Magnus, Adriel, and Declan all exchanged looks. Kari could understand exactly how they felt. What could possibly chase a squire as powerful as Ryuu out of the room?
After a couple minutes, Ryuu walked back into the room and took up his usual position behind Meryn without saying a word. Meryn got up on her knees and turned in her chair to face her squire. "Well?" she demanded.
"Well what?" he asked civilly.
"You know what I'm talking about. Why did you leave?"
"I just had to contact someone; it is nothing denka."
"Don't tell me it's nothing. You locked the door and soundproofed the room."
"And how would you know that?" he asked, raising an eyebrow.
"Fine!" Meryn sat back down in her chair. "But you have diaper duty for forever," she threatened.
He smiled softly. "Of course, denka." He bowed at the waist, his hand over his heart.
"Speaking of babies..." Aiden glared at Meryn. "Did you ever get Sascha out of jail?"
"Yeah, it was easy peezy. I updated their system; so he was released yesterday." She smirked. "But that wasn't before Colton got me a copy of his wanted poster."
Aiden groaned. "Of course he did. I swear we won't have any units when we get back. They are going to kill each other."
"Consider it training." Meryn looked back at Ryuu. "Can I have some more pudding?"
Magnus put his fork down. "Meryn, normally, I would give you anything you wanted, but I am really concerned about your dietary habits. Eating pudding for a week cannot be healthy. Do you not need vitamins, vegetables, meat, anything else?"
Meryn shrugged. "Nothing else tastes good."
Ryuu placed a bowl of pudding in front of her with two pills. "At least take these. They are the vitamins that Broderick has created. They contain everything that a shifter or human could need." Meryn quickly swallowed down the pills and picked up her spoon.
Magnus sighed, watching Meryn, a concerned look on his face. Shaking his head, he turned to Declan. "To entice more of the women and some of the men to attend the interviews, I have arranged a chamber here on Level One. I know my people; most of them would accept doing the interview if only to say they had been to Level One."
"I am sure that will help enormously, thank you." Kari smiled at Magnus.
"I just hope that everyone you speak with today is mated of their own accord."
"Me too," she murmured.
Declan bumped her shoulder with his. "It will be fine."
I hope he didn't just jinx us.
CHAPTER TEN
Kari, for the most part, stayed in the background. She took a seat off to the left behind Declan and allowed him to do the talking. He knew most of the women, and he gently coaxed answers out of them. When he smiled, Kari could see the result in the women. They relaxed, took deep breaths, and answered his questions without hesitation. Kari was willing to say at least seventy percent of the interviewees were mated as true mates, but the remaining thirty percent had been arranged matings, and that bothered her.
One by one, the vampires admitted that they had mated to the men in their lives because of what their families and their mate's families had arranged. It had been a way to bring families together to form alliances and to keep their bloodlines pure. Kari made notes of all those that had admitted to arranged matings, and as she suspected, most of them had taken place on the levels that were obviously gearing up against Magnus.
They were on their last interview of the day when the hairs on the back of Kari's neck stood up. The woman who entered looked at Declan as if she already knew what his body was capable of.
"Hello, lover," the woman purred. "I would say you wanted an afternoon tryst, but we have an audience, or are you into that now?" she asked.
Kari simply began to tap her pen against the clipboard in front of her. She saw Declan wince at the sound.
"No Trish, that's not why you were called down here, you should know that. Magnus is interested in knowing who had matings arranged by their families."
Trish shrugged. "Mine was an arranged mating. I was not going to waste my time sitting around waiting for Prince Charming, and my family needed an alliance. The DuBois are doing fairly well, so I agreed. If I ever do meet my mate, I can always move on," she said flippantly.