Chapter Forty-four
As night fell the following evening, Paradise was pacing around her bedroom in her bathrobe.
Craeg hadn’t called. Not at seven in the morning when he usually did. Not at two in the afternoon when he maybe couldn’t sleep. And not at six when he was probably up and about to eat with Axe in the cafeteria.
Something had obviously changed.
And she hoped like hell it wasn’t the one-and-done thing. Some males wanted only what they hadn’t had yet, and although she would be shocked to discover Craeg was that much of a douche, she couldn’t think what else might explain him not calling.
Except … they’d been so good together. Really good. And he’d been so good to her.
As for that horrific scene at the girl’s apartment? Although what had happened to Peyton’s cousin was tragic, she didn’t think Craeg would be so affected as to suffer some kind of mental or emotional collapse—
As her phone finally fucking rang, she raced across her room.
Only to curse when she saw it was just Peyton.
When she answered, she tried to keep her voice level. “Hey. How you doing?”
After the two of them had done that sad, sad duty with the female’s parents, they’d gone their separate ways for the day, but they hadn’t been out of touch. He’d texted her a number of incoherent things over the hours, which she took to mean that he’d put that bottle of vodka to good use.
“So we don’t have class tonight.”
“What?”
“It’s canceled for some reason so Anslam and I are going to Sal’s Restaurant. I’m gonna invite everyone else, too.”
As she struggled with the update, a crushing disappointment left her dizzy. She’d been counting on seeing Craeg and—
Peyton didn’t miss a beat, telling her to meet everyone there in an hour. Then he hung up and left her to hold her phone and stare at the dark screen.
Would Craeg even join them? she wondered.
Okay, this was bullshit. She was done waiting around like some stupid chick.
Taking a deep breath, she dialed a number from memory, one that she had learned about three nights into working at the audience house. When a doggen answered, she smiled professionally—as if the male could see her face, as if she wasn’t doing this for purely personal reasons.
“Hi, there,” she said. “This is Abalone’s daughter. I’m so sorry to bother you, but would you be so kind as to transfer me down to the training center’s clinic?”
“Oh, but of course, mistress!” came the cheerful reply. “Was there someone in particular you should wish to address?”
“Actually…” Maybe this would be easier than she’d thought. “I’m trying to reach the first of the five bedroom suites down there?”
“My pleasure, please hold while I look up the extension.” There was a beep … beep … beep. “Here it is. If you’d like to direct-dial in the future, may I give you the number?”
“Please.” Grabbing a pen, she scribbled it on the side of the Kleenex box next to her. “Thank you.”
“Or you may use this number always. We’re grateful to serve. Please hold.”
“Thank you again.”
As the beep … beep … beep came back over the line, her palms bloomed with a flush of heat and sweat, and she had to sit down, because her legs started to shake.
Then there was ringing.
“Hello?” Craeg said.
She swallowed hard—and then got frustrated with herself. “I was hoping you’d call.”
Long silence. “Hey.”
“Look, I don’t have the patience for this. What the hell is wrong?”
“Don’t you have more important things to do?”
“What?” she said sharply.
“You know, what with your cousin having been killed. Your family must be upset, too.”
“I’m more worried about you at the moment?” Naturally, she was upset about—
Paradise’s anger derailed as the words he’d spoken truly sank in. “Oh.”
“Yeah, I followed you home last night,” he said. “Which was maybe a shitty thing to do—but considering you’ve lied to me about who you are and where you came from, it’s a violation of privacy that was warranted. Just curious—were you ever going to tell me?”
She put her head in her hand. “Craeg…”
“I didn’t call you because I don’t actually know who I’m talking to, do I. Well, the daughter of the First Adviser to the King—Peyton was kind enough to clue me in on that one.”
“Listen, I…”
“You what? What were you going to say, Paradise?” His voice became even more strident. “And P.S., I am legitimately sorry about what happened to that female. As you are very aware, I’ve lost family, too. You remember how that went, don’t you?”
Abruptly, the horrific story of his father being locked out of safety while the aristocrats hid from the lessers came back with vicious clarify.
“I am not like those people from that house, Craeg. And I’m insulted that you lump me in with them just because I was born into my family. Do you think I had any choice in that?”
“Oh, you’re not like them. No, no, not at all—you just felt like having sex last night, so you let a commoner pop your cherry, even if that meant that technically I can be killed for the pleasure of having had your company. Yeah, you’re not like them at all. You don’t lie for your own purposes or anything. Nah, not you, sweetheart.”
“That is so unfair.”
He laughed in a hard burst. “Wait, wait, I know. You were waiting to give your father the best surprise birthday present ever. ‘Hey, Dad, guess what! I’m with a floor layer’s son—hash tag awesome.’”
Gritting her teeth, she found her emotions bouncing between anger and sorrow, regret and indignation. “I didn’t tell anyone who I was. Not just you.”
“Oh, I feel so much better now. Thanks.”
“I didn’t want to be treated any differently! You think I like being Abalone’s daughter? You think I enjoy having no choices, no freedom, no—”
“So I was just part of an ‘exploration’ phase of yours? Great. Well, it’s over on my end. No more trying out different versions of yourself on me—you’re going to need to find a new piece of equipment. You know, Boone is probably available. He looked like he was seeing God for the first time as Novo was grinding on him last night.”
Paradise burst up and walked around her room. “I cannot believe you’re being so closed-minded.”
“Closed-m—are you fucking kidding me?” He cursed. “Okay, let’s try on this hypothetical. That ball, which is going to be at your house in a week—you were obviously going to ask me as your date, right? You were just waiting to tell me about it so I could go as your—oh, shit. It’s called an escort, ain’t it? I’d better get these details down before you introduce me to your father, and I soak fifty bucks into renting a tux.”
When she didn’t say anything, he laughed again. “Guess that wasn’t part of the plan, huh. Oh, in case you’re wondering, Axe overheard you guys talking on the bus. He told me about it after I got back to the training center and he tried to give me a hard time about dating you. I explained to him that you and I were not, in fact, ‘dating,’ but that I was fairly certain that if your car needed to be washed, you’d let me have at it with a bucket and a sponge.”
“You are way out of line.”
“And as an aristocrat, you are certainly in a position to tell me that, aren’t you.”
“I’m in love with you, you asshole.” At least that shut him up. “That’s right. I said it—where I come from, you’re not allowed to say that first because you’re supposed to wait for the male to do it. Oh, and you want to know what else I can’t do? I can’t be in the presence of any male without a chaperone. I’m not allowed to work or have a career—I was in that receptionist job solely because my father was desperately in need of help and I was the only one he could trust. I had to fight my way into the training program—and only got permission because I lied and told my father I would never fight in the war. I am expected to needlepoint, run a house, and get pregnant—and you’re bitching at me that I’m the problem?”
“Cry me a river, okay?” he bit out. “You have never had to worry about where your next meal is coming from, you live in a fucking museum showcase of beautiful things—and pardon me, but you don’t know what it’s like to have people look down on you because you lost the DNA lottery!”
“You’re looking down on me!” she hollered back. “Are you fucking kidding me right now! You’re judge and jury, you’ve made your mind up and to hell with me! You’re no different from the glymera—look in the goddamn mirror, Craeg. You’re just as superior-acting and judgmental as they are.”
As she fell silent, she was breathing hard, and her free hand was cranked into a fist, and her heart was pounding.
“This is getting us nowhere,” he muttered after a moment.
“You’re absolutely right. So fuck off. Have a nice life—hope all your holier-than-thou keeps you warm during the day.”
Paradise cut the connection and wheeled around, lifting her arm over her head, prepared to fire the phone at the wall.
But she stopped herself. Calmed herself. Refocused.
Wow. Losing her virginity and having her first knockdown/drag-out in a relationship. Oh, and first breakup, too.
Big twenty-four hours.
Going so well.
Just great.
It took a good hour before Paradise was even back in her own body, she was so angry. And her first cogent thought was that she was not going to spend the whole night stuck in her room.
Hell, no. She had all day to look forward to for that kind of prison.
Going over to her satchel, she waded through the thing to look for her wallet. She was going to meet the other trainees at that Italian restaurant and have a drink with them—even if she only ordered a soda. And if Craeg happened to be there? Fine. Whatever.
She might as well get used to being around him.
As her hand gripped her wallet, she was about to head out—but stopped. Pulling the thing out, she put it aside on her antique French desk. Rifling through the bag, she looked through everything—and even unzipped the front pocket and checked in there.
Frowning, she headed over to her walk-in closet and proceeded to where her coats were. The one she had worn the night before was hanging with her others, and she went into the pocket on the far side.
The Polaroid she had tucked in there at the apartment was where she had left it.
Staring at the image, she put her hand over her mouth.
Back at the satchel, she double-checked one more time. Nope, the original image, the one she’d found on the bus, was gone.
She thought back to when she’d searched the satchel at the training center and found her phone in the wrong place.
Someone had gone through her bag and taken the photograph.
Maybe because it tied them … to a murder.
Returning to her phone, she called Peyton. “Hey,” she said when he answered.
As she fell silent, he prompted, “Hello? Paradise?”
“I think…”
“You’re breaking up.”
“No, I’m not talking.”
“Hold on.” There was a rustling and then his voice was distant. “No, you goddamn fool. Anslam, I’m not doing any acid. Jesus—yeah, gimme some X.”
She closed her eyes and wondered what exactly she was doing. He was in mourning. And maybe she was just being paranoid.
“Parry?” There was another rustling and then he took a drink of something. “What’s up?”
“Nothing. I’m sorry.”
“You’re still coming out with us?”
“Not right now,” she said. “I’m going to my dad’s work. I, ah, I did something stupid last night.”
“What was that?”
“I took something from the apartment.” She stared at the photograph, and then had to put it facedown on her desk. Even without seeing specifics, it was too gory. “I didn’t mean to. That picture I found?”
“The Polaroid? The other one?”
“Yeah, I need to give it to Butch and Marissa. I slipped it into my pocket without thinking. I figure the Brotherhood’s out fighting, and I can’t go back to the training center, so I’ll stop by the audience house and someone can take it to them later on tonight.”
“Yeah. Good plan. Then come out with us?”
“Okay—I’m just going to take a quick shower and get dressed.”
“You’re always beautiful. See you in a few.”
Hanging up, she stared at her feet. God, what if one of the trainees was involved in that death?
With a curse, Paradise brought her phone into the bathroom with her, and as she put it down on the counter, she rolled her eyes at herself. But, yes, she was going to pick up the phone if Craeg called. Although, no, he probably wouldn’t. And yes, that was definitely a good thing.
In all the ways they could have crashed and burned … what a mess.
And frankly, she wasn’t sure she wanted to work it out with him even if that was possible.
Lust, she told herself. She had been in lust with him, not love. How did you fall in love with someone after six nights, anyway.
God, she wanted to vomit, she really did.
Twenty minutes later, she was dressed in a pair of blue jeans and a cashmere sweater. She put on her regular loafers, because although it was cold, there wasn’t snow forecasted yet; then she took out the coat she’d worn the night before. Putting the photograph back in the pocket, she snagged her wallet, her cell and her—
Over on the bedside table, the house phone rang. Going over, in case her father was calling to check up on her from his work, she picked the receiver up. “Hello?”
“You have a visitor.”
She frowned at the voice on the other end. “Anslam?”
“Yup, it’s me,” he said easily. “Peyton told me to come get you.”
“He did? But I’m not going to Sal’s yet. I’ve got to do an errand first.”
“I’ll go with you, then.”
“No, thanks. It won’t take me long—”
“Are you coming down?”
Oh, for godsakes. But she didn’t want to be rude. “Yup. Hold on.”
“Don’t hurry on my account.”
Hanging up, she double-checked her hair and then left her room. As she headed for the front stairs, she hoped she could get Anslam out the door fast. She felt like hell because of the fight with Craeg, and all that yuck was compounded because she couldn’t believe she’d spaced taking that Polaroid from the scene without telling anybody.
As well as the very real possibility the investigation was going to have to focus on the trainees.
Cresting the grand staircase, she saw Anslam standing down below on the black-and-white marble floor, his Saks Fifth Avenue clothes and his Gucci cologne announcing what class he was in as much as his even, rather unremarkable features did.
There was something just so … pasty about him, she thought.
How he’d gotten that reputation for being aggressive with females she had no clue.
When a step creaked beneath her foot, Anslam turned to face her. “Hey, girl,” he said. “You look good.”
“Thanks, so do you.”
When she got to the bottom and he opened his arms, she went to him and kissed him on both cheeks. “Listen, I’m sorry, but I’m really just going to—”
A strange sound let off in her father’s study, and she frowned, looking toward it. It was a kind of squeak, or a—
“You were going to go do an errand?” Anslam asked. “What kind of errand?”
She refocused on him. “It’s nothing important. I just … what is that noise?”
Turning away from him, she walked forward and glanced around the ornate jamb of the library’s archway—
“Oh, my God!”
Her father’s butler, Fedricah, and her maid, Vuchie, were tied up in front of the desk, their mouths gagged, their feet bound.
“What in the world happened—”
Anslam grabbed her from behind and spun her around, tripping her up and slamming her face-first into the floor. As the shock and pain momentarily stunned her, he flopped her onto her back. Putting his face in hers, he looked mildly annoyed.
“Where’s the photograph. What the fuck did you do with my photograph?”
While she tried to recover her bearings and pinwheeled her arms and legs, he roughly went through her pockets.
“Ah, good girl.” He put the Polaroid inside his suede jacket. “Goddamn it, Paradise—why the fuck did you have to find that? I don’t want to have to do this to a female like you. It’s not part of the plan.”
Swallowing, she tasted blood and realized that her lip was split. “You don’t … need to do this…”
With a quick surge, he hopped up on his feet and disappeared for a moment—and when he came back, he had a Louis Vuitton briefcase with him. “Yeah, I do have to do this. Because you were going to try to take that Polaroid to your father—that’s what you told Peyton. And you’re such a good little girl, so conscientious, that you’re not going to let it go and you’re going to start thinking about the connection—and sooner or later, you’re going to sneak into the cafeteria and you’re going to go through my shit because you’d realize that someone in the training center must have dropped that photo on the bus and also taken it out of your bag. Nice satchel, by the way. Love Bally. Good stuff.”
As he kept talking, Anslam took out a syringe. “See, because I’m attached to my work, I need to keep some part of it with me always, and pictures are the next best thing, don’t you agree? Just fantastic for spiking the memory. Anyway, that’s when you’d put two and two together—when you found more just like it in my bag. Then I’d be fucked—and I assure you, I am never the bottom in relationships.”
As he tested that the clear fluid was live in the thin needle, her brain threatened to recede on her, the pain, the shock, the confusion, twisting and tying up her neuropathways, making any significant thought patterns impossible.
Except then she remembered what she’d been trained to do in sparring class: You got focused, you stayed focused. Got focused, stay focused.
This was not a training exercise, though—in fact, this was precisely what those lessons were supposed to prepare her for.
Not a class. No one to rescue her.
But herself.
All at once her mind went super-sharp: She was as good as dead if he injected her with whatever that was, and she was going to have only one chance at an escape.
Making a show of being helpless, she surreptitiously looked around for a weapon, something, anything she could use—
“Think of this as a compliment,” he said as he looked down at her. “I’m really sure you’d eventually figure out it was me, because you’re pretty fucking smart, for a girl—”
With a powerful lunge, she reared up and head-butted him right in the face. It was her only move—and she nailed him dead to rights: Anslam howled with pain and anger and fell back on his ass, clutching his nose. And she was on him, pouncing on his chest, ripping the syringe out of his hand. Depressing the plunger so the drug emptied into thin air, she tossed it aside.
With no time to spare.
Anslam roared and punched her shoulders, popping her up off him. And his next move was to clock her so hard in the jaw with his fist, she literally heard bells ringing and her vision flickered. But she couldn’t afford to check out as he jumped onto her. Fighting through the pain and disorientation, she reached between the two of them and went for his ’nads, grabbing them and twisting her grip until he screamed and wrenched to the side.
Up on her feet, she went to kick him, but he caught her ankle and flipped her off her feet.
They began to roll, and in the back of her mind, she heard Butch saying that all hand-to-hand combat ended up on the ground; it was only a matter of time.
Torquing herself around, she prevented him from doing an arm bar on her, but she also failed to get him into a headlock with her thighs. A weapon, she needed—the briefcase. If she could somehow get them over there …
He was stronger than she was. She was faster than he was. Their bodies flopped on the hard floor, arms and legs straining, fists getting worked into torsos, more blood getting drawn on faces.
And then it happened. He somehow managed to pin her by the throat with both hands—and then he drove the back of her head into the marble floor once, twice …
Fuck you! she mouthed, because she had no air.
Reaching up to his eyes, she thumbed into their sockets—
He disappeared.
Anslam just up … and disappeared.
For a split second, she braced herself, ready for some pummeling to hit her. But then she heard a horrible scream.
Looking up, she saw Anslam … levitating off the floor, his face twisted into a horrific expression of terror, blood pouring out of his mouth in a gush, feet kicking uselessly as his legs twitched.
Then he was cast aside like trash.
And Craeg was revealed like the warrior he was, his feet planted, his fangs bared … a bloody sword in his hand.
Dimly, Paradise realized the weapon was the ceremonial blade that her father was supposed to wear as First Adviser on special occasions, the one that his own father had owned first … the one that was kept on the wall directly beside the front door, as tradition required it to be hung.
Craeg came to her and crouched down. “You need medical attention. Where’s your phone—where’s a phone?”
“I’m okay, I’m … all right.”
Wait, she was crying. Or was that blood? She didn’t know …
The sound of struggle brought his head around. “Be right back.”
With quick strides, he raced into the study with the sword, and moments later, Vuchie was by her side, and the butler was on the phone at the desk.
It was right about then that she realized she was seeing double.
“I think I’m going to pass out,” she said to Craeg.
“Doc Jane is coming.”
“Don’t leave me,” she told him. “I want to yell at you some more.”
He got down on his knees. “Because I interrupted your fight? I apologize. I think you were going to win, by the way—but I’m not a gambling male. Sorry.”
She opened her mouth to say something else … but it was lights-out.
Her last thought?
That as something warm enveloped her palm, she was pretty sure he had taken her hand.