“Isn’t here all the time.” And might not be again. “Your eyes,” he’d said, looking a little freaked-out. And yeah, I guessed so. I’d only glimpsed myself in full-on dhampir mode once before, in that fight a month ago, and it hadn’t been pretty. Hadn’t, in fact, looked particularly human—snarling face, gleaming fangs, and glowing, demonic eyes…
Shit.
“He doesn’t need to be!” Claire said forcefully. “I was going to say that if he hadn’t been able to take care of it, we have a garden full of fey. And the elite of the royal guard at that!”
“Who might not have been enough.”
“Oh, please!” She looked me up and down critically, and didn’t seem impressed. “If they can’t handle one lone dhampir, I’ll kick their asses. And then I will.”
“You will what?”
“Handle you.”
“You’ll handle me.”
“You think I can’t?” she asked, her chin lifting.
“I think you won’t.”
“Then you don’t know me that well.”
I rolled my eyes. “I know you plenty. You’re a vegan. Cutting up meat for the fey’s meals almost makes you sick. You have all those marigolds because you don’t even like hurting bugs!”
“Faerie changes a person.”
“Not that much. And my other half is a ruthless—”
“So am I. I’ve had to learn to be. And if it will make you feel any better, if you go crazy, and for some unfathomable reason decide to attack Aiden or Stinky—and for the love of God give that child a better name—”
“I told you, Duergars have to earn—”
“—then I’ll kill you myself.”
I stopped. Because Claire had sounded like she meant it. She looked like it, too, with those usually soft green eyes hard and steady on mine.
“You will?”
“Yes. I will.”
“You’d hesitate.”
“No. Not with a child’s life at stake. Not with Aiden’s life. I’ll kill anyone who touches him.”
And that last was so cold, so implacable, that it actually sent a chill up my spine. In that moment I honestly believed my gentle roommate to be capable of murder. Even mine.
“Good,” I told her.
She nodded, letting out a breath. “Good,” she agreed, wiping her hands on her apron. “Now get down there and get rid of those damned vamps!”
Chapter Twenty
I found the vamps in the formal dining room we never used, which was usually musty and full of dust, but now smelled like a truck full of lemons had crashed into the side of the house. There were five of them. And I’d been wrong. They didn’t look like they’d just stepped out of a high-end restaurant, unless the high-end restaurant was in the nineteenth century.
There were three men and two women, all with smooth, dark hair, perfectly shined shoes, and proper black maid or butler attire. They looked like Mattel had put out a country house collector’s set: servant’s edition. Only somebody had gotten sloppy with the faces, because the perfect servants were looking a little weirded out.
Maybe because they were all bunched around the troll twins.
Or, no, it was really more of a line than a bunch. The vamp by the gleaming sideboard, who had covered his snappy outfit with a long white chef’s apron, passed a dish to the one next to him. Who passed it on to the next and so on, until it reached the boys. Who consumed it like they always did—in one gulp. And then politely waited for more.