Perhaps it was possible that at least something in her life could be settled without a knock-down, drag-out fight? It would be nice to think it was possible.
Eventually, she started spooning chocolate batter into paper-lined muffin tins. They’d had just enough eggs. Ashe’s mood was good. Cupcakes seemed easy after the last few days. Holly’s spell was bubbling. Reynard was looking better. Eden was safe and sound.
Eventually, finished with his astronomy lesson, Reynard came to lean against the counter. Something in his expression reminded her of a stray cat confident of a handout.
“Wicked with a stake, and she cooks, too.”
“Don’t mock the woman holding the food.”
He looked from her to the bowl as if both were filled with tasty goodness. Ashe ducked her face away before she blushed or started to giggle. Even leather-clad action babes got giddy with relief some days. The memory of Reynard naked wasn’t helping her concentration, either. If lust could be stirred into a recipe, these cupcakes were going to be rising high on pure desire.
She picked up the baking pans and slid them into the oven, then set the timer and dumped the dirty bowl in the sink, where Holly was washing dishes. “There’s one more for ya, Hol.”
Holly stuck out her tongue, but her eyes were full of mischief.
“Hey, Eden,” Ashe said. “We’re going to eat supper in a little while. Why don’t you take a break and put your books away for now?”
“Put them in my office,” suggested Holly. “Move the cat off the desk if you want to play on the computer. He likes to sleep there.”
Eden slipped off the chair, gathered her books, and wandered off. Ashe watched her go, wondering if her daughter really was that calm after her adventure with Belenos and the fairy prince, or if it simply hadn’t hit home yet.
The phone rang before Ashe could pursue that thought. She picked up the cordless handset. “Hello?”
“I thought I might find you at this number.”
Belenos. She turned her back to the others and walked into the living room, not wanting them to see what must have been horror on her face. From there she could see out the front window. The streetlights flickered on, pools of yellow light backlit by an indigo sky. It was still a half hour to full dark.
“Aren’t all good little vampires still asleep?” She dropped her voice and tried to add a pinch of menace. Does he know this address? The house was secure, but they still had to come and go.
“I am neither good nor little. However, I did think congratulations on retrieving your daughter would be appropriate. Of course, it would not have gone so well for you if that meddling fairy hadn’t turned up. We missed our opportunity.”
For what? For me to fall at your feet? Ashe glared at the handset a moment. It wasn’t like Reynard’s departure would leave a job vacancy she’d have to fill. In fact, she was trying hard not to think about post- Reynard at all. The notion of it left her empty, like a nut shelled to find only cobwebs inside, the meat long shriveled away. “I’m not having this conversation with you, Red. Take your sicko fantasies and go home.”
He laughed, low but not menacing. He sounded genuinely amused, and that pissed her off even more.
She heard Holly and Reynard leave the kitchen, retreating to the library at the back of the house. Reynard was asking something about the Order; Holly was offering to look something up in one of her books. Ashe suddenly felt very alone.
“Aren’t you going to ask why I’m calling?”
“No. I doubt you have anything interesting to say.”
Belenos sighed against the mouthpiece of the phone. The sound of rushing air was so intimate, she could have sworn it brushed her cheek. “You mistake me for someone who gives up easily.”
“Maybe I mistake you for someone with half a brain. You might be able to sell this trip as an effort to fix a business deal gone bad, y’know, with your thief turning traitor and all that. But if you keep pissing people off, you’re declaring war on the local vamp queen. You pull that, and everybody loses.”
“Perhaps we are already at war,” Belenos said softly. “I will protect you, if you let me. I will even protect those you love, if you ask.”
Ashe felt the muscles down the back of her neck tense. “What are you talking about?”
“Have you forgotten the assassin you killed? I certainly didn’t send him. So who wants you dead? Have they given up? Perhaps I have an answer for you.”
Ashe opened her mouth to speak, but breath wouldn’t come. The assassin. She hadn’t forgotten about him, but too much had happened to dwell on a threat that wasn’t in her face right that moment.
“I’ll be at your mother’s grave in an hour.”
The phone beeped, and then the sound of a dial tone filled her ear. Ashe hit the disconnect button.
“Damn it!” She fell into a chair. At some time during the call, the light in the room had turned the corner from dim to dark.
A dark that had been relatively inert a few moments ago. Now it crawled with suspicions. What the hell kind of a game is Belenos playing? Was this an elaborate setup to make her grovel to him for protection? Or was he telling the truth? Was there another killer with her name on a contract?
Nah, it was a transparent trap, and he was too arrogant to think she’d refuse to come.
It was tempting to grab her stakes and go. She needed something to fight, not these vague, faceless enemies. Not a voice on the phone. Not a figure in a dream. A sniper on a hill. Tension clawed her shoulder muscles, sending the first flickering lights of a bad headache arcing through the darkness.
Time passed. Ashe wasn’t sure how many minutes she sat there, turning over everything that had happened since the phouka had attacked in the gardens. There was a connection, perhaps something fairly obvious, that she was missing.
She heard Alessandro leave, start the T-bird, and drive away. He was going to pick up some of his friends from the airport shuttle. The supernatural community at large had taken an interest in Fairview’s situation and was starting to mobilize.
It was about bloody time.
Ashe jammed her fingers in her hair. Bunny. Demon. Vampire. Fairy prince. Yes, Miru- kai was a possibility. Which one wanted her dead the most?
What was she going to do about Eden? There had been one horrible night, back in Spain, when Ashe had awakened to find a vampire creeping down the hall toward Eden’s pink-and-white bedroom. She’d killed it, of course. She had cried afterward, suddenly and explosively. Ashe had not truly known fear before that night. The next week, she began looking at boarding schools. What was she going to do this time? Send Eden away now, or risk waiting?
She heard Holly’s slippers scuffing on the kitchen floor. “What’s burning?”
Shit.
Chapter 21
Ashe walked through the graveyard, part of her brain worrying about where she could buy two dozen chocolate cupcakes on a Monday night because she’d been so wrapped up in the call, she hadn’t heard the oven timer. Holly had pulled two pans of charcoal briquettes from the oven, the pink crinkle cups lightly smoking. How late does Safeway stay open?
The rest of her was in slayer mode, alert to the rustling night. She could hear the ocean to the south, just at the bottom of the cliff. The slow roll of waves on the shore would cover a lot of stealthy sounds. Ashe strained her ears, trying to hear past the water and the wind in the trees.
Belenos and no doubt his underlings were somewhere nearby. She could feel the tingle of vampire energy dancing on her skin.
She hadn’t come alone. Reynard and the hounds had spread out through the cemetery, keeping watch. The thought eased the pinch of tension in her neck just a little. Once upon a time, she would have been happy to walk into a trap just to prove she could beat it. Not anymore. She had too much to lose.