“I fucked up,” Tiago said. “It was a stupid fucking mistake and it hurt her. Bad. I don’t know how bad.”
Rune gripped him by the shoulder hard, his keen gaze steady. “All right. Whatever it is, we’ll fix it.”
“I had to walk away,” Tiago said. His voice had turned guttural, harsh. “Give her a little space. I don’t know how much space to give her. Couple hours? The rest of the night? I was just”—he looked down at Clarence, who had crumbled in a heap at his feet—“I was killing something. Killing time I guess.”
Rune looked down at the guy too. Clarence had stuffed his bleeding nose into the sleeve of his jacket. Rune said to him, “You know what a lucky little pissant you are that I came along when I did?”
“Yeah, I thick so,” said the kid. He swiped at his streaming eyes.
“Wyr don’t forgive easily,” Rune said. “And we never forget. You need to become a model citizen now.”
“Cross by heart,” Clarence said into his sleeve. “I bean it. I thick I saw Jesus in the wall just now. I’b gonna start going to church with by bob again. Baybe I’ll join the arby.”
No matter how sumptuous and inviting her penthouse bedroom was, Niniane had no desire to go back to it after her conversation with Carling. She wandered with aimless restlessness throughout the penthouse’s common areas.
She paused by the grand piano and opened the lid to finger the cool, smooth keys. It was a Steinway, the black surface polished to a high shine, and she suspected it was in perfect tune. She loved music, loved to sing and adored dancing, but her piano playing skills were desultory at best. Besides, the time had to be well past ten o’clock by now. That wasn’t terribly late and the Vampyres would be wide awake, of course, but some of their human companions and the Dark Fae might be readying for bed. She eased the lid back down with a sigh.
She looked up at the Vampyre who had become her soundless shadow. It was the stairwell Vampyre again. He was beautiful as Vampyres tended to be, with cool dark looks and a slim frame that hid what she knew would be a tensile inhuman strength. Rhoswen had disappeared, perhaps to attend to her mistress.
She couldn’t keep thinking of him as the Stairwell Vampyre any more than she should keep thinking of Carling as the Stepford Vampyre. She asked, “What’s your name?”
“Duncan,” he said.
“It’s nice to meet you, Duncan.”
“Thank you, highness.” He watched her with an attentive dark gaze and a calm neutral expression. “It is a pleasure to meet you as well.”
“When you came back out of the stairwell this afternoon, I was glad that the first thing you did was look toward Carling and that you didn’t go after Tiago again,” she said. “But I’m curious. What made you do that?”
Duncan said, “We could all feel when she stopped us. At least the Vampyres could. I’m not sure about our humans. Their senses are so much less than ours. When she released us and I returned to the hall, it was important to find out what had changed, preferably as quickly as possible.”
Niniane’s eyebrows rose. No wonder Rhoswen had no sympathy for Cowan. He’d gotten two warnings to stop before he lost his head.
Duncan spoke with a slight pleasant accent. Normally she loved to talk to people and to find out about their lives—or spooky undead existence, as it were—and the impulse to ask him more questions drifted through the back of her mind. The impulse faded almost at once. She wasn’t able to muster up a social mood.
She asked, “So what’s a girl got to do to get a drink around here?”
“She has merely to state what she would like,” said Duncan. He smiled at her. “It would be my pleasure to get her whatever she desires.”
He had an attractive smile and a pleasing manner. Niniane knew better than to believe those were the only qualities that won him a place in Carling’s entourage. “I’d like a bottle of red wine, please,” she asked.
“Anything in particular? Merlot, Beaujolais, Syrah?”
She said, “Alcoholic will do just fine.”
She went onto the slate-tiled patio where potted trees and plants were arranged attractively around a couple of wrought iron tables and chairs. She sat and looked out at the city lights while a warm breeze played with her hair. A few minutes later Duncan brought a tray out. He placed a glass of wine in front of her. He murmured, “I thought perhaps a Malbec.”
“Thank you,” she said.
He placed the bottle on the table, along with an assortment of cheese, crackers and fruit. Wishing him gone, she thanked him again, and he gave her another smile before he stepped away to take a position by the doors.
Her life felt like too much of a burden to pick up and examine at the moment. She sipped her wine and tried to exist in the now, but she couldn’t turn off her thoughts.
You should be careful where you step, Niniane. You are in a fragile place right now.
Yeah, thanks for that reminder, Carling. Like I hadn’t noticed.
Niniane downed the contents of her glass and rubbed at her forehead. On the plus side: Her identity had been easily verified so that it was no longer in question. Nobody could contest her right to the throne.
Wow, that was on the plus side? That was the only thing on the plus side?
On the negative side: Aside from her releationship with the Wyr (which was not in jeopardy), she had no strong alliances upon which she could rely with any degree of confidence, she had no real Power to speak of and she had a long estrangement from Dark Fae politics and society. She had no idea which of the delegation members she could trust.
And her relationship with the Wyr was a long-distance relationship. Her father’s relationship with the Wyr had been in good standing as well. That hadn’t saved him or his family.
She really was up shit creek without a paddle. If she was in a betting pool, she would give herself less than a year.
Then a thought occurred to her. Perhaps dear dead cousin Geril wouldn’t have tried to kill her if she had been less obvious about how unwelcome his attentions had been. Perhaps that was why he had taken her out to dinner first then tried to kill her. Otherwise why bother to feed her? Had he really thought his distant connection to the throne would be enough to make a play for it on his own? That was hard to believe. Or had he been working with someone else and decided to play all angles of the game? If she had responded to his flirtation, he might have thought he had a shot at sharing the throne with her.
Anxiety gnawed at her. She wished she had a pack of cigarettes. She took the bottle, tilted a liberal amount of wine into her glass and tossed it back.
If she wanted to lose at that betting pool and live longer than a year, she had to make an alliance with someone who had power. Or Power. Working to build a good relationship with Carling was all well and good, but that would be a long-distance relationship too, and she had to do more than build a distant alliance with another demesne. She had to make an alliance with someone close at hand. What did she have to offer that she could hope would make someone’s loyalty stick?
She looked at her plus side. Well crap.
She said out loud, “I’m going to have to marry.”
The warm wind took her words and blew them away. Not that it changed anything. She was going to have to marry to solidify her position and survive. She was going to have to find someone who wanted the throne, who couldn’t get it on his own and who had enough political clout or Power, or both, to help her hold on to it. She needed someone who had as much of a vested interest in keeping her alive as she did.