by Karen Chance
“This is a work of art,” he said admiring the chasing on the piece that fitted over the grip. I thought it was called a knuckle guard, but wasn’t sure. “Are there any more like this?”
“I wasn’t paying that much attention,” I admitted. “You should go take a look for yourself. Haven’t you ever been down there?”
“No. But perhaps I should.” He made a few rolling motions with his wrist, causing the blade to glimmer and gleam as it slowly wove a pattern in the air.
“You might want to give them some time to restock,” I said. “I already took all the good stuff.”
“And this place?” he stopped admiring the sword long enough to look at me. “You made yourself an armory—that you could carry about with you?”
I shrugged. “Technically, the armory is in a pocket of non-space, so I’m not really carrying anything but the fixed mouth to a portal. But, sure. It sounds cooler your way.”
He just looked at me.
“I got tired of running out of weapons,” I explained.
He shook his head, and put the rapier back. And the next moment, I was enveloped in a warm hug. “I do love you,” he said, a smile in his voice. “And I am sorry, for not telling you about your father.”
“Okay.”
Louis-Cesare pulled back after a moment to regard me more soberly. “It isn’t, though, is it? You’re upset.”
“Yes, I’m upset. About that, and about what just happened with Zheng.”
His forehead knitted. “What just happened?”
Damn it, I knew it!
“You were negotiating for me,” I explained patiently. Or as patiently as I was able to manage right now. “I was sitting right there, not two feet away from you, yet I couldn’t get a word in—”
“I would never do that!”
“—edgewise.”
He frowned.
I pinched the top of my nose, because I was getting a headache. I was also getting a heartache, because this was something like the third time that we’d had this conversation, and I wasn’t getting through. I was starting to wonder if I was ever going to.
And what if I didn’t?
Louis-Cesare was watching me and he seemed to get that this was serious. I supposed that was something. I just didn’t know if it would be enough.
“I understand that we’re both used to being on our own,” I said. “To not having anybody to answer to, to making all our own decisions. But—”
“We’re not on our own anymore.”
I shook my head.
He sighed and sat down on the floor beside me. He rested his head on my knee, which was cheating, but I decided I’d allow it. The tiny room stuffed with weapons was strangely peaceful after the last few days, a quiet, dimly lit oasis where the outside world couldn’t intrude.
We needed to talk, and I fully intended to. But I was willing to postpone it for a few moments. This was nice.
Louis-Cesare’s hair had gotten a bit windblown on the ride over, so I undid the clasp at his neck and ran my fingers through it because I didn’t have a comb. It was the only drawback to having your purse turned into an armory: you no longer had a purse. I had pockets on the outside, but they were usually stuffed with weapons, too. It was a dilemma . . .
“I don’t want you here,” Louis-Cesare said abruptly.
My fingers stilled. “That . . . was not what I expected you to say.”
“But it is the truth.” He looked up at me, and the sapphire eyes were sober. “I want to be the knight in the fairy tales, defending his lady. I want, with all of my being, to know that you are safe, and that whatever happens to me, you will remain so. When I saw you there, in that alley, when I realized that Jonathan had hurt you, and that he’d been able to do so because of me—”
“It wasn’t because of you. You heard Hassani; the fey were everywhere that night. If I hadn’t followed you, they’d have gotten me somewhere else—”
“Perhaps; perhaps not. But then to see you in that temple, and to know that your pain was my fault, that I had failed you once again—”
“You didn’t fail me,” I said, getting exasperated. So much for the warm, cozy feeling of a moment ago. “That had nothing to do with you—”
“But it did! I should have been there! Even after I saw that Jonathan hurt you, that he had targeted you, I gave him the opportunity to do it again—”
“You gave him nothing. I chose to go down there. It was my decision—”
“But if I had been there—”
I got up suddenly, because I couldn’t think straight with auburn silk cascading over my legs. And because I needed to move. Louis-Cesare followed me with his eyes, and there was no question in them. He believed, absolutely, in what he was saying.
“You know it’s true,” he said, echoing my thoughts.
“What I know is that you’re acting like a master vamp who let down one of his family.”
“Is that not what I am?”
“No.” Damn it, I knew it. “I’m your family in that Radu is my uncle and he’s your sire. But I’m with you because I choose to be. I chose you; I marked you because I see you as an equal. I always have. But I wouldn’t have done that if I’d had any idea that you see me as an inferior—”
“I do nothing of the kind!”
“—who needs protection because she can’t handle herself!”
“I want to protect you because I love you!”
“I believe that,” I said, working to rein in my temper. Because he had to get this. I had to be able to explain this, or we were through. I loved him—so much—but I wasn’t going to live like this. I wasn’t going to be the little woman to be cherished and lied to and protected, while her man went out to face the world’s terrors alone—
And didn’t come back.
That wasn’t who I was; wasn’t who I could be, even if I’d wanted to. Dhampirs ran on adrenaline and anger and action, needing combat as much as they needed air. Yes, I got beat up sometimes, even a lot of the time, but I came through it; I always had. And even if, someday, I didn’t, I’d rather die fighting by my husband’s side that sitting at home, wringing my hands, and waiting for news that would kill me anyway.
Not to mention the fact that we were at war. Did he really think I’d be that much safer back home? There was no safety anymore, except for what we provided each other.
I just wished I knew the words to get him to see that.
I walked back over and knelt beside him. I took his hands in mine, stupidly huge things that they were, because this was a last-ditch effort so I might as well go for broke. “I believe that,” I told him again. “But I also believe that you see me as someone who you give information to when you feel like it, who you protect whether she likes it or not, and who you make decisions for. That’s a problem.”
Louis-Cesare didn’t say anything for a long moment, although his eyes searched my face. That was good. I wanted him thinking.
Whether it would do any good, I honestly didn’t know.
“I don’t know how,” he finally said, and then stopped himself and thought some more. I waited. His eyes found the floor and he stared at it for a long time, before finally looking up at me. “I assume that you want complete honesty?”
“Yes.”
“Even if you won’t like it?”
“Yes.”
He nodded. “Very well, then. The truth is, that I don’t know how to be the partner you want. I have never been a partner—to anyone. I was a burden to my family; Christine was a burden to me.” He paused again, and then continued in a rush. “I try, but I tell you truly, if breaking up with you would keep you safe, if I knew that it would, I would do it. If locking you away would keep you safe, I would do it. If making you hate me was the only way—”
I stopped him with a hand on his cheek, because I already knew all this. His actions lately had made it more than apparent. I just didn’t know why.
“Where is all this coming from?”
“You have to a
sk?” His hand pushed up the bottom of my jeans enough to show the tell-tale scar on my calf. His finger traced it, the touch gentle, barely there. But I felt it down to my bones because of the expression on his face. “I did this to you—”
“You didn’t know—”
He quieted me with a look. He meant this, all the way from his soul. “I did this. I wasn’t strong enough to wrest back control, and keep you safe. Just as I wasn’t strong enough in that alley, or in that tomb. I know you say it was not my fault, but it was my hand on the sword, and my negligence the other times. I did this.”
He put a hand in his hair, pushing it up, looking slightly deranged. I’d known that this had been playing on his mind; I’d caught glimpses, here and there, and been paying enough attention to interpret half cut off words. But I hadn’t realized it was this bad.
He looked up at me, and the blue eyes were tortured. “But I also know that leaving would not keep you safe, either. I do not know what will, and it tears at me.”
I put a hand on his shoulder, and felt the strain there. It was like touching steel with a thin veneer of flesh on top. Everything I’d needed to know was in that one touch.
But I still didn’t have the words to make it better.
“I’ve been around a long time,” I finally said.
“Yes, as a dhampir assassin nobody knew. You’re playing on a different level now. You know this.”
“Yes, I know this. I know something else, too.”
He looked at me.
I struggled for words, and when they came, they weren’t particularly elegant or refined. But they were heartfelt. I meant every word, just as much as he had.
“I was alone for a long time. I didn’t know about Dorina, I thought my father hated and was ashamed of me, and the people that I did have relationships with were business contacts and those who wanted something from me. That was it. That was how I lived, year after year after long, lonely, pain-filled year. And, yeah, there were better times, once in a while. But there weren’t a hell of a lot of them.
“Some people make it through hard times by telling themselves that things will get better. But after so long, you begin to realize: they never will. That was as good as life got, as good as I thought it would ever get. A desert of pain with a few oases dotted here and there, just enough to keep me going. That was all, and wanting anything else, much less expecting it . . .
“Was a child’s foolish dream. Just wishful thinking.
“But then, I met you.”
I looked at him, and I still saw it, just as I had that first day, although I hadn’t wanted to admit it to myself: the little girl’s dream of prince charming, complete with the stupid hair and the gorgeous body and the even more beautiful soul. And I still didn’t have the words. Because what do you say to a dream come true?
But something must have shown on my face, because his hands tightened.
“I don’t know what to tell you,” I said. “I wish I did. All I can say for sure is this. If some genie had come to me and offered me a trade: a few years of being with someone I truly care about in exchange for all the centuries that I had left like that? Yeah. I’d have made the trade.
“And I still would.”
Chapter Thirty-Three
Dory, Hong Kong
We reentered Zheng’s office sometime later, without encountering Hassani’s vamps. I didn’t know where they were, but was grateful that they were gone. I wasn’t even sure what the hell they were doing here in the first place. Did Hassani think I wasn’t going to track down my sister’s kidnappers? Or that I was going to let them off with a slap on the wrist? And if he did think that, what exactly were two guys going to do about it?
I mean, yeah, they were pretty good in a fight, but still. Two guys. I couldn’t really see them taking on a whole contingent of fey on their own.
But damn, if they weren’t sticking like glue.
“Tossed your buddies out,” Zheng said, answering my unasked question while cradling a phone under his chin. “Lily was getting pissed. They’re waiting outside.”
“Did anybody find Bertha?” I asked.
He rolled his eyes. “Whoever did probably went screaming down the road. Can you give me a minute?”
We nodded and sat back down.
“Yeah,” he told the phone. “All of them, even the creepy mage. Yeah, I know, but he’s sneaky. He might have something up his sleeve . . . No, gimme an hour.” He eyed us. “I think I’m about to make a deal.”
He tossed the phone in a drawer and looked at us.
“What Louis-Cesare said before,” I told him, because I hadn’t objected to the terms, merely to being excluded from having a say in them. “The alliance is contingent on getting Dorina back, and is defensive only until we see how things go. But that does not mean defending you because you attacked someone and they attacked you back. It means unprovoked.”
“I know what defensive means.” Zheng took out another cigarette and lit up. “And I got fire power. I don’t need more boots on the ground.”
“Then what do you need?”
“Information and contacts. I don’t know your territory any more than you do mine. You needed help in Hong Kong, and you came to me, which was the smart move. Well, I need help in North America. I got some contacts there, sure, but not at the higher levels. I saw a senate seat go up for grabs, and I grabbed it. It was only afterward that I realized—shit. I might have just put my head in a noose.”
“So, we’re supposed to keep your head out of the noose,” I clarified.
“That would be nice,” Zheng said sardonically. “And I’ll do the same for you, if I can. But I’d settle for knowing that it’s being prepared.”
“And you think you wouldn’t?”
He shrugged and sat back with his cigarette. “I keep my eyes open, but they’re messing with us newbies at court. Rumors, rumors everywhere, but who knows what to believe? I’ve been walking around with goose flesh up my back for months now, right over the spot where somebody’s probably planning to plant a stake in it. I need information I can believe.”
“And Cheung?” Louis-Cesare asked abruptly.
“What about him?”
“Does this deal include him, or are you simply going to inform him of everything we tell you?”
Zheng’s eyes flashed dangerously through the smoke. “You got a mouth on you.”
“It’s a fair question—”
“It’s not the question,” Zheng said, sitting up. “It’s how it’s asked!”
Louis-Cesare started to get up, but I put a hand on his arm. “How would you like us to ask it?” I said.
“With some respect!”
“I have respect for you,” I told him truthfully.
“Yeah, but does he?” Zheng stabbed his cigarette at Louis-Cesare, who was still bristling. Master vamps did not take a challenge well, even an indirect one. But I didn’t think that was what this was.
Zheng hadn’t even noticed my hubby’s hand going to his shiny new rapier; he was too busy going off.
“Mr. Aristocrat, looking like he smells something bad, just like everyone else at that damned court! I thought it would be different from Ming-de’s,” he said, talking about the East Asian Consul, who headed up the Chinese version of a senate. “But some things never change. Be part of the wrong family, and no matter hard you work, you’re never—”
There was a knock on the door.
Zheng called out something in Cantonese, and Lily came in backwards pulling a rolling cart. She seemed to be in a better mood, and the cart’s contents put me in one. I didn’t know what time it was, jet lag having done a number on me, but every time is tea time in China.
Lily bustled in and served everyone their choice of tea and sandwiches and little cakes, which mostly meant serving me because the vamps only took tea. I ate anyway and something about watching me stuff my face seemed to calm Zheng down. “If you want something more substantial, we got a full kitchen,” he told me.
“This is substantial,” I said, around a cucumber and tuna paste sandwich. Lily had brought enough high tea for a family of twelve. “Thank you,” I told her.
“Your friends at night market,” she said. “They get fed, too.”
Well, I hoped they were discreet about it.
She bustled out and everybody sipped tea for a moment, before the conversation resumed.
“I have respect for you, as well,” Louis-Cesare said to Zheng. My hubby was quick tempered, but he wasn’t stupid, and he wasn’t belligerent. If he had time to think, he was a better diplomat than me. “If I indicated otherwise, my apologies. I am merely trying to protect the family interests.”
“Yeah, I get that,” Zheng said. “But you have to understand that I’ve spent months getting flak from a bunch of butt-hurt, would-be senators who didn’t have the guts to face me in the ring for the seat they wanted, but are happy enough to disrespect me at every turn. Half the time I don’t even know when senate meetings are being held, and when I do show up, nobody explains anything. I’m a damned gangster to them, a low life smuggler and an outsider who doesn’t deserve what he got. But I bled for my seat, risked my neck for it, like I’ll bleed for this alliance—”
“You think you’ll have to?” I asked.
He paused, but then he nodded. “Yeah, I think I’ll have to.” He glanced at Louis-Cesare. “I’m making this agreement for me. Cheung wants in, and he can deal with you separately. Which I’ll tell him to his face.”
Louis-Cesare looked at me. There wasn’t much to talk about, since we’d already agreed before we came back in. I nodded.
“We have a deal,” he told Zheng.
Zheng smiled and blew some smoke. And then decided that it deserved more than that, and laughed. “Well, all right, then! Let’s go.”
“Where?” I asked. I was still eating tuna.
“To meet your squad.”