“Darling, don’t be so cross with our Kat. She was only trying to help you out.”
Yeah, I believed that like I believed frogs were actually princes in disguise.
I decided not to take issue with her use of the word darling. This situation felt dangerous. It’d be best to be exercise a little bit of caution.
“I highly doubt that,” I said. There, that was diplomatic, wasn’t it?
Her laugh sounded like tinkling bells.
“You’re probably right about that. Our Kat doesn’t really like you. She was punished rather harshly after she misplaced you last fall. The enforcer was very irate. She’s only recently been allowed out of her clan’s isolation room.”
Kat’s face was politely interested, as if we weren’t discussing her while she was standing right here.
I hadn’t realized she faced any major repercussions from my escape. I thought Liam would give her an ass chewing to end all ass chewings and that was it. Seemed like that wasn’t the case. I strangled any urge to feel sympathy for her. That way lay monsters. She’d twist that sympathy and strangle me with it if she got the chance.
“Right. Good to hear. I’ll be on my guard with her from now on,” I said. I didn’t know if this woman was warning me or trying to start something between the two of us. Maybe both. “I still need to find Liam.”
“Don’t rush off, little bird,” the man in the corner said. “It would be to your benefit to make a good impression on Elinor. She’s one of the applicants for the selection.”
An applicant?
I looked at the woman before me, Elinor, with new eyes. Her power coiled around her. It was like standing next to a snow storm. One where only a thin membrane separated me from the subzero freeze.
Was she the one Liam suspected of hexing Thomas? Or was she just an applicant looking for an angle?
“How impressive,” I said. Only those who knew me well would be able to tell I meant the exact opposite. “Still, I have places to be and roads to travel. I need to find Liam before I go.”
“What interest does our enforcer have with you?” Elinor asked. Her eyes glinted dangerously. I had a feeling she’d been wanting to ask this question for a while.
I gave her my best businesslike smile. “I’m afraid that’s between me and him.”
The humor drained from her face, leaving a glimpse of the power hungry monster I suspected was behind the mask.
“You’re refusing to answer your elder, girl?” Her tone made it clear there was only one right answer to the question that was not a question.
“Can’t answer.” I again gave her my professional smile. The one I practiced in the mirror to be sure none of my true ‘fuck you’ feeling shone through. “I’m afraid it’s part of my job.”
“And what job would that be?”
As if she didn’t know. I’m sure if the rumors had tagged me as the clanless vampire they also tacked on that I was employed by Hermes Courier Service.
“I’m a courier for Hermes.”
There was no humor in her laugh. None of her emotions reached her eyes. “Yes, I seem to remember hearing something about that.”
The rest of them laughed on cue. I looked around, noticing that several had drawn closer. Before they had been spread out in the room with Elinor existing in her own oasis of space. Now I was the focal point of the room. It left me feeling like meat. Unliving, breathing meat. It was not comfortable.
I kept my breath even and the fear locked in a box in the back of my mind. Showing terror to a predator was about the worst thing you could do and despite their beauty, their nice clothes and seeming humanness, these people were predators. The type that sat at the top of the food chain and only feared those like them.
I was not like them. Not even by a long shot. I was willing to bet Kat wasn’t like them either given the way she gave a few of them an uneasy look, as if it had suddenly dawned on her that she was in the line of fire.
“It’s strange that you haven’t been brought to heel yet,” Elinor drawled. “Don’t you think, John?”
“Very,” a voice said next to my ear.
I twitched but kept myself from jumping. Must not show fear. Must not show fear even though my skin crawled and every instinct in my body said to make a break for the door.
“I find it curious that you’ve been allowed to run free, even though our laws state that a newly turned vampire must be claimed by a clan for the first hundred years of their life.”
