Page 13 of Unholy Gambit: Checkmate in Blood
Every step he’d taken since that night, every plan, every scheme. Not to mention her actions, her loyalty, her fuckingknowinghe’d be back someday.
The implications unraveled at the dark edges of his mind — the power it implied, the danger, the inevitability of consequence — but he shoved it all aside. He had to finish this, so he closed the door on the possible repercussions and focused.
What came next? He had to test the oath to be certain it took. He knew down to his bones it had, but these were rules one didn’t skirt, so he handed her a notepad and pen. “Please write down that the man who rescued you as a child is a vampire.”
She shook her head, refusing, and he said, “Excellent answer, but I need for you to try. It’s important.”
She looked at him a good ten seconds, running through all possibilities logically, and finally accepted the pen and began writing.
When she realized she wasn’t physically capable of writing more than the first half of the ‘v’ in vampire, she had an instant of panic, followed by logic, and met his gaze in wonderment. “Well, I guess that explains the test. You needed to be sure the oath took, and you needed me to understand it’s real, somehow.”
Would he ever tire of watching his Aurélie’s brain in action?
It was best they move away from vampires and monsters, so he changed the subject. She’d know he was complimenting her intelligence with the change. No need in making her uncomfortable by pointing out most humans would’ve needed that explained, but she figured it out in an instant.
“It’s a shame you didn’t get invited to compete for a spot in the world championships this year. You placed well in the nationals.”
She shrugged, and he put the car in gear, backed out of the parking space, and headed to the restaurant.
“I’m young. Inviting a twenty-three-year-old would be an insult to some of the older ones. Also, it got out that I was having knee surgery right after nationals. I figure they thought I wouldn’t be at the top of my game this year, and it’s possiblethey were right. My schedule will be full starting in March. I’ll be traveling all over next year, getting my face and name out there as much as possible.”
“Why chess?”
“Dad taught me, and I asked for books about it, so I could figure out how to beat him. I played the computer a lot, too. I was home-schooled until I started middle school, and they didn’t have a chess club, but they got me into one at another private school, and it just kind of happened, I guess.”
He could see in her mind that she’d first beat her father when in the fourth grade, and could regularly beat him by the time she was well into middle school.
“I’ve figured something out about you that I didn’t know until tonight,” he told her.
“What?”
“I knew your mother had some Fae blood…” Probably best not to say he’d scented it when he’d chopped her arm off. “But I’m guessing your father does, too, because tonight, I scent even more of it on you, and the teasing little taste of your blood confirmed it.”
“What does that mean?”
“The Aos Sí are excellent strategizers, so it makes sense you have an affinity for chess. Most are beautiful, which of course you are. Most are tall, which you aren’t, but youarequite thin. Your thoughts are precise, logical, a blade you use to analyze the world. At a guess, I’d say you’re perhaps twenty percent Fae. I thought your mom around ten-ish percent, but with all the other things happening that night, I didn’t take the time to pay too much attention.”
She was silent a few moments, and he realized he’d misunderstood her question. She’d been asking him about his wording, a teasing little taste of her blood.
“How much are you in my head?” she asked before he could answer her true question. “Can you hear all my thoughts?”
“I can.”
“So then answer the question I clearly didn’t ask right.”
He’d never understood feelings, emotions, romance. The fact he was inundated with these concepts and sensations now was a chaos he couldn’t deal with, but he had to smile at her intelligence. Her moxie. He also needed to answer the question.
“I drink less than a Red Cross donation. I’m a visitor to this territory, without hunting rights, so I brought someone who’ll willingly feed me. A young shifter who can replenish his blood supply daily, when most humans can only donate every couple of months. He’s well-paid, plus he got a free trip to America.”
He paused, considering what else she needed to know. How to settle her concerns. “There’s a way for me to purchase bagged blood, should I think he needs a day off. I do not need to drink from you, and if I eventually do so, it will be an intimacy between us — one you wish to happen.”
She blew out a breath. “Thank you. Can you restore my memories of that night?”
“You’ve mostly restored them, and after decades…” He shook his head. “You were a child, and they’ve evolved as you’ve grown. It’s best I don’t fuck with them anymore.”
She didn’t like that answer, so he tried a logical explanation to explain the mechanics better. “Think of overwriting information on a hard drive and then trying to dig for the original information, you either find the data below, or you completely trash that sector.”
She understood, but was pissed at the loss. So he offered a solution. “If you like, I can replay my memories of that night for you. It’ll give you a memory of it from my perspective rather than yours. I won’t show you the parts that happened while I paused your consciousness, but I will show you the rest.”
