Chapter Five — The Coldest Houseguest

My plan was simple. I would be the coldest, most irritating houseguest in vampire history. I would insult the décor, criticize the blood-wine, refuse every tonic, and eventually he would get so sick of my face that he'd personally escort me off the premises, curse be damned.

Day one, I told him his library was organized "like a hoarder's fever dream."

He said: "It's chronological by massacre."

Day two, I called his fortress "gothic real estate with a personality disorder."

He said: "I'll have the east wing repainted. What color suits a woman who's about to live forever?"

Day three, I sat across from him at a dinner table long enough to host a state funeral and informed him, very clearly, that I felt nothing for him. That the bond was a biological accident. That I planned to spend the next three months being the single most indifferent human in the Western Hemisphere, and then I planned to die with a clean emotional record.

He set down his glass. He looked at me with those bottomless eyes. And he said:

"You're lying."

"Excuse me?"

"Every time you lie to me," he said, "your heart beats faster. I can hear it. I can taste it — the bond feeds me your pulse the way you can feel mine. You've made your feelings for me extremely clear, Lyla. Your body is very honest. It's only your mouth that's a traitor."

I stared at him. The silence stretched.

"Also," he added, with the faintest suggestion of a smile — the first one I'd seen, and it was devastating — "you told the west tower gargoyle you found me attractive. Extensively. At three in the morning. While crying."

"I did NOT—"

"Varik heard you."

From the shadows by the door, a voice said, deadpan: "The gargoyle was very moved. It considered sending you a card."

I turned to face the vampire in black who had apparently been standing there for the entire conversation. "Who are you?"

"Varik. Shadow-guard to the Sovereign." He paused. "Also, apparently, emotional-support gargoyle liaison. The position is new."

"Varik," Kaelen said, without looking at him, "has been with me for four hundred years. He has never once failed to say the wrong thing at the worst possible time. I keep him for morale."

"Whose morale?" Varik asked.

"I genuinely don't know anymore."

I should have hated this. All of it. The fortress, the bond, the vampire who could taste my pulse like a wine critic. And the worst part — the absolute worst part — was that I didn't hate it. The Devourer had been quiet for days. Quiet and warm and happy, curled up against my sternum like a housecat, and I had spent every night lying awake, thinking about a man who had cut his own wrist open to keep me alive.

It was so much worse than being afraid.

I was starting to want the thing that was going to kill us both.

Winnie arrived on the fifth day.

I heard the commotion before I saw it — shouting, the clash of something metal, and then a familiar voice shrieking: "I'M COMING, LYLA, I BROUGHT A CROSSBOW AND A FULL BAG OF GARLIC AND I AM NOT AFRAID TO USE—"

There was a thud. A clatter. A muffled "ow."

By the time I reached the courtyard, Winnie Cross was face-down in the fountain, crossbow floating beside her, garlic bulbs bobbing in the water like grim little buoys. Two vampire guards stood over her, looking profoundly unimpressed.

"I slipped," she announced, from the water, with tremendous dignity. "The cobblestones are uneven. I want to speak to whoever manages your landscaping."

"Winnie." I hauled her out, dripping, grinning despite myself. "You're three days late. I sent you one text."

"The text said 'vampire fortress.' I had to pack for a siege!" She threw her arms around me, then immediately pushed me back to examine my face. "You look... alive. Which is good. But also not like you've been living under a rock, which is suspicious. What are you not telling me?"

"Nothing."

"Your pupils are dilated."

"They're always dilated. I'm a curse victim."

"Your pulse is elevated." She narrowed her eyes. "You're standing in a vampire courtyard, wet, and your pulse is elevated. Lyla Aether, have you been fraternizing with the—"

"Varik," Kaelen's voice came from the colonnade, "why is there a wet human woman threatening my guards with root vegetables?"

"I believe she's the friend, my lord."

"The friend?"

"The one I mentioned. Who owns the crossbow."

Kaelen looked at me. Something in his expression shifted — a fraction of a degree, barely visible, but I felt it through the bond like a bell struck in my chest.

"You have a friend," he said. "Who risked her life to retrieve you."

"I have several friends. I'm beloved."

"You have one friend," Winnie corrected cheerfully, wringing out her hair. "And she's extremely devoted, and she's also the only person who knows your grimoire collection is held together with duct tape and denial, so treat me with respect."

Kaelen turned and walked away without another word. Varik followed, pausing only to say, "The gargoyle sends its regards."