“You’re too valuable to risk,” he said, and opened the door for Jonas, who was standing there with his ear pressed to the wood, looking frustrated.
But not as much as I was!
“Go home, Cassie,” Pritkin said striding out of the room. “And stay there!”
Chapter Twelve
I shifted into the corner of my bedroom that I’d designated as the “landing zone.” It was kept free of anything that I could materialize in the middle of, like toys that the younger initiates sometimes dragged in, or furniture, or people. Of course, there weren’t supposed to be any people in here right now, although privacy for a Pythia was relative. But for once, it seemed like I’d gotten—
And then I smelled the cigar.
Crap.
The room was dark, with the curtains over the balcony closed tight. They were of the blackout variety, since a Pythia’s sleep cycle isn’t always normal, so I didn’t know exactly when I’d gotten back. But I knew immediately that I’d screwed up.
I’d become so used to my little time thefts that I’d stopped worrying about things like letting my bodyguards know when I’d be gone. Because they usually gave me hell over it—they would prefer me to never go anywhere at all, ever—and because, before they figured it out, I’d be back. But I hadn’t done any fiddles this time, keeping my promise to Tami, and now I was busted.
And by my chief bodyguard no less, who was hella hard to lie to.
“Have a nice trip?” Marco asked, his voice dripping with sarcasm.
I sighed.
“I know you must have,” he continued. “I can smell . . . let’s see . . . potion residue, dirt, spent magic, coffee, burnt wood—”
“You can smell all that?” I sniffed myself. But my borrowed senses were taking a break, I guessed.
“—and oh . . . what’s that other one? Wait, wait, don’t tell me. I’ll figure it out, any minute now.”
“The blood isn’t mine,” I said testily, because of course that’s what he meant. Even microscopic amounts were a flashing neon sign to a vamp.
“Or from this world,” Marco added viciously. “You smell like Faerie!”
Since he’d said “Faerie” and not “fey”, I decided to deliberately misunderstand. A trip to old Romania wasn’t going to go down well, much less with Mircea’s super fun side quest. But a fey assassin would be far worse.
Plus, there was a better than average chance that Marco was going to hear about yesterday’s activities anyway, through the mental grapevine from his old family. Why not get out in front for once? And maybe get some help with a problem in the process.
“You can blame your boss for the detour,” I said, fumbling into the room. VampVision hadn’t bothered to click on, either, and I didn’t know how to trigger it. I couldn’t see a damned thing.
“I don’t have a boss anymore, unless you count you,” Marco said. “And I can’t count you, can I? I can’t be a body guard with no body to guard!”
The cigar flared again, lighting up handsome Italian features—heavy dark brows, a strong nose, and a stubborn chin—as he pulled nicotine into a system that couldn’t use it. I didn’t know how a body, much less one of Marco’s hulking size, became addicted to a substance that didn’t do anything for him. But then, I wasn’t sure that he was. I’d formed a theory that his cigars served the same purpose as a baby’s pacifier, giving him something to mangle in times of stress instead of whoever was out of reach.
Too bad that I was back now.
But at least he switched on a light. A lamp blazed, high beam bright in the darkness, showing a six-foot-five-inch body draped over my sturdiest arm chair, because anything else would have buckled under the weight of all that muscle. Marco used to be a gladiator back in the day, and the pastel Izods he preferred to wear now—a pale, shell pink in this case—did absolutely nothing to disguise the fact.
Maybe he liked them because they were stretchy, I thought, watching biceps the size of baby heads test the sleeve strength. At least they didn’t need buttoning up. He’d have never gotten a dress shirt to stay closed, which might explain why he didn’t wear suits like most of the guys.
Marco saw me ‘mirin and, in spite of everything, flexed a pec at me. It made me want to laugh. And to regain some hope that maybe I wouldn’t get yet another lecture.
“If I’m the boss, then I don’t get yelled at, right?” I asked hopefully.
He gave me the look that deserved.
I sighed again.
“The trip into Faerie wasn’t my idea,” I repeated. “You know I hate it there.”