“I like that part of the plan,” I admitted.
He paused, his eyes suddenly growing dark with mischief. “Since I’m not going anywhere until tomorrow evening, why don’t I give you something to remember me by before I go?”
His mouth was at the pulse point of my throat, his hands tangling in my hair before I could even answer his question. All at once it was like the past half hour, and all the complications and new entanglements that came with it, had never happened.
I melted against him.
“That sounds good to me,” I breathed, throwing my head back to give him better access.
He growled his approval, then carried me into his bedroom.
EIGHTEEN
Text messages between Stuart and Sullivan, the night guards of Naperville Dungeon
Hey Stuart
Hey man what’s up
Caught the Naperville Police Department sniffing around this morning
Well, fudge
Yeah
Not good
Did you tell the boss
Not yet
I’m about to
I tell you what, between our new prisoner, who’s done nothing since he got here last night but cry and write letters to some human girl, and the police dropping by, it’s been a hell of a week already
And it’s only Tuesday!
Ugh, I know
Should I ask Mark to go take care of the cops?
Actually scratch that
I haven’t eaten in a while
I’ll do it
Thanks
I owe you one
Yeah, yeah
Meanwhile I better get some ear plugs or else Count von Romeo in here is gonna drive me batty
I’d begun suspecting something was wrong when I woke up in the middle of the night and Frederick still hadn’t come home from the Ritz-Carlton.
Now, though, fifteen hours had passed, with still no word from him. I was nearly sick with worry, and even more convinced that agreeing to meet with his mother and the Jamesons had been a terrible idea.
I hated that if Frederick were in trouble there was literally nothing I—a human—could do about it. But it was unfortunately also the truth.
And right now, I had to focus on my interview with Harmony Academy—which, through a cruel twist of fate, had been set for that afternoon. I told myself that if I could just get through this interview I’d try and find a way to reach Reginald to see if he could help me figure out what had happened. Reginald might be a jerk, but I believed he did care for Frederick on some level and would help if there were something we could do.
More importantly—Reginald was the only other vampire I knew. I didn’t have a lot of options.
In the meantime, focusing on the fact that this afternoon I was interviewing for a position that could potentially change my life was a welcome distraction from how worried I was. And how powerless I felt.
I examined myself in my bedroom’s full-length mirror and frowned at my reflection. The navy-blue suit I wore was the only outfit I owned that counted as business attire. I didn’t know if Harmony Academy expected me to wear a suit today, and part of me hoped that they’d want applicants for this position to show up in paint-spattered overalls. But Sam told me it was better to show up overdressed to a job interview than underdressed.
Having minimal experience interviewing for jobs with benefits, and terrible job-searching instincts generally, I did what he said and put on the suit.
I still needed to fix my hair, though. It still hadn’t fully recovered from my haircutting experiment a few weeks ago, stuck up in odd places in the back, and was in general extremely annoying.
I might show up to this interview looking and feeling like a fraud, but if I could avoid also looking like a Muppet I probably should.
Muttering under my breath, I stalked out of the bedroom and made my way to the bathroom, where my hair stuff was. Just as my fingers closed around my hairbrush handle, I heard a loud, throat-clearing noise from a few feet behind me.
“Excuse me.”
I froze.
I recognized that voice. It was burned into my memory from the night I learned my roommate was a vampire.
“Reginald?”
What was he doing here? And how was he here? Hadn’t Frederick said vampires needed an express invitation to enter someone’s home?
But my surprise melted away when I saw his face. In the handful of times we’d interacted, I had seen Reginald look amused, insolent, and bored. But I had never seen him look worried before.
He looked worried now, though.
Very worried.
“I’m concerned about Freddie. He’s—” Reginald broke off, giving me a quick once-over before his nose wrinkled in disapproval. “What on earth is that outfit, Cassandra?”