Was he right? I didn’t know. But when it came to family members, I was pretty hard up these days. And before he’d been turned, Guthrie had treated me with more consideration than my own father had shown for most of my life—as sad as that was to admit.
Okay... yeah. So, Rans was probably right to worry.
Guthrie’s dark brows drew together. “I would have done anything to be able to have a child with Clarabelle, but that possibility was stolen when she died. Now you’ve told me that I unknowingly had sex with the one creature I hate more than anything else in the world. And not only did that creature try to steal my soul by killing me; it also stole my DNA to make a child I knew nothing about.”
“I’m sorry,” I whispered, my chest hurting for both of us.
Guthrie swallowed, rubbing a hand over his face and letting it drop. “Was it your mother or your father?”
The ache grew sharper. Rans’ fingers twined with mine on the couch between us. “It was my mother. She was... an amazing woman, Guthrie.”
Guthrie’s face went even bleaker, if it were possible. “’Was.’ So she’s dead, then?”
I nodded, my throat closing up when I attempted to speak. I tried to clear it, but the weight of the past was choking me.
Rans answered for me. “Her conception was a treaty violation—demonic interference with humanity. The Fae tracked her down. Or at least, one of their unstable human watchdogs did.”
“She was running for the US Senate,” I managed. “A mentally ill guy shot her to death at a Fourth of July campaign rally twenty years ago.”
“Twenty years,” Guthrie murmured. “You must’ve been young. I’m sorry, Zorah.”
I shrugged a shoulder, not able to hold his gaze. I wanted to be able to hold up my chin and spout the usual bullshit—oh, you know, it was a long time ago, I barely remember her, blah, blah, blah.
“Me, too,” was what I said instead. Rans’ thumb stroked rhythmically over my knuckles, and none of us tried to break the silence that settled over the room.
I wasn’t sure how long we sat there, exactly, but it was probably less than twenty minutes later when Albigard’s portal burned its way into reality on the other side of the room. Rans and I rose, preparing to meet the returning pair... which was just as well since it meant Rans was in a position to catch Len when he came staggering through the man-sized oval with the air of someone who’d been shoved bodily—a snarl of anger on his face.
EIGHT
RANS CAUGHT LEN by the upper arm and swung him around, setting him back on his feet before he could face-plant into the plush carpeting. Len jerked his arm away the moment he had his balance back, glaring first at Rans, then at the portal.
Two familiar carryon bags were the next things to appear, tossed through carelessly to thump on the floor with matching dull thuds. And finally, Albigard stalked through—wearing a disgruntled expression that reminded me of a cat who’d been repeatedly rubbed backward. A red mark marred one of his perfect cheekbones, the center darkening to the unmistakable purplish hue of a bruise.
He and Len squared off, glaring metaphorical daggers at each other.
“What the hell just happened?” I asked, before Albigard decided to upgrade the metaphorical daggers to physical ones—something he’d already shown a willingness to do once tonight.
Albigard looked at Len like someone might look at dirt on his designer shoe, a sneer twisting his lips. “This human was distracted and emotional. But when I attempted to calm him, he became violent. His reaction was irrational. I didn’t come here—at great personal inconvenience, I might add—just so I could be assaulted by a random Earther, demonkin.”
I stared at him, trying to untangle his words and rearrange them into something that made sense.
Len made a noise of outrage. “Irrational? Fuck off, asshole! I’ve already been mind-screwed once tonight—but at least that was with my permission... sort of, anyway. And he didn’t try to twist my thoughts into some kind of sick... whatever the hell that was!” He gestured angrily, punctuating the words, and I couldn’t help noticing the scrapes on his knuckles.
“Len—” I began, still not entirely sure what had happened.
Len jerked his attention to me. He was breathing hard, and for a moment he looked like he might take another swing at Albigard just for good measure. I watched, wide-eyed, as he dragged his temper under control. To be fair, I hadn’t been friends with Len for all that long in the grand scheme of things. But we’d been coworkers for a while, and after the disaster at the fetish club, I’d seen him in some pretty rough circumstances.
I’d never seen him like this.
His jaw worked as he reached for civility. “Z, all the shit you asked for is there. The box and the tools are in the bags with your other stuff. I’m leaving now, before I give into the temptation to punch this ballsack in the face again. Wherever you’re going next, be careful, all right?”
The urge to ask if he was okay, what the hell had happened, and if he was safe to drive after snorting coke an hour ago crowded my tongue, but I swallowed all of it back. I’d been right earlier, and I should have listened to my instincts. Len was better off staying far away from me.
“All right,” I said quietly. “Thank you, Len. And... I’m sorry.”
His mouth pressed into a thin line and he waved the words away brusquely. His gaze flickered angrily past Albigard to rest on Rans for a moment, the two of them exchanging an indecipherable look. With a final frustrated shake of his head, Len shoved past Albigard, knocking shoulders as he headed for the front door. It opened and closed
