Susan patted her hand. “Of course, darling. You know I have your back. And I know things can be tense between you and Celesse, but she’s on your side in this. Now that we’ve decided you’ll do just fine and amused ourselves imagining The First playing with Valerie and keeping her in circles, let’s move on to something enjoyable. Tell us about Clive.”
Rowan groaned, embarrassed but pleased they’d asked. “Do I have to?”
Rex laughed. “Yes, of course. We want to know if we should send a squad out to dispatch him or invite him for tea.”
“God, he’s...you’d probably enjoy it if he came for tea. He’ll know which oolong is smokier or whatever. He’s charming and has great manners, and he’s all British like you two. He’d know who painted the stuff on the walls and all that junk.”
Rex’s expression was pleased. “Is he officially your boyfriend, then?”
“We’re...dating, I guess. He’s all right.”
“Does he know what your favorite color is?”
Surprised, Rowan looked to Susan. “What?”
“Just answer the question.”
“Yes. He...he sends me peonies. Deep red ones.” He’d also sent her a ridiculous necklace of rubies and diamonds she’d had no idea where to wear. So she’d just worn it when he visited next. And nothing else. He’d liked that part. “He’s one of those men who remembers tiny details.”
Susan’s nod indicated she was leaning away from violence and toward tea and tiny sandwiches the next time Clive was in London. “So not only does he know red is your favorite color, but that peonies are your favorite flower. A man who pays attention. I approve.”
He probably had a little logbook to keep track of her personal details. He was that sort of fastidious. “Yes. He stocks his apartment with my favorite wine. He even goes with me to the shooting range. I...goddess, I like him even if he really does need to lighten up. But he comes with a lot of complications, including a passel of whiny Vampires who don’t like their new daddy dating that mean old whore who killed their old daddy.”
Susan burst out laughing. “There’s a lot of talk. About you and the Scion. I’ve seen pictures of him. He’s rather delightfully beautiful. I mean, they all tend to be. But this one knows how to wear a suit, and he did go after you to try to save your life. So that’s a plus.”
“The gossip is annoying.” She’d rather people talked about her skill with a blade than her love life. It was embarrassing.
Susan smiled serenely. “People like to talk about you. You’re mysterious and frightening. He’s powerful. You’re both charismatic, and together I’m sure it’s rather overwhelming.”
“I’m not marrying him or anything. He’s someone I like, and for whatever reason he likes me.” Rowan crossed her arms over her chest.
“Of course he likes you. As for not marrying, thank goodness. You don’t need to be making any rash choices about anyone or anything right now. But you seem...” Susan cocked her head and looked Rowan over. “Less prone to stabbing people.”
“A fine quality in a mate, that.” Rex patted his wife’s knee. “A good partner can tone down one’s homicidal tendencies.”
“Is he good in bed?”
Rowan blushed down to her toes and was torn between clapping her hands over her ears or wishing herself a million miles away.
“It’s important!” Susan said to Rex’s admonishing look.
“He takes care of business.” And that was all she wanted to share about that with people she thought of as sort of parents. “On this refreshingly honest note, I’m going to go back to the hotel. I have an early start in the morning.” She planned to leave hours before Valerie and her entourage. She wanted to get to the Keep ahead of the others. She needed time to get herself together and also, to establish her dominance with the Vampires before the other Hunters showed up acting like douchebags. If Rowan arrived first, she’d be able to blunt any excess or silliness the others might bring with them like fourteen suitcases and all manner of personal assistants whose jobs were nothing more than fetching pencils and putting chocolates on pillows.
Rowan wanted a tone of professionalism and a little fear to be set. Getting to the Keep first would allow for that.
She accepted kisses and hugs and hurried out after one last promise to keep Susan updated.
A black cab dropped off a fare, and she realized that while she could walk back to her hotel, it would be even better to just let someone else get her there. She had on heels anyway.
With a last wave over her shoulder, she slid into the cab and then realized her mistake as she looked up and realized it was no ordinary London cabbie behind the wheel, but Crazy Carl the taxi man.
“Lookie here! It’s Sally.”
Before she could say a word, he’d hit the locks and peeled away from the curb and into traffic.
Red light indicated the doors were secure, and she knew better than to fight it.
Despite his scary driving and tendency for showing up at random—usually to deliver some sort of ominous advice—Rowan had a soft spot for the handlebar-mustachioed amateur-taxidermist sage.
The quiet street suddenly clogged with traffic, and they coasted to a slow stop. Rowan took that time to look him over, noting that instead of his usual bright orange camo cowboy hat, he wore a jaunty black cap.
“Where’s your cowboy hat?” She didn’t bother to correct him with her name. He called her whatever he wanted, but he always knew exactly who and what she was.
He laughed and laughed, sliding a fingertip along the front edge of the cap. “My luggage got lost. Imagine that. Found this hat in the seat when I got into the cab. You like it?” He waggled excessively bushy eyebrows at her in the rearview mirror.
“Carl, did you steal this cab?”
He made a sound that could have been a denial. Or a scoff. Didn’t matter. He was a sage and he seemed to have his own set of rules and never got in any trouble for it.
“I’m staying at—”
“I know where you are, Penelope. Traffic that way is a mess, so I’m going to take you on a shortcut.”
A shortcut that appeared to head in the opposite direction. She sighed, leaning back in the seat. He’d get her to her hotel in ten minutes or ten hours so she might as well just accept it.
“What brings you to London? Can’t imagine there’s much hunting here for your taxidermy fun.”
“Ha! You’d be wrong. I went on an actual fox hunt here once. ‘’’Course that was a ways back. I’m here to see The Lion King in the West End.”
He took a corner at such a high rate of speed she had to grab the strap and hang on to keep herself from sliding and slamming into the door on the other side.
“You should have a seat belt on. It’s the law. Anyway, I’ve seen Wicked here four times. Love it. I’m a connoisseur of the theater. Bet you didn’t know that.”
“You’d be right.” She couldn’t help but grin as she hastily snapped her seat belt into place.
“You nervous about your trip?”
His tone had changed from his usual jocular teasing to something...else.
He knew, she had no doubt, what she was doing in London and where she was off to next. He just did and she had ceased to try to figure him out a long time ago. Since he’d picked her up that first time in his cab in Las Vegas several years ago, he’d given her a great deal of important information. Sometimes she didn’t know what he meant at the time he told her. Well, most of the time.
He’d show up out of nowhere and she’d be in his cab for an undetermined period of time as he gave her information and she tried not to let him see how disturbed she was by all the stuffed dead things he had on his dash and seat backs. The man did love his stuffed badgers, snakes, coyotes and whatever else he took a mind to.
But despite all the times she’d t
raveled to other places, he’d never picked her up in a cab anywhere but in Las Vegas. She didn’t know if she should be worried, but his sudden appearance caught her attention, that much was certain.
“I’m... It’s not my first time going to Germany.”
“Sure. But things have changed with those new predators out in the hills east of town killing them girls.”
He was referring to the way the serial killer had murdered those sad, empty human junkies and left their dead, savaged bodies for all to see. Like trash. Junkies or not, it still made her angry to know they died alone in such horrible circumstances.
“Yes. This meeting is about that.”
“You ever been in the high Sierras?”
“Not really one for camping. Or hiking or anything that involves me being outside a lot. Or sweat and dirt. I like heated towel bars and high thread count sheets. Oh, and room service.”
He snorted. “I thought you was a tough old bird?” He tapped a bit on the wheel before he started up again. “They got them lakes. Up high, I mean. Water’s so dark. Cold. Deep. Looks pretty from a distance, you know. Surface is like glass. All you see when you look is the sky reflected back at you. Lulls you, all that reflected beauty. You forget how cold it is. How deep and dangerous. Everything all around is so lush and green and you forget. It’s never. Ever. Ever wise to forget how dangerous something is just because it’s beautiful. You can wear a life jacket, but you can still get hypothermia without drowning. Don’t forget the danger, or it can sneak up on you and you’re dead.”
The silence wrapped around her and she shivered. As cryptic warnings went, this one was pretty direct and rather scary.
And then his voice went jovial again as he pulled to a stop. She hadn’t even noticed they’d arrived at her hotel. “Here we are.” The doorman at her hotel opened the cab’s door.
She handed him up a wad of bills. “Thank you, Carl.”
“You watch yourself, Sally. You hear me? Step careful. Watch your back.”
She nodded. “I promise.”
His normally pale green eyes flashed darker just briefly and of course she remembered how stupid it was to make promises to a being like him, but it was too late and now she’d have to be extra careful.
“Don’t make me collect if you break that promise.”
Chapter Three
Early the next morning she and David headed to a private airport where they caught some breakfast and a flight to Germany. A Land Rover she’d use to drive the rest of the way waited for them there. They’d arrive early and on their own terms. Which pleased her.
The Keep was tucked up high in the Wetterstein. Out of the way of casual passersby on hiking trips. Heavily guarded and rumored to house an eccentric elderly millionaire.
Theo was indeed both those things. But he was also The First. The oldest Vampire and the unquestioned leader of the Vampire Nation.
But Vampires needed blood. They had blood servants, as well as human servants, like Rowan’s father and his family had been for generations. Humans needed food and other things like clothing and other supplies, so a small town existed at the base of the peak. It was like a picture-postcard fantasy of what an alpine village would look like on a movie set. Snow fell, giving the rooftops a dusting; people walked down the street with baskets bearing groceries. Everyone knew everyone else.
Each day humans from the town would head up the mountain to work and back again in a shuttle provided by the Keep. It was so bizarre and yet normal all at once, that fifteen-minute trip, as if it could be any corporation across the world. Only with Vampires and a medieval Keep instead of a pretty corporate campus.
But Rowan wasn’t there for the delicious-smelling bread or to sit and watch the children play in the playground attached to the school in the town’s square. Her first stop was the shrine to Brigid in town, and that’s where she parked, leaving David in the vehicle. Her next task was hers alone.
From the outside, it looked like an ordinary house of the style fairly common in the area. Sharply gabled roof, window boxes filled with flowers. A brightly painted front door. She knew there was an internal courtyard where the mother acolyte took meals when it was warm.
The mother acolyte, who’d long ago taken Sister Rachael’s place, opened the door, her countenance wary.
But recognition lit her features as Rowan had gone to her knees and held up a basket of Brigid’s wheels and apples in offering.
“Child, come in and be welcome.”
The mother acolyte caressed the crown of Rowan’s head and Rowan let go of her nervousness and fear, so glad she’d come.
Rowan stood and let herself be embraced, returning the hug with genuine affection.
Sarai took the basket from Rowan’s hands.
“I made the wheels on my flight. I...I hope it’s all right that I came on such short notice.”
Sarai tut-tutted and Rowan followed her to the kitchen. “You do me an honor to visit. It’s been too long. But I can already feel Her energy gathering. I’m glad you came, Rowan. From the lines on your face you need this, and I’m always glad of the company. I’ll make us some tea for when you’re finished.”
Rowan nodded. “My valet is out in my vehicle. Would you please go out to check on him? Maybe bring him some hot tea?”
“I will let him know he is welcome at the table here inside where it’s warm.” Sarai left Rowan on her own and headed out to collect David.
Even after Rowan had escaped the Keep and started working for Hunter Corp., Sarai, the mother acolyte, had stayed behind to tend the shrine.
She wasn’t Rachael, who’d been the one to train Rowan in her responsibilities and role as Vessel. But she was dear to Rowan in any case.
Knowing Sarai kept the shrine, knowing she cared about Rowan, kept Rowan’s heart warm as she made her way down the well-worn path through the house, toward the urn that always burned for the Goddess. Rowan paused to center herself, staring at the flame for long moments before she removed her clothing, taking solace in the ritual cleanse before sliding into one of the white robes hanging from hooks near the doorway.
It had been nearly fifteen years since she’d been in this room, standing on the cool tile of the floor facing the flame always burning for Brigid.
Her fingertips traced the marks ringing the urn, warm from the flame, but not hot enough to burn. The scent of it, the ritual of the movements, pulled Rowan into a near-hypnotic state, relaxed and willing to be untethered from her plane and up to where the Goddess existed. The energy enveloped her immediately with such greedy attention it hurt.
A reminder that she’d been too long without this ritual.
The mark on her skin burned for a moment and she ascended. It wasn’t the Goddess who awaited her; it was Rowan’s mother, Belinda.
Rowan breathed deep. Or maybe she didn’t. But she felt as if she had and that’s what counted.
There were no words for the longest time. She simply existed in the same space as her mother and let herself be grateful she had it despite the fact her mother had been physically dead for three decades.
It was a blessing to have this connection. Even when she railed against the unfairness of losing her parents at such a young age, Rowan at least had this.
Finally, Belinda spoke. “You’ve been away a long time.”
“I’m sorry. Not quite three months, but yes, too long.”
“Your shoulders are heavy.”
“The Vampires. The Hunter Corp. Everyone is at odds. The stakes are so high.”
“You return to their Keep.”
Rowan nodded. “For the first time in nearly fifteen years.” She had more to say, but didn’t know how, so she closed her mouth and tried not to drown in the emotion of it all. Her fear of failure. Her nervousness over not knowing how she’d be received. Her relief that s
he’d be seeing Clive again after two weeks apart and her resentment that she seemed to need him. She was so alone, and she always had been and she knew it was part of her path and how senseless it was to be upset over any of this stuff.
Her mother’s energy surrounded her like a hug and tears pricked her eyes.
“Let it go.”
“I can’t afford tears. I can’t show them any emotion like this. No weakness.”
“You can’t afford to live without tears, Rowan. You can’t bottle up everything you feel or you’ll explode. Of all places, here with me is the safest. Let it go and be vulnerable. I will catch you if you fall. Trust me.”
Rowan did let it go in a tide of tears that seemed to overwhelm her for long minutes. And then she had none left and realized, as her body was looser, her muscles not so bunched, that she’d needed that release. Needed it in the safest place she could have retreated to.
And when she walked back out to the car two hours later, she did so feeling better than she had in a while.
* * *
The winding road had been freshly plowed and up ahead was the first checkpoint. She slowed and rolled her window down once they’d reached the guard station.
“Are you expected?” He asked this without even looking away from the pages before him.
“Yes. Rowan Summerwaite here for the Joint Tribunal meeting.”
His gaze snapped up from his clipboard and focused on her. “Rowan.” His impersonal mask fell away, replaced by a smile.
“Inego. It’s good to see you.” And it was. He was one of her far-flung cousins on her father’s side. A man bred for service—much like she was—to the Vampire Nation.
“Get out of that car and give me a hug.”
Smiling, she obeyed and was glad of his embrace.
“You look good. All grown up. I saw your name on the list and I’ve been waiting for you.”