Nick hated me. My mother was the reason for Nick’s unhappy childhood. I suspected it wasn’t the main reason he hated me, but it definitely helped. Nick detested me because he got close and personal with my father. He’d seen with his own eyes how Roland operated, and he thought I would turn out the same way. I was happy to disappoint him.
“Enjoying dinner like one big happy family?” he said.
“The knight-protector honors us with his presence,” Rowena said.
“Hey, handsome,” Desandra winked at him. “Remember me?”
They had gotten into it before and nearly killed each other. Nick didn’t look at her, but a small muscle in the corner of his left eye jerked. He remembered, alright.
“What can we do for you?” Curran asked.
“For me, nothing.” Nick was looking at me.
“Just spit it out,” I told him.
He tossed a handful of pieces of paper on the table. They spread out as they fell. Photographs. My father’s stone “residence.” Soldiers in black dragging a large body betwe
en them toward the gates, nude from the waist up, purple and red bruises covering the snow-white skin. A black bag hid the head. Another shot, showing the person’s legs, the feet mangled like hamburger meat. Whoever it was, he or she was too large to be a normal human.
Raphael picked up a photograph next to him, got up, and carefully placed it in front of me.
The hood was off. A scraggly mane of bluish hair hung down around the prisoner’s shoulders. His face was raw, but I still recognized it. Saiman in his natural form.
My father had kidnapped Saiman.
Rage boiled inside me, instant and scalding hot.
I had tolerated all of my father’s bullshit, but kidnapping my people, this was going too far.
“When did this happen?” Curran asked, his voice calm.
“Yesterday evening.”
Saiman used to be my go-to expert for all things weird and magical, but the last time I tried to hire him, he told me that sooner or later my father would murder me, and he wasn’t stupid enough to play for the losing team. I knew Saiman was the center of his own universe, but it had still surprised me. I had saved him more than once. I didn’t expect friendship—that was beyond him—but I had expected some loyalty. One thing I knew for sure: Saiman would not work with my father. Roland terrified him. One hint of interest from him, and Saiman would run and never look back.
I wished I could reach across the distance and drop a burning space rock on my father’s house.
Nick was looking at me. Some part of him must’ve enjoyed this. He wasn’t smiling, but I saw it in his eyes.
I forced my voice to sound even. “Is the Order taking the case?”
“No. The Order must be petitioned, and no petition has been filed.”
“Shouldn’t this fall under the citizen-in-danger provision?” I asked. “An agent of the Order took these pictures. They saw that Saiman was in immediate danger, yet they did nothing.”
“We are doing something,” Nick said. “I’m notifying you.”
“Your compassion is staggering,” Ghastek said.
Nick turned his lead gaze to the Master of the Dead. “Considering the involved citizen’s origins and his long and creative criminal record, his rescue is a low priority. In fact, the city is safer without him in it.”