The Queen Is Dead (The Immortal Empire) (21 page)

“How come we never sleep at your place?” I asked.

He ran his hands through his hair in an attempt to tame the thick, tousled waves. “I don’t want my staff telling anyone our business.”

That surprised me. “Is it really that bad?”

“Oh yeah. My second’s been pushing hard for a pact with the goblins. I’m surprised he hasn’t set a ladder outside your bedroom windows.”

“It would be a quick way for him to find out what it’s like to fall two storeys. I’m sorry being with me has made things complicated for you.”

He shrugged. “He’ll challenge me eventually. It’s been brewing for a couple of years now.”

The thought turned my heart cold. “Challenge? As in a fight to the death for leadership?”

“That’s the one. Oh, sweetheart, don’t look so afraid.” He pulled me in for a tight hug. “That whelp couldn’t beat me if both my arms were broken and I was blind in one eye.”

My arms locked around his waist. “I’ve lost too many people, Vex. I can’t lose you too.” That was all the vulnerability I was comfortable expressing. It was more than enough.

He kissed my forehead. “I’m not going anywhere.”

Oddly enough, I believed him.

We climbed the steps with our arms around each other. There was a package leaning against the door–one of those large padded envelopes that seemed capable of holding a small child, and were almost impossible to tear.

I picked it up–it had some weight to it.

“Who’s it from?” Vex asked.

It had been delivered by a halvie courier service that I had used in the past. When I saw the name in the sender section, my stomach flipped.
Mr Fetch
. I only knew one person who had ever been called that, and it was not his real name. It was the one he used when he was in trouble. Fetch was the nickname I’d given him when we were children. I didn’t even remember why.

“Val,” I whispered. “It’s from Val.”

After the night I’d already had, my brother’s words brought stinging tears to my eyes. Vex consoled me with a hand on my shoulder before sitting down at the table beside me. “Do you want me to go through them with you?”

I nodded. “Thanks.”

He gave me a small smile and brushed the tangled mess of my hair back from my face. “We’ll bring him home, sweet-heart.
I promise you. And we’ll destroy every last one of the bastards who took him.”

It might seem naïve, but I believed him. I believed him because I planned to make certain that was exactly what happened.

I set my own folder aside–I’d already read it when I originally copied it in Church’s office the night I realised just what he really was. Instead I went straight to the file of a halvie whose surname I recognised. She was the daughter of Earl Taft. Apparently she had extremely impressive regenerative abilities. The moment I saw her photo, I swallowed hard against a massive lump in my throat. I knew that face and bright yellow hair.

“I’ve seen her before,” I murmured, running my finger over the image of her smiling Academy photo. I’d seen quite a different expression on her face through the small window in her cell door. “In Bedlam. They’d put bits of metal in her brain to see what would happen. I reckon they thought she’d heal around them.”

“Bastards.”

I glanced at him. “Bastards that hide behind a mask of gentility, pretending that they need halvies to keep them sa { ke"-1fe. They’re laboratory rats and nothing more.”

Her name was Georgiana and she was twenty years old. Younger than me. Damaged for the rest of her life unless they could get the metal out of her brain. They should have just killed her.

Did her parents know she was still alive? Did they care? An uncharitable thought, perhaps, but halvie production was more about business and duty than love.

There was an envelope and another five files after Georgina’s. A boy named Andrew, two girls named Christina and
Vivian, and one belonging to Duncan MacLaughlin, Vex’s son. We already knew what had happened to Duncan. He’d been able to transform into a wolf and they’d taken him. His headless body had been disposed of like garbage.

“Open it,” Vex whispered, his voice rough.

I did, and my heart rolled over. Staring back at me was a younger version of Vex–a handsome young man with bright blue eyes that sparkled with mischief. It hurt to look at him.

Vex reached out and took the file from me. My throat closed painfully as I watched him stare at the photo, wetness filling his eyes. Finally he snapped the folder shut. He blinked and sniffed as he set it aside. “I’d like to take this one, if that’s all right.”

I frowned. “Of course.” I rubbed his arm. I wanted to tell him that I was there for him–whatever he needed–but it seemed trite. I couldn’t give him his son, and nothing could ever change that.

I picked up the envelope. Inside was a birth certificate with Dede’s name on it as the mother. “Baby Boy Vardan” had been stillborn. There were a couple of pages of blood work and hospital information about the child–standard stuff for any birth these days. Everyone was checked for the plague. The process seemed so much more sinister now.

I couldn’t bear to look at it, so I stuffed it back into the envelope for another time.

That left one more file. The name on it was as familiar as my own–Ryecroft Winter. My old friend and first love. Church had told me that Rye was murdered by humans during a trip to Germany. He had claimed that he tried to save him but had arrived too late. I knew the night I found this file in his safe that that was a lie.

I peeled back the cover. Nothing could prepare me for the sight of him. I had loved him with all the angst and drama of a young girl. It wasn’t like the way I felt with Vex–the partnership. Rye always wanted to be the best at everything; he wanted to be my knight in shining armour. He hated it when I beat him in a fight. Sometimes I’d let him win just so he wouldn’t pout. He’d feel so much better about it knowing I was a goblin.

If I trained properly, there was a chance I could best even Vex in a fight. Thing was, I wouldn’t want to best Vex and I would never have to let him win–Vex didn’t feel the need to challenge me.

“You loved him.”

I looked up to find those well-lived and knowing eyes of his watching me without judgment or jealousy. “I did.”

“He should have been in Edinburgh with the rest of the pack, but Churchill petitioned for him to remain in London. Said the boy had real promise to be an RG one day. His father didn’t seem to care, so I let him stay. I should have taken him; you could have met him at another time.”

“You are so fucking
good
,” I told him. “You’d just let me be with someone else, wouldn’t you?”

His face hardened. “If it was what you wanted, yes. But don’t think for a moment that means I’d let you go without a fight. I’m a good man, Xandra. I’m a fucking honourable man, but I am a wolf and you are my mate.”

Fang me. I don’t know if it was the goblin in me or what the bloody hell it was, but
something
took that declaration with a growl of pure lust. In that moment I didn’t care that the rules were against us–that Vex would be expected to marry one of his own kind and beget heirs with courtesans.

I set the file on the table and hopped over so that I perched on his lap. He caught me and pulled me closer, and our mouths came together hungrily.

He tasted of wolf and wet heat, life and promise. When he pushed back the chair and rose to his feet, I wrapped my legs around his waist and let him carry me from the kitchen, upstairs to my bedroom.

I didn’t think again of the boy I’d once loved, and what might have been. All that mattered was Vex.

I had the files cleared away and hidden under the floorboards in my room by the time Penny came home. Vex and I had gone through the ones both of us were prepared to look at, searching for clues. We didn’t find anything except the fact that Georgiana, Andrew and Christina had all been taken from Freak Show. No wonder Val had started to investigate the club; no wonder the people behind the disappearances wanted to shut him up. I actually hoped that he had unique qualities like Dede and myself–it would be the only reason they’d have to keep him alive.

We were sitting in front of the box, decompressing after what had been a bloody hatters night, sharing a huge container of ice cream. I didn’t know the flavour, but it was chewy, with bits of toffee in it. If I had the funds I spent on food to spend on clothing, I would have a wardrobe so extensive I could change three times a day and still not wear the same outfit twice in six months. It was ridiculous. Vex often bought groceries for us. It wasn’t that I wanted for money–I didn’t–but he thought it was the right thing to do since he was here so much.

He really was the best thing that had ever happened to me. Because of him and his support, I felt stronger. He didn’t think being a goblin was a bad thing, and that meant more than he could ever know, because I was still having problems with it.

Second thoughts and doubts be damned. I would accept the crown and make the best of it. I couldn’t run from what I was. I didn’t want to. Once I found Val, I was going to give serious thought to finding a more permanent housing situation closer to the goblin den. Not in it, of course–I needed to be cobbleside–but close. Once I was queen, and accepted formally into the plague, they wouldn’t be able to keep me out of Mayfair. I’d have every right to be there.

Wouldn’t that drive that old bat Victoria mad? Made me smile just thinking about it.

“Evening, gorgeous,” I called when I heard the back door alarm go off. On the wide screen in front of me, a laughable American movie about a teenage werewolf playing basketball drew chuckles from Vex.

The alarm went quiet, and a few seconds later Penny minced into the room. “Greetings, darlings,” she said wearily, plopping down on the other sofa. “What are you two eating?”

“Ice cream. How the hell do you stand all night in those ridiculous heels?”

She lifted a shapely leg, th {apem. e last six inches of which was a pink glittery heel. “Because these shoes know how lucky they are to have me.” Her little frigate hat was perched on top of her head. The sight of her never ceased to make me happy.

But Penny looked tired beneath her make-up. This situation with Val and her own near abduction had taken its toll. She glanced at the box. “What in the name of all that’s fashionable and good in the world are you two watching?”

“Americans,” Vex said by way of explanation.

“Ah.” To my surprise, there was a wealth of understanding in that one syllable. “Right. I’m going to get something to eat.”

I offered her the ice cream, but she turned it down. A few minutes later, she returned with a big bowl of salad topped with spicy chopped chicken and resumed her previous perch. She had removed the towering shoes.

“You’re an insult to your kind,” I told her, eyeing the bowl with disgust. “Salad?”

“Bugger off. It’s healthy.”

“You burn calories like dry tinder and are genetically pre-disposed towards perfect health.”

She shrugged. “I like it. Sorry.”

I shook my head. “At least tell me you put dressing on it.”

“A third of a bottle.”

“That’s my girl.”

She grinned. We watched the box for a bit–the teen wolf was going to something called a kegger. “Saw your sister Avery at the club tonight. Is that going to be a regular occurrence?”

“I wouldn’t know,” I lied. “I haven’t talked to Avery since she told me about Val.”