“A moment.” Asil stopped the young man when he would have left them, pulled a hundred out of his wallet, and held it out. “Bring a bottle of red wine to our table, would you?”
The young man stared at the money as if it was unfamiliar, then took it and bowed his head. “Of course, sir.” He tipped his head at Mari-Brigid. “Ma’am.”
“You could have saved your money,” said Mari-Brigid as Asil took his seat. “They’ll bring out the wine as soon as people start sitting down.”
She waved her hand at the room where various guests were indeed heading toward the tables. Asil took the opportunity for a quick look and noted a few familiar faces.
“No matter,” Asil said, smiling at her and looking into her eyes with obvious intent. Very quietly he said, “We are indeed being watched. I am going to play my role as your suitor. If I make you uncomfortable, tell me so.”
The boy brought the bottle to their table and left. Mari-Brigid looked down as if suddenly shy, and nodded her head. Satisfied, Asil took the wine—it had already been opened—and filled their glasses. Ruby red but more transparent than blood, it proved to be ordinary, though maybe a little better than he expected for something served to so many people. It was not a wine to challenge anyone’s palate for good or ill.
An older couple came to their table, found their place cards,and seated themselves. Before Asil could begin introductions, several other people joined them, filling the space around them, mostly with older people. Mari-Brigid was (and Asil looked to be) at least two decades younger than most of the other people in the room.
Mari-Brigid knew everyone and introduced them once all the seats were filled. Asil took note of names—movers and shakers in Seattle’s monied elite, he assumed.
They were friendly to him but took no special interest—at least not in him as a person. He assumed they were used to Mari-Brigid coming to social events with pretty men at her side.
The woman sitting to his right put her hand on his knee and said, while everyone else was distracted by the arrival of waiters with wine to fill the empty glasses, “You are a step up from her usual escort. You should leave me your phone number.”
He gave her a graceful shrug and put her hand back on her own leg. “I am afraid I do not moonlight while on a job,” he told her.
She gave a little laugh—as if he had been joking. She started to say something more, but her companion on the far side from Asil asked her a question.
Food was delivered. They ate, and he fed Mari-Brigid choice tidbits from his plate. He murmured things in her ear—mostly sharp observations about the people sitting around them. It made her laugh, which was his intention. He watched people noticing them—not just people at their table, either—with satisfaction.
It felt balanced that the five dates his Concerned Friendgave him should begin with a ball and end with another one. The first ball he’d gone to had been attended mostly by good people pretending to be predators. This one was full of predators pretending to be good people. Some of those predators were human—and others…he let his gaze sweep over the room again. Five vampires so far—and those were just the ones whose faces he recognized. His nose told him there were several more.
He didn’t know if any of them would know him by sight, but judged that it didn’t matter. Vampires were arrogant creatures and would not find him frightening. Especially since he had come without his pack.
Modern manners being what they were, Asil found a moment or two between eating and flirting to do some work on his phone. He texted a few people as the plans of action he’d been developing started to come together in his head. He got a text from Charles, too.
That you have given me a list consisting of dead people concerns me.
Asil’s note had asked Bobby if he had the names and contact information of Mari-Brigid’s previous dates, assuming that Bobby had probably saved them on his phone because he had picked all of Mari-Brigid’s dates up and dropped them off at home. Asil had him send that list to his Concerned Friend and inquired if those men were dead or alive. It was not a surprise that Asil’s Concerned Friend had forwarded them to Charles, the Marrok’s son who was an accomplished computer guru, facile with information technology.
“What is it?” Mari-Brigid asked.
He looked at her clear eyes. She was not without strength of will or tenacity. But he needed her to enjoy herself tonight, and he did not think that she was a person who could put aside the deaths of so many people—people, moreover, for whom she had played games with a monster in order to protect. Monsters like her husband liked to let their victims pretend they could do something to stop them.
Mari-Brigid was not Asil. She had no power over her husband.
She wasnotlikeAsilat all. Why did that feel like a lie?
Asilcouldhave done something to save his Sarai from Mari-Brigid’s mother. Surely, he could have done something. But what would that have been?
“Asil, is it bad news?” She kept her voice down, and no one appeared to pay attention to her.
“Nothing that affects us this night,” he assured Mari-Brigid.
“Are you okay?”
He looked down into Mariposa’s daughter’s face and realized he had been wrong all these years. Hewaslike Mari-Brigid.
Being who and what he was, he could not have killed Mariposabeforeshe murdered his Sarai. He had thought of her as his daughter. And he did not kill those he loved just because they were dangerous. Before she killed his mate, Mariposa had done nothing to merit death.
Had he been with Sarai…Mariposa would have waited until he was not there. And once she had killed Sarai, taken control of his mating bond with his dead mate, it was too dangerousto confront her. With that bond, she could have taken control of him the way that she had Sarai’s wolf spirit. And then no one could have stopped her.
The monsters want to weaken you by making you think that you could have saved yourself, or their victims, he thought.As if you had power—and thus responsibility—over their actions.
