Auberi set his mug down with a clack. “You can’t be serious. Wizards? They’re the lowest of supernaturals!”
“They’re not even good for a meal!” Amée added.
Margarida glanced at Killian, worry flashing in her red eyes. “There’s no need for insults,” she said. “I’m sure his wizard is very nice, and Amée, that is a very backwards way at looking at humans. You should be ashamed.”
“Shut up, Margarida,” Amée scoffed. “Not only are you centuries younger, you are also silly and insipid enough that you deeply mourn every human pet you have and don’t stop sniveling until Considine shakes you out of it!”
Some of Margarida’s sweetness wore off and she stiffened, everything about her sharpening. “I mourn my human friends because I love them—something you’d never understand since you are a dried-up hag!”
I settled back in my chair and picked up my glass, interested to see how this would pan out.
Killian will win. He could crush them all. But Margarida getting angry enough to go to war is a rare thing. That might bait the brats into fighting.
Maybe this night would not be such a loss after all. Especially if someone got stabbed. That would be exciting!
“Hag?” Amée’s voice was sharp—like jagged, broken glass.
“Know your place, Margarida.” Auberi narrowed his eyes, offended on behalf of his twin. “Speak so carelessly again, and I will not stay my hand.”
“Careful, brother,” Killian warned, his accent even more pronounced. “I don’t take well to threats uttered in my hall.”
Auberi drew back from the table, then glanced at Amée, doing their bizarro twin thing where they seemed to communicate with expressions.
Baldwin, seated on Auberi’s other side, rolled his eyes. “I don’t get why everyone is so upset by a mere wizard. Give her a few years and she’ll be dead, and this whole conversation will be for naught.”
I would have nodded in agreement if anyone besides Baldwin had said it. Humans die all too easily—there is no point in getting attached. It was why Jade was a source of entertainment for me, but she hadn’t really settled in my heart.
It had gotten dangerously close a time or two—as exemplified by my porch invasion of House Tellier, when I should have been content to sit back and watch or when she’d been spouting human drivel during her run break and almost got me caught up in her pace. I was old enough to know better, and to sense when my amusement with her was getting dangerously close to an attachment. I backed off whenever necessary.
I held my glass mug up and studied the still frosted rim.
Though I am thankful to Jade for making this holiday amusing.
“My wizard will be around for a long time,” Killian said.
Amée took on the condescending tone of an elder. “How? She might be a supernatural, but she’s still a fragile human! Anything could kill her.”
“Conversely to what you believe, she is actually quite capable of defending herself.” Killian eyed Amée. “In fact, she’s more than capable of squashing you. But it matters not. If there is any threat to her life, I shall remove it. Permanently.” He purred.
Amée, Auberi, and even Baldwin turned as one to look at me.
They obviously wanted a reaction of a sort, so I shrugged and raised my mug in a mock toast. “Love,” I said. “It stalks down even the best of us to drag us into its vile embrace.”
I drank the last of the blood in my mug, and Auberi scowled.
“Why doesn’t he get threatened and lectured for a frivolous attachment, when the rest of us would?” he demanded.
I glanced at Killian, studying him. He met my gaze and raised an eyebrow.
“Killian doesn’t get any lectures—yet—because he’s still perfectly capable of taking all of you on,” I said. “I like to endorse a ‘may-the-strong-survive’ type of attitude.”
The trio scowled and exchanged dark looks, but they didn’t question it.
This is why I’m stuck watching you all. Because you’re so thickheaded. It’s ridiculous.
Killian wasn’t getting lectured at the moment because his besottedness with his One hadn’t appeared to addle him. After observing him for the past month, I was certain he was going to be fine until she died.
I was also fairly certain Killian was going to try to turn his beloved One, making her a vampire. But young vampires died so easily, nearly as easily as humans, as they tended to be as stupid as puppies when it came to their new powers. Not to mention that with the death of magic, the survival rate of humans being turned into vampires had lowered to the point of becoming statistically insignificant. The likelihood that his One would make it past her first century as a vampire—if, by some miracle, she survived getting turned—was expressed as a percentage in the single digits.
When she dies, I’ll have to come up with a plan to rattle him back to life. If he survives. The knowledge gave me no pleasure, but it would have to be done.
“I think it’s romantic,” Margarida said. “And I’m happy for you, Killian.” Her sharpness didn’t fade—she was still too angry—but the smile she gave Killian was real enough.
“It’s silly,” Amée said. “If he was going to love someone, he should have at least gone for another vampire. He could have had his pick.”
“Why bother?” Baldwin snorted as he cut another piece of steak. “Love is such a temporary thing. It’ll fade before his human dies.”
“True, true.” Amée laughed. “You won’t be able to say we didn’t warn you, Killian!” Her laugh was sharp and staccato, and it made Killian narrow his eyes.
I tapped the side of my glass mug as I watched the exchange. It seems they are rallying for round two. Just how wanton for punishment are they?
Auberi, as if to prove my point, rested his hands on the edge of his table. “Indeed. I, for one, will look forward to his fall. I’m sure it will be glorious.” He glanced at Killian to see how the barb had landed.
Killian yawned and looked bored.
“Careful, Auberi. He is a Dracos, too,” Amée said, but there was a hint of a cruel smile on her lips. “But I suppose we should have prepared ourselves for this day when he made a play to become the Eminence of this region.” She wrinkled her nose. “Though why would he wish to rule over the Midwest of all places, when it has more humans than supernaturals?”
“Maybe that’s why,” Baldwin said into his cup. “Perhaps he’s been weak to humans all along.” Baldwin puffed his chest up, seemingly with confidence. But when Killian shifted in his seat, he flinched in fear.
“Killian is Killian,” Margarida flicked a lock of her dark brown hair over her shoulder. “It goes without saying that he chose the Midwest for a strategic reason he isn’t likely to share.” She smiled, but it still had that sharp feral edge to it. “I think it’s admirable—he’s done more in the past five decades than you’ve done in the entirety of your much longer life.”
Amée’s pale face scrunched up in a snarl.
“Human lover,” Auberi declared.