“If they understand I am upset,” she said, “they might feel sorry for me, try to help. If I reject them by being awful, by humiliating them—then they go. And they don’t tell anyone about it.”
She had learned to lie—to the men and to her husband. Knowing someone else’s life was at stake, she learned how to do it well. For the men, humiliating judgments and coldness. For her husband, she played Scheherazade, spinning a thousand tales of pure fiction.
After a few months, she’d broken down in tears on the way to one of her “dates.” Her driver, The Driver, pulled over and asked her what he could do to help.
Asil deduced that until the moment he’d pulled over, The Driver had just been part of the wallpaper that lined her lonely life. After that day, he joined in her conspiracy, sending her dates packing if they didn’t take a hint. The Driver brought her a deck of cards—Asil gathered these had various sex acts on each card—to help her create a changing, believable story for her husband. He stayed in the condo or whatever hotel room her husband had paid for and taught her to play poker.
He could only help so much, because he was as much of a prisoner as she was. His family had been serving this particular vampire for a couple of generations, held hostage by theknowledge of what would happen to the rest of his family if any of them defied their lord and master.
Mari-Brigid told Asil all of that and never gave a hint of her driver’s name.
The Driver, after that first comment, said nothing. He just watched Asil with grim suspicion.
Despite four years belonging to a very old vampire, Mari-Brigid believed Asil when he told her that he thought he could help. The Driver did not, but he didn’t say so.
Asil found both of those things interesting.
“And divorce is not possible,” Asil said.
“We are good Catholics,” she said, deadpan. “No divorce.”
Then she turned her head away from Asil and brought her hands up to her face as she laughed. It didn’t sound like a happy laugh.
“Alvarez doesn’t divorce his wives,” The Driver told Asil. “He just kills them.”
He spoke to get Asil to look away from Mari-Brigid. Asil obliged.
“Do you have proof of that?” Asil asked.
“No proof,” The Driver said. Then did what no one ever remembered to do and just shut up.
“Maybe I should ask my question differently,” Asil said after a moment of silence. “Why should I, as an emissary and very humble servant of the Marrok, be interested in seeing that Mr.Alvarez ceases to be a problem to his wife?”
“Werewolf.” The Driver blew out a breath and relaxed, but not happily. “I don’t care who you are, werewolf. You are not up to taking out Mr.Alvarez.”
“What did you think I was?” asked Asil. Then considered the timing of his last struggle with his wolf. “A vampire? Overcome by bloodlust at the scent of your mistress’s blood?”
He didn’t mean to sound amused. But really. Him? A vampire?
“There are fae who feed from blood.” The Driver sounded affronted.
“You have been dealing with creatures formidable and strange, I see,” murmured Asil. “Why don’t you let me worry about whether or not I can kill your vampire?”
“Because you are putting her life in danger,” said The Driver. “I will not allow that.”
“You are what? Forty?”
“Thirty-seven.”
“And you have served in the vampire’s household for how many years?”
“Thirty-seven.” The Driver’s voice was very dry.
“And how many of Alvarez’s wives have you seen die?” Asil felt that was a fairly safe question, given what he knew about vampires with human wives and what The Driver had said when Asil mentioned divorce. “How much longer do you think that Alvarez is going to let Mari-Brigid amuse him with her defiance?”
“He doesn’t know,” Mari-Brigid said.
“My dear,” said Asil kindly. “He is a three-hundred-year-old vampire, and vampires are nothing if not paranoid. There are people who probably could lie to him and he would not notice. You are not one of them. He is amusing himself by putting you through your paces.”
