“Has there been any sign of consciousness returning?” It was a rather inane question, because if there had been, Ilianna would have been straight on the phone to let me know.

She shook her head. “But his muscle responses seem to be improving, so that’s a good sign.”

“And the heat?”

Her gaze swept down his length. “His core temperature has come down a little and he’s not sweating as much, but he’s still radiating massive amounts of heat.”

No surprise given that he’d consumed a creature that was little more than a furnace on legs. That he’d done it to save Ilianna only made her feelings of guilt an even heavier cross to bear. I pulled up another chair and sat down. “Why don’t you go get something to eat? I’ll sit here with him until you return.”

She frowned. “I really don’t think—”

“Ilianna,” I said, gently but firmly, “Tao would be the first person to tell you off for running yourself into the ground for him. Besides, he’s going to need lots of care when he wakes up, and you know I suck at providing any sort of long-term sympathy or patience when it comes to tending to the sick.”

A smile briefly lifted the tiredness from her eyes. “Your bedside manner is robust, to say the least.”

“Which is why you don’t want to get sick, either, because then you’ll be at my not-so-tender mercy.”

“As threats go, that’s one of the best, but—”

“Ilianna, please, just go.”

She studied me dubiously for a moment, then sighed and grabbed her purse from beside the bed. “I’ll be as quick as I can.”

“Take your time and get something decent to eat. I’ll ring you if anything happens.”

She hesitated, obviously about to argue, then nodded. “Just make sure you do ring.”

“I will, I will. Now go.”

She went. I reached out for Tao’s hand, wincing a little at the heat of his fingers. How it wasn’t actually killing him I had no idea.

I spent the next hour simply talking to him—updating him on the restaurant and everything that was going on with the keys and our search for the mysterious third man behind the consortium. Maybe he heard, maybe he didn’t, but in the end that really wasn’t important. He was in there somewhere, and I just wanted him to hear my voice and know that we were near, waiting for him.

Ilianna returned just after two o’clock. She looked flushed and happy, and I very much suspected she’d gone home to see Mirri, her partner. Her apartment was only fifteen minutes away, if that.

“Feeling better?” I asked, amusement teasing my lips.

“Totally,” she said, dumping her purse beside her chair before sitting. “I’m so glad you forced me to go eat.”

“I hope you actually did remember to eat,” I said dryly. “Otherwise I’m going to tell Mirri off.”

She briefly looked startled, then chuckled softly. “I should have known a little afternoon delight would not escape the attention of a werewolf.”

“Not when you’re wearing such a satisfied smile. How’s Mirri doing?”

“Good.” She made a face. “But she’s on nights all this week.”

I frowned. “I thought there was some rule against giving mares too many night shifts?” Apparently because mares—which, like their animal counterparts, was what female horse-shifters were called—coped worse than most shifters when it came to nights. Something to do with their being more day balanced than night—whatever the hell that meant. Certainly Ilianna coped well enough with night shifts at the café, but then I guess she never did more than two nights in a row, since we rationed them out among the three of us. Or had, until Tao’s incident with the fire elemental. These days, it was mostly me, with trusted staff filling in for both Ilianna and Tao.

“There is, but with the ongoing strike, they’re running on skeleton staff to cover essential areas, and Mirri’s number came up.” She shrugged. “It’s only for five days, then she’s got five off. She’ll be fine.”

“Hopefully the strike will end before then.” The government surely couldn’t keep cutting nursing numbers and expect the hospitals to keep providing the same level of care. But there again, this was the government we were talking about. I was sure none of our elected officials actually lived in the real world.

“What are your plans for the rest of the day?” Ilianna asked.

“I’m working tonight, so I might just go home and grab some sleep.”

She raised an eyebrow. “What, Lucian kept you up all night again, did he?”

“Up, down, in, out, and sideways,” I replied with a grin.

She laughed. “If you could package and sell that man’s stamina, we’d make a fortune.”

Considering he put most werewolves to shame, we certainly would. My vid-phone rang, the sound sharp in the hushed confines of the small room. I reached into my purse and pulled it out. And my stomach sank.

It wasn’t just anyone calling me. It was Madeline Hunter. I was tempted to let it go to voice mail, but that would only result in pissing her off. Never a good thing to do when you were talking about one of the most powerful vampires in Australia.

I pressed the ANSWER button, and her image flashed onto the small screen. “Madeline, how lovely to hear from you.”

“Oh, I’m sure it is,” she said, her green eyes as cool as her voice. “But this is not a social call.”

“I didn’t think it was.”

“I imagine not.” She shifted, revealing the panoramic view out the window behind her. Surprise rippled through me. She was ringing from her office at the Directorate, so something serious must have happened, given that I was working for the vampire council, not the Directorate. If Uncle Rhoan—who was one of the Directorate’s top guardians and also something of a whiz at sniffing out unusual occurrences—got the slightest idea that I was, in any way, connected to Hunter or the Directorate, there’d be hell to pay. I had no doubt that both he and Aunt Riley—who was a consultant rather than an actual guardian these days—would even go as far as threatening Hunter herself. When it came to the safety of their pack—and they considered me one of theirs even if I wasn’t by birth—nothing and no one with any sense got in their way.

Of course, being in the employ of the vampire council was actually far worse than the Directorate ever could be. At least the Directorate was governed by rules and regulations. For all intents and purposes, the council was not. It was a shadowy organization at the best of times, and a rule unto itself at the worst.

Hunter added, “A problem has come to my attention that I believe might benefit from your expertise.”

“If it’s a Directorate investigation, why would you think you’d need my help?” Hell, they had witches on the payroll who’d probably forgotten more than I actually knew about the gray fields.

“This will not become a full Directorate investigation, although guardians have performed discreet preliminary inquiries.”

It wasn’t like I had a choice about getting involved, but still, curiosity stirred. “Why restrict the Directorate like that? Does it involve the council again?”

“No. But it does involve a certain aspect of the vampire world that we have no wish to make more generally known.”

“So vamps have secret lives? Who’d have guessed that?” I said, a tad more sarcastically than was wise.

Anger flashed across her expression, and something within me chilled. Don’t poke the bear, I reminded myself fiercely. Not if you want to avoid being executed by the high council.

“Vampires are hardly alone in keeping secrets,” she said, her voice crisp, holding little of the fire I’d seen only a heartbeat ago. That I’d even seen it suggested that whatever the problem was, it was big. Or at the very least, annoying. “And you would do well to remember that, considering how well your mother kept her own secrets.”

“My mother’s secrets were little more than an unorthodox birth and upbringing, and it’d be of little use to anyone now to reveal it.” As Jak would say, she was old news. “Speaking of my mother, just what is happening with the hunt for her killer? You did promise to put full resources behind the investigation if I helped you and the council.”

She paused, considering me for a moment, reminding me very much of a cat studying its prey and wondering whether to eat it or play with it. “The hunt is currently at a standstill.”

That much I’d gathered. “Why?”

“Because there are no leads. Whoever killed your mother did so without leaving any sort of trace evidence.”

“Given her battered state—” I paused, swallowing heavily as I tried to ignore the memories that rose. “How could the killer have left no evidence whatsoever? Even if he was wearing a full DNA containment suit, there must have at least been footprint smudges.”

There’d been too much of her blood, too much of her flesh and body parts, splattered around. No killer, no matter how careful, should have been able to get out of that kitchen without leaving some trace of himself. Unless he could fly. But even then, there should have been DNA evidence of a shape-shift—even if it was only feather fluff lost in the change.

“The Directorate is at a loss to explain it, and neither they nor the Cazadors have had any luck uncovering anyone who might have wanted your mother dead.”

So she had kept her word and thrown the resources of the council behind the hunt. She’d ordered a Cazador—who were basically the vampire council’s leashed killers—to look into it. It was actually more than I’d thought she would do, even though she had made the promise.

“So we’re looking for a ghost?”

“Or an Aedh.”

Her words hit like ice, chilling me to the bone. An Aedh could get in and out unseen, and they certainly had the capability to tear a body apart without leaving any trace of themselves behind. Hell, I could do it if I wanted to. It was the nastier side of my Aedh heritage, one I’d been reluctantly taught by Quinn, Riley’s vampire lover and a man who’d once trained to be an Aedh priest.