Reckoning

Ash actually let out a crow of delight. Then he was out the door too, quick as a flash. Which would leave me to make breakfast alone.

Did he really say he . . . loved me? Maybe it wasn’t hopeless. Maybe I could learn to say the right thing the next time he laid something like that on me. Maybe I had a chance.

Wouldn’t you know, I found out I was grinning. Ear to ear, despite every single problem crowding in around me.

Grinning. Like a total fool.

CHAPTER FIVE

I brought the ax down cleanly, with a terrific thwack. The log split. I didn’t even need a wedge; it was child’s play to get the freshly sharpened ax blade going fast enough. The wood was well seasoned, but it was the aspect flickering through me that did most of the work.

I was getting used to this new body. Hips a little bit wider, chest-works definitely a little bigger—the two sports bras I had were not going to cut it after a while; I had overflowing cleavage you could lose a quarter in. I’d managed to buy two pairs of jeans in a new size yesterday, T-shirts in medium instead of small, and every piece of clothing I’d ever owned before was so not going to fit me now.

But all that was kind of made up for by the fact that my hair was behaving, silky curls lying down—and the fact that I was now strong as any of the boy djamphir. Reliably strong, the aspect simply stepping in like clockwork instead of needing rage or bloodhunger to fuel it.

Hallelujah. I didn’t have to get mad or suck someone’s blood to use superstrength. It was a frigging miracle.

The only mirror in the house was a polished piece of metal hanging near the kitchen window, where Gran would check her hat before she went to town. It was enough to show me that I didn’t have anything huge stuck on my face, but the changes I’d seen in hotel bathrooms, thankfully, didn’t show up much.

Graves didn’t say anything else, but I caught him looking at me every once in a while. When he thought I didn’t notice.

Ash, of course, was oblivious. I don’t think how I looked mattered to him in the slightest. He darted in, scooped up one half of the log I’d just split, and balanced it on the ancient chopping block. Then he hightailed it back to the woodpile and watched.

I drew the ax up, smoothly, inhaling, and let out a sharp huff! as I brought it down. Got to do it with the breath, Dru. Ain’t no other way.

Gran’s voice was a thorny pleasure. Any moment I expected to see her striding into the meadow, clicking her tongue at the long grass she’d take a machete to every once in a while. She’d descend on all three of us and put everything to rights, toot-sweet, with not a second to spare or a long gray hair out of place.

Ash darted in again, put the unchopped half of the log up, and leapt back with an armful of stovewood. I brought the ax up and down again. Like riding a bike.

Bright mellow sunlight poured over the meadow, showing a sheen of sweat on Ash’s arms. He was bulking up a bit, the steady calories doing him a lot of good. Gran always said fresh air was good for anyone, too.

After we had enough wood to last a week, I set Ash to stacking it and stamped inside.

“You’re handy with an ax.” Graves was up to his elbows in soapsuds, scrubbing the dishes. I’ll clean, he’d said. You go out and get some sun.

I’d bit back the acid comment about Gran revolving in her grave to have a boy wulf cleaning her house, and just gone and done it. Right now, though, I was kind of wishing I’d stayed inside. Pumping bathwater was going to be a bitch.

“Got to be, in these parts.” I grabbed a bottle of distilled water and cracked it, took a long pull. “I’m going into town in a bit, now that we know the house is still sound and we can stay here a couple days. We need more supplies.” I waited for some sign that he was willing to talk about something else. Something a little more personal.

I know enough about boys to know that they get uncomfortable with that sort of thing. So I figured I’d just . . . let it rest. For a little while, at least.

And, well, discretion’s the better part of valor, right? Except I was pretty sure the word for waiting until he said something else wasn’t discretion or politeness. It was flat-out cowardice.

He hunched his shoulders. Worked at the cast-iron skillet like he wanted to scrub it into a wafer. I was going to have to season it again before I could use it.

“This is pretty cool.” He glanced out the window. “You could hide up here for a while.”

That’s the idea. “I guess.” I stalked over to Gran’s hassock, grabbed my black messenger bag. It still smelled like vampire blood, and I was damn lucky to have it. I’d hung the long slightly curving wooden swords—malaika—safe in their leather harness, on a peg by the front door. The funny thing was, that peg was just right.

The malaika had been my mother’s. They looked like they belonged there. I couldn’t remember what might’ve hung there before, and that bothered me. I thought I’d remember everything about Gran’s.

I settled down at the kitchen table with a fresh legal pad, the atlas I’d picked up, and Dad’s little black address book. All his contacts were in it. One of them at least had been djamphir. The rest, who knew?

I had Dad’s billfold, too. Mom’s picture was missing, but given recent events, I was lucky to have this much left from him. It made me wonder where the truck was. Christophe had told me it was in storage somewhere; I’d always figured I’d pick it up later, somehow. If I needed it.

I set the address book down precisely, looked at the legal pad, and uncapped a blue Bic.

“What are you up to?” Graves glanced back over his shoulder. I’d managed to get all of us some jeans and T-shirts, nothing fancy but serviceable. The dark blue shirt strained at his shoulders. Boy was no longer a medium, that was for damn sure.

We’d both changed so much.

“Planning. This is short-term. Anyone who goes digging through paper will find out Gran’s property’s in trust for me, with a couple investments paying the taxes. Someone will eventually track us, or figure out I’ve gone here to lick my wounds. We can’t stay here past fall, and that’s if they don’t find us first.”

“They. The vampires, and . . .”

And the Order. Staying with them is about as safe as a sack of snakes for you, and I’m not sure I like it much either. “And anyone else. So I need short, medium, long-range, and contingency plans. You think this stuff over before you have to.” I stared at the blank paper. “Dad used to say that.”

“Your accent’s getting thicker.” He rinsed the skillet, working the pump like he was born to it. “It’s cute.”

Did that count as being willing to talk about something emotional? A reluctant smile pulled at my lips. I ducked my head, letting my hair fall down. Awkward silence reigned in the kitchen. He kept washing, the white bar of a dish towel over one shoulder.

I flipped idly through the book. Dad’s crabbed, neat handwriting, in different pen colors. I found Augustine’s name and address and numbers, with the inked cross Dad used to mark a safe contact.

There were other hunters. How many of them were djamphir—or something else? Could I still trust them? Would they know what I was now that I’d bloomed? Would any of Dad’s friends or contacts sell me to Sergej if Dad wasn’t around?

It was a horrible thing to think.

There were a handful of people I could trust. Less than that, because the only ones among the living were up here with me. Christophe . . . maybe I could trust him, since Leon had been lying about him selling Graves to Sergej. But still, Christophe and Graves’d “had words,” Graves said.