Page 15

Vampire monks, or so I’d been told, knew how to party, but I wasn’t sure if I was going to this one. I’d had all day to rest, while being attended by an absolute throng of servants, to the point that I’d finally had to lock the door to keep them out of the room so I could nap. It was night again now, and I was feeling surprisingly well, all things considered; that wasn’t the problem.

Thatwas the problem, I thought, staring into the mirror.

“You look lovely,” the woman behind me said.

It was That Bitch, whose real name was Maha. I’d been told that it meant “Beautiful Cow” which . . . okay. Different strokes. She and I had made up, and as a peace offering, she was in my bathroom, attempting to get me ready for the party to end all parties, celebrating the death of the bastard downstairs.

There was just one problem.

“I don’t think it fits,” I said, tugging on the latest fake hairdo.

Glamouries didn’t work at this court, so she’d come up with a selection of wigs to cover my no longer burnt, but terribly bald head. There was everything from short and blonde to vibrant red and flowy, along with a brunette that almost matched my real hair in cut and style. Because it turned out that, while vamp healers could repair a damaged brain and heal baldly burned flesh, they could not regrow hair.

Not that I was totally bald. It was more like a third of my hair that was missing in action, all along the left side of my head, from above the ear to the nape. But it was not festive.

“You just have to get used to it,” she told me, with her own long, lustrous, beautiful hair rippling down to her butt. She’d had it up before, in a no-nonsense bun, but tonight it was down and it was glorious.

I sighed.

“Can I see the brunette one again?”

She obliged and I tugged it on, but the same problem persisted. It’s hard to fit a wig, any wig, when your own hair is so lopsided. After a few frustrating moments, I pulled the dark, shiny mass off again and stared at my terrible reflection.

Maybe I’d just get room service.

“There is another option,” Maha said, holding out her hand. On the palm was a familiar sight, although not a familiar shape. I picked up the little golden item she was offering and frowned at it. It was beautiful, like a delicate brooch made in the form of a spray of flowers, with the gold work so fine that the tiny stems quivered whenever it moved.

But it wasn’t a brooch. The tell-tale thrum of a magical tat vibrated against my palm, although softer than I was used to. Not weaker but . . . different. There was magic here, but not a kind I knew.

“It’s a weapon?” I asked, looking up at her.

Maha laughed. And then the laughter faded, and her face became somber. “What kind of life have you lived?” she asked softly. “That that is the only magic you know?”

“It isn’t the only kind,” I said, feeling defensive. An emotion that melted away into wonder when she turned me around to face the mirror again, and placed the tiny object—not in my hair, as I’d expected, since I didn’t see what else she could do with it. But on my bald skin.

No, make that in my skin, I realized, as it melted into the surface the same way that my little bird had done. But while the birdie had had an immediate effect on my senses, this charm didn’t seem to make any difference at all. And then the most amazing thing happened.

“Do you like it?” Maha asked, watching my face.

Well, obviously, I didn’t say, but not because I was practicing my diplomacy. But because I was honestly speechless for a moment. The delicate spray of stems, flowers and leaves had expanded, twining along my bare patch of scalp until they covered it in an exuberance of beauty. And unlike most tats, even magical ones, this wasn’t a mere blue outline. This looked like the tattoo had been made with liquid gold.

It glimmered against my skin and set off my dark hair like a diadem. I laughed in wonder, and felt it gingerly when it finally stopped. It was solid and cool under my fingertips. It was amazing.

“I look like that chick from Hunger Games,” I said. “You know, the one with the camera crew?”

“You look beautiful,” Maha said, and it sounded genuine.

I met her eyes in the mirror. “Thank you.”

She ducked her head. “There is a command for when you wish to remove it. I will write it down for you.”

“I’ll return it in good condition,” I promised.

She looked startled. “But it is a gift.”

“A gift?” I put a hand back to the delicate tracery, feeling it slide solidly under my touch. “But . . . I couldn’t. It’s too much—”

“Too much?” Those beautiful eyes flashed.

“Uh, I just meant—”

“I know what you meant.” It was grim. “I have seen how you have been treated, since you arrived. I did not add to it, but I did not object, either, to my shame. The men’s crude comments; the women’s jealousy; virtually everyone declining to so much as touch your hand, thinking you tainted. And for what? An accident of birth you could not control, and which gave you the abilities to save us all?”

I blinked at her. “I . . . didn’t exactly—”

She didn’t want to hear it. “You saved our consul. Our leader for time out of mind, and my Sire. I will not forget that. I do not speak for the others, but as for me, you have made a friend this day, Dorina Basarab.”

“Dory,” I said, and tried to ignore the pang that the other name caused. It was hard considering that, while I may have helped to solve a problem for Hassani, I hadn’t done a damned thing about finding my sister. She’d been gone for almost a day, and I knew little more than I had when she was taken.

I needed to change that.

“Thank you,” I said to Maha. “I don’t have a lot of friends. I’ll be grateful to count you as one.”

She smiled, and then impulsively hugged me. “I will leave you to change.”

“Is Hassani going to be at the party?” I asked, because I had a few questions for the wily old consul.

“Yes, he says he is feeling up to it.” She looked fondly exasperated. “And none of us would gainsay him.”

She left and I turned to the next challenge: what to wear.

Twenty minutes later, I was still working on it, thanks to dear uncle Radu.

I hadn’t had a lot of time to prep for this mission, and my wardrobe was seriously deficient for a high-level diplomatic trip. I’d made the mistake of calling on Radu for help, as he had the time and was interested in fashion. And, yeah, I don’t know what I’d been thinking, either.

Laid out on the bed and hung around the room were a couple dozen evening outfits. All of them were beautiful, all of them were expensive, and all of them would have looked perfectly appropriate on a high-priced hooker. Radu’s idea of diplomacy apparently involved vamping the hell out of whoever I met by showing as much skin as possible.

In fairness to him, the sexy all-black, all-silver, or all blood red color scheme, and the sleek, sultry lines worked great at our home court, where they complimented my father’s minimalist Armani wardrobe and heightened the already strong family resemblance. Clothes were weapons there, designed to remind people of your age or power or family affiliation. And the Basarab faction was looking strong these days.

But it couldn’t have been more out of place here.

Maha had had on a white and gold caftan like garment with long, fitted sleeves and delicate gold embroidery over the shoulders and down the front. It had covered her from neck to toes, yet hadn’t looked restrictive, moving gracefully when she walked and highlighting her dark beauty. I needed something comparable, something elegant but classy, something . . .

Completely unlike any of these.

I sighed, biting my lip. I never cared much about clothes, but these people . . . they were trying, suddenly. I’d been mobbed all afternoon by shamefaced men bearing flowers and embarrassed looking women inquiring after my health and plying me with food I didn’t want, because whatever sedative Maha had given me had shut down my system. We’d all misunderstood each other, but now . . . well, I wanted to show that I was trying, too, by respecting their customs. But the only caftan-y thing I owned was—

Well, there was a thought.

I walked over to my luggage and pulled out the package from Aswan. It was wrapped in simple brown paper, which seemed completely inadequate for the spill of royal purple that fell into my hands, shimmering softly. The color had been in-your-face glaring in the simple market stall, but now it looked deeper, richer, and far more luxurious. I hesitated for a moment, then shucked my bathrobe and pulled the swath of silk over my head. It was careful not to catch it on my new floral accessory, but needn’t have worried. The smooth, golden lines stayed flat against my skin, and the garment itself was surprisingly light.

Despite the embroidery, it felt soft and filmy, almost like I wasn’t wearing anything. But it fully covered me from neck to feet. And the fact that there were only a couple of short slits at the sides that didn’t even make it to my knees, the modest vee of the neckline, and the full length, loose sleeves meant that, for once, I didn’t have to worry about flashing anyone. I might even be able to wear normal panties!

I found myself getting ridiculously excited by the idea, before calming back down.

I hadn’t seen what it looked like yet.

There was a full-length mirror in the bathroom, but I didn’t need it. The one over the dresser was big and showed something like two-thirds of my body from this far back. I kept my eyes closed, bracing myself, and uttering a little prayer that this would work, because I didn’t know what I was supposed to do otherwise.

It’s gonna be bad, I told myself. Just accept it. The question was, is it better than the others?

I opened my eyes.

Royal purple wasn’t something I normally wore. For years I’d dressed for the job, and that meant midnight blue, which is actually harder to see at night than black, or black, or—if I was trying to seduce a target long enough to get him away from his goons—bright red. But maybe I ought to rethink that.

Because purple . . . looked pretty good.

Make that very good, I thought, surprised. It was kind to my complexion and brought out heretofore unnoticed depths in my hair and eyes. The gold spangles, which had looked so gaudy amid sweaty tourists and a profusion of other colors and fabrics, looked strangely fitting here. The embroidery work was really very fine, and even the huge phoenix on the back didn’t take away from the whole. In fact, it added a merry, what the hell quality to it.

This was a happy, party sort of robe, swishy and fun.

And I was pretty sure that I even had the right shoes to go with it.

I got so involved in finding the goddess sandals, with flat soles and gold leather, that Radu had insisted on packing, and then doing my eye makeup—because when else were Cleopatra eyes gonna be suitable—that I failed to notice I had an observer.

Some sixth sense had me looking up, to find Louis-Cesare leaning against the door, holding a huge bouquet and smiling slightly as he watched me. I checked out the flowers in the mirror, which were beautiful but unnecessary, especially since it looked like he’d bought out the shop. I finished the eye I was working on, completing my over the top look, and turned around to lean against the dresser.

“That’s not gonna help you.”

He produced a ridiculously huge box of chocolates from behind his back.

“And neither is that.”

Then he brought out the big guns, and proffered a bottle, which initially confused me, because where did he get three hands? But it turned out that the flowers were actually in the crook of his arm, so that was all right. I walked over and regarded the bottle, which was a distinctive shape.

“You’re really sorry, huh?” I asked, taking the fat little jug of Louis-XIII, better known as the cognac of the gods.

And then he ruined it.

“I am sorry you were upset,” he informed me.

I looked up in surprise. “Oh. So, we’re gonna fight?” I waggled the bottle at him. “Then why bring out the good stuff?”

He frowned. “I have no desire to fight. But I cannot apologize when I did nothing wrong.”

I bent over and carefully placed the bottle onto the bedside table, because there was no reason to risk good cognac. Then I stood up and smiled. Louis-Cesare started to look worried.

“Nothing wrong?” I asked. “You’re seriously leading with that?”

His back straightened.

Yeah, we were gonna fight.

“And are you seriously telling me that you didn’t see that . . . thing . . . target you? It chased you halfway around the temple!”

“Because I was shooting at it—”

“Or because Jonathan told it to!”

I scowled. “You heard what it said; it didn’t take orders. And anyway, Jonathan doesn’t care about me. Jonathan probably doesn’t even remember me—”

“He remembers you.” It was grim.

“Isn’t it more likely that he was here for you? He’s obsessed with you—”

Louis-Cesare brushed it away. “It amounts to the same thing. If he caught you, he knows I’d do anything, give him anything, even betray the family to keep you safe.”

I’d been about to say something else, but I stopped, wondering how I was supposed to reply to that. It was often a problem with us; Louis-Cesare could be incredibly tight lipped when he wanted to be, but when he did talk, he just laid it all out there. He somehow managed to be infuriatingly stiff necked and completely vulnerable at the same time, and it never ceased to throw me.

For once, I decided to reply in kind.

“And if he caught you, do you really think I wouldn’t come after you? That I’d just sit around and let him do whatever he wanted? That I wouldn’tgut him for touching you?”

Louis-Cesare blinked, and I wondered just who the hell he’d thought he married. Did he think Dorina was the only savage part of me? Did he not realize that, on most of my hunts, she hadn’t even been awake?

And there’d been plenty of carnage, all the same.

“I’m a hunter,” I reminded him. “It’s what I’ve done most of my life. I’m good at it.”

“I know.”

“Then let’s hunt him together.” I put a hand on his arm. It was tense, but it had already been that way before I touched him, and he didn’t pull away. I tightened my grip. “I can track him. I can track anyone. Together, we can—”

“No.”

It was flat—and exasperating. And if I’d thought it was coming from a place of ‘me man, you woman, you do as I say,’ we’d have had a problem. And in fairness, I didn’t know that that wasn’t what this was.

But it didn’t look like it. His jaw was hard and set, but his eyes were haunted. Something about the expression made me want to protect him, which was absurd. Louis-Cesare didn’t need anyone’s protection. But it didn’t feel that way right now, and emotion softened my tone.

“We complement each other,” I said. “You can do things I simply can’t, especially now. I can do things you won’t, or wouldn’t think of. And Dorina is my sister. He knows where she is. We find him, we find her, or at least where to look for her—”

“I said no!” The blue eyes, so vulnerable a moment ago, blazed. And he did pull back then, an angry, abrupt gesture.

I let him go. “And you think that ends it?” I demanded. “That you forbid it and that’s it?”

“I think I know Jonathan a little better than you do! If you would listen—”

“I can’t listen when you’re not talking to me.”

“I’ve told you all I can—”

“You’ve told me nothing—”

“Damn it, Dory! Let it go!” He threw out an arm, which happened to be the one cradling the flowers. They went tumbling to the floor and, apparently, the silken ribbon keeping them all together hadn’t been tied properly, because they scattered everywhere. I got down on my hands and knees to gather them back together, and after a moment, Louis-Cesare joined me.

For a moment, we just picked up flowers.

“It isn’t enough,” I finally said.

He didn’t reply.

“Why is this so hard?” I asked. “I thought we were a team—”

“We are a team.”

“But not on this. I want to understand. Explain it to me.”

More nothing. It was starting to piss me off. I felt for whatever he was going through, I really did, but I was going through something here, too.

“Okay, then I’ll explain it to you,” I said, sitting back on my heels. “Dorina is my responsibility. Ray is my responsibility. I don’t know what happened to either of them, but I’m going to find out, and Jonathan is the key.”

“The fey—”

“I don’t know the fey. I can’t track the fey. I can track him.” I met his eyes. “And I will—with or without you.”

I had expected anger, possibly even an explosion considering how things had been going. I didn’t get it. Instead, Louis-Cesare looked . . . bewildered, as if he’d never before been confronted by someone he couldn’t simply order around. You, sit there. You, come with me. You, hang out and do your nails until I return.

Assuming I ever do.

“Boy, did you marry the wrong woman,” I told him frankly.

“I didn’t.” It was rough. “I love your spirit, your independence—”

“Except right now.”

He paused, but he was fundamentally an honest person and always had been. “Except right now,” he agreed.

He sat down among the profusion of flowers, some of which were clinging to his trousers. I picked off a rose that had gripped him by its thorns so that it wouldn’t stain. It was blood red and velvety soft—the petals, anyway. It reminded me of the ones he’d scattered on our bed on our original honeymoon, which had been in the room I was renting from a friend, because things had been too crazy to allow us to get away right then.

They had stained, too, crushed and ground into the sheets by morning to the point that I’d had to throw that bedding away.

I grinned.

Worth it.

“Why are you smiling?” Louis-Cesare asked, watching me.

I twirled the rose around in my fingers. “I was thinking about Radu,” I lied, because I wasn’t ready to make up yet. “He’d love it here. He’d be in full-on Napoleon-during-his-Egyptian-campaign mode: flowing burnoose, silk cummerbund, turned up shoes—”

Louis-Cesare’s lip twitched.

“—maybe he could even talk some sense into you.”

The smile faded. “I’m not the one who needs to see sense. I want you protected!”

“And I want to find my sister—”

“I will find your sister. I promised—”

“To never treat me like an inferior again.” I looked at him. “Or did that only apply to Dorina?”

I was referring to another, similar incident, when Louis-Cesare had taken it on himself to try to fight one of my battles for me. That had not ended well, with Dorina coming very close to attacking him for the implication that she couldn’t handle herself. That sort of thing was not only incredibly rude in vamp circles, it was dangerous.

In a society where people were constantly jockeying for position, appearing weak was an open invitation.

Louis-Cesare didn’t answer. But, this time, there was a pregnancy in the silence that hadn’t been there before. He was finally listening, and he was thinking. I just wished he’d do it out loud, so I could figure out how his mind worked.

But my hubby was not a talker.

“If we do this,” he finally said. “If we hunt him together . . .”

“Yes?”

“I take him down. When I tell you to back off, you back off, no questions asked. You do not engage him yourself—”

“Is this about his magic? Because I know about magic—”

I suddenly found my wrist grasped in a hold of steel. “This is about you doing as I ask! Promise me!”

There was something in his face that stopped the response that trembled on my lips, something that kept me from pulling back and telling him off. It wasn’t anger, or even the wounded pride of a master not used to being challenged. It was worse.

It was fear.

I searched those blue eyes, but couldn’t tell if it was fear of Jonathan or for me, or a combination of the two. I only knew that this issue frightened my husband when nothing else did, so it frightened me as well. Which only made me more determined that, whatever had put that look in his eyes, he would not face it alone.

“Of course. He’s your kill.”

“I mean it, Dory. I know how you are—tenacious, brave, stubborn. But no arguments. Not on this. When I say you leave, you leave. Immediately.”

I sat there for a moment, wanting to ask what the hell Jonathan had done to him, what there was that I didn’t already know. But I bit my tongue. He would tell me when he was ready, or he wouldn’t. He’d already made a big concession tonight, one that he obviously did not want to make.

It was enough.

“I promise,” I said.