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That’s what she called my father. “Diplomatic, as always. And Mom’s good, although I think she misses yours.”
“BFFs,” she said with a shrug, as if that explained everything. “You been to the House yet?”
“Not yet,” I said. “Diplomatic responsibilities. I’m going over there tonight for the Cadogan House party.” And I declined the monster’s invitation to dwell on that a little.
“Oh, right. I got an invite to that.” She grimaced. “I wasn’t going to go. That cool with you? You like people a lot more than me, anyway.”
I smiled. “Your call. I’d love to wine and dine you on my parents’ dime, but it’s going to be fancy, and it’s going to be vampires.”
“You had me at ‘wining and dining,’ but lost me at ‘fancy.’” She bobbed her head toward the mural. “The Pack wants this done by the end of next week, so I think I’m going to put in a late night. Speaking of which, have you said hi to Connor yet?”
“I saw him at the reception. Looked older, acted pretty much the same.” And my dry tone should have indicated I wasn’t impressed with that.
“You punch him?”
“Not yet.”
“Good. He’s coming around, you know.”
I gave her a dour look.
“What? He’s had four years to mature. And has to mature if he wants the Pack.”
“There’s a joke in there about animals being in charge, but I’m going to rise above it. I would like to talk to him, though.” I hadn’t planned on it, but since I was here, I wouldn’t mind getting his take on the fairies. “Do you know if he’s around?”
“I don’t. But you can look.” She used the brush, gestured to a door on the opposite side of the room. “If he’s in the building, he’s in the bar or the garage. Through that door.”
“Okay,” I said. “Maybe I’ll see you tomorrow?”
“I’ll check my schedule,” she said, “have my people call your people.” Then she turned back to her mural. “And Lis?” she called out, when I was halfway to the door.
“Yeah?”
“Be careful in there. It is a den of wolves, after all.”
• • •
The bar portion of Little Red had been a dive, with dirty linoleum, gritty walls, and sticky, mismatched tables. The new version worked very hard to pull off the same level of comfortable grunge. And did a pretty good job of it.
The room was big, with concrete floors and brick walls. There was a stage on one end, an empty space in the floor for dancing or fighting, and a lot of mismatched tables and chairs.
The shifters watched as I walked through, eyes turning to me. Low growls and grunts mixed with the magic in the air.
They shouldn’t have minded having a vampire in their territory, much less one who’d been raised with their crown prince. But none of these shifters looked familiar. Maybe the Pack had been recruiting.
“I’m looking for Connor,” I said, and waited for someone to acknowledge me.
Two of them, big men with broad shoulders and leather jackets—like walking shifter stereotypes—rose and walked toward me. “Why you want him?”
“I need to talk to him.”
“We don’t like vampires in our place.”
“I’m sorry to hear that. But this is a public place, so I can’t help you.”
One of them growled, began flexing his fingers. The other cracked his neck.
I figured they were bluffing—even if they didn’t know who I was, surely they were smart enough not to start a fight with a random vampire—but I wasn’t entirely certain. I was certain that shifters didn’t much care for sups who cowered, so I amped up the bravado.
