Brave the Tempest (Cassie Palme) - Karen Chance Page 0,105

only to see that the water was sloshing over the sides and tiny scuba guy had gotten a friend. I couldn’t tell much about it; just that it looked small and dark, more like an eel than a fish. But it didn’t matter.

I’d heard that voice before.

“He was in the dead vamp’s head,” I said, and Adra nodded.

“Yes. And is one of the reasons you are not currently facing the Council. He credits you with his survival—”

“What dead vamp?” Pritkin interrupted, still staring at the thing on the desk.

“The one whose head she invaded to retrieve the Ancient Horror, so that she and the senate could kill it,” Adra said placidly.

* * *

* * *

Yeah, that had gone over well. Like trying to explain that it wasn’t such a terribly dangerous Ancient Horror really, while the damned model was busily devouring its kill. Pritkin had been . . . well, let’s just say that his temper seemed to have gotten an upgrade, too.

“How, in the course of one. Fucking. Day—”

“—did you meet up with two Ancient Horrors?” Adra finished for him. “That is what I was going to ask.”

“I . . . don’t know,” I said, looking back and forth between the two of them. “The book I found—well, it looked like there was a ghost in there, and I couldn’t just leave it—”

“You could damned well just leave it!” Pritkin snarled.

“I couldn’t!” I stared at him. “The shopkeeper said the mage who had trapped it was dead; it could have been stuck in there for—”

Pritkin grabbed my shoulders. “And you could have been killed! If that damned thing hadn’t decided to be grateful, it could have done to you what it did out there!” He flung an arm in the direction of the burning city.

“I was just trying to help!”

“And I’m just trying to keep you alive!” he rasped. “But that’s a little difficult when you insist on—”

“I can take care of myself!” I said heatedly, wishing I hadn’t downplayed everything quite so much. Not that it should have mattered; he’d seen me take on worse things. “You’ve seen me take on worse things!”

“And I’ve seen you almost die to them! I can’t—” Pritkin suddenly pulled me out of my chair and up against him. My face was mushed flat against his chest, his hand was on my head and gripping really hard, and overall, it was just seriously uncomfortable. But I didn’t pull away, because he was shaking. He was actually really upset.

“I’m okay,” I said, my voice muffled. “I’m all right.”

“And you’re damned well going to stay that way!”

I pulled back enough to look at him. “What does that mean?”

“It means you’re Pythia, not a damned foot soldier! You shouldn’t have even been there, battling that thing—”

“If she hadn’t been, the senate would have lost,” Adra said mildly.

“Stay out of this!” Pritkin hissed, and Adra raised a brow. He used to have trouble with that. He must be getting better with the glamourie, I thought, before Pritkin started shaking me. “Listen to me! These insane risks you’ve been taking have to stop, do you understand?”

My forehead wrinkled, because it wasn’t like I had asked for any of this. “We’re at war—”

“This wasn’t about the war! Any more than risking your neck to save me was!”

I stared at him. “That wasn’t about the war? Did you somehow miss the huge freaking god—”

“Who you didn’t know would be there when you went after me! You had no business going after me—”

“I beg your pardon?”

“—like you had no business doing what you did today! Leave dangerous magical artifacts alone! Let the damned vampires fight their own battles! None of that is your job!”

“I’m Pythia—”

“Yes! You are! And did you see Lady Phemonoe running about, taking on monsters? She stayed in her goddamned court!”

* * *

* * *

Annnnnd that was about the time I got pissed, because Pritkin didn’t know Lady Phemonoe. He’d met her, and clearly had respect for her, but he didn’t know her. Any more than Rhea had seemed to.

Agnes didn’t stay home and knit, or whatever the hell they thought she was doing with her time. She was a warrior—they all were—all those crazy, quirky, powerful Pythias I’d recently met, ironically enough, on the search for Pritkin. But he didn’t know that, he didn’t know them, any more than the rest of the Circle did.

They saw the parties and the receptions, the formalities and the audiences, maybe even some of the training. But they didn’t see