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A smile flickered across her lips, but never made it to her eyes. The green depths remained cold and calculating. She pulled a small wallet out of her purse and opened it up. The ID inside said MADELINE HUNTER.
The woman in charge of the whole damn Directorate.
“NOW MAY I COME IN?” SHE DRAWLED, PUTTING the ID away.
“Not on your fucking life,” I muttered. I hit the MUTE button then, swung around, meeting Tao’s and Ilianna’s curious gazes. “Say nothing. Do not invite her in.”
“Why?” Ilianna asked, confusion crossing her features. “I saw her badge—she’s Directorate. She’s not about to hurt us.”
I snorted softly. “You need to listen to some of the stories Rhoan and Riley tell about the Directorate. Besides, she’s a vampire. If we invite her across the threshold, she can waltz in anytime she likes.”
“So what’s to stop her using her vamp mojo on us and forcing an invitation that way?” Tao asked.
“Because the invitation has to be freely given.” But that didn’t mean she couldn’t use her vamp telepathy skills to create other sorts of orders. I walked across the room, retrieved my phone from my purse, flicked it across to vid-screen, and said “Quinn.” I knew he’d be up. He might be half Aedh, but he was also a vamp and he rarely slept nights—even if he spent half of t
hem in bed with Riley.
“Risa,” he said, the Irish lilt in his voice holding a hint of surprise. “Why are you calling at this hour? Is anything wrong?”
“I’m not entirely sure. Hang on.” I walked across to the door and pressed the control screen. As the door slid aside, I said into the phone, “There’s a woman outside my door claiming to be Director Hunter. Is this really her?”
I turned the phone around so he could see. Again, amusement flirted with Hunter’s lips—and again, the look in her eyes suggested she was anything but amused.
“Madeline,” Quinn said immediately, his voice cool and the soft lilt gone. “Do not try anything on her. Do not tamper with her mind. I’ll know.”
She snorted softly—almost elegantly—as her gaze moved to me. “You have some mighty powerful allies, Risa, but I’m no threat to you.”
Not yet.
The unspoken words hung in the air between us. I turned the phone back around. Uncle Quinn’s dark eyes glittered like black diamonds in the small screen. “If you don’t call back within the hour, I’m coming after you.”
“Thanks.” I hung up, then slipped the phone into my jeans pocket. Uncle Quinn might be one step down the ladder from this woman in the vampire hierarchy, but he was something the older ones weren’t. He was part Aedh, and he’d once been an assassin for the vampire council. And they feared him. I knew that tidbit from Riley herself.
I looked Madeline Hunter square in the eyes. “What do you want?”
With a long, slender hand, she motioned past me to the apartment’s interior. “A bit of common courtesy would be a nice start.”
“If you want to talk to me, we can go elsewhere. McDonald’s is around the corner and open twenty-four hours.” I smiled tightly. “I’m sorry, but you’re not getting permission to waltz into my house.”
Her lip curled ever so slightly. Obviously, Director Hunter and McDonald’s were not compatible. Or maybe it was my attitude she wasn’t compatible with. After all, she’d been running the Directorate since its inception, and I doubted she’d heard the word no very often.
“If you insist,” she said flatly. “Let us go there now.”
“Just let me grab my coat.” I didn’t wait for her answer, just jogged to my bedroom to fetch my leather coat and shove on some shoes. “Azriel,” I said softly, “You might want to listen in on this conversation.”
There was no answer, but then I didn’t really expect any.
“Are you sure this is safe?” Ilianna whispered as she and Tao came into my bedroom. “I mean, why the hell would the Director be visiting you at this hour?”
I snorted softly. “Who’s betting it has something to do with my father?”
After all, almost everything else that had gone wrong so far did.
“You want me to come along?” Tao asked, flexing fingers that danced with little jets of flames.
“No.” I squeezed his arm in appreciation of the offer, then added, “But it might be handy to see if Stane can get us the latest in nanowires. If the Directorate is getting involved, we might just need them.”
He frowned. “Will they stop someone as powerful as Hunter?”
