Reckoning

Ash peeked up over the edge of the bed. “Bad,” he said softly. “Bad now.”

Well, at least he wasn’t trying to tell me what to do. “You just stay right where you are,” I told him. If he decided to go crazy, we were looking at a Situation. I gave Christophe my best level stare— Dad’s level staredown before the throwin’ down. I searched for something to say, settled on the absolute truth. “I am not going to let you hurt him.”

Christophe struggled once more, but August choked up on the chickenwing and held him. Just barely, though. Augie kept sweating, great beads of water standing out on his skin, but Christophe looked all too ready to keep going until he was free to tango.

And I didn’t want to shoot him. I didn’t.

But for Graves, I would. Certainty settled under my skin, and I hoped it showed on my face. I wanted Christophe to believe me and settle down.

Maybe it was Mom’s voice that came out of me next, I don’t know. Maybe I just decided to try another tack. Maybe the touch plucked it out of the air and laid it in my brain.

“Christophe. Please.” Very soft, very reasonable. Not even caring if I was begging. “Help me. If you care about me at all, help me.”

I stared into his mad, cold blue eyes, searching for the Christophe I knew. The one who held a knife to his own chest in a dilapidated old boathouse, his fingers scorch-hot against mine, and told me not to hesitate if I really thought he was a threat. The one who had leapt into a burning Schola for me and fought off the nosferat afterward in the bloodfog. The one who had been there, in one way or another, saving me in the nick of time over and over again. The Christophe who settled on my bed at the Schola Prima and talked to me for hours, who held me while I cried, who told me just to give him a chance. The djamphir who was completely scary and utterly maddening but was still—and here it was—the one person I always believed would come for me, no matter what.

I’ve been left behind like luggage so many times in my life, never really knowing if someone would return and collect me. I don’t know quite when it happened, but that part of me always left wondering had decided that Christophe would. I could rely on him.

I stared at him, and willed him to prove me right.

Tension leaked out of him. He blinked, twice. The skinned-back grimace eased. His breathing evened out. He coughed, once, as if something was stuck in his throat. Finally, a husky rasp of a sigh slid out of him. “Very well.”

I glanced up at August, who was looking at me like I’d grown another head. I nodded, but I kept the shotgun tight against my shoulder and my finger on the trigger. Accidents happen when you keep pressure on the trigger, yeah—but Christophe was fast, and I needed every split-second edge I could get on him.

August’s hold on him eased. Ash shifted slightly, making a little whistling sound as the crackle of the change touched him and retreated. Christophe straightened, tipped his head back, swallowed hard. His Adam’s apple bobbed. He rolled his shoulders back in their sockets precisely once, then his chin came down.

I braced myself for whatever he’d do next.

For a moment he just stood there and looked at me. When he spoke, it was with chill certainty. “Dobrowski. Fetch restraints, and whatever wulfen you have. Have Hiro clear an exit for us. I presume we have an extraction point?” He didn’t look away, and I could have sobbed with relief. Because he sounded like Dad, when Dad decided a situation had gone critical and the only thing left was to move as fast as we could.

“Ready and waiting.” August sounded as relieved as I felt.

“Go.”

Augustine backed up, avoiding the malaika in the floor with a djamphir’s eerie grace. He gave me a Significant Look, but whatever it meant was lost on me. I kept the gun pointed and steady. The door opened and closed, and he was gone.

The shaking began in my legs. I denied it.

Christophe’s hands hung loose and easy. “Ash. The loup-garou. Stand guard.”

“Do what he says,” I added. Probably unnecessarily, but better safe than sorry. I’m trusting you, Christophe. Come on. Please.

Ash scuffed against the carpet. He slunk over and crouched next to me, facing Graves’s unconscious body. I stepped forward, rolling through so I was balanced all through the motion, covering the angle.

Christophe took a step, too. Toward me. The shaking was all through me now, but the gun was steady. I was only shaking inside, where nobody could see.

Where I was flying apart, and someone new was rising through the pieces of the girl I thought I was.

Silence settled around us. My cheeks were flaming hot now. My mother’s locket warmed against my chest, but only faintly.

Christophe slowly, deliberately, took another step. His boots crushed the carpet, eerily soundless.

I couldn’t move.

“Tell me.” Another step, just as slow as the first. “If the loup-garou had me at his mercy, would you do the same for me?”

Well, first of all, I really doubt Graves would try to outright kill you. But there was no way I was going to say that out loud. The wooden grain of the stock was smooth and warm against my cheek. “Do you even have to ask?”

“I do.” Another step. He was so close, and if my finger slipped on the trigger . . .

“Yes.” What else could I say? “Yes. I would.”

He reached up, very slowly. I locked my fingers outside the trigger guard, let him pry the shotgun away from me. He lowered it, pointing the business end very carefully at the floor, and what he did next surprised me.

His free hand touched my shoulder. Slid under my hair, curled over the back of my neck. He pulled me forward, and I went gladly. The shaking turned outward, and when I laid my cheek against his sweater, he sighed, hard. His breath touched my hair, because he’d lowered his chin and was breathing on me.

“Dru,” he whispered. “Dru.”

I didn’t say anything else. I couldn’t. I shut my eyes and leaned into him, for just a few moments. Clinging to him, but I suppose it was okay. He was clinging to me too.

And right then, it was enough.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

Less than ten minutes later, we were packed up and the room’s phone shrilled again. Christophe scooped it up before it got halfway through the first ring, held it to his ear. His face didn’t change.

Graves was still out cold, curled up next to the window. Ash rocked back and forth slightly, watching him.

Christophe laid the phone down gently. “They’ll bring him. We need to go.”

“I’m not—” I began, but he brushed past me and was suddenly at the door. The locks chucked aside and it opened, and a familiar pair of cat-tilted blue eyes peered past him.

Nathalie barely paused, barging straight in. Her sleek dark head bobbed, her blue eyes were spangled with little bits of yellow wulfen glow, and I braced myself for anger or worse—disappointment.

After all, I’d been a raving bitch to her the last time she’d seen me.

She threw her arms around me, and her odd musky perfume wrapped around me too. As usual, she looked impeccable, from the royal-blue scarf twisted around her neck to her long dangling key-shaped earrings, her jeans torn just right and her espadrilles fashionably frayed.

“Nat!” I almost got a mouthful of her hair. “I’m so sor—”

“You moron!” She hugged me so tight I could feel a wulfen’s strength in her. My bones creaked. “You’re an idiot! I would’ve come with you!