Without another word, he left the room.
Reynard stayed where he was, propped up on his elbows, feeling the cool air of the room on the skin of his chest. The simple, forgetful pleasure of falling asleep with Ashe stroking his hair seeped away with the warmth of the bedclothes.
He understood the vampire’s last words. Don’t hurt her. He’d received that same warning often enough in the past from fathers and uncles and brothers. This time, though, it was different. He had changed. Back then he sought to forget the woman who’d chosen his brother instead of him. He’d bedded his way through dozens of women out of anger and revenge. He’d squandered his substance on liquor, cards, and danger.
Now . . . now he wanted a way to stay right where he was. The man he was now loved, wanted, needed Ashe, with her stubborn strength and hidden vulnerabilities. Being with her was like admiring an exotic, spiny sea- shell, and then finding its secret entrance to the pearl-pink luster inside. He wanted to protect that private chamber, make it his.
At some point during the night they’d talked again. She’d told him about her husband, who he was and how he’d died. Her affection for Roberto de Larrocha had been plain in her voice. It made him want to be by her side even more, because Ashe Carver clearly knew how to love. It made Reynard long to have her think of him with such tenderness.
Reynard rose, showered, and dressed. He started down the long hallway outside his bedroom door, trying to guess where everyone else was in the huge house. He could smell the sea, and wondered how close they were. He longed to see the endless silver of open water again.
There was a window seat in the upstairs hallway. He paused, peering through panes of colored glass. The day was overcast, the sky heavy and grim with rain. He unlocked the casement, pushing it open. A cold blast of wind ruffled his hair, the stinging chill a welcome and familiar slap against his skin.
Below, the rich dark earth of the flower beds already showed spatters of rain. Tulips tossed on their stems, the bright reds and yellows luminescent in the muted light. Here and there, hellhounds stood beneath the trees, dark shapes in the shadows. There must be a dozen. No one was taking any chances.
It was late, nearly dusk. Reynard had more than slept around the clock. No wonder Alessandro had looked so tired. The rest had done him good, though. Whatever Holly and her grandmother had given him made him feel almost back to normal.
He wondered how long it would last.
Reynard pulled the casement shut, locking it. The house settled, like a bird ruffling its feathers. He could believe it was sentient.
What would he do once he found his urn? He would survive, but could he bear going back to the Castle? In the course of time, everything he had felt and done in the last few days would fade to shopworn memories. Piece by piece, the incredible gifts of hunger and thirst, lust and true joy, would fall away, leaving a numb eternity behind. He was doomed and damned.
A jittering panic wrenched his gut. When would he have to face the choice between duty and freedom, the Castle or death?
A sudden, visceral memory twisted inside him. The clanging of the old cell doors. Bargaining, bullying, pleading with the warlords to keep peace in a place where the guardsmen were outnumbered a hundred, maybe two hundred, to one. His second in command, Bran, losing his wits and taking to flaying the inmates who crossed him, pinning up the hides like trophies on his cell wall.
Discipline had kept the despair at bay. Reynard had written logs every day, copious records of incidents, rosters, patrols, and supplies. Filling page after page with trivia no soul would ever read. Today, Guardsman Phillips found a box of firearms in the outer chambers. Today, a sighting of the griffin on level three. In the end, who really cared what Phillips did or what they saw? The events were all forgotten in the darkness of the Castle, along with the men who witnessed them.
All that pride—the tidy logs, the neat uniform, the refusal to give in to chaos—it was all whistling in the dark. Mac had made things better, but too late for Reynard. He hadn’t broken, but imprisonment had worn him to the bone.
He took a long breath, then another, calming himself until the sudden chill of dread left his body. What if I simply refused to go back? Two hundred and fifty years of service is enough.
There had to be a better answer.
Reynard rose from the window seat and found the stairs. Moving through the warm, pleasant house quickly lulled him into a sense of borrowed peace. His nose led him to the kitchen and he stood in the doorway for a moment, enjoying the scene. Holly was making soup; Eden was at the table with her schoolbooks. Ashe was reading a cookbook with a perplexed frown.
“How many cupcakes are you supposed to take to the school bake sale?” Ashe asked her daughter.
“Twenty-four,” Eden said without looking up from her schoolbook. “With pink icing.”
“That’s a double batch,” said Holly. “That’s a lot of ingredients.”
“Mrs. Flammand specified pink icing?”Ashe said skeptically. “Are you sure those aren’t your specifications?”
Eden looked mutinous. “With chocolate sprinkles.”
“I don’t think we have chocolate sprinkles,” Holly put in, stirring the soup. “We have food coloring, though. You sure you don’t want me to do the baking, Ashe?”
“I can fight a demon. Surely I can make cupcakes.”
“I dunno,” teased Holly. “Those little paper cups can be tricky.”
“I’m tougher than that.” Ashe got out of the chair and took the cookbook to the kitchen counter. “Whoever heard of asking parents to bake on short notice? What is this, like a command performance or something?”
“Welcome to the dictatorship of the parental fund-raiser,” Holly said dryly. “I’ve heard all about it from the moms in the baby clinic.”
“Janie’s mom called Mrs. Flammand the cupcake Nazi,” Eden piped up.
Holly snorted. “Better watch our step, then. We can send one of the hellhounds for sprinkles.”
Reynard watched and listened with a happy feeling he’d forgotten. Bantering women, the smell of good food, domestic bustle. This was something he’d never take for granted again.
“The soup smells wonderful,” Reynard said.
“Hi!” Ashe and Holly said in chorus. They looked at each other, a bit embarrassed.
“It’s not soup,” said Holly. “It’s a tracking spell for the demon. We’ve given up trying to be subtle.”
“By now it knows we’re on its trail,” Ashe said. “It has to.”
He sat down opposite Eden and looked at her book. It was upside down to him, but he knew what it was right away. “You’re studying the stars?”
“For science.” Eden took a sip from her glass of sticky brown milk—chocolate milk, he thought she’d called it. He’d have to try it when he got the chance.
“You don’t have to do homework today if you don’t want to,” said Ashe.
“It’s okay,” said Eden. “I kind of feel like I should be good for a couple of days.”
Ashe looked at her daughter with concern. “I’m not complaining, but are you sure you’re feeling okay?”
The girl shrugged. “You said I was grounded until I was forty for running away again. I thought maybe I should start sucking up.”
Reynard exchanged an amused glance with Ashe. “Currying favor usually works better if you at least pretend to be sincere.”
“I am sincere,” Eden said blithely. “Mom rocks.”
Ashe gave an exaggerated shrug.
“When this is all over, are you going back to the Castle?” Eden asked Reynard, coming with a child’s instincts to the one topic he didn’t wish to discuss. Which apparently everyone else did, starting with Caravelli.
“Why do you ask?”
She gave him a wary look. “Is it all really horrible there?”
Yes. He had to answer this one carefully. He didn’t want to frighten the girl. “There are some wonderful people there. Your uncle Mac, for one. Lore and his hellhounds lived there until a little while ago.”
“I like the hellhounds. They play fetch.”
