Midnight's Daughter (26 page)

My hands tingled with the need to run over him, to rip off those ridiculous clothes and feel warm skin against warm skin instead of leather against cotton. But he wouldn’t let me. The thought occurred that maybe Louis-Cesare was right—maybe I
had
been influenced—but at the moment I really didn’t care.

I finally gave up all pretense of control and arched against him. I was rewarded with a low groan in that rich voice, all velvet and heat, and suddenly he was kissing me. The feverish, openmouthed caresses started hard and got harder, almost desperate. It felt like fire was pouring through me and tasted of raw power—hot and sweet, burning and perfect. The heat of his breath was scalding. God, I was going to go crazy if I couldn’t touch him.

Then, just as suddenly, I was alone. After a confused second, I realized that Louis-Cesare was now standing on the other side of the fountain, facing away from me, his back tense. When he turned around, his eyes were shadowed and his face sported hectic color in his cheeks. Apparently he’d remembered that he was kissing a dhampir, and a bastard one at that.

So much for compliments.

I felt heat closing my throat and had to take a few deep breaths to get myself under control. God, I must be even more tired than I thought. I pulled the hideous skirt on, slipping my ruined jeans off underneath. It wasn’t my style, but it bought me a few seconds to rearrange my face.

“Why do you think the Fey is really here?” Louis-Cesare asked. There seemed to be something wrong with his voice.

I slipped on the tunic, hands tingling at the memory of what it had been like to touch him. “You heard what he said. He’s looking for Claire.”

“You have already told him what you know—that he will find the woman with Lord Dracula. Why is he here instead of looking for them?”

“Why don’t you ask him?” It certainly topped my agenda. Caedmon had asked to delay filling in details until we arrived. Considering that conditions in the car had not been conducive to intelligent conversation, I hadn’t pressed him. But all bets were now off. I was tired and confused, but I wasn’t going to bed until I had the truth about Claire.

“The Fey cannot be trusted. They speak in riddles and half-truths when they trouble themselves to say anything at all! I am responsible for you to Lord Mircea, and I do not trust Fey magic.”

“And I don’t trust you.”

“That makes two of us,” he said obscurely, running a hand through his messy curls. “May I see the note the woman left you?” It would have sounded like a non sequitur to anyone listening in, but to me, it made perfect sense. Louis-Cesare didn’t trust me, either.

Smart vampire.

“Her name is Claire. And no, you can’t.”

“And why not?”

“I lost it.”

Blue eyes stabbed me with unmasked suspicion. I wanted to look away, but didn’t dare. But he stopped short of searching me—I suppose he thought he’d done a pretty good job of that already—and I was careful not to glance at my left boot, where I’d slipped Claire’s note. Louis-Cesare probably didn’t read Romanian, but Radu sure as hell did. And the last thing I needed was for them to know about Drac’s ultimatum.

I fished Stinky out from under the bushes. “Come on,” I said wearily. “Let’s go get some answers.”

I knew Radu wouldn’t appreciate having Stinky at the dinner table, especially since he’d managed to coat himself in mud again, thanks to his frolic under the bushes. But I wasn’t leaving the little guy on his own. Letting him run loose, especially when the place was on high alert, was not smart. And ’Du had certainly had worse dinner guests. In fact, out of everyone at the table that night, Stinky was the least scary.

The dining hall turned out to be on the opposite side of the grand entryway from the living room, but we didn’t go there. I guess Radu thought the table, which looked like it could seat forty, was a bit much for an intimate party. Instead, I was led downstairs to a wine cellar, where a much smaller table had been set for five. I plopped Stinky down in the seat next to mine and nodded at Olga. She inclined her massive head back at me, and the fact she’d been able to see my greeting tells you how many lamps Radu had burning around the place. He was being the thoughtful host, making sure that, even without electricity, there was enough light for a troll’s weak eyes. Geoffrey silently set another place, not deigning to so much as look at either me or the hair ball next to me, then went back to pouring wine.

Louis-Cesare wasn’t eating—so much for the stereotype about the French and food—nor was he bothering to conceal his dislike for the Fey. It was a good thing he had the rep of someone who could handle himself in a fight. Not that Caedmon seemed worried.

The Fey had commandeered a place on my right and appeared intent on being the perfect dinner guest. He was voluble in praise for the onion soup and escargots that started us off, and for the wine, some of Radu’s best stock. I suppose for an immortal, anything new was good, and that dinner was certainly a new one. At least I doubted that he’d previously sat down at a vampire’s table with a dhampir, a Duergar and a large Bergtroll, but then, what did I know? And that was the problem. I didn’t like having an ally I knew so little about any more than Louis-Cesare did.

By the time the second course was served, I decided that enough pleasantries had been exchanged. “Okay, Caedmon. We’re here. Spill it.”

“Certainly.” Unlike the rest of us, he seemed to be enjoying the special version of steak tartare that Radu’s chef had worked up for the main course. He’d already finished the helping Geoffrey had served us, and now used the end of his knife to spear another of the tiny cows that were wandering around the central serving dish. The rest of the miniature herd scattered, lowing, to hide under the spinach leaves that rimmed the plate. “What would you like to know?”

Louis-Cesare broke in before I had a chance to decide which of the questions crowding my brain to let out first. “How do you know that Miss Lachesis carries the Fey heir?”

Caedmon swirled his desperately mooing captive around a dish of spicy mustard. Blood mixed with the sauce, creating a spiral effect. “Because she said so. I tend to take a lady at her word about such things.”

“To whom did she say it? To you?”

“No. She made the claim to one of the humans conducting the auction. He contacted our delegation at MAGIC, offering her to us—for a substantial price, of course.”

“Then how did Drac get to her first?” I was sitting on my hands to keep from wrapping them around that ivory throat, but that wasn’t going to work for long. I was bled almost dry and exhausted, enough that my temper should have been calmed at least a little. But no such luck.

Caedmon used his fork to cut off the escape of a couple of cows, which had been making a break for the shadows around the salt cellar. “He reached the auction ahead of me and took her from the auctioneers by force.” Caedmon didn’t sound particularly put out. He was relaxed, casual even. “Whether he can manage to control one so powerful, I do not know.” He shrugged. “Perhaps if he keeps her sedated…”

I was about to erupt, but Louis-Cesare beat me to it. “Stop teasing her. Tell us what you know.” His face matched the voice—cold, hard and not amused.

Caedmon’s friendly expression altered, his smile growing as brittle and brilliant as cut crystal. He didn’t seem to like orders. I don’t know what would have happened if Stinky hadn’t chosen that moment to choke on one of the larger cows—about the length of my index finger—which he’d been trying to shove down whole. Olga clapped him on the back with one enormous hand, causing the creature to fly out of his mouth like it had been shot from a gun. It landed in the tray of Amaretto pears Geoffrey had just brought in. A dozen butterflies, which had been decorating the dish, scattered in a mad fluttering of spun-sugar wings.

Radu looked tragic. Geoffrey didn’t look like much of anything, his face a careful blank as he regarded the ruined dish and his splattered shirt. Olga, on the other hand, seemed to find the whole thing extremely funny, judging by her guffaws of laughter. She’d been throwing the miniature herd back like popcorn, not even bothering to chew, and I guess Stinky had been trying to imitate her. I checked on him, but he didn’t appear to be suffering any ill effects.

I turned back to Caedmon. “Please—tell us what you know.”

He inclined his head in a naturally aristocratic gesture. “Of course.” The rich voice wrapped itself around my nerves, instantly soothing. Which was a good thing, considering what he had to say. “I am afraid I have more questions than answers, as does the Domi, our assembly of elders. A child is a great joy among us, not something to be hidden in the dark as if shameful. Yet no one knew until recently that the king was even acquainted with your friend, much less that he may have sired a child with her! And now you tell me you didn’t know it, either.” Caedmon flashed me a red-toothed smile. “The mystery deepens.”

He ripped a leg off one of the struggling creatures on his plate and swallowed it whole. He seemed to like only the haunches. Half a dozen tiny torsos floated on a river of blood in front of him, a few still weakly moving. “Maybe it isn’t true,” I offered.

“Why would she make up such a fantastic lie?” Louis-Cesare asked.

I shrugged. “Maybe hoping for help in getting away from her kidnappers? Anything would be better than being handed over to the harvesters.”

“But why contact the Fey?” he insisted. “They are not known for altruism toward outsiders. If they rescued her and discovered she was lying, she would likely be in even more peril than before.”

“But was she lying?” I turned to Caedmon. “What does your king say?”

“I would ask him had he not disappeared several weeks ago. There was an assassination attempt, or so it seems. He went on a hunting expedition with two trusted retainers one afternoon and never returned. We found his horse—riderless—and, after a search, the two retainers—dead. But of the king himself, there was no sign.”

I stared at my plate, my stomach flip-flopping like a landed fish. I herded my cows over to Stinky, who appeared to have the appetite of a couple of starving teenagers, and tried to order my thoughts. “So the Domi sent you to find out the truth,” I finally said. “Because if Claire’s claim wasn’t a desperate lie, she carries the heir to the throne.” Caedmon’s mouth was full, but he nodded. “And if the rumor is true?” He swallowed but still said nothing. “You’re planning to take her back with you,” I accused.

Caedmon sat back in the hard, uncomfortable dining chair as if on a throne, his legs stretched out in front of him in supine elegance. “The present situation proves that she is hardly safe here, does it not?”

“I believe I’m missing something,” Radu announced indistinctly, around the tiny brown leg that was sticking out of the corner of his mouth. He seemed to be having difficulty with his own chef’s cooking. A moment before, a bull had fallen over the edge of his plate, and when he’d tried to scoop it up surreptitiously, it gored his finger. “I thought the heir had to have a majority of Fey blood. Why would Claire’s child, assuming she is pregnant, be in the running?”

Caedmon shook his head, causing all that golden hair to shimmer like a silken banner caught in a breeze. “Forgive me, but you do not seem to know a great deal about the lady in question. The Domi has recently learned that her mother had a liaison with a powerful Dark Fey noble. If Claire was the result, a child born to her and our king would be three-quarters Fey. And a very strong contender indeed.”

I stared at Louis-Cesare, and could tell we were both thinking the same thing. “Half-breed.” He said it first.

I nodded. The Fey who attacked us hadn’t been after me at all—they’d mistaken me for Claire, the other half-breed who lived at that address. It looked like Kyle had gotten something right, after all. Claire was carrying a nonhuman child, but the father was Fey, not vampire. I felt a rush of relief so extreme that I laughed aloud. This garnered me a few worried glances, but I didn’t care. That was one huge weight off my mind. Unfortunately, it wasn’t the only one.

“I was under the impression that the Fey took human babies and left changelings in their place,” Radu was saying. “Why would a Fey leave a child behind?”

Caedmon made a graceful, indeterminate hand gesture. “Presumably because the lady did not tell him she was going to have one. Perhaps she feared that he would take the child if he knew.”

“Then how did the king find out?” I asked. “Claire’s mother died when she was a baby. And if her real father didn’t know…”

“That is one of many questions I, too, would like to ask, were there any who might answer them,” Caedmon said. “Perhaps her mother told her husband the truth before she died. Perhaps he arranged for a test. There are several that could have shown the truth, both magical and mundane. We can only speculate.”

Louis-Cesare’s blue eyes narrowed as if he didn’t like Caedmon’s answer. “The Senate believes that the succession struggle has been taken into our world recently. Both Prince Alarr and another contender, a Svarestri noble named Ǽsubrand, have been seen in New York within the last month.”

I stared at him. “Where did you hear that?”

“From Kit Marlowe.” I scowled. The beetle hadn’t bothered to mention that little tidbit.

Louis-Cesare had the look of someone who was thinking hard. I preferred it to the compassion on Caedmon’s face. I didn’t want Claire to need compassion. “If the king is dead,” Louis-Cesare said slowly, “the throne is in contention. Disposing of Claire, if she is carrying the king’s child, would also remove a rival.”

“She must be found and the succession issue resolved,” Caedmon agreed. “In the last civil war, more than ten thousand of us perished.” His gaze went distant, as if he was seeing another time. “Arrows shredded the sky. Blood fell like rain. Smoke from the funeral pyres filled the air until all that was visible was a dirty haze that stung the eyes and stopped the throat.” His voice thrummed in the air like a note from a plucked string, and suddenly, I could actually see the scene his words described.

Wind whipped my robes against my sweat-soaked body. Below me, a battlefield flowed away to the bloodred horizon. All around, columns of smoke clutched the sky like leprous fingers. Everywhere lay bodies in still-
smoking armor, suffocating me with the smell of blood and fire and burnt flesh. My hands were raw from holding the spear I had used against my enemies, but I barely noticed. Ashes were in my eyes, ashes that had once been the body of a comrade, an ages-old life ended by a chance shot from a green recruit. They clung to my face, stealing the pride of victory, mixing with my tears, threatening to choke me—