Liam squeezed my arm in warning, as if he could sense my thoughts.
My smile bared teeth I would have liked to bury in his throat. “You’re all heart, Stevie.”
Anger flashed briefly in his eyes as he said, “My name is Stephen.”
“Of course. I’m just so forgetful tonight.”
His expression said he didn’t believe me. He addressed Liam, “Enforcer, I trust you and your men have things well in hand. There won’t be any surprises tonight, I hope.”
Liam nodded. “My men are on hand to keep the events of the next few nights moving forward smoothly.”
“Good. I would hate for you to be distracted due to worry for your brother.” His eyes landed on Thomas meaningfully.
Wait, what? They were brothers? That explained why he was so hell bent on helping the man.
It was Liam’s turn to stiffen. “I do my job. Even when it means upsetting another’s schemes.”
Stephen smiled. “That’s what I like to hear.”
I gave him a look. Did he not hear the double meaning in Liam’s words?
“Excuse me. I have business to attend to.”
The three of us watched him go in silence. Even when he was on the far side of the room no one spoke. Vampire hearing was tricky. In a crowded room like this, it was theoretically possible to hear every conversation. In practice, the words ran all over each other, making it almost impossible to cut through the noise to hear what a specific person was saying unless that person was relatively close to you.
That’s how it worked for me anyway. With these guys, there was no telling what they were capable of. It seemed Liam and Thomas weren’t taking any chances either.
“Dance with me,” Liam said, his arm going around my back and ushering me closer to the string quartet.
There were no couples dancing.
“I don’t think that’s a good idea.”
Besides the fact that I didn’t want to stand out as the only one on the dance floor, I also had two left feet. Dancing had never been my sport of choice.
“Nonsense. I’ll lead. You follow.”
Advice I had heard before, and it was just as helpful now as it was the first time my dad tried to dance with me at my cousin’s wedding. Which was to say not helpful at all.
“No one else is dancing,” I tried.
“No one is brave enough to go first. As soon as we start, others will follow.”
“I think I would prefer waiting for them.”
He arched a smug eyebrow. “And here I thought you were a trend setter.”
I snorted. “I don’t know where you got that idea.”
He set one hand on my waist and picked my other hand up, holding it at shoulder level.
“I don’t think there has been a clanless vampire in nearly a thousand years.”
“I’m not trying to start a trend. I just want to survive.”
“Something that might be easier if you would just stop fighting us.”
I scoffed. “Because being a vampire seems so great. One of you dumped me in a dumpster, another tried torturing me because I wouldn’t answer her question, and another just threatened to turn me into a vegetable because I didn’t follow your rules. Oh and let’s not forget that you tried to kill me once upon a time.”
