Magic Rises(76)

I started thinking about Curran and Lorelei, decided it would drive me nuts, and focused on the winged shapeshifters instead. I wished I had access to the Keep’s library. I wished I could call a couple of people and ask them if they’d ever heard of something like that. But I had no resources beyond what was in my head and what few books I’d brought with me. Fixating on lamassu would do me no good; there was no indication that lamassu were shapeshifters. When an investigation first began, you simply collected facts. I was still in the collecting-facts stage. Drawing conclusions at this point would cause me to select facts that supported my theories and ignore those that didn’t. That was a slippery slope at the end of which lay more dead bodies.

Magic had ways of spitting out new and bizarre things into the world, so just because I hadn’t heard of them didn’t mean these guys didn’t have a long and bloody history somewhere. Up until now, I would’ve questioned the existence of weredolphins as well, but having killed a few turned me into a believer. If a werewhale waddled into the castle, I wouldn’t blink an eye. I’d look for a harpoon, but I wouldn’t be surprised.

So suppose this was some odd scale-covered weirdo type of never-before-seen shapeshifters. Why wasn’t Hugh turning the castle upside down looking for them? Hibla struck me as smart and capable but also a bit inexperienced. That wasn’t a strike against her—it was unlikely that this castle had ever been attacked and she cared about keeping it safe, so much so that she’d swallowed her pride and come to me for help. Considering how everybody and their mother had been lamenting the fact that I was not a shapeshifter and, therefore, must be inferior, Hibla’s coming to me was nothing short of a miracle.

So she didn’t have the experience to deal with it, but Hugh had experience in spades. Why wasn’t he taking any action?

The better question was, did he engineer this whole thing? If this was some sort of elaborate setup, I couldn’t see what he had to gain by it, but I couldn’t mark him off the list of potential suspects either, just like I couldn’t cross out Jarek Kral, the Volkodavi, or the Belve Ravennati.

I would have loved to eliminate one suspect. Just one. It didn’t even matter which one. If I could drop one faction from the list, I would do a jig right there in front of everyone and weep for joy.

The cleaning staff left. Derek raised his head and sniffed the air.

If somebody ever hired us for another bodyguarding job, I’d fight tooth and claw to bring Derek with us. He smelled people coming before I ever heard them.

“Who is it?” I asked.

“Isabella,” he said.

The matriarch of Belve Ravennati was coming to pay us a visit.

“I don’t want to talk to her!” Desandra jumped off the bed and took off for the bathroom.

Okay. I got up, and Derek and I blocked the doorway. Isabella Lovari strode down the stairs and toward us. A young dark-haired woman accompanied her.

They stopped before us.

“I’ve come to check on my grandchild.”

Someone must’ve told her about the vampire. “Desandra is safe. The babies are fine.”

“I will see for myself.”

“She doesn’t want to see you right now,” I said.

“I will have to insist,” Isabella said.

“Or you could choose to talk to her later at dinner,” I said.

Isabella narrowed her eyes and looked me over slowly. “For a human in the den of beasts, you have a lot of arrogance. What makes you think you’re safe?”

I’m sorry, I was a human? I had no idea. What a surprise. “What makes you think I’m not?” And what an awesome comeback that was. Wow, I showed her.

Isabella smiled, her eyes cold like two chunks of coal. “When an alpha stands in front of you, the proper response is respect and fear, you human idiot. Were you a shapeshifter, you would know this.”

Name-calling, huh.

Derek bared his teeth.

“If I cringed every time an alpha of another shapeshifter pack showed his teeth, I would be you.”

Isabella glared at me. The woman at her side tensed.

Did you like that? Here, have another one. “Where I come from, we don’t give up our daughters-in-law just because Jarek Kral snarls. But I understand you do things differently. If Kral ever decides to take away your lunch money, let me know and we’ll help you out.”

Isabella blinked. The dark-haired woman said something in Italian. Isabella’s stare gained a deadly edge. “This will help you not at all. You are being replaced, and you are so stupid, you don’t even realize it. When a shapeshifter loves a woman, he doesn’t let another woman hunt next to him, nor does he let her finish his kills. When Lennart throws you away, I will be waiting.”