"You took advantage of our trust," his partner added in a high-pitched squeak.
"What's going on is that I need to get out of these cuffs and into a bath!" I snapped, my temper hanging by a thread. "Mircea is coming—"
"Yeah. I know," Marco said tightly. "The front desk called to say he's on his way up."
"He's on his way now? Why?"
"You have a date."
"Appointment. And that's not until two a.m.!" I whirled, looking for a clock, but of course I didn't find one. Clocks made you think about bedtime and bath time and dinner-time instead of gambling the night away in blissful ignorance. The casino didn't like clocks.
"It's five to two," Marco informed me, shoving his hairy wrist in my face. "You've been gone all night."
Shit.
"You want to get me killed, is that it?" he demanded. "I piss you off somehow I don't remember? You working out some kinda grudge?"
"No! I. . just lost track of time. I was busy." In fact, I wasn't all that great at timing my shifts yet. I'd planned to come back a few minutes after I left, in which case I wouldn't have had to worry about explaining things to the deadly duo. Not that I should have had to do so in the first place.
Marco scraped something gray and hairy that was absolutely not smashed rat off my shoulder. "Doing what? Dumpster diving?"
I counted to ten and reminded myself not to overreact. The muscle twins were only doing what they'd been told. Getting rid of them was going to require talking with the one who'd sent them, and even that wasn't likely to work. Because their master also considered himself mine, and he liked to keep an eye on his property.
Mircea Basarab had been born a nobleman in fifteenth-century Romania, when one's woman was almost as prized a possession as one's horse. They were also treated about the same: dressed up and shown off on important occasions, and petted and pampered and kept under careful watch the rest of the time. And although he had since modernized his wardrobe, his vocabulary and his job description, his attitude toward women was remarkably constant.
Not that I was his woman, as I'd mentioned several times. By coincidence, it was the same number he hadn't been listening. I somehow had the feeling that something similar would happen if I brought up getting rid of Marco and friend. For someone who could hear a pin drop three rooms away, Mircea could be amazingly deaf.
It wasn't that I objected to the idea of protection—quite the opposite, in fact. Far too many people had my name on their to-do-nasty-things-to list. But while vampires are formidable opponents—especially the masters, which judging by the power he was leaking all over the place, Marco definitely was—they tend not to perform so well against certain kinds of opponents. Like revenge-minded ancient deities. For what I was facing, I needed something a little more subtle with a lot more punch. Not that I had any idea what that was yet.
I heard the elevator outside the penthouse ding and went into panic mode. I fled to the bedroom, followed closely by Marco. His buddy must've remained in the living room to greet the master—and hopefully to stall him.
"Tell him I'm not up yet," I said, trying to wriggle under the bedclothes.
Marco shook his head. "That ain't gonna work. You knew he was coming. He's gonna expect you to talk. He's gonna expect some quality time. And if there's cuffs involved, he's gonna expect them to be his."
I shut my eyes, trying hard not to think about Mircea and handcuffs. And got an inspiration. "The bathroom. Hurry!"
We ran into the gray and white opulence of the adjoining bath and I slammed the door. "Quick! Fill the tub. And get me out of these cuffs!"
Marco didn't ask questions, just started hot water flowing into the huge soaking tub and threw in half a container of bath salts. Bubbles foamed up everywhere as he bent to examine the restraints. After a few seconds, he said a bad word. "These are magical cuffs," he told me so softly I could hardly understand him over the rushing water. I guess he was worried about vampire hearing. "They ain't gonna come off easy. We're gonna need a mage."
Pritkin would have normally been my first choice, but he already considered my intelligence to be sadly underutilized. If he saw me like this, I'd never hear the end of it. Not to mention that he'd demand to know where I'd been, and I hadn't had time to come up with a good lie yet.
"Find Francoise," I whispered. She was a witch and a good friend. There was an outside chance she wouldn't laugh at me. "And get my bra off, fast!"
Marco shied back, and for the first time an expression broke through that tough demeanor. It was terror. "You're cute, but you're the master's woman. And ain't no woman alive worth that kind of—"
"I'm not propositioning you!" I hissed. "I need to be in that tub with my cuffs hidden under the bubbles until you get back, in case Mircea pokes his head around the door. And I can't wear a bra and pull that off!"
"Then add more bubbles or something, because ain't no way in hell—"
"Help me out here, Marco. Unless you want him to know you lost track of me for most of the night?" Truth be told, I wasn't thrilled with that idea myself. Mircea was already of the opinion that I should be hidden away somewhere for my own protection, and I didn't need anything adding fuel to the fire. The Pythia's power wasn't absolute, and he was damn tricky.
"I'm still not ripping your bra off," Marco said stubbornly.
"I am pleased to hear it," a voice said from the doorway.
Marco spun in a move too fast to see and went dead white. I looked past him and found myself staring into a familiar face. One with a full-lipped mouth curved enough to be almost feminine that contrasted starkly with strong, masculine features. Mircea.
"It's not Marco's fault," I said quickly, because a vampire who disobeyed his master usually met a very serious fate.
"Not entirely," Mircea agreed. His voice was calm, but his cheeks were flushed and a pulse throbbed at his temple. He looked to be in the middle of a slow-burning, very tightly controlled freak-out. And that really wasn't good. Mircea's iron control was legendary, although a few incidents in the recent past had shaken it somewhat.
Come to think of it, most of them had involved me.
"Out," Mircea said, and Marco didn't need to be told twice.
I was on his heels until a heavy hand descended on my shoulder, right over the suspicious stain. I caught sight of myself in the rapidly fogging mirror, and suddenly it was all too much. "I have fish guts in my hair," I said.
"I can see that."
"And I think there may be r-rat," I admitted tearfully.
Mircea studied me for a long moment and then relief softened his grim expression and he let out a sigh. "I am more concerned about the gunpowder," he said, pulling me in.
"Most of it didn't blow up," I told him, trying to pull back so that the God-knew-what clinging to my sweat-streaked upper body didn't stain his silk shirt or drop onto his Italian loafers.
"Good to know," he said calmly before drawing me into a fierce embrace. Mircea kissed like he wanted to live in my skin, slow and thorough, with teeth and tongue, like he never ever wanted to stop. Like he was afraid.
He took a second longer than me to open his lids. When he did, I was confronted with eyes that had gone bright amber. They're usually a rich brown, changing colors only when his power is surging. From a distance, it's impressive; this close, it was dazzling.
The rest of the package wasn't too shabby, either. His hair was mahogany and below shoulder length, although it was hard to tell because it was always pulled back into a slim gold clip at his neck. Well, almost always. The few times I'd seen it in disarray flashed across my mind unexpectedly and heated my cheeks.