Brave the Tempest (Cassandra Palmer 9)

“Lady?”

The call came from the outer room, causing both of us to jerk our heads up. I grabbed Augustine, preparing to shift him . . . somewhere. But it was only Rhea, thank God. Augustine would be down for an ass kicking if the boys found out he’d snuck in here, but Rhea knew how to keep a secret.

Not that it mattered, since he’d just disappeared again.

“Lady, your food is getting cold,” she informed me, from a respectful distance outside the door.

“Go,” the invisible man whispered. “We’ll talk later.”

I went.

I didn’t have anything constructive to say anyway.

Rhea had put my lunch on the sitting room table, a gleaming beauty that could have held a family of eight with room left over. Maybe because, as Hilde had told me, it was customary for Pythias to use their private rooms for small meetings instead of the formal audience chamber, which I guess made sense. That place was so big it echoed.

This one didn’t, not because it was smaller but because of all the luxurious soft furnishings everywhere. Like the large area rug over the dark hardwood floors that shaded from cream and sand on one end through all colors of blue on the other, like the tide hitting a beach. Or the huge, round bed, with its dark blue velvet coverlet, which had curtains that swooped closed at the press of a button, giving more privacy. Or the sand-­colored couches in front of the big, widescreen TV in the sitting area across from the dining table. It was usually masked by a painting of sea nymphs, but it slid open at the touch of another button.

There was a fireplace underneath, in case I wanted to roast marshmallows, I guessed, because this was Vegas. And a private balcony where I could roast myself in the sun, buck naked if I wanted, because the only thing that might be higher than us was a helicopter. The balcony—­excuse me, the outdoor terrace—­was already my favorite part, and was bigger than the main one in my old suite. In fact, I wasn’t sure that my old suite wouldn’t have fit into just the master bedroom here.

You had to give the consul that much, I thought.

When she threw you a bribe, she did it right.

It was the perfect retreat, calm, serene, an oasis in the crazy. It was bigger than my whole apartment back in Atlanta, and way more comfortable. I could hunker down in here and just never leave . . .

“Lady?” Rhea said, sounding a little worried. Possibly because I was just standing in the middle of the room, staring blankly. “Is anything wrong?”

“No.” I cleared my throat, because that had come out a little hoarse. “No, everything’s fine.”

I walked over to the table, and it took a while, because the sitting room was on the other side of the large space. I stood looking down on the neat place setting Rhea had laid out: heavy, genuine silverware; pristine white linen napkin; and bone china dishes. There was even a rose in a silver fluted vase. It was all very pretty.

And very lonely.

Of course, there were worse things. Because Augustine didn’t get it. There was a power in starting over, a freedom, a relief. Yes, you paid a price for it, and that price was high: no permanent friends, no family, no roots. And I’d wanted those things; I’d wanted them badly. But, I was starting to realize, I’d feared them, too.

Permanence was scary.

There were no do-­overs anymore. No way to erase old mistakes just by picking up and starting a new life in a new place. And there were people here, so many and so small, who depended on me. What if I got it wrong this time? What if I screwed up all of their lives as well as my own? Because I did that, I did that a lot, only I couldn’t now and—­

I bit my lip, trying not to panic, wondering why I was like this. And if I was ever going to get my stupid head sorted out. If I was ever going to stop wanting to run.

This was why I never wanted to think about this stuff, why I pushed it aside and pretended everything was fine, fine, we’re all fine here. Because it wasn’t a single problem but dozens, most of which were contradictions. Wanting a home and not wanting one. Wanting to be accepted and wanting to escape. Wanting love and friendship and yet pushing people away.

I didn’t know what was wrong with me or what to do about it. Which is why it was really funny that other people wanted my advice so badly. I couldn’t even figure myself out! Because it didn’t just happen, did it? You didn’t just wake up one day and suddenly decide to be normal, did you?

Or maybe that was exactly what you had to do.

Pritkin’s father and I had gotten to know each other a little recently, and Rosier was . . . different. A selfish asshole most of the time, he had these weird flashes of decency, like glimpses of what he might have been had his life gone differently. For a demon lord, he’d had a pretty rough time of it, a lot of which had stemmed from his own father’s early demise at the hands of my mother.

She’d hunted him down, killed and eaten him, or at least his energy.

It had made the partnership a little . . . tense.

But he’d given me one piece of good advice, at least: “fake it till you make it” wasn’t just a human thing.

I hesitated for another moment, because I was a mess. And then I piled everything back on the tray and picked it up. “Lady?” Rhea said, coming up behind me. “Did you

want me to have it reheated?”