Page 42 of Bleeding for the Prince
“Give me a few days to play with it a bit, and I’ll send you a more detailed design.”
Daniel’s phone beeped, and he glanced at the screen. “Our dinner booth is ready. You’d be welcome to join us.”
He didn’t live feed often, and he might partake later if Penelope was in the mood. “Thanks, but I’m waiting for my sister, and she’d be upset if I ate without her. Thanks for keeping me company until now.”
“Our pleasure,” Katherine said as she tidied away her notebook. “I assume Daniel has your details, so I’ll be in touch via him.”
Left alone, he decided that if Penelope didn’t turn up by the time he’d finished his blood, he would head home, swallow his pride and call Hyax. He knew she was busy and might not be able to drop everything because her brother wanted to talk. He was about to make his move when she landed in the seat next tohim. She had always been a glamorous woman, but tonight she looked like she’d stepped off a catwalk.
“You didn’t need to dress up for me,” he drawled.
She rolled her eyes, grabbed his glass and downed the rest of his blood. “I had a soirée I was attending, but it was so dull. Your message gave me the excuse to leave early, and here I am.”
“I thought you might end up cancelling on me. I did contact you out of the blue, so you could’ve said you were busy and I’d have understood.”
A carafe of blood arrived, and she ignored him in favour of knocking back two glasses of blood. “Gwil, once I received your message, there was no way I wasn’t going to come, but I was somewhere I needed to be seen, and left as soon as it was acceptable.” She tutted. “You’ll need to understand the politics of social gatherings better; you can’t be at everything, but you need to find a way which makes it look like you are.”
“Yeah, I’m learning there’s a lot more to this moving in the right circles than looking pretty and not pissing people off.”
“To be fair, that’s not an insignificant part.”
“Then I guess I’m grateful you decided I was worth you dropping your posh friends for.”
“I wouldn’t call them friends, more acquaintances, but I’m not pandering to your ego, Gwil. You know you’re hot property, and I’m going to make sure people don’t forget you’re my brother.”
“But I’m not your sired brother. I’m just the one from before you were turned. Nowhere near as important.”
“Yet I still want to be seen with you, and when you asked to see me, I came—you must be special.” She downed another glass of blood. “Fuck, I needed that.”
Penelope wasn’t the type to overindulge in public; she tended to conduct herself with an arrogant grace that seemed to have deserted her. “What’s wrong?”
“I had to remove one of Philip’s mistresses. She was getting a bit too clingy.”
Monogamy wasn’t a requirement of many vampire relationships, especially those of Penelope’s status. “Remove? As in permanently?”
“Yes, I gave her ample opportunity to avoid being decapitated, but in the end, she didn’t listen. I’ve worked too hard to get where I am to be replaced by a woman whose breast implants have a higher IQ than she does.”
Penelope didn’t care about her husband’s flings; in the same way, Philip didn’t object to Penelope having her own, but she would not risk her position. “I guess that’s why you took longer to get here than I thought.”
“I had to make sure her corpse was removed. I couldn’t just leave it there. I’d hate to be thought of as a bad guest.”
There weren’t many things that could kill a vampire, and they weren’t the items someone would carry with them for a dinner party. By the sound of it, Penelope had removed her rival’s head. “I have to ask, but that dress doesn’t have the way or means to hide a machete…”
She rolled her eyes. “Idiot. I used one of the swords above the mantlepiece. I’d asked to speak with her in a quiet room, and instead of accepting my requests for her to leave, she started going on about being Philip’s fourth wife. So, I dealt with the situation.”
He knew his sister was badass, knew she wasn’t someone to cross, but he’d not thought her capable of direct action in such a way. They’d had an on-off relationship. Some years not speaking to each other, or just terse short messages, but now she was here when he’d asked, and she was acting as if he were a favourite, and he wasn’t sure how to react. “Seems a bit extreme.”
“I don’t like to be threatened. Now, mine and Philip’s relationship isn’t like yours and Hyax’s, but imagine someonetried to take Hyax from you, and there was a risk it could occur. Don’t tell me you wouldn’t put up a fight.”
“Of course, I would, but I don’t think I’d lob their head off in a house I’m having dinner at. I’d have made other arrangements.” He’d harboured ideas of having Metra removed at one point, but since he wasn’t interested in Hyax beyond a political arrangement, he’d thought he could wait things out.
“That’s the difference between us, Gwil. I deal with things upfront and when they need to be done.”
Penelope was as capable of laying a trap and playing the long game. “The scary thing is, Penelope, we both know you’re as happy to lie in wait and scheme for a decade if you need to. You wanted to deal with her in this way, and no doubt it also gave the message to your husband you weren’t one to fuck over either.”
“Philip doesn’t need that message. He’s not stupid, and there was no intent on his part to make the usurper more permanent. But he would expect me to deal with things on his behalf and ensure someone doesn’t overstep and cause embarrassment.”
He wasn’t sure he wanted to know more. “You doing it this way was the least embarrassing option?”
