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Lindsey raised her hand. “Shouldn’t that be hypothesis?”
“I will give you the rhinestone knife.”
The threat apparently was enough; she mimicked zipping her lips.
* * *
Luc developed the cover story, another feigned meeting with Darius: We were two couples out on the town, enjoying a night in Chicago, celebrating the approaching end of winter.
We walked inside the hotel, shoes clicking on the shiny stone floors. Giant vases of flowers sat inside the entrance on marble and gold tables, scenting the room with the fragrance of lilies and hyacinths. Men and women in impeccably tailored clothing sat in the lobby’s conversation areas, or spilled out with the jazz from the bar across the room.
“Fancy,” Luc said.
“Any sign of him?” Ethan asked, lifting my hand to his lips.
“Not that I can see.” There were several humans and a possible River nymph, but not a vampire in sight.
Luc gestured toward the bar with his and Lindsey’s linked hands. “Couples in love hit the bar, have a drink, and survey these lovely surroundings for the man who may or may not want to end us.”
“Oh, I suspect he wants to end us,” Ethan said, as we followed Luc and Lindsey. “But he may not want to do it here.”
Lindsey ordered the drinks: gin and tonics for us, Scotch on the rocks for Luc and Ethan. And when she came back with a small bowl of steaming edamame dotted with flakes of sea salt, I decided not to complain that she’d assumed I’d be hungry.
We took seats beside men and women who looked like they’d spent the day cornering their respective financial markets. With our drinks and snacks, and a fabulous view of the Portman and its patrons, we awaited our former king.
It took seventeen minutes.
Darius emerged from the first elevator, tall and lean, with a narrow waist and broad shoulders. From a distance, he looked completely normal. His head was shaved, his features strong, his eyes bright blue. He wore a button-down shirt that matched his eyes, tucked into slim black slacks.
Two vampires walked closely behind him, the muscle Victor had referred to.
The one on Darius’s left, the bigger of the two men, was an ugly son of a bitch. Bug-eyed, a nose squashed from one too many jabs, hard, square jaw. His was a face only a mother could love, but it was refreshing to have a bad guy whose soul matched his outward appearance. There’d been too many wolves in designer sheep’s clothing lately.
While the main man was noticeably ugly, his associate on the right was remarkably plain. Light skin, brown hair, brown eyes. Medium height, medium build.
But their status as security was obvious—they scanned the room with flat eyes and suspicious expressions, and they vibrated from an abundance of weaponry.
“Guns,” I said, sipping my drink. “Several of them.”
“They look like the type,” Luc said, his gaze on Lindsey, a hand on her shoulder, rubbing lightly as if they were two lovers anticipating a night of passion. “Shoulder harnesses, probably. And the classic tucked-into-the-back-waistband approach.”
“Always turns me on when a man has a magnum in his pants,” she said.
I barely bit back a laugh, so the sound came out as a strangled snort.
Ethan shook his head. “You two are no longer allowed on ops together.”
“This is barely an op,” Lindsey said. “It’s more like an exploratory committee.”
We watched as Darius took a seat in a low, square chair in the sitting area. His guards took up point beside him, each about six feet away.
“And I believe it’s time to explore,” Ethan said, sliding his glass forward and rising. “Merit, you’re with me. Lucas—”
Luc nodded before Ethan could finish the order. “We’re here, just in case. Do us all a favor, Liege, and try to keep yourself alive?”
“It’s the second-highest thing on my list right now,” Ethan grumbled. He straightened his jacket, his features transforming from operative to Master vampire. Haughtiness, arrogance, and utter confidence returned.
He strode toward Darius, and I fell into step behind him, the (ahem) meek Sentinel. The muscle watched us close in, lips curled in distaste. They let us approach to ten feet, then moved forward, hands outstretched like linebackers ready to stop Ethan’s forward progress.
Ethan ignored them, kept his gaze on Darius, who hadn’t yet seemed to realize that Ethan Sullivan, the Master vampire who’d challenged him for the throne, was standing only ten feet away.
That was, to say the least, odd.
“Darius,” Ethan said. “It’s good to see you again.”
Darius looked up at him blandly. “Is it?”
This man clearly looked like Darius, from the dent in his chin to the perfect posture. But the Darius West I’d met would never have looked blandly at an enemy.
Ethan was momentarily taken aback, but he covered it up. “It is,” he said, his tone unfailingly polite. “We’re old friends, and old friends who don’t get to speak as often as we might.”
“I suppose . . . that’s true enough. Where’s your boon companion? Your Sentinel?”
“She’s here,” Ethan said. I walked forward, taking the hand that Ethan offered me.
His eyes, Ethan silently said. Look at his eyes.
Darius had been in the tall man’s shadow, but as I moved forward, the man shifted, as did the light across Darius’s face. His electric blue irises were narrow, dwarfed by wide and ink-black pupils. Whether by drugs or magic, something was affecting our former king. And deeply.
“Merit, it’s good to see you again.”
“It’s good to see you, as well.” A lie, and not. Whatever his issues with Ethan, this man was no threat to him right now. Not in this condition. Not with those eyes, that manner.
Darius nodded, but that was the end of his interest in me. His attention had flitted elsewhere. “If you’ll excuse me, I have some business to attend to.”
“Of course,” Ethan said. “It was good to see you again.”
Having been dismissed, we went back to the bar.
“He’s not well,” I murmured, taking a sip of my gin and tonic, relishing the cold, astringent punch. I needed it to wash away the weird encounter.
“He’s not,” Ethan said, rubbing his forehead. “I had no clue what I’d see tonight, but I don’t think I expected that. That isn’t Darius.”
“How so?” Luc asked.
“He barely registered Ethan,” I said. “And not in the arrogant, you’re-beneath-me way. In the I’m-currently-drugged-out-of-my-gourd way.”
