Liam had referred to them as High Fae but I wasn’t entirely sure what that meant. I’d never met one before, despite meeting many of the Fae who’d called the city home.
“Very,” Rick said.
I struggled with impatience. One-word answers weren’t feeding my need to know more.
“How?” Two can play the one-word game.
“They’re more.”
Two words this time. That was an improvement at least, though it still didn’t tell me what I wanted to know.
“You’re more like us than you think,” Rick said. Seeing my confusion, he went on, “Vampires learn from the start that staying one step ahead of everyone else is the only way to ensure survival. Our kind like to play at diplomacy. We walk the fine line of power. We’re rarely satisfied, always grasping for more. If we’re not careful, it’s easy to fall to the wolves below.”
His voice became that of a mentor lecturing a student.
“Huh. I’ve never been one to pursue power,” I observed. It was nothing but the truth. Even as a human, I’d gone out of my way to avoid leadership roles. I was promoted to sergeant despite my best efforts.
“Don’t you?” he asked. “There are different kinds of power. You may not desire a leadership role, but you crave control of your own life and your own little piece of this world. You just have a different way of going about it.”
We walked through several more corridors in silence as I digested that. I wasn’t sure if I agreed with him, but I was willing to consider the point.
I dropped the facade. “You didn’t answer my questions. Not really.”
His smile turned wicked, rivaling Liam’s for deviousness. “I didn’t, did I?”
He seemed pleased by my claim. I didn’t know what to make of that.
He patted my hand. “The Fae are never what they seem. Our unwelcome guests even more so. The High Fae have assumed the mantle of leaders of all they consider theirs.”
I frowned. “Even in another’s territory?”
“And therein lies the problem,” Rick said in a soft voice.
We stopped near doors I recognized. The ballroom. I’d been here once, during the selection of the territory Master. This place didn’t hold a lot of pleasant memories for me.
“Ask your friend these questions,” Rick said, lifting my hand from his. “He among us all is uniquely suited to provide answers about our new guests.”
I looked where he indicated. Liam stood at the end of the hall, brutally handsome in his formal wear. It was a kick to the chest seeing him like that. Most of the time I forgot just how breathtaking he was, lost in the irritation he engendered simply by breathing.
But dressed like this, his hair styled away from his face to reveal his fierce bone structure, eyes blazing at me as Rick leaned in to kiss me on the cheek, I couldn’t help but see and wonder. He was like a beautiful painting come to life so it could plague and tempt me.
His face tightened as if he saw something he disliked, abruptly turning unhappy.
“Good luck,” Rick whispered near my ear before striding away, sending a jaunty wave Liam’s way.
Liam’s face grew even more taut at Rick’s statement, his eyes snapping back to mine. The expression on his face said he thought I was an idiot.
I gave him a narrowed-eyed glare telling him he was the dumbass who forced idiot me into this situation.
Hehuffeda little, impatience in the sound. He stepped forward, capturing my arm and hauling me after him.
“What are you doing?” I hissed as he propelled me into an alcove off the hall, using his larger body to block the view of us from anyone who might pass.
“What are you doing?” he returned. “Rick might seem harmless and fun, but he’s every bit as dangerous as the rest of us. Probably more so, because no one suspects what waits beneath his mask.”
I rolled my eyes at him. “I was pumping him for information, not offering to do the horizontal tango with him.”
Liam propped a hand on the wall behind me, caging me in as he loomed over me. Suddenly, the intimacy of the situation struck me, awareness coursing through me.
