Page 21 of Grim’s Delight (The New Protectorate Syndicate #1)

ELEVEN

She was fairly certain that Felix was joking when he told her not to throw up on his coat, but as soon as he stepped through the m-gate, the threat became very real.

Dahlia wasn’t used to magic. Her small town had been mostly arrants, and even after moving to the city, she’d never had much contact with the magically gifted.

The Lush didn’t pay her enough to afford things like magically enhanced clothing or jewelry or tech.

Even the relatively common sort of magic was foreign to her.

An m-gate was nothing close to common.

Passing through one was a bit like having her whole body sucked through a straw and shot out the other side like a spitball.

One second she was nothing but atoms molded to fit a new shape and the next she was Dahlia again, presumably with all her bits and bobs, thrown over Felix’s shoulder in what looked like the foyer of an opulent, Gilded Age mansion.

She was so disoriented that it took her a minute to realize he’d set her back on her feet.

The world swayed in a sickening wave before it righted itself. The cool marble under her toes helped center her as she swallowed a mouthful of bile.

“Not so bad, huh?” Felix gave her one of those wicked smiles and flicked her nose. “Welcome home, pet.”

Weaving a little, she peered around him as a series of vampires stepped through the gate, followed by what had to be the witch.

The tattooed brunette gave her a cheerful wave before clapping her hands together.

The tear in space disappeared with a soundless explosion of energy that rattled the crystal chandelier above their heads.

One of the vampires handed Felix her bag. She only had a second to notice his hand was tattooed with a strange swirling pattern before Felix ushered her toward a staircase so covered in gold and marble, it was a miracle it didn’t collapse under its own weight.

A crimson runner cushioned her bare feet as Felix turned his head to dismiss the assembled crew. She didn’t notice the distant hum of music and chatter until he said, “Good work, folks. Sorry about the detour. Go back to the party and have some fun while you still can.”

More confused than before, Dahlia flicked an apprehensive glance toward the side of the foyer where the music was loudest. “There’s a party?”

“Sort of a victory celebration,” he answered, urging her up the stairs with a hand on her lower back. “Why? You wanna join?”

She blanched. “No. Gods, no.”

After the day she’d had, all Dahlia wanted to do was lock herself in a closet and scream until she lost consciousness.

Felix nodded. “Good. I hate telling you no, but I really don’t feel like killing anyone else tonight.”

A chill swept through her at the casual reminder of what he’d done to Devon.

Dahlia wasn’t a saint. She was probably not even a good person.

There was no seed of compassion in her that made her regret his ignominious death in the way she should’ve.

He’d been a mean, handsy prick who enjoyed tormenting his staff.

The gods only knew what else he got up to when no one was looking.

But she was an animal at heart, and all animals could recognize death when it stared them in the face. Felix had killed someone right in front of her. He didn’t care what she saw, which meant she was in an incredible amount of danger.

Trying not to sound as nervous as she felt, she asked, “Why would you have to kill someone at your own party?”

Felix made a thoughtful sound in the back of his throat. “Because someone would take one look at you and try their luck. Can’t have that, can I?”

She’d always known that Felix was a special sort of monster, but the casual way he talked about it made her gut churn.

Felix murdered people the same way she might take out the trash. It was nothing but a minor inconvenience.

And I followed him here.

Because he was the monster she knew. Because when he walked into the apartment, something in her brain just… clicked.

But she should’ve thought it through for a second more. Sweat gathered between her shoulder blades as he nudged her to turn right at the top of the stairs. She barely noticed the silk wallpaper or the paintings in their gilded frames.

Moonlight cast pale shapes on the ground through tall, antique windows partially shaded by heavy velvet drapes. She padded through those little puddles of light sightlessly.

What have I done?

She wasn’t exactly paying attention to the route, but even if she had been, Dahlia doubted she could’ve remembered her path through the winding corridors of Felix’s home. They seemed to go on forever, and he pushed her along at a speed that made it impossible to keep track of any landmarks.

“Is this your house?” she asked, bewildered, as he nudged her down yet another hallway.

“Yep. My grandmother built it and then left it to me when she died. What do you think?”

Dahlia shrugged stiffly. “It’s big.”

He snorted. “Not big enough. Do you have any idea how many cousins I have?”

“Your family lives here with you?”

She wasn’t sure why that surprised her so much. Maybe it was because nearly all the vampires she’d ever met were loners. She’d always been under the impression that they liked their private space and weren’t inclined toward living in groups.

“Not all of them all the time,” he answered, at last gesturing to a grand set of double doors at the end of a blessedly short hallway.

“But the house was built to hold everyone, their anchors, and their kids in the event of an emergency. Every Amauri has a room. Sometimes they use them, sometimes they don’t.

Tends to be that the single folks live in the main house and then move out when they find someone, but it varies. ”

Dahlia blinked. “Oh. That’s kind of nice.”

She’d certainly never had a home to fall back on when things got hard.

Her family was in the wind. No one told her outright that she wouldn’t have any help when she moved out at eighteen — it’d just been assumed by all involved.

She couldn’t remember the last time she’d spoken to any of the McKnights, and it certainly hadn’t occurred to her to give them a call when the rat bastard of a doctor told her the news.

Having a house where every family member was welcome at all stages of their life was a lovely thought.

Or at least it was until she remembered that one of the Amauris had blown up Yvanna. Family meant having a place to crash, apparently, but not safety from being brutally murdered.

As if he could read her mind, Felix blithely continued, “You haven’t met all the cousins — or the elders.

This time last year, half of them wanted me dead.

The other half only slightly less so. They were just happy to let someone else do it.

” Stepping around her to grasp the shiny gold door knobs, he pushed the doors open and nodded for her to go in ahead of him.

Dahlia swallowed. “And you still let them live in your house?”

It was his turn to shrug. “Family’s family.”

She had no idea what to say to that, so she walked into the room instead.

A suite out of her vintage dreams sprawled before her, draped in silks and lit by milk glass lamps designed to look like lilies.

A white marble fireplace stood between towering mahogany bookshelves.

Arrayed around it were antique couches and well-loved leather wing-back chairs.

When she dared to look up, she found a ceiling bursting with hand-sculpted plaster molding.

The designs were heavily floral, but only a few of the flowers were recognizable to her.

They were interspersed with pomegranates spilling their seeds, bats in flight, and a massive gilded disk in the center — a moon, perhaps, or Grim’s symbol. Maybe both.

This wasn’t the home of someone who was rich. This was the home of someone who was filthy fucking rich.

“You know, I’m totally fine staying in a hotel,” she croaked, skin crawling at how out of place she felt standing in what was essentially a palace. “I’m sure no one would?—”

“You want us to go to a hotel?” Felix grimaced. “That’s a nightmare for security, Dahlia. Milo would have my ass if I told him we were staying anywhere but the house.”

He kept trying to push her toward what she could only assume was a bedroom, but Dahlia planted her bare feet and swung around to face him. “Not us,” she clarified. “Me.”

He gave her a blank stare. “I’d stay here and you’d go to a hotel?”

“Yes.”

“I don’t understand.”

“What don’t you understand?”

Felix raised his eyebrows. In a voice that implied it was a perfectly normal thing to say, he answered, “Why you think I’d let you go anywhere by yourself.”

Dahlia stared at him for a beat, at a loss. It wasn’t entirely because she was completely overwhelmed by everything that had upended her life in so little time. The truth was that she simply didn’t know how to act.

Standing so close to him, hearing him say some bullshit she should’ve expected after knowing him for so long, the strangest dissonance overtook her.

They’d spoken for hours upon hours on the phone. They’d shared thousands of text messages. He sent her gifts and she’d eased him to sleep at dawn with rambling stories from the bar.

In many ways, despite her best efforts and all good sense, Felix was one of her closest friends — second only to Cecilia, of course. And if she was honest with herself, he was a lot more than that.

But when she stood there in the palatial suite, Dahlia realized she didn’t actually know him.

The man standing before her was a stranger.

He wore the face she knew, but that face had always been safely contained within the bounds of her phone.

That raspy voice was piped through a speaker. Those words were just text on a screen.

Trying to assimilate the two Felixes that existed in her head and in the room was disorienting in the extreme, and it took a hammer to her confidence. If they’d had this conversation through the phone, she wouldn’t have hesitated to roll her eyes and argue her point, but standing there…

Dahlia had no idea how to talk to him.

Her tongue pressed flat against the roof of her mouth, which hadn’t stopped aching since Felix burst into her home.

She wasn’t sure if it was the stress of everything or the mouthwatering scent that hung in a cloud around him.

Either way, it added to her discomfort. Averting her gaze, she curled her toes into the antique carpet and asked, “So what happens now? What are you going to do with me, Felix?”

Her bag hit the floor with a dull thunk.

She looked up to find him shrugging off his long black coat.

He certainly didn’t need it in the muggy heat of an east coast summer or in the carefully climate controlled mansion.

A crisp black button down stretched taut over his lean stomach and wide shoulders as he tossed it carelessly over the back of a couch.

Keeping his eyes on her, he unfastened the buttons at his wrist and began to methodically roll up his sleeves.

Corded forearms were revealed one delicious inch at a time.

Like he wanted a report on the weather, he demanded, “Tell me how you’re feeling.”

He looked perfectly calm, but something about his stare and the quick, efficient flicks of his claws as he fixed his sleeves by his elbows made her begin to back away. “Uh, fine?”

He didn’t follow her, but his gaze tracked her progress as she slowly inched back toward the fireplace. “Are you in any pain? How are your fangs? I bet those pretty little things are sensitive right now.”

Dahlia touched the tip of her tongue to the roof of her mouth again. The flesh there was hot and swollen. It appeared to be getting worse by the second. There was a peculiar pressure not unlike how she’d felt before her fangs came in, as if something was just dying to be released.

It wasn't quite painful, but it wasn’t far off.

“The roof of my mouth hurts a little,” she admitted, touching her lips with the tips of her fingers. “There’s a weird pressure. I thought that’d go away after they took my teeth out.”

For a split second, Felix’s easy demeanor slipped. A vision of who he really was came through as his smile turned predatory. “How do I smell, pet?”

Good. Better than good.

The thought popped up instantly, a bubble of something hot and primal from a deep, dark place in the back of her mind. A pulsing ache throbbed in her gums.

She hadn’t had a whole lot of time to process it or anything about him really, but it was impossible to ignore the way he smelled. When he carried her over his shoulder, his scent filled her lungs until she was dizzy with it.

Felix smelled like smoke. He smelled like caramel. He smelled like clean skin andgood bourbon and even better sex.

It made her hungry in a way she’d never experienced before.

It wasn’t just a growly stomach and the compulsion to fill it.

It was something older. Something raw. It made her itch with an urgency to curl her fingers into his flesh and hold on, maybe, or drag him into a shadowy place and climb him like a tree.

It was the need to eat, true, but it was also the relentless urge to fuck.

For someone who’d never had those impulses tied together, it was deeply unsettling. She'd loved a good lasagna, but she'd never wanted to screw one. Seeing as she had more than enough confusing shit to deal with in a day, Dahlia elected to ignore all of it.

“You smell fine,” she answered, stumbling a little when she bumped into one of the couches.

“Fine, huh?”

Felix’s eyes didn’t twinkle. There would have to be some warmth in him for that sort of thing. Instead, they gleamed with a sinister sort of knowing that hadn’t seemed quite so bad through a phone screen but when viewed from as few feet away was greatly alarming.

“You know why I dug up your number all those years ago?”

Dahlia licked her lips. “Because you were attracted to me?”

“Because you looked and smelled like mine.” He took a handful of measured steps toward her. His boots didn’t make a sound, but she wouldn’t have been able to hear it if they did. Her heartbeat was too loud.

A wave of heat rolled through her as he stalked around the coffee table, his focus on her complete. “What are you doing?”

“I’m gonna do what I should’ve done the night we met.”