Page 16 of Kissed the Mark
“Is there a better place we can meet?” Iasked, my heart pounding. “I hardly have enough space for all ofus. It’s not very big in there.”
“Your accommodations will do fine,” Patriciasaid tersely.
“Come in,” I said. For all I knew, if I saidno I’d wake up to the place in flames.
Her henchmen hurried past me, jostling me oneither side. The vampire queen pinched her dress in each hand andlifted it to ascend the mysteriously stained stairs.
That was that, then. If Leandra hadn’tproperly hidden herself, she was about to be officially out of myhair. Resigned, I headed back to the apartment and slumped into myzombie-cat-shredded armchair. Said zombie cat was nowhere to befound in spite of the emotional support I craved right now.
Patricia surveyed her seating options andthen pressed her hands together formally, one overlapping theother, in an understandable decision to remain standing. “It smellsof nail lacquer.”
“Yes,” I agreed.
“Your nails aren’t freshly painted.” Hereyes razed over the floor, where the purple mess smeared myfloorboards. “It also smells like Leandra. And”—she sniffed theair—“an undertone of some kind of witchcraft.”
“I had the place saged recently,” I said.“And as I told Leandra’s assistant, I saw her last week but not thepast couple of days—and I didn’t know she was missing.”
“I don’t believe you,” Patricia said, asneer spreading across her face. “Where is she, OlympiaCarter?”
Oh, God. The full name. “Truthfully, I don’tknow. I was looking for her myself. We had some…unfinishedbusiness.”
“What business?”
I should have known she’d ask. One of thehenchmen had begun wandering the room, lifting the skirt under mycouch and raising the lid on trinkets that were too small for evena mouse to fit into. “She approached me about finding someone forher.”
“What?” Patricia said. A muscle worked inher jaw. “Who was she trying to find?”
“It wasn’t, um, for a bounty,” I lied. Ormaybe it wasn’t a lie—I still didn’t have an official answer forthat one. “She didn’t have a name for me. I only had a physicaldescription. She was vague on the details.”
“You’re not even a particularly good liar,”Patricia accused. “Where did you see her last?”
Fuck.“It was in her lair.”
Patricia’s eyebrows shot halfway up herforehead. The wandering henchman froze, still clutching my sheercurtains. “Herlair? What were you doing there?”
“We had been attacked by vampires. Not onesfrom here,” I rushed to say, “but I got injured. She stitched upthe injury.”
“Let me see,” Patricia ordered.
I glanced from one vampire to the next.Never before had I had even two vampires in my apartment, let alonefour. Let alone four I had to undress for. I peeled the shirt awayfrom my shoulder.
“I can’t see that,” Patricia said.
Goosebumps spread across my exposed skin asI removed my T-shirt. I tucked my hair over my exposed cleavage andturned to show her the wound.
“I see,” the vampire queen said, almostdisappointed. “I can’t imagine under what circumstances she wouldallow you into her lair. It’s very…intimate.”
I had not known it was intimate.
“Are you lovers?”
“No,” I said, maybe too quickly.
“Idon’t even know where her lairis,” Patricia said. I opened my mouth to respond, but Patricia heldup her hands to stop me. “Don’t tell me. It’s too personalknowledge to have.”
Too personal even when someone you wanted tofind was missing? Seemed like an obvious place to start looking tome. “Sorry. I don’t know where she is. I haven’t seen her since theday of the vampire attack.” I fidgeted with a rubber band on mywrist. “They told you about that, right? The vampire attack?”
Patricia’s dark eyes bore directly into mysoul. “Of course I’ve heard of it. I would appreciate it if youdidn’t go mouthing off to everyone about it. Don’t you know wedon’t want people to panic?”
