Page 139 of House of Lilith

“Lame attempt at a joke at my own expense,” I say with a wave of my hand. “Doesn’t matter. In all seriousness, no,” I reply. “I mean, there are pictures of her all over our estates, but all I ever heard about her was…” I shrug my shoulders. “She was just a girl.”

“Hm,” he says pensively. “Pity.”

“Why?”

He just looks at me for a second. “You know how there’spowerin a name?” he finally asks, dropping his voice at the same time he ups the enthusiasm. “Some ancient magic perhaps.”

Interesting, I think to myself, my mind rushing straight to Vasilisa. “Yeah.”

“Well,” he starts, making me lean a little forward in anticipation. “I’ve just been doing some research and toying with the idea of there being more to that. Like…” He pauses, looking away as he thinks. “What if there was power insharinga name with someone as well?”

“Interesting,” I say in a voice that’s barely above a whisper. “Like, being able to communicate? Or transfer power?”

“Exactly,” he replies with a smile and that spark in his eye. Then he frowns. “And there’d have to be a blood bond, probably, but yeah, things like that.”

I lean back in my chair. “Well,” I tell him, “if you ever figure it out…”

He raises his drink to me, throws it back and sets the glass down, starting to get up.

And it all comes so abruptly, the whole situation and the way I’m feeling making me fail to resist my base urges.

“You know, Ricky,” I say, making him look at me and lower himself back into the chair, smiling.

“I really admire the way you find time for all your interests,” I continue, albeit a little hesitantly, “especially being an alpha’s right hand.”

“Well,” he says with a grin.

“How come you didn’t go with him?” I dare to ask.

To my misfortune, the question earns me a frown. “He didn’t need me, I guess,” he says, but not a little suspiciously.

Fuck. But then it occurs to me and I don’t waste a moment second-guessing it. “You know what I just remembered?” I say, making his eyebrows shoot up.

I don’t give him a chance to protest. I just get up, walk over to the bar and grab a bottle of Feinmann’s whiskey. “Look what we have here,” I tell him as I come to hold it out for him.

For a second, he just stares at the label. “You’ve got to be kidding me,” he almost yells out as he takes the bottle.

I get back into my chair, smiling.

Ricky keeps turning the thing in his hands. “I can’t find thisanywhereand I’ve always wanted to taste it,” he says as he looks up at me.

“I know,” I reply softly. “I had it ordered for you. But how are you so hung up on it if you’ve never even tried it?”

“I remember it from when I was a kid,” he says, still smiling but a little pensively. “My parents used to bring it out after dinner and get all tipsy, but I wasn’t allowed to have any and I remember that making me want to try even more.”

Parents? I thought he didn’t have any family.

He apparently catches the confusion in my eyes because the next thing he says is, “I was five when they were all killed.”

“Shit,” I blurt out. “I’m so sorry.”

“No, don’t worry about it,” he says with a sad little smile and a wave of his hand. And he opens the bottle and takes a sip straight from it, wincing as he swallows. “I had those five years with them, and afterwards, well, I had my books—”

It’s a fit of coughing that interrupts him. “In the name of Lycan,” he squeezes out, “this is strong.”

And when he locks eyes with me again, he already seems quite a bit tipsier than a second ago.

I don’t waste time. “And Howe,” I say, finishing his sentence. “I mean, you weren’t alone, you hadhim, and he seems like a good friend.”

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