"It's just rather disconcerting knowing I smell like a pile of garbage," I answered. "I feel like bathing in perfume or something."
"Kristoff certainly didn't look like he found you offensive," she said, a teasing note in her voice.
I looked down at my hands for a moment, not really wanting to discuss the issue of a relationship with Kristoff.
"I'm sorry," Allie said quietly, her odd eyes seeing far more than I was comfortable with. "I didn't mean to get personal."
"It's all right," I lied. "It's just that..."
"You still have some things to work out."
"Yes."
"Who doesn't?" She smiled. "You should have seen Christian and me when we first met."
My curiosity got the better of me again. "How did you find each other? I'm kind of amazed that they ever find a Beloved at all, since there's only one for each vampire."
"Well, there is and there isn't," she said with a little laugh. "You'd have to ask a woman named Joy about that, but that's just going to confuse you, so we'll move on. The first time I laid eyes on Christian, he was lying naked and covered in blood from a hundred cuts all over his body. It was the most romantic thing ever."
I stared in horror at her.
She laughed again. "We had a rocky start. Christian was determined to have me admit I was his Beloved, and I wanted nothing to do with him."
My gaze dropped again. "That's not quite the problem between Kristoff and me," I said, my heart wincing in pain at the memory of Kristoff looking at his ring.
"I'm sure you'll work out whatever is giving you grief. These guys may seem overbearing and arrogant as sin, but you have to admit there's something to be said for the fact that out of all the women in the world, you're the only one for him."
I said nothing, not wishing to dwell on it. A change of subject was called for. "Do you think there's any chance that if I worked on Christian, he'd let Mattias and Kristjana go?"
"Well..." She slid me an odd look. "Christian is the head of the Moravian Council. That position has a lot of responsibility with it."
She waited a moment, obviously expecting me to understand something that wasn't at all clear.
"I'm afraid that I don't see what one has to do with the other," I admitted.
She sighed and thought for a moment. "He doesn't break rules. He can't, not in his position. And what you're asking for would mean he'd have to do just that. So no, I don't think there's anything you can do that will get him to release Kristjana and Mattias."
There was an odd emphasis on the word "release" that I didn't quite understand. My brain chased around a hundred different thoughts, all of them ending with the same sad conclusion: If Christian wouldn't let them go, I was going to be damned to Zoryahood for the rest of my life.
"I think you and Kristoff will be comfy here," Allie said, looking around the room. "I'm sure you'll have him up to speed in no time. He was already looking a hundred times better after dining at Casa Pia."
I frowned at the thought of Kristoff being held prisoner, starved so callously. "He does look better, but I doubt if he's back to full strength."
"Probably not." Allie paused a moment. "Despite what you may think, he wasn't mistreated any more than the two reapers were. Kristoff was offered blood-he just refused to take it. We didn't try to starve him, Pia. You have to understand that for a Dark One to be separated from his Beloved for a short while is bearable. It's not comfortable in the least, not for either person, but it's bearable. But to go two months..." She shook her head. "I can only imagine the pain Kristoff must have suffered, being deprived of you. And I'm sure you didn't have a grand old time."
I looked down at myself and immediately sat up straighter to lessen the resemblance between me and a Buddha statue. "Unfortunately, I've managed to eat just fine during our separation."
"That's not quite what I meant," she answered. "When Christian is gone for more than a couple of days, I start getting headaches. Nothing truly horrible, but a low-grade headache that persists no matter what I take."
I thought of the headaches I'd been prone to during the last few months. They were so constant, I'd gone to both my optometrist and a doctor to see if I was starting to have migraines. "I've had headaches a lot lately," I admitted.
"But worse than that is a sense of..." She hesitated, her hands making a vague gesture. "Oh, I don't know quite how to describe it. It's a sense of being... incomplete. As if some part of me were missing. Things just don't seem right, if you know what I mean."
"I think I do," I said slowly, noticing for the first time that the vaguely empty feeling inside me seemed to be gone. "It's as if you were hollow inside."
"Hollow, that's it exactly. And if you're concerned about your other husband's well-being, you're welcome to talk to him. He's confined to a room on the second floor. We don't let him leave unattended-there are wards on the door-but we do take him out for little jaunts about the garden to get a bit of fresh air. He's not mistreated in any way, and I'm sure that goes for the other reaper, as well."
"A ward?" I asked. "What exactly is that?"