Chapter 4 — The Inspector, Part Two

The Council didn't send one inspector. They sent a committee.

Aldous delivered the news with the gravitas of a man announcing the apocalypse: "Master. The Council is sending a delegation. To 'celebrate' your union. They will observe. They will probe. They will—" He shuddered. "—ask questions about your courtship."

"Why," Kael said flatly, "would the Council celebrate a human match?"

"Because someone is pushing them to." Aldous's voice dropped. "The Moon faction has allies on the Council. They want to prove the match is a fraud, Master. If they do—"

"If they do," Kael said, "I'm a puppet. Yes, Aldous. I'm aware."

Lila, listening from the doorway with a mug of tea, raised an eyebrow. "So tonight's performance is a high-stakes audition in front of the people who'd love to kill us both."

"Yes," Kael said.

"Great," Lila said brightly. "I'll wear the green dress."

The delegation arrived at eight: four ancient vampires in suits, led by a woman with silver hair and eyes like a hawk. Lady Aurelia of the Council. She smiled at Lila with all the warmth of a paper shredder.

"So this is the human," Aurelia said. "Tell me, girl. How did you and Lord Voss meet?"

Lila, arm linked with Kael's, smiled her sweetest smile. "He broke into my apartment at 2 a.m. and offered me five million dollars to pretend to love him." She tilted her head. "It was the most romantic thing that's ever happened to me, honestly."

The delegation froze.

Kael's mouth didn't move. His hand found her waist and pulled her an inch closer, thumb tracing a slow circle—good. Keep going.

Aurelia recovered: "Charming. And what do you love about him?"

This is a trap, Lila thought. Whatever I say, they'll use it. So she did what she always did in a trap: she set her own bait.

"Oh, lots." She leaned into Kael, looking up at him with eyes like a worshiping saint. "He's terrible at microwave meals. He thinks pineapples are royalty. He watches that show with the boy and the monsters with a straight face and critiques the monsters' biology." She reached up and touched his jaw—cold, sharp—and let her thumb brush the corner of his mouth. "And he has this look, when he thinks I'm not watching. Like he's been alone for a hundred years and I'm the first thing worth looking at."

The room was silent.

Kael's pupils had gone dark red. Not from the performance. From her thumb on his mouth. Lila felt his hand tighten on her waist—genuinely, not for show—and her own heart stumbled.

Aurelia's smile had frozen solid. She tried again: "And you, Lord Voss? What do you love about her?"

Kael looked down at Lila. For one long moment, the performance dropped—just a crack—and what was underneath it was something raw enough to scare her.

"She laughs," he said. "At me. She's the only person alive who's laughed at me and meant it kindly." A pause. "And she is the only person in a hundred years who has made me want to understand a pineapple."

The delegation's silence was total.

Aldous, in the doorway, made a sound like a man swallowing a scream of joy.

Aurelia tried twice more to crack them—asked about their first kiss, their sleeping arrangements, their plans for children (Lila, deadpan: "We're planning to adopt a fruit. Possibly several.")—and failed every time. Because every answer they gave was either too human to be scripted or too real to be fake.

By midnight, the delegation had retreated, empty-handed.

When the door closed, Lila collapsed against the wall and let out the breath she'd been holding. "That was—"

"You were magnificent." Kael's voice was rough. "The 'look when you think I'm not watching' speech. I almost believed it."

"It wasn't a speech," Lila said, before she could stop herself.

The silence stretched.

Kael looked at her for a long moment, and then said, very quietly: "Then we are both in trouble."

He left before she could answer. Lila stood in the foyer, heart pounding, and thought: Yeah. We're both in trouble.

In her room that night, she took out the burned fragment of paper and stared at it for a long time. Pure blood. Curse backlash. Continuous supply.

She folded it away, and didn't sleep.