The Prof Croft Series: Books 0-4 (Prof Croft Box Sets Book 1) by Brad Magnarella (best business books of all time txt) 📕

my exhaustion, leaving me feeling faint and sick. “Tell me whatever you know about my mother and get out.”

“Ah, about that. I’ve decided to give you a choice.” He reached into a coat pocket and held up the ring his blood slave had ripped from my finger the night before. The rearing dragon flashed dully in the faint light. “You can have the information on your mother, or you can have your grandfather’s ring.”

I automatically reached for the ring, then hesitated and pulled back.

“Very good.” Arnaud’s eyes sparkled as he pocketed the ring again. “About twenty years before his death, your grandfather came to see me.”

“He did?”

“Yes, it was just as unexpected for me. Following our campaign in Europe, we drifted apart, pursued our own interests. While I built my empire in lower Manhattan, your grandfather worked an assortment of odd jobs, at one point as a common magician, before choosing the insurance trade. It puzzled me. I had seen him on the battlefield, and believe me when I tell you he was exceptionally powerful. On the night he came to see me, however, he was exceptionally inebriated. The poor man could barely hold himself up. His coat and hat were waterlogged, and the state of his shoes told me he’d been kicking around the filthy streets for hours. He asked for another drink, and I obliged him. ‘They killed her,’ he murmured into his glass. ‘My God, they killed her.’”

I straightened. “My mother?”

“I can only presume. Her death announcement appeared in the paper the following day. Sudden illness.”

That was what I had been told as well. “Who’s they? Who killed her?”

“Your grandfather never said. He left shortly after his arrival.”

“So why tell you?”

Arnaud gave a small shrug. “Who can say? Perhaps his drunkenness exaggerated whatever kinship he may have felt from our shared past. Or perhaps he had no one else to confide in.”

I studied the tips of my own filthy shoes, feeling cold and small. I thought back to Grandpa’s fury when I snuck into his locked study at thirteen. I remembered the flash of his sword, his stern admonition: You must not be foolish, Everson. Things heard cannot be unheard. Things seen unseen. Things spoken unspoken. And it is this last that is most important for those of our blood.

There was so much he hadn’t wanted me to know—about him, about myself. That had become clear to me over the years. But was it because of what had happened to his daughter, my mother?

“Well, then,” Arnaud said abruptly, placing the empty glass on an end table and pushing himself to his feet. “It seems all agreements have been satisfied. Until we meet again, remember what you’ve learned these last days. The city will be changing, and not for the better, I’m afraid. Not where our kind are concerned. Be alert for the signs, Mr. Croft. The changes may come quick and violent.”

His black cape floated up as he paced to the door, opened it, and then shut it behind him.

I remained on the couch, not sure whether to finish healing my injuries and take a badly needed shower or to curl into a fetal position, close my eyes, and wish the rest of the world away.

They killed her. My God, they killed her.

41

I decided to save the fetal position for another time. I willed myself to the shower, where hot water soon dissolved the dirt and dried blood and sent them swirling down the drain. I treated my injuries. I fed Tabitha, forced down a bowl of cereal, and climbed into bed. The last thirty hours collapsed against my buzzing consciousness, dropping me into a dreamless abyss.

I was awakened by knocking. I opened my eyes to a night-dark apartment. I had slept through the day.

The knocking resumed. I rolled onto my other side, away from the front door, but when the knocking returned a third time, I sat up.

What now?

After a stop in the bathroom to scoop water against my face and swish some mouthwash, I cinched my robe and, cane in grip, squinted through the peephole. I quickly twisted the bolts and opened the door.

“Caroline?” I stammered, turning on the floodlights. “What are you doing here?”

“May I?” she asked, stepping past me.

I locked the door behind her and took her coat, hanging my cane beside it on the rack. Though fae power moved around her, she wore mortal attire: a white blouse and long khaki skirt, leather boots.

She turned toward me, a heaviness in her eyes.

“What is it?” I asked.

She stepped forward until it only seemed natural for me to hold her. She slipped her arms beneath mine and around my back and nestled her head against my shoulder. She rocked me slowly, her warmth pulsating against me.

“My father’s cancer is in remission,” she said.

I nodded over her. “I’m glad to hear that. I really am.”

“Everson…” She paused and held me tighter. “I’m still getting used to this, to being fae, but I can feel things I couldn’t before. I never knew the depths of your emotions around, you know, us. I should have seen it.”

“Or maybe I should have just told you.”

She leaned back and studied my face. I wasn’t sure what she saw, but I didn’t try to hide anything. I was too spent. She kissed each of my cheeks, her lips soft against my whiskers. Healing energy whispered through me. When she looked at me again, I sensed her reluctance to pull away.

I couldn’t watch her leave a second time.

Inhaling the perfume of her magic, I leaned down and pressed my lips to hers. The kiss deepened, and we moved in a dizzying slow dance. Across the living room, into my bedroom, across the bed.

I pushed everything else away. My fallout with Vega, my mother’s death, Arnaud’s warning about a coming purge, Caroline’s marriage to a fae. I shoved them clear from the thrumming now.

When we came up for air, I looked down on her. With her golden hair fanning against the