“Stop slamming the damned door on my damned foot!”
“Then leave.” He glared at me furiously. “We’re having a soiree, and you aren’t attending like that!”
“A soiree?”
“A gathering! A party! A do!”
“I know what the word means! And I’m not attending. I just need—”
Marlowe kicked my Croc like it was a football and he was trying for a field goal from the fifty-yard line. It sent my leg shooting out backward, and would have resulted in me face-planting painfully if I hadn’t twisted at the last second. I landed on my shoulder instead, and it wasn’t happy about it.
Son of a bitch!
I got up and glared at the now-closed door. I could have kicked it down, but my toe hurt. So I jabbed the bell a few more times, and then leaned on it when the door stayed stubbornly shut.
Until it was flung open in my face. “Damn it, go away!”
“Damn it, answer the question!”
I guess Marlowe decided it was the quickest way to get rid of me, because for once, he actually did. “Louis-Cesare isn’t here, I haven’t heard from him and I’m not going to! He’s in a meeting—”
“What?” That stopped me. “What kind of meeting?”
“A Senate meeting. What else?” The eyes now looked impatient as well as angry. “An emergency one was called for tonight. Now will you—”
“Why wasn’t I informed? I’m on the Senate.”
As usual, that reminder had Marlowe looking apoplectic.
“But not that committee! The whole Senate doesn’t meet for every issue, or we’d never do anything else. But that’s where he is, so go plague the consul and leave me alone!”
The door slammed again, probably because I wasn’t opposing it anymore.
I was just standing there in my smelly sweats, wondering why I’d just driven over here like a bat out of hell. Had I really thought Louis-Cesare was going to beat up another senator over me? Risk his new position by taking on the consul’s favorite shortly after being appointed? Throw away an opportunity that most would kill for, and over what? A damned dhampir?
Yeah.
Judging by the pang in my gut, I guess I had.
And that was stupid. We were broken up, and Claire was right. He hadn’t even bothered to argue about it, had he? Just turned around and walked away. He hadn’t made any declarations while on the phone with her, either. He just told her to mind her own business and essentially hung up.
And he’d never even called me back.
I rang the doorbell again.
But not because of Louis-Cesare. I needed to get my head back on straight, and that meant some kind of communication with my other half. And that meant talking to Horatiu. With Big Blue to find, God knew when I’d get another chance.
And fuck Marlowe if he didn’t like it!
And I guess he didn’t. Because he didn’t answer. And the doorknob shocked the shit out of me when I dared to grab it.
I jerked my hand back, and looked at the faint red mark the newly engaged ward had left.
Okay, now I was pissed.
Fortunately, Mircea’s condo isn’t in a sleek new building with slick glass fronts, but in a turn-of-the-century limestone beauty that he owns half of. A half filled with windows. Windows with curly-haired assholes in them.
“What the hell are you doing?” Marlowe demanded, sticking his neck out, as I edged along an ornate ledge.
I punched him in his stupid face. “What does it look like?”
“Get out!”
I let him eat fist again, and he turned the ward on over the window, which blew me off the side of the building and into some bushes. It also blew my Croc onto a nearby BMW, which was apparently a touchy little bitch. Because the car alarm started screaming its head off.
I looked at it for a moment, while I got my breath back. Mircea hadn’t skimped on the wards. Even on the lowest setting, they packed a wallop.
And then I gazed up at Marlowe, who was still glaring down at me from the window, and I slowly took off my other shoe.
“Don’t you dare!”
I skipped the Croc down the row of cars, like a stone on a pond, setting off multiple alarms and disturbing the genteel neighbors. Until I was snatched off the BMW and smacked against the side of the building, still grinning. I’d badly needed to let off some steam, and that had been fun.
Not as much as making Marlowe eat concrete, though.
I twisted in his grip, danced away, spun, and belted him. I put everything I had into it, all the pent-up emotion of a very bad day, and was gratified to see him actually go down. And then spring back up, almost before he hit the sidewalk, because the guy was flexible. As he proved when dodging half a dozen more blows in quick succession, before grabbing my fist.
It was the same maneuver Dorina had used on the fey, and it hurt like a bitch. Until I used my other hand for a gut shot that had him letting go with an annoyed “tchaa!” And then I ended up slammed against the building again.
Face-first, this time.
I turned to the side to get my lips free. “I can do this all night.”
“Or you could just leave!”
“Or you could just let me in.”
“I’m not letting you in!”
“Then we have a problem,” I said, broke his hold, spun around, and kneed him in the groin.
I took off again, hoping the happy, burbling vamp from the phone would answer the door, but I got stopped with a flying tackle. Which was less of a problem for me than for Marlowe, because I was in ancient sweats. Ancient, muddy sweats, because it had been raining at some point earlier in the day, and the section of tastefully planted greenery I ploughed up was basically a mud pit.
“You’re gonna ruin that nice suit,” I said, through a dirt facial.
And, for some reason, that did what nothing else had, and stopped him. I flipped over to see Marlowe suddenly back on his feet, looking with concern at the patches of mud adhering to his formerly sleek, James Bond getup. Which was followed by him whipping out a pocket square and worriedly daubing at the mess.
“Will water take it out, do you think?” he asked me, bizarrely.
I slowly got back up, but he just kept trying to wipe himself clean. It wasn’t working; if anything, it was just smearing the mess around. Something that seemed to be causing him real distress, which made him rub it harder, which only made a bad matter worse.
“Give me that,” I finally said, and he actually did, passing over the by-now-sadly-soiled pocket square, and looking . . . weird. Marlowe basically had two emotions where I was concerned: pissed off and seriously pissed off. Which was why it was so strange to see him standing there in his muddy tux, biting his lip, and staring at me hopefully.
Because I was a woman, and we magically made these kind of things okay, right?
I sighed.
“Come on.”
“Where?”
“You’re not getting that out. But Mircea has plenty more suits in his bedroom. One will probably fit you.”
“There’s a party in the main room! An important one! I can’t just—”
I sighed again, impatiently this time. “You can climb, right?”
We climbed.
Thankfully, he hadn’t bothered to ward every window in the place, and one of the ones in Mircea’s bedroom slid open easily. I ducked inside, Marlowe on my heels, and padded barefoot over to the big wardrobe I’d been told to stay out of. I decided that, since I wasn’t here for me, it didn’t count, and threw open the double doors.
“Oh,” Marlowe said, ’cause I guess he’d never gotten the tour.
I’d been known to borrow Mircea’s shirts as emergency dresses on occasion, so I knew what was in there. Basically, the pick of the great fashion houses of Europe, with a choice few American designers thrown in for good measure. And enough of it to stock a small men’s store.
Self-denial has never really been Daddy’s thing.
“Okay, strip,” I told Marlowe, flicking through the couture. “And tell me what your problem is.”
“You!”