“No problem. I cleared it with the women—Tower’s not going to have any interest in them aside from this case and, like I said, they really liked Felicity.”
Enough, Ashwini thought, to stick their necks out. That told her a lot about her victim. “So,” she said after a couple of minutes of comfortable silence, “how come you’re in so early? I thought you and Nyree would be celebrating. Hope my request didn’t mess anything up.”
“Nah, I saw your message after our celebration. Easy enough to make the calls while Nyree was catching her breath.” A glow in the green of his eyes, his handsome face happily smug. “Two of the librarians at her work came down with a bad case of the flu, so she went in to cover. I was meant to teach a class this afternoon, but I swapped with Demarco for a morning session so I can take off when Nyree’s shift is over.”
“You better invite me to your wedding.”
“Are you kidding?” Ransom grinned. “I plan to have one hell of a party. Shit, I’m getting married.” He shook his head, like a dog shaking off wet. “And I want to do it.”
Well aware of his dating history, Ashwini squeezed his shoulder. “I’m happy for you, Ransom.”
• • •
She met Janvier an hour later, at the little warehouse that housed the blood café in which Ellie had an interest. Blood-for-Less was closed for the day, but there was an employee out back handling donors coming in to sell blood. The stocky male vampire—who looked more like a schoolteacher than someone who should be in the Quarter—let them into the main sitting area and promised to send in the three women when they arrived.
Ashwini had picked the location because it wouldn’t put the women in an awkward position if they were seen. There was nothing strange about a working girl getting a bit of extra cash by selling blood. Right now, however, Ashwini’s attention was on Janvier. Deep grooves marked the sides of his mouth, his eyes dull.
Touching her fingers to his jaw in the muted light inside the blood café, she said, “What is it? What’s wrong?” That was when she noticed he’d showered, changed. His blades sat openly on his back, over a plain black T-shirt, his jacket and scarf discarded on the back of a wine red sofa.
“Sit with me.”
Once they were down, he took one of her hands in his and told her of the horror that had occurred in Masque that morning. “Lacey?” Shock held her frozen; she couldn’t believe that the sweet, friendly woman who’d been so adorably besotted with her lover was gone, murdered at the hands of that lover. “You’re sure?”
“I’m sorry, cher. I wish I could tell you she felt no pain, but it would be a lie.”
Still having trouble processing the horror of it, she focused on him, pressing a kiss to his temple and running her hand down his back. “I’m sorry you had to see that.”
Leaning forward, his shoulders taut, he blew out a breath. “This drug is appearing more and more like a poison intended to cause this effect.”
Ashwini heard more than Janvier said. She knew how protective he was of women, knew part of him would be going over and over every interaction from the previous night, trying to figure out if he could’ve prevented this. “Rupert was a good person until he took the drug,” she reminded him, thinking of how she’d found herself liking the vampire from Lacey’s description of their relationship. “He made the choice to use the drug, no one else. Not even Raphael could’ve stopped him unless he was in the room at the instant Rupert decided to eat Umber.”
Janvier put his hand on her thigh. “Thank you,” he said after over a minute. “I needed to hear that—you expect the ones who go to vampires like Khalil to die, but this . . .”
She curled her hand around his arm, her head against his shoulder. Lacey had died in horrible agony, but as a woman who loved, Ashwini knew the worst pain would’ve been of Rupert’s betrayal. Lacey’s heart would’ve broken long before her body. “She was so harmless, Janvier.”
He shifted to wrap an arm around her, pressing his lips to her hair. “At times, I forget I’m not human. Not today.”
Ashwini wasn’t about to let that go. Lifting her head to pin him with her gaze, she held the raw honesty of the eye contact. “Humanity is what we make it.” She’d seen too much horror done by mortals to believe them free of the taint of evil. “You’re sad about Lacey. You’re sad about Rupert, too. And you’re angry at the loss of life that didn’t have to happen.” Two happy flames snuffed out because someone had decided to create a seductive poison. “That’s humanity and it lives in you.”
His throat worked, his eyes red rimmed. “Be in my arms,” he said at last. “I need to hold you.”
She slipped into his embrace in silence and that was how they sat until they heard voices from the back of the café. Breaking reluctantly apart, the two of them were on their feet by the time Aaliyah, Carys, and Sina came in as a group.
It was obvious that Carys, a brassy blonde with cool blue eyes and a sprinkling of freckles across the bridge of her nose, was the leader. Aaliyah, dark skinned and model tall with delicate bones, spoke in a soft tone heavy with grief. Sina, in contrast, her emerald green hair cut in a blunt fringe above slanted eyes set in a broad, pale-skinned face, smiled easily but it didn’t reach her eyes.
“Please,” Janvier said after the café employee showed them in, “take a seat.”