Page 28 of Fortune's Blade

“Father is trying to use your presence here to shore up support for the alliance with your senate,” Tanet elaborated, digging through his bowl. “He’s banking on everybody assuming that we’re so important to your plans that a pair of senators were sent on a diplomatic mission.”

“And you don’t approve?” I guessed, although I didn’t need to. He wasn’t exactly subtle.

He scowled, the latest struggling sacrifice in hand. “I’ve been to your world. Your senate could give a shit about us, except for how many of us are willing die fighting your war—”

“It isn’t their war. It belongs to all of us,” Claire began.

“—and neither do you. You’re not here for us; you’re here for your sister. And have somehow persuaded mine to help you out.”

“She didn’t persuade me of anything,” Claire said hotly, but Tanet only scowled and ate his latest victim, washing it down with wine.

It mingled with the blood on his chin from his supper, but he wiped it away carelessly with one velvet sleeve. Tamris quickly refilled his cup, without waiting for it to be empty or for a servant to do it. Judging from the way she was gazing at him, it was clear that she was either besotted or planning to be the next lady of the manor.

Or both.

I didn’t give much for her chances, as Tanet barely seemed to register her presence. He paid more attention to the servants who occasionally flew by offering struggling delicacies than to the pretty girl in the starry dress. Which I suspected she had worn just for him, as she kept arranging and rearranging it to best effect.

I felt sorry for her, but worse for us. What was supposed to be a quick in and out for a few guides was turning into a more fraught situation than I had expected. I wondered why Claire hadn’t warned us.

Maybe because we needed her family’s help and this was the only way to get it, I thought wryly. And it was just as well, as Louis-Cesare wouldn’t have come had anyone mentioned possible danger to me. He was getting better about his natural overprotectiveness, but that was on Earth.

This would have been a step too far.

But he was realizing the problem now.

“You sound as if you agree with those who attacked us earlier,” he said to Tanet, deceptively mildly.

It wasn’t mild enough as Tanet’s eyes flashed red for a moment, before calming back down to their usual brown. “They didn’t attack you, or you wouldn’t be here. One of them touched you—a display of bravado that ended up getting a guard killed. You haven’t been here a day and already people are dying.”

“And you’re afraid that more will follow,” I said, because clearly.

“Shouldn’t I be?”

“Tanet,” Claire began, but he ignored her.

“If you want to get yourself killed, be my guest,” he told me. “But leave my family—including my sister—out of it.”

“You don’t speak for me!” Claire said.

“Perhaps not, but someone needs to. And I don’t see that harebrained light fey prince you married around anywhere—”

“You know why!”

“Yes, I do. Do You?” he asked archly but didn’t give her a chance to reply. “Go home,” he told me. “While you still can. You may be a fearsome vampire senate leader back on Earth, but here?” He deliberately ate another struggling rodent in front of me, taking his time, letting me watch the little legs go limp as he bit down and then slurped up the tiny tail. And grinned at me through red-stained teeth. “You’re just dinner.”

“Stop trying to scare her!” Claire said, furiously. “You know she’ll never find Dorina alone—”

“She’ll never find her at all. Her information on the woman’s last location is weeks old.”

“So, we shouldn’t even try?”

“Not if living is something you’d like to continue to enjoy,” he said darkly.

“I haven’t been enjoying it much lately.”

“More than you would on the border of Nimue’s old lands. Things have descended into chaos over there since her death. Everyone’s trying to snatch a piece of the pie before her people appoint another monarch, and until they do, the borders change daily—”

“That doesn’t mean—”