AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“I have a roomful of important guests downstairs,” Kit said quickly. “We need their cooperation for the war and this is not going to help!”
Everyone ignored him.
It’s kind of hard to look commanding while holding your junk.
“Put the stake down, and move away,” I told Blondie. “That’s Mircea’s brother, Radu. He doesn’t have a seat on the Senate—”
“I know that!” he sneered. “We’re here for you!”
“You’ve tried that twice, and it hasn’t worked out so well,” I reminded him.
“Twice?” Louis-Cesare hissed, and yeah. The gorgeous Frenchman wasn’t looking so refined rig
ht now. The blue eyes were tinged with silver, the color they turned whenever he pulled up power. And the fangs were out, a drop of his own blood glistening on that luscious lower lip. He looked . . . feral.
“They’re just being stupid,” I told him, staring at the blood. And fighting a strange urge to lick it. “Making a try for my Senate seat—”
“I’m on the Senate,” Louis-Cesare said, his eyes solid silver now. “Why don’t you try me?”
And, okay, I might have been wrong about one of them. Because Purple Hair flipped the gun around, walked over, and handed it to me. “Let him go,” she told Dumber.
Who lived up to his name. “What the hell? What is wrong with you?”
“He’s going to kill you if you don’t,” she said, matter-of-factly.
“He can’t do that! I haven’t challenged him!”
“But he can challenge you. Now step away!”
But Blondie was either really stupid or really entitled or both. Because his chin got a stubborn tilt to it. “We have no quarrel with you,” he told Louis-Cesare. “We just want a fair fight with that bitch of a—”
Annnnnd, that’s why you’re careful what you wish for, I thought, as Louis-Cesare disappeared. Not like he did with his master power, because he didn’t need the Veil with this joker, but moving so fast that it almost looked like it. The next time I blinked, he was by Blondie, who he grabbed and threw into Marlowe. Because I guess he wasn’t finished with him yet.
And then a bunch of guys, Marlowe’s men at a guess, ran in and started chasing the fight around the ballroom. I considered interfering, but seriously, it was like twenty to one. I thought they could handle it.
Probably.
I bent to help Radu instead, but found that he’d already freed himself.
“You were loose all the time?” Purple Hair asked.
“Your friend isn’t very good at bondage,” Radu said, tossing the cuffs on the floor and a shining curtain of dark hair over his shoulder.
Radu was Mircea’s younger brother, but only by a few years. Something that ceases to matter when you’re both on the wrong side of five hundred. But while Mircea looked thirty, maybe thirty-five on a bad day, Radu could have passed for a teenager—if an elegant one.
And tonight was no exception. Louis-Cesare’s Sire was sporting a sapphire and gold patterned robe and some plain—if buttery satin can be called that—lounge pants. It was an attractive set, leaving a deep V at the neck that showed off naturally bronzed skin and brought out the startling turquoise of his eyes.
“It . . . wasn’t bondage,” Purple Hair said slowly. “And why didn’t you do something?”
“I didn’t want to make you feel bad.” Radu patted her gently on the arm. “You were trying so hard.”
“How did you know I’d be here?” I asked her, as she stood there, blinking at Radu. Who tended to have that effect on people. For his part, he wasn’t trying to rescue his son, who clearly didn’t need it, but had instead started puttering around in some plastic storage containers stacked behind the chair.
“Hello?” I tried again, snapping some fingers near her head. “Find me? How?”
“Phone,” she said, still looking at Radu. Before shaking herself and refocusing on me. “We tapped your phone, and overheard you talking to Vincent—”
“Vincent?”
