Brave the Tempest (Cassie Palme) - Karen Chance Page 0,27

out if we stopped moving.” I lifted up the fancy cover. Tami had found the dinner service of the gods when we moved in and had fallen in love with the antique Victorian food domes. She put them on everything now, even when the tray wasn’t going far enough to need one. But it did a wonder for capturing aromas.

Like off the homemade cassoulet that I guess everybody had had for lunch.

My stomach grumbled plaintively. “Hot damn.”

Rhea laughed. I used to shock her with my occasional colorful language, but after being around the guys for weeks now, she was immune. “I’ll put it on the table, shall I?”

I nodded. “I’ll be out in a few.”

I shucked my clothes and eased into the bath, which was too hot but felt amazing on my tired muscles. And tried to just zone out for a few minutes, because this was the best part of my day. The tub was huge and had more tech in it than the space station. I’d spent half an hour when I first moved in playing with the water jets and the different-colored lights. I’d finally settled on blue, because it was soothing, and it matched the décor.

That tub almost made me forgive the senate for everything.

Almost.

But it was a little hard to forgive when the manipulation was ongoing. I scowled and lathered up my hair, because I didn’t want to think about that right now. Or, you know, at all. But my brain had different ideas.

The vamps had wanted my power under their control ever since they knew there was a potential Pythia who hadn’t been raised by the Circle. That wouldn’t have bothered me so much; it was politics 101, and the senate was just better at it than most people. If, that is, their brilliant plan hadn’t involved having Mircea get me to fall in love with him.

That hadn’t been too hard, since I’d already been halfway there. I’d had a crush on him ever since I was a kid, when he’d visited Tony’s terrible court. And had left quite an impression.

The warm, dark eyes were the first I’d ever dreamed about. The mahogany hair, long enough to flow over my hands like silk, had probably given me a lifelong fetish. But it was the humor that really got to me, the way the handsome face could light up, and the sensual mouth could quirk at the corners with an appreciation for the absurd that someone like him wasn’t supposed to have—senate member, master vampire, dangerous über Alpha of dangerous über Alphas . . .

And yet he did. He always had. It was the thing I’d loved best about him, although, let’s be honest, I’d loved practically everything.

And he’d loved me, at least for a little while, even though he wasn’t supposed to. He was supposed to be the manipulator, the one who kept me enthralled while staying well out of harm’s way himself. It must have seemed easy, to anyone looking at us from the outside. After all, what did I have to attract him, other than my position? What did he need with a screwball blonde with too-skinny legs, too-plump cheeks, and freckles on her nose?

But then, Mircea had always had quirky tastes. His many residences were known for their designer opulence in the public areas, meant to overawe his guests. But his private rooms were full of unusual little touches, like carved wardrobes from Maramures, the woodworking heart of the old country, or a tubby porcelain tambourine player from his stint as the consul’s ambassador at the East Asian Court, or some old wooden spoons. They’d cost practically nothing, they wouldn’t cause awe in anybody, anywhere, and they were frankly kind of tacky. But he liked them.

Like he’d liked me?

Cut it out, I told myself, angrily scrubbing my scalp. You know damned well what happened there, and it had nothing to do with your dubious charms. The senate’s happy little plan to get themselves a Pythia had been messed up by the geis, a spell gone wrong that had caused Mircea and I to genuinely fall in love with each other. And that was a no-no.

The consul had started to get nervous about what might happen when an already too powerful senator with huge wealth, a winning personality, and an extensive family behind him also acquired a Pythia. Not wanting to get hoisted by her own petard and end up having him use me against her, she’d started working to muddy the