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“Your hair.” I gaped at it.
He ran a hand through it. “I haven’t had a chance to deal with it yet.”
“Do you have to?”
Green eyes narrowed. “Where have you been?” he demanded. “And why aren’t you dressed?”
I didn’t reply because suddenly Marco was there with a scowl on his face and a rip in his suit. “All right,” he said, panting slightly. “Let’s go.”
“How do you think Mircea would like you manhandling me like this?” I asked, looking down at the hand gripping my bicep.
“The master wants you to wait for him upstairs.”
“You called him?”
“No. He left a message in case you showed up. I guess he knows you.”
I ignored that. “Since when do you deliver messages?” I looked at Pritkin. “He didn’t give me any of yours. I wouldn’t have even known about the meeting if it weren’t for Billy.”
“Why didn’t you give her my messages?” Pritkin demanded.
“Billy and I have this theory,” I told him, “that maybe the Senate isn’t too happy about—” I stopped because Marco clapped a hand over my mouth. Pritkin knocked it away, and the two sized each other up.
“I haven’t had dinner yet,” Marco told him. “Bring it.” Pritkin glanced at me and finally noticed that I was attached to something. “Why are you handcuffed to a chair?”
“It’s part of a couch,” I told him.
The elevator dinged and the old man and woman got out. They skirted the damaged furniture in front of the elevators and walked down the hall toward us, her limping slightly because of her hip. They finally reached us and the old man scowled. “I thought I told you to move that thing,” he said querulously. “I forgot my medication. I have to take it with breakfast or I’m messed up the whole day. And your sofa is blocking my door.”
Marco closed his eyes for a minute and then picked up the sofa. He broke off the arm that I was chained to and handed it to me. Then he proceeded to rip the rest into tiny pieces while the old couple watched him with big eyes.
He’d almost finished when his buddy, looking pretty beat up, came running out of the stairwell leading a detail of security. Since the hotel is owned by one vamp and managed by another, it isn’t too surprising that most of the security force is also among the life challenged.
“I’m her bodyguard!” Marco yelled at them as six vampires piled onto him. “You don’t understand—she’s in danger!”
“Uh-huh,” the leader of the patrol said, eyeing the old couple. “It looks like we arrived just in the nick of time.”
“Tell him!” Marco ordered me.
I opened my mouth and then closed it again. Marco was a new arrival on the scene in Vegas, having been brought in from Mircea’s court in Washington State. As a result, most of the casino employees didn’t know him yet. With luck, the guards wouldn’t get confirmation on his identity until after my meeting with the Circle was over. I stood there silently as they dragged him away while he stared at me with little narrowed eyes.
“Sorry about that,” the security chief was telling the old couple.
“You could comp us a buffet,” the old woman said hopefully.
“Damn straight,” the old man agreed. “There’s something wrong when a fella can’t even get to his meds.”
“What the hell is going on?” Pritkin demanded.
I held out the arm with the cuff. “Get this thing off and I’ll fill you in.”
Chapter Five
Half an hour later, I was standing in Dante’s lobby getting smacked around by a blond. For once, it wasn’t Pritkin. “Stop that!” The willowy creature at my side slapped my hands. I’d been trying to surreptitiously wipe my sweaty palms on the full skirts of my dress, but I guess I hadn’t been subtle enough.
“I’m not hurting anything,” I said as someone started sniffling nearby. I looked around, but all I saw was the gimlet-eyed group across the hotel lobby. They were filing in by twos and threes, attempting to blend in with the crowd. But despite the fact that Dante’s employees dressed in everything from sequined devil suits to dominatrix garb, they weren’t doing so great.
It might have been the heavy coats they wore despite the fact that the temperature outside was threatening to shatter thermometer
