Brave the Tempest (Cassandra Palmer #9) - Karen Chance Page 0,209

off in surprise, frowned at it, and made my way over to the door.

Three war mages were standing on the other side, along with Gertie and Agnes. Oh, I thought. And then the mages were pushing past me and starting to toss the room.

Literally.

Pillows and blankets went flying, drawers were flung open and upended, and one guy almost disappeared inside the wardrobe. “What—” I began, before I was physically jerked out of the room.

“Where is it?” Gertie demanded.

I stared from her to the guys and back again, because I had no idea what she was talking about. “Where is what?”

“Don’t give me that!”

Gertie was looking more pissed than I’d seen her since, well, since a few of our adventures in Wales. Her color was high, painting her cheeks a more natural hue under her rouge, and her brown eyes were snapping. She scowled at me for a moment more, while I looked in bewilderment back, then she nodded at Agnes.

“Do it.”

“Do what? What are you—” Which is as far as I got before sweet, baby-faced Agnes, with her big blue eyes and proper updo, who looked like she ought to be auditioning for a brunette Alice in Wonderland, threw me into the next room and started stripping off my clothes.

Considering that they weren’t completely on yet, it wasn’t hard. Or it wouldn’t have been, but I decided to protest. I didn’t know much about Edwardian hospitality, but so far, I hadn’t been enjoying my stay.

“Cut it out!” I snapped, and smacked her hand away.

Only to have her slap me across the face.

I stared at her in shock. “What—have you lost your mind?”

“Oh.” Blue eyes opened wide as she wrestled me for my dress. “Did you expect to get away with it?”

“Get away with what?”

“You know very well!” she snapped, and spun me around, only to jerk the damned dress off my shoulders.

“The only thing I know is we’re about to throw down,” I said. “And if you’ll recall, you lost last time!”

“Yes!” Her color was high, too, when I spun back around, and she didn’t much resemble the serene Pythian heir anymore. Her hair was half-down around her face, and her lips were set on snarl. “That is easily done when your opponent cheats!”

“What?” I was not getting less confused here. “Which of them cheated?”

“You did!”

And she actually raised her hand again.

I caught her arm midway to my face. I was not a particularly imposing figure, with my dress sagging around my hips and my blood-stained bra, because I was damned if I was wearing a corset. But I wasn’t going to take this, whatever this was.

“I didn’t cheat!” I told her flatly.

Agnes said a very bad word.

My eyes widened, and I was about to make a smart remark, when I had to catch the other hand.

This. Bitch.

I looked over at Gertie. “If you don’t want your acolyte sent to Siberia—”

“And how would you do that, hm?” she demanded, finally coming in the door. She’d waited in the hall to say something to the mages, who I guess had finished tearing my room apart. I’d have been more annoyed, but it was mostly her stuff anyway. If she wanted to trash her own guest room, fine by me.

But this shit had to stop.

“How would I do . . . what, exactly? Shift?”

“Yes!” She looked at Agnes. “Are you capable of shifting right now?”

And Agnes literally growled at me. “No!”

I caught myself before I stepped back a few paces, because she was starting to terrify me a little. But I’d been raised at a vampire’s court. I knew when to show fear and when not to, and this was definitely “not to” territory.

I straightened up.

“Do you have a point?” I asked Gertie, and tried to restore some dignity by getting the dress back on, but Agnes had torn one of the sleeve holes.

This. Bitch.

“Indeed, I do. You just put on quite a performance down there, one that should take my entire court some days to undo. After, that is, we finish cleaning up your last debacle—”

I frowned at her. Because that had been her choice. She’d used a spell on the castaways that she’d hit me with a time or two, one that returned people to their point of origin in the timeline. It had jerked the lost souls back to where they belonged, but was apparently exhausting, maybe because of the numbers we were dealing with. But I hadn’t asked her to do it. Quite the contrary, in fact.

“You told