Ride the Storm (Cassandra Palmer 8)

“Weakness is the worst insult in their culture. They’d feel like they were betraying me to admit—” I broke off, because I didn’t want to admit anything, either.

Tami didn’t call me on it, but her expression was eloquent. “But it makes it a little tough to determine if you are, in fact, okay,” she finished.

“Yeah,” I said. “I’m okay.”

She came over to take the child.

“She’s fine,” I said, holding on. I’d woken up to enough blood and death lately. Seeing her instead was . . . nice.

“Come on, then. You can put her to bed.”

“Where?” I glanced around. “We don’t have any cots.”

“We don’t use cots anymore.”

“Then what do we use?”

She smiled.

* * *

“Oh, holy shit.”

“That’s what I said,” Tami told me as we stepped off the elevator after a short—like very short—ride. “Nice, isn’t it?”

“Nice,” I repeated, my lips going numb.

“I know, but you’ve got to see past the decor. The woman has no taste at all. But we’re in the process of dealing with that,” she added, looking satisfied.

I turned around and tried to get back on the elevator. But Roy, the southern redhead, was blocking the way. “She’s going to kill me,” I told him, trying to sidle past.

“Naw, she needs you,” Roy said, turning me around, and steering me into a much bigger, much more opulent atrium than I boasted. “If she liked you, she might still kill you. But if she needs you, you’re golden.”

“Until she doesn’t need me anymore.”

“Yeah, but the way things are going, that might be a long time,” he said cynically. “May as well enjoy the perks while you’ve got ’em.”

And the perks were . . . the perks were nice, I thought, staring around at the finest of marbles on floor and columns and walls. At a glorious star pattern expertly inlaid into the floor. At the softly chiming chandelier overhead, glittering brightly enough to almost blind me after the dimmer light of my suite. And at the impressive double doors to the casino’s finest penthouse, guarded by two more vamps who were trying to appear casual, but whose lips were twitching worse than Roy’s.

And then openly grinning, as one of them caught my eye. “About time we got some decent accommodations around here,” he told me.

“Define decent,” I said, feeling a palm leaf, from a potted plant that I was sure had to be fake.

But no. Just perfect. Like the view when Roy threw open the huge double doors.

“Decent,” he said, and ushered me into a scene of majestic luxury and utter insanity.

Dante’s finest penthouse had always been breathtaking, but it had definitely received an upgrade from the last time I saw it, going from Vegas glam to something approaching mansion status. Or maybe palace status, since after I was unceremoniously kicked out a few months ago, the resident in chief had been none other than the current consul and uncrowned queen of the vampire world. Who lived like the crown was already firmly perched on her beautiful brow.

“No, no—open that one next,” Tami said. She strode ahead and was now standing in the middle of the living room, ordering around a couple of senior masters like she’d been born to it.

Her weave was up in a curly ponytail today, which didn’t even reach the shoulder of the nearest mountain of vampire flesh. Not that it mattered. Vamps had long ago adjusted to the idea that size did not equate to power. And judging by the look the two guys exchanged over her curly updo, they’d already learned that it was easier to just go along with the tiny woman with the huge attitude. Because a second later, one of a number of square, flat wooden crates was pried open, and the front fell off to reveal—

“What is that?” I asked, staring in disbelief at the painting inside.

“What does it look like?” Tami asked, sounding satisfied.

I knew damn well what it looked like. “You have to take it back!”