he said. “A piece of shrapnel hit me in the leg, but it was minor. Josef and I took turns feeding after we treated your wound. Both of us are fine.”
“Where were we? When I drank from you? I didn’t recognize the place,” I said.
“Vampire safe house,” Josef said. “You know, vampires and our privacy. Occasionally we need a place to rest or to heal after an altercation. We have a spare house. We use it for those kinds of moments. It contains an infirmary of sorts and a doctor who’s on call. She set Lily’s bone in her arm. When you were all stabilized, we brought you and Lily back here. She was given a very powerful painkiller to ease her pain for the next few hours. Fortunately, fairies have rapid healing capability.”
The three of us sat quietly for a moment, absorbing the details of the conversation we’d shared. Car bombs, vampire safe houses, security teams—so much for ghost stories and fairy tales. The real version was infinitely more lethal than the fables parents sent their children to bed with.
“Someone tried to kill us all last night,” I said, wiping my eyes. “It wasn’t some fluke accident or a case of mistaken identity, was it?”
“Car bombs are a specialty of the Serbian mafia,” Josef said. “The door detonator is one of their signatures.”
“Let’s finish this conversation when Gabriel arrives tomorrow morning,” William said abruptly. “Olivia needs to rest.”
Josef bade us goodnight, saying he was going to look in on Lily. I wasn’t sure how much I could rest thinking about my role in Aidan’s death. If I hadn’t pressed him to investigate, if I hadn’t taunted Nikola in the lobby, maybe Aidan would still be alive.
“This is my doing,” I murmured.
“No,” William said. “Aidan was a grown man with years of experience. He wasn’t sloppy. He wasn’t emotional. He wouldn’t have done anything simply because you asked him. He was killed because he either uncovered something, or confronted Nikola directly.”
“That doesn’t make me feel any better,” I said, lying back on the pillows. My leg was beginning to throb and suddenly I felt exhausted. “Can I have something for my pain?”
William nodded and brought me a bottle. “Gabriel sent it over, it seems he has a pharmacist that fills prescriptions on demand. Take one, it’s a Tylenol with codeine.”
I swallowed a pill and laid my head back to wait for sleep. William came and stretched out beside me on the bed, our faces a few inches apart. Despite the pain in my leg, I leaned in to kiss him, yearning to be close to him. He returned my kiss, gently touching his lips to mine.
“That was close, Olivia,” he said. “Too close. We have got to be careful until this is resolved.” I nodded, sliding my body closer to his. As the codeine began to take effect, it registered with me that we still were in grave danger.
****
CHAPTER 37
My name was being uttered in harsh tones in a room nearby. I struggled to regain consciousness, my head still fuzzy from all the painkillers. I looked down to find my boiled wool slippers, the pair from home. William must have brought them for me. Sliding my feet into their comforting softness, I set off toward the voices.
My body felt awkward as I tried to move without putting pressure on my wounded thigh. It was a slow process; even my uninjured leg was stiff from lack of activity. I nearly screamed in triumph after I reached the foot of the stairs without falling or knocking anything over. From the top of the staircase, I could hear the voices clearly.
“There is no evidence at the blast site, nothing to tie us to the bombing.” Gabriel said. “The police will learn nothing from the crime scene.”
“If you’re right, then Nikola will feel empowered to strike again,” William said. “He has zero risk of being linked to the bombing. And if you’re wrong, and we left something behind, a trace of clothing, a drop of blood, then it would be wise for us to leave town immediately.”
“We don’t know that it was Nikola,” Gabriel said, exasperation in his voice. “Aidan never had a chance to tell me about his investigation. We have no idea what he uncovered.”
“Even worse,” Josef said, inserting himself into the discussion. “Our enemies have no idea what we have, but whatever it is they fear we know, they were willing to incinerate all of us to keep it from being