Page 34 of Blood & Ice

Knox knew it, too. Could use it against me. Which meant I’d have to play the long game if I wanted to beat him.

I ended up beating the paperwork into submission, leaving scorch marks on the glossy wood of the desk, while starting a small fire in the center of a stack of financial reports. I snatched a glass off the table on instinct, realizing a second after I threw it that the clear liquid could very well be vodka, not water, and might make my predicament even worse.

To my relief, the flames sizzled and died. Smoke curled up from an indistinct blob of crumpled paper, invading my nostrils. I prayed no one was close enough to the office to see, smell, or hear the whole embarrassing debacle go down. Dying at the hands of a Blood Witch had some dignity. Dying because I couldn’t keep my composure long enough to take a look around was quite another.

And speaking of looking around...

The office was... gray.Verygray. The oak desk I sat behind was the only spot of color in the room. The walls were a shade so light they were almost white, never quite escaping the gloomy charcoal undertones that dragged it back to monochrome. Mostof the fixtures were pewter or chrome. The floor-to-ceiling windows looked out over a grove of wisteria trees. They looked like pale, lovely ghosts in the twilit yard. The sun had almost set.

It was the trees, not the office, that let me know exactly where I stood. I’d stalked past that exact grove shortly after smiting Rupert and his murderous comrades for kidnapping and hurting my daughter, Sybil. I couldn’t help the quiver of fear that ran through my guts. I hated this place. Hated every damn bloodsucker who thought like Rupert. They wanted me and mine dead. I’d just been willing to slit their metaphorical throats before they went for mine in a more literal sense.

“Which is why you’re my favorite, Maverick,”Knox chimed in with a delighted laugh.“It’s that cutthroat thinking that will get you far.”

“I’ll convert to Buddhism and become a monk first,” I muttered under my breath.

My voice came out higher and with more breathiness than I was used to. It plastered my back to the office chair for an instant as I processed something I hadn’t before. My body felt... smaller. Slimmer. When I moved, my proportions were different and a glance down confirmed...

Yes, those were modest but still there breasts. The last time I’d been in a female body, I’d done it on purpose. Well, generally when I was inside a woman, it was on purpose. It was rarely this literal though. I’d stolen Wanda’s body briefly, intending to use it for my own selfish needs. Needless to say, it hadn’t panned out. Looking back, I was glad she’d stopped me. It had been the kick in the ass I’d needed to have a necessary conversation with Wanda.

A glance down revealed a smudged signature on one of the documents. I could just make out the looping signature of ‘Cecelia Pleasant’ before the paper curled in on itself. It pretty much confirmed my worst fears. I was in a vampire body.The Portland clan leader, who Aurea had already fingered as a person of interest.

It was automatic to raise my hands to feel the contours of the chest. Wanda couldn’t even fault me. She’d been curious about the opposite anatomy, too. She’d been ready to curse my dick off for what I’d done, but she’d still looked at it. It was a body swap thing. I expected the female body I was in to feel, but these were... firm. Hard, even, like someone who’d had too much plastic surgery.

No... that wasn’t right. They were harder than that. It took me a minute to figure out why the texture felt familiar. It was like... a mannequin. Like Sybil, when she ‘played dead.’

“I’m not in a vampire body, am I?” I whispered.

“Indeed not.”

“Then?”

“You are in a doll’s body. Literally.”

“What?” I couldn’t help my shock.

“The poor dear had to find a way to escape her vampire captor somehow. She played house with the doddering old fool. Let him believe she was mending her ways. He brought her gifts because he felt guilty. Dolls, as though she was still the little girl he watched grow up from his high tower. I daresay he treats her better than her kin. Not that she cares. She wants him dead.”

I stood up unsteadily. I could feel what he was talking about now. There was blood magic all over the surface, scratched into the porcelain by a sewing needle and painted in witch blood. No, aBlood Witch’sblood. Every part of the ‘Cici’ doll had been meticulously formed, shaped with care, and then sent out into the world to play decoy. The doll didn’t have vital signs, and the glamour tied to the doll made it look human enough to pass casual inspection, even from someone with power. The vampires would never know the difference. But all Tally’s complaintsabout how odd she’d felt in Cici’s presence suddenly made sense…well, in hindsight.

The doll hit Tally’s radar as uncanny valley. Close, but not quite human. The magic was so well done that Tally hadn’t been alerted to what Cici really was. But her human brain, her cop sense, had known there was something off.

I examined the face in the mirror, trying hard not to wince. The resemblance to an oversized doll was painful now that I understood what I was looking at. The eyes were huge and periwinkle blue and hand painted. The curls were real hair, but so old and brittle that I knew the doll had probably been an antique. The freckles had been dotted on with painstaking precision. Looking at it without the glamour, the whole thing was creepy as hell. I was shocked no one had run away from Cici screaming.

I spied Knox in my reflection, smirking at me, while still wearing my face. He looked more real now, like a phantom observing from the corner. It was all in my mind, but it didn’tfeelthat way. I knew I wasn’t here. That Knox wasn’t either. But I turned on him regardless, getting up in his spectral face. He didn’t seem fazed when I seized him by the lapels of his jacket and shook him.

“Who did this? Who kidnapped a witch and blooded her?”

Knox grinned.“One of my direct descendants.”

“Which descendents?”

“If you want either of their names, you’ll give me another day.”

I glowered at him, willing lightning to hit the smarmy jerk right in his smug face. Thunder rumbled dangerously outside the window, lightning forking across the sky. Knox actually tsked at me.

“Going to burn the place down twice, Maverick? The first time was exciting. Now it’s just getting cliche.”

“Stop stringing me along, you Machiavellian asshole! Give me the names!”

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