Karen Chance: Tempt the Stars

Shit, I thought viciously, and backed swiftly into the room I’d just run out of.

Which was absolutely the right thing to do.

At least it was until they followed me in.

In a panic, I shifted—also the right move, since there were no other doors out of there. But shifting in a split second in a panic isn’t easy, and this time I didn’t manage it. Or, rather, I didn’t completely manage it.

Son of a bitch! I thought desperately, finding myself trapped in the fireplace as two high-level master vampires walked into the room.

I tried shifting again but went nowhere, almost as if I was stuck. Which might have been because I was, I realized a second later. Half of my body was in the next room, having shifted back through the fireplace all nice and proper. But the other half . .

The other half was still on this side of the wall, protruding through the blackened old bricks from just above the waist.

I twisted and turned desperately but went nowhere. And then I tried to shift again in a frenzy. But half a dozen attempts in quick succession only left me dizzy and with a serious desire to throw up. And no freer than I’d ever been.

A glance down at my waist showed that at least I hadn’t been cut in two, like an inept magician’s assistant, which is what I’d always assumed happened in these cases. Instead, an annoyed-looking bunch of bricks had puddled up around me in a working ring, like commuters jostling for space they weren’t finding. And giving off the subtle grind of stone on stone in the process.

I freaked a little at that, because if it was audible to my ears, it probably sounded like an avalanche to the vamps. But when I looked up, only the fireplace screen was looking back at me. Literally, since it was one of those fake Tiffany things with a hundred colors and a bunch of bug-eyed insects all over it.

But there were no vamps, bug-eyed or otherwise. Amazingly, they hadn’t noticed my struggles, any more than they had my heartbeat or my panicked breathing. Either the darkness in the big old fireplace or the tackiness of the screen had shielded me from sight. And I guessed the storm had covered any noise I made, or else I was still barely inside the sound shield Jonas had laid. He’d linked it into a section of the house wards, and I wasn’t sure how far that extended.

Not that it mattered. Because sight and hearing aren’t the only senses that are stronger for a vamp. And despite the temperature, I was sweating like a—

“It’s the girl, isn’t it?” the second vampire said abruptly.

I stopped struggling for a second, when it felt like even my heartbeat froze.

“Cassandra.” Mircea nodded, handing his companion a drink. “She plays all over the house.”

And then it started back up again.

Of course the house smelled like me, I thought dizzily. Of course it did. My younger self slept at the other end of the hall; why wouldn’t it?

I swallowed and wondered, not for the first time, what the life expectancy was for Pythias.

Why didn’t I think it was very high?

“No. I meant, that’s why you’re here,” the other vamp said, dark eyes narrowed in suspicion.

That wasn’t unusual. He could be as charming as any of his kind, but unlike with Mircea, it wasn’t his job. His name was Kit Marlowe and he’d long ago transitioned from spying for Her Majesty, queen of England, to doing the same for another queen, this one in charge of the dreaded North American Vampire Senate.

Well, dreaded to most people, including most U. S. vamps because it served as their less-than-benevolent government. But for me, it didn’t seem quite so scary anymore, maybe because I was dating one of the senators. The one who was currently looking with amused tolerance at Kit.

“What gave you that idea?”

“Don’t be coy. I’ve seen you put less effort into charming countesses—”

“Who normally require little effort,” Mircea murmured, sipping brandy.

“—than into that child. ‘Why, isn’t that a pretty painting, Cassie? However did you do it?’” Marlowe mimicked.

“The colors were quite nice,” Mircea protested, lips quirking.

Kit didn’t look so amused.

“What is your interest?” he asked bluntly.

“She’s a charming child.”

“She’s a seer .” Marlowe’s eyes narrowed. “The real thing, by all accounts, but that is hardly enough to warrant camping out in the wilderness—”

“It is less than an hour to Philadelphia.”

“The wilderness ,” Marlowe insisted, looking around disparagingly. “And in any case, if you wanted to see the blasted vamp, why not order him to your court? Why come here at all, much less for almost a year ?”

“Ah. Is that what has your lady ordering you to check up on me?” Mircea asked, settling back into a dark red leather armchair. He still looked amused, although whether he actually was or not was anyone’s guess.

His companion remained standing, and tensed up slightly. “I needed to ask you about a number of—”

“Now who’s being coy?”

Marlowe dropped it. “Well, if she is curious, who can blame her? No one does this.”

“Many masters visit their servants.”

“Servants who live in Paris; servants who live in Rome. Not servants who live in the backwoods of Pennsylvania in a dump!” Marlowe gestured around, the small gold earring he wore in one ear flashing in a lightning burst. “What do you expect me to tell her?”

“That I am attending to family matters that do not concern her.”

“Oh yes. Yes, that will go over well,” Marlowe said sarcastically.

“It should. It’s the truth.”

“And you’re not going to offer any further explanation, any more details,” Marlowe said, prowling nearer to the fireplace.

“I don’t see why she would expect them,” Mircea commented as I started struggling again. “I am not a newborn who must be tended, and this has nothing to do with her.”

“Nothing?” Marlowe spun, just before he reached me. And just before he would have gotten close enough for a good look over the screen.

I swallowed hard.

I was twenty-four.

And I was already too old for this.

“That is what I said.”

Marlowe pounced. “Then the fact that her mother was Elizabeth O’Donnell, the Pythia’s former heir, is irrelevant, is it?”

Mircea’s head cocked, and his eyes narrowed slightly. “Now, I wonder. Is the mole in my family or Antonio’s?”

“I don’t need a mole,” Marlowe said shortly, and drank scotch.

“Ah, a listening device, then. And yes, it would be simple enough here. Antonio’s mages are not the best.”

“They’re shite,” Marlowe said bluntly, “and that isn’t the point. You have a line on a possible Pythia—”

“That’s rather reaching, wouldn’t you say?”

“No, I would not say! And you didn’t tell us!”

Marlowe’s tone was as accusatory as the words, but Mircea didn’t look concerned. “As yet, there is nothing to tell. Cassandra’s mother was heir to the Pythian throne at one time, yes, but she was removed—”

“But not for lack of ability! For consorting with that Roger Palmer character—”

“Whose capabilities are unknown.”

“He worked for your servant. You ought to know them well enough!”

“Yet, nonetheless, I do not.” Mircea’s tone was calm, but then, it always was. More tellingly, his eyes stayed brown. Marlowe wasn’t getting to him. “And as he and Elizabeth are now deceased, we may never do so. Leaving Cassandra’s talents in question.”

“Yet you decided to meet her anyway.”

“Would you not have?”

“And to gain her trust.”