The Cold Kiss of Death

Her look turned sly and she touched a finger to the base of my throat. ‘On his own, or, if you prefer, a ménage à trois?’

I didn’t bother answering that one.

‘Here are my details,’ she added, holding out her hand palm up.

Darius produced a card from somewhere, reminding me of a well-trained magician’s assistant. She placed it on the counter next to the G-Zav pills.

‘Call me tomorrow and we’ll set up a meeting to arrange the sale.’ She smiled. ‘I think this could be a very profitable and enjoyable relationship for both of us.’

I stood sipping my vodka and watched them leave, then turned on my computer.

* * *

‘The egg’s worth how much?’ Grace spluttered coffee, her brown eyes widening with shock.

I snagged a clean dishcloth from under the sink, rinsed it under the tap and held it out to her. ‘Ten to twelve million quid, if you believe Google,’ I repeated, grinning at her wide-eyed amazement. ‘It’s a Fabergé, after all.’

‘Goddess!’ She blinked, then took the cloth and dabbed thoughtfully at her baggy jumper.

I studied her, worried about how tired she looked. The bruised circles under her eyes and the slight grey tinge to her latte-coloured skin made her look a good five years older than her actual twenty-nine, and her plump shoulders were on their ‘been working too long’ downward slump. I wished she’d take a break and not push herself so hard all the time, only that argument was older than all our more recent ones about me and the vamps. But since my place is nearer to HOPE than her house in Wimbledon, at least she’d agreed to crash with me if she was on back-to-back shifts, rather than camp out in her office at the clinic. Although tonight that plan wasn’t working out too well. When she’d finally got away after her emergency, it was only to end up helping me in my cleaning frenzy as I tried to rid my flat of the nasty lingering presence of my uninvited visitors.

‘It’s a good job the egg wasn’t still here then,’ she said, throwing the cloth into the sink. ‘People have killed for much less than that.’

I snorted. ‘Tell me about it.’

Luckily, the egg was locked away in a bank vault rather than cluttering up my flat, otherwise I’d probably not have seen it again in this life—or much else, once Hannah and her lap-dancing fang-pet had disposed of me.

Fae might be hard to kill, we might live for centuries, but we’re not immortal, and certainly not where that amount of money is involved.

Grace dried her hands and then shoved them into her short, curly hair and shook her head. ‘Grrr, I hate it when things like this happen to you.’ She dropped her hands and narrowed her eyes at me. ‘So, what are you going to do about it, Genny?’

‘I’m not sure yet,’ I said, keeping my tone casual. ‘I suppose try and find out who the egg really belongs to now the Earl’s dead and take it from there.’

‘Which means talking to that vampire, Malik, doesn’t it?’ She pressed her lips together and gave me her concerned look, the one that had disapproval skirting round its edges.

‘Grace, I can’t survive on these.’ I poked at the G-Zav tablets sitting on the counter between us. ‘You know what I was like before I bought the Disguise spell—some days I couldn’t do much more than sit and shake, the cravings got so bad. And I can’t use the spell any more, not now I know the truth about it.’

She gazed at me for a moment, indecision wavering on her face, then sighed. ‘I know you can’t, Genny. It’s not morally right to use someone else’s body like that, not even a vamp’s.’

‘And Hannah Ashby’s little visit on top of all the invites from the vamps sort of means I can’t stall any longer, however much you want me to,’ I said quietly. ‘I need to sort it all out and Malik appears to be the best way.’

‘I’m not disagreeing, not now. It’s just—Oh heck, Genny, you know what the vampires are like, better than I do,’ she said, frustrated, then she threw her hands in the air in reluctant acceptance. ‘What am I saying? Of course you know better than me, you were brought up with them, although Goddess knows what that must have been like.’

‘I’ve told you!’ I gave her a teasing smile, trying to lighten her mood. ‘Not much different from any other child’s whose father is still living according to eighteenth-century Russian aristocratic traditions, with nannies, private tutors, servants, learning how to dance, dressing for dinner ...’

‘Exactly.’ She laughed, sounding slightly dismayed, and crossed her arms. ‘There’s just no way I could ever imagine dinner.’

‘Okay, I admit it,’ I said drily, ‘I was the only one whose meals turned up on a plate instead of on two feet, but hey, I was a kid, I didn’t know any different, so to me that was normal.’

And okay, occasionally someone would get too enthusiastic over their ‘food’, but accidents happen—as Matilde, my stepmother would say—and then the ‘accidental meal’ would continue to walk around—looking confused and a bit misty—even after the ‘leftovers’ had been ‘disposed of ’ ... but nearly everyone has phobias, don’t they? Spiders are Grace’s, mine just happens to be ghosts.

‘And dinner was always very civilised,’ I grinned, just to distract Grace a bit more. ‘Wrists only, of course.’ Which was true; anything else was behind closed doors. My father had strict rules about that. So I’d never seen anything like Hannah and Darius’ vamped-up sex show until my first visit to Sucker Town. My father would have been horrified, same as Grace was when I’d told her about it, albeit for different reasons.

‘Yes, it was so civilised that you ran away when you were fourteen,’ Grace said, her voice still concerned, but with a thread of reproach for my teasing.

‘Yeah, well,’ I sighed, instantly apologetic, ‘as I told you, it wasn’t so much to do with my father as with a mistake he made.’ Like arranging for me to marry another vampire, a future I was utterly happy with, until the vamp turned out to be a psychotic sadist.

‘Are you sure that you’re not making the same mistake with this Malik?’ Her forehead creased with worry.

‘I’m not planning on getting that close to him’—despite the traitorous thoughts my libido occasionally had— no, I was aiming to keep any future association between us at arm’s length. Literally. Malik coveted my blood, had done since I was four; I needed his protection and his venom, so the wrist was as good a meeting place as any. It was what I’d planned to tell him when he next put in an appearance—only now it looked like I’d have to go and find him. Which would give him the upper hand—not such a great negotiating position.

‘What about Finn?’ Grace said, then as I started to speak she added, ‘And you know I’m not talking about your job, Genny.’

‘Finn’s not interested in anything else,’ I said quietly.

‘Rubbish! Of course he is—why else would he keep quiet about your father and go up against the Witches’ Council if he wasn’t interested? He’s being careful and considerate, Genny,’ she said earnestly, reaching out to grasp my hands. ‘You told him this big, big secret, something that both you and he know could cause a major upset in your life. Maybe he thinks if he asked you out now, you’d think you had to say yes, just to keep him sweet.’

Hope flickered inside me. Was she right? Had Finn decided not to ask me out any more because he thought I’d only be saying yes for the wrong reasons? And not because one half of my parentage repulsed or terrified him? It sort of fit with his usual white knight persona.

‘Of course,’ Grace carried on, ‘with him backing off like he has after hearing your secret, it means you’ve lost your trust in him too. Which is probably why you blew up at him earlier.’ She squeezed my hands. ‘You like him, Genny, a lot. You should talk to him and sort it all out.’

She was right on both counts. I did like him, a lot ... and I didn’t trust him. How could I when I wasn’t sure what he wanted? But maybe if I talked to him?

Then she lifted my left hand up between us in accusation; half-faded bruises encircled my wrist. ‘You’ve had these for over a month, Genny, and with your sidhe metabolism, you should’ve healed them in a couple of hours. I know its some sort of property mark.’ Her face screwed up in revulsion. ‘How can you think of having anything to do with that vamp after he did this to you?’

Because I’ve finally accepted, regardless of what I want, or you want, I don’t have much choice. I need him, or some vamp anyway, and—not even trying to fool myself here—some part of me wants him. More importantly, once given, I know his word is his bond.

Only I didn’t say it out loud; it wasn’t what Grace wanted to hear. But if she didn’t understand about Malik,