Rowan sighed heavily. She couldn’t be mean to Betchamp. Dr. Jenkins was very clever indeed. “This is ridiculous. Who else is going to handle the Joint Tribunal? I’m the liaison. I’ve got all the background research handled but it took two months to get up to speed. It’s not to Hunter Corp.’s advantage to have me absent.”

  “Well of course it isn’t!” Genevieve waved a hand and that jingling soothed Rowan’s agitated nerves. “The entire thing needs to be postponed for at least two weeks. I’d say three just to give yourself that extra time.”

  “Two weeks? The Vampires are going to refuse just because they’re contrary like that,” Rowan said.

  “I don’t think so,” David said. “They’re dealing with this lord situation right now. Having some breathing room so they can come to the Joint Tribunal with a stronger position will benefit them. And your father will be feeling guilty. As he should. Use it to get this delay. You be the one to manipulate him this time.”

  “I can totally go to Prague in two days.” Clive could give her blood when they left Las Vegas, and she wouldn’t have to hide how much she’d improved so quickly. She’d still be healing, but she’d have mobility.

  “Tomorrow, you mean. Not two days. As for whether you could get on a plane while recovering from surgery, gunshot wounds, and broken bones? You could. Should you? And, let me add something extremely relevant to this,” Genevieve said. “Your husband is going to wake up and find out your physician told you no travel for two weeks and you decided to travel anyway. I predict a fight. And he’ll be right. I’ll be on his side, Rowan. That is very unfair of you to do to me.”

  That was a real thing. He’d be super mad and probably hurt because she made an important decision without him. A decision that would cause her injury even if she could lessen it with his blood.

  “Are you in a place where you can have an in-person meeting with the First? Negotiate with him?” David asked.

  Theo didn’t have to attend the Joint Tribunals at all. But ever since Rowan had been named liaison—by him—he’d made sure to attend. It wasn’t as if he attended meetings or negotiation sessions. He just wanted to be in her orbit after years of estrangement.

  And despite the scars and pain he was her father. She could admit—to herself and herself only—that it made a difference. Loving him was like loving a hurricane. Damage came just from being around him. Mostly the damage he left in his wake wasn’t malicious, but if you got close enough, eventually a house fell on you.

  So if he saw her at the Joint Tribunal in the shape she was currently in, even after Vampire blood, he’d sense her weakness and pounce. She already couldn’t let down her guard for a second. It would be exhausting to fend him off and deal with six days full of fourteen hours of meetings and more meetings where she had to keep sharp on top of that.

  Damn it. David and Genevieve both were right.

  Rowan growled at her inability to just do whatever she needed to do whenever she wanted. “Fine. Give me the phone.” She got herself comfortable and tapped his name in her contacts. Once, she’d had Vlad, as a joke, but then she ended up knowing like nine of them, so she just changed it to Theo.

  “Petal, are you well?” he said as he answered, raw emotion in his voice.

  He was the first of Vampirekind and more often than not, he was coolly remote. If one was lucky. Other times he was ice cold and murderous. But with her at moments like this one, when he was her father instead of the First, his tone was open, warm, and teasing, or taut with concern as it was right then.

  Their relationship was fraught. Complicated by years of blood and pain. He walked the razor’s edge of sanity. But she seemed to keep him on the right side of that edge.

  He was thousands upon thousands of years old and he’d never ever see the world as Rowan did. As she deserved him to. He was her father, and he might manipulate her to get all her attention, but he didn’t want her to be harmed.

  And because she loved him too, she said, “I’m alive. Recovering. They said I could make a five-minute call so I thought to let you know I’m okay.”

  Rowan didn’t know why, but the backs of her eyes burned with unshed tears.

  “I wanted to come to you immediately, but Nadir talked me out of it. I do so dislike not being right there to see for myself that you are whole and hale. I was also told no camera calls.”

  Rowan ignored that last bit. If he saw how she looked, even though it was better than the day before, he’d be there no matter who told him not to.

  “Not so hale, but I’m in one piece.” Clive had told her what information Theo had been given about the attack, so she didn’t need to lie. “I’m going to find the ones still alive by the time I’m on my feet once more. Speaking of that, I’ve been told by the doctor that I can’t travel for two weeks so David will work with the Nation and the Conclave Senate to reschedule for after that passes.”

  Rowan felt it was better to simply assume control of most situations rather than ask questions when she didn’t need anyone else’s opinion to make a choice. It was one of those do a thing and apologize after type situations.

  David nodded his head approvingly.

  Theo went quiet for long seconds. “I don’t like that. I’ve planned to travel to Prague tomorrow after sunset.”

  “I could send someone else I guess,” she said, taking a chance.

  He grumbled, and she knew she’d scored a direct hit with that.

  “Four minutes,” Betchamp said in the background, though he flattened out his voice to sound like an American.

  “Only a minute left and I don’t want to waste it arguing with you about this. I hate to reschedule. You know that. But if I take a chance with my recovery, Clive will be very angry, and we’ll argue. And my doctor will take his side. They’ll say, why doesn’t your father want you to get better?”

  That last might have been too much, but she rode with it.

  He blew out a breath. “Fine. I will inform Nadir. She will be in touch with your David. Who is responsible for the attack on you? Do you know that much yet?”

  “Not yet. But we’re looking. Or, they’re looking and I’m laying in a bed with a dog who growls at me when I try to do too much.”

  He laughed and it lightened her heart.

  There was much to love about Theo.

  “I’m certain Scion Stewart is helping you with that. You will update Nadir when you get more information,” he ordered.

  “Sure. And you can update me on the Vampire lords who put an execution order on my Hunters.” She coughed and the pain of it was so sharp she struggled, holding her breath, trying not to cough again.

  “I insist you stop this instant!” Theo demanded over the line. “You will rest and heal, or I will come to see to it myself. You can be angry at these ridiculous lords when you’re better. They’ll be here below when that happens.”

  By below, he meant the actual dungeon beneath the Keep.

  Like Tupperware but with Vampire dinguses who called themselves lords. Probably with torture, but she couldn’t think about that.

  After sipping some water she was able to speak again. “I’m fine. I need to go so I can rest. I’ll have David contact Nadir about rescheduling.”

  “I do so hate to travel.” He huffed and she realized he was starting to get himself together. Soon enough he’d be trying to exploit her weakness to get whatever he wanted from her. More visits. Attendance at endless parties she’d hate, and Clive would wet himself over.

  “I will check in again tomorrow at this time. Be well, Vater,” she told him, meaning it. It was good to hear his voice. He was holding up just fine, no shadows of the darker aspects of his personality, which was good for everyone.

  “Five minutes is up,” Betchamp said and took the phone, ending the call.

  “I’ll get right on the reschedule issue. Coordinate with London. Then we’ll reach out to the Senate liaison,” David said, looking at Genevieve, the liaison between the magic users and the Joint Tribunal.

  “We’re fine with moving things. There’s a lot going on right now so I’m glad we don’t have to leave the country,” Genevieve said and then looked very carefully at Rowan’s face. “Let me help you with the pain and stiffness.”

  Rowan agreed. Her friend did her witchy mojo, her hands moving in graceful turns and arcs as she sang under her breath. Pins and needles made her gasp a moment, but soon enough the pain receded enough that Rowan could move without wincing.

  They left her to rest and Star trotted back into the room, settling at the foot of the bed, still between Rowan and the door. Ever a protector.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  When Genevieve pulled down the private road leading toward the front gate of the private residential complex her home was in, she saw Darius standing not too far from the guard shack. Anger roiled from him, like heat off a pavement.

  Startled and wary, she pulled over and turned the engine off.

  He turned when she opened her car door.

  She knew she wasn’t going to like whatever he was about to say.

  “Have you heard from your father today?” he asked, blocking her view of whatever it was he’d been examining.

  “I have a call with him in a few minutes. Why?”

  “I’m going to tell you everything at once so save your questions for the end,” he said.

  She put a hand on her hip and nodded for him to continue.

  “There was a delivery for you today. Here. Private delivery service. They had your street address. Wanted you to come out or to be let in but left it after we refused entry. They called me out to look at the stuff. There’s magic all over it. Trap spells. Confusion spells. Obsession and love workings.”

  “Well.” Genevieve thought for a while but that was all she could come up with for long moments. “Show me,” she said at last.

  “I believe you’re the trigger, so I’d prefer for you to go no closer than where we are,” he murmured and stepped to the side.

  It looked to be an obscene amount of money spent to try to impress someone who has already told you in multiple ways she is not interested in you. With heart balloons attached. Hugo was, as Rowan would say, bananapants.

  She didn’t see the magic at first glance but eventually she caught a glimpse in one of the bags. Mindful to keep her distance, she moved a little and caught another. Shadows where none should be. If she got closer Genevieve figured she’d be able to see more. Changes in texture or variations in color that would indicate the presence of a spell were hard to spot from a distance.

  “There’s even something inside the balloons,” Darius told her. “Look at the ribbon, about six or seven inches up from where they’re tied to the handle of the bag.”

  “I can’t see that at all,” she said after she’d tried from various angles and remained frustrated by her inability.

  “You probably could if you were closer,” he said. “What do you want to do? I can destroy the spells like I did the one on the roses, but I figured you’d want to speak with your father, and I didn’t want to do anything so final until we’d spoken.”

  “Why is he so stupid? His name is all over this! Everything about this comes straight to him. It’s madness,” Genevieve said, throwing her hands up, frustrated.

  “Has the Procella family as a unit responded to your complaint about the roses?”

  “I think that’s what Konrad wanted to talk about. Let me call him now. I want to use the camera to show him. Then we can destroy it.”

  Her phone rang before she could touch her father’s number to call him.

  “Rowan? Is everything all right? You should be sleeping.”

  “Put it in a circle first,” Rowan said.

  “What?”

  “I just had a knowing. I can’t tell you what it’s about or anything more specific. Just if you’re dealing with something dangerous, put it in a circle.”

  Genevieve looked at Darius and then to the bags.

  “All right. Rest. I’ll update you as to what all this is about when I can.” Genevieve disconnected and headed to her car. “My kit is in the trunk. I need to change. I look too cute to get this outfit dirty. Then I’ll connect with my father.”

  Darius’s mouth trembled just a bit and then he smiled.

  She left the back of her trunk open while she pulled on pants and swapped out a plain white shirt for the dress.

  Darius approached, leaning against the car while she traded her pretty heels for flats and then pulled her hair into a high tail.

  She waited for him to say whatever it was he had to tell her as she pulled her work bag free and then faced him completely.

  Darius took her in. “You wear white a lot when you practice.”

  “Not always, but when I’m dealing with something that might be dangerous or malicious I might. Many scales together make armor. It’s one tool.”

  He brushed his fingertips over her cheek. Just a butterfly of a touch before he said, “She didn’t say it had to be you. Only that it needed to be in a circle.”

  “I’m not being vain when I tell you I’m far more powerful than every witch in the Procella family combined. That spell can’t penetrate my personal wards,” she argued. “You said so yourself. The Genevieve I am today would fight through it.”

  The hard line of his mouth softened and his spine relaxed slightly as he pulled her into a hug and let her go, keeping her hand. “Why would you want to have to fight it off? Yes, I believe you can. And yes, I believe you’re absolutely powerful enough to set the circle. But if you’re the trigger and it binds and the spells release, that’s malevolent energies in the air. Even if the spells didn’t hurt you, they might hurt others and I know you don’t want that.”

  With a sigh, she put the bag down and pulled two glass jars free. “Salt and ash.”

  He took them from her and with a jolt she realized she got to watch him perform a working and that was far more interesting than setting the circle herself.

  Darius approached the bags, and when he tipped the salt into his palm and then onto the ground, a concussive echo of the power he wielded rolled through her. And then, he...blurred. She couldn’t tell if he was moving too fast to see clearly or if it was a shift to another state of being, or any one of a million things. Time slowed around them.

  Darius’s magic was beautiful. The blur was midnight, darkest night and deepest ocean. Shafts of gold and bronze shimmered and glittered within. As the circle neared completion, his power rose around them, swirling, stealing her breath until there was another boom of light and noise and energy and he stood there again, the same Darius he was five minutes before only slightly smudged at the edges with that same midnight and bronze.

  “It’s done,” he told her.

  And now that a circle had been cast around the delivery, she felt a great deal better. She could think clearer even as she replayed how magnificent he was doing something as simple as laying a circle.

  “Thank you,” she said softly, and then called her father.

  Her father didn’t bother trying to hide the annoyance in his tone when she told him about the latest thing Hugo had done.

  “Your street address is in your personnel file,” he said, looking back at the phone’s camera after some keystrokes at his computer. “I’m ordering everything locked down. This is unacceptable and not just because you’re my child. This after the same thing was done to all those witches who were taken? Unacceptable,” he repeated.

  “There are missing humans now,” she said. “Let me come to you to report. There’s much happening but I don’t want to say all this over the phone.” It had been unthinkable that anyone should come to the gates from the outside world that way but now it had happened. There was a sense of being watched, an itch between her shoulder blades she did not like.

  “I will come to you,” her father said. “These things from Hugo need to be destroyed. I’d like to examine them myself, but it’s too long to leave it.”

  Darius rumbled in the background.

  “Darius is going to do that right now. I just wanted you to see it first while I made this report.”

  “I’m going to call Hugo Procella in for questioning while I’m there in Las Vegas with you. Since I’ll be in the city, it makes sense. And I don’t want to leave it because he’ll take that as permission to do more,” Konrad assured her.

  They disconnected and Genevieve tipped her chin to Darius. “I am grateful for your assistance,” she told him.

  “A moment,” he said before turning a full circle and then he was other again. That blur of obsidian glinting with ambers and iridescent blooms. This time that blur churned in place as a concussive wom-wom-wom of energy filled the air.

  The sage and sand rose, the salt unifying with him. The tug in her belly was a signal and she opened, serving as a conduit, both to the Trick and to Darius in particular. How very easy it was to share that connection with him.

  Her intent rose and twined with his, the pale blues and purples of her magical energy threading through the blur.

  The boxes and balloons within the circle seemed to glow brighter and brighter and suddenly it reversed. Dimming until there’d been a pop in the air and everything that’d been in the circle was gone.

  Then as before, the blur became solid between one breath and the next and Darius stalked to the edge of the circle, breaking it.

  “It’s done. Come on, let me take you home,” he said. He held out his elbow and Genevieve took it, letting him lead her to the vehicle.

  Something inside Genevieve seemed to wrench out of place and a flood of tenderness rushed through her.

  Genevieve placed a hand on his arm once they were back in her home.