Brave the Tempest (Cassandra Palmer #9) - Karen Chance Page 0,127

say, very quietly, but couldn’t seem to turn my head to see who. It felt like I was riveted in place, wondering if I was supposed to do something, and if so, what? Because, yes, the Pythia was expected to help keep the peace between leaders in the supernatural community, but I suddenly realized that no one had ever bothered to mention how.

I suddenly realized that very clearly.

“This body voted to put me in charge of this war,” Mircea continued.

“Of the army—”

“And is that not what is going to be fighting the war? But it can’t if my orders are overridden or ignored. Or if I am treated as someone of a lesser rank than you, so that your people are constantly torn between whether to listen to my commands or yours. In battle, that can cost lives, even lead to defeat. The rest of the time, it undermines authority and eats away at morale. This must stop.”

“How?” Parendra sneered. “By putting you on the level of a consul?”

“Or you on a level of a senator. It matters not to me—”

“You dare!” I thought Parendra was going to go over the table.

I think Marlowe did, too, because he was on his feet suddenly, but Mircea cut him off with a gesture that clearly said, “I don’t need the help.”

“Yes, I dare,” Mircea said evenly. “It is either that or lead this army to destruction, and that I will not do. Once this war is over, I will resume my former rank, and be grateful to be alive to do so. But for now, and for the duration of the conflict, I rank on a level with the rest of this new senate of ours. And where the army is concerned, I rank above it.

“Or you can get yourself another general.”

* * *

* * *

“You son of a bitch!”

Marlowe was incandescent. The dark eyes were fire, the dark curls looked like they’d had hands running through them, and the skin was dead white from fear or shock or God knows what. He looked like he would have slammed the door behind him, or possibly ripped it off its hinges and thrown it at Mircea’s head, only there wasn’t any door. I’d wondered why there was a colonnade inside a building, especially since it wasn’t holding up the roof, and now I knew.

Each large segment between giant marble pillars was closed off by an invisible ward, creating a bunch of quiet rooms where different groups could hold discussions in private. I knew that, not because anybody had told me, since nobody was in a mood to tell me anything. But because all sound from outside had cut off as soon as I followed Mircea and Marlowe through two of the pillars.

Which, all things considered, was just as well.

“What the hell were you thinking?” Marlowe demanded, as his friend—usually—turned around.

“I was thinking that a few things needed to be made clear.”

Mircea looked eerily calm, and as perfect as always, except for a lock of hair that had escaped from the tight confinement it was usually kept in. Mircea’s hair was longer than modern styles permitted, at least for guys who wore Armani suits, meaning a little below shoulder length. Rather than cut it to comply with social expectations, he’d compromised by pulling it back into a discreet clip at the base of his neck.

From a distance, or even up close if you weren’t paying attention, his hair looked short, since he frequently wore dark colors that the “ponytail” blended into. But not now. He pulled the clip off and tossed it aside, the tortoiseshell rattling on the stone of the floor because he hadn’t bothered to put it in a pocket.

Without it, mahogany waves fell onto broad shoulders, giving him the distinct air of a barbarian prince; he just needed a circlet. Which he was entitled to, although his family had never been ones to lounge around comfy palaces, listening to music while servants peeled them a grape. Mircea looked like what he was: a scion of a line that had battled its way to power on the very disputed borders of a war zone, and then battled both in that war zone and at home to keep what they’d taken.

Wheeling and dealing with dangerous people, or strapping on a sword and going to crack open a few stubborn skulls, was bred in the bone. He just didn’t usually look like it. He was kind of looking like it now, but the chief