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He nods, like my decision not to murder is the same as not wanting tomatoes on my salad. Like he wouldn't have cared either way. “So you said,” he remarks. “Pity. That is the easier way. But no matter. The hard way, then. Bodyguarding. How often will you need to be escorted, do you think?”
I open my mouth to answer when my stomach embarrassingly rumbles. I guess the beer and the heel-end of my bread aren’t really cutting it. The Commandant goes still, cocking his head again, this time in curiosity.
“You’re hungry.” He says the words as if the concept is foreign to him.
“Oh, um, yeah,” I reply, feeling myself flushing. “I didn’t really eat tonight . . .”
“Do not tell me you are on a . . . diet?” The last word is said with such disgust that I almost laugh. That’s how I felt about dieting, too, once upon a time. Not that it’s any of his business whether I eat or not, but his reaction is still funny.
Still, I don’t laugh at him. I don’t know how he’d react to that. Instead, I answer honestly. “No. It’s just with the stress of everything, I forget to eat. And it’s not like going to the store is easy, when I never know if I'm being followed, anyway.”
He takes in my reasons stoically, then turns and walks away. Before I can wonder what the hell he’s doing now, he picks up a sleek phone from his seat at the long table. He taps a button and puts it to his ear.
“It’s me. I need a meal fit for a hu . . . for a lady. In the council chamber. Now.”
What the hell? Why do I feel like he was about to say “human”? Like he’s not one.
Before I can think about it too much, he puts down his phone and gestures to the seat beside him. “Please, sit. Food is on the way.”
I don’t want to walk deeper into the room. It feels like a trap, even though, so far, he’s only been nice to me. Still, I can't help but feel like the fly in the poem as I walk towards the chair.
Why do I feel like I’m going where I’ll never be able to leave?
Chapter 6
Julian
Gaspard arrives with a plate of steaming pasta and a salad, one of the offerings we provide for our human VIPs in the upper section. He serves it as expertly as if it were his job, then exits the room, leaving me alone once more with Andi.
I’m not bored yet. How refreshing. It's been a while since I’ve spent time around a human outside of the politicians we must pay off to keep doing our business, or those on whom I feed. Are they all so open and guileless, so entertaining, or is Andi special? I can read every thought on her expressive face, in the open carriage of her body language. I could even see her unnerved outrage when I touched her face. I couldn’t help it, though. My little mouse is magnetic, something I wouldn’t have thought when she first came into the room.
Andi unceremoniously tucks into the food, eating like a starving person. Maybe she is. I reassess her baggy dress and wonder if she used to fill it out properly. It makes me dislike the ex-boyfriend even more. Maybe I’ll kill him anyway, just because I can.
“Tell me the name of your phantom,” I say, watching Andi’s face closely.
She gulps down her current bite of pasta, the color on her face looking a little healthier than before. I hadn’t even noticed her pallor, but now I note its absence. I’m not used to caring whether a human is healthy or not. Another novel feeling that keeps me from boredom.
“Colton,” she finally replies, her mouth cleared of food. “Colton Hanes.”
My lip curls in distaste. Fuck. I wish she had said any other name. Fucking Colton Hanes, that son of a whore. The one person I can’t just kill without starting a war. If there’s someone with almost as much power in this city as I have, it is Colton Hanes. A powerful warlock in his own right, he leads the Circle of Nightshade, a coven of dark magic, illegal dealings, and great influence. We’ve clashed before, and I know he hates me as much as I hate him. I consider my little mouse again.
“You really know how to get into trouble, don’t you, ma souris?” I observe.
She looks at me, worry in her face. “You know him?”
“Oh yes. We have similar dealings and interests. I suppose you could call us rivals.”
Andi pales. “He’s in a crime syndicate?”
The Circle is far more than that, but somehow the description is still apt. I nod.
Andi falls back in her chair, the wind completely out of her sails. “That’s great. Just perfect. How did I not know that after dating him for six months? How didn’t I see the signs?”
That makes me smile, perhaps a touch mockingly. “You’ve had many encounters with such syndicates that you would have been able to see signs?”
“Well, no. But . . . ”
“I very much doubt he would have wanted you to see him for what he is, ma souris. It sounds like he wanted you very much and wouldn’t have wanted to scare you off. Believe me, lying to you, showing you a facade, would have been as easy as breathing for Colton Hanes.” I don’t say that I am the same, that lies and violence are my stock-in-trade. I also don’t want to scare her off. Not when she is so interesting.
