Death's Mistress (Dorina Basarab, #2)(75)

But Louis-Cesare didn’t look much like he cared.

“I was speaking ofsubrand. You knew you were in danger, yet you said nothing.”

“Why should I have? It was none of your business.”

“If someone is attempting to murder you, it is most certainly my business.”

“Why?” He didn’t say anything, which pissed me off. I was tired and starving, and I must have bumped my hurt wrist somewhere, because it throbbed in time to every heartbeat. I was in no mood for games.

“Why is it your business, Louis-Cesare?”

“You know damn well why!”

“No, I don’t know. I don’t know a goddamned thing. Maybe you should try spelling it out for once.”

“And perhaps both of you should try learning some discretion,” Marlowe hissed. He came in and slammed the door behind him. It wouldn’t help with privacy; I think he was just pissed off.

“We would like some time alone,” Louis-Cesare snapped.

“It seems to me you’ve had too much of that already.” Marlowe stared back and forth between the two of us. “I don’t know what’s going on here—and I really do not wish to know. But now is not the time to hand Anthony more ammunition.”

Louis-Cesare didn’t even look at him. “What did he do to you?” he demanded.

“Maybe I should get it on a T-shirt,” I said, crossing my arms. “None of your—”

“You have been favoring your left hand all night. Is that why?” Trust a swordsman to notice.

When I didn’t say anything, he pulled me to him and began running his hands over me—as if he hadn’t done enough of that already.

I was about to knock his hand away when Marlowe did it for me. Louis-Cesare’s usually sunny blue eyes suddenly went chrome—cold, flat and dangerous. “Have a care, Kit.”

“I am not the one who needs to take care. Have you gone mad? She is dhampir!” Marlowe said it in the same tone someone in medieval Europe might have used for leper, which was fair, since that was pretty much the way he’d meant it.

I don’t know what would have happened next, because both men were crackling with energy, and neither was the type to back down. But then Mircea walked through the door. “Your consul wishes a word,” he told Louis-Cesare mildly.

Louis-Cesare cursed under his breath and started to say something, but Mircea held up a hand. “This is bad enough as it is. Provoking the man for no reason would be foolish, do you not think?”

Apparently he did think, because he went, after shooting me a look that said this wasn’t over. He’d barely gotten out the door when Marlowe rounded on me. “What in the hell game are you—”

“Kit. I think we have given Anthony enough amusement tonight, don’t you?” Mircea asked.

“More than! Do you know what this will—”

“Yes. We’ll discuss it in a moment.”

Marlowe sent me a final glare and left. I’d have been right behind him, but Mircea was between me and the exit, and he showed no sign of moving.

“Don’t you think it’s time we talked?” he asked with a smile.





Chapter Twenty-one


“What about?” I asked warily.

Mircea leaned against the door, casual, elegant, like he had all night. Fortunately, I knew that wasn’t true. Unfortunately, diving out the window wasn’t a real possibility at this level. Maybe the roof . . .

“I do not want to play word games with you, Dorina. Tell me what happened last night.”

“I’ve told you—”

“Nothing. Other than the bald fact that a very dangerous creature attempted for the second time to kill you. What you have not told me is why.”

“He tried to kill me before—”

“Because you were in his way. Are you again?”

Nobody ever won a verbal sparring match with Mircea by taking the defensive, so I ignored that. “Are you going to tell me why you wanted the rune so badly that you practically threatened Louis-Cesare’s life tonight?”

“I did nothing of the kind. And you didn’t answer my question.”

“Not in so many words, maybe. But the intention was conveyed. And you didn’t answer mine.”

“When you start being honest with me, perhaps I will.”

I just stared at him, too shocked to speak for a moment. Because of all the people to chastise me for a lack of honesty or trust, Mircea’s name should have been last on the list. In fact, it shouldn’t have been on the damn list at all.

His brother Vlad had killed a lot of people in his short reign of terror, one of whom had happened to be my mother. Mircea had wiped that little fact from my adolescent head, afraid I’d go after my crazy uncle and get killed. Or so he said. I had no independent way of verifying that since wiped memories are gone for good.

“I don’t think you’re really one to talk. Do you?” I finally asked softly.

“I have never kept anything from you that was not necessary.”

“In your opinion! Did it never occur to you that I might not agree? That I might have wanted those memories, however unpleasant?”

Mircea hesitated, taking a half second to adjust to the conversational leap. Not that it was much of one. Our history of deception had started almost as soon as our relationship had. “They would have done you little good had you died because of them.”