“No. She decided to kill you because she mistook your rescue of me for an assault.”
“How?” I spread my hands. “I was there to help you—”
“But she had no way of knowing that, Cassie. Her human half was in control at the time, and the block I put in place still exists in some areas, giving her only intermittent knowledge of what Dory sees. I am not sure how much Dorina understood of what happened that night.”
“Enough to be severely pissed!”
“So it would seem.” He met my eyes steadily. “My guess is that she was somewhat nearer to the surface than usual, owing to the recent collapse of my barrier. She knew that Dory was watching over me as I slept, knew I had been injured, knew that a powerful witch with a type of magic she had never seen suddenly appeared and removed her protection from me—”
“But she saw you later. She knew you were fine—”
“Which could have been due to fighting you off, could it not? Or from having someone else rescue me. She didn’t know you helped me; she wasn’t there to see. Only that you removed my protection and thus, in her eyes, left me vulnerable.”
“Making me an enemy.”
“Yes.”
He finally left the door and approached, but wisely didn’t attempt to touch me. Another man would have tried to hold me, to comfort or to control. Or to figuratively pat me on the head, telling me by his every action not to be such a drama queen.
Mircea was smarter than that.
He just stood there.
But it hurt nonetheless, staring up into that beautiful face, wondering if I knew what was going on behind those eyes at all. Sometimes it felt like there were two halves to Mircea’s personality, too. The human, who I loved and laughed with and trusted, because he’d always been there for me, for almost as long as I could remember. And the vampire—cold, calculating, and assessing—who told me only what he wanted me to hear and, I strongly suspected, manipulated the ever-loving shit out of me.
And whose real feelings I didn’t know at all.
If anybody had a split personality, it was Mircea.
“You’re upset; I understand,” he said, dark eyes grave. “But you can rest assured that Dorina is not a threat to you.”
“I must have missed that part!”
“I meant to say that tonight was . . . atypical. For one thing, Dory was seriously injured in the attack, and it made Dorina uneasy—”
“Injured how? Mircea, I sent her to Long Island. She shouldn’t even have been here.”
“She has a way of turning up whenever there’s trouble. You two share that ability.” He smiled slightly.
I didn’t.
“I went to see her after I left you,” he added. “And put her to sleep. She should have been out for the duration of the evening—”
“So what happened?”
“Someone interfered. Someone who knew she was on edge, and might be . . . impulsive. Someone who has surveillance over almost everything that goes on in this house, and therefore knew she might have a grudge against you. Someone who has the power to override my suggestion—”
“Someone?”
“The consul,” he admitted. “Dory isn’t the point. She was merely a tool. The consul is trying to separate us, to drive a wedge—”
“I thought she was trying to kill you! That’s the rumor. Did you know that? Have you heard? Jules thinks they’ll be taking bets on it next! And don’t take this out on him,” I added, because Mircea’s eyes had narrowed. “He was only repeating what everyone knows. Except for me, apparently!”
“She doesn’t want me dead.”
“Oh no. She just gave you the most dangerous job on the planet for kicks! And you took it and never said a word—”
“It was only decided today. When should I have told you?”
That had been a little sharper, and I was glad for it. I wanted to ruffle him, wanted to break that perfect control. That was the vampire part of him, when I wanted the other Mircea, the passionate man with the flashing eyes and the terrible sense of humor and the honest emotions, the man who sometimes emerged when he forgot to be the senator.
“So you were going to tell me about it?” I said evenly. “We were going to talk?”
“Yes, as I told you earlier.”
“Like we talked about the consul? You’ve known about that for—I don’t even know. But a long damn time! You must have. Why didn’t you tell me?”
“What would have been the point?”
“The point?” I stared at him.
“This is politics, Cassie. The usual court intrigue. It isn’t something the Pythian power can help with—”
“This isn’t about the power! This is about—damn it, Mircea! One day you tell me I’m your wife, that that’s what this means—” I jerked aside my collar, showing off his marks. “And the next, you tell me I don’t deserve to know anything about your affairs unless it’s something the power can help with!”
“That isn’t what I meant—”
“Then what did you mean?”
He did touch me then, gripping my shoulders. Only to run his palms down my arms to take my hands. It soothed me, even though there was no power behind it—I didn’t know what I’d have done if there had been. But Mircea didn’t need it; his presence was usually enough to calm me. But tonight, that might have worked against him; anger made it hard to think, and suddenly, I was clearheaded.
“I told you the truth,” he said. “She doesn’t want me dead. But she has noted my increasing power base. You are part of that, Dorina is part of that, Louis-Cesare—I have been drawing people to me, powerful people, not intentionally, but it could be misconstrued that way. And the more antagonism she feels from any of that number, the more she worries.”
“So you were afraid I’d do what?” I asked incredulously. “Tell her off?”
“No, of course not. But your emotions are closer to the surface than ours. You have a good poker face when you choose, but you can’t be on guard all the time, nor would I wish you to. You shouldn’t have to live like that, constantly watching everything you say—”
“Not constantly. Just when I’m around her.”
He shook his head. “But she has spies everywhere. And they notice more than expressions—heartbeat, breathing patterns, a thousand tells a human would never see. And in your case, I needed to be especially careful. She only moved against her own master when she obtained an ally. She didn’t duel him alone; Anthony helped her—”
“So now she thinks we’re planning to do the same?”
“Thinks, no. But she wonders. She fears. Her antagonism toward you is born of that fear, although I doubt she would call it such. It has been so long since she feared anything, I think she has forgotten the taste. She wanted me to control you for the senate, but feared I was growing too close to you, and began pulling me away. Giving me work on the other side of the country, keeping me busy. I was to charm but not to be charmed, to control but not to care.”
I blinked, slightly taken aback. Because that was the most honesty I’d gotten from Mircea in . . . maybe ever. But it didn’t change this.
“Then how can you ask me what’s the point?” I said. “She’s dangerous—”