was not only clearly an aristocrat, but also someone who was affiliated with the Black Dagger Brotherhood—
“Hello?” a male voice said on the other end. “. . . hello?”
Helania cleared her throat. “Hi.”
There was a sharp intake. “Helania?”
“I got your text.” Like he didn’t know that? “And I, ah . . .” She looked around her apartment as if the cheap furniture and galley kitchen could throw some syllabic suggestions her way. “I just wanted to reassure you that I—look, it’s an awkward situation. You didn’t do anything wrong. I was . . . it’s just hard. This whole thing is hard.”
“Of course it is.” There was a rustling like he was sitting up against some pillows—and she had to wonder if he was in his bed. “I only figured that I didn’t help things and I wanted to make it right somehow.”
More rustling. He was definitely in bed—and damn it, she was suddenly wondering what he looked like without all that outerwear on. Not naked, of course. Just street clothes. Jeans . . . t-shirt—
Oh, horseshit. She was wondering what he slept in. And whether it was a birthday suit.
“Hello?” he said.
“Sorry.” Helania shook her head. “It’s okay. Everything is okay.”
Yeah, right, she thought. Nothing was okay. Not why they had met or what she had noticed about him when they had . . . or what she was thinking about now.
“I’ve never done anything like this before,” he murmured.
Well, what do you know. I’ve never called a male out of the blue and talked to them, either. Especially not after I met them at a murder scene.
“How are you tied to the Brotherhood?” she blurted. “I think you said something about it, but I can’t remember.”
“I’m in their training program.”
“For the war?”
“Yes, I’m a soldier.”
“So you fight?” Okay, that was a stupid thing to say. But wow. “Against the lessers?”
“Among other things,” he said dryly. “I’m off rotation at the moment.”
“Because you’re injured?” For some reason, that spiked her anxiety. Which was nuts given that they were strangers. Why did it matter to her if he was hurt? “Sorry, that’s none of my business—”
“No, I’m not wounded.” There was a pause. “My sire died recently.”
“Oh, no.” Helania forgot all about beds and birthday suits. “I am so sorry.”
Closing her eyes, she wanted to know the why of the death with the same urgency that she didn’t want him to be hurt by the enemy.
What is happening to me? she wondered.
And jeez, it was like three people were on this phone call: him, her, and this inner-voice thing that kept speaking up in her head.
“He was killed last night, actually.” Boone exhaled. “So it’s pretty new.”
Helania sat back against a sea of needlepoint pillows. “That is no time at all.”
“You are so right.”
It was hard to believe he was functioning as well as he seemed to be. The first two nights after Isobel had gone unto the Fade? There had been no way she could handle anything. Hell, that had been the whole first week or so. Maybe month.
“What happened?” she heard herself ask.
Boone’s suite was in the front of his father’s house, and the combination of rooms took up a good quarter of the mansion’s grand expanse. He had a sitting room, an inner sanctum with no windows for sleeping, a walk-in closet, and an agate bathroom that had always been one of his favorite places in the world. There was also a petit déjeuner with a small fridge, microwave, coffeepot and the like.
It was a world unto itself within the larger universe of the household, and as he extended his legs under his covers and stared across at his shelves full of the works of Nietzsche, Hegel, Sartre and the Greek greats, he realized he had never brought anyone else up here.
Well . . . until now.
Yes, he realized Helania wasn’t actually with him. But as he held his phone tight to his ear, he felt like that lonely track record he’d been rocking was being broken.
She might as well have been with him in the flesh . . . and he liked it.
But on that note.
“Will you excuse me for a moment?” he said.
“If this is a bad time—”
“No!” He sat up so fast, he knocked a pillow onto the side table and had to catch the lamp with his free hand. “I mean, no, not at all. Just give me one sec.”
He went to put the cell phone facedown on the bedside table, but then