“Meaning you just backed yourbardricagainst the wall and bared teeth while you did it!”
“I didn’t!”He just looked at me.“Not the teeth!”That could have been interpreted as a direct challenge.Hell, itwasone!
“Lia, I was there.And the fact that you don’t remember…”
He let it hang, and I gave up.Because yeah, there was something wrong with me.But why didn’t I think a healer was going to help?
Cyrus went outside, and I tried to figure out something to put on.I finally settled on the bathrobe, which was far too big, but it was either that or an evening dress.The only daywear the girls had bothered to pick up was now shredded on the basement floor.
Thank God I’d taken off Gerald’s coat when I got back, or there would be hell to pay!
But it wasn’t a healer who waited outside.
“What the hell was that?”Sienna demanded, before I’d gotten through the door.
I blinked at her, still warm and steamy from the bath, and faintly sleepy.“What was what?”
“What was—” she rounded on Cyrus in obvious outrage.“Has the healer been up yet?Is she all right?Did one of the mages put her under a compulsion or—”
“You know those don’t work on us,” he said mildly, going over to the ridiculously overpriced bar to pour a drink.
He was wearing a bathrobe, too, not having taken the time to dress, and with Sienna’s caftan, we looked like we were having a slumber party.Or possibly something else, as Cyrus hadn’t shaved today, and was halfway to a beard and sexy as hell.I suddenly hoped Sienna would make this visit short.
“The healer’s coming,” Cyrus murmured, having picked up on something in my ever-shifting mood.He knew me too well.
“Would you two pay attention?”Sienna raged.
Cyrus handed me a drink.“All ears,” he assured her.“Would you like something?”
“Yes!I would like to know what the hell is going on!You’re fortunate that Ulmer trusts you,” she added, whirling on me.“He would have killed anyone else who tried that!”
“He trusts me?”That was news.
But Sienna didn’t like that answer.“Cut it out!”she snapped.“This isn’t funny!”
“Sorry.”I drank whisky because I needed it, and it seemed the safest course right now.
“We have worked out a temporary solution,” she told me, breathing a little heavy.“But I want an accounting of all thosevargulfs—every single one.What they did to be exiled, and not just their word on it.I need clan records, witnesses, and people who can vouch for them—assuming there are any.And anybody who was exiled for murder or rape can forget it!I’m only interested in those who talked back to their leadership, or violated some arcane rule in one of the more traditional clans, or maybe thieves, if they didn’t hurt anyone while—”
She stopped because Cyrus and I were both looking at her oddly.
“What?”she demanded.
“That’s my line,” I said, wondering if I’d missed part of the conversation, but if so, Cyrus had missed it, too.
“I’m not letting them into Wolf’s Head without it!”she said.“And it’s no good trying to talk me around.There are children there!”
I looked at Cyrus because my headache was back.“You wanna take this?”
“That won’t do any good,” Sienna told me.“You’re their Lupa—all three hundred of them!Or so they are busy telling anyone who stands still long enough.I don’t know what the hell you did, but they’re fanatically loyal.You’re going to have to tell them, or they won’t budge an inch.”
“Tell them… what?”
“What I just said!”
“Pretty sure you didn’t.”
“You really didn’t,” Cyrus agreed, as Sienna sighed and shoved some of her usual perfect fall of rich, pin-straight brown hair out of her face.It was a little frazzled-looking at the moment; her makeup could use a touch-up, and there were more lines than usual beside those bright brown eyes.She looked like she’d been through the wringer, and I suddenly felt bad.
