“This is going to go badly,” he muttered. “Robin?”
“Now, now, foster mother, let’s not crowd Marcela.” Robin stepped forward, but wisely did not touch his foster mother, or attempt to physically prevent her from the inspection she seemed so intent on.
“I’m not crowding her, I just…” Dubheasa took another step forward, leaning closer as if she’d spotted something in Marcela’s chest, something the rest of them couldn’t see. “I feel a connection and I want to—”
Marcela sucked in a breath, slammed her spear into the floor and leaned on it again, more heavily this time. The muscle in her jaw tightened and she raised narrowed eyes to Dubheasa. “Whatever you’re doing, stop it now or so help me I’ll slit your throat.”
“If it pleases you, dear,” Dubheasa murmured, waving a hand absently. She pointed at Marcela as if reaching for something.
Patricio snarled and raised his sword, the blade glowing with a light that had nothing to do with the fire. Kirill tensed, his black cloak shifting, betraying his retrieval of whatever weapon he held under the material.#p#分页标题#e#
“Come any closer to me with that iron,” Dubheasa snarled without looking away from Marcela, “and I will consider your duty as host to be violated, our lovely tête-à-tête at an end.”
Robin gave Adonis a look that said more clearly than words how terribly bad it would be for such a thing to come to pass. The fey were very touchy about obligations, social and otherwise. And their displeasure when such obligations were not met could be disastrous.
Marian took several quick strides to stand beside Dubheasa. Her bow and arrow were in her hands, the business end of the arrow aimed at Patricio, who still stood with his sword raised. Her allegiance surprised Adonis, but there was no time to get into that now.
A new feminine voice echoed through the room, low and soft as velvet, with just the slightest undertone of menace. “Continue prodding at her as if she were some sort of science experiment, and more than a tête-à-tête will come to an end.”
Dubheasa pinched her lips together, finally taking her eyes off Marcela to face the window behind the former mermaid. The glass glittered with magic and the final arrival to the evening’s fiasco stepped through.
Aiyana was copper-skinned, with black hair that fell down her back, straighter even than Robin’s. Her eyes were dark as well, not a common black, but the darkness one sees in a forest, shadows with the promise of living things hiding therein. She wore a simple dress of forest green that loosely clung to her curves and a cloak of impeccably aged animal skins, so soft they called out to be touched, stroked as if they were part of a still living animal seeking to be petted. The cloak was pushed back off her shoulders, revealing bare skin draped with thorny rose vines that hissed as they slithered over their mistress.
Adonis eyed the living ropes, a little uneasy at the way they writhed around Aiyana’s arms and behind her neck. Some of the thorns pierced her skin, drinking up droplets of blood and filling the air with the faint scent of copper. Aiyana seemed oblivious to the parasitic behavior, her eyes focused on Dubheasa.
“Be careful how you speak to me,” Dubheasa warned, a hint of anger warming her voice. “I was not hurting her.”
Aiyana ignored her excuse. “Marcela, are you all right?”
The air elemental glared at Dubheasa. “That depends. What would the consequences be if I opened her throat?”
“Dire,” Kirill said crisply.
“Why, because it would interfere with some alliance you’re dreaming of between you and the fey?” Patricio snarled.
Kirill met Patricio’s eyes, held them. “Dire because your wife is an air elemental and Dubheasa is the Queen of Air and Darkness.”
Ivy’s hand touched Adonis’ back between his wings. He turned his body to let her into his embrace, leaned down when she rose on tiptoe to whisper in his ear. “Do you think he made that connection before he went to get her?”
Adonis opened his mouth to say no, Kirill would never have invited Marcela here without warning her of such a connection. Then he sighed. “Probably.”
Patricio was still holding his sword, and his intentions were plain in the flex of his biceps. The angel wasn’t one to waste time thinking his actions through, not when brute force served him so well. Even Etienne thought things through more than the sin-eating prince of Meropis.
“Patricio, think,” Kirill said, a thread of tension finally weaving into his voice. “Right now we are all bound by the contract of guest and host. If you offer her violence, that contract will be broken.”