[Note: There are vampires in this novel, but they are not the focus like in other books in this series. The focus is on the human characters. Though, there is a super hot speakeasy scene involving a very attractive vampire ;). The action starts in chapter 2!! ]
“Storms make oaks take deeper root."
-George Herbert
Chapter 1—OWE ME
October 5th, 1928
Rosemond ~~
“No, Mother! I won’t! I won’t do it!” Everything inside me screamed out against her simple request. Perhaps because there was nothing simple about it.
“You are no longer safe with me, my darling.” She looked at me pleadingly, her pale blue eyes threatening to pierce my protestations. She pushed back the dark bangs from my forehead.
Refusing to meet her eyes, I sat abruptly on the edge of my bed and worried the ends of my shawl. The yarn perfectly matched the small blue flecks in the fine wool of my dress. I crossed my feet at the ankles and the new shoes she had given me squeaked on the slick hardwood floor. I was working through each argument I could muster, but defeating them before even uttering a sound. Feeling her eyes on me, I finally whimpered. “I don’t want to leave you, Mother.”
She was all I had left since my sister had been slain and my father had disappeared. He was dead; I knew it in my heart. Before the Watchers had sent out search parties I knew there was no hope. I told my mother as much and she had slapped me. I had deserved it, not always being as delicate as I should be. Cringing back the memory of that dreadful night, I finally relented and returned her gaze.
“They are sending someone to collect you,” she informed me.
“I won’t go with whomever it is,” I replied, but the ire I had been feeling the moment before was waning.
She sighed. There was a knifelike edge to her voice that sliced through me. “You will, and you will do as he says. I may have a tolerance for your spiritedness, but the Concilium will not. We need them to keep you safe. There is a price on my head and I will not allow you to be found out.”
My shoulders sagged. “There is something you are not saying, mother.”
She turned her back to me and started busying herself pulling clothing from the bureau. “We must get you packed. Your escort arrives tonight.”
I glared at the back of her head. “Tonight! Who is it? One of those cold-hearted Slayers or some stuffy old Watcher with hair growing out his ears?”
“Rosemond, please. You must be civil. I don’t know who exactly, but I heard Parsons say something about Yates’s son. If that is the case, he couldn’t possibly be more than ten years your senior.”
“Then you are acquainted with his father, Mr. Yates?”
“Many years ago. He was an honorable man.” Her sigh turned into a grin. “Surely his son will have a perfectly respectable mole growing in the middle of his face, probably hairy. I’m sure he’s much too young for it to be sprouting from his ears.”
I grinned back at her, unable to maintain my scowl. “So what are you not telling me, mother?”
All the levity of the moment before drained away. She leaned forward, supporting herself with her hands braced on my dresser. She exhaled a long, steady breath, keeping her back to me. When she responded there was a faint quiver in her always steady voice. “When you depart, you will never see me again.”
George ~~
I strode into the room a little more dramatically than necessary and flopped down onto the captain’s chair directly in front of my father’s desk. “How much longer must we stay in this infernal place?” I blew out my breath through my teeth, fluttering the papers in front of me.
Father took longer than necessary to look up at me from the pile of papers that resembled the Leaning Tower of Pisa. He was trying to teach me patience. Though, he seemed to be the only person capable of causing my unbridled impatience. He cocked his head to the side and chewed on the side of his mouth. “I am leaving on a steamer in two days. You, my son, have been tasked to help with relocating a person of interest.”
It took every ounce of my will not to roll my eyes. He hated that. “Father, you can’t be serious. Hand holding isn’t in my prevue.”
“This girl needs our protection.”
“A girl? As in freckles and pig-tails?”
He raised an eyebrow. “No, a young woman. A Seer.”
“You wish me to remain here to escort a fortune teller?” I asked incredulously.
He stood and circled the desk and sat in the chair opposite me. “Son, she is the genuine article. This doesn’t leave this room.” He paused and shifted in his seat, “She is a member of the Lux Casta.”
“I thought they were ancient history, the last of them lost to Madame Guillotine in the 1790s, only to become a fairy tale in Watcher lore.”
He gave me a tight lipped smile.
“So…not just a girl. A royal—a French royal!” I let out a single laugh, though there was no humor in it. I narrowed my eyes. “Evans is trying to kill me isn’t he?”
He sighed. “She’s an American and quite unaware of her heritage. She knows what she is and has been trained, but has been given no details.”
“These Americans are almost as bad as the French,” I grumbled.
“George,” he said in warning. “I am tasking you—not the Concilium.”
I blinked at him for a moment. There was a strain in his voice I hadn’t picked up on previously. “I’ll do it, but this bloody well better be worth it. If this takes too long, you know what I will be giving up. You will owe me one, Father…more than one.”
My father clapped me on the shoulder and stood. He handed me a file. “Of that I am sure. Everything you need will be in the file. Only tell her what is absolutely necessary. Burn it when the details are memorized,” he commented with an odd amusement in his tone.
I hate her already.
