Brave the Tempest (Cassandra Palmer #9) - Karen Chance Page 0,160

same thing would have happened to us.”

I sat back down. “It’s not the same.”

“It’s exactly the same. We were at war. He signed up knowing the deal, the good and the bad. You made it to the end of service, you had a nice, fat payday waiting for you and some land. You rose in the ranks, made it to centurion, and you didn’t even have to wait for retirement. You could get married, buy a little farm, have—” Marco stopped, and his expression didn’t change, but there was tension in the air suddenly. “Have a life,” he finished harshly, after a moment. “But if you screwed it up, you knew the rules then, too. And so did she.”

“Lizzie didn’t sign up,” I rasped.

“Didn’t sign up for the court, maybe. She sure as hell signed up to betray it—and the rest of us!”

Couldn’t argue with that.

But that wasn’t the point.

“I’m upset about Lizzie’s death,” I told him. “But I expected it. She refused to give up the power, and she was too big of a threat as long as she had it. Not just because of herself but because of Jo, if she’s still out there. Another Pythian acolyte would have made a perfect replacement body, and I don’t know that Lizzie could have or would have fought her off.”

“Then you did what you had to do, like I said.”

I shook my head. “It’s not what I did. It’s when.”

I wanted a drink, but I didn’t need another one. I wanted some Tears even more, but I only had one bottle left, and I didn’t want to waste it. Besides, Jonas was going to want to know why I needed more so soon, when he’d just delivered three bottles a week ago. I didn’t know what to tell him.

I leaned on my knees and rested my cheeks on my hands. I tried to avoid that pose because it made me look like a kid, pushing my already less-than-defined cheeks into cherub territory. But right then, I didn’t care.

“You’ve been putting it off for weeks,” Marco pointed out. “It had to be done sooner or later. Why not now?”

“Because I didn’t do it because it needed to be done. I did it . . .” I stopped, wondering if I wanted to admit it, even to Marco. He never judged me. I guess in a couple millennia you’ve seen it all, and I didn’t think I’d ever managed to truly shock him.

I wondered if I might now.

“I did it because I wanted to make a point to Mircea,” I finally said. “I wanted something he’d remember. I used her death as . . . as a kind of lesson. I needed him to understand . . . something . . . and I didn’t know how else to get the point across. I was scared and I wasn’t thinking clearly, but I knew what I was doing. Do you understand? I knew and I did it anyway!”

I looked up finally, but I couldn’t see his face. The cigar was resting on the ashtray, sending a tiny trail of smoke skyward, and without its glow, his face was only shadow. But I thought I caught a liquid gleam in the approximate place of his eyes.

He didn’t say anything, though.

“Who does that?” I blurted out, after a moment, because maybe I had shocked him. I wouldn’t blame him; I’d shocked myself.

Marco picked up his cigar again and took a long draw. But the face was the same as always: big, bluff, and calm. He didn’t look shocked—or repulsed or disgusted. He just looked like Marco.

He sounded like him, too, when he said: “Me.”

“What?”

“Or Mircea. Or Marlowe—especially Marlowe. Or the consul, or any master, for that matter. We’d have all done the same.”

“I’m not a vampire!”

“I didn’t say a vampire. I said a master. You’ve been acting like one more and more lately; it’s good to see.”

“Good?” I stared at him, and some of what I was feeling must have shown on my face, because he frowned slightly.

“You know how we are, Cassie. We push and push—it’s in the culture, but more than that, it’s in our nature. We’re constantly jockeying for position, seeing who’s top dog, and it’s not always the bigger dog. Sometimes it’s about who is willing to step up, to go toe-to-toe, to push back. To prove who’s a leader and who’s a follower. And it’s not always who you’d think.”

The big head fell back; this time, it was his