Page 88 of Fallen Court

Shaw huffed, casting his gaze at the crumbling remains of a marble angel. “I was on patrol.”

“With a vampire?” She sounded more confused than accusatory.

But Shaw rolled his eyes. “He’s my friend, and patrol is boring. Maybe you could do it sometime.” His head hung as soon as it was out of his mouth. He was no doubt already filled with regret for directing his irritation with me at her.

But it was too late.

A snarl rattled from my chest. “Watch how you speak to her.”

Cate turned toward me, planting her palm over my heart as if she could leash whatever beast Shaw had summoned from within me. The small act soothed me but didn’t quite defang me. I focused my attention on Dante. My brother was in this city by virtue of shared blood, but the vampire—every vampire in New Orleans—was here because my court allowed it. Normally, that would have been leverage enough, but, for the first time in centuries, I needed the other creatures as much as they needed me.

Still, old habits died hard.

“And what brought you out this far?” Roark asked. “You were supposed to be in Third Parish.”

Shaw’s eyes darted to me. “It’s not like you would believe us.”

I raised my phone, shining its flashlight into his eyes, and found them glassy. I directed its light on Dante next. His were as pitch-black as the space between stars overhead. “Opium or venom?” I ground out. “Or both?”

Dante scrambled for an excuse. “We were just—”

“Bored.” I used Shaw’s own words against him. “Now answer the question.”

Shaw swallowed slightly. “Venom.”

“What the fuck were you thinking?” I was going to kill him. Possibly both of them. I turned to Dante. “Why don’t you take a stab at telling me why you were out in a cemetery, feeding my kid brother your venom? Before I take a guess of my own.”

He winced at my choice of words. Most of what was written about vampires was wrong. But stakes? Stakes were very real.

“We saw a light,” Shaw said, cutting in front of Dante just as he began to speak.

“A light?” I stared at him.

“It was like an orb.” Dante finally spoke up. “Everything was dark, and there was this orb.”

We listened as he described a glowing ball of light floating in the sky, but I couldn’t quite bite my tongue. “And you both thought, ‘Hey, let’s see if it leads us to a pot of gold’?”

“And you wouldn’t?” Shaw asked, glaring at me.

I refrained from groaning. “It never occurred to you that it might be a trap?”

Shaw blinked a few times—the thought now clearly occurring to him—before he frowned. “I guess I’m just as naive as you think I am.”

“So you followed the orb?” Cate jumped in, as if sensing a fight. “That’s how you found the body?”

This had to be one of the dumbest conversations I’d ever been forced to participate in.

“You were supposed to be in Marigny. Do you ever follow orders?” I asked through gritted teeth.

“I’m the screwup, remember?” Shaw spat back. “That’s why you don’t trust me to help with family business.”

“No one thinks that,” Cate said.

If she didn’t, she was a saint.

I was about to tell her just that when she shifted and put two arms around me, almost willing her calm into me. Miraculously, it worked.

“Wait over there and stay out of trouble.” I glared at Dante. “And we’re going to talk later.”