Page 21 of A Bloom in Winter

When the door at the bottom was opened and then closed softly, Callum let his head drop.

I’m sorry, he mouthed, even though he didn’t know what exactly he was apologizing for. Fate was a cunt, for sure, but that was hardly something he was responsible for.

Looking at the hand towel, he ran his thumb back and forth over what was still warm and a little frothy.

Funny, what you couldn’t get out of things.

What stains were permanent.

CHAPTER SEVEN

Four Lakes Estates

Caldwell, New York

As Tohr re-formed out in the middle of a fucking blizzard, he got attacked by snow, his eyes blinded, his cheeks whipped, his clothes flapping against his body. With a quick pivot, he put his back to the storm, but he couldn’t say that improved things very much.

All he got was the kind of spanking even Vishous would have turned down.

However, the change in direction did give him a good look at Rhage, and a moment later, Qhuinn, who had both dematerialized out to this enclave of newly built mansions with him.

With the three of them on-site, he led the way forward even though he couldn’t see much, and had to put his forearm up to cut the onslaught. Courtesy of the nor’easter, whole sections of Caldwell had suffered power outages, but over the roar of the storm, he caught the steadywhrrrrrrrrrof big-ticket generators burning through all kinds of fossil fuels.

At least the lights up ahead were a good thing to triangulate toward.

Only a couple of yards later—thank Lassiter—he stepped into the lee of a three-story house that was the size of a college dorm.Letting his arm fall to his side, he caught his breath and blinked his lashes clear.

Holy new-built, Batman. The mansion had to be ten thousand square feet, maybe fifteen, and size was the only thing the architect had gotten right. The place was a bad replica of an antique brick Lord of the Manor palace, the proportions of window levels, the Corinthian columns of the entrance, the angles of the roofline, all wrong.

Except they weren’t here to pick on the owner’s taste.

Up at the pretentious front entrance, a maid in uniform was shivering under the great lantern that hung from the portico’s ceiling, her black dress and white apron offering no protection against the cold. To go along with her proper dress code, her salt-and-pepper hair had been pulled back from her makeup-less face, but the bun wasn’t neat. Flyaways were fuzzed out around her lined forehead, as if her obvious distress had created its own static electricity field.

“Oh, my God, oh, my God, oh, my God . . .”

She was forcing out the words through her rattling teeth, and as Tohr mounted the steps, he noted she’d left the door partially ajar behind her.

“Let’s get you inside,” he said in a low voice.

Her eyes stopped bouncing around and focused on him properly. “I’mnotgoing back in there.”

The gentlemale in him made him want to take off his leather coat and put it around her shoulders. But there were weapons in it, and weapons all over him. The female was not going to want to see that—yet more to the point, he had no idea what they were walking into or whether he was going to need to fight.

Well, he knew some of what was waiting for them.

“Is there anybody else in the house?” he asked.

He needed to know her answer, but the conversation was also a distraction as he turned her around and eased her over thethreshold. He did not want her leaving the premises, and he was also worried about her needing medical intervention if she stayed out in the blizzard much longer.

“N-n-n-no. No one else . . .” Wide, frightened eyes locked on him. “At least . . . I d-d-d-don’t think so.”

As his brothers brought up the rear and closed the door, he glanced around and noticed first all the security cameras. Then the interior sank in. Like the outside, the black, white, and gold foyer was grand in scale, almost-right in execution—and totally tacky with too much try-hard art, too many silk flowers, too much color. As if the owners justhadto buy things.

On the left, there was a parlor, and a library was to the right. Out to the back, there were more rooms, but they were all obscured by archways, doors, and hallways. And finally, in the center of it all, a bifurcated staircase angled up to a second floor, then kept going to whatever was on the third level.

Lots of scented candles everywhere. But somewhere, not far off . . . he could smell the blood.

Rhage and Qhuinn fanned out, but didn’t go far, leaning into spaces, checking out things while staying close.

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