Even The Vampires Get The Blues

there, but to be honest, I've only been there a couple of times. I prefer this version of the world. Now, about your need to smile more… maybe you just need a massive influx of kissing?'

'We weren't talking about me smiling—we were talking about you falling in love with me, and why it's a bad idea,' he said, not moving when I leaned into him and gave his chin a flirtatious slurp.

'No, we weren't. I haven't said one single word about being in love with you. Kiss me, dammit!'

'Sam—' Paen stopped me from lunging at him. I was teasing him, but I could see in his eyes—I could feel inside him—that he wasn't responding. 'I'm quite serious. I can't allow you to continue down this path.'

'You can't allow me…' I stopped, disbelief twisting painfully in my heart. 'Oh. I see how it is. You have your soul, so you have no further need for me. I was just a means to an end, wasn't I?'

I pulled away, turning my back on him so he wouldn't see the tears that suddenly made it difficult to see. I felt betrayed, hurt, used. I knew that was unfair since he'd made it clear he hadn't been looking for a serious relationship, yet I felt like so much had changed in the last few hours. After what we'd been through together, how could he still want to close me out?

'I never asked you to redeem my soul for me.' Paen's voice was filled with regret, but nothing else. 'I am grateful than you did, more grateful than I can possibly express to you, but gratitude is—'

He didn't finish the sentence. He didn't need to, I could hear the words as if he had spoken them. Gratitude was all he was prepared to offer me.

He was right. I knew that. But it still cut me to the bone that my newborn feelings for him were unrequited.

'Fine,' I said, blinking rapidly to disperse the tears. I wanted to say something more, something sharp that would make him hurt the way he hurt me, but two things held me back—it wasn't a good business practice to hurt clients, and I couldn't hurt him even if I wanted to. That realization struck me like a wrecking ball—I wasn't falling in love with him; I'd gone right ahead and done it. At some point in the last few hours I'd gone from self-sufficient Sam, to needy, dependent Sam… and the man to whom I'd offered my heart didn't want it.

Chapter 12

Grief swamped me, so strong that I could taste its bitterness on my tongue.

'Sam,' Paen said, taking a step closer to me. 'I never meant for you to be hurt. I thought you understood the sort of relationship I could offer—'

Voices outside the door interrupted him before he could say something that would have me bursting into tears. Clare and Finn came into the room, laughing, Finn holding the shoebox containing the statue, while Clare, with a guilty look cast my way, hustled a bag from Mila's shop into a drawer in her desk.

'We got the statue. We had a peek at it in Mila's office—it doesn't look important at all to me,' Clare said, the cheerful smile on her face fading when she looked first at Paen, then me. 'Sam? What's wrong? Are you crying?'

'No, of course not,' I said, desperately trying to blink back the tears as I frowned out the window.

'Yes you are, you're crying!' She rounded on Paen, a fierce expression on her face. 'What did you do to her?'

'Me?' Paen asked, looking surprised. The boob. 'I haven't done anything—'

'Leave him alone, Clare.' I managed to swallow the lump of pain in my throat and turned to face the room with what I prayed was a placid smile. 'It's nothing important.'

'It is so important if he's made you cry,' she said, looking militant as only an outraged faery can. She turned back to Paen with narrowed eyes. 'What did you do to my cousin?'

'You didn't—Paen, tell me you didn't start spouting that rubbish about not needing any woman,' Finn said, looking closely at him. 'Oh, Christ, you did. When the hell will you learn—'

'This is none of your business,' Paen interrupted, his eyes starting to flash blackened silver.

Finn took a position right in Paen's face, clearly furious at his brother. 'It is when you're hurting the very same woman who saved your bloody soul for you!' he shouted.

'Guys, it really isn't—' I started to say.

'I never asked her to save my bloody soul!' Paen roared at his brother. The noise startled us all into silence for a moment. Everyone looked away as I took the shoebox from Finn and pulled out the statue.

'That was fun, but we have more important matters at hand than a broken heart,' I said, setting the statue on my desk.

Clare gasped. 'He broke your heart after you redeemed—'

'Enough,' I said loudly, giving my cousin a warning look. 'Can we move on, please? Anyone have any idea why this statue is so important that someone is trying to kill for it?'

Four pairs of eyes turned to the statue.

'It's rather attractive, in a cheap knockoff sort of way,' Clare said, her head tipped to the side as she pondered the statue.

Paen picked it up and examined it. It looked just the same as it did the first time I saw it—a gold statue of a bird, some sort of stylized, vaguely falconish bird, with a cruel curved beak, claws wrapped around a stick of wood, the bottom of it flat, adorned with a crude made in Taiwan stamp.

'It's heavier than it looks,' Paen said, turning it over. 'This is brass?'

'I think so. It's certainly not gold.'

'Hmm.' He rapped his knuckles against the back of the statue. 'It doesn't sound hollow. Probably it is plaster covered over with a thin veneer of brass. That's a very common technique used by knockoff artists.'

'I wouldn't doubt it. It certainly doesn't look at all valuable. Any bright ideas on what's so important about it?'

Paen shook his head. 'None. But I'm hardly an expert on art pieces, other than an interest in the Jilin God.'

'Maybe it's cursed,' Finn suggested, taking the statue from Paen. 'Or maybe this isn't really brass. What if it's gold made to look like brass? Or what if there's a valuable jewel or something hidden inside of it?'

'Ooh, I like jewels,' Clare said, peering over Finn's shoulder.

'Could be a secret drawer or something built into it,' Finn said, pressing various parts of the statue.

Paen and I shook our heads in synchronized disagreement. 'It's too solid for that,' I said.

'Well, then, your guess is as good as mine,' Finn said, admitting defeat. He handed it to me.

'My guesses aren't particularly good at all.' I avoided looking at Paen, trying my best to ignore the dull ache in the region of my heart. Now was not the time to try to work out my feelings—with someone trying to kill one or more of us, I had to focus on what really mattered.

My broken heart sobbed a lament that was hard to ignore.

'I think you should have an expert examine the statue,' Paen said, giving it a thoughtful look.

'Art expert, you mean?' I asked.

He shook his head. I tried hard to forget how silky his dark curls were as they brushed against my flesh, but the memory refused to be banished. 'I was thinking more about that Diviner friend of yours,' he said with a long, unreadable look at me.

I didn't even try to reach out to his mind.

'Jake has already examined it, Kind of. He looked at the box and said that what was in it wasn't touched by evil.'

'He might find more if he could examine the statue himself.'

I thought about that for a few moments. 'I suppose it couldn't hurt to ask him, although that's not really the sort of thing a Diviner does.'

Paen glanced at his watch. 'I have some estate business to take care of at home. Will you be all right for a few hours if I leave?'