Reap the Wind (Cassandra Palmer 7)

“You’re going to make an example out of him,” I said, because of course they were.

I felt a lead weight drop into my stomach.

“We’re allies.” I tried again. “New ones. As a gesture of friendship—”

“But I am already making such a gesture, am I not? And it is not only I who have a say. The council will be hard-pressed to find a reason to return to you the one with whom you breached our borders.”

I swallowed.

Yeah.

That could be tricky.

“Cassie, please!” Rian said. And then whirled on Adra. “How can you—”

But he held up a hand. And focused somewhere behind my head. “Ahh,” he murmured.

I would have turned around, but I didn’t really want to know what the head of the demon council thought worthy of that sound. And because I was trying to scan the arena, to see if there was anything Casanova could possibly use as a weapon. But I guess those weren’t allowed. Because all I saw was the huge oval, terribly pitted now, and filled with scattered scurrying things. And a massive gate of iron-banded wood at the far end, which was currently closed but which several lumbering creatures were plodding toward from either side.

I didn’t want to know what was behind that door.

I really didn’t.

Even more, I didn’t want to fight it. Adra could probably keep this up all day, but I couldn’t, and neither could Casanova. We needed another solution. We needed one now.

What we got instead was more trouble.

A slender wrist draped over the balcony railing, right beside mine. It was honey-colored and elegant, with emerald green nails, and had a viper curled around it like a bracelet. The snake flicked a slender black tongue out at me.

I closed my eyes.

“I don’t need this,” I whispered.

“And may I ask,” a familiar, sibilant voice asked, “what ‘this’ is?”

Chapter Thirty-three

I turned around and saw what looked like the whole damned Senate milling about the balcony, looking a lot less blasé than usual. Including Mircea, darkly handsome in a navy business suit, and standing behind the queen with the snake fetish. He looked slightly surprised, which was the vamp equivalent of gob-smacked, but right then I didn’t care.

Because why didn’t I think he’d gotten here through a portal?

“Wrong number?” I asked sharply.

“Right number, wrong address,” he murmured, all but confirming it. They must have planned to drag me into some kind of metaphysical teleconference via the link in Mircea’s brain, but got dragged somewhere themselves instead.

Good, I thought viciously. Maybe it would teach them something. Although judging by her highness’s expression, I doubted it.

The Senate’s leader must have been on casual mode today, because she’d swapped the robe of writhing serpents she usually wore to freak out the humans for a flowing caftan in bright green silk. It set off her dark, sloe-eyed good looks, and would have made her look almost normal except for the twin living bands wrapped around her like a belt.

She usually looked bizarre.

She usually looked terrifying.

Right now, right here, she looked pedestrian, ordinary, almost dull.

Except for the eyes, which were sparkling and open and lacking the usual baleful ennui she reserved for most of life, but especially for me. Right now they were animated, and curious, and swiftly taking in the scene. Like a child on Christmas morning, which somehow managed to be even more creepy than usual.

I suppressed a shudder and tried to move away, but a bejeweled hand reached out and grabbed my wrist, swift as a snake.