Page 83 of Claim of Blood
“Which is why we should absolutely offer our expertise again,” Johan put in cheerfully, eyeing the car’s trunk with determination. “Show her how we did things in François’s court.”
“That’s not going to fit,” Lander observed, desperate for a change of topic. His father eyed the remaining mountain of bags with the kind of determination that had probably built pyramids. “Even if you bend the laws of physics. Which you can’t, Mor. Not anymore. Not since the Vienna Incident.”
Magic shimmered in Elisabeth’s golden eyes, a reminder of the power she’d carried with her even through the turning. “I’ll haveyou know my spatial manipulation spells are perfectly fine now. I’ve been practicing.”
“No,” Lander cut in firmly, already pulling up the car service app on his phone. “The last time you tried to ‘help’ with spatial relations, we had to replace an entire wall. And explain to the contractors why there was a suitcase fused with the plaster. The resulting entanglement took weeks to untangle, and Adam still has random socks appearing in his study.”
“That was one tiny miscalculation,” Elisabeth sniffed, though the air around her sparkled tellingly with suppressed power. “And really, Adam probably needed new socks anyway.”
A sleek town car materialized from the pickup lane traffic like some divine answer to his luggage-induced prayers. The self-driving vehicle popped its trunk and unlocked its doors with cheerful efficiency, blissfully unaware it was about to become a carrier for potentially reality-bending baggage.
“I’ll ride with the bags,” Ilona offered, her blue eyes dancing with barely suppressed mirth. “Someone needs to ensure your mother’s shoe collection arrives intact, and in this dimension.”
“My shoes,” Elisabeth sniffed again, “are perfectly capable of defending themselves.”
Johan laughed, the sound booming. “That they are. I still have scars from the Great Closet Reorganization of ‘47.”
Ilona slipped into the driver’s seat of the town car with predatory grace, her fingers flying across her phone screen with growing delight. The smile spreading across her face suggested Adam was about to receive quite the warning about his incoming guests and their luggage.
They transferred the luggage, the town car’s trunk closing with what sounded like a resigned sigh. As the vehicle pulled away, Lander climbed back into the Blackwing, only to find Elisabeth already in the passenger seat, magic quietly rearranging the climate controls to her liking.
The drive home wound through the city’s patchwork of neighborhoods, streetlights striping the hood. In the back, Johan offered commentary in Norwegian, while Elisabeth narrated every detail of vampire politics back in Oslo. She switched between English and Norwegian mid-sentence, her French accent ghosting through certain vowels. Lander caught maybe half of it, nodding in all the right places. Eventually, Johan’s gentle “Min kjaerlighet,” prompted her to repeat the key points in English.
Porte du Coeur’s sprawl gave way to Innsbrook’s manicured trees and ancient wards. As they pulled up to the mansion, the lights glowed warm in the darkness. Adam stood framed in the doorway, Leo beside him, watching with wary curiosity.
Elisabeth swept up the stairs, magic swirling around her in bright auroras. “Adam, darling!” she trilled, her embrace enveloping him. Johan followed with a warm handshake.
Leo froze, staring at them like they were impossible. “You’re... both? Vampire and witch?”
Lander felt the subtle wash of his mother’s magic as it swept over Leo, probing and cataloging with the thoroughness of a researcher examining a fascinating new specimen. He’d grown up with her magical assessments—the way she unconsciously analyzed everything supernatural that crossed her path. But this felt different, more invasive, and he caught the sharp spike of tension in Adam’s power that suggested the ancient vampire was feeling every tendril of magical examination.
The colorful auroras flickered and dimmed as Elisabeth’s attention shifted to Leo, her expression becoming thoughtful. “Impossible?” Her tone remained kind, but there was a questioning edge to it. “Why would you think that, dear?”
Leo’s frown deepened, confusion in his expression. “I was taught that the magics are incompatible. That a witch cannot become a vampire, cannot be a shifter. They’d go mad.”
Elisabeth studied him for a long moment, then smiled with genuine warmth. “Ah,” she said softly, “that clears up quite a few things.” She reached out gently, her magic settling into a calm shimmer around her fingers. “The magic within vampires and shifters is the same magic within witches, dear one. Merely utilized in a different manner. Magic is all the same—as the air in the Arctic is the same as the air in the Sahara.”
“We’ve prepared the Gold Suite on the second floor,” Adam announced smoothly, his power a subtle undercurrent beneath perfect hospitality as he guided them away from the darker implications. “I trust you’ll find it comfortable.”
A small army of servants emerged from the house like a well-choreographed dance troupe, dividing efficiently between the two cars. The humans among them quickly discovered what Lander had already known: his mother’s luggage had a weight-to-size ratio that defied several laws of physics. The shifters stepped in smoothly, trying not to look too amused as they assisted their struggling colleagues.
Lander followed his parents, Adam and Leo, and the veritable hoard of servants up the stairs. Ilona, with her single bag, gave him a finger wave as he passed. He suddenly, childishly wanted to stick his tongue out at her.
The Gold Suite unfolded before them in warm amber light, crystal chandeliers, and matching carpet and curtains in a shade reverberant to the suite’s name. The sitting room’s elegant furnishings invited intimate conversation, but Johan’s wandering gaze toward the bedroom door suggested he had other reunions in mind.
Lander vowed to avoid the second floor for the foreseeable future. Soundproofing could only do so much against vampire hearing, and some childhood memories didn’t bear revisiting. He’d spent enough centuries trying to forget the sounds thatoccasionally drifted under doorways when his parents felt particularly... enamored.
“Marie has fully stocked the kitchen,” Adam observed, his dark eyes holding carefully contained amusement. “Though she did leave rather specific instructions regarding blood oranges.”
Elisabeth’s laugh rang through the suite. “One minor magical mishap and suddenly everyone’s a critic.”
The servants moved around them with practiced efficiency, unpacking the luggage his mother brought with her, until one particularly eager footman made the rookie mistake of grabbing one of his mother’s red-soled heels without proper reverence, and the shoe growled. Leo twitched reflexively for a weapon he wasn’t carrying. Lander smothered a laugh.
“Behave yourself,” Elisabeth chided the shoe. “These nice people are helping.”
“They get attached,” Johan added to Leo, deadpan. “You should have seen what happened when she tried to donate last season’s collection.”
“They’re shoes, Mor,” Lander sighed. “They shouldn’t have opinions.”
