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And then the screaming started, and the cheering and the crying, along with sounds I couldn’t even name from the throats of what looked like thousands of people who’d taken refuge here, there, and everywhere. They were emerging from hallways and rubble-filled rooms, and they were running all around us now, their cries hammering against me like a tide, their hands reaching out to touch, even as I tried to get up and failed and sat down hard on my ass.
Well, I thought dizzily.
Looked like we were going to need another painting now.
Chapter Seventeen
I shifted into the foyer of my suite a couple hours later, and for a wonder, nobody tried to shoot me. One of my guys—a sweet-faced Cuban named Emilio—was on guard, and he even smiled in welcome. “Heard you had some fun.”
Vampires. Honestly, they really did gossip worse than old women. “I had something.”
“Hey, did you ask about, you know?” He looked at me expectantly.
I blinked tiredly back.
I didn’t know.
“The thing about Lord Mircea not pulling us back?”
Oh, yeah. Only the whole reason why I’d gone. “It, uh, didn’t come up. Yet,” I added when his face fell.
The perpetual smile reemerged, and it was blinding. “Maybe tomorrow.”
Yeah, maybe a phone call tomorrow. I was really starting to hate going to the consul’s. “Yeah.”
I put my hand on the doorknob, but he shook his head. “They’re having a thing on the terrace. Maybe you oughta, you know.” He looked at my destroyed outfit and then did the Bewitched thing with his nose. Only he couldn’t twitch it independently and had to use a finger. It was so goddamn adorable that I actually smiled, and I’d thought I was out of those.
It was good to be home.
“Thanks,” I said, and shifted.
Annnnd immediately regretted it. I reappeared in my bathroom, my second-favorite landing pad, because nobody was supposed to be in there but me. Which was extra fortunate tonight, since I collapsed to my knees from the power loss, biting my lip on a scream. And then wondering why I bothered; this place was soundproofed, right?
I let out a heartfelt groan, and immediately there was a knock on the door.
That was why, I told myself. You didn’t take chances, because there was always. Somebody. Listening!
This time it was Marco. “Cassie? You all right in there?”
Why does everybody keep asking me that? I thought, and then I giggled.
This did not appear to be the appropriate response.
“Cassie!”
“I’m fine,” I gasped out, because if I didn’t, I was going to need another door, and I was trying to go a whole month without trashing my suite. It would be a new record. I was gonna get ice cream.
I unclenched my body and crawled over to the sink.
“You don’t sound fine,” Marco said, and his tone informed me that my door was still in jeopardy.
“We had a thing—”
“So I heard.”
Of course he had, I thought, while trying and failing to get my fumbling fingers to open my damned makeup bag. Vamps communicated mentally. He’d probably seen it in 3-D, surround sound, 4K, or whatever the hell. Damn it, I didn’t care, I just wanted—
There!
