Curse the Dawn

Chapter Fourteen

"Here." Sal shoved a glass into my hand. From the fumes, I was guessing it was straight whiskey.

I stared at the coffee table while I sipped it, but all I saw were hundreds of ruined cars baking under a cloudless sky. And all around them, an empty, dead landscape filled with bones. Had all that been the power's way of telling me that I was about to screw up big-time? Had it been trying to warn me about Rafe's death?

I really liked that idea, because in that case the images weren't something to worry about. The crisis was over, Rafe had survived, and for once, we'd dodged a bullet. But as much as I wanted to believe it, something about that idea bugged me.

The burnt-out cars I could understand, considering what had happened to the Bentley. But why not just show me that? The actual explosion would have been a lot easier to decipher than some eerie landscape filled with rotting vehicles. And for that matter, why show me a destroyed Dante's when I asked about preventing the attack on MAGIC?

I was sick of trying to figure out messages conveyed, not through language, but through nightmares! It was just one more reason I hated my gift. Once in a while, you got an image that was clear-cut and unmistakable. Like on my fourteenth birthday, when I'd been gifted with a vision of my parents' deaths in a car bomb, complete with sound and vivid Technicolor. Those types were bad enough, but at least they beat the more mystical variety, which could mean anything or nothing. Half the time you never understood them until the events had come to pass and it was too late.

"So this is what? The third attempt on the Consul's life in the last month?" Sal was asking.

"It is an ongoing problem," Mircea agreed. "Made more so now without MAGIC's extensive ward system."

"And by her refusal to go into hiding," Sal said, looking approving.

Mircea rubbed his eyes. I was beginning to know that gesture. "Yes, and while that has allowed us to identify several traitors, it is. . nerve-wracking."

"She can't cower in the dark," Sal pointed out. "She's a symbol. People take their courage from her."

"That is also her opinion. Kit swears she is giving him ulcers."

Sal frowned and leaned forward, suddenly intense. "She understands that you can't just sit by and hope things work out! That you have to make things happen—"

"I thought he liked stubborn, powerful, complicated types," Alphonse interrupted.

"He likes them alive," Mircea said pointedly.

I pretended not to notice.

"How could one of the Consul's cars have a bomb?" I asked. "Aren't they cared for by her servants?"

"Yes." Mircea looked grim. "It would appear that we have another traitor."

"How many did that damn girl corrupt?" Alphonse asked angrily.

"That damn girl" was Myra, Agnes' former ward, who had joined Apollo's side. She'd figured out how to weaken the bonds between master vampires and their servants by using her abilities to go back in time and poison soon-to-be vampires. Vamps who were ill or dying when changed were never as strongly bound to their master's will. Horatiu, for example, had been on his deathbed when Mircea changed him, but the most he did with his greater freedom was to speak his mind.

Others had found more dangerous pastimes.

"There cannot be many more," Mircea said, looking like he really wanted to believe that. "Myra was targeting the leading servants of Senate members, weakening their bonds so that they could be persuaded to betray or kill their masters. That narrows the number of suspects to a relatively small group. And at the rate we're going, they will all have rebelled before long!"

"Wouldn't it be wise to isolate them or something?" I suggested. "At least until things calm down?" I didn't like the thought of one of those hard-eyed masters stabbing him in the back. Or anywhere else.

Mircea shook his head. "Unfortunately, the very ones under suspicion are also those of the most value to us. And at the moment, we need our strength."

"Yes, but if they're dangerous—"

"It would be more dangerous to deprive ourselves of their support," he said firmly. "And we may already know who the traitor is. An old adherent of my house tried to assassinate someone dear to me recently. He failed and was killed. But for months before that, he was on my staff at MAGIC. He would have had ample opportunity to set a trap for the Consul."

And so would a lot of other people,

I thought but didn't say. If I knew Marlowe, he wasn't likely to leave any stone unturned in the investigation. Someone had almost assassinated his leader right under his nose. That had to sting.

"What would happen to the war if the Consul died?" I asked, pretty sure that I already knew the answer.

"Our participation would be severely curtailed while a replacement was determined. That could take months, as our laws allow anyone to contend for the position who has reached first-level status. That includes masters from other courts. And many of them are of the opinion that we need nothing from humans other than their blood."

"So there goes the alliance with the Circle," I said blankly. And possibly the war. I drained my glass, appreciating the warmth it sent coursing through me. My skin had suddenly gone cold.

At Mircea's request, I spent the next fifteen minutes bringing everyone up to speed about my day. He didn't interrupt, but he didn't look happy. And he actually drank the amber liquid in his glass instead of just swirling it around as usual.

"I will have someone examine your ward," he said when I'd finished. "I don't like the idea of your being without it."

"Yeah. Especially with the Circle still after me."

"Yes, about that," Mircea said, accepting a refill from Sal. "The Lord Protector called me this afternoon to ask about you."

"How kind of him." I stabbed a tomato with my fork.

Something that wasn't a smile lifted the corner of Mircea's mouth. "He assured me that Mage Richardson acted completely without his knowledge or consent, out of a spirit of revenge."

"So what's his excuse for the last month?"

"He asked me to convey his personal regrets to you. . and to arrange another meeting as soon as possible."

I smiled. I'd been waiting for a chance to use one of Pritkin's more colorful swear words. And if ever there was a moment. .

Mircea's lips quirked. "That is what I thought you'd say. Which is why I agreed to the meeting on your behalf."

"What?"

"Tradition states that the new Pythia's reign does not officially begin until she is confirmed at a ceremony by the Lord Protector of the Circle," he said mildly.

"I don't care about tradition!"

"But the magical community does. To be accepted as Pythia, you need the legitimacy such a ceremony would provide."

"That wasn't your view this morning!"

"It was, in fact. But that meeting was deemed inadvisable because of safety concerns. Kit had heard rumors that there might be trouble."

"Something you might have shared with me."

Mircea raised one of those expressive brows. "Would you really have chosen to miss such an opportunity?"

"I don't know. But it would have been nice to have the choice!"

"I will keep that in mind."

Sure he would. When he ran out of handcuffs. "I'm still not meeting with the Circle," I told him flatly. "And I don't need or want their blessing. Feel free to quote me."

"The Senate will guarantee your safety."

"You can't. You can't trust anything they tell you!"

"We don't. Which is why we have set the meeting to take place during the reception for the visiting consuls." Mircea paused, and for the first time that night his eyes glinted with the usual fire. "All six of them."

"Six?"

Alphonse choked on his whiskey while the rest of us just stared.

"The first convocation of six consuls in history is meeting in two days' time," Mircea confirmed. His voice was steady, but there was definite color in his cheeks. It took a lot to make a first-level master lose control, even to that degree. But news like that would just about do it. The Consul might even have blinked.

"You work fast," I said. "This morning you could only get two."

"It seems that today's tragedy convinced the senates that this war is unlike any we have seen."

"And scared 'em shitless," Alphonse guessed. "Not that they'll admit it."

Mircea smiled slightly. "They have had a shock—something unusual for them. Their courts are also built on or near ley lines."

"They're afraid that what happened once can happen again," I reasoned.

He didn't look too concerned. "There is always a chance, of course. But the lines have been in use for millennia and there has never been a similar catastrophe. Our best guess at the moment is that it was a tragic accident."

"An accident that just happened to take place over MAGIC?"

"If the line was unstable, a rift could have occurred anywhere. But it appears that the battle was the trigger and it took place there. We will know more in a few days, when the turbulence within the line diminishes enough for an investigation."

"So, if there's no danger, why are the consuls meeting?"

"They may be under the impression that the threat is more serious than perhaps is the case," he said blandly.

"And you don't think they're going to be a little upset when they find out otherwise?"

"Early reports are often misleading. And by the time a conclusive answer can be obtained, the meeting will have already taken place."

It sounded like Mircea was gambling that, given the opportunity to talk to them face-to-face, he could bring them around. And maybe he could. But I wouldn't have liked to look at that group and say, Sorry, just joking!

"Pritkin thinks someone sabotaged the line," I told him.

Mircea frowned. Since that was his usual response to any mention of John Pritkin, I ignored it. "To engineer such a breach would require a fantastic amount of energy. More than any known magical alliance possesses. Our experts are convinced that a naturally occurring phenomenon was to blame."

"Let's hope so," I said fervently.

"Where are the consuls meeting now that MAGIC is gone?" Sal asked.

"Here. Casanova is arranging lodging as we speak, and the wards are being reinforced." He looked at me. "That should not go beyond this room, by the way."

"I don't gossip!"

Mircea smiled. "That goes for everyone."

Yeah, but he'd looked at me.

Horatiu entered, leading a vampire in hospital scrubs. The nurse, I assumed. He looked at us nervously and gave a quick bow before ducking his head and scurrying past. And for the first time that night, I felt myself relax. A vamp medic should know how to care for Rafe.

Mircea was on his feet when I turned around again. That seemed to signal the breakup of the party because, within a moment, everyone had disappeared. For once, even Marco found somewhere else to be.

Leaving me alone with Mircea.

I started for the door, but a hand snagged the back of my shirt. "A moment," Mircea said quietly. I sighed but didn't fight it; we needed to talk.

I was ushered into the master suite, where I stopped dead at the sight of the designer's pièce de résistance. A full-sized cream leather Indian teepee, complete with brown, hand-painted buffalos and beaded fringe, was serving as a canopy for the bed. "Oh, my God."

"I'm beginning to sense a theme," Mircea said, tossing his suit coat over a buckskin-covered chair. A moose head with huge, outspread antlers loomed over it, its bright glass eyes looking oddly lifelike in the low light. Mircea took in the room, his expression slightly repulsed yet fascinated. "I believe there is only one thing to say at this point."

"What's that?"

"Yee haw," he said gravely, and took me down like a rodeo calf. Before I entirely figured out what was happening, I was on my back in the teepee with a vampire crawling on top of me.

It was completely unfair, I thought, that when I was tired and disheveled I looked a mess, and when it happened to Mircea he looked like a particularly elegant porn star. His hair was artfully mussed, his shirt was unbuttoned enough to show a glimpse of lean-muscled chest, and his dress slacks clung lovingly to muscular thighs. In contrast, I was wearing the rumpled sweats I'd slept in, which had also acquired a pizza sauce stain. And that was despite the fact that I had never actually had any pizza.

Not that it mattered much what my clothes looked like considering how fast I was losing them. My sweatpants went flying, ending up atop the leering moose head, while warm hands slid along my sides, pushing up my T-shirt. I sucked in a breath at the unexpected speed of it all and at the electric tingle that spread up my body.

"You're supposed to be tired!"

"I am. Which is why I am not berating you for almost giving me a heart attack." My T-shirt followed the sweatpants, and at least the eerie fake eyeballs on the moose were now covered up. Which was more than I could say for me.

"Vampires don't get heart attacks."

Mircea gave me a playful flick of his eyebrow and tugged my panties off. "Good thing."

I opened my mouth to reply when his palms bracketed my face, swiftly followed by his mouth hard and demanding on mine. And somehow my witty riposte turned into a pathetic whimpering noise in the back of my throat. Unlike his usual habit, there was no slow seduction this time; Mircea kissed me hot and wet and dirty.

"We knew you were at MAGIC," he told me a few moments later as I tried to remember how to breathe. "But with the interference from the breach, there was no way to know where you were or if you would get out in time."

"I wasn't in there very long," I said, trying to focus.

"Dulceaƫă, you were in there for two hours." And for a moment, the mask slipped. For an instant he looked. . hungry, in some way I couldn't quite define. Not the predatory desire I'd seen on a few occasions, but more like need. Like some huge, gaping hole had opened up inside him since this morning.

His hair was mussed from having my hands all over it. I reached out and smoothed the worst of the snarls. I wondered if he'd lost friends today, if some of the people who didn't make it out of MAGIC were family. And then I remembered that Radu had been in trouble. And it had been bad enough to drag Mircea away in the middle of delicate negotiations.

"Mircea. . is Radu—"

"He is well. He sends his regards." I felt a wash of relief. "He suffered some damage to the house, but it has given him the excuse to redecorate. I believe the term 'rococo' was used." He glanced at the moose head and his lips quirked. "Of course, he hasn't seen this place yet."

"You actually think he'd like it?"

"He has a fine-tuned appreciation for irony and the absurd," he told me, stripping off his shirt. "He would love it."

"You should tell Casanova not to bulldoze it, then."

"I'll do that," Mircea murmured. Fine cloth hissed, a zipper jangled and a leg slid between mine in a heady rush of skin on skin. Teeth grazed the soft skin of my neck and a tongue flickered over the vein. "Dulceaƫă, are you familiar with the concept of a quickie?"

I laughed. There were about a hundred reasons why I shouldn't be here right now, but none of them seemed to matter next to the one overwhelming reason why I should. We were alive, we were both alive, along with the people we loved. It seemed like a miracle.

"Yes, but I didn't think you were." Mircea preferred long and slow and sensual, or so I'd assumed based on limited past experience.

"I am familiar with a great many things, as I will be happy to—" He suddenly went still.

His face had the distant look it got when he was communicating with other vampires long-distance. I didn't particularly understand how they did it; maybe it was merely better hearing, but I didn't think so. Like I didn't think I'd imagined his voice in my head in the clinic.

Mircea closed his eyes, his breath coming out in an irritated sigh. "This war is becoming very. . inconvenient," he said, and rolled off the bed.

"What is it?"

"I am being summoned," he told me, shedding his last item of clothing on the way to the bathroom. His voice had been light, but his muscles looked tense as he walked away.

He stepped into the shower but it was glass sided and he didn't bother to shut the bathroom door. The water turned his hair to black silk and molded it to the shape of his skull. More moisture collected on his high arched brows and dark lashes, before cascading down his cheekbones to wet his lips. Other tiny streams poured over his shoulders and chest in fascinating rivulets, before running down the hard muscles of his stomach and thighs to splash around his feet.

The steam started to obscure the view after a minute, but by then I'd ended up beside the shower door with a sheet wrapped around me. I wiped a hand across the glass so I could see his eyes. "When was the last time you had a day off?"

"Today. I was away from my duties on family business—until the disaster caused me to return early."

"A day off, Mircea. Not a day doing another kind of work."

"There are too few senators and too much business for any of us to enjoy much leisure these days, dulceaƫă."

He stepped out of the direct spray in order to lather up, turning to retrieve a washcloth from a bench in the corner. The motion caused a small cascade down his spine and over the taut muscle further down. My mouth went a little dry.

He paused to grin at me over his shoulder. "Wash my back?" he offered innocently.

I licked my lips and stayed where I was. "Tell the Consul she'll keep and maybe I will."

A wet eyebrow quirked. "Would you like me to quote you?"

"Go ahead. She owes me a favor."

He didn't immediately respond, just added soap to the cloth and began to run it leisurely over his body. I knew what he was up to, but my eyes simply ignored my brain's order for them to look elsewhere. Instead, they followed that lucky washcloth as it roamed over the fine chest and arms, moved on to the satiny skin of his inner legs, and glided along the jointure of his hip to areas more interesting still.

I had the door open and a foot across the sill before I even realized it. "I do not believe she views your assistance in quite that way," he said, a slight smirk tugging at his lips.

I frowned at him and drew my foot back. "That's the problem. She needs to understand that I'm not her little errand girl."

"No one thinks of you in those terms," he said soothingly, pausing to rinse off all those fascinating bubbles.

"Don't patronize me, Mircea."

"I wouldn't dream of it." And, okay, there was just no doubt about it. That was a definite smirk. He apparently thought his little game was cute.

I'd show him cute.

I dropped the sheet and got in beside him, pushing him down onto the bench. I stood in front of him, taking my time checking out the bewildering array of available toiletries. "What are you doing?" he asked, eyes lazily slitting.

"You washed my hair. It's only fair I return the favor." I managed to just brush his cheek with one breast as I reached up to get the shampoo. I put one knee on the bench as I lathered him up, nudging his legs apart to make room. I might have nudged a few other things, too, but he merely watched, although something wicked lurked behind his eyes, feral and amused and hungry.

"The Consul acts like I'm one of her vampires," I said, massaging in the suds. "She orders me around and expects me to help with plans she doesn't even bother to explain. I broke a guy out of jail for her today and I don't even know his name!"

"You broke a great many people out of jail." His hands settled on my hips, his thumbs stroking me slowly.

"That's not the point! I'm her ally, not her servant. She needs to understand that." I picked the shower head off the wall and leaned against him as I rinsed. "So do a few other people."

"I do not consider you a servant, dulceaƫă."

"But you don't tell me anything." I nudged him again, a little more firmly, and the smirk faded. I smiled.

"In the last month, you have had experiences that would have broken a weaker person. You have enough on your plate."

"Don't you think that's for me to decide?"

"We obviously need to discuss this," he said, but his breath hitched slightly.

"I thought you were out of time."

"If you keep doing that, I soon will be."

"Doing what?" I asked, rubbing against him in a soft, sweet tease.

A sharply indrawn breath was followed by a movement so quick I couldn't track it with my eyes. But somehow I ended up against the wet shower wall, bubbles in the air and Mircea between my legs. His still soapy hands were slick and barely controlled as he slid them around my hips, pulling me against him. I had a moment to see amber eyes narrow, glittering and full of intent, before the weight of his body slid against me, in me, deep and hard and hot.

I made a little whimpering noise as my body expanded to accommodate him, and then my voice was busy giving orders as he pressed in each time—harder and more and don't stop. Every movement sent spikes of pleasure arcing up my spine, turning my muscles soft and helpless. Instinct sent my hands sliding down the long, lean muscles of his back, nails lightly running across his buttocks, caressing him. And the room suddenly went hazy, shimmering like heat on asphalt.

I kept my eyes stubbornly open; I didn't want to miss a single second of this. And for a few moments I even managed to keep that resolution. Until the sensation of the water pouring down his chest and over my skin combined with the feel of his movements inside me to drive me to the edge. Everything became a blur of heat and need, of words breathed over my skin like a caress, of hands and mouths etching the Braille of desire onto warm, wet skin. My eyes finally closed as I was savored, devoured, possessed.

Strong arms came around me as his rhythm began to falter, water-slick hands sliding over my face, my breasts, my hips before he sucked air between his teeth and tilted just so and that was it. The world went white before my eyes, my whole body condensing into a single point of pleasure. A toe-curling orgasm broke over me that left me shaking and laughing up at the ceiling as he finished in a staccato frenzy of motion.

And someone knocked on the door.

Mircea cursed in a string of low-voiced Romanian, his head against my neck, his wet hair trailing over my breast. After a moment, he snatched a big Turkish towel off a rack and wrapped it around me. I leaned against the wall, weak-kneed and breathless, as he wrenched open the door. "Yes?"

One of the blank-faced masters was there, radiating disapproval. "The Consul wanted to be sure you received her message," he rumbled.

"Tell her I will be with her momentarily," Mircea snapped, and slammed the door in his face.

"Marco says you can't do that to the older masters," I informed him as he dried off with abrupt, angry motions.

"You shouldn't take Marco's advice too much to heart. He is one of those he spoke to you about—one who has reached the farthest limit of his power. He is having, I think, some trouble accepting that."

"It still wouldn't hurt to be polite."

"It is obvious that you have yet to meet the family. I am terrorized by them, not the other way around, I assure you."

Mircea reentered the bedroom and started throwing on clothes without his usual grace. I followed, sitting in the teepee. "When will you be back?"

"Not for hours." He paused to kiss me quickly. "Get some sleep."

"I'll try." I was exhausted, but my brain didn't seem to know how to cut off anymore. When the endorphins wore off, I'd probably be wide awake, staring at the ceiling, thumbing through my ever-growing catalogue of horrors. It wasn't a pleasant thought."Do you want some help?" he asked, sitting beside me.

I nodded. Anything to avoid replaying today's events or seeing Rafe like that again. . Mircea's arms slipped around me and a wave of peace flowed over me better than any drug. I hadn't expected it to take hold so fast. I had a dozen things to talk to him about, to ask. . and suddenly I couldn't think of even one. Sleep was dragging at my consciousness, my body going thick and heavy, and I couldn't make myself open my eyes again.

"It's over; everyone's safe," I heard him murmur. The arms tightened abruptly. "Even you."

I had no idea what that meant, but I was drifting. Mircea's hand was running slowly up and down my spine, the other heavy on the back of my neck. I breathed out and let the weight pull me under.