All That Bleeds (25 page)

“Oh, no. I don’t have keys to the shed with the tools. The infernal Mrs. Carlisle’s rules. I don’t have access to my own ladders or drills or the most useful pieces of equipment, but fortuitously she left me with the most dangerous thing of all. My pen,” he said with an impish smile. “I may write her a note bitter enough to pickle her ears.”

“No tools, then how did you…?” She glanced at the door.
Merrick.

“Well, I’ll tell you. That Perseus may have blood on his hands, but he’s Svengali with a hammer.”

She sighed. “Mr.—Mills isn’t here to do carpentry work, Dad.”

“I know, but the titans will have him soon enough. Might as well get something useful out of him before they crack his bones to splinters.”

She winced. “He’s very adept at taking care of himself.”

“No doubt, but you should always kiss him good-bye when he goes. Even the warrior sons of Ares need that before they die.”

A shiver of uneasiness ran through her. “Speaking of a kiss good-bye,” she murmured and stepped forward. She
hugged him and kissed his cheek. “I love you, Dad. Get lots done and have an inspired night.”

Outside the library, she took a moment to shake off her dad’s warning. On a deep breath, she rounded the corner.

Merrick can take care of himself. It’s not his life, but this visit, this time with me, that’s fleeting. Yes, kiss him when he goes, but also kiss him before that.

She slowed as she approached the top of the staircase. She let her heels click the floor so he turned. She paused for a few beats, not exactly a pose, but long enough for him to take in the lines of the dress and how she looked in it.

He watched her descend, never blinking, never moving.

The skirt whispered
swish
as she came to rest a few feet from him. He studied her in silence, but this silence differed from his usual wordlessness. In its depths, nothing existed save their two bodies, their beating hearts and slow breaths, and the alluring gravity that drew them together.

With the lightest possible touch, his fingertips grazed her skin just above her jaw, making her shiver.

“Real and earthbound,” he confirmed. “You don’t look it.”

“No?”

“No.” His stare consumed her. “In that dress, you’re heaven’s mist. I can’t decide whether to fall to my knees and worship from the ground up, or to start at your tendrils and work my way down.”

She slid her arms around his neck and kissed him in a lingering exploration of his mouth. He held her long after, her soft, satin-sheathed body pressed to the hard planes of his.

“Tell me a secret,” she whispered in his ear.

“Exploiting your advantage? That’s not very angelic of you.” His mouth sucked the side of her neck, making her warm, then flushed.

“You said you wanted bribes. Doesn’t the way this dress fits suffice?”

His low laugh vibrated against her throat, and her belly tightened. She wanted to peel off his clothes and the medallion and to become the Alissa of his dreams, a memory he would never forget.

“Never mind,” she said softly. “You don’t have to talk if you’d rather not.”

“It’s all right,” he murmured. “It turns out, you’re the one person in the world I enjoy talking to.”

“Thank you,” she said, kissing him again. “That was a lovely secret.”

Alissa needn’t have worried about Merrick. He’d introduced himself to the on-duty ES officers and joined one of their tables. She regretted that he couldn’t sit with her. The night should have been about her last chance to charm the council members but, for her, it was about him.

She smiled and laughed and posed through two courses of food, wondering the entire time what Merrick thought of dinner. She felt his eyes on her often, which was simultaneously reassuring and unsettling.

When the muses were escorted from the room, he joined the ES officers standing guard. Inside a private room lit with candles, rich fabrics were draped over most surfaces to act as a neutral backdrop for their dresses.

Surprised to find Theo Tobin among the handful of photographers, Alissa’s gaze settled on him and refused to budge for several moments. The other women were shocked by his bruises, but he lied smoothly, telling them he’d been in a car accident.

The muses were arranged in a series of poses, where it was clear that she and Cerise, who wore a body-hugging gown in metallic indigo, were most often the focal point. Ileana, demure but boxy-looking in ivory, and Dorie, in terrible, severe makeup obviously intended to make her look older and a voluminous red dress that nearly swallowed her, were seated at the sides and eventually photographed separately.

As a change of lighting and backdrop were arranged, Theo Tobin beckoned her. When they stepped behind a decorative Chinese screen, she discovered the room had a second door.

“Let’s go into the hall,” he whispered.

“I don’t think that’s a good idea,” she said.

“You want to take a chance that the other girls will overhear our conversation? Because I don’t.”

What she wanted was for Merrick to be within calling distance. She opened the back door and glanced out. At the far end of the long hall, a security officer stationed at an exit door nodded at her. Tobin or an accomplice wouldn’t be able to drag her out of the building. Tobin followed her into the hall, and they closed the door.

“How are you?” she asked.

“I’m sore as hell, but I’ll live, and that’s a bonus after yesterday. Listen, those ventala, they had me take really damaging smutty photos of you. They planned to use them to make it look like you’d willingly taken a walk on the wild side.”

She winced. “Which means they could still use the photographs to create a scandal anytime they want.”

“No, the photographs were destroyed, but the ventala aren’t done with you.”

“Mr. Tobin, Grant Easton and Dimitri Xenakis know me well. They would have realized the photographs were staged. Etherlin Security would’ve retrieved me.”

“If they’d gotten to you in time.”

She thought about lying on the balcony, dying. They wouldn’t have been in time. They hadn’t even realized she’d been taken.

“It seems like a lot of trouble to go through for a couple gallons of blood.”

“That’s just it. I don’t think they wanted only your blood.”

She frowned, thinking of Cato Jacobi’s tongue on her throat. “Well, it’s a lot of trouble for anything.” She paused and shook her head. “It doesn’t make sense. There are so many beautiful women they could’ve taken more easily. The EC has powerful friends. Dimitri has the ear of world leaders. It’s shortsighted to abduct a muse. If people didn’t buy the ventalas’ ruse that I’d been willing, and of course, at some point when someone asked I would’ve told them I’d been kidnapped—”

“Exactly,” Tobin said in a frantic whisper. “Cato said, ‘We’ll make sure this one gets it right. Just like her mother.’ ”

Alissa pursed her lips. “They planned to drive me to
suicide? Again though, what would’ve been the point of taking me if they only planned to kill me? Unless they want someone else to be Wreath Muse. Someone they believe will be more sympathetic to their political interests or something?”

“I don’t know.”

“Mr. Tobin—”

“Theo. Call me Theo, for God’s sake. You saved my life. We can be on a first-name basis, don’t you think?”

“Saved your life? You give me way too much credit. That diversion at Handyrock’s that allowed you to get home certainly wasn’t something I orchestrated.”

“I’m not talking about that. Although, that cluster-fuck did distract the syndicate so I could make it to the checkpoint.”

“If not that, then what?”

“You saved me from Merrick. You made him promise to let me live.”

“How do you know? You never saw him, did you?”

“Never saw him?” Tobin laughed bitterly. “Who do you think did this to my face?”

She stepped back, her stomach lurching like the floor had fallen out from under her. “The Jacobis.”

He shook his head. “Merrick.”

The rest of the photo shoot had been a blur. Alissa returned with the others to the ballroom and didn’t make eye contact with Merrick when she passed him.

You knew what he was when you started this,
she thought, angry at herself for being shocked and upset. There had been so much talk of killing, the word had temporarily lost its meaning. But when confronted with the aftereffects of his violent nature, she felt anything but desensitized.

Back in the ballroom, she danced with various council members, prominent community leaders, and aspirants. With effort, she concentrated on talking to them, but within the conversational gaps, her mind returned over and over to the image of Theo Tobin’s face.

After the shoot, Tobin had left through the second door. For a split second, she’d thought he was avoiding Merrick, but, of course, Tobin hadn’t known that Merrick was among ES. She wished Merrick wasn’t. She needed time alone to think, but with the party winding down, he’d be coming home with her.

She strode into the women’s lavatory and sat on a cushioned bench in an alcove.

“Tired, Alissa?”

She turned her head. Dorie strode in and stopped in front of the mirror. Dorie touched her severely coifed hair, then retouched her wine-colored lipstick.

“This lipstick is pretty dark. I probably should’ve gone brighter to match the dress.”

Alissa didn’t comment, but agreed that the girl’s makeup was too dark. It was also laid on very thick, like stage makeup. What had the stylist been thinking?

“You look pretty tonight,” Dorie said, sitting on the bench next to Alissa. “I like those gloves. Can I try them?” Dorie clutched Alissa’s fingers and pulled on her left glove, which slid down to the elbow.

Belatedly, Alissa remembered the puncture marks. She jerked her arm back, a flood of adrenaline pouring into her veins. “Do you mind? I came in here for a moment of quiet.”

“It’ll just take a second. I’m trying to decide whether—”

“Dorie, enough,” Alissa said, pulling the glove back to its original position as she stood. “I appreciate the fact that you’re trying to develop your sense of style, but imitating me isn’t the answer. We’re totally different types.”

Dorie tilted her head and smiled, looking far older than her years. Suddenly the dark makeup didn’t look as inappropriate. “So that’s a
no
to me trying the gloves?” She paused. “You wore your hair up. Shows off your bare throat and collarbones, but your arms are covered. And, of course, your legs. I’ve heard we’ll be wearing bathing suits for the photo shoot by the retreat’s tropical indoor pool. No gloves or long skirts for that session.”

Alissa turned and left, knowing that Troy had shared his suspicions with Ileana, Cerise, and Dorie. Had Cerise confirmed that Alissa had had bruises and marks on her arms? If the EC heard, would they demand that her arms be examined?

Outside the bathroom, she ignored the ballroom, striding straight to the exit. She’d had enough of the banquet for the night, and enough of the world.

Merrick wondered again what had happened. Alissa hadn’t looked his way once since the closed-door photography session, and when she returned to the hall from the bathroom,
she hadn’t even checked that he was with her before she left the building.

“You forgot something, Miss North,” Merrick said, walking up to her and the valet. “Your wrap’s still inside.”

Next to him, Alissa didn’t reply. While the valet went to get the car, Merrick studied her. “Are you going to make me guess?” he asked.

With barely a glance at him, she said, “Pardon?”

“Are you going to make me guess what’s wrong?”

“It’s been a long night. These events tire me out.”

“Yes, all that smiling must be exhausting.”

“Well, it’s not as physical as your work, to be sure, but keeping up appearances can be a strain.”

The car arrived, and she took the driver’s side. “I’ll drive so you’re free to shoot. Isn’t that the way it’s done?”

He glanced around and got into the passenger seat. She said nothing on the drive home, but her stiff posture communicated plenty. He went over the night. He’d made nice with the ES officers, introducing himself and complimenting them on their reputation and organization. Under the guise of wanting to keep his new job as Alissa’s personal bodyguard, he’d asked a lot of questions about operations, finding out the names of the officers working the night of the abduction. He’d never felt that his questions had been viewed as anything more than professional interest, but maybe taking names had made someone suspicious?

He’d acknowledged the women who’d looked directly at him by nodding, but he certainly hadn’t flirted with anyone, so there’d been no cause for her to get jealous. Maybe whatever she was upset about had nothing to do with him, but the vibe he got from her was that it did. She’d become distant. He didn’t like it. She’d been so free in their recent conversations, he’d gotten used to that intimacy; craved it, in fact.

With the car parked, they went inside the North house. She locked the door and set the alarm. He followed her to the staircase, to the exact spot where a few hours before she’d kissed him. Twice.

“Now that it’s known that you’re here as a bodyguard, it
wouldn’t look appropriate for you to stay in the room adjoining mine. The guest room down here where you showered last night would be better. You can lock the door when you take off the medallion. No one will disturb you.”

He waited, saying nothing.

“Well, good night.” She turned and ascended the stairs.

He followed silently. When she got to her door, his hand prevented her from closing it on him.

She raised a quizzical brow, then said, “Oh, your things are up here.”

He ignored the impulse to pull her to him. Sudden and direct didn’t seem the right approach at the moment. When they were both inside, he closed the door and locked it.

She folded her arms across her chest. He did the same, but because she still looked every bit as beautiful as she had all night, he felt at a disadvantage. He hid that fact behind an impassive expression. When it came to staring people down, experience was on his side. After several long moments of silence, she shifted uncomfortably.