Unleashed by the Defender (Brides of the Kindred #25) - Evangeline Anderson Page 0,63

speak to another Mistress with a tower of white hair swaying above her head. Maybe all judges on Yonnie Six wore their hair three feet high, she thought.

But she was too excited to care much about judicial hairstyles at the moment. She turned to J’are and grabbed his hand.

“Did you hear that? You’re going to be free to go! All we have to do is show up in court one more time!”

“Thank the Goddess.” He nodded, a look of relief coming over his face. “We should go back to the hotel and celebrate,” he added, giving Imani a half-lidded look.

That look—a look of pure lust—reminded Imani that she’d agreed to let him taste her “just one more time.” A shiver of desire ran down her spine…but it was accompanied by a feeling of guilt. No matter how badly she wanted to let the big Nightwalker lap her pussy again, she knew she really shouldn’t do it.

“We can’t go yet,” she said, stalling for time. “We agreed to try and find some clues here, remember?”

“Right.” He nodded reluctantly. “Come on, then—the easiest way out of the ballroom is this way.”

Imani breathed a sigh of relief as they edged their way out of the crowd. She had put off doing anything else that was unprofessional and wrong—at least for a little bit. And in the meantime, she really did want to see if there was anything in the vast house tying Mistress Bittlebum to Lady Zangelo’s murder.

It might be a long shot, but it was definitely worth checking out.

Thirty-One

J’are’s eyes glowed dimly in the darkened corridor. The effect was a little scary, Imani thought—like the eyes of a wild beast stalking its prey. But she was glad to be able to see anything in the dimness.

“Are you sure this is where she’d have her bedroom?” she murmured to J’are, keeping her voice down even though they appeared to have the entire top floor of the huge mansion to themselves.

“Definitely,” he murmured. “The grandest bedchamber in the entire house is up here. Mother Hownow always slept in one of the smaller ones—she said it was more cozy and not so drafty during the cold months. But nothing but the best would do for Lady Bittlebum.”

“It certainly sounds like she’s a social climber,” Imani said as they walked down the corridor, passing doorway after doorway, all of them elaborately carved and gilded.

“Which was one reason Mother Hownow despised her,” J’are said, nodding. “She couldn’t stand anyone who pretended to be what they weren’t. She’d come from relatively humble beginnings herself and built an empire—whereas her niece only pretended to have one. Here—this is it.”

He had stopped in front of a room which had a set of double doors, twice as high as Imani was tall. They were elaborately scrolled and carved with golden doorknobs.

“Do you think it’s locked?” Imani asked anxiously.

“Oh, I’m sure it is.” J’are seized one of the doorknobs and began to jiggle it in a deliberate way. “Luckily, I grew up in this house—I know how to get in and out of any room here.”

As he spoke, Imani heard a faint click and the door abruptly opened.

“And here we are,” J’are remarked as they walked into the room.

It certainly was a grand bed chamber, Imani thought. It looked like something you might see in a palace. There was a vast bed with a high canopy, all decorated in rich gold brocade with rubies and emeralds worked into the pattern. The bedclothes were made of the same fabric and the pillows were each as long as Imani was tall.

But it wasn’t the bed that interested her—sitting on a dressing table across from it, were seven or eight dummy heads, each one wearing an elaborate wig.

Imani walked over to the dressing table, studying the wigs with interest. Some were high and puffy and some were sleek and straight but all were the exact same shade of lemon-yellow.

“Well, at least she’s consistent,” she remarked, looking at the wigs. “They’re all exactly the same color.” She wrinkled her nose. “And they all smell kind of musty, too.”

“That’s not the only thing with a bad smell in here,” J’are growled.

Turning, Imani saw that he was holding a long black cloak with a hood in one hand.

“What’s that?” She frowned. “I don’t smell anything.”

“That’s because you don’t have a Kindred sense of smell.” He sniffed the black fabric and his eyes flashed an even brighter green for a moment. “This is stiff with dried blood—and not just