Read Online Romancing The Dead by Tate Hallaway - Free Book Online

were alive, and, even though the order wanted us eliminated, he ’d walked away without letting on that there was a chance we had survived the ordeal. It had been mercy so much as Mátyás was capable of it. “Fine,” I said. “Are you planning on betraying us now?”
    His eyes narrowed to slits. The fingers holding the beer bottle tightened. “No.”
    I stared at him trying to decide if I believed him.
    Mátyás broke eye contact to look at the wall clock. “It’s only been a couple of hours. Maybe we shouldn’t be pointing fingers just yet. It’s possible he’ll come home any minute—blood on his lips and a spring in his step.”
    “Stop it,” I said, though I knew it was a distinct possibility.
    “If he’s not back by morning, you can paint me as the villain then, okay?”
    Not back by morning? My heart skipped in my throat. “Bright Goddess, Mátyás, you don’t think . . . ? He’ll be back by then, won’t he?”
    “Yes, of course, he will,” Mátyás said, though his eyes didn’t meet mine. Reaching for his cell phone, he said, “Look, maybe we should try Papa again.”
    I nodded and watched anxiously as he dialed. In the quiet of the kitchen, I could hear the phone ring. By the third tone, I knew there would be no answer. Mátyás stared at the ceiling as Sebastian’s voice asked him to leave a message. He said something short and curt in a language I didn’t recognize—not that I knew a lot of languages, but it wasn’t Spanish, which I knew the sound of from spending some formative years with Sesame Street .
    As he snapped the phone shut, it occurred to me that Sebastian might be ignoring any calls with Mátyás’s caller ID. “We should try from here too,” I said.
    “You think he’s avoiding my calls?”
    Mátyás sounded genuinely hurt by the suggestion, so I was gentle when I said, “It’s good to cover all our bases, don’t you think?”
    But I didn’t have better luck. As I replaced the receiver in its cradle, it occurred to me that there was supposed to be a way for me to check my cell phone voice mail remotely. I started hunting for the cell phone manual. I was sure Sebastian had kept it here at his place because he always teased me that I’d lose track of it. Which was true, of course. Pushing papers aside in his junk drawer, I wished he were here to tell me which “safe place” he’d put the damn thing in.
    I heard the bottle clink in the kitchen, which made me think of my neighbors’ recycling bins. I picked up the phone again and called my answering machine at the apartment to retrieve its messages. William had called to let me know that he ’d found a bunch of vegan pate recipes he planned on serving at the coven meeting at his place tomorrow. After that, there was a hang up. I tended to get a lot of those as my number was one digit off a hair styling salon, but this time it sounded ominous. I listened to the quick click click three times, straining to hear the sound of Sebastian’s breathing or any extraneous noises. Did that sound like how Sebastian usually hung up the phone? As I finally gave up trying to decipher it, Mátyás came into the living room. I could tell he was acting cool and distant again by the swagger in his hips. “Still no answer, eh? She’s keeping him quite preoccupied.”
    I narrowed my eyes. “Am I really that much fun to poke at?”
    “Yes.” Mátyás smiled, leaning his hip against the backside of the couch. “You’ll make an excellent wicked stepmother.”
    “I suppose that makes you Cinderella?”
    “Prince Charming.” He smiled.
    “Oh, you’re a prince , all right.”
    “Finally, we agree on something,” Mátyás said, feigning exasperation, except a smile slipped out—one, much to my surprise, I found myself returning.
    The rumble of a passing semi rattled the window slightly, and for a second I mistook the sound for a car coming up the drive. I rushed to the curtain and glanced outside, disappointed by the bright red