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“Yes, you are. I’ve seen you fight a whole squadron of dark mages, and look like you were enjoying yourself. I saw you be electrocuted and not lose your cool. And now you’re freaking out because—”
“I am not ‘freaking out’!”
“Well, what would you call it?”
“I—I should go,” the small vamp whispered, edging toward the door. But Mircea grabbed him by the front of his natty brown vest.
“You. Tell me how to remove this!”
“But—but I already—that is to say—”
“If you utter that phrase one more time—”
“God does exist, and he loves me,” Marlowe said, bright-eyed.
“Tell me how!” Mircea roared.
“Mircea!” I said, appalled.
He shot me an exasperated look. “I am not threatening him, Cassie! He is a second-level master and under the protection of a senator. And he is expected to know his business—”
“I do know my business!” the man said, brushing himself down huffily when Mircea released him. “But as I explained—in some detail, I might add—no one knows much about seiðr. It isn’t used anymore. It’s too expensive, magically speaking. The gods found it useful to communicate with one another, even across different worlds. But for humans—well, a phone call is rather easier!”
“A phone call is also voluntary,” Mircea pointed out.
He really did not look happy.
And I suddenly felt stupidly hurt. Or maybe not so stupidly. I wasn’t sure. This was my first big romance—my first romance period, really, unless you counted one night with a friend to complete a spell and keep from dying, and I somehow didn’t think you were supposed to count that. But this . . . this was supposed to count.
I felt my face crumple.
And Mircea suddenly sighed and ran a hand over his own face.
“You manage to make me forget all my training,” he told me ruefully.
“You’re not supposed to need training with me,” I whispered. And I wasn’t crying, damn it. I wasn’t!
Mircea came over and pulled me against his chest, a strong hand in my hair. “I’m not good at relationships,” I told him, sounding muffled.
“I hate to tell you, but it doesn’t get any easier,” he told me back.
“Well, it was fun while it lasted,” Marlowe said, sighing, and headed for the door, taking the wide-eyed little vamp along with him.
“I’ll—I’ll look for a solution,” the vamp threw over his shoulder as he was hustled out.
“Do that,” Mircea said dryly.
“Don’t step on the rugs,” Marlowe said, and then they were gone.
Chapter Twenty-nine
“What happens if we step on the rugs?” I asked.
“Probably nothing.” Mircea sat in Marlowe’s vacated chair and pulled me onto his lap, maybe because there weren’t any others. “It’s a running joke.”
“What is? That his rugs will kill you?”
“That everything in here will kill you. Kit has a reputation for having truly vicious wards, to the point that anything new that appears in his office is automatically suspect. He began to notice that people avoided even stepping on his rugs. And he . . . found it amusing.”
