Dark Debt (Chicagoland Vampires 11)

“I work with him. When am I not talking to your grandfather?”

A valid point.

I stood up. “I’m going to take a stroll around the grounds. If he’s here, or watching, maybe that will pull him out.”

“Be careful,” Jonah said. “Luc, you got eyes?”

“All cameras on and functioning. I don’t see him anywhere out there, but that doesn’t mean he’s not in a shadow we can’t reach. Watch yourself, Sentinel.”

“I will,” I promised, and played the role. I imagined myself a spurned woman forced to watch her lover dance, smile, chat with another, a woman who wanted space from the betrayal, the emotions.

I kept my chin lifted, but sadness in my eyes, and slid a final glance at Ethan as I stepped out of the tent and onto one of the paths that wound through the lawn. I crossed my arms as if chilled, as if vulnerable, while the music faded behind me.

It had been the perfect ploy.

As I reached the side of the House, and before I could call up a dramatic tear, he stepped out of the shadows, looking discomfortingly handsome in a lean black tuxedo, dark hair falling across his face. “You are quite a sight, chérie.”

And now it was my turn. I pushed down fear and revulsion, the panic that snatched at my chest with skeletal hands, and I made my voice breathless. The raven bracelet kept his glamour at bay, but he didn’t need to know that. And I could still feel it swirling around me, so it wasn’t hard to feign vulnerability.

“What are you doing here?”

“I am watching his cruelty, and thinking of you. Does it pain you to watch your lover touch another woman? To know that you’ve lost him?”

I looked away. “I don’t care what he does.”

“Oh, chérie, I can see the pain in your eyes.” The man who would be Balthasar moved a step closer, the magic stronger, vibrating around me as it tried to penetrate my defenses. And the figurative probably wasn’t far from the literal there.

I caught the scent of bay rum, felt my gorge rise at the memory of his hands on my body, pushed it down again.

“Would it pain him, do you think, to watch me touch you?”

He took a step forward, lifted his hand to my face. I let my eyes go soft, let him caress the backs of his fingers against my cheek, and worked not to show my disgust.

“You are agreeable tonight. Perhaps because he’s left you. Because you’re available to me.” He stepped forward, his body against mine, obviously aroused, his lips against my cheek. “Will you cry out my name?”

And that, as they said, was enough of that. “Which name is that? Did you mean Julien or Balthasar?”

He froze, hot magic prickling around me. I’d have sworn I felt it surge forward, and be battered back by an answering wave. His magic taking the offensive; the apotrope’s magic pushing it into retreat.

Slowly, he lifted his gaze to mine, his eyes boiling quicksilver. “My name is Balthasar.”

“No, it isn’t. It’s Julien Burrows. You knew Balthasar. Were imprisoned with him.” I looked at the scars at his neck. “Were probably tortured beside him. But you aren’t Balthasar.”

Before I could move back, he knotted his fingers into my hair. “My name is Balthasar. Say it!” he said, jerking my head back. “Say it!”

He sounded earnest. Maybe he thought the pretense was necessary if he wanted to take Cadogan House. Or maybe that was just the magic, slowly transforming whatever might have been left of the man into the one he sought to emulate.

Whether lie or delusion, I was done being a pawn. “You are not Balthasar.”

He yanked my hair again, reared back to slap me with his free hand. I blocked the shot with my forearm, and he dropped my hair in surprise. We broke apart, but I’d snagged the raven bracelet on his jacket. It broke open and fell to the ground.

No longer dammed, his magic spilled across me like dark wine, and suddenly the air was too thick to breathe. I hit the ground on my knees, sucking in air as his magic, angry and biting, spun around me like a typhoon. He wanted me under his control, imprisoned by his magic, a pawn he could use.

My instinct was to fight, to strike out and strike back, to push his magic back with magic of my own, however poor an opponent it would have been. And then I remembered what Lindsey had reminded me.

“You’re a rock in the current,” I heard her say, either from memory or through the earpiece I still wore. “Let his magic flow around you. It doesn’t penetrate, doesn’t affect you, just moves like the breeze.”

There on the ground, mud seeping through the knees of my dress, I closed my eyes and let my breath come softly, in and out.