Midnight's Daughter(35)
The temperature of the surrounding air skyrocketed. “I would advise you to remove your hand, dhampir, while it remains attached to your body.”
“Oh, that’s rich, coming from you.”
Blue eyes narrowed dangerously. “And what does that mean?”
“It means you have a habit of violating my personal space. Tell me, is that a French thing, or do you just like touching me?”
Blood moved in his face, spreading over his cheeks before draining away and deserting them. “You believe you can say anything you wish to me, and I have no choice but to accept it because of your father.”
I blinked in surprise. I’d used that line on Marlowe, but only as a taunt. I didn’t make a habit of hiding behind Daddy’s reputation. I had one of my own, and there were damn few vamps who forgot it.
“Mircea gets me into a lot more trouble than he’s ever gotten me out of,” I said tersely. “Current situation included. The only reason he didn’t let you stake me in New York was because his ass is in the fire and I’m expected to pull it out. Again.”
“You understand nothing!” Louis-Cesare radiated anger like heat. “I have been told a dozen times today that I was mad to assault you in front of him, mad to think that my opinions might stand against those of his only true child, his only living flesh!”
I choked, caught halfway between a laugh and a curse. “Someone’s been pulling your leg, big-time.” Louis-Cesare looked confused. “They’ve been making a joke at your expense,” I clarified. “Believe me, the only value I hold for Mircea is whatever I can do for him. I’m another weapon in his arsenal, nothing more, and the whole vamp community knows it.”
“And what would you know of the ‘community’?” Louis-Cesare demanded. “When did you ever live among us, Dorina? You choose to stay on the fringes of our society so that you may pick off the weak, but you were never part of it!”
Bitterness shivered through me like a chill. “Yeah, I choose. Gee, I wonder why that is. Maybe because every time I get anywhere near it, someone tries to kill me! Unlike you.” I looked him up and down, with a sneer I didn’t bother to hide. “Basarab line with no taint of bad blood, Senate member, dueling champ. You’re a bloody vamp hero, Louis! What would you know of my life?”
“More than you do of mine, it would seem.” Louis-Cesare’s eyes burned blue fire. “For centuries, my own master refused to have anything to do with me. I was known as the outcast, the one our famous line wanted no part of. While you, a dhampir with the blood of our people still dripping from your hands, were welcomed with open arms! You laugh at them, despise them, threaten to kill them, time and again, and still they want you. Yet every advance I make is thrown back in my face!”
I blinked at him. The fact that I’d never heard of Radu’s offspring suddenly made more sense. “But why spurn you?” Louis-Cesare was the perfect scion, the gallant son whose accomplishments might just cover the blots on the family page. Like Drac. Like me.
His mouth twisted bitterly. “Ask your father if you wish to know. Or Lord Radu. Perhaps they will tell you the truth.”
“I’m asking you.”
“Why? Why ask me anything?” he demanded savagely. “I am merely tolerated for the moment because the Senate is desperate. Too many of their members have already been lost to the war, and others may be so before long. Now they need strength, but when the war ends… things will be as they were.”
I frowned. That didn’t sound like Mircea. Betray him and he’d cut your balls off and feed them to you, but I’d never seen him turn his back on an ally. I doubted very much that I was going to see it now. “When we get through this, I’ll talk to Mircea,” I began, wondering why I bothered.
I stopped because Louis-Cesare was going purple. “I do not need your pity!” He stepped closer, until his body was actually touching mine, but I didn’t call him on it. He’d been so controlled, so smugly superior, in the car; it was good to see some of the arrogance bleed away into a more honest emotion. Nobody else seemed to notice how much of it he carried around, but I knew anger. On most people it was a shallow, washed-out emotion, limp and tepid. On Louis-Cesare it was incandescent.
“What do you need?” It slipped out before I could catch it.
Time froze for a long, breathless minute. Then Louis-Cesare’s eyes flooded silver, melting into white-hot heat. I was so startled by the transformation that it took me a moment to realize that he didn’t look aroused; he looked livid.
“There is only one service you provide to my kind,” he said in a savage undertone. “When I am ready for it, I will let you know.”
It was like a punch to the stomach, a clean blow that takes the wind right out of you. I honestly had no idea what to say. Then an arm slipped around my neck, saving me the trouble by almost crushing my windpipe.
I couldn’t believe anyone had actually managed to sneak up on me; then I heard Marlowe’s voice and understood. The damn vamp moved as quietly as smoke—it was one of many things that made him so deadly. “Have more care, Louis-Cesare. Remember what you’re dealing with.”
Louis-Cesare shot him a purely vicious look. “Release her! This is a family discussion.”
“Family?” Marlowe didn’t bother to hide his disgust. “You’re beginning to sound like—”