“Boy, am I glad you’re . . . here. . . .” The sentence trailed off as I saw who it was knocking at my door. “Oh, hello. When I called the dial-a-reaper number, I hadn’t expected you two would be the ones to make the pickup.”
“The director thought it would be best if we limited exposure of Brotherhood members to one who so clearly does not embrace the true glory of the light,” Janice Mycowski said primly as she pushed past me into the hotel room. “You have Kristjana and Mattias here?”
“Yes.” I closed the door behind Rick, trying to summon up a welcoming smile.
“You look well,” Rick said politely. “Iceland must agree with you.”
“Thank you. No!”
Rick looked startled for a moment until he realized I wasn’t shouting at him.
Mattias, who had been forbidden to leave his chair, grabbed the seat and chair-hopped his way toward me. “Pia!” he called as I reentered the living room of our hotel suite.
“I told you to stay!” I said, pointing back at the corner where he’d been.
His face shifted into a pout. “But Kristoff is not here. You said I had to stay out of his way, but he is gone. Smooches!”
Rick and Janice looked at Mattias with obvious surprise, the former turning a bemused glance upon me.
“Er . . . he’s a bit . . . affectionate,” I said, blushing a little as I hissed to Mattias, “I told you there will be no kissing!”
“Piiiia,” he said, drawing out my name in a depressed sigh.
“You’ve light-bound him!” Janice declared after giving him a good long look. She turned her fierce gaze upon me. “You dare!”
“You bet your butt I dare,” I said, squaring my shoulders and looking like I would be prone to light-binding anyone who annoyed me.
She took a step back.
“It’s keeping him happy and me sane, so I don’t want to hear one word about that. Kristjana is through the bedroom to your left.” I gestured toward the appropriate door.
She marched to it with a glare that probably could have cracked cement. “I shall be sure to tell the director just how you treated our members!”
“Oh, I’m sure Frederic has a much worse image of me than as someone who dazzles a couple of troublesome reapers,” I said, following her into the room. I was braced for a scream of outrage, which was forthcoming immediately.
“What have you done to her?” Janice yelled. I stood in the doorway and smiled somewhat weakly as Janice fussed around the prone woman lying on the bed. “Goddess above! You’ve killed her!”
“No, no, she’s not dead. She’s just sedated. She was a wee bit upset when we got her out of the room she was being kept in, and the doctor thought it would be best if she had a little downtime to recover. I’m not quite sure why, but she was resistant to the light-binding, so we gave up trying to make her happy and just let her go to sleep instead.”
“Downtime!” Janice shot me a look of purest venom before she began patting Kristjana’s cheeks in an attempt, I assumed, to bring her around. “You have become one of the monsters you should be destroying.”
“She appears to be injured,” Rick said, peering over his wife’s shoulder.
“Not really,” I said quickly. “Not seriously, anyway. There was a little incident on the fire escape when she tried to break free, and Kristoff was slow in grabbing her, so she went over the edge, but we were at the bottom of the fire escape, so she didn’t fall very far. The doctor said it looks far worse than it really is. The black eye should fade in no time.”
Both of them gave me identical looks of horror.
“We had her X-rayed and everything,” I reassured them. “I managed to get her light-bound for the duration of the hospital visit, and she checked out fine, so really, there’s nothing to worry about.”
“Do you need me? I’m here if you need licking anywhere,” Mattias called from the doorway, blowing me a kiss as he beamed at Rick and Janice.
“His things are all packed and ready,” I told Rick with an urgency that I feared was unmistakable. “I’m afraid we didn’t have time to get Kristjana’s things, but with the town crawling with vampires, we thought it best to sit tight and not worry about her clothes and such.”
“Kristoff!” Mattias called happily from where he still sat in the doorway, his head turned to the door of the suite. “Pia said I must sit in the chair until you returned. Now I can go to her. She needs me.”
Kristoff! I told you the Brotherhood people would be here to pick up Mattias and Kristjana! Go away before they see you!
Dio , he swore. I thought they would be gone by now. Did you find out where Alec is?
No, I haven’t even brought that up.
“Kristoff?” Janice said, suspicion tainting the word.
“Yes, he’s my . . . er . . .”
“Husband,” Kristoff said, appearing in the doorway. He eyed the two Brotherhood folk for a moment. I do not know them. Where are they from?
Seattle.
Then they will not know me, either. I have not worked in the United States. “Kristoff von Hannelore,” he added, making a little bow.
Von Hannelore? I asked, somewhat surprised by his surname. I had been too flustered at our rushed wedding to notice what name was listed for him on the papers, and hadn’t thought to ask him about it since. Isn’t that German? I thought you were Italian.
My parents were from a small principality in what is now Germany. I lived there in my youth.
“But . . . you’re married to the sacristan,” Janice said, frowning.
Mattias took my hand and kissed my fingers. “Yes, she is. My Pia. My wife. She needs me. Licks?”
Kristoff pried Mattias’s fingers off my hand, taking it himself. “She was married to me first.”
“It’s a bit complicated,” I said, wondering how on earth I could explain Kristoff.
“Kristoff is my friend, too,” Mattias added, beaming at him and trying to take his hand.
Kristoff growled, I am not used to having to be explained.
Yeah, well, people who charge in on meetings with their mortal enemies just have to tough out what they find.
“You have two husbands?” Rick asked a bit hesitantly. “Is that legal?”
“Well . . . technically-”
“Yes,” Kristoff said quickly.
They don’t seem to realize you’re a vampire. I’m glad, but I have to say that it surprises me a bit.
It’s not like we walk around with a big sign pointing to us proclaiming, “Dark One,” you know.
Yes, but you’re their area of specialty. Shouldn’t they at least sense something different about you?
Experienced reapers might. These two appear innocuous.
“I like licking,” Mattias said, apropos of nothing.
“You try and you’ll find yourself without a tongue,” Kristoff threatened as Mattias grinned at him.
“Mattias! Sit!” I ordered, pointing to the chair. “No licking! No kissing! And stop trying to hold Kristoff’s hand.”
“Pia, Pia, Pia,” was his sad little refrain as he obeyed my command and sat in a chair next to me, pouting slightly as he clutched the hem of my gauze skirt.
“What you have done to that poor man-to both of them . . .” Janice said, her face dark with malevolence. “You will answer to the governors for these crimes; oh, yes, you will!”
Rick had been giving Kristoff a thorough visual examination, and said finally, a puzzled frown between his brows, “You are not a member of the Brotherhood?”
“No,” he said, tensing.
“Kristoff is helping me with . . . er . . . finding Ulfur,” I improvised, hoping the mostly true statement would pass muster. “Which isn’t going to be easy at all. An Ilargi has taken his soul.”
“Ilargi!” Janice gasped. “Here? You must stop him!”
