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Iwoke up—again—in a strange bed—again—although the sheets smelled of butterscotch, so I wasn’t too worried. I’d never told my lover that he reminded me of my favorite candy and couldn’t now because he was gone. Maybe off explaining to Hassani why we’d switched rooms.

And torched his rug.

And scandalized his servants.

Or, knowing Louis-Cesare, who had the aristocrat’s disdain for explaining anything, he hadn’t so much as mentioned it.

Yeah, that was absolutely what he’d do, I thought, grinning slightly and getting out of bed. I padded over to the bathroom, which was huge and luxurious. Because Hassani might have the reputation of a scholarly monk, but he didn’t live like it.

I eyed the stone pool—that was the only word for it—that took pride of place in the center of the room and easily fit two. It would probably fit ten, but we’d hadn’t had ten this past week, when we’d thoroughly enjoyed the one in our old suite. I thought that was just as well. Ten Louis-Cesares would probably kill me.

I opted for a shower this morning because it was quicker, then got out, dried off, and ran a comb through my hair. The Svarestri had almost scalped me on the left side of my bangs, so I parted the hair on the right to hide it, and decided it would do. This whole goodwill tour had required me to seriously up my game, not just wardrobe-wise but makeup-and-hair-wise as well. But today I was working, and I intended to look like it.

Fortunately, my luggage had been transferred over and placed just inside the foyer of the suite, and I’d remembered to pack some normal looking clothes. Black jeans, a matching t-shirt, and a pair of scuffed boots and I was feeling much better. Throw a leather jacket over this lot, and I might look like myself for the first time in weeks.

I smirked at a pair of four-inch pumps, and dropped the lid on them with finality.

Not today, assholes.

Not today.

I was zipping up the bag when I noticed that, while my luggage had been brought over, Louis-Cesare’s hadn’t. The set of soft brown calfskin was nowhere to be seen, not even the matching alligator toiletry bag I’d bought him for his birthday, because he used more shit on his hair than I did. I wondered if Hassani was trying to separate us after our wild night, before we corrupted the Children.

Good luck with that, I thought, and flung open the door.

And met the man himself on my way out of the suite.

He was dressed more like an Arab sheik today than an Egyptian, in snowy white robes and a black and white keffiyeh tied into a turban. In fact, he was neither nationality, being Persian by birth, although he’d studied in Egypt as a young man. But I guess that, these days, he needed to appeal to larger audience and so had expanded the wardrobe.

He bowed as elegantly as if he’d expected to be almost run over, and maybe he had. With vamp hearing, not much surprises them. Although my outfit seemed to, maybe because it wasn’t some sort of fetish wear.

I’d never trust my uncle Radu to pick out my wardrobe again.

However, it probably wouldn’t have mattered what I wore. I’d gotten the impression that Hassani viewed me less as a person and more as a kink of Louis-Cesare’s. And, from his perspective, the evidence was on his side.

Christine, my husband’s first long-term girlfriend, had been a centuries old revenant—one of the mad vampires who results when a Change doesn’t take properly. They’re considered extremely dangerous because they attack with no provocation or concern for their own well-being, like rabid dogs. They can do a boatload of damage even to older vamps as a result.

There’s a whole story there about the fact that Christine wasn’t really Louis-Cesare’s choice, that he was guilted into a relationship he didn’t want, and which had ended up saddling him with Tomas, as well. He was the first-level master Louis-Cesare had kept in thrall for so long. Another consul—Alejandro of the Latin American Senate—had gotten control of Christine, and used her to blackmail Louis-Cesare into fighting a duel against Tomas for him.

Louis-Cesare had won—surprise—but he’d felt sorry for Tomas, who hadn’t challenged for wealth or power, but out of a justified, seething hatred of Alejandro. The consul was a piece of work and Tomas wanted him dead, and was willing to risk his life to achieve it. Louis-Cesare had therefore refused to kill Tomas at the end of the duel, probably sympathizing with his point of view. And in retaliation, Alejandro had refused to release Christine.

That was a problem since revenants were to be killed on sight by senate law. But Louis-Cesare had been the one to Change Christine—another long story—and felt responsible for her affliction. He was afraid that, if he didn’t get her back, eventually someone would realize what she was and destroy her, but he also couldn’t kill the innocent Tomas. He had chosen, therefore, to keep Tomas in thrall so that he couldn’t hurt Alejandro, although it drained his power and weighed heavily on his conscience. In return, Alejandro was supposed to guard Christine.

Of course, he’d ended up letting her escape instead, and the whole, massive cluster fuck had only ended with Christine’s long overdue death at my hand. It had been in defense of others—the bitch really was dangerous as hell—but it hadn’t been in time to keep what she was a secret. Louis-Cesare had lost his senate seat as a result, which he’d only gotten back due to the war, but he’d also acquired a reputation.

I mean, I knew how it looked: one girlfriend a deadly, centuries old revenant, the next a five-hundred-year-old dhampir . . . people were bound to make the connection. Both were the kind of things that gave good little vampires nightmares, both were legal to kill on sight, and both were deadly. Add that to keeping a first-level master vamp as essentially a house pet, and Louis-Cesare started to look like he really did have a danger fetish.

It was bullshit, but things kept conspiring to add to it, because people like a salacious story. Like the vamps last night had probably reported that Louis-Cesare and his dhampir were getting busy amidst the flames of hell, or some such. When in reality, the fire had been well away from us, and was being handled by the room’s sprinkler system. We just hadn’t wanted to pause what we were doing to clean up right then.

But to people who didn’t know the truth, it probably sounded pretty convincing. And judging by the looks Hassani had been giving Louis-Cesare all week, he hadn’t appreciated him bringing his latest freak to court, even if she had been named a senator due to her father’s influence. I’d never met a vamp prude before, but I kind of thought I was looking at one now, and he clearly didn’t think much of me, either.

Just as well I was leaving, then.

“White would be a better choice,” he said, after a brief pause. “It reflects the sun and will keep you cooler.”

“Keep me cooler where?”

“Djeser-Djeseru, the mortuary temple of Pharaoh Hatshepsut.” I stared at him blankly. The tiniest of frowns creased the sun bronzed skin of his forehead, which even death hadn’t managed to fade. “It is on the day’s schedule?”

I finally caught a clue, although I found it hard to believe. “You’re going ahead with that?”

“Of course. Why would we not?”

“You were attacked?”

“An unfortunate interruption.” Hassani brushed it away. “My apologies for any inconvenience you were caused.”

“Inconvenience?”

“And my condolences on the loss of your . . . assistant . . . Raymond, I believe his name was?”

“Raymond was—is—my Second,” I said sharply, wondering why he hadn’t mentioned Dorina. “And we don’t know what happened to him. That’s one of the things I need to find out.”

Hassani shook his head sadly. “One no more powerful than he, and with such wounds . . . he is likely lost to us, as were many of my own people. But they will be avenged, I assure you. In the meantime, if you would care for breakfast before we leave?”

“I’m not hungry. What I want is—”

“It is a long way, even by air,” Hassani protested. “A good breakfast is essential—”

“Consul—”

“Teacher, please. I prefer it as a title.”

“As you like. But I don’t need breakfast because I’m not going anywhere. At least not into the desert.”

“You are mourning for your assistant,” he said. “It is understandable, but in these difficult times, the best we can do for those who look to us for leadership is to show them that nothing has changed. That we are proceeding as normal.”

“But things are not normal,” I said, struggling to hold onto my temper. “And Ray wasn’t my assistant, he was—is—my Second! Now, I will need some information, everything you have on what happened last night—”

“But that is not technically true, is it?” Hassani broke in, scratching his beard.

I stopped mid-sentence. “What isn’t?”

“A dhampir, if you will forgive me, has no Second. And Senator Dorina was captured, as I understand?”

I stared at him, a strange feeling starting in my belly. “What’s your point?”

“That you are welcome here at court despite your . . . disability . . . due to your father’s position. And your own as envoy from the North American Vampire Senate. But as for the rest . . .”

“What about the rest?”

“Well, if you will forgive me, the details of last night’s events are senatorial business. I cannot release that information to one of your status.”

I felt my blood pressure rise, to the point that Hassani could probably hear it pounding against my veins. But although he had a curved dagger at his waistband—a beautiful thing in carved steel, the only ornamentation he wore—he didn’t twitch so much as a finger toward it. Of course, he didn’t.

Dhampirs were a problem for lesser vampires, and the revenants that used to provide most of my income. But for someone like him? We were gutter scum. I was probably expected to be grateful that he wasn’t chucking me into a ditch.

But then, he couldn’t, could he? Because I might not be a senator anymore, by his reckoning, but I was still married to one. And Louis-Cesare could get all the information he wanted.

“Then tell Louis-Cesare,” I said tightly. “The point is—”

“But I am afraid I cannot do that, either,” Hassani said, looking remorseful.

“Cannot do what?”

“Give any assistance to your lover—”

“My husband! And why the hell not?”

A sly smile, the first real emotion I’d seen from him, flickered across his face for a second, before being replaced with more faux concern. “My apologies. I thought you knew.”

“Knew what, damn it!”

“Why, that he left this morning.”

I stared at him for a moment, then tore across the corridor and down to our old suite of rooms, where I found the door open and half a dozen servants cleaning up and repairing the damage. But no Louis-Cesare. And no luggage.

I stood there for a moment, vibrating.

Louis-Cesare had deserted me once, to run after Christine, despite the fact that she was a complete psycho. He’d received word that she had escaped from Alejandro, so he hadn’t really had a choice, but the fact that he’d gone without so much as a word had almost ended us before we began. The one, absolute, unbreakable rule of our relationship was that we communicated. If one or the other had to leave unexpectedly, fine, but at the very least we left a note.

I did not see a note.

I did not see anything, except for people mopping up what could be water from last night. Or what could be signs of another fight, one that I’d slept through. And that meant—

Fear clutched at my heart, sharp and dizzying, and a cold hand stopped my breathing. I whirled on Hassani as he followed me inside, as unhurried as if we were having a stroll through a garden. He didn’t so much as blink when I snatched his own knife and held it to his throat.

He did look faintly surprised, however.

“If you’ve killed him—” I growled.

“Killed him?” he blinked at me.

“Louis-Cesare! If he’s dead—”

“Oh, I sincerely hope not.” A finger pushed the knife away. “That would be . . . difficult to explain.”

I saw red. And this time, it wasn’t from Dorina, who wasn’t here to help me. But then, she hadn’t been for most of the last five hundred years. She’d intervened on some occasions, when she happened to be in residence and judged me to be out of my depth. But the rest of the time I’d been on my own, and fighting creatures far more powerful than me.

And I didn’t fight fair.

I grabbed a small tab from my jacket, slapped it to the front of his clothes, and sprang away. I didn’t want to be caught in an inverse shield, one that contracted upon contact, trapping the subject. Usually trapping the subject, I revised, as Hassani broke out of it pretty much immediately.

Okay, upgrade, I decided, and threw a golden spider instead.

My arsenal used to be limited to what I could beg, borrow or steal, unless I’d actually lucked out and gotten paid. And even then, magical weapons—particularly the unlicensed, not exactly legal variety—are expensive. I’d had to be judicious about what I used.

But while senators don’t get a salary, I’d discovered that they do get one very big perk of the job: access to the senate’s extensive arsenal. Which was not only well equipped, but also contained all the fun little toys they’d confiscated from the bad guys. And the bad guys knew how to party.

Which was why the tiny spider had babies immediately upon contact, who went scurrying all over those snowy white robes. Hassani watched them with distaste. “It doesn’t matter what you throw at me, dhampir. It isn’t going to—”

He stopped talking abruptly, probably because the big spider had just webbed up his mouth. The babies quickly did the same to his body, wrapping him in layers of fine, white silk, like the mummy he wasn’t. And then contracting the web, causing him to topple over onto his back.

He hit the floor with a thud, one of the servants screamed, and another jumped for me—and got slapped with one of my little tabs for his trouble. He didn’t seem to find it as easy to break out of as his master, who was thrashing about on the floor, having managed to halfway free himself already. But that was the beauty of Spider’s Bite, as the golden spell was called: the more you fought, the stronger it got, pulling power from its victim.

And Hassani had it to burn.

In another moment, he actually did look like a mummy. The thick, white strands, maybe a foot deep at this point, had covered his eyes and muffled the rich tones of his voice. And then cut them off altogether.

That appeared to be the last straw for the servants.

They ran, stampeding over themselves to get out of the door, except for the one now frozen in what looked like plastic wrap. He stared out at me, perfectly fine since vamps don’t need to breathe, like a vintage Ken doll still inside his box. But he wouldn’t stay that way for long.

Others were coming.

I closed and locked the door, which activated the ramped-up shields. But that wouldn’t stop Hassani’s children, who would rip it apart with their bare hands if necessary, to reach their master. Teacher, I corrected myself, pulling a knife and cutting away the webbing from over his face.

Pretentious twat.

But the pretentious twat wasn’t stupid, and had finally stopped struggling.

I didn’t have much time, and he knew it. He also knew something else. “You won’t kill a consul,” he told me, the rich voice untroubled. “It would destroy the alliance.”

“But you would kill a senator?”

Hassani looked aggrieved. “Right sleeve.”

“What?”

“Check my right sleeve, you annoying woman!”

I checked his right sleeve. That required cutting away more of the webbing, which I doubted my tiny allies had the strength to replace. Not that it mattered; the door to the suite was already starting to shake.

I pulled out a folded letter, and knew immediately who it was from. My name was on the front, and that perfect, copperplate handwriting belonged to only one person. I unfolded it and—

Don’t kill Hassani.

Motherfucker.

“You could have just given this to me,” I pointed out, to the smarmy bastard on the floor.

“I always heard dhampirs were mad,” he countered, staring prayerfully at the ceiling. “I did not think it actually true.”

I ignored that and went back to reading.

Dearest, I expect that this will not please you. What would not please me is your death. We do not know the effect that halving a soul might have, but it would be inadvisable for you to enter combat at the moment.

“Ironic,” Hassani offered, because he was reading over my shoulder.

I jerked the letter away.

Please do me the honor of fulfilling our mission in Egypt. In return, I will fulfill the vow I made to you last night. Those who have hurt you will pay, I promise you that. And if possible, I will also retrieve those we have lost. I will be in touch.

Louis-Cesare

I just knelt there for a moment, rereading the letter. Then I read it a third time, before it really sank in. And I felt my face burn.

I guessed I knew what that look of peace had been about last night, huh? He’d suddenly been calm, but not because he was with me. Not because we’d comforted each other, and were about to chase down our enemies together. But because he’d decided what he was going to do. Which involved leaving the little woman behind while he ran after Jonathan.

Alone.

He was chasing the one man who’d ever beaten him, but he didn’t want backup? Bet if Dorina was still here he’d have wanted some damned backup. But plain old Dory? Nah. What the hell could I do for him?

I heard the letter crumple in my fist.

Hassani sat up, having freed himself as far as the waist. “You see,” he said, watching me. “You could go to the queen’s mausoleum, after all.”

I shot him a look of pure fury. “Is that what you’d do?”

“No. But I am not a dhampir.”

The look didn’t change.

The door burst open, and at least a dozen master vampires tore into the room, blades out and faces set on hate. Hassani held up a hand and they stopped, so suddenly that some of them ran into each other. One toppled Ken, who fell onto his face, still unmoving.

Hassani regarded them calmly. “Children, a teachable moment. As it is written, ‘Repel evil with what is better; then you will see that one who was once your enemy has become your dearest friend.’”

One of the vampire’s hissed, and another bared fangs.

“So, I’m evil?” I demanded.

Hassani brushed it aside. “Exaggerated for effect.”

“Do they know that?”

He freed himself the rest of the way and took his time standing up and shaking out his perfect clothes. A number of tiny golden bugs fell out and rattled against the floor. He sighed.

Then he looked at me, and the dark eyes were somehow different than before. “Come. There is something I want to show you.”