"So what's his excuse for the last month?"

"He asked me to convey his personal regrets to you. . and to arrange another meeting as soon as possible."

I smiled. I'd been waiting for a chance to use one of Pritkin's more colorful swear words. And if ever there was a moment. .

Mircea's lips quirked. "That is what I thought you'd say. Which is why I agreed to the meeting on your behalf."

"What?"

"Tradition states that the new Pythia's reign does not officially begin until she is confirmed at a ceremony by the Lord Protector of the Circle," he said mildly.

"I don't care about tradition!"

"But the magical community does. To be accepted as Pythia, you need the legitimacy such a ceremony would provide."

"That wasn't your view this morning!"

"It was, in fact. But that meeting was deemed inadvisable because of safety concerns. Kit had heard rumors that there might be trouble."

"Something you might have shared with me."

Mircea raised one of those expressive brows. "Would you really have chosen to miss such an opportunity?"

"I don't know. But it would have been nice to have the choice!"

"I will keep that in mind."

Sure he would. When he ran out of handcuffs. "I'm still not meeting with the Circle," I told him flatly. "And I don't need or want their blessing. Feel free to quote me."

"The Senate will guarantee your safety."

"You can't. You can't trust anything they tell you!"

"We don't. Which is why we have set the meeting to take place during the reception for the visiting consuls." Mircea paused, and for the first time that night his eyes glinted with the usual fire. "All six of them."

"Six?"

Alphonse choked on his whiskey while the rest of us just stared.

"The first convocation of six consuls in history is meeting in two days' time," Mircea confirmed. His voice was steady, but there was definite color in his cheeks. It took a lot to make a first-level master lose control, even to that degree. But news like that would just about do it. The Consul might even have blinked.

"You work fast," I said. "This morning you could only get two."

"It seems that today's tragedy convinced the senates that this war is unlike any we have seen."

"And scared 'em shitless," Alphonse guessed. "Not that they'll admit it."

Mircea smiled slightly. "They have had a shock—something unusual for them. Their courts are also built on or near ley lines."

"They're afraid that what happened once can happen again," I reasoned.

He didn't look too concerned. "There is always a chance, of course. But the lines have been in use for millennia and there has never been a similar catastrophe. Our best guess at the moment is that it was a tragic accident."

"An accident that just happened to take place over MAGIC?"

"If the line was unstable, a rift could have occurred anywhere. But it appears that the battle was the trigger and it took place there. We will know more in a few days, when the turbulence within the line diminishes enough for an investigation."

"So, if there's no danger, why are the consuls meeting?"

"They may be under the impression that the threat is more serious than perhaps is the case," he said blandly.

"And you don't think they're going to be a little upset when they find out otherwise?"

"Early reports are often misleading. And by the time a conclusive answer can be obtained, the meeting will have already taken place."

It sounded like Mircea was gambling that, given the opportunity to talk to them face-to-face, he could bring them around. And maybe he could. But I wouldn't have liked to look at that group and say, Sorry, just joking!

"Pritkin thinks someone sabotaged the line," I told him.

Mircea frowned. Since that was his usual response to any mention of John Pritkin, I ignored it. "To engineer such a breach would require a fantastic amount of energy. More than any known magical alliance possesses. Our experts are convinced that a naturally occurring phenomenon was to blame."

"Let's hope so," I said fervently.

"Where are the consuls meeting now that MAGIC is gone?" Sal asked.

"Here. Casanova is arranging lodging as we speak, and the wards are being reinforced." He looked at me. "That should not go beyond this room, by the way."

"I don't gossip!"

Mircea smiled. "That goes for everyone."

Yeah, but he'd looked at me.

Horatiu entered, leading a vampire in hospital scrubs. The nurse, I assumed. He looked at us nervously and gave a quick bow before ducking his head and scurrying past. And for the first time that night, I felt myself relax. A vamp medic should know how to care for Rafe.

Mircea was on his feet when I turned around again. That seemed to signal the breakup of the party because, within a moment, everyone had disappeared. For once, even Marco found somewhere else to be.

Leaving me alone with Mircea.

I started for the door, but a hand snagged the back of my shirt. "A moment," Mircea said quietly. I sighed but didn't fight it; we needed to talk.

I was ushered into the master suite, where I stopped dead at the sight of the designer's pièce de résistance. A full-sized cream leather Indian teepee, complete with brown, hand-painted buffalos and beaded fringe, was serving as a canopy for the bed. "Oh, my God."

"I'm beginning to sense a theme," Mircea said, tossing his suit coat over a buckskin-covered chair. A moose head with huge, outspread antlers loomed over it, its bright glass eyes looking oddly lifelike in the low light. Mircea took in the room, his expression slightly repulsed yet fascinated. "I believe there is only one thing to say at this point."

"What's that?"

"Yee haw," he said gravely, and took me down like a rodeo calf. Before I entirely figured out what was happening, I was on my back in the teepee with a vampire crawling on top of me.

It was completely unfair, I thought, that when I was tired and disheveled I looked a mess, and when it happened to Mircea he looked like a particularly elegant porn star. His hair was artfully mussed, his shirt was unbuttoned enough to show a glimpse of lean-muscled chest, and his dress slacks clung lovingly to muscular thighs. In contrast, I was wearing the rumpled sweats I'd slept in, which had also acquired a pizza sauce stain. And that was despite the fact that I had never actually had any pizza.

Not that it mattered much what my clothes looked like considering how fast I was losing them. My sweatpants went flying, ending up atop the leering moose head, while warm hands slid along my sides, pushing up my T-shirt. I sucked in a breath at the unexpected speed of it all and at the electric tingle that spread up my body.

"You're supposed to be tired!"

"I am. Which is why I am not berating you for almost giving me a heart attack." My T-shirt followed the sweatpants, and at least the eerie fake eyeballs on the moose were now covered up. Which was more than I could say for me.

"Vampires don't get heart attacks."

Mircea gave me a playful flick of his eyebrow and tugged my panties off. "Good thing."

I opened my mouth to reply when his palms bracketed my face, swiftly followed by his mouth hard and demanding on mine. And somehow my witty riposte turned into a pathetic whimpering noise in the back of my throat. Unlike his usual habit, there was no slow seduction this time; Mircea kissed me hot and wet and dirty.

"We knew you were at MAGIC," he told me a few moments later as I tried to remember how to breathe. "But with the interference from the breach, there was no way to know where you were or if you would get out in time."

"I wasn't in there very long," I said, trying to focus.

"Dulceaƫă, you were in there for two hours." And for a moment, the mask slipped. For an instant he looked. . hungry, in some way I couldn't quite define. Not the predatory desire I'd seen on a few occasions, but more like need. Like some huge, gaping hole had opened up inside him since this morning.