That was why Mircea and I were dating—or, at least, that’s why I was doing it, to figure out whether this whole relationship thing was something I could handle. He was doing it to humor me, when he remembered, although he clearly thought the whole thing was ridiculous. Mircea had been born in an era when men took what they wanted and kept it, as long as they were strong enough. And strength had never been one of his problems.
Listening, on the other hand . . .
“I listen,” a velvet voice murmured in my ear.
I bent my head and let my hair fall over the phone. It wasn’t much as privacy went, but around here, it was as good as it got. “Uh-huh.”
“And what does that mean?” he asked, sounding amused.
“It means ‘that’s bullshit,’ but I’m too high to think of a good comeback right now,” I said honestly.
“High?”
“Blitzed, baked, stoned . . .”
“I understood the term,” Mircea said, his voice sharpening. “My question was why?”
I hesitated. The truth was, I’d been pretty near hysterical when I woke up. I was getting better in crises, mainly because I’d had a lot of practice lately. But afterward . . .
I still had problems with afterward.
“Marco thought it best,” I finally said.
Mircea didn’t seem to like that answer. “I will speak with Marco,” he said grimly. “But for the present, I am more concerned about the attack this evening. I have heard my men’s report, such as it was. I would like to have yours.”
It was my turn to sigh. “I don’t know. It wasn’t a ghost; that much I’m sure of. And Pritkin swears it wasn’t a demon.”
“There are thousands of types of demons, Cassie. He cannot possibly be certain—”
“He’s pretty certain,” I said drily.
“—and you have recently had problems with several of them. A demon is the most likely culprit.”
“I think we should trust Pritkin’s judgment on this one,” I said, because I couldn’t say anything else. That Pritkin was half demon himself wasn’t exactly universally known, but what type he was wasn’t known to anyone but me.
I intended to keep it that way.
“I am not so certain,” Mircea said, sounding sour. “But I would speak with the man. Can you put him on?”
I really didn’t think that was a great idea, considering that Pritkin and Mircea mixed like oil and water, only not as well. But I passed the phone over, anyway. I didn’t get much of the resulting conversation, both because it was pretty terse on Pritkin’s end, and because Marco had started the extraction process again.
“There can’t possibly be that many pieces of glass in my ass,” I gritted out, after a couple of agonizing minutes.
“Babe, it’s like you rolled in it.”
“It was all over the floor!”
“And when that’s the case, it’s best to avoid the floor,” he said drily, digging what felt like an inch into my tender rear.
“I’ll keep it in mind the next time I get possessed by an evil entity!”
“Demon,” Marco said, sounding final.
“It wasn’t a demon,” Pritkin argued, but I couldn’t tell if he was talking to Marco or Mircea. “Yes, I’m bloody well sure!”
Mircea.
“Okay, this is going to sting a little,” Marco told me, right before he set my butt on fire.
“Shit, shit, shit!”
“Gotta disinfect it,” he said imperturbably. “You’re not a vamp. You could get an infection.”
“In what? You just burnt my ass off!”
“He wants to talk to you,” Pritkin said, looking grim.
I took the phone back. “What?”
“Cassie?”
Mircea wasn’t accustomed to getting that tone from women, but I was too sore—in several ways—to care. “If Pritkin says it wasn’t a demon, then it wasn’t a demon. Goddamnit, Mircea! He ought to know!”
“And why is that, dulceață?” Mircea asked smoothly. And, okay, maybe I was going to have to revise that list. Because sometimes Mircea also used my pet name when he was being sneaky.
“He’s a demon hunter,” I said, forcing myself to calm down before I said anything stupid. Well, anything stupider, anyway. “It’s his job to know.”
“I will have my people check into all possibilities,” Mircea said, and I really hoped he was talking about the entity. “In the meantime, I need your promise that you will not leave the hotel.”
“Mircea, I was attacked at the hotel. How is staying here going to—”
“The guards will be doubled.”
“You could have tripled them—you could have had a guard per square foot—and it wouldn’t have made a difference! No one could have predicted—”
“We should have predicted it,” he said harshly. “We knew there would be an attack. I simply did not expect it so early. The coronation isn’t for another ten days.”
“But why wait until the last second?”
Mircea didn’t say anything, but the very pregnant pause made it clear that he didn’t think that was funny.
Of course, he didn’t find too much funny these days. He was currently trying to negotiate the first worldwide alliance of vampire senates. It was what he’d been working on all month, what he was doing in New York, where a lot of the senators had gathered for some kind of meeting prior to the coronation. But as formidable as his diplomatic skills were, there was no doubt that he was up against it. The senates had had centuries to plot and scheme and piss one another off, and they’d apparently done a pretty good job of it.
And nobody holds a grudge like a master vamp.
Add to that the ongoing war and now the coronation that was scheduled to be held at his estate, and it would have been enough to give anyone a headache. I didn’t want to add to his problems. And what he asked was easy enough.
It wasn’t like I’d be safer anyplace else.
“I’ll stay put,” I promised.
“Good. Then I shall see you tomorrow night.”
“Tomorrow? I thought you wouldn’t be back for a week.”
“That was my intention, but . . . I have obtained the information you requested.” For a moment, it didn’t register, because I couldn’t recall asking Mircea about anything. Except—
I suddenly sat up.
And just as suddenly regretted it. I gasped and Marco cursed. “Hold still!” he told me, pushing me back down. That was okay, because it gave me a chance to get my face under control.
“About our date,” Mircea’s voice clarified unnecessarily.
“Oh. Right.” My voice sounded normal enough, but I felt my palm start to sweat where I clutched the phone. Because what I’d asked him for wasn’t the usual dinner and a movie. I hadn’t really thought he’d be able to pull it off—or that he’d be willing, for that matter. But Mircea never ceased to surprise.
I wanted details, wanted specifics, but I couldn’t ask for them. Not with Pritkin’s eyes on me from across the room. If he knew what I planned, I had no doubt at all that he’d try to stop me. And while that would probably be the smart thing, it wasn’t the right thing. Not this time.
“What should I wear?” I asked, hoping that was safe.
“Classic formal attire.”
“Okay. I look forward to it,” I told him, and rang off.
Marco finished his little torture session a moment later and bandaged me up. I cautiously moved into a sitting position, and it still wasn’t fun. But I was too distracted to really notice.
“We’ll get you one of them little doughnut things,” he told me, as Pritkin walked over. And, shit, his eyes were narrowed.
“So if it wasn’t a ghost and it wasn’t a demon, what was it?” I asked, to forestall any inconvenient questions.
To my surprise, it worked. “I have a theory, but I would prefer some confirmation.”
“What theory?”
“Do you remember how we defeated it?” he asked, as I tucked the sheet around me and slid to the floor.
“I remember you threw something at me.”
“It was half of a nunchuck. I’ve been intending to get the chain re-soldered, but haven’t had time.”
“Half a nunchuck?” I frowned. “Why would you give me that?” It wasn’t like I could bash a spirit over the head with it.