Adam had never heard of a witch who could let a vampire walk in the daytime. Maybe because there weren’t any witches who would want to do so.
“It only allows me to walk when otherwise I would have to rest,” Guccio said, letting the bag settle back against the hollow of his throat. “It cannot protect me from sunlight.”
Adam wondered if Guccio knew how much longing was in his voice when he said “sunlight.” The vampires called it “sun-sickness” when their kind became obsessed with the sun. Without intervention, vampires affected by sun-sickness died within a year or two—walking out into the dawn of their own volition. Suicide of sorts. If they hadn’t already been dead.
Guccio was one of those people who liked hearing his own voice so much that he thought everyone felt the same way. He kept talking, but all Adam paid attention to was the threat he represented. Adam made answers that Guccio probably took as polite and wondered if he was going to have to kill Guccio before going to Prague.
And Adam waited at the top of the stairs until Guccio turned back the way he’d come and kept going, following the hall as it took a sharp turn. He had never said what he was doing over by Adam’s pilots’ room.
His wolf furiously disturbed, Adam knocked on Harris and Smith’s door for a second time.
“Get your things,” he said shortly when Harris finally opened the door. “There are vampires wandering around in the daytime here. I’m not leaving you here alone.”
—
HE GAVE THE PILOTS THE COUCHES. HE AND HONEY, both in wolf form, curled up on the throw rug in front of the cold fireplace. Honey slept, but Adam only managed to doze off and on, his wolf restless.
He found himself checking the bond with Mercy over and over. All he could tell was that she was there, but for a few minutes it would quiet the wolf. He hoped it was just the wolf’s reaction to the meeting with Guccio and not something about Mercy that the wolf could feel and the man could not.
No one in the bedrooms stirred, not even to his wolf ears. Smith slept like the dead. Harris . . . Harris snored. Just enough that it made Adam worry that it would cover a noise that might warn him of an attack.
People started stirring out in the hallways as the light outside bloomed into a glorious sunset. Adam shifted into his human shape, gathered his luggage, and went into the vampires’ room to use their bathroom to shower, shave, and change.
By the time he was done, both vampires were awake. They didn’t speak—maybe they couldn’t. Adam could see their hunger—just as they could see his wolf.
They had better get things tied up here tonight, or Bonarata might not be the one they had to worry about. He hadn’t thought about the vampires’ need to feed. He didn’t know much about it. It was a touchy subject for Stefan, though maybe not for all vampires. Should he have suggested that they bring one of their willing donors—what did Mercy call them?—one of their sheep with them?
But he didn’t think he could have stood back and watched, not knowing that the human’s willingness might not be anything more than a strange and strong addiction.
They were adults. More than adults, they were powers in their own right, he decided as he nodded to them and kept going out the door to the main room of the suite. He would do his best to keep them safe, but they could find their own food.
In the common room, Harris and Larry were up, dressed in keeping with their differing roles in this play. Elizaveta was wearing a slate-gray suit with a diamond brooch. She looked like someone’s sweet and expensive grandmother. Soft. He wondered whom she was planning on blindsiding.
There were two people showering. By process of elimination, that would have to be Honey and Smith.
A polite knock sounded at the door.
Adam started to get it, but Harris waved him back.
“I believe that’s my job, sir,” he said deferentially, then flashed Adam a cheery grin.
He opened the door to a male and female vampire, each pushing a trolley.
“Good morning,” said the woman with a friendly smile and downcast eyes. “With my Master’s compliments, we have sustenance for your bloodborn. For the rest of your party, there is tea, coffee, and drinking chocolate. First meal will be served in an hour in the main dining room. It is generally less formal than last meal—no ties required. My Master requests that a half hour before the meal, you attend him again in the receiving room. If you would like a guide, one will be provided you.”
“The receiving room is the old library?” Adam asked.
She gave him a surprised look before dropping her eyes. “Yes, sir.”
“It still smells of books,” Harris explained, touching his nose. “The wolves pay more attention to the scents of things than most people do. We won’t need a guide.”
The servants withdrew. Adam claimed the cart that held a tea service with a large, elaborately fashioned black-and-gold teapot that did not, according to his nose, hold anything like tea.
“I’ll take it in to them,” he said. He trusted that Marsilia and Stefan had enough control not to attack anyone even with their hunger riding them, but he wouldn’t send anyone else in. Just in case.
He knocked once—they would have heard the exchange with Bonarata’s servants—and went in. Marsilia was dressed and putting a diamond drop earring on. Stefan was buttoning his white silk shirt.
“Thank you,” Marsilia said.
There was no trace of the Hunger in either of their faces, but Adam knew what he’d seen. He pushed the cart all the way into the room and turned to leave them to it.