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I took the phone back. “What?”
“Cassie?”
Mircea wasn’t accustomed to getting that tone from women, but I was too sore—in several ways—to care. “If Pritkin says it wasn’t a demon, then it wasn’t a demon. Goddamnit, Mircea! He ought to know!”
“And why is that, dulceat?a??” Mircea asked smoothly. And, okay, maybe I was going to have to revise that list. Because sometimes Mircea also used my pet name when he was being sneaky.
“He’s a demon hunter,” I said, forcing myself to calm down before I said anything stupid. Well, anything stupider, anyway. “It’s his job to know.”
“I will have my people check into all possibilities,” Mircea said, and I really hoped he was talking about the entity. “In the meantime, I need your promise that you will not leave the hotel.”
“Mircea, I was attacked at the hotel. How is staying here going to—”
“The guards will be doubled.”
“You could have tripled them—you could have had a guard per square foot—and it wouldn’t have made a difference! No one could have predicted—”
“We should have predicted it,” he said harshly. “We knew there would be an attack. I simply did not expect it so early. The coronation
isn’t for another ten days.”
“But why wait until the last second?”
Mircea didn’t say anything, but the very pregnant pause made it clear that he didn’t think that was funny.
Of course, he didn’t find too much funny these days. He was currently trying to negotiate the first worldwide alliance of vampire senates. It was what he’d been working on all month, what he was doing in New York, where a lot of the senators had gathered for some kind of meeting prior to the coronation. But as formidable as his diplomatic skills were, there was no doubt that he was up against it. The senates had had centuries to plot and scheme and piss one another off, and they’d apparently done a pretty good job of it.
And nobody holds a grudge like a master vamp.
Add to that the ongoing war and now the coronation that was scheduled to be held at his estate, and it would have been enough to give anyone a headache. I didn’t want to add to his problems. And what he asked was easy enough.
It wasn’t like I’d be safer anyplace else.
“I’ll stay put,” I promised.
“Good. Then I shall see you tomorrow night.”
“Tomorrow? I thought you wouldn’t be back for a week.”
“That was my intention, but . . . I have obtained the information you requested.” For a moment, it didn’t register, because I couldn’t recall asking Mircea about anything. Except—
I suddenly sat up.
And just as suddenly regretted it. I gasped and Marco cursed. “Hold still!” he told me, pushing me back down. That was okay, because it gave me a chance to get my face under control.
“About our date,” Mircea’s voice clarified unnecessarily.
“Oh. Right.” My voice sounded normal enough, but I felt my palm start to sweat where I clutched the phone. Because what I’d asked him for wasn’t the usual dinner and a movie. I hadn’t really thought he’d be able to pull it off—or that he’d be willing, for that matter. But Mircea never ceased to surprise.
I wanted details, wanted specifics, but I couldn’t ask for them. Not with Pritkin’s eyes on me from across the room. If he knew what I planned, I had no doubt at all that he’d try to stop me. And while that would probably be the smart thing, it wasn’t the right thing. Not this time.
“What should I wear?” I asked, hoping that was safe.
“Classic formal attire.”
“Okay. I look forward to it,” I told him, and rang off.
Marco finished his little torture session a moment later and bandaged me up. I cautiously moved into a sitting position, and it still wasn’t fun. But I was too distracted to really notice.
