Page 111 of Dark Horse

“You’re really here.”

“Fuck, I hope so. Otherwise, I’ll have to kill whoever just fucked you like that.” He laughs and kisses the top of my head. “I missed you so damn much, Hellfire.”

“I missed you. But also, what the fuck was that? Not telling me you were coming!” I pull back and glare at him in admonition.

“Couldn’t give you your fantasy if you knew I was coming. Also, you’re a little cheat. Fucking that pillow when you know you weren’t supposed to.”

“You didn’t say I couldn’t,” I muse.

It’s his turn to glare, but it melts almost immediately, and he cranes his neck to kiss me.

“You survived.”

“I survived,” he confirms. “We still have a long road ahead of us, but there’s a truce in place, and I wanted to come bring my girl home.”

“Your girl.” I kiss my way up his neck. “I like the sound of that.”

“Get used to it,” he murmurs, and then his lips crash against mine as we tumble back against the sheets again.

FORTY-EIGHT

GRANT

The next morning,we’re up early for a quick debriefing before we take off for Colorado again. As much as a night away has felt like a fleeting vacation, I’m eager to be back home where I can keep an eye on everything. But in addition to picking up Dakota, I also want to be able to hear everything she and Charlotte have been doing research-wise. By midmorning, we’re all wrapped around their massive dining room table, a half dozen laptops and twice as many books open to various points of research.

“Thanks to Dakota’s bright idea to listen to podcasts that Abbott has done, we discovered he has a bit of an obsession with Charlemagne. He seems to bring him up a lot and has mentioned that he’s looked into his ancestry. He thinks he’s a direct descendant based on his research, and he’s spoken quitea bit about the way he altered Europe during the Middle Ages.

“I started chasing that as a lead, and we were able to narrow down that both the relics he has in his possession right now, the one from the Kelly family and the one you obtained for him, are related to Charlemagne. They’re all things he would have carried with him or on him. The reliquary you had, which predates the period of his life, is purported to contain the blood of a saint. The ampule necklace the Kellys had in their collection was created from materials that would have been contemporary to that time. The design features can practically be pinpointed to a region where he lived for several years while he was fighting border wars along his eastern front,” Charlotte explains.

“We’re talking to a hagiographer Beatrix knows. It’s her sister-in-law, actually, who lives in Seattle. She’s working her contacts to see if they can establish any records for provenance on the Kelly relic,” Dakota adds, and I struggle to contain my surprise at the easy way she talks about the research. Dakota’s always been clever, but I wouldn’t have thought this kind of investigation was something she’d be this excited about.

“Don’t look so surprised,” Charlotte admonishes me. “She’s a quick learner, and she’s been incredibly helpful.”

“Oh, I know she’s smart as hell. She puts me to shame.” I answer Charlotte and then turn to Dakota. “I’m just surprised you’re into this kind of stuff.”

“Charlotte’s brilliant.” Dakota and Charlotte exchange smiles. “She’s made it all so fascinating. I can tell you more when we’re on the plane, but I think I may have a new hobby.”

“She has a new job if she wants one,” Charlotte adds. “We could use more researchers like her.”

“She said there’s a good program for this kind of stuff at Highland if I wanted to take classes.”

“But I’m also willing to just teach her some of the trade. It’d be nice to have someone out there who could have eyes on things for me.”

“Part-time,” Dakota adds when she sees my brows climb higher. “My first priority is still getting Seven Sins back up and running so that my staff has work again.”

“I’ve already given them some shifts at the Avarice.” I haven’t had a chance to fill her in on everything yet.

“I heard.” Her hand covers mine. “Thank you for that.”

“Of course.” I smile at her. “And don’t worry. I’ve got plans I’ll tell you more about on the way back.”

“All right. What kind of research were you all able to do?” Charlotte looks between Hudson, Rowan, and me.

“Levi was able to find the governor’s daughter. Well, find is an overstatement. He’s got leads on his daughter, who went missing a few years back. It looks like she’s in Europe. We think she might be the key to the third relic, or at least be able to lead us to it,” I explain.

“We still don’t know if it’s only three or if there are more though,” Rowan adds. “There’s no indication he’s working any other teams right now. I’ve reached out to contacts to see what information I could mine, but it seems quiet.”

“Which doesn’t make sense if he’s closing in on what he needs. Getting this relic from the market, you’d think he’d be dying to get his hands on another. Or at least make fast work of going after all of us again, but everything from Jay indicates he’s in a holding pattern. Like he’s waiting on something.” Hudson gives his thoughts.

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