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“Everyone except you,” I said.
His eyes slid back to me, reflecting the gaslight from beside the door. It made flames dance in his pupils, like he needed the added creepy. “I beg your pardon?”
“That’s how you really look, isn’t it?” Judging by the brown lace of his cravat and the frayed cuffs on his coat, they might have been Victorian originals. And his pale face and limp, lifeless hair looked that way because he was exerting no power to make them appear otherwise. I was in disguise; the other vamp was in disguise. But Jack was just Jack.
I hadn’t really expected an answer, but he suddenly bent forward, his breath raising goose bumps on the still-wet skin of my neck. “Tell me, little one, do you know why vampires find the Hollywood stereotype so loathsome?”
“Bad dialogue and worse acting?”
“Because it shows us stripped bare, exposed and naked in our brutality—in other words, as we really are. We’re all monsters, under the skin.” He grinned at me. “Even the beautiful ones.”
I ignored the jab at Mircea, who most definitely fit that description. “Is that why they stuck you guarding the back door? Because you embarrass them?”
“They’re afraid of what I might say if allowed to mingle with all our fine guests.” His tone was light, but there was something dark in his eyes.
“Same here,” I said, trying to find common ground.
His gaze met mine, and there was the tiniest glint of laughter in those beetle black depths. He knew he was being played, but he was bored and pissed and he didn’t care. “I thought they were afraid that their precious asset might get her soft, white throat cut.”
I swallowed, resisting a strong urge to cover up the vulnerable skin in question. “That’s what they say, because it sounds better. But I think they’re ashamed of me. I grew up in a vampire’s court, but it wasn’t the right court. You know?”
He nodded. It was no secret that Tony had been the vampire equivalent of white trash. It was one reason why I was starting to suspect that I would never fit in with vampire society. That and not actually being a vampire.
“We outcasts should stick together—is that your contention?” he asked.
“You’re the one who said this party needed livening up.”
“So to speak.”
“Are you going to let me in?”
“My orders were to stop you.”
“That wasn’t what I asked.”
Jack beamed like the owner of a dim-witted puppy that has finally done its first trick. “No, it wasn’t, was it?”
“Well?”
His eyes narrowed thoughtfully. “You are about to become Pythia.”
I crossed my arms. I knew what was coming. “And?”
“And you may have an opportunity to do me a small favor in the future.”
“What kind of favor?”
“Nothing too disturbing,” he murmured.
Since this was Jack, that didn’t reassure me much. “I’d have to approve of whatever it is,” I said reluctantly. It felt like I was making a pact with the devil, which wasn’t far from the truth. But I had to get in there.
“Agreed,” he said, so quickly that I knew I was going to regret this. But he flung open the door with a flourish. “I look forward to seeing Lord Mircea’s reaction to your presence.”
/> “That makes one of us,” I muttered, and hurried inside.
Chapter Thirty-four
Jack had set up a stool at the end of a walnut-paneled hallway just outside the kitchen. There was a mirror on the wall, probably for the servers to use to check themselves out, so I did—and got a shock. My strawberry blond curls were still hidden by the wig, but it was my own tip-tilted nose and wide blue eyes staring back at me.
