Jacket unbuttoned but still looking uncomfortable, Dominic began. “When I came to New Florida with Marissa, Chrysabelle’s mother, things were not good for us. We were forced to leave Corvinestri with little more than the clothing on our backs. Marissa was severely injured during the fight required to gain her freedom.”
“Libertas,” Creek said.
“Si.” He crossed one leg over the other, picking at the crease of his pants. “She was paralyzed from the waist down.” Not a spark of silver in his eyes. Instead, he seemed to stare blindly at a spot on the arm of the chair. “None of that mattered to the way I felt about her. I loved her regardless. I knew her feelings for me were not as strong as mine for her, but I understand now why that was. Everything she did, she did in the hopes of saving her daughter.”
He smiled a little. “Marissa was such a fighter, so strong-willed and so beautiful.” One hand drifted to his chest. He shook his head and his hand came back down. “Like I was saying, she was paralyzed. We went to every doctor we could, spent money we didn’t have on therapies and untested cures, and all of it? Per niente. In vain.”
He scowled. “Half of those doctors were worthless to begin with, but I was willing to try. For her, anything. But eventually the debt was too much. Marissa insisted we stop trying. That she’d come to terms with what had happened to her and she just wanted to move on.”
“I could not accept that there was nothing I could do.” Tipping his head back a little, he stared into the heights of the ceiling. “Then one night, about a year after she’d given up, I heard about a woman who might be able to help us. A healer.”
“My grandmother?”
“Rosa Mae Jumper.” Dominic looked at Mawmaw. “She was not happy to see me when I showed up on her doorstep.”
Creek snorted. “You’re lucky she didn’t stake you.”
Dominic canted his head as if remembering. “She almost did.”
Mawmaw brushed her hand through the air. “It helped that he came bearing gifts.”
Creek raised a brow.
“I brought her a vial of my blood,” Dominic answered.
Mawmaw nodded. “I knew if he was willing to give me that, he wasn’t there to hurt me.”
“I told her everything. Including that I had no money to pay her with. In return she gave me a remedy and the promise that I only had to give her a favor if the medicine worked.” He shrugged. “How could I pass that up? I went home and started slipping the potion into Marissa’s evening tea as your grandmother instructed me.”
He sighed. “It had no effect. Or so I thought. When I went with Mal and Chrysabelle to Corvinestri to rescue Marissa from Tatiana’s clutches, I found out she could walk. She’d been hiding the ability for who knows how long. I knew right then your grandmother’s remedy had worked.”
“How did you know it was her remedy that did the trick?”
Dominic narrowed his eyes. “I am an alchemist. I have a feel for these things. I knew.” A pained look crossed his face. “Also, it wasn’t long after I started giving her the remedy that she began to pull away from me. I believe now that it was because she wanted the freedom to retrain without having to continue the pretense of her injury with me.”
Creek just nodded, a little awed by Dominic’s story. The man wasn’t exactly the monster he’d believed him to be.
“After we returned to Paradise City, after Maris was buried and I’d made my peace with her death, I went to see your grandmother again. To tell her what had happened and to acknowledge that I owed her a favor. She told me when she needed it, she would let me know.”
Creek leaned back, studying his grandmother. The short, gray-haired woman in the chair across from him suddenly looked very different. He shook his head as he spoke to her. “My bond price was the favor.”
She held the thick paper coffee cup with both hands. “It would have been a not-guilty verdict, but Dominic couldn’t make that happen. And not because he didn’t try.”
Dominic balled one fist. “Human courts…” He snorted in disgust.
Mawmaw poked her finger into her knee. “This, however—this was something he could do.”
Dominic stood and buttoned his jacket. “And now that it’s done, I should go.”
Creek got up. “Does Chrysabelle know anything about this?”
“No. Not even Marissa knew the real reason she regained her legs. Some things don’t need telling.” Dominic raised a brow. “This is one of them.”
Creek nodded. “Fine. But what about us? Our agreement.”
“I assume you still want a job?”
“I do.”
“Then I’ll expect you at the club by sundown.”
Creek looked up at the sleeping loft. “Considering I have to be out of here in twenty-four hours, I can be there a lot sooner than that.”
Dominic bowed to Mawmaw. “A pleasure to see you.” She nodded back at him, and then he walked toward the door. As he passed Creek, he tossed him something.
Creek caught it. A key. “What’s this for?”
“Your apartment at Seven. Yours for as long as you work for me.” He pushed the door back. “Mortalis, we have an appointment to keep.”
Chapter Forty-eight
Chrysabelle lifted her hand to knock on the door of the old church, but it creaked open before she touched it. Preacher glared at her from the dim interior, his gaze skipping briefly over Lilith to shoot straight to where Mal waited in the car. After a long, hard look, his gaze returned to her. “Comarré. What brings you here?”