Cassandra Palmer 1(98)
Mircea swallowed and looked very intensely at the rug for a full minute. When he finally looked up, his eyes had returned to their usual rich brown. «Let there be total honesty between us, dulceata. I could invade your mind, use tricks to overcome your reason, and force you to give yourself to me as I know you wish to do. But if I did this, you would never trust me again. I know you too well; I know how you view disloyalty. It is the one thing you cannot forgive, and I do not want you to see me as an enemy.»
«Then I can leave?» I knew the answer but needed him to explain my options.
«You know better than that.» Mircea sighed and his face suddenly looked tired. «If we do not do this, the Consul will simply appoint another. I know you have feelings of some kind for Tomas, but I also know how upset you are with him. He betrayed your trust, and although it was done under orders he could not disobey, I do not think you have forgiven him for that.»
I hugged myself. «No.» There was a time when I'd trusted Tomas, at least as much as I did anyone, lusted after him, and maybe even loved him a little. But that had been the man in my imagination, not the real thing. I felt now like I saw a stranger when I looked at him. I didn't want those hands on me. Besides, he had invaded my mind once on Senate orders. If commanded, I had no doubts he would do it again.
«Then Louis-Cesar, perhaps? He is handsome. Would you prefer him?» Mircea sounded a little strangled, and I think for some reason he liked that idea even less than me being with Tomas. Perhaps because the Frenchman was a full Senate member, with equal status. Did he think I'd fall head over heels for the first guy I had sex with, and run off to Europe? If so, he didn't know me as well as he thought.
«No.» I didn't want a man I barely knew, whose touch had sent me into a nightmare twice already, anywhere near me.
«Then perhaps Raphael? He looks on you as a daughter, as you know, but he would do this for you, if you prefer.» I shook my head. I wouldn't put Raphael or myself through that. I wouldn't be with someone who would look on the whole thing as a chore to be endured. Mircea spread his hands. «That was my assumption as well. So you see where we are. If you turn all of us down, the Consul will appoint one of her servants to deal with the matter, and that I do not think you would enjoy. There are no other alternatives. Your abilities are too important. The power cannot be allowed to pass to someone else simply because I have not had time to court you properly.»
I arched an eyebrow at him. «And what do you get out of it, Mircea? Just security? Or did the Consul agree to honor your claim if this goes well? Do you want to use me, too?»
Mircea let out a long sigh. «No one controls the Pythia, Cassie. If the power does come to you, I will not be able to hold you. I always knew that.»
«Then why shield me all these years? Why do it now?» Mircea was right; I did know how vamp politics worked. He had spent a lot of time and energy protecting me, and I doubted it was simply to obtain a clairvoyant for his court.
Especially not if, once I became Pythia, he would lose control of my gift. There was more going on here than he had told me.
He did not look happy, but he answered. His usual, laughing mask had gone, replaced by a stark, pain-filled expression. «You understand what it is to lose family, dulceata. So perhaps you can appreciate what it means to me that only Radu remains of all my kin, and he… I told you what was done to him.»
«Yes.»
«What I did not tell you, for I rarely speak of it and you were only a child, is that he suffers still. Every night when he wakens, it is as if it were all being done anew. They broke him, dulceata, in mind, body and spirit. Even now, hundreds of years after his torturers are dead, he cries out in agony at their whips and brands. Every night, a thousand torments are revisited on him, again and again.» Mircea's eyes were suddenly old and terribly sad; they told me that it had not been only Radu who had suffered. «I have thought of killing him many times to spare him, but I cannot. He is all I have. But I no longer believe that one night he will awaken from his nightmare.»
«I'm sorry, Mircea.» I resisted the impulse to go to him, to stroke his messy hair and comfort him. It was too soon for that. Years of experience had taught me to find out the whole story before offering sympathy. «But I don't see what this has to do with me.»
«You are going to Carcassonne.»
It took a moment for me to make the connection, and even then it didn't make sense. «You freed Radu from the Bastille.»
«In 1769, yes. But a century earlier, he was not there. He was held and tortured for many years at Carcassonne.» He said the name as if it was an invective, which to him it probably was. «Do you know the Pythia's alternate title, Cassie?» I numbly shook my head. «She is called the Guardian of Time. You are my best chance, my only chance. But if the Pythia dies and you lose your borrowed power because you were not yet a fit vessel to hold it, I will lose the only window on time I have ever found.»