“My reason for disturbing you. The guards would collectively like to know if you can please stop him from calling. We sleep inside now, in shifts, and, well . . .” He grimaced. “It must be fifty times today.”
“Get who to stop calling?” I asked, and looked at the phone.
And saw the name on the little view screen.
“You have got to be kidding me!”
Chapter Fifty-three
I stabbed TALK. “Go to hell,” I told the phone.
“Dory?” Kit Marlowe’s voice came booming out of the speaker, like it was in surround sound. “Is that you?”
“Yes. Do you have something to say to me?”
“Naturally! Why else would I be calling? I need—”
I hung up.
He rang back immediately, because of course he did. Vamps didn’t need speed dial. They had speed fingers.
“Damn it! Don’t hang up on me!”
“Then say the magic words.”
“What magic words? What are you talking about? I want—”
I hung up.
I put the phone on silent mode, pulled on jeans and a black tee, and headed downstairs.
My butt vibrated. I sighed, took the phone out, and held it a good distance from my ear. “What?”
“Don’t hang up on me again!”
I hung up because I don’t take orders from him.
The kitchen was full of fey again. Including Reiðarr, who was rolling out dough—like a machine. He’d been the one with the sad, lumpy effort last time, but things had clearly turned around.
“Damn,” I said, and meant it.
He looked up, and froze. His face twitched around for a moment, like it wasn’t sure what expression it was going for. And then, slowly, it resolved into . . . not a scowl. It wasn’t a smile, but it wasn’t a frown, either.
“I was ordered to assist,” he informed me stiffly, in case I got any ideas.
“It’s impressive.”
“You cannot do this?”
“Never had the knack.”
He did smile that time, rather superiorly. “It’s in the wrists.”
“It looks good,” I said, because it did. And so did the hand pies on trays stacked literally everywhere. “Apple?” I asked hopefully.
“And cherry.”
“Goddamn.”