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To a vampire, they were a flashing neon sign that said hold up, back off, take a moment and rethink your life. Because this one is taken, and by a senator, no less. Who will destroy you and everything you love if you so much as look at her too long.
Or, at least, that’s what I’d been told they meant. I had a hard time visualizing it, because I didn’t see that side of him. Yes, I knew Senate members didn’t get the job of supervising a society of “blood-sucking fiends,” as Rosier had called them, by being nice. But that wasn’t my Mircea. My Mircea was laughing eyes and silky hair and knowing hands and quick wits. . . .
Which probably explained why I’d had a crush on him since I was a kid, when he’d paid a visit to the court of the vampire who raised me.
Tony had taken in my parents, who were on the run from the Spartoi, some nasty types Ares had left to hunt my mother, in exchange for Dad doing a few spells for him. Vampires weren’t able to do magic like humans, so most employed mages to create wards and such. And for a while, things seemed to have gone along fine.
Until Tony had figured out that his mage’s young daughter was a true seer, a rare and potentially profit-making commodity in the supernatural world. And tried to take me. My parents objected, Tony insisted, and in the end, the issue was settled by a deadly car bomb. Which had killed a weakened goddess masquerading as a human. And left her four-year-old daughter an orphan and Tony’s new house seer.
At least it had until his master found out about me.
Because unlike his servant, Mircea did his homework. And he’d discovered that the mage Tony had taken in wasn’t some down-on-his-luck hack, like most of the freelance types, but Roger Palmer, a former member of the infamous Black Circle. Who was best known for eloping with Elizabeth O’Donnell, the Pythia’s designated heir, and for somehow keeping her hidden for years from all attempts to retrieve her.
Mircea had found that very interesting, since the missing heir also just happened to be my mother.
Agnes had been getting old and everyone knew that the power would soon pass to a successor. Which was supposed to be a carefully groomed acolyte as usual. But it was the Pythian power itself that chose a host, not the former Pythia, so technically it could go anywhere.
And Mircea had bet that it would go to me.
The long shot had paid off, but another gamble hadn’t. He knew the Circle had never stopped looking for my mother, and would take me as soon as they found out who I was. They had jurisdiction over magic users, not the Senate, who only governed the vamps. And I couldn’t be changed into a vamp, because that sort of thing ruined magical skill, including the ability to channel the Pythian power.
So he’d left me at Tony’s, which, unlike his own glittering court, was about as far out of the limelight as it was possible to get. Before he went crazy and joined the other side in the war, Tony had dealt mainly in human vices, so wasn’t of great interest to the Circle. And anyway, I was already there. No one had any reason to question the origins of the little orphan girl Tony had taken in out of the goodness of his cold, clammy heart.
And so we had waited. For me to grow up. For Mircea to see what would happen. And in the meantime, he’d had a mage put a spell on me to ensure my safety at the court of a guy who made the human mafia look like sweethearts.
He’d thought of everything—except the possibility that the damned thing would backfire.
Like most strong magic, the spell he’d used had a reputation for being unpredictable, and a few time-travel shenanigans after Mircea and I met again as adults had resulted in a real mess. And in an obsessive, lust-fueled relationship that had been sorted out only when the spell was finally broken. But by then, his bite had ensured that, according to vampire law at least, I was now his wife.
And divorce isn’t a thing in the vamp world.
Not that I had asked for one. No, I’d asked for something almost as strange. I had asked to date.
The idea had been to find out if all that spell-induced attraction had something else behind it. Or if I was just wearing rose-colored glasses left over from a childhood in which Mircea had seemed like the only port in a constant storm. Tony had been scary. His master, on the other hand, had been kind and caring and handsome and thoughtful. . . .
And maybe I really was stupid. Or chronically naive. But I didn’t believe that all of that had been a lie.
Did Mircea want to profit from me? Of course he did. He was a vampire. But that didn’t mean he didn’t care about me, too.
It also didn’t mean that he did, my little voice commented, before I squashed it and leaned across the counter to grab my toothbrush.
And felt a hand slide down my naked ass.
Chapter Twenty-six
For a second, I froze, staring at nothing. Except for the toothbrush hanging out of my open mouth. And then I spun, my heart hammering—
And still saw nothing.
Except for swirls of steam that looked faintly ghostlike even under the bright, cheery bathroom light.
And maybe there was a reason for that, I thought hopefully. “Billy?”
My ghost companion didn’t answer.
I licked my lips.
That didn’t mean he wasn’t there. Billy Joe liked to play games, a relic of a life spent as a professional gambler on the Mississippi. Not a good gambler, mind you. It was why he’d ended his twenties with a tour of the river bottom, courtesy of a croaker sack, a lot of rope, and a couple pissed-off cowboys who he’d been trying to cheat.
