Page 37 of Grim’s Delight (The New Protectorate Syndicate #1)
NINETEEN
At a certain point, the brain could only take so much.
Dahlia firmly believed that she’d reached her limit forty-eight hours ago. She’d officially passed it when Felix handed her the gun, and then she’d left it in the rearview mirror when she sank her fangs into his neck.
To have it confirmed under no uncertain terms that she wasn’t allowed to leave sent her so far beyond what she could handle that she simply retreated inside herself like a turtle into its shell.
There was no dealing with it. There was no negotiation or problem-solving.
There was only survival, and that meant pretending her problems didn’t exist.
After Felix walked her back to his room — their room? — she could do nothing except crash for a few hours of blissful, dreamless sleep. There was no Alastair Bowan or blood brides or sharp teeth in her dreams. Just a blessed blackness that wiped all that away.
She woke up groggy and disoriented sometime later to the feeling of Felix’s fingers in her hair. The strokes were gentle, almost like he wasn’t actually trying to wake her.
Between coming out of a deep sleep and true wakefulness there was a perfect stillness where she didn’t care about where she was or why he was touching her — only that he didn’t stop.
Dahlia let out a long, pleased sigh and tilted her head into his hand. The rhythm briefly faltered before it picked up again, this time with a little more pressure.
Felix’s low, amused voice filled the quiet. “If you sleep much longer, you won’t be able to catch Cecilia before she goes to bed.”
Her eyes snapped open. “Cecilia? What—” She sat up, dislodging his hand, and looked around like her best friend might pop out of the shopping bags she’d tossed on the floor or from behind a thick curtain. “Where is she?”
“Back at her apartment, I imagine.” He withdrew her phone from his pocket and placed it in her lap. “Give her a call, pet. She’s probably worried about you. And it’ll make you feel better.”
It felt like a calculated move to reinforce his assertion that she wasn’t actually a prisoner, but she didn’t care. Dahlia snatched the phone out of her lap.
Chuckling, Felix stood up from the bed, but he didn’t leave.
Instead, he bent low to press a kiss to her forehead.
“You don’t have to hide anything from her,” he whispered, rubbing the pad of his thumb over the corner of her jaw.
“But if she offers to stage a rescue mission, I’d try to put her off.
Or don’t. There are a lot of single Amauris roaming around who’d love to meet her, I’m sure. ”
She could tell he was only half-joking. No doubt Felix would find it absolutely hilarious — and suit his nefarious purposes — to hook her best friend up with one of his cousins.
Then she’d really never be able to leave, because there wasn’t a chance she’d abandon Cecilia to fend for herself among the Amauris.
Giving him a wide-eyed look of indignation, she said, “No, no, no. None of you go anywhere near Cece. She couldn’t handle your bullshit. She’s way too nice.”
Felix tapped the end of her nose. “Then no rescue operations, hm?”
Stepping away from the bed, he cast a look at the bags scattered hither and yon across the floor. A dark brow arched. “Are you not gonna use your closet?”
“If I can wrap my head around the idea of having a closet in your house, I’ll consider it.”
He tilted his head back to give the elaborately molded ceiling a long-suffering look. “Fine. I’ll just buy you more until you have to put stuff in the closet or risk breaking an ankle on a ten thousand dollar purse.”
His ability to dodge the things she threw at him was deeply aggravating. The silver dish she could understand. The pillow he could’ve given her, for her pride’s sake. But he didn’t.
Felix stepped to the side in one fluid motion, dodging the silk tasseled monstrosity she’d chucked his way, and continued laughing as he left the bedroom.
She waited until she couldn’t hear his footsteps anymore before she frantically pulled up Cecilia’s contact page, cursing his name all the while.
“Have you considered jumping out a window?”
Dahlia pawed through the bags on the floor.
Marietta had pulled out all the fancy stuff, but there were heaps more she hadn’t touched.
White tissue paper piled up around her like snowdrifts as she sorted through silky pajamas, high end loungewear, the fancy kind of jeans that could be passed down to her children, and several fashionable coats strong enough to withstand a New Zone winter.
Before escaping reality via a blackout nap, she’d changed into a soft pair of pants and loose shirt, which allowed her to sit comfortably on the floor as she explained to her best friend all the ways her life had gone to shit.
“I haven’t even looked outside,” she admitted, pinching the phone between her ear and shoulder as she briskly folded a cashmere sweater. It must’ve cost him an egregious sum of money, so she made a mental note to take it with her when she left.
“Dahlia, that’s Kidnappee Rule number one! Survey your surroundings for possible escape routes!”
“All right, all right, I’m getting up.” Dahlia levered herself off the floor.
All things considered, Cecilia had taken things well. After railing at her hysterically for several minutes over her disappearance, she’d calmed down enough to listen to the whole story. The worst part was having to explain Felix — who he was, what he did, and what they were. Had been. Might be.
Dahlia stood by her reasons for hiding him, but it didn’t quite soothe the guilt that pierced her when Cecilia exclaimed, “You’ve had a secret syndicate boyfriend for three fucking years?”
She tried explaining that Felix wasn’t her boyfriend several times. It didn’t do much good. Cecilia had only been convinced to give up the argument when Dahlia told her that, boyfriend or not, she was technically being held prisoner.
Padding over to one of the towering windows, Dahlia nudged a heavy curtain aside and peered out into the darkness.
“Huh.”
“What do you see?”
“We’re in the city,” she answered, surveying the sprawling yard and the intimidating walls that separated it from what looked like an exclusive gated neighborhood.
Not far off were what could only be apartment buildings and the dull glow of the city.
When she turned to her left, a dark swath of water glimmered with the house’s lights.
“I think Felix lives on the Potomac.”
He’d once told her that he lived in the United Washington, but she’d always assumed he lived in some modern monstrosity of a penthouse in the heart of the city.
She couldn’t have been more wrong. The waterfront house was huge and the yard was carefully landscaped.
Play structures for children dotted the grass, and she was pretty sure she spied the edge of a pool.
“Do you see a way to get out?”
Dahlia cupped her eyes to block out the glare from the low bedroom lights and squinted.
She wondered if she’d ever get that superior vampiric night vision to go along with all the other horrific side-effects she’d been saddled with — like ravaging the neck of someone she cared about the second they started talking about other women.
Shuttling that thought out of her mind as quickly as it came, she eyed what looked like a sturdy pergola beneath the window. It didn’t look like too high of a drop.
“There’s an awning or something below one of the windows,” she explained, “but Marietta said that the place is super guarded. Even if I could make it out and down without killing myself, my choices are the walls or the river. Both of which are probably monitored, right?”
Cecilia made a skeptical noise in the back of her throat. “That doesn’t sound like a woman with a can-do attitude. Are you sure you really want to leave? It’s okay if you like him, you know.”
Dahlia straightened. “Of course I want to leave!”
“I’m just saying, it doesn’t sound so bad, and you’ve been dating this guy for three years. I get that the situation’s fucked, but?—”
“I’m being held against my will, Cece. I can’t just stay.”
It didn’t matter that she was living in luxury, or that she was safe from what sounded like a new overbearing father figure, or that Felix was turning out to be a lot more complex than she thought he was.
Just because it turned out he’d do anything for his family, for her, didn’t mean she could allow herself to be held prisoner.
At least, that’s what she kept telling herself.
“Then stop dawdling and get your head in the game. How do you escape your hot vampire captor who wants to pamper you and give you unlimited orgasms?”
“You are really making me regret telling you things.”
“Look, I’m not saying it’s right, but also it doesn’t sound so bad. You need help learning to be a vampire, and he seems like he’s head over heels for you. He’s been head over heels for you. Some of us keep getting stood up, Dahlia. Maybe count your blessings a little.”
“Cece, that can’t be my life. I can’t be a kept pet here. I have a list. I have goals.” She eyed the yard, her throat oddly tight. Dahlia hated that a part of her really didn’t want to leave. It looked at that stretch of dark water and asked her why they couldn’t just stay with him.
But the other half of her rebelled at being… whatever it was he expected of her now. It couldn’t just let him or anyone else bulldoze her. She was still Dahlia, even if she was a vampire now. Staying true to that had become more vital than ever.
If she let her entire identity go, she’d be giving up everything she’d fought for. It wasn’t about her feelings for Felix, which she could privately admit were distressingly considerable. It was about her. She’d just be a thing to these people. A blood bride. A daughter. Not Dahlia.
She refused to let that happen.
“All right. I hear you. Let’s get you out of there,” Cecilia said, all notes of teasing evaporated from her voice. “Let me just ask: Did Marietta say that the house was guarded against people leaving or people intruding?”