Smolder (Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter, #29)(33)
“I miss my mask,” she said, because she could read my thoughts, I just couldn’t read hers. The idea was that Dracula’s Brides needed to know his thoughts and feelings so they could serve him perfectly, and Drac didn’t need to know anything about them because it was all about him. But I didn’t want Rodina to be all about me, so I was left staring at her across the hood of my car wondering what she was thinking, feeling, and having no idea as if we weren’t bound together by magic for all eternity or until one of us died.
“I’m sorry you miss the mask,” I said finally, because I was sorry that she missed being one of the masked and robed Harlequin, who had hidden their identities so completely that they never took the masks off in public and covered the rest of themselves in all black like she was doing now. If she’d had one of those blank-colored masks on, then depending on the color I’d know if she’d come to kill me (black), to hurt me (red), or just to talk (white).
“I didn’t at first, I reveled in not being forced to hide. I thought I would find myself.” She made a sound that was supposed to be a laugh but was so bitter I wanted a new word for it.
“I’m sorry that you don’t like your new life,” I said.
“I was one of the most feared assassins in the world, and one of the best interrogators among us, and now I’m a glorified babysitter who isn’t allowed to hurt the reporters or the civilians with their phones taking pictures and video and posting them everywhere. No one needs spies anymore because the ordinary people have given everyone eyes and ears.”
“I am sorry that you are this unhappy, Rodina.”
“But you’re also angry with me for being unhappy, I can feel it, hear it. Your thoughts and feelings invade me in a way that being my old master’s leopard to call never did.”
“I’m done apologizing.”
“Good, I don’t want apologies, my queen, I want purpose.”
“You’re stuck like everyone else trying to figure out your purpose for yourself.”
“Well, it sucks. To use one of your favorite phrases.”
“Yeah, existential dread and the search for identity is a bummer.” My voice was casual, but I knew the look on my face and my posture wasn’t. I still had the knife out, because even for Rodina she was being weird. I’d seen her in training with the other bodyguards, I knew what she was capable of.
“You have no idea what I am capable of, my white queen.” My white queen was her newest nickname for me, I guess it beat my dark queen or my evil queen, which she’d used for most of the time I’d known her.
“Nicky can’t read my thoughts as well as you can, he just gets my emotions mostly; why is that?”
“I have had eons to practice my mystical skills and he has not yet seen a century pass.”
“You know that’s not an answer, right?”
“It is an answer, my queen; it’s not my fault if you’re even younger than Nicky and understand even less.”
“Why are you skulking around in the parking lot, Rodina?”
“I was making certain that no one ambushed you.”
“Good, you can go back to the car, and you can all follow me to my next destination.”
“I am ordered to ride in the car with you just in case someone tries to separate you from the security in the other car.”
“Whose orders?”
“Why, your head of security, my queen.”
“Did Claudia order you to ride with me or just one of you to ride back with me?”
“Me; your American press and general populace seem very heteronormative no matter how woke they talk, so she thought a woman riding with you would quiet the rumor mill that has you running away with Nicky and leaving Jean-Claude at the altar.”
I knew that Claudia hadn’t said anything that long-winded and explain-y. She’d have just ordered the three of them to meet me here and given the division of labor, but one of the few good things about being the “queen” was that I could change things without checking with anyone else. I was so not riding with Rodina tonight.
12
RODINA’S BROTHER, RU, was in my passenger seat looking like a carbon copy of his sister except for an inch taller and a little more muscle on his slender frame. Oh, and he’d dyed his pale blond hair a deep rich brown so that it looked black in the darkened car. I wasn’t sure how I felt about the hair color, and Rodina hated it, because it made them not look alike. I guess that was weird for triplets; Rodina had requested that I not think of them as twins even in my own head because she and Ru could hear it, and their brother being dead didn’t change the fact that they were triplets, not twins. Since Rodrigo had died taking a shotgun blast to the chest to save Nathaniel, Damian, and me, I could call the remaining siblings triplets.
“Where are we going?” Ru asked.
“Back to the wedding shop so I can get dressed for date night.” I texted Edward and Peter, and I had missed seeing Edward and Asher dressed up together in their matching but opposite-color best man outfits, damn it. Peter assured me that he had pictures, though, which made me happier. He also asked if I needed any help at the crime scene. I was pretty sure that was Edward dictating that one. I assured them that I was done with crime for the night and off for date night. They were already at the gym with the bodyguards getting ready to work out. They would get to test themselves against real shapeshifters for the first time since they’d both been contaminated. I was sorry to miss the workout, especially after seeing what Peter had done to Kane, but like they had said, I couldn’t leave the love of my life hanging on date night.