Page 53 of Soulbound Shadows: Part 1

“Goo-goo eyes?” Gabriel repeated delicately, with an expression that was way too innocent to be genuine.

I pointed a finger at him. “Do not. No. Absolutely not.”

Gabriel’s eyes crinkled.

I smiled back, despite myself.

When Isabella arrived, Gabriel went to let her in, then ushered us into the library. It was a massive two-story room, complete with balconies wrapping around the upper level, and those wheeled library ladders I’d always wanted to try while always assuming I’d find a way to injure myself with. Plush, patterned rugs, and dark, comfortable-looking furniture from throughout the past century or two filled the room. In one corner, a mid-century modern chair had an art nouveau end table next to it, and a fiddly Victorian-looking ottoman in front of it. In a different spot, a Tiffany lamp sat on a brutalist desk with a baroque chair tucked against it. Calling the place eclectic was an understatement.

“Oh, my God,” I said under my breath. “This place is crazy.”

“Yes, it’s rather started to get away from us,” Gabriel said. “After a few centuries, it’s easy to start hoarding a bit.”

“No, I mean good kind of crazy,” I said. “Like, I kind of wish I could live here.”

“Yeah, no kidding,” Isabella said. “It’s a little weird to see a crystal chandelier and string lights shaped like cartoon bats in the same room, but I’m kind of into it.”

Isabella settled onto a brocade sofa and stared around the room. She’d stepped out of her combat boots at the front door but had kept her bulky jacket on. It made her look out of place, even in a room where basically everything was out of place.

“All right, pretty-boy,” she said, pointing at Gabriel. “Give us a minute. Gonna need some doctor-patient confidentiality here.”

“You’re not a doctor,” he pointed out, sounding a little confused.

She rolled her eyes. “Uh, yeah, which is why I also don’t have to worry about the ‘do no harm’ stuff. Give us the room, will you?”

Gabriel looked at me, and I shrugged, nodding.

“I’ll see if we have any snacks,” he said before he left.

As soon as the door closed behind him, Isabella twisted her hands through the air, putting up a muffling spell around the two of us. She bounced back up to her feet, shedding the casual toughness she’d come in with to reveal something urgent and tense.

“Are you okay?”

“Honestly, the curse is totally fine now,” I said, pulling the sweater down so she could see the spot where the mark had healed to a flat, pale scar.

She blew out a breath and nodded, inspecting the skin with practiced brushes of magic. “I’m not just asking about the curse,” she said softly. “I’m asking about all this shit. Your place gets attacked by vampires, and then all of a sudden you’re staying in the vampire prince’s place? I wanted to make sure that you’re… you know. That you actually want to be here.”

Isabella had experienced some shit in her past. She didn’t talk about it much, and I didn’t ask, figuring she’d tell me what she wanted me to know when she wanted me to know it. But I knew that whenever she helped me with a job that involved a hostage situation, she always had a hangover the next morning. When a job uncovered details about a bad marriage, she started breathing in through her nose and out through her mouth, nice and slow, like she was focusing on it. The time I’d taken on a client who, as it turned out, had a piece-of-shit boyfriend using her blood for spells without her knowledge, I’d taken a nice long walk with the girl. Isabella, though, had stayed behind. When the client and I got back, the boyfriend was gone, and Isabella’s knuckles were bloody.

I took Isabella’s hand now. “Hey,” I murmured. “It’s all right, I promise. I’m not just saying that, okay? Gabriel’s a good guy. He wasn’t, like, keeping my phone away from me or anything. I was just asleep.”

Isabella’s breath shuddered out of her, and she nodded.

“Seriously, he’s got me set up in the guest suite, and when I low-key flashed my tits at him earlier, he looked away. It’s honestly sort of cute how much of a gentleman he’s being.” I squeezed Isabella’s hand. She squeezed back, then pulled away.

“I’m really glad you’re okay,” she said. “And seriously, if you ever need me to have a word with him…”

“I know. You’re honestly so good at scaring guys, it’s one of my favorite things about you.”

She laughed a little at that. We stood in silence for a moment, leaning against each other.

“So, are you going to lie low for a bit?” Isabella asked. “Stay out of trouble until whatever you’ve gotten yourself into dies down?”

“I don’t think that’s an option. This could be… really fucking terrible. End-of-the-world-as-we-know-it shit. I can’t stop the investigation now, and even if I could, I think these guys would keep coming after me.”

“Shit,” Isabella said, sitting on the sofa.

“Yeah,” I said, sitting next to her. “Shit.”

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