Embrace the Night

Mircea dutifully kissed it and said something to her in Spanish, but her eyes remained on me. This went on for an uncomfortably long time, but she didn't say anything, so I didn't either. After a while, she decided to look at him instead.

They had a brief conversation that I couldn't follow, but then, I didn't really need to. She was pretty good at conveying information silently. She stared into his face, batting her eyelashes, trailing her finger around the low neckline of her dress, ru

Eventually she moved away, but not before shooting another strange look in my direction. "Old friend?" I asked, trying to make it light.

"Acquaintance," he murmured. His eyes were on a couple of new arrivals—both male vampires. They bowed in his direction and he nodded back, but his pose stiffened slightly. For the usually tightly controlled Mircea, it was the equivalent of someone else throwing a fit. Things suddenly began to make sense.

More than two hundred years of living adds a lot of strength, even to a first-level master. And vamps can sense changes in another's power level as easily as a human might notice a new hairstyle. Any vampire who got too close was likely to realize that something about Mircea was seriously off. He had used me to distract the woman, but I doubted the same trick would work on the men.

"You seemed really friendly for acquaintances," I commented, not bothering to keep the bite out of my tone. I resented being part of his ploy, even if I agreed with the reason for it.

"The contessa and I served on the European Senate together for some time. She was surprised to see me," Mircea said, as we watched the two vampires take their tricolor decoration with identical bland expressions. They started to circulate, but not in our direction. "I am supposed to be in New York at the moment, scouting out the possibility of begi

"Great." That was all I needed, for the Mircea of this time to get back only to have Contessa Whoever quiz him about his Paris vacation.

"Do not concern yourself. She died in a duel before I returned. We spoke mostly about you, in any case."

"Me? Why?"

"She wanted to know why you wear my mark. I refused it to her some time ago and she expressed herself…surprised…that I had favored you."

"You refused her?" I imagine she was pretty surprised. I was looking fairly decent, having wiped most of the potion off and finger-combed my flyaway hair, but I wasn't in the contessa's league. I hadn't needed her expression to tell me that I never would be.

"She wanted into my bed less for pleasure than for the political advantage it would gain her," Mircea said mildly.

"You're not serious." What, was the woman stoned?

"There have been many through the years who have shared her view. When you have wealth or power, there are always those who will find such things more attractive than you."

"Then they're idiots." It was out before I could stop it.

Mircea suddenly laughed, his eyes alight. "You didn't ask me what answer I gave her, dulceata?."

I was probably going to regret this, but I had to know. "What?"

He leaned over and captured my hand, holding it dramatically to his chest. "That you have bewitched me."

"You didn't really tell her that."

He pressed a swift kiss on the pulse point of my wrist. "In those very words." I snatched my hand back, glaring. All I needed was another enemy to have to watch for tonight.

"She called you prince, didn't she?" I asked, deciding on a change of topic. I don't speak Spanish, but the term is the same in Italian. "I thought you were a count."

"There were no counts in Wallachia when I was young," Mircea said, letting me get away with it. "The term was voivode. The English sometimes translated it as ‘count palatine'; others preferred ‘governor' or, occasionally, ‘prince. We ruled a small country." He shrugged.

"Why don't you use it anymore?"

"The idea of a Romanian count was popularized a bit too much once Stoker's book came out. It would have been imprudent thereafter."

We were interrupted by the arrival of yet another gorgeous groupie. Apparently, all the homely girls had decided to take the night off. I stared into the distance and tried to think about more important things while she giggled and flirted. It didn't help much. I wasn't stupid, despite public opinion. I'd known all along that I couldn't have this. But making goo-goo eyes at him with me standing right there was not only tacky, it was insulting, and I'd had about enough. I slid my arm through his, sending the hussy my best glare. The galaxy rotating around my feet suddenly expanded, broadening its width by maybe a foot, enough that the hem of her dress caught fire. She was a witch, not a vampire, so she put out the small flames with a murmured word. But she didn't stick around afterwards.

I glanced at Mircea, belatedly realizing that I might have set him alight, too. But no pinprick-sized holes appeared in his black trousers and I didn't see any small wisps of smoke. Which didn't make sense, come to think of it. "Why aren't you on fire?"

He raised an eyebrow. "Did you wish me to be?"

"No, but…the dress had, uh, a slight effect on Marlowe." And it hadn't even been that bright then.

The eyebrow climbed a little higher. "You set Senator Marlowe on fire?"

"Well, not intentionally." Mircea just looked at me. "We were in the Senate chamber and he got a little too—"

"In the Senate chamber?"

I frowned at him. His face seemed to be twitching for some reason. "Yes, he'd dragged me to see the Consul—"

"You set him on fire in the Senate chamber in front of the Consul."

"It was only a little fire," I said, then stopped because he'd broken into laughter, his whole face crinkling up with it, all bright teeth and curving, irresistible mouth. "He put it out," I said defensively. He just kept laughing.

"Dulceata?" he finally gasped, "as much as I would give to have seen that, it would be as well if you did not repeat the performance this evening."

"I'm not—"

"I only mention it because I believe Ming-de wishes an audience."

"What?"

He inclined his head slightly at the opposite side of the room, where the Chinese version of a consul was flanked by her four bodyguards. "It would be prudent to refrain from setting the Chinese Empress ablaze."

"She looks busy," I said weakly. It was true—she had already gathered a large court of admirers—but I'd also had enough formidable females for one evening. Mircea didn't bother replying, just used our linked arms to pull me through the room.

We stopped in front of the dais on which Ming-de had parked her thronelike chair. It had dragons, too, writhing around the back of the seat, but at least they weren't moving. Unlike the fans that had taken up residence on either side of her head, fluttering and waving in the air like two overactive butterflies. No one was holding them, the guards' hands being preoccupied with the spears that, since they were vampires, I assumed were mostly ceremonial. Especially as the fans were razor-edged, and could probably go from circulating air to cleaving flesh at a moment's notice.

I'd been so preoccupied with the spectacle that was Mingde that I hadn't immediately noticed that she was talking until Mircea nudged me with his foot. I looked away from the dancing fans to liquid black eyes set in a tiny oval face. Mingde looked all of about twenty and yes, she was startlingly pretty. I sighed. Of course she'd wanted to see Mircea.

Only she wasn't looking at him. I wondered if maybe I should get a sign VICTIM OF ROGUE SPELL, NOT A THREAT before anyone started pla