or-”
“If we might continue,” Christian said in a mild tone.
“Using you!” I was surprised to find myself on my feet. I was even more surprised at the fact that I was yelling at Kristoff. He sat before me, still gaunt, but with color in his face now, and his eyes burning with a cool blue heat. “If our marriage had been legal, I would divorce you right now!”
“Please-” Christian said, but he didn’t stand a chance.
Kristoff jumped to his feet. “Our marriage is legal, and you can hardly blame me for suspecting that you might be manipulating me, since you had made it clear you preferred Alec to me, and yet there you were in my bed.”
“It wasn’t a bed. It was a bunch of moldy straw, and don’t you dare try to make yourself out to be the victim! I’m the one whose trust was abused!”
“I never abused your trust,” Kristoff said with a grim note to his normally sensual voice. “I didn’t believe you were actively working against us, but I knew that the reapers could use you without you being aware of it. I was simply trying to protect you and us at the same time.”
“You were?” I asked, surprised. You really believed me?
Yes.
Oh. I . . . oh. Thank you.
“Enough!” bellowed Christian.
We both turned to look at him.
“Still think they’re putting on an act?” Allie asked him.
A flicker of irritation was momentarily visible in his face before his mouth relaxed. “I am beginning to see your point.”
“It takes them a while sometimes,” Allie said with a fond smile at her husband before turning to me. “But they usually get there in the end.”
“The fact remains that the Zorya was killed in your bathroom.”
“That means nothing,” Kristoff answered abruptly, warming me with his quick defense. “Anyone could have gotten into her room. The door to her balcony was open, and the bathroom connected to the room next door.”
“The room containing the same woman who accompanied you here,” Christian said, looking thoughtful.
“Magda had nothing more to do with Anniki’s death than I did,” I said.
He continued looking thoughtful. “No one else was seen entering your room.”
“Exactly. No one was seen entering. But much as the idea gives me the willies, it doesn’t mean someone didn’t enter.” I turned to Kristoff. “Where were you watching?”
“Outside, in the garden beneath your window.”
“That means you couldn’t see who was coming or going.”
He shook his head. “I could see both hotel entrances that were still unlocked, and your door through the window. No one entered after Alec left.”
I thought for a moment. It was true my room had been at the end of the building, but there was more than one way into it. “Then someone must have come through Magda’s room. She had a balcony, too.”
“It’s possible, of course,” Christian said. “But likely? Why would anyone but you wish to kill the Zorya?”
“Why don’t you ask some of the other vampires you seem to have granted the right to kill Brotherhood members?” I asked somewhat snappishly.
“Ooh, she has you there, love muffin,” Allie said.
His mouth tightened. “Despite what you may think, we do not encourage our people to murder reapers without a reason. We imprison, yes, but that is only for the safety of our people, and as you see, our captives are treated humanely.”
“I will grant you that, but I’d just like to know how we’re supposed to prove we didn’t do something.”
“In mystery books, that would be motivation for finding the killer yourself,” Kristoff said.
That astounded me. “You know how to find a killer?”
“Yes. But not in this situation. There were only so many people who had access to your room. One of them must have done it.”
I thought over the list. Magda and Ray had been asleep in the room next to mine, the one that shared the bathroom. But neither of them would have a reason to kill a woman they didn’t know. That left Alec and Kristoff, but I couldn’t believe they had done it.
Thank you for the vote of confidence in my moral base.
Oh, I don’t mean you wouldn’t have done it-I think under the right circumstance, you’d be perfectly capable of killing a woman like Anniki. I just don’t think you did.
“I really think you’re going to have to go with a verdict of death by a person or persons unknown,” Esme suddenly piped up. “Like they say in those fascinating police shows you like to watch when no one is around.”
“I do not watch television,” Christian said sternly. “That is a mortal pursuit.”
“Uh-huh. Think I didn’t discover your secret stash of those British homicide DVDs that are so conveniently hidden in your study?” Allie asked.
“Very well,” Christian said, obviously ignoring the teasing tone in his wife’s voice. “I am willing to withdraw the charge of unauthorized murder against the Zorya pending further evidence. But the last charge will not be so easily dismissed.”
“I don’t see how you can think Alec going to ground has something to do with us,” I said, wishing Kristoff would hold my hand again, but lacking the nerve to just take his.
His fingers curled around mine, warm and strong and bringing me untold comfort. I slid a quick glance at him, but his face was impassive, his attention on Christian as the latter reiterated the charges.
“I have not seen Alec since he left Iceland. Neither has Pia,” Kristoff said firmly.
“We have evidence to the contrary,” Sebastian said with a smug little smile.
“Evidence? What evidence?” I asked, suddenly worried. What if someone had gone to the trouble of manufacturing evidence against us the way they had against Kristoff?
Christian nodded to Rowan, who rose and left the room. “We will bring in our proof.”
I gnawed my lip a moment as I considered Kristoff. “Alec hasn’t been in contact with you at all?”
He shook his head. “I haven’t seen him since that night in Iceland. He said he was returning to his home in California.”
“Where do you live?” I asked, somewhat surprised to hear that the very urbane Alec made his home in California.
“Outside of Firenze.”
“That’s Florence, isn’t it? In Italy?”
He nodded as the door opened and Rowan reappeared with Mattias.
“First you put me in the cell. Then you take me out and taunt me with the sight of my wife. Then you put me back in, and now you bring me here again. Your methods to break me are most cruel, but I will never give in to you. Never!” Mattias said in a dramatic fashion. “Wife! Have you convinced them yet to set me free?”
“She’s my wife, not yours,” Kristoff grumbled as Rowan shoved Mattias into a chair. “I married her first.”
“She’s a Zorya, and I am the sacristan. A Zorya must be wed to a sacristan in order to have full access to her powers, and since we’ve all seen proof that she has those, it is the marriage to me that is valid,” Mattias retorted.
“I’m afraid he has a point,” I murmured.
Kristoff’s glower turned even darker.
“The discussion of your release hinges, as you have repeatedly been told, on your cooperation,” Christian told Mattias in mild chastisement.
My ears perked up. Christian was considering releasing Mattias? Perhaps it wouldn’t be as hard as I thought to get him to see reason.
“You will repeat what you told us earlier.”
Mattias’s pale blue eyes rested with consideration on me. “I will speak only to my wife.”
Sebastian made an impatient gesture. “We can force you to speak.”
“You may torture me all you like-I will speak only to Pia!” Mattias yelled.
I began to see a way to present my case. “Am I to understand that Mattias has said something that connects
