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“Yes, I’m upset. About that, and about what just happened with Zheng.”
His forehead knitted. “What just happened?”
Damn it, I knew it!
“You were negotiating for me,” I explained patiently. Or as patiently as I was able to manage right now. “I was sitting right there, not two feet away from you, yet I couldn’t get a word in—”
“I would never do that!”
“—edgewise.”
He frowned.
I pinched the top of my nose, because I was getting a headache. I was also getting a heartache, because this was something like the third time that we’d had this conversation, and I wasn’t getting through. I was starting to wonder if I was ever going to.
And what if I didn’t?
Louis-Cesare was watching me and he seemed to get that this was serious. I supposed that was something. I just didn’t know if it would be enough.
“I understand that we’re both used to being on our own,” I said. “To not having anybody to answer to, to making all our own decisions. But—”
“We’re not on our own anymore.”
I shook my head.
He sighed and sat down on the floor beside me. He rested his head on my knee, which was cheating, but I decided I’d allow it. The tiny room stuffed with weapons was strangely peaceful after the last few days, a quiet, dimly lit oasis where the outside world couldn’t intrude.
We needed to talk, and I fully intended to. But I was willing to postpone it for a few moments. This was nice.
Louis-Cesare’s hair had gotten a bit windblown on the ride over, so I undid the clasp at his neck and ran my fingers through it because I didn’t have a comb. It was the only drawback to having your purse turned into an armory: you no longer had a purse. I had pockets on the outside, but they were usually stuffed with weapons, too. It was a dilemma . . .
“I don’t want you here,” Louis-Cesare said abruptly.
My fingers stilled. “That . . . was not what I expected you to say.”
“But it is the truth.” He looked up at me, and the sapphire eyes were sober. “I want to be the knight in the fairy tales, defending his lady. I want, with all of my being, to know that you are safe, and that whatever happens to me, you will remain so. When I saw you there, in that alley, when I realized that Jonathan had hurt you, and that he’d been able to do so because of me—”
“It wasn’t because of you. You heard Hassani; the fey were everywhere that night. If I hadn’t followed you, they’d have gotten me somewhere else—”
“Perhaps; perhaps not. But then to see you in that temple, and to know that your pain was my fault, that I had failed you once again—”
“You didn’t fail me,” I said, getting exasperated. So much for the warm, cozy feeling of a moment ago. “That had nothing to do with you—”
“But it did! I should have been there! Even after I saw that Jonathan hurt you, that he had targeted you, I gave him the opportunity to do it again—”
“You gave him nothing. I chose to go down there. It was my decision—”
“But if I had been there—”
I got up suddenly, because I couldn’t think straight with auburn silk cascading over my legs. And because I needed to move. Louis-Cesare followed me with his eyes, and there was no question in them. He believed, absolutely, in what he was saying.
“You know it’s true,” he said, echoing my thoughts.
“What I know is that you’re acting like a master vamp who let down one of his family.”
“Is that not what I am?”
“No.” Damn it, I knew it. “I’m your family in that Radu is my uncle and he’s your sire. But I’m with you because I choose to be. I chose you; I marked you because I see you as an equal. I always have. But I wouldn’t have done that if I’d had any idea that you see me as an inferior—”
