Page 5

Njáll

M aurice does not leave.

I spend a week arguing with him, off and on, which proves ultimately fruitless, as once he has decided he doesn’t want to listen, he simply ignores me and yet still follows me from place to place.

I don’t go so far as to ask any of the guards to have him removed. No. I do not know how dangerous he is, but I can only assume very. He would not be in the Wild Hunt, otherwise.

It is difficult, too, to learn more about the Hunt while Maurice is around. Any questions I direct to him go unanswered—only adding to my frustration.

“You have to do everything your Huntsman tells you?”

Maurice smiles, fleeting and fake. He has draped himself over the sofa in my office, one of burgundy velvet that I had brought in as soon as the room became my own. There are some armchairs, too, but he always ignores those.

I always hated sitting in the antique, hard-backed chairs Vasile insisted on having in here. It made my visitations to this office, regardless of the reason, make me feel as though I was an errant boy again. These are the changes I don’t at all mind making.

“Would you have the clan do everything you tell them to do?” Maurice shoots back. He’s not looking at me. His head is tipped back, eyes fixed somewhere on the ceiling.

If he is looking for threats, he will not find them there. I sigh and fix my eyes back on my laptop screen.

Vasile and I worked through all of this before he left—and he has made it clear that he is always available, should I need guidance. It is not that. It is the sheer volume of communication that surprises me. When I was a chieftain, I received emails, of course, but nothing like this.

There are loose clans across the country who are almost constantly in contact with the London crai. With Vasile, so now with me. The odd lone vampire, too, requesting to visit the city, or asking for advice, or approaching us with new ideas, or, or, or…

Someone knocks at the door. Maurice is over by it before I can blink, head tilted to the left as he listens.

“The chieftains are coming,” I say with a sigh. “You have access to my calendar.”

He blinks, then looks past me. The walls are not bare, but there is no physical calendar on them.

“You don’t have one.”

“On your—” I pull out my phone and wave it at him. “Your phone. Vasile gave me an email address.”

Maurice blinks again. He huffs, crossing his arms over his chest. “I don’t have one of those,” he says, indicating the device in my hand with a jerk of his chin. “Why wouldn’t you write it down?”

There’s an edge of grumpiness to his voice that surprises me. Amuses me, too, though I fight the urge to smile. “Well, I suppose if you’re not going to get one…”

“I’ll do it,” Maurice snaps. He stalks away from the door, but instead of retaking his place on the sofa, he leans in one corner of the room. “Your chieftains are here.”

I know that, simply because it must be so. Vampires can smell better than humans, but nothing like wolves, and so I’m not certain how Maurice is sure at all.

It doesn’t matter. I get to my feet and open the door, ushering Afsaneh and Elle into the room.

“Kayode is on his way,” Afsaneh says. She takes one of the armchairs, while Elle smiles and crosses the room to the drinks cabinet. My stomach tightens. I’m hungry, but she shouldn’t know that.

“And Briar?” I ask. Drawing attention to what Elle is doing will only raise questions I am not prepared to answer.

“Just got here,” Elle says. She pulls two blood bags out of the mini-fridge and slaps them on the top of the cabinet before she glances over her shoulder at Afsaneh. “Hungry?”

Afsaneh shakes her head. “I ate yesterday.”

Elle nods. She looks in Maurice’s direction. “You?”

He hesitates, then shakes his head. I don’t think he’s lying or offended. I think he’s surprised. “No. Thank you.”

She grabs two glasses and expertly decants the blood into them. One, she pushes into my hands, then sets the other on the low table next to the sofa before she takes a seat.

Another knock at the door has me moving, though I know setting the glass on my desk doesn’t mean I’ll be able to avoid drinking the blood in it. Briar and Kayode are waiting in the hall, and they murmur hellos as they enter my office and take their own seats.

“Thank you all for making it,” I say.

“Glad to be here,” Kayode replies and the others nod.

We never had regular meetings when Vasile was crai. Nothing against his methods, just that I think it never occurred to any of us that it might be an easier way to do things. When I suggested it to Afsaneh, the idea clearly excited her.

We talk through news from the past couple of weeks, and they update me on how vampires are feeling after the party last weekend and my official step into Vasile’s former role.

“I’ve got a couple who want to spend more time with the wolves,” Briar says. She crosses one leg over the other. “I think a good place to start might be the self-defence classes Alpha Kieran’s pack has been running. The wolves who work them seem to be familiar with vampires.”

I nod, making a note of it on my phone. “I’ll email him and Alpha Deacon at the same time,” I say. Kieran’s far more likely to take to the idea if Deacon suggests it; not that I think he’ll say no outright. “Have you all had any luck with candidates for the new chieftain?”

“I have two,” Kayode says.

Afsaneh nods. “One from me. She can come in next week if you want to talk to her then?”

“Yours?” I ask Kayode.

“Next week will work,” he says. “But I have another issue.”

“What is it?”

“Some of my vampires are… dissatisfied. They do not want the vampires who worked with Tamesis in our clan.”

Afsaneh sighs, and I suspect they have had this conversation before. “Tamesis manipulated them.”

“For the most part,” he replies. “Some were not. Or may not have been. I understand their hesitation. I thought you would, too.”

Kayode was not here when the clan was attacked. Not that I judge him for that—he simply was not at the clan house at the time. Afsaneh shakes her head, though, her jaw tight.

“I understand the hesitation. I understand our need for unity.”

“Something needs to be done either way,” I say and sigh. “We cannot abandon these vampires, but we should do our best not to alienate members of our clan.”

Truth be told, I do not know what to do, but I make a note to ask Deacon about that, too. He has had a whole pack of wolves to deal with, and though some have returned north to salvage what they have left, many have remained.

The manipulation they suffered seems, on the whole, to have been a lot clearer. Still, I am not going to pretend I do not need the advice.

“I’ll see if any of my vampires feel the same way,” Briar says, and Elle nods.

“I haven’t heard much from mine, but I know they’re taking it easy on me,” she says with a wan smile. “I’m getting more news from outside the city.”

“What do you mean?” I ask.

“Just whispers. Rumours. No one’s coming here or planning anything, as far as I can tell, but they’re… watching us. Waiting to see what the after-effects of Tamesis’ attack are.”

“It’s been six months,” Afsaneh says. She frowns. “What are they waiting for?”

“I’m not sure,” Elle replies. “Like I said, rumours. Just something to be aware of.”

I pinch the bridge of my nose. Elle raises her eyebrow as she takes a sip of her blood, and I fight a wince before I reach for my own glass.

Blood is blood—I am a vampire and will always crave it, always require it, but there is something terribly dissatisfying about this flat, chilled liquid that slides limply down my throat.

“There’s one other thing,” Briar says. “Everything’s fine now, but I had a vampire come and tell me that her friend had a strange reaction after a feeding.”

“Her friend?”

Briar sits up a little straighter. “I don’t think they were drinking from a clan-sanctioned donor.” She holds up her hands when Elle and Kayode sit forward in surprise. “I know, I know, and it’s been dealt with. I’m more concerned about what she drank from.”

Past her, I notice that Maurice’s posture has straightened a little, too. His expression is still bored, eyes anywhere but the five of us, but he’s leaning in as though he’s desperate to find out more.

“What do you think it was?” I ask.

“I’m not sure,” she says. “But she said she felt drunk. She wasn’t herself. Her friend found her, but neither of them is sure what might have happened if he didn’t.”

Some feeling twists low in my stomach. Something like fear.

“A mage?” I ask. Adam, Lucien’s turn—and now also part of Kieran’s pack after finding his mates in both Kieran’s second and Kieran’s younger brother—fed from Sam, once. It saved his life, but I remember him after, delirious and so, so vulnerable.

He was safe, of course. We were with him, and Sam was careful, but an unknown mage…

“I don’t think so,” Briar says. She narrows her eyes, then shrugs. “Could have been, I suppose.”

“Do you have a full statement?”

“I can email it to you. Apologies for not bringing it up before, crai. I only compiled all the information last night.”

“That’s fine,” I say, though it’s not, really. Briar should have let me know as soon as she did, but I do appreciate her thoroughness in investigating. “Let me look at it, and I’ll decide whether I need to speak with her.”

“Yes, crai.”

I fight the urge to sigh and take another sip of blood instead. “Anything else?”

“No, crai.” The others all shake their heads, too.

“Thank you for your time, then.”

Elle, Kayode, and Briar leave, but Afsaneh lingers, wandering over to the drinks cabinet. There are few personal touches in my office, aside from the new seating arrangement, but her fingers dance over the tops of the bottles Vasile left behind.

“Briar should have told you as soon as she found out,” she says, once a few seconds have passed and we can be sure the chieftains have left. She’s not chastising me, I know that, but I bristle all the same.

“I know.”

“Does she?”

I glance over my shoulder and meet Afsaneh’s steady gaze. I’m all too aware of Maurice standing in the corner; as honest as I want to be with her, I don’t want to expose myself to him. He’s a stranger.

“She will,” I say. “I’ll read the report when she sends it. I’ll ask for Sam’s help, too.”

I’ve been hesitant to trust him in the past, but after the final fight against Tamesis… He’s a mage who knows what he’s doing. Perhaps the only one left.

“It may not have been a mage,” Maurice says, and even Afsaneh is startled at the sound of his voice.

He approaches slowly, planting his hands on the back of the sofa as he looks at me.

“What might it have been, then?” Afsaneh asks.

Maurice glances at her, then at me, then presses his lips firmly together.

“What?” I say. “You can’t talk about it?”

He doesn’t answer. Merely looks at me, grey eyes betraying nothing.

I wave him off and shake my head. “I’ll talk to Sam all the same,” I say to Afsaneh. “Whatever the vampire fed on, we don’t need the risk. Make sure all your vampires know not to feed outside of authorised donors or blood.”

“Of course, crai. Do you need anything else?”

“Not tonight.”

She looks at me for a long moment. “I mean it, Njáll. I know things will be easier once we have a new chieftain, but even then… I can take on more work. I’ve been doing this a long time.”

“I know you have.” I fiddle with my glass. It’s still mostly full. “Thank you, Afsaneh. I’ll let you know if there’s anything where I require your help.”

I mostly mean it. She nods—to me and Maurice both—before she crosses the room and lets herself out.

Maurice drops back onto the sofa, this time lying lengthways. He crosses one ankle over the other, his boots heavy and black against the burgundy of the upholstery. “I thought they might never leave,” he says.

I clench my jaw. “Are you going to share your suspicions about what the vampire fed on?”

His eyes meet mine, and he smirks in a way that immediately irritates me. “Are you going to share why you’re trying not to feed?” His gaze falls pointedly to the glass in my hand.

I bring the glass to my lips and knock back the rest of the blood in one go, fighting a grimace. Maurice holds my gaze the whole while and doesn’t look as though he has lost.

No, there’s a gleam of triumph in his eyes.

“No,” I say.

“Then you’ve got your answer, crai, haven’t you?”