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But Saffy had already pulled me inside.
Just as well.
Hilde had only smelled ozone.
Chapter Eleven
I didn’t wear the ridiculously elaborate outfit the girls had found for me, although I did keep it, because Augustine had been right—it was perfect for a Pythia. Or, at least, a Pythia going to a ball, which I wasn’t. I put on my sensible black skirt instead, with a cute blue blouse that was silky and ruffly and matched my eyes, and dressed the ensemble up nicely, thank you very much.
Then I went looking for Mircea.
He wasn’t in his office, where I scared a maid half to death by popping in just as she turned away from cleaning the desk. When the screaming died down, I tried his private rooms, but he wasn’t in there, either. I poked my head out of the door to the hallway, wondering where else to look, only to freak out the two huge senate guards who’d been posted there for some reason.
I frowned at them, but not because of the shiny-tipped spears they’d thrust in my face, which was par for the course around here. But because they shouldn’t have been there at all. Mircea had had guards when he was injured, the day the senate was attacked a month ago, but he’d long since healed. And of all people, he was able to take care of himself. Unless something else had happened—
My heart leapt to my throat, and I grabbed one of the spear shafts without thinking. “Is Mircea all right? Has he been hurt? Where is he?”
Instead of being upset—or worse—that I’d grabbed his weapon, the beefy-looking blond visibly relaxed. It looked like he’d been startled, but had belatedly recognized me. The same wasn’t true in reverse, but there were so damned many people around anymore, that wasn’t surprising.
“He’s fine,” he assured me. “Or he was last I saw him, earlier today.”
“Then what are you two doing here?” I demanded, letting him go, although my pulse was still pounding in my ears.
“We could ask the same of you!” The speaker was a tall brunet—because the consul had a height fetish where her guards were concerned—and good-looking if you liked the bruiser type. I didn’t, and I didn’t care for his tone, either.
“I’m supposed to be here,” I snapped. “But if Mircea isn’t injured, he doesn’t need guards.”
“Consul’s orders,” the blond told me.
“Why? Have there been problems?”
He sighed and rolled his eyes. “Just all the time—”
“Don’t answer her! Why are you answering her?” the brunet demanded, thrusting his spear a little closer to my nose.
“He is smarter than you,” someone said from behind me.
I turned to find that the corridor, which was wide and marble-bright, was looking smaller and darker suddenly. Because a glowing golden demigod was striding down it. Now there was someone who didn’t need a calling card, I thought enviously.
“Lord Caedmon,” the brunet said, quickly lowering his spear and bowing. “My apologies. I didn’t mean to harass your secretary.”
I scowled down at my serviceable black skirt, Augustine’s laughter ringing in my ears. And then back up at Caedmon, one of the kings of the light fey. Whose lips were twitching.
“What a pleasure to see you again, Lady Cassandra,” he said, bowing, and kissing my hand with exaggerated gallantry.
It was weird, to put it mildly. Not the kiss, but running into him like this. The last time I’d seen him had been on a battlefield in Wales, fifteen hundred years ago. Or, rather, fifteen hundred for him. It had been about two weeks for me, because time travel.
Yet here he was, acting as if we’d just seen each other yesterday.
It was bizarre.
Like his slight smile that said he was putting on a show for the ill-mannered help, and inviting me to go along with it. While his lips on my skin, lingering a little too long, said something else. Something that might have gotten more of a response if I didn’t already have two men in my life, and no idea what to do with either one of them.
But damned if he wasn’t amazing to look at.
At least seven feet tall, with blond hair spilling over broad shoulders and piercing green eyes, he also had the perfect face. Like, literally perfect—I couldn’t find a flaw. With strong, aristocratic features paired with eyelashes longer than a Hollywood starlet’s and a fuller, more sensual mouth than any man had a right to, he would have been stunning in a cardboard box.
But he wasn’t wearing a box. He was wearing golden armor with thin traceries of vines and leaves and winged animals all over it, slightly raised from the rest of the metal and blackened, so that the designs stood out. And, as if that wasn’t enough, among the greenery were sapphires, some around the neckline as big as my thumb, others tiny, almost bead-like, in the eyes of the strange animals peering out of the foliage.
