by Karen Chance
“Ah, yes. An older version, but I think I recall—” He did something and, at last, they snapped open.
I sagged against him in relief and didn’t even notice that he’d gotten my bra off until a thumb swept over a nipple. “Mircea . . .” I started to make some kind of protest but forgot halfway through.
He dropped to one knee and undid my shoes, while I held on to his shoulders and bit my lip. “Most men would have taken advantage of your previous position,” he told me. His face was still stern, but eyes were laughing.
“You’re not most men.”
“Kind of you to notice.” He tossed my filthy shoes, socks and bra into a corner. “And I prefer you to have the full use of your hands.” I swallowed and he finally smiled for real, his hands lingering on my waist.
“I don’t like the idea of someone suffering because of me,” I told him.
“He won’t be suffering because of you.” His fingers found the button on my jeans, and I stepped back, grateful for the steam that might help explain my furious blush. It was stupid—it wasn’t like Mircea hadn’t seen me in less—but the idea of standing there in a thong with him still fully clothed was doing bad things to my blood pressure.
He moved with me, arching an eyebrow. He trailed a finger along my waistband. “Is there something in there that will surprise me?”
“I hope not,” I said fervently. “About Marco—”
“He disobeyed my direct command to be immediately informed of any danger to you. I could not ignore such a challenge to my authority, even were you not involved.”
“That doesn’t make me feel any better.”
“I will not permanently injure him, Cassie,” he told me, sounding as if it was a major concession—which was probably the case.
He unzipped my jeans and pushed them down my hips before I could protest. I stepped out of the puddle of filthy denim, caught between desire and serious embarrassment. He tossed the jeans aside, hooked a finger under the little bow on the front of my thong and pulled me to him.
He was still smiling, but it had changed. Something about it made sweat start to prickle at the base of my hair and my arms to curve around his neck. His lips fit against mine like a missing puzzle piece.
Dark and sweet, Mircea’s taste was intoxicating, like the crisp midnight scent of him. It sent liquid shivers to the pit of my stomach and made my toes curl. I heard myself groan into his mouth, my entire body leaping at his touch, and suddenly a kiss wasn’t enough. I wanted to taste all of him, to learn the texture and sensitivity of every inch of flesh.
But that was exactly what I couldn’t do. If I wanted any chance of making up with the Circle, I had to avoid things that might increase their distaste for me. Like rumors connecting me to a Senate member.
The North American Vampire Senate was one of six sovereign bodies that ruled the world’s vampire population the way the Circle did the mages. It and the Circle were currently allies, but it was a new association that had done little to erase centuries of dislike and mistrust. The Circle viewed a Pythia who was out of their control as bad enough; one under the thumb, or so they believed, of the vampires was a worst-case scenario.
Unless it was a Pythia dating a senator, that is.
Not that Mircea and I were dating. In fact, I’d been studiously avoiding him lately. Add lingering traces of a childhood infatuation, a powerful devotion spell that had only recently been lifted and a guy who even non-bespelled women went stupid over, and what did you get? A mess.
I knew what I felt for Mircea, but I wasn’t sure why; even worse, I didn’t have any idea what he felt for me. While under the spell, he’d been genuinely infatuated. But with it no longer in the picture, I had to wonder what attraction I would hold for a five-hundred-year-old master vampire if I wasn’t the reigning Pythia and we weren’t in the middle of a war.
Until I found out, I didn’t want my heartbeat to pick up speed every time I thought of him. I didn’t want to feel that smile, lazy and suggestive and full of promise, when he kissed me; didn’t want to smell the intoxicating scent of his neck under his shirt collar, to taste his sweat and hear his voice break. I didn’t want to want.
“Dulceaţă,” Mircea said quietly, using the pet name he’d given me as a child, meaning “dear one.” And despite everything, that word in that voice made my heart give a little start behind my ribs.
It didn’t matter what my heart said, I reminded myself. My heart told me stupid stuff all the time. My heart should just shut the hell up.
“Come back to MAGIC with me,” Mircea murmured, his hands finding the muscles of my neck and beginning to expertly knead away the tension. I told my body not to respond and it obeyed as well as it ever did when it came to Mircea—not at all. “My personal apartment is extensive. You can have your own room”—he nipped me lightly on the neck—“if you want it.”
“I don’t like MAGIC,” I told him unsteadily, turning away. I lost the thong and submerged myself in the tub.
“It’s the safest place for you,” he said lightly.
MAGIC, short for the Metaphysical Alliance for Greater Interspecies Cooperation, was the supernatural community’s version of the United Nations, allowing mages, vampires, Weres and even the Fey—when they bothered to show up—to talk out their difficulties. It had some of the strongest wards anywhere, powered by a potent energy source known as a ley line sink. Mircea was right—it was the safest place around.
For anyone not fighting a god, that is.
“There is no safe place for me,” I told him shortly, searching around under the bubbles for my loofah.
“Not if you continue to evade the protections placed around you.” Mircea pushed his sleeve up and plunged his arm into the almost scalding water, finding the loofah easily. He turned me around and began to wash my back in long, soothing strokes. I tried not to relax—I knew damn well what he was up to—but my body had other ideas. When he zeroed in on the knot at the small of my back, I couldn’t bite back a groan.
He finished my back and pulled me against him. He abandoned the loofah, lathered his hands with soap and began to wash my shoulders and arms. “You’ll ruin your clothes,” I protested weakly.
“I have others.”
I sighed and closed my eyes, letting my body go on autopilot for a few minutes. The warmth of his hands slowly worked the tension out of my muscles, making me feel almost human again. Soon I was holding out an arm or leg when instructed, so he could wash my elbows and the underside of my breasts, my calves and the back of my knees. . . .
I could feel his breath on my cheek as I relaxed back against the tub. My hand unconsciously went to his hair, feeling its softness as he massaged me with slow deliberate strokes, pulling a deep sigh from my aching body. God, it was unfair how easily he could make me melt, every good intention lost in pleasure after only a few touches. “I love how responsive you are,” he whispered, his fingers trailing a path of goose bumps down my stomach. When they brushed between my legs a moment later, I felt like I might climb out of my skin.
I sat up abruptly, grabbed a washcloth and took over before I ended up agreeing to whatever he wanted. “What are you doing, Mircea?” I asked unsteadily.
He sighed and sat back on his heels, but he didn’t pretend to misunderstand me. “Trying to keep you alive.”
“That won’t happen by hiding me away somewhere. And cowering in a corner until Apollo finds me isn’t—”
“Apollo.” Mircea’s voice held disdain. “You honor him by continuing to use that name.”
I shrugged. “It’s what he calls himself.”
“Because he enjoys pretending to godhood.”
“Whereas he’s really only an immensely powerful, ancient magical creature from another world,” I said sarcastically.
“Whatever he is, the Circle is better equipped—”
“No. They’re not. They’re in even more danger than I am.”
As the ancient legends said, Apollo had once lorded it over the Ear
th along with others of his kind. Among other things, their rule had involved a lot of smiting of worshippers who didn’t grovel sufficiently or, worse, failed to grovel at all, being too busy attempting to eject some godly butts from the planet. But the mages of the day hadn’t had much success with that: the “gods” had their own form of magic, one that was so different from the human variety that all attempts to dislodge them had failed.
That had continued to be true until Apollo’s sister, Artemis, realized that humankind was heading for extinction and gave some mages the spell to banish her kind and block the way back to Earth. The only ones not affected were of the demigod variety who had enough human blood to anchor them to this world, and most of them were soon rounded up and imprisoned by the magical community. Human rule over Earth was reestablished, and the Silver Circle formed to guard it.
That might have been the end of the story, except that Apollo had been able to keep in contact with his servants, the Pythias, through the power he’d bestowed on them. The Circle knew that, but the fact that the power migrated to a new host as soon as the old one died had made dealing with them a problem. They couldn’t kill every clairvoyant on the planet, so they compromised by ensuring that the Pythias stayed firmly under their magical thumb. That had remained true for thousands of years.
Until me.
The Circle’s fear of what Apollo might do through me was the main reason for their dogged attempts to put me in a grave situation. That was highly ironic, since almost the only thing I’d done with the power so far had been to use it against their old enemy. That had stuck me between the proverbial rock and a hard place, with both the Circle and Apollo wanting me dead.
It was nice that they could agree on something.
To add to the irony, the Circle and I were currently allies—at least technically. They had joined with the Senate, with whom I had an understanding, against Apollo and everyone he’d been able to con into supporting him—some rogue vampires and a powerful group of dark mages calling themselves the Black Circle. And so far things weren’t looking that great for our side, mainly because Apollo didn’t have to win in order for us to lose.
Artemis’ spell had a weakness—it took too much power for any one person to maintain. That was one reason the Circle had been set up in the first place: to parcel the load out onto thousands of mages. The Circle also had the advantage of being eternal, which dodged the inconvenient fact that spells don’t usually outlast the demise of the caster. With new mages being recruited as fast as the old ones died or retired, the Circle hadn’t had to worry about the deaths of individual members threatening the spell—unless it was the deaths of thousands of members.
All Apollo had to do was to keep chipping away at the Circle’s numbers and, sooner or later, there wouldn’t be enough people left to maintain the spell. The doorway would reopen and he and his kind would be back for an encore. And I doubted the magical community would enjoy, or survive, the experience. The other side was united, and if we didn’t manage the same soon, they’d wipe the floor with us.
“We have done some research,” Mircea told me, pouring shampoo into his palm and starting on my filthy hair. He paused to pick something out of it, which I deliberately didn’t look at, and then continued. “Based on the size of the Circle when the spell was first cast versus what it is today, we estimate that our enemies would have to destroy more than ninety percent of the current mages for the spell to fail. Not a likely scenario.”
It was a little hard to think with his fingers kneading my scalp, but I tried anyway. “But not an impossible one. And where apocalypse is concerned, I’d prefer a sure thing.”
“And I would prefer you to stay out of it.” He pulled me to my feet, and a warm drizzle from a rainforest shower head set into the ceiling began sluicing the suds away. I frowned at him through silvery beads of water, too annoyed to be embarrassed.
“Apollo won’t let me stay out of it,” I pointed out. “Other than the Circle, I’m at the top of his hit list. It’s going to be a little hard to draw him out without using me as bait.”
“There is a vast difference between being bait and being a target,” Mircea noted, wrapping a huge Turkish bath towel around me. The black silk of his shirt had gotten wet and was clinging to the muscles in his stomach and arms. I tried really hard not to stare.
“Funny; they feel about the same from where I’m standing.”
I gingerly got out of the tub and sat at the dressing table to check the extent of the damage. The furrow carved by the bullet in my hip was gone, courtesy of Mircea, I assumed. He had a limited ability to heal injuries and had helped me once before. A puncture mark I didn’t remember getting stung my calf and there were a few burn marks on my hands. They matched the still-tender scars on my stomach and wrist from a recent adventure I was trying hard to forget.
Mircea’s eyes lingered on the scars, too. “Magical healers can work miracles compared to their non-magical counterparts, but there are things even they cannot heal,” he said softly.
“I guess I’ve been lucky.”
Mircea didn’t say anything, but his expression was eloquent. Luck didn’t last forever. How long would it be before mine ran out?
A finger brushed aside my hair and trailed lightly over two little bumps on my neck. They weren’t noticeable, being tiny and the same color as the rest of my skin, but Mircea found them easily. Not surprising, since he’d put them there. They were his mark, the one that identified me as his in the vampire world.
We might as well be married as far as vamps were concerned, despite the fact that I hadn’t actually been asked. Hadn’t, in fact, realized what was happening until the marking was long over. It wouldn’t have mattered to another vampire, who would have considered herself lucky to belong to a Senate member. But although I might have grown up with them, I wasn’t a vamp. And I wasn’t thrilled with the idea of being owned, no matter how nice the fringe benefits.
“You aren’t going to distract me,” I told Mircea severely, because he was doing a damn good job of it. “I need to come to terms with the Circle, and they aren’t going to understand my living with you.”
“You’re already living with me. I own this hotel.”
“It’s open to the public and you aren’t here on a regular basis. Moving into your personal quarters, even if they are the size of a house, isn’t the same thing. The Circle won’t like it.”
Mircea bent down and trailed his lips over the twin marks, making me shiver. “Do you know, dulceaţ, I am getting very tired of hearing about what the Circle does and does not like.”
“So am I. But we have to face—”
He stopped me with a kiss that turned my spine to JellO. This wasn’t the way this argument was supposed to go, I thought vaguely as my fingers curled into the wet fabric of his shirt. I was right; I should be winning. And nobody should be sticking a tongue in anybody else’s mouth.
“You’re too precious to lose,” he told me, when I broke for air.
“If anything happens, I’m sure the Senate will—”
“I wasn’t talking about the Senate,” he said, a strange smile ghosting his lips.
Our eyes met and it was suddenly hard to breathe. “Oh.” I felt oddly small and strangely powerful at the same time.
“And I am not proposing to take you to MAGIC, at least not immediately. I have been called away on family business.”
“Again? You just got back.”
“And because I cannot trust you not to undermine my servants in my absence—”
“I didn’t—”
“—or to stay out of trouble for even a few days, you are coming with me.”
Chapter Four
The family’s customized Boeing Business Jet wasn’t so much a plane as a flying hotel suite. It had glove leather seats the size of recliners in the dining area that were clustered around a shiny maple table. There was more maple on the walls and a luxurious coffee-and-cream-patterned carpet on the floor, and the bathroom boasted
almost as much granite as the one at Dante’s.
Mircea was sitting on a cream leather sofa in the lounge area, looking perfectly at home in a silver-gray shirt and tie and a sleek black suit. I felt a little too informal in a pair of jean shorts and a blue and white striped tank top, but I hadn’t had a chance to ask where we were going before getting dressed. At least I was clean.
Mircea had been staring out the window instead of at the forty-seven-inch plasma TV on the wall, but he looked up when I returned from my exploration. “There’s an actual bed in the next room,” I informed him, before realizing how that sounded.
His lips did a slow curve. “We aren’t going that far.”
“Where are we going, exactly?”
“To Radu’s home, near Napa.”
I knew Mircea had a brother named Radu. I’d even met him on one very memorable occasion. But this seemed an odd time for a social call.
“It has been my experience that family business never waits for a convenient time,” he commented when I said as much. “Although this will be a quick visit. The Consul is expecting to receive her African and European counterparts in two days, and I must be there.”
“They’re coming here?”
“With their entourages.”
“But . . . I didn’t think consuls traveled much.” A consul was the head of a senate and as such was seen as too valuable to risk. Not that the ones I’d met had seemed in need of much protection. They were pretty scary all on their own.
“These are difficult times. The danger in not combining our strength is far greater than any risks required to do so. If we don’t align our interests for the war, we may soon find ourselves without any.”
Mircea sounded like maybe he’d made that argument more than a few times lately. “Is that a prepared speech?”
He ran a hand over his face, and for the first time, he looked tired. “Yes, but it’s not supposed to sound like one.”
