Fortunately, my luggage had been transferred over and placed just inside the foyer of the suite, and I’d remembered to pack some normal looking clothes. Black jeans, a matching t-shirt, and a pair of scuffed boots and I was feeling much better. Throw a leather jacket over this lot, and I might look like myself for the first time in weeks.
I smirked at a pair of four-inch pumps, and dropped the lid on them with finality.
Not today, assholes.
Not today.
I was zipping up the bag when I noticed that, while my luggage had been brought over, Louis-Cesare’s hadn’t. The set of soft brown calfskin was nowhere to be seen, not even the matching alligator toiletry bag I’d bought him for his birthday, because he used more shit on his hair than I did. I wondered if Hassani was trying to separate us after our wild night, before we corrupted the Children.
Good luck with that, I thought, and flung open the door.
And met the man himself on my way out of the suite.
He was dressed more like an Arab sheik today than an Egyptian, in snowy white robes and a black and white keffiyeh tied into a turban. In fact, he was neither nationality, being Persian by birth, although he’d studied in Egypt as a young man. But I guess that, these days, he needed to appeal to larger audience and so had expanded the wardrobe.
He bowed as elegantly as if he’d expected to be almost run over, and maybe he had. With vamp hearing, not much surprises them. Although my outfit seemed to, maybe because it wasn’t some sort of fetish wear.
I’d never trust my uncle Radu to pick out my wardrobe again.
However, it probably wouldn’t have mattered what I wore. I’d gotten the impression that Hassani viewed me less as a person and more as a kink of Louis-Cesare’s. And, from his perspective, the evidence was on his side.
Christine, my husband’s first long-term girlfriend, had been a centuries old revenant—one of the mad vampires who results when a Change doesn’t take properly. They’re considered extremely dangerous because they attack with no provocation or concern for their own well-being, like rabid dogs. They can do a boatload of damage even to older vamps as a result.
There’s a whole story there about the fact that Christine wasn’t really Louis-Cesare’s choice, that he was guilted into a relationship he didn’t want, and which had ended up saddling him with Tomas, as well. He was the first-level master Louis-Cesare had kept in thrall for so long. Another consul—Alejandro of the Latin American Senate—had gotten control of Christine, and used her to blackmail Louis-Cesare into fighting a duel against Tomas for him.
Louis-Cesare had won—surprise—but he’d felt sorry for Tomas, who hadn’t challenged for wealth or power, but out of a justified, seething hatred of Alejandro. The consul was a piece of work and Tomas wanted him dead, and was willing to risk his life to achieve it. Louis-Cesare had therefore refused to kill Tomas at the end of the duel, probably sympathizing with his point of view. And in retaliation, Alejandro had refused to release Christine.
That was a problem since revenants were to be killed on sight by senate law. But Louis-Cesare had been the one to Change Christine—another long story—and felt responsible for her affliction. He was afraid that, if he didn’t get her back, eventually someone would realize what she was and destroy her, but he also couldn’t kill the innocent Tomas. He had chosen, therefore, to keep Tomas in thrall so that he couldn’t hurt Alejandro, although it drained his power and weighed heavily on his conscience. In return, Alejandro was supposed to guard Christine.
Of course, he’d ended up letting her escape instead, and the whole, massive cluster fuck had only ended with Christine’s long overdue death at my hand. It had been in defense of others—the bitch really was dangerous as hell—but it hadn’t been in time to keep what she was a secret. Louis-Cesare had lost his senate seat as a result, which he’d only gotten back due to the war, but he’d also acquired a reputation.
I mean, I knew how it looked: one girlfriend a deadly, centuries old revenant, the next a five-hundred-year-old dhampir . . . people were bound to make the connection. Both were the kind of things that gave good little vampires nightmares, both were legal to kill on sight, and both were deadly. Add that to keeping a first-level master vamp