Brave the Tempest (Cassie Palme) - Karen Chance Page 0,128

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 spy was too angry to notice.

“Made clear, he says!” Marlowe snarled. “If you want to make a play like that, you let me know in advance! I didn’t have most of my men here. I didn’t have anything—”

“I didn’t plan this,” Mircea said. “I merely—”

“Bollocks!” Marlowe snapped. “That was deliberate—”

“Yes, it was deliberate, but it wasn’t planned.”

And neither was Marlowe’s heart attack, I thought, although it looked like one was imminent.

I glanced behind me. Getting a dressing-down from your coworker could be interpreted as weakness, but nobody could see us right now. At least I was pretty sure. The ward had darkened after we came in, enough that it looked like I’d put on shades whenever I looked outside.

Which I probably shouldn’t be doing, because it wasn’t helping my mood.

That break Batman had told me about had finally been called, and the room had flooded with people. We were supposed to be one big, happy family, but the divisions were only too obvious. The mages were congregated together in a huddle beside Jonas, their long leather coats wafting about as if in a gale because of the magic pouring off them. The fey—including the disturbing dragon-headed guy, were clustered around Caedmon, who for some weird reason was looking pretty upbeat. The weres were in a knot covering the transformed girl, whether trying to calm her down or to shield her while she got redressed, I wasn’t sure, but that lag in their movements was extra obvious suddenly. And the vamps . . .

Well, the vamps were everywhere.

It looked like a lot of people had used the excuse the break had provided to call in their family members—all of them. The big space looked like a ballroom suddenly, one filled with high-level vamps who were way twitchier than usual, maybe because of what they’d just heard. Or because there were so many of them that their power streams kept tangling up and ricocheting off. I felt some of them buzzing across my skin even this far away.

It would be a miracle if there was no violence before this was over.

In here as well as outside, I thought, glancing at Marlowe, who was still yelling.

“—extremely ill-advised! What if he’d challenged you—which he almost damned well did! What if it went badly and you ended up dead? What if it went badly and he did? Because there was no upside here, you understand? Tell me you fucking understand that!”

I just stared. I’d never seen Marlowe this intense. He was usually the slick charmer with the sharp brown eyes and the ready smile, but with an edge to it. Just enough to let you know that maybe, just maybe, there was more to him than there seemed.

But I rarely saw that other side. I saw a man who was charming and handsome and occasionally silly. To the point that, as far as I’d been able to tell, being the consul’s chief spy involved telling the Pythia gruesome stories about Tudor life, or giving her such extravagant compliments that they seemed designed to make her laugh.

I wasn’t laughing now, and neither was Mircea.

“It is not always possible to know the exact moment for such a ploy,” Mircea informed him tightly. “You have to strike when the moment is right—”

“And you thought that was the right damned moment?”

“Yes. You weren’t prepared to deal with a challenge today, but neither was Parendra. Most of his men aren’t here, and those who are tend to the political side of things, advisers and aides, not warriors. His second wasn’t even in attendance. He couldn’t afford to risk it—”

“And if he forgot that? You know his temper! And you were deliberately trying to humiliate him—”

“Hardly.” Mircea’s voice went cold. “If anything, it was the opposite.”

“Explain.”

I jumped slightly and whirled around, having turned toward Mircea during the conversation and away from the nonexistent door. Which was how the consul had come in without my noticing. Not that that was unusual; she was a vampire, after all, and could move with the same silence that they all did. But the two senators hadn’t noticed her, either, judging by their slightly appalled expressions.

Or maybe that was down to the outfit.

I’d been admiring clothes all day, because