“How are your ribs?” I asked.
“Not as bad as they could’ve been.” Sean smiled.
“I have a medbay, you know. It’s not as nice as what the Merchants had, but I’m sure you could slum it just this once…”
“I’m okay.”
I sniffed. The water boiled and I took the kettle off the fire, hung it back on the hook, and tossed the leaves into it. Tea in winter was the best… Oh. The realization hit me like a train. Maybe I was off by a day or two… No. I was right. I felt like crying.
“What is it?” he asked, focused on me.
“It’s Christmas.”
Sean frowned.
“Tonight is Christmas. I don’t have a tree. I didn’t get any presents. I didn’t decorate. I have nothing.” I couldn’t keep the despair out of my voice. “I missed Christmas.”
It was the stupidest thing, but I had to strain to keep the tears back.
He moved over, sat next to me, and put his arm around me.
This wasn’t how I planned this conversation to go. I planned on a formal detached discussion. Instead I leaned against him, because his eyes told me he understood.
“It’s just a date on the calendar,” he said, stroking my shoulder lightly with his fingers. “We can still have Christmas.”
“It wouldn’t be real.”
He shook his head.
“Helen doesn’t care that it wouldn’t be exactly on December 25th. Caldenia doesn’t care. Orro will jump on any excuse to cook a feast. Your sister
could use a Christmas. She hasn’t had one for a while. We’ll get a tree, we’ll decorate, we’ll wrap presents, and I’ll kill any Draziri that tries to interfere…”
I stuck my head into his hard chest. He held me tighter.
“What’s wrong with me?”
“Residual combat stress,” he said. “Happens when a corrupted innkeeper almost kills you and then an idiot assassin shoots a nuke at you, all in twenty-four hours.”
“When did you learn Old Galactic?”
“About three or four months into the Nexus tour. There wasn’t much to do but fight and wait to fight. I went through a lot of manuals and brain imprints. It kept me from snapping. I’m a walking encyclopedia of random knowledge.”
I let out a long slow breath. He rubbed my back.
“I thought you were packed.”
“Where would I go?” he asked me.
I leaned against him and we sat quietly for a while in front of the fire. There was no give in Sean. No softness in his body. It was all hard muscle and bones, wrapped in harsh predatory strength. The lean lone wolf trotted out of the dark woods to lay by the fire because I was here. He never abandoned who he was. He still had his sharp teeth and fiery eyes, not tame, but content to behave so I wouldn’t chase him off. It made me want to go down to the kitchen and bring him something to eat.
I had put together a logical, convincing speech, but all of that seemed stupid now.
“The inn has to come first,” I said. “The safety of the guests before the safety of the innkeeper.”
He didn’t say anything.
“It’s a weird life. Once you bond with the inn, you can never truly leave. Even if you do, you still feel the pull of it. Some people view it as being trapped and they can’t wait to get out. It can get boring when there are no guests. Then again, when there are guests, it can get so busy you barely have a chance to sleep. Sometimes guests want unreasonable things. Some of them listen to you explain the danger and then run straight into it. But that’s your life. You take care of the inn. You keep them safe. They leave and you stay. Always.”
He still wasn’t saying anything.
I took a deep breath. “This is what I chose. Right or wrong, I’m here. This is my home.”
Why was this so hard? I just had to say it. Even if he got up and walked away, at least I would know where we stood.
“If you’re going to be an innkeeper with me—“
He pulled me closer. My voice caught. I swallowed and kept going. “—you would have to put the safety of the guests first. I will follow your lead in a fight. I won’t argue or beg. I won’t ask you to change your strategy. But this life would have to be enough, because I can’t unchoose it. If that’s not what you want…”
He didn’t say anything. It felt like a lifetime. The air was viscous and heavy, like I was swimming through molasses.
I raised my gaze. He was looking at me, his amber eyes full of flames from the fire. “But would I get you, if I were an innkeeper?”
“Yes.”
“That’s all I want.”
The weight dropped off me. I didn’t realize I was carrying it. I kissed him. One moment I was looking at him and then my lips touched his, forging a connection between us.
The muscles of his arm tightened under my fingers. His lips closed on mine, hot and hungry. The kiss deepened, turning possessive, hot, heady like the intoxicating heat of strong wine gulped too quickly. He licked my tongue. He tasted so good. I slid my arms around him, wanting more. I didn’t care if the whole galaxy burned, as long as he kept kissing me like that.
He broke the kiss. His eyes were completely wild. The wolf was staring back at me and he wanted me more than anything in his forest. It made me feel beautiful.
“Not tonight,” he said. “You’re not in the right place tonight.”
He was right. I slid closer to him and put my head on his chest. “Okay.”
A few seconds passed.
“I’m an idiot,” Sean said. He sounded resigned.
“No,” I told him. “You’re my wolf.”
He turned to me and a sharp humorous spark lit up his eyes. “Don’t you know wolves are dangerous?”
“I do. You should kiss me again, Sean Evans. I really want you to.”
He kissed me back and I melted into it.
CHAPTER 10
“Aunt Dina,” a whisper floated into my ear.
My eyes snapped open. Helen was leaning over me, her hair all but glowing in the light of the early morning. I was laying on the pillows by a dead fire. The last thing I remembered was curling up next to Sean on the couch, but now I was on the floor on a blanket, with a pillow under my head, and another blanket over me. He must’ve moved me after I fell asleep. I glanced right. I glanced left. A second pillow lay next to me, the indentation from Sean’s head still on it.
“What time is it?”
“Just after sunrise.”
“Why are you here and not in your room?” Helen asked.
I opened my mouth.
Helen sniffed the air, wrinkling her nose. “And why is Lord Sean hiding on the balcony?”
Lord Sean chose that moment to walk back into view, since further hiding was clearly pointless.
Helen frowned. “Were you having private time?”
Um, ah… eh.
“Mom says private time is very important.”
“Where is your mom?”
“She’s outside. She said to find you right away because ‘that cop is about to go middle evil on Mrak.’”
I bolted off the floor. “Window to the front!”
A window opened in the wall. Maud stood at the edge of the inn’s boundary, her back stiff, her arms crossed, looking across the street. On the other side of the road, the small rectangular metal cover guarding access to the water and sewer lay open. Kiran Mrak and three other Draziri, swaddled in hoodies and jeans, stood on the left side. On the right side, stood Officer Marais, one hand on his Taser.
I squeezed my eyes shut for a tiny moment and opened them. Officer Marais and the Draziri were still there.
“Shut off all water and sewer!” I sprinted out of the room and down the massive staircase. Sean swore and ran past me. Helen chased us, jumped onto the stair rail, and slid down, leaping to her feet at the bottom.
Why? Why in the world would Marais even be here the day after Christmas? Did he not have a family to go home to? Why couldn’t I catch a break?
Sean g
rabbed my hand. “Dina, open the void field. I’ll double behind them.”
“Done.”
His eyes flashed amber. “Please stay on the grounds. I want them to see you.”
“Okay.”
I tore through the house, pushed the door open, and marched across the lawn to where Maud stood. Beast trailed me.
“…understand perfectly well who you are,” Kiran Mrak said, his voice suffused with derision. “You are what passes for local law enforcement. Undertrained, undereducated, likely coming from a background so poor that you view this job as a step up; a steady, respectable way to take care of your family.”
“Treaty,” I called out.
He ignored me. “If we had met at night, things may have been different. But here we are in broad daylight. Therefore, officer, it so happens that our interests align. You want to take care of your family, and so do I.”
The moment I stepped foot off the inn’s grounds, the Draziri would forget all about Marais and key in on me. I had promised Sean to stay in plain view inside the boundary and I would do it. But the urge to walk out there was strong.
“Where is your wolf?” Maud asked me under her breath.
“Sneaking around them from the back.”
Marais wasn’t saying anything. He clearly was determined to find out what was going on once and for all.
“So,” Kiran Mrak said with the resignation of a man who’d done this hundreds of times, “how much will it take?”
“Sir, are you trying to bribe me?” Marais asked, his voice very calm.
“No. I’m trying to help you supplement your pay. It is clearly inadequate for a man of your intelligence.”
Marais smiled. Oh crap.
“A man should be compensated in line with the amount of danger he faces in the course of his job,” Mrak said. “And your job is exceedingly dangerous, especially at this moment.”
“Oooh,” Marais said, stretching the word. “I love danger.”
“No, he doesn’t,” I called out. “If you touch a hair on that man’s head, I will…”
“I believe in fairness, officer,” Mrak said. “So do you want credit? Do you want currency? What is it that you value on this god-forsaken hellhole of a planet? Gold, right? You mammals like gold.”
I would kill him. He had to die. Behind me the barrel of the small projectile cannon slid from under the inn’s roof. It was basically a souped-up version of a rifle, and unlike energy weapons, it was very efficient. The inn had trouble loading and aiming it, but I had already loaded it and I would only need one shot.
Mrak raised his hands and one of the other Draziri put a small bag into it. The assassin pulled it open and extracted a gold nugget the size of a walnut. He looked at it, shook a few more onto his palm as if they were mints, and looked at Marais.
“Withdraw,” I said. “Or I swear, I’ll get your entire species blacklisted.”
Next to me Helen hissed, baring her fangs. Both Mrak and Marais glanced at her. Helen stared at Mrak, raised her finger and drew it across her throat.
“What a charming child.” Mrak turned to Marais. “Is this enough?”
“Sir, are you aware that bribing a law enforcement official is a crime?” Marais asked, his voice still mildly curious.
“Bribery is a crime and greed is a vice in your culture, officer, yet it rules your pathetic little lives, no matter how much you protest otherwise. I find these negotiations tedious. Yes or no?”
Marais opened his mouth. I knew exactly what would come out. It didn’t matter anymore. My inn was exposed. Nobody knew how many people were watching all of this from their windows. This is how it ended. The only thing that mattered now was saving Officer Marais who had nothing to do with anything and was trying only to do his job.
“Gentlemen, this was fun.” His voice rang. “Lie facedown on the ground with your hands behind your head.”
Yep. That was exactly what I thought he would say.
“Really?” Mrak sighed.
“Lie down on the ground!” Marais barked. “Hands behind your head! Do it now!”
“Fine,” Mrak snapped. “Kill him.”
Magic moved. The ground to the left of us tore and Arland burst into the open. He wore the full suit of syn-armor, black and crimson. His golden mane fell on his shoulders. The blood mace in his hand whined, priming. He was coming, unstoppable like a battering ram. I caught a glance of Maud’s face. My sister was smiling. She’d set this up.
Arland reached the edge of the inn’s boundary. His mouth gaped open, his fangs on full display. The Marshal of House Krahr roared like a pissed off lion and charged. Maud grabbed Helen before she had a chance to follow.
The Draziri did what any normal sentient being would do when they saw an enraged vampire coming - they backed away, trying to scatter, and scattered straight into Sean. The first Draziri didn’t know what happened when Sean broke his neck.
Arland’s mace crushed the second Draziri. Both he and Sean went after Mrak. He slipped between them as if he were made of air. A blue blade appeared in his hand. He slashed with it, fast and precise. They danced across the street, Mrak avoiding their blows like a ghost. No shot.
The third Draziri lunged at Marais.
I glanced at Beast and pointed to the third Draziri. “Kill it!”
My dog dashed across the street, claws sliding out of her paws.
The officer snapped his Taser up. The Taser sparked. The Draziri jerked and ripped the metal prongs out of his body. Marais went for his gun.
Beast leapt into the air, her mouth gaping open, displaying four rows of razor sharp teeth and tore out the Draziri’s throat. Blood spurted onto the asphalt at Marais’s feet.
We were doomed. We were all doomed.
Kiran Mrak spun, avoiding Sean’s knife. A gun barrel yawned at me. He’d walked them right where he could have the perfect shot at me.
“Now.” I jerked a wall of dirt up in front of me.
The inn and Mrak fired at the same time.
Something burned my leg. I dropped the dirt in time to see Mrak jerk as if stung.
The Draziri twisted away from Sean and Arland’s attacks, leapt straight up, shooting a dozen feet into the air, landed on the power line, ran across it as if it were solid ground, jumped onto the roof of a house, and disappeared from view.
Marais looked shocked, his face pale, his mouth open.
There was a hole in my robe. My leg was bleeding under the fabric. The bullet had punched through the dirt. I was lucky the soil barrier deflected it, because everything about Mrak said he didn’t miss often.
Arland grabbed the first corpse by its legs and unceremoniously dragged it halfway across the road and threw it in my direction. The lawn gaped, swallowing it.
Sean grasped the second and third corpses by their feet and pulled them over. The lawn swallowed them too.
Sean and Arland walked onto the inn’s grounds. Both bled from half a dozen shallow cuts. Arland looked like he hadn’t gotten enough blood on his hands and was desperate to kill something. Sean looked like he was about to sprout fur any moment.
I reinstated the void field.
Sean stopped by me, inhaled, and his eyes went wild.
“It just grazed me,” I told him.
He spun toward the street and I caught his arm.
“No. Please. I need you inside the house.” Besides, both of them were bleeding more than me.
He snarled and went inside.
Marais finally regained control over his legs, because he was moving toward me and fast. I waited. He ran face-first into the barrier and bounced back.
“Miss Demille,” he ground out through clenched teeth.
“No,” I told him. “I have a child and guests to take care of. Those bastards unloaded something into the sewer system and I have no idea if the inn is filling up with some plague or if it’s about to explode. I don’t want your death on my hands. Go and sit in your cruiser. When it’s safe, I’ll come and get you.”
I turned around and marched into the house, Helen and Beast in tow.
* * *
I walked into the inn, sending a probing pulse through the entire building. Nothing. Gertrude Hunt failed to find anything amiss in the pipes.
I pushed. The floor, walls and ceiling moved from me, distorted, as if the solid wood and stone became fluid and I was a stone cast into a placid pond.
Nothing. This would require a deeper probe.
The inn around me turned, like the inside of an enormous clock coming to life. I moved the two Hiru and Wing onto the lawn outside of the inn but still inside their own small rooms. Maud, Helen, Sean and Arland stood in the corner of the front room, next to Caldenia who sat in her chair by the window.
“Do not move,” I said.
Orro emerged from the kitchen. “How can I be expected to cook without water…”
He saw my face and fell silent.
I concentrated. Pulse, another pulse… Whatever they put into the water or sewer, I would find it. It wouldn’t hurt the inn. I stretched, reaching deep into the pipes. Where is it?
“What is she doing?” Arland asked.
“Diagnostics,” my sister said.
“Why is the inn connected to the city water line?” Sean asked quietly.
“Because it would be suspicious if it didn’t draw some water,” Maud said. “The city provides only a small fraction of the inn’s water supply but the meter has to show progress every month. The void field would’ve stopped anything the Draziri threw in there, but she had to drop it to save Marais.”
“Mrak counted on it,” Sean said. “Marais was bait.”
“Yes,” Arland agreed.
I couldn’t find it. Mrak’s smug face popped up in my memory. Oh no. No, you don’t.
My broom split into a thousand glowing blue tendrils. They wrapped around my hand and plunged into the floor, forging a direct link between me and the inn. My hands reached through its roots. My eyes looked through its windows. I became Gertrude Hunt.
Sean was staring at me. I knew my eyes were turning bright turquoise, matching the glow of my broom as I sifted through every liquid-filled square inch inside the pipes. The house creaked and groaned around me. Where is it?