Silence Fallen (Mercy Thompson #10)(38)

“Adam?” Marsilia asked again, this time touching his shoulder. He didn’t back away from her touch, though he wanted to.

Adam glanced at Honey and Larry, then shrugged. In for a penny, in for a pound—Mercy might, on a very bad day, have a moment of weakness that would let her believe that Adam would cheat on her with Marsilia. But—

“Give us a suite that will sleep six,” he told the vampire. She would never believe that he’d also sleep with Stefan, Honey, some goblin he’d never met before, and—holy cow—Elizaveta. She’d know that this was the easiest way for him to make sure all of his people were safe. And to really stick a bug in Bonarata’s peace of mind while he did so.

Adam looked at his people and said, “We might as well share space as spend the night running down hallways.” He turned back to Bonarata’s head minion and let the thought that they were going to be in a vampire’s lair—a consideration, not a cause for alarm—come and leave his eyes. Then he said casually, “Or days, I guess.”

“Mercy might object to Larry,” murmured Stefan. He was going to play along.

“Larry might object to Mercy,” said Larry in the exact same tone.

“You should be so lucky as to have Mercy pick you,” said Stefan shortly and, Adam’s wolf noticed with sudden sharp interest, totally honestly.

Adam shrugged again. “Mercy can organize us as she sees fit when we get her back.”

“It will be like a vacation,” said Honey in sultry tones, because Honey was sharp as a tack and a fine actress. “We haven’t had one of those in a long time.”

Honey sold the lie with her body language and her voice—and gave it just enough to be believable. Most of the other supernatural folk kind of thought that the werewolves, who touched a lot more than was a comfortably human norm, all probably slept with their pack mates anyway. And those stories were fed by the now-vanishingly-rare Alpha who felt like that was the only way he could dominate his pack. Come to think of it, those would probably still be fairly common in Europe, where there was no Marrok to deal with them.

“That is not your reputation,” said Bonarata’s minion, sounding a little . . . shocked. Which he shouldn’t be, given the stories Adam had heard about Bonarata’s parties. The minion was looking at Marsilia, and Adam wondered abruptly if the vampire was old enough that he’d known Marsilia before she left.

“A suite,” said Marsilia shortly, but her body leaned into Adam. Her heart was racing—unusual for a vampire, but she’d been very stressed since this had begun. Adam could relate, but he gave her a reason for her racing heart by caressing her face lightly.

He let his wolf rise just a bit—rage and lust smelled very similar. In his experience, vampires weren’t good at sorting through emotions, though they could smell them very nearly as well as a wolf. But the vampires’ emotions were skewed, they were selfish creatures by definition, and it left them in trouble when it came to sorting someone else’s out.

“We have a suite with three bedrooms,” said one of the vampires. “We can house your pilot and copilot in servants’ quarters.”

“My pilot and copilot?” Adam said. “They will stay with the plane.”

“I’m afraid that won’t be possible,” said the head minion. “My Master made a special request that they, too, accept accommodations with us.” He smiled slyly. “We could bring trundle beds if you want them in your rooms, too.”

Adam looked over his shoulder to see that the two men were climbing out of the plane with the small bags they carried with them. The pilot was as good-looking as Larry had said, tall for a goblin, with sandy-gold hair and robin’s-egg-blue eyes. He watched the vampire escorting him warily, temper in the set of his shoulders. But Austin Harris was smart enough not to argue with Bonarata’s people.

Harris reached out to steady his copilot without looking at him when he wobbled on the ramp, too busy watching the vampire to watch his feet. The copilot was medium height and average-faced, and so intimidated by the vampires that he very nearly clung to the side of Harris. The copilot was a werewolf. The way he sought protection from Harris told Adam—and anyone else who was watching—that he was submissive. It was dangerous to be that submissive when surrounded by vampires.

Bonarata’s head minion cleared his throat. Right, he wanted an answer to his question.

If Adam pulled the pilot and copilot into the suite, it would look like they were afraid. Which they were. But it would also look like an insult, making clear that they did not expect Bonarata to keep guesting laws.

Adam raised his eyebrows in surprise. “Does Bonarata sleep with every damn person he hires? Give them their own rooms.”

He glanced over his shoulder at the pilot and the werewolf again. Harris met his eyes with a worried gaze and then glanced at his copilot. “One room would be better,” he said.

“Better give them one room with two beds, I suppose,” Adam said. “Someone as scared as he looks to be isn’t going to sleep well alone in a vampire seethe. If we can’t make him comfortable, the pilot is going to have to fly us home all by himself while his copilot sleeps.”

“That can be arranged,” said the minion, who was watching Harris with interested eyes. Predatory eyes.

“I trust in the honor of the Lord of Night that those two will be safe from the seethe,” Adam said softly.