Page 45 of Love At the Gates of Hell (The Seven Sinners Trilogy #1)

thirty

Cleo

A gentle nudge brushed against Cleo’s shoulder, and she shifted, her cheek pressing into a soft down pillow.

She could hear her name being whispered, the deep voice amused as that gentle touch moved from her shoulder to her forehead, fingers brushing back her hair.

A yawn passed through her lips even as her eyes willed themselves shut a little bit longer.

She had been wrapped up in a dream she wasn’t ready to leave.

She never could remember them when she woke, and this one seemed important.

It was lingering in the back of her mind—a wall, maybe, or a large door.

Intricate carvings. A bright white light.

A deep voice speaking a language she couldn’t understand.

“I think you’re drooling,” came a familiar voice.

Her nose wrinkled as she batted away Luke’s hand.

“I was having a very good dream,” she groaned.

She blinked open her eyes to find herself in a bedroom, Luke crouching beside her, a bright glint behind his blue eyes as his lips curved into a smirk. “How good?”

Cleo pushed herself up to a sitting position, her hand brushing her hair out of her face, strands sticking to her skin. “You’re disgusting, you know that?”

He gave a hearty chuckle as he straightened.

His hair was disheveled, strands of dark hair hanging in his eyes.

He looked tired but satiated. It was intimate, almost. For Cleo to see Luke this way.

His suit jacket was gone, the sleeves of his shirt rolled up to reveal strong forearms and those stupid tattoos scattered across his skin.

Drunken dares. Spontaneous flash designs.

A red outlined “E” she knew he shared with Gideon.

Her eyes lingered on the colorful swallow at his inner wrist and the pulse point there.

She suddenly found herself wanting to press her fingers to the spot.

“What time is it?” she asked.

“Early,” he said as he crossed to the other side of the bed, the mattress sinking beneath his weight as he settled down beside her. He kicked off his shoes and crossed one ankle over the other. “I just got in.”

“Why am I in your bed?”

“You were passed out on the couch,” he said. “Felt cruel to make you sleep on that thing.”

“Were you out with Harker?”

He leaned his head back against the headboard, his hands clasped at the nape of his neck as his eyes closed. Her eyes lingered on the colorful butterfly at the base of his throat, the bright orange and the striking blue of the wings. That one would always be her favorite.

“We hit up a club,” he said. “Found some chatty miscreants. Had a little fun. I’d consider the night a success.”

She grimaced as a million different scenarios flashed through her mind.

It was hard to reconcile the version of Luke she knew with the version she didn’t.

And there was a version she didn’t know.

She wasn’t naive. What he did in the night, what he did when the rest of the human world was sleeping—whatever it was that kept him going, Luke kept that to himself.

Maybe Gideon had seen that part of him, but never Cleo.

She didn’t know how to deal with the fact that a part of her wanted to.

A morbid curiosity, but it was small enough she could keep it at bay.

She had seen him feed before, like the man at the quarry.

But it had been someone trying to kill them, and maybe Cleo could excuse that in her head.

She had her code just like the brothers had theirs.

Someone tries to hurt her? They’re fair game.

Someone tries to hurt someone she loves?

They’re already dead. But what did Luke’s moral code look like as a vampire?

Was he like Harker? Were there… women or men he slept with? Consensual feedings? She wasn’t sure she was ready to think much more about that.

“Are we good?” he asked.

She blinked, her skin feeling warm as she turned and met his gaze.

“With what?”

“With the ammo,” he said.

“Oh… yeah,” she said, nodding. “We’re really good. We’ve got plenty of backup.”

“Good,” he said, repeating the word again.

She could sense something else from his tone. Hesitation? Concern?

She frowned.

“Lucas,” she started, twisting her body to face him. “You really think we’re going to need all of this? It’s a charity dinner.”

“It’s not the dinner I’m worried about,” he said, shrugging his shoulders. “It’s what comes after. It’s been a weird couple of weeks, and I’d rather not be unprepared.”

Cleo couldn’t argue with that.

“Well, I’ll let you get some rest then,” she said, pushing herself up.

“Wait—” Luke reached for her, his hand grazing against her arm, his skin cold to the touch. “I want to know what happened. With Frank.”

She turned back to look at him, a smile curling at her lips when she noticed that familiar concern flicker across his features. Luke Crawford. Ever protective.

“I’m fine.”

“Of course you are,” he replied, rolling his eyes. “But I still want to know.”

She hesitated for a moment before she matched his expression with an eye roll of her own and sank back down on the bed beside him.

He spread his arm across the back of the headboard, his body turning toward hers as she settled in.

There was something about seeing him sprawled out like this, in his bed, that felt dangerous for Cleo.

“I didn’t think I’d have to actually deal with him,” she said. “You know Huck practically lives there. But he sent him on an errand, I guess. So it was just me and Frank. And Harker.”

Relief flashed across his features so fast she wondered if she imagined it.

“He was just being kind of weird,” she continued. “About you. About Gideon. He’s always seemed like a grade-A creep, no offense, but it was like he’d really amped it up. He thinks, you know, we—”

She was reluctant to actually relay the next bit.

“We what?” Luke prodded, brow knitting together behind his glasses.

“He just made a comment about our relationship…” She waved her hand. “Not that we— oh, fuck it, you know what I mean.”

“Cleo.” Luke leaned toward her, voice stern but warm. “Tell me what he said, exactly.”

“He asked which one of you I was attached to. Apparently I’m not enough on my own. I need to be sleeping with one of you to be here.”

And if Cleo had wanted to see the more feral side of him before, the wicked glimmer of red that seeped into his eyes at her words sparked something in her she hadn’t expected.

But it was just a moment. A flash of rage.

And she swallowed, watching as it all faded back to normal, wondering why her heart was thumping so rapidly in her chest.

She tried to calm it down. She knew Luke could hear it.

And she didn’t want him to know just how much that affected her.

“Frank has always been a means to an end,” Luke muttered darkly as he got to his feet. “Maybe we’ve just reached that point sooner than I thought.”

She frowned.

“Luke—”

“No one should ever speak to you that way.”

“You’re not going to do something stupid, are you?” she asked, suddenly worried.

The corner of his mouth twitched.

“Isn’t that my baseline?”

“Lucas.”

She reached for him, her hand wrapping around his wrist. Could she feel a faint thumping?

A slight beat beneath her fingers? She couldn’t be sure.

Maybe it was her own. She always felt this way when she was this close to Luke.

From before Chicago and even more so afterwards.

But it wasn’t something she could think about. Especially not now.

“Don’t worry,” he said. “One problem at a time.”

The problems seemed to be piling up.

“Wait a second, what?” Cleo asked, her hand curving around her coffee mug, her eyes peering down at the caramel-colored liquid as if the caffeine had somehow betrayed her.

She was exhausted, her skin felt dry, and her hair was in desperate need of a wash.

The fact that she was wearing her clothes from the night before didn’t help.

She tugged at the hair tie holding up her messy bun.

“I’m sorry, I don’t think I heard you correctly. ”

Gideon leaned against the island, his hands pressed flat against the counter.

“Tefi is going to be at the gala,” he repeated, offering her a wonky smile. Like he was thisclose to losing his mind. Gideon was always about ready to start a fight in an empty house, but there was something special about Tefi that riled him up.

“What the hell?” she muttered. “I thought she was in Switzerland or something.”

“Well, she’s back,” he said, throwing up his hands.

Cleo had never had the pleasure of meeting Tefi.

The night everything went to hell in Chicago, Cleo had been trapped in a bank vault, trying to work her way out from the inside.

It had been a nightmare from start to finish, and by the time she finally freed herself, thanks to a very crude and desperately made explosive, Luke was gone.

With Tefi. Like they were some kind of undead Bonnie and Clyde.

It would be another six months before she saw Luke again.

And while she laid low with Gideon and learned how to be a proper thief, she worried about the younger Crawford brother. Maybe needlessly. Luke could strut sitting down. But it didn’t stop her from wondering.

It was hell enough knowing that all the things that went bump in the night were real.

“So, what?” she asked, looking up at Gideon. “Is she gonna be an issue?”

The elder Crawford brother rolled his eyes.

“Of course she is,” he said. “You get Luke and Tefi in a room together, and it’s chaos.”

“Is any part of trying to steal a jewel in plain sight not chaos?” Benny asked sweetly, her hand wrapped around her mug. She was sitting at the island beside Cleo, her skateboarding kitten pajamas rumpled, a few of the buttons misaligned.

Cleo pressed her lips together.

Gideon and Benny had come back from Hudson attached at the hip.

It was incredibly satisfying for Cleo when Luke pressed a one hundred dollar bill into the palm of her hand.

She was happy for Gideon. After everything they’d been through together, everything he’d done for her, she wanted Gideon to have something good.

She watched as he pressed a kiss to Benny’s forehead.

“Tefi is one of a kind, princess.”

An understatement for sure.

Luke hadn’t been altogether too interested in relaying the details of their relationship.

Just that whatever it had been was over.

Of course Cleo wanted to know. She was curious to a fault.

But she had also knew Luke well enough to let it lie.

Still, Tefi had become a sort of phantom in their lives.

She was responsible for Luke’s transformation and for catapulting them into the world of the undead and supernatural. But at least she kept her distance.

As far as Cleo knew, anyway.

“Let’s just hope we can get in and get out without too much trouble,” she said.

“Don’t jinx us, St. James,” came Luke’s voice.

He had slept for maybe an hour, tops, and yet he looked refreshed and recharged. Cleo grumbled as she took in the still wet hair from his shower, the freshly pressed suit. A boyish kind of smile stretched across his face, reaching the bright blue of his eyes.

It was easy to forget how quickly he could transform when he looked like this.

“Good night?” Gideon asked, raising his brows.

Luke nodded. “Informative, brother.”

“Oh no,” Cleo said, twisting in her seat. “What does that mean?”

“You would be surprised what you can get out of a couple of blood-drunk vampires at four o’clock in the morning,” he said before a yawn passed through his lips. He raked his hand through his hair, smoothing it back, putting himself into place. “Our guy’s been recruiting.”

“You never bring good news,” Gideon muttered.

Luke’s smile widened into a grin.

“Okay, what does that mean?” Cleo asked. “Recruiting who?”

“Word is he’s pissed about losing his demon buddy,” Luke said, pulling up a stool on the opposite side of Cleo. “And he’s looking for a replacement. There’s some interest from a dark coven. A couple of witches who are very into the serving Lucifer thing.”

Gideon sighed, the sound deep and heavy, and Cleo could feel it in her bones.

“Interesting,” was all Benny said, her face screwed up in thought.

“You got some kinda witch network you could tap into?” Gideon asked.

The witch nodded, her fingers toying with a necklace Cleo hadn’t seen before.

“I’ll reach out to Liv and Imani,” she said, reaching for her laptop.

“Anything else you might want to share with the class?” Luke asked suddenly.

Benny looked up from her computer, her eyes curious.

“What do you mean?”

“That little book you’ve been nose deep in since yesterday,” Luke said.

“Lucas—” Gideon said but the younger Crawford held up a hand.

“Just want to make sure we’re all on the same page here,” he said. “Because I’ve been working my ass off these last few weeks figuring out how to keep you safe, Benny. So if this is something that could help us, I want to know.”

Cleo looked back and forth between them both, twisting in her stool.

“It’s my mother’s,” Benny said, drawing her knees up to her chin, her bare legs no longer holding any signs of what had happened to her, her bruising all gone. “Apparently there were things going on with her magic she didn’t feel comfortable writing about in the grimoire.”

“Really? Like what?” Cleo asked.

“She blew up the toaster once,” Benny said, her brown eyes soft and a oddly wistful. “Said she felt like she couldn’t contain her energy. That there was… too much of it.”

Gideon’s hand curved around the nape of her neck and Benny closed her eyes.

“I’ve been trying to figure out if she was realizing it too,” she continued. “If she knew the potential. Some of these journal entries… I feel like I could have written them myself.”

Luke watched her intently, his fingers drumming against the countertop.

“I think there’s still a level I haven’t reached yet,” Benny said. “I think it scared the hell out of my mom but if I can figure it out, maybe we can use it to our advantage.”

“A nuclear option,” Luke said.

“A nuclear option.”