“It seems obvious to me that Vasco was right,” Lucian continued now. “If there is trouble around, you will find it. So, to ensure I do not have to execute you, it would behoove me to ensure you avoid situations where trouble might occur. That means no more night classes. You will switch to days. Immediately. You will never again be on campus at night,” he ordered imperiously.
Ildaria stared at him nonplussed for a moment, anger building slowly inside her, and then she burst out, “Are you kidding me? First you pulled me out of school in Montana and dragged me up here to Canada, making me miss my finals there and have to take those classes over again, and now you’re going to drag me out of my night courses and make me take day classes?” Scowling, she informed him, “I won’t be able to get into day courses now. The summer term will be lost and I’ll have to start again in the fall. Which means paying for them all over again, again. Do you know how expensive these courses are? Not to mention the extra blood I’ll need to consume if I attend day classes. I’m trying to save money to get my own place and stop being a burden to Marguerite and Julius. I’ll never be able to swing that if I keep having to pay for courses I don’t get to finish and extra blood to attend day classes . . . which with my luck, I again probably won’t get to finish anyway. I need those courses to get my degree.”
Lucian’s eyes narrowed. “I pulled you from university in Montana because you were playing vigilante down there,” he reminded her icily. “You were utilizing your abilities in front of mortals and drawing attention to yourself, and by extension, our people. Which is against our laws. My choice was to either move you or execute you. Would you have preferred execution?”
“Of course not, but . . .” Ildaria hesitated and then slumped in her seat with defeat. She supposed the setback to her education was probably nothing more than she deserved. She’d known she was playing with fire when she’d donned her leathers and gone out to kick some mortal bad-guy butt back in Montana. And she knew she was lucky that Lucian Argeneau had given her a second chance rather than have her executed. He wasn’t known for being soft on people who stepped out of line, and she had stepped out of line. Her only excuse was emotional distress, but she hadn’t explained that to Lucian when she’d been brought before him. She hadn’t had to, though. No doubt he’d read it from her mind and it was the only reason she was still breathing.
Letting her breath out slowly now, she nodded in acceptance and simply said, “Thank you.”
Lucian grunted at the soft words, his body relaxing. “You may go. I believe Sam is waiting for you in the kitchen . . . with hot chocolate and brownies.”
Ildaria couldn’t tell if he was annoyed that Sam was waiting to give her treats to soothe her after she’d got herself in trouble again, or amused. His mouth was definitely twitching though.
Supposing it didn’t matter, Ildaria stood and headed for the door, aware that Tybo and Valerian had also stood to follow her. They had to take her back to the university to fetch her car, she recalled then, and probably wouldn’t want to wait for her to enjoy those treats. That or they’d gobble them all up on her. She’d seen Tybo eat. He’d inhale the brownies before she got her hand on one if she didn’t run ahead of them.
But in the next moment, she realized that wouldn’t be necessary because Lucian barked, “Not you two. I am not finished with you yet.”
Ildaria glanced back to see Tybo and Valerian reluctantly returning to their chairs and had to smother the smile that wanted to claim her lips. Tybo had been so annoying with his nonsense about having the sense not to be caught on video that she didn’t feel at all bad he was in trouble now.
Leaving the men to be raked over the coals by Lucian, she hurried out into the hall, headed for the kitchen and the promised brownies and cocoa awaiting her. There was nothing like chocolate to make you feel better after a stressful event. Between that and a chat with Sam, she hoped to be feeling at least a little better before the men rejoined her.
Two
Ildaria pushed through the red door of the Night Club the next day and then paused, blinking rapidly. The early afternoon sunlight was bright still, but in this room there was only the one small window in the door to allow the sun’s rays in. Most of the interior lights were off—only a set of five or six pot lights over the bar at the back of the room were on and they didn’t illuminate much other than the bar itself. Her eyes needed a second to adjust to the darkness before she could properly see the rich dark wood and leather interior of the establishment she’d entered.
It was impressive, Ildaria decided as she finally started toward the bar. There were no clients in the place at the moment. The Night Club wouldn’t officially be open until sunset. Without clients cluttering up the place and blocking her view, she could see everything quite clearly.
Her gaze slid with appreciation over the gleaming dark wood booths along the front and side walls, with their leather cushioned seats of a deep wine color, and then moved over the wooden tables and chairs taking up the center of the room, before shifting to the long dark wood bar along the back with high-backed bar stools lining it (again of rich dark wood and deep-wine leather seats). There was a set of swing doors in the back wall to the left of the bar, and then a huge mirror and the bar itself ran the rest of the length of that wall until it stopped at a hall leading to the back of the building. The mirror was probably forty feet long and reached to the ceiling. It was lined with shelves, but they didn’t hold bottles of alcohol as they would in a mortal establishment. Here glasses of every size and description filled the shelves: cocktail glasses, highball glasses, wineglasses (both the smaller, more rounded glasses used for red wine, as well as the taller type for white), champagne glasses, brandy snifters. There were even cordial glasses, she noted and smiled wryly as she wondered what they used them for. Who would order a tiny cordial glass of blood mixed with flavor or mood enhancers?
Immortals who came to the club, she supposed and then paused halfway across the room when a man pushed through the swinging doors. He was mortal. He was also huge, a veritable giant at what she would guess was six and a half feet, and that didn’t include the bright green Mohawk on his head that had to be a foot high. But it wasn’t just his height that made him huge. He was also wide, with the shoulders of a linebacker and bulging arm muscles that made the tattoos revealed by his short-sleeved shirt move as he raised the plate he carried.
Ildaria’s gaze shifted automatically to the plate piled high with food and she noted that it held two huge double stacked burgers and about a pound of french fries. Their delicious scent wafted to her and her stomach gurgled with interest.
“It’s not for you.”
Ildaria blinked at that growled announcement in a thick British accent and dragged her gaze from the delicious smelling food to the man’s face to see that he wasn’t looking at her. He was peering down toward . . . his groin? Confusion filled her at that realization. He couldn’t be talking to his penis. She didn’t think. Shaking her head, she said, “I didn’t presume it was for me.”
The big man stopped walking and jerked his head up at her words, his eyes widening when he saw her standing there. “Marguerite’s Ildaria?”