“You should tell Casanova not to bulldoze it, then.”
“I’ll do that,” Mircea murmured. Fine cloth hissed, a zipper jangled and a leg slid between mine in a heady rush of skin on skin. Teeth grazed the soft skin of my neck and a tongue flickered over the vein. “Dulceaƫă, are you familiar with the concept of a quickie?”
I laughed. There were about a hundred reasons why I shouldn’t be here right now, but none of them seemed to matter next to the one overwhelming reason why I should. We were alive, we were both alive, along with the people we loved. It seemed like a miracle.
“Yes, but I didn’t think you were.” Mircea preferred long and slow and sensual, or so I’d assumed based on limited past experience.
“I am familiar with a great many things, as I will be happy to—” He suddenly went still.
His face had the distant look it got when he was communicating with other vampires long-distance. I didn’t particularly understand how they did it; maybe it was merely better hearing, but I didn’t think so. Like I didn’t think I’d imagined his voice in my head in the clinic.
Mircea closed his eyes, his breath coming out in an irritated sigh. “This war is becoming very . . . inconvenient,” he said, and rolled off the bed.
“What is it?”
“I am being summoned,” he told me, shedding his last item of clothing on the way to the bathroom. His voice had been light, but his muscles looked tense as he walked away.
He stepped into the shower but it was glass sided and he didn’t bother to shut the bathroom door. The water turned his hair to black silk and molded it to the shape of his skull. More moisture collected on his high arched brows and dark lashes, before cascading down his cheekbones to wet his lips. Other tiny streams poured over his shoulders and chest in fascinating rivulets, before running down the hard muscles of his stomach and thighs to splash around his feet.
The steam started to obscure the view after a minute, but by then I’d ended up beside the shower door with a sheet wrapped around me. I wiped a hand across the glass so I could see his eyes. “When was the last time you had a day off?”
“Today. I was away from my duties on family business—until the disaster caused me to return early.”
“A day off, Mircea. Not a day doing another kind of work.”
“There are too few senators and too much business for any of us to enjoy much leisure these days, dulceaƫă.”
He stepped out of the direct spray in order to lather up, turning to retrieve a washcloth from a bench in the corner. The motion caused a small cascade down his spine and over the taut muscle further down. My mouth went a little dry.
He paused to grin at me over his shoulder. “Wash my back?” he offered innocently.
I licked my lips and stayed where I was. “Tell the Consul she’ll keep and maybe I will.”
A wet eyebrow quirked. “Would you like me to quote you?”
“Go ahead. She owes me a favor.”
He didn’t immediately respond, just added soap to the cloth and began to run it leisurely over his body. I knew what he was up to, but my eyes simply ignored my brain’s order for them to look elsewhere. Instead, they followed that lucky washcloth as it roamed over the fine chest and arms, moved on to the satiny skin of his inner legs, and glided along the jointure of his hip to areas more interesting still.
I had the door open and a foot across the sill before I even realized it. “I do not believe she views your assistance in quite that way,” he said, a slight smirk tugging at his lips.
I frowned at him and drew my foot back. “That’s the problem. She needs to understand that I’m not her little errand girl.”
“No one thinks of you in those terms,” he said soothingly, pausing to rinse off all those fascinating bubbles.
“Don’t patronize me, Mircea.”
“I wouldn’t dream of it.” And, okay, there was just no doubt about it. That was a definite smirk. He apparently thought his little game was cute.
I’d show him cute.
I dropped the sheet and got in beside him, pushing him down onto the bench. I stood in front of him, taking my time checking out the bewildering array of available toiletries. “What are you doing?” he asked, eyes lazily slitting.
“You washed my hair. It’s only fair I return the favor.” I managed to just brush his cheek with one breast as I reached up to get the shampoo. I put one knee on the bench as I lathered him up, nudging his legs apart to make room. I might have nudged a few other things, too, but he merely watched, although something wicked lurked behind his eyes, feral and amused and hungry.
“The Consul acts like I’m one of her vampires,” I said, massaging in the suds. “She orders me around and expects me to help with plans she doesn’t even bother to explain. I broke a guy out of jail for her today and I don’t even know his name!”
“You broke a great many people out of jail.” His hands settled on my hips, his thumbs stroking me slowly.
“That’s not the point! I’m her ally, not her servant. She needs to understand that.” I picked the shower head off the wall and leaned against him as I rinsed. “So do a few other people.”
“I do not consider you a servant, dulceaƫă.”
“But you don’t tell me anything.” I nudged him again, a little more firmly, and the smirk faded. I smiled.
“In the last month, you have had experiences that would have broken a weaker person. You have enough on your plate.”
“Don’t you think that’s for me to decide?”
“We obviously need to discuss this,” he said, but his breath hitched slightly.
“I thought you were out of time.”
“If you keep doing that, I soon will be.”
“Doing what?” I asked, rubbing against him in a soft, sweet tease.
A sharply indrawn breath was followed by a movement so quick I couldn’t track it with my eyes. But somehow I ended up against the wet shower wall, bubbles in the air and Mircea between my legs. His still soapy hands were slick and barely controlled as he slid them around my hips, pulling me against him. I had a moment to see amber eyes narrow, glittering and full of intent, before the weight of his body slid against me, in me, deep and hard and hot.
I made a little whimpering noise as my body expanded to accommodate him, and then my voice was busy giving orders as he pressed in each time—harder and more and don’t stop. Every movement sent spikes of pleasure arcing up my spine, turning my muscles soft and helpless. Instinct sent my hands sliding down the long, lean muscles of his back, nails lightly running across his buttocks, caressing him. And the room suddenly went hazy, shimmering like heat on asphalt.
I kept my eyes stubbornly open; I didn’t want to miss a single second of this. And for a few moments I even managed to keep that resolution. Until the sensation of the water pouring down his chest and over my skin combined with the feel of his movements inside me to drive me to the edge. Everything became a blur of heat and need, of words breathed over my skin like a caress, of hands and mouths etching the Braille of desire onto warm, wet skin. My eyes finally closed as I was savored, devoured, possessed.
Strong arms came around me as his rhythm began to falter, water-slick hands sliding over my face, my breasts, my hips before he sucked air between his teeth and tilted just so and that was it. The world went white before my eyes, my whole body condensing into a single point of pleasure. A toe-curling orgasm broke over me that left me shaking and laughing up at the ceiling as he finished in a staccato frenzy of motion.
And someone knocked on the door.
Mircea cursed in a string of low-voiced Romanian, his head against my neck, his wet hair trailing over my breast. After a moment, he snatched a big Turkish towel off a rack and wrapped it around me. I leaned against the wall, weak-kneed and breathless, as he wrenched open the door. “Yes?”
One of the blank-faced masters was there, radiating disapproval. “The Consul wanted to be sure you received her message,” he rumbled.
“Tell her I w
ill be with her momentarily,” Mircea snapped, and slammed the door in his face.
“Marco says you can’t do that to the older masters,” I informed him as he dried off with abrupt, angry motions.
“You shouldn’t take Marco’s advice too much to heart. He is one of those he spoke to you about—one who has reached the farthest limit of his power. He is having, I think, some trouble accepting that.”
“It still wouldn’t hurt to be polite.”
“It is obvious that you have yet to meet the family. I am terrorized by them, not the other way around, I assure you.”
Mircea reentered the bedroom and started throwing on clothes without his usual grace. I followed, sitting in the teepee. “When will you be back?”
“Not for hours.” He paused to kiss me quickly. “Get some sleep.”
“I’ll try.” I was exhausted, but my brain didn’t seem to know how to cut off anymore. When the endorphins wore off, I’d probably be wide awake, staring at the ceiling, thumbing through my ever-growing catalogue of horrors. It wasn’t a pleasant thought.“Do you want some help?” he asked, sitting beside me.
I nodded. Anything to avoid replaying today’s events or seeing Rafe like that again . . . Mircea’s arms slipped around me and a wave of peace flowed over me better than any drug. I hadn’t expected it to take hold so fast. I had a dozen things to talk to him about, to ask . . . and suddenly I couldn’t think of even one. Sleep was dragging at my consciousness, my body going thick and heavy, and I couldn’t make myself open my eyes again.
“It’s over; everyone’s safe,” I heard him murmur. The arms tightened abruptly. “Even you.”
I had no idea what that meant, but I was drifting. Mircea’s hand was running slowly up and down my spine, the other heavy on the back of my neck. I breathed out and let the weight pull me under.
Chapter Fifteen
I woke up chained to the bed. “Goddamnit!”
Mircea was standing by the vanity, pulling on another sinfully expensive shirt. This one was crisp and white with French cuffs and unobtrusive links. The tie he looped carelessly around his neck was the perfect shade of gold to bring out the flecks in his eyes. I glared at him.
“I have finally found a way to ensure that you will be here when I return,” he murmured.
“This isn’t funny,” I told him, tugging uselessly on the cuff. It was a little hard to look serious when I was naked and my hair was plastered to my face and I was in a freaking teepee, but I was damned if I wasn’t going to try. “I mean it, Mircea! Let me go!”
He gave me a slow smile in the mirror. I hated when he did that. “I will make you a deal,” he said, coming over to the bed.
“I don’t want a deal! I want out of these!”
He ignored me. “I have to fly to Washington briefly on Senate business. I will be back late tomorrow night or the next morning. I would like to know that you are safe in my absence.”
I sighed in frustration. “What do you think I’m going to do? My power is still bottomed out from yesterday, I’m worried about Rafe and, in case you haven’t noticed, I don’t have any clothes!”
“Your clothes are there.” He indicated a matched set of Louis Vuitton luggage sitting by the bathroom. I’d assumed they were his, although they weren’t his style. Probably something Sal had picked up in an attempt to mold me into less of an embarrassment. “And I think a day or so of rest before you meet the Circle would be wise.”
“I agree! So let me go!”
“I have your word that you will stay here until I return, resting and visiting with Raphael?”
“I was thinking about going shopping.”
“As long as you take Marco.” He extracted a credit card from his wallet and handed it to me. It was a platinum AmEx with my name on it. I could probably charge a house, and he wouldn’t care. Of course, I didn’t need a house; I already had a very nice gilded cage.
“I don’t want your money, Mircea. I want to talk about this.” I rattled the cuff. It made an ominous clanking sound, which perfectly fit my mood. “We need to come to some kind of understanding.”
“I agree,” he said smoothly. “You must understand that you are a target.”
“I’ve been a target all my life!”
“Not like this,” he said emphatically.
“What about the Consul? I don’t see you locking her up!”
“I think Kit would like to try.”
“So did he bug her, too?”
“Bug?” He looked momentarily confused.
“The trace charm. Pritkin says I have one from Marlowe and one from you!”
“How kind of him to mention it.”
“I want it removed.”
“Kit is concerned for your safety.”
“I don’t trust him.”
“But you do trust the mage?” he asked with a smile. It wasn’t a particularly pleasant one.
“More than Marlowe, yes!”
“You know nothing about him,” Mircea said, and there was a definite bite to his tone. “No one knows anything about him. The Circle’s records state that he was born in Manchester in 1920, yet the proof was supposedly destroyed in an air raid—”
“You’ve been checking up on him?”
“—and there is the little matter of our meeting him one hundred and forty years before that in Paris.”
Damn. I’d been hoping that Mircea hadn’t recognized Pritkin on our last journey back into time. It had been a pretty crazy trip and the much younger Pritkin had looked a little different. But vampire eyes—especially Mircea’s—didn’t miss much.
“The Circle’s records must be wrong.”
“The Circle’s records are rarely wrong. And even if that were the case, no two-hundred-year-old mage looks the way he does—”
“A glamourie could—”
“—or is that vigorous! I am beginning to doubt that John Pritkin is even his real name!”
I didn’t say anything. Pritkin and I had finally gotten to a first-name basis recently, or at least, he’d started calling me Cassie. I hadn’t returned the favor because Mircea was right: “John” wasn’t his name. It was an alias he happened to be using this century to hide the fact that he hadn’t been a run-of-the-mill war mage even before he’d broken with the Circle. Of course, Pritkin was an alias, too, but it felt more fitting somehow, maybe because that was what he’d been called when I first met him. And it wasn’t like I could use his real name.
Even today, “Merlin” tends to turn heads, especially in the supernatural community.
All societies have their heroes, and it was Pritkin’s misfortune to be one of ours. It didn’t matter that the old stories were almost entirely fiction, or that the truth had been darker and a whole lot grimmer. It didn’t matter that a medieval writer had even changed his name—from the coarser-sounding Myrdden. It only mattered that he was a legend and they are hard to come by.
If Pritkin’s real identity became known, it would rock the magical world and make him a target for . . . well, pretty much everyone. Every dark mage out there would want to drain him and every white mage would want a photo op. For the intensely private man I knew, it would be hell.
Mircea was regarding me narrowly. His expression said that he suspected me of knowing more than I was telling and was pissed that I wouldn’t come clean. Yeah, like he didn’t have secrets.
“He can’t be trusted,” he said flatly when it became obvious that I wasn’t going to get hit with a sudden attack of memory.
“Pritkin didn’t chain me to a bed, Mircea!” I reminded him. “So at the moment, he’s a little ahead on trust points.”
He looked like he was going to say something and then sighed and glanced at his watch. “The cuffs were to get your attention, nothing more. They are easy enough for someone with your power to defeat, once you know the trick. But you must promise me to take more care. Remain here where you are well guarded. Take at least two bodyguards with you whenever you must leave. And do not fight Kit on
the trace.”
“He’s a spy! You don’t really think this is a simple trace, do you?”
He quirked an eyebrow. “And what are you afraid he will discover, dulceaƫă?”
“You know damn well that’s not the point! I grew up being followed around by Tony’s thugs.”
“And you resented it.”
“Of course!”
“And therein lies the difference between us,” he told me seriously. “I was also accustomed to such attentions from a young age. I never went anywhere alone; it was too dangerous. From the time I was born, I was a target for rival factions of the family, for jealous nobles, for invaders. A pawn in a political game that threatened constantly to engulf me and everyone I valued. I learned early on: safety was far more important than privacy.”
I stared up at him. I rarely saw Mircea look completely serious; he would joke on his deathbed, if he ever had one. But there was no humor in his face now.
“I still want it off.”
“I will make inquiries.” He leaned over and kissed me lingeringly. “Now, do I have your word?”
I sighed. “Yes! Now will you please . . .”
He ran his eyes over me, and some heat sparked in their depths. But he undid the cuffs. “Pity,” he murmured, grabbed his jacket and was gone.
I spent the rest of the morning in the pool, swimming laps and avoiding the growing number of masters inside. A steady stream of gold-eyed vampires from Mircea’s Washington estate filtered in all day, replacing Alphonse’s crew. A few curious types stared at me through the living room windows, but none were willing to brave direct daylight to come out and say hello.
I came back into the apartment itself only when Sal returned from a shopping trip. I helped her carry a few dozen packages to her room, and I couldn’t help but notice that some had Augustine’s distinctive blue and silver seal. He was becoming as famous for the boxes as for the contents. Sal sat a large one on the bed and we watched it do its thing. It unwrapped itself and then refolded into an origami dragon complete with tiny, useless wings and little silver flames coming out of its mouth.
It slowly waddled to the edge of the bed and toppled off while Sal held up what I originally thought was a burlap sack. “This is for you. It’s going to solve these wardrobe slips you keep having.”