Embrace the Night

Mircea took the handkerchief and set to work on a green smear on my neck. His knuckles barely brushed me, and even then it was through the satiny weave of the linen. It was an odd sensation, close enough to not quite touch, warm enough to not quite feel, the sleeve of his jacket whispering along my bare arm. "Why did you come back for me?" he murmured, stroking lightly, pressing just hard enough for me to feel the embroidered initials on the cloth. "Do I not exist in your time?"

Define "exist," I thought, as the small square worked its way downward, the banded ends just tickling the top of my breasts. "The Consul wouldn't let me come alone," I breathed.

When I'd talked to Billy about taking Mircea along, he'd still been relatively lucid—as much as the geis allowed anyone to be. But if the Consul had been desperate enough to order him confined, then he was too far gone to help me. And I really needed competent help.

If Mircea died, I had no doubt that the Consul would blame it on me. And, unlike the Circle, who seemed to have too many problems to concentrate all their energy on hunting me down, she struck me as the single-minded type. If she wanted me dead, I had the definite impression that I would get dead. Really fast.

"You could have chosen another senator," Mircea pointed out.

I couldn't come up with a convincing lie with goose bumps trailing over my skin, following his caress with slavish devotion. "The other you was busy," I said, snatching the damn handkerchief away before I went out of my mind. This wasn't going anywhere and I wasn't a masochist.

"For something that important, I would have thought I could have made the time," Mircea said lightly.

And yes, I was busted, because no way would he have sent anyone else to take care of something that concerned him so personally. But I still wasn't telling him anything. "You're just going to have to trust me," I said.

"Even though you will not do me the same honor?"

I took a deep breath and concentrated on not banging my head into the wall. "There's not a lot more I can tell you. I've probably said too much already. All you need to know is that we have to get that book or we're both in a lot of trouble."

Mircea took a moment to process this. I was certain he wasn't going to let it go, wasn't going to just take my word for it. But then he held out his arm. "May I assume that this counts as a first date?"

"Oh, we're way past that," I said, before I thought.

He smiled slowly. "Good to know."

Chapter 20

The guy who answered the door was in his early forties, with thi

All of whom paused to look at us as the butler or whoever he was made introductions. I hadn't heard Mircea give his name, but the man knew it anyway, although I was just "and guest." I needn't have worried about our appearance: Mircea managed to make losing the coat seem like a fashion statement. I saw several other male guests surreptitiously shuck theirs after a moment, not wanting to miss out on a new trend. But one remained unmoved, muffled head to toe in a thick black cape that swept the ground and didn't leave so much as a nose visible. That was okay with me, because the people I could see were disturbing enough.

A woman appeared in front of us carrying a basket of knitted blue, white and red rosettes. I chose not to poke a hole in Augustine's creation, and carried mine, but I didn't like it. It felt fu

"Human hair, probably from the guillotined," Mircea murmured. I quickly slid it onto a nearby table.

A moment later, a pretty, dark-eyed French girl sashayed up with a tray of wineglasses. She gave Mircea one and then just stood there, apparently waiting for him to finish it so she could give him another. It looked like the rest of the room was out of luck. But he didn't drink, I noticed; he just held the delicate stem casually in one hand, the bloodred contents glimmering in the low light.

I took one off her tray and downed most of it in a gulp. It was good, and the head-clearing fumes were better. Mircea watched me with a smile and switched our glasses, giving me his full one.

"You don't like wine?" I asked, sipping at my new drink with a little more decorum.

"Under certain circumstances."

"Such as?"

"Remind me to show you sometime," he murmured as our group was joined by a stu

She was Japanese, or at least she looked Asian and had origami hummingbirds buzzing about, holding up her hand-painted train. And she was only the first of many. Despite the fact that we found a dark corner beside the fireplace to wait for the main event, a steady stream of people made their way over to speak to us. Or, more accurately, to speak to Mircea, since most of them barely gave me a glance. I couldn't help but notice that a disproportionate number of them seemed to be attractive and female.

I don't know why this surprised me. It had been the same way at court, when Mircea came for an extended visit to Tony. I'd overheard the staff complaining that they'd never had so many guests; even vamps who loathed Tony had shown up to pay their respects. Because Mircea wasn't just a Senate member, he was a Basarab, which pretty much put him in the movie star category as far as vampires were concerned.

Or maybe rock star, I thought, restraining myself from forcibly removing the hand that the current groupie, a statuesque auburn-haired witch, had placed on his arm. He moved back on the pretense of setting his empty glass on the mantel, and his admirer moved with him. His mouth curved into a rueful smile that, for a moment, I wanted to taste so badly that I couldn't even think.

I didn't blame the groupies. Much. Mircea was perfectly capable of using his looks and reputation to his advantage—it was practically a job requirement. But the hell of it was that most of the time he wasn't doing it on purpose. He simply enjoyed his surroundings, wherever he was and whatever he was doing, with an unconscious sensuality that was just as much a part of him as his hair color.

Even with the extra power my office lent me, the geis was strengthening. Just standing beside him was enough to get my heart racing, my pulse pounding. And my body was getting noticeably slower at obeying my brain's commands to look away, to not touch, to not notice every little thing about him. Like the way his hair still held the faint memory of the cold wind outside. Like the warmth of his skin when he touched the notch in my upper lip with a fingertip.

"A spec of potion," he murmured, his finger trailing over my lips.

Of course, sometimes he was doing it on purpose.

I looked up to meet eyes that were quiet and intense and focused. Under that gaze, it was easy to believe that I was the only person in the room who held any value for him, the only one on earth who mattered. But I'd seen that look before, and not just directed at me. Shy people became talkative, aggressive people became amenable and plain people blossomed, trying to live up to the regard they saw in his eyes. Or thought they saw.

I held his gaze for a drawn-taut moment before I blinked and looked away, angry that he was trying this on me, confused that he was doing it now, and I met the eyes of a dark-haired female vampire. Her garnet dress clung to some dangerous curves, and her silver mantilla framed a face so beautiful that for a moment I could only stare. She presented a hand, but I ignored it; it was too high to shake, so I assumed it wasn't aimed at me.