Brave the Tempest (Cassie Palme) - Karen Chance Page 0,172

as most vamps—maybe even less, after having served at Tony’s for so many years. “They said the Lord Protector sent them for your errand?”

Everybody looked at me.

I paused with a piece of bacon halfway to my mouth and blinked back at them. “What?”

“For your protection,” Tami said, looking at me accusingly. “Where are you going that you need protection?”

“Nowhere with them.”

“Considering what she gets up to on a shopping trip, do you really want to know?” Roy asked, coming in.

He had another group of tots with him, all of whom had orders for the chef. I took the opportunity that the distraction provided to chow down, although it was hard to bite into even fluffy, still warm pancakes when they had a gorgeous basket of flowers embedded into them, the braided handle perfectly rendered, the small petals and leaves each looking as dewy and fresh as if just picked from a garden. Or a yawning feline on the next cake down, stretching in a patch of sunlight, radiating warmth and contentment. Or a girl on the one at the bottom, with flyaway curls and a mischievous grin, peeking around a door frame, her little toes peering out at the world from under the trailing hem of an old-fashioned nightgown.

It was me when I was about the age of some of the younger initiates. Rafe grinned as he saw me notice, and flipped another cake. “You don’t look that different now,” he said, taking in the bare toes under my robe.

“How long can you stay?” I asked, hoping he was going to say forever.

“A week or so at least,” he promised. “There is little point in embellishment at the moment.”

No, I guessed not.

“Why? What happened?” Tami asked, glancing between the two of us.

Rafe looked at me.

“Could I have some more bacon?” I asked, swallowing, because feeding people always got Tami distracted.

Only not this time.

“Cassie—”

And then Marco came in. “You done?” he asked, eyeing my plate.

“Why?”

“We got problems.”

I sighed and shoved down another bite. “Then I guess I’m done.”

“Here,” Tami said, looking exasperated. And plopped a bunch of crispy bacon onto my beautiful portrait before wrapping it up like a burrito. “At least finish your breakfast!”

I happily took it along, greasy and dripping with syrup as it was. If people didn’t like it, they could damned well lump it. Especially those people, I thought, making my way into the living room, where the cluster of huge war mages had gotten company of their own.

A lot of it.

“Don’t curse her!” Eugenie bellowed, as I emerged from the hall and into a standoff between a bunch of unhappy magical police and an even larger group of their least favorite enemies in the world.

I ducked instinctively, clutching my burrito, but no energy bolts were to be seen. Or weapons, either, for that matter, although the atmosphere was thick enough to warrant them. Just a ton of witches, some of them familiar, some not, and none of them looking happy.

What else is new? I thought, and licked some syrup off my hand, where it was attempting to run down my arm.

“At least give me a moment to explain before you attack!” Evelyn said. To me, I guessed, judging by the fact that she was looking this way.

I glanced around and saw that there were a few vamps behind me, backing me up. Only one of them was Roy, who was casually sucking on a latte; one was Emilio, who was blinking sleep out of his eyes and had the terminal case of bedhead that only us curly-haired types really understand; and the last was Marco. And, okay, Marco had those massive arms crossed over the equally massive chest and was looking fairly fierce, but he in no way appeared to be in attack mode.

I looked back at Evelyn and swallowed pancake. “What?”

She stared at me for a moment, and finally seemed to take in the rumpled bathrobe, the messy curls, and the naked toes. And the syrupy snack that I was still working on, because I hadn’t brought enough napkins. I inhaled a bit more while she made a mental adjustment.

“Did we get you out of bed?” she finally asked.

“Out of the kitchen. I was eating breakfast.” I looked around at everybody, a number of whom were staring at my food. “You want some?”

The witches glanced at each other.

“I could eat,” one of them offered.

And so we all went back to the kitchen.

The war mages followed and clustered near the door, muttering among themselves. But the