Louis-Cesare looked pained. Ray was even dirtier than I was, and his bright red briefs had gotten a tear across the butt at some point, flashing a glimpse of hairy cheek whenever he moved. An awesome trophy he was not.

We marched Ray under the portico, past the horrified-looking doorman and over to a cherrywood-paneled elevator. I leaned Ray against the wall, fished my cell phone out of the duffel and called Mircea’s apartment. Mircea’s old tutor and longtime butler answered. “What?” he demanded querulously.

No amount of training has ever taught Horatiu the proper way to answer a phone. Mircea doesn’t give a damn, since most of the people who call him on his public line do so to grovel anyway, and he’s the only one with any control over the old vamp. Not that I think he has much.

“It’s Dorina,” I yelled, because he can’t hear worth a damn.

“Who?”

“DORINA!”

“Well, there’s no need to shout.”

“Is Mircea there?”

“No, no. Everyone’s gone,” he said impatiently. “Middle of the night, isn’t it?”

“Do you expect him back soon?”

“Not for a few hours. Why?”

“No reason. I’m coming up.”

Louis-Cesare quirked an eyebrow as I replaced the phone. “I need a bath,” I said, before he could ask. He just looked at me. “What?”

“You are a dhampir on your way to a vampire cocktail party, and you are worried about your toilette?”

“No,” I said defensively, as he started to smile. “And you’re the one who wanted to park Ray somewhere.”

“Very true.” It was a genuine smile now, curving his lips, lighting his eyes, and I blinked. I hadn’t seen one too often from him, and it was ridiculously attractive.

“I don’t get why Elyas involved you in all this,” I said as the elevator doors opened. “If he wanted to talk to Ray, he could have gone himself or sent one of his men. It’s not like the guy was hard to find.”

“Lord Cheung is known as a competent duelist. Elyas… is not. The truce will only last as long as the war, and once it is lifted, Lord Cheung will be well within his rights to demand satisfaction for his loss and for the indignity perpetrated on his servant. Elyas preferred me to have to deal with that eventuality, rather than him.”

“But why didn’t he just buy it?” I asked, confused. “Cheung is a businessman. If Elyas offered him enough—”

“The winner of the auction was Ming-de,” Louis-Cesare said simply.

He didn’t need to say anything else. Ming-de was the powerful Chinese empress, their version of a consul. It would be a rare vampire who wanted to risk breaking a promise to her, and certainly not one who resided in her territory. She could crush him like a bug, and probably would, if he crossed her.

“So no reversing the sale.”

“The auction was yesterday, and Elyas spent most of the last twenty-four hours bombarding Lord Cheung with offers, pleas and threats. To no avail.”

We got out at Mircea’s floor, and I rang the doorbell. “If the auction was last night, why was Elyas pestering Cheung?” I asked. “Doesn’t Ming-de already have it?”

“The fey who owns it refused to bring it here until a sale was agreed upon. He was due to arrive last night, after the auction, at which time the evaluation would be made. If the rune was genuine, it would be delivered tonight and payment made. That is why Lord Cheung is here, I suspect. He no doubt planned to deliver the rune to the empress personally.”

“Only he can’t,” I realized. “He obviously doesn’t know where Ray put it, or he wouldn’t be chasing us all over the city.”

Louis-Cesare nodded. “The auction took place here, because most of the participants were already on hand for the races. But Lord Cheung’s business kept him in Hong Kong until today. He wasn’t here when the fey came through the portal, and therefore he doesn’t know where the rune is. As far as we can determine, only one person knows that.”

Well, no wonder Ray was a popular guy.

A tiny old vampire with a nose to rival Ray’s and tufts of silver-white hair finally answered the door. Unlike most vamps on the planet, Horatiu doesn’t actually hate me, maybe because he’s not entirely clear on what I am. The watery blue eyes don’t work right, and he hasn’t been able to see his hand in front of his face in centuries. Which might explain why he didn’t so much as flinch at the sight of a bloody dhampir and a headless guy on his doorstep.

“Who’s that with you then?” he demanded.

“This is Raymond.” I pushed him forward.

Horatiu squinted behind his glasses. “You’re a strange-looking one.”

Ray shot him the finger, but of course Horatiu didn’t see it, so that was all right.

“And this is Louis-Cesare,” I said.

“Ah, yes. The mumbler.”

“I refuse to shout every word I utter,” Louis-Cesare explained wryly.

“There he goes again,” Horatiu sniffed. He sniffed again, and this time made a face. “You need a bath, young lady,” he informed me.

“I know. So does Ray.”

“Use the master’s room,” Horatiu ordered. “The guest ones are all taken. I’ll take this… person… to mine.” He ushered Ray’s body off, and Louis-Cesare and I headed through the understated opulence of Mircea’s digs.

He’d only acquired the apartment recently, so he wouldn’t have to do anything so gauche as stay at a hotel when he was in town. As a result, it was still primarily the way it had been when he bought it, in quiet shades of camel and sand with little personal stamp over the designer blandness. The only exceptions were a few bright postmodernist paintings spotting the walls. They were new, and they gave the place an energy it had sorely lacked the last time I was here.

Louis-Cesare stopped in the living room to make another call, and I made a detour by the kitchen. I’d skipped dinner and my stomach was protesting, and no way was I getting anything to eat upstairs. At vampire parties, the snacks serve themselves.

The kitchen turned out to be bright and functional, all honey-colored wood and matching striated marble, and looked like no one had ever used it. Which, considering who lived here, may well have been the case. I pulled open the fridge and, as I suspected, the food on offer was minimal. But somebody up there loved me because there was beer. I pulled one out, drank half of it and then just stood there for a minute, soaking up the cold air.

My head hurt. Come to think of it, so did my neck, my left shoulder, the right side of my rib cage, my ankle and my right hand. In contrast, my ass felt fine, except for a slight tingle from where a certain someone’s hands had rested.

And then those same hands were sliding under the T-shirt, next to my skin, and my whole body started to tingle. “I thought we were in a hurry,” I said, gripping the fridge door tightly. The combination of heat behind me and cool, cool air in front was a little dizzying.

“Elyas is not expecting us for an hour.”

“An hour, huh?” I could do a lot with an hour.

Apparently, Louis-Cesare could, too, although it wasn’t quite what I’d expected. He pulled me away from the fridge, bent me over the marble-topped island and dug his fingers into the tense muscles of my back. I groaned.

He started at the base of my spine, teasing out the knots as skillfully as if he’d done it a dozen times before. My body recognized the coarseness of familiar calluses, and a heavy warmth spread through me. He paused to tug the T-shirt off over my head, and I didn’t resist.

When he reached my shoulders, which had been tight long before tonight, he leaned more of his weight into it, spreading his palms flat and moving them in slow circles along the lines of the muscle. When they were roughly the consistency of jelly, he moved on to my neck. I leaned into the strokes involuntarily, head rolling back as he kneaded away at the tension knotted around the base of my skull.

By the time he finished, the pain was gone, although it was possible that I’d fallen madly, irreversibly in love with Louis-Cesare’s hands. I might have said something to the effect, because he chuckled and brushed his lips over the back of my neck, meltingly warm. “Get dressed.”

“Thinking about it.” I wasn’t actually sure I could move.

He let his fingers, soft and featherlight, comb through the short ends of my hair. “Get dressed before I call Elyas and tell him we will see him tomorrow.”

Sounded like a plan to me.

“And before I take that pose as an invitation.”

I turned my head and found him right there, his breath on my face, and his lashes almost brushing my cheek. There was no conscious decision. I put a hand behind his neck, and pulled up to meet him, my lips finding his as easily, as naturally, as if we did it every day. He tasted spicy and musky and mouthwateringly sweet, like butterscotch candy right before it melts on the tongue.

A bone-deep shudder tore through him, and he gripped the back of my neck and returned the kiss, deep and hungry. His skin was hot to the touch; his mouth even hotter, wet and suddenly iron-edged with blood. The tenderness was gone, but I didn’t miss it. This was better; this was perfect, sensation spiraling out of control into blatant need.

My hands spidered up to tangle in the thick mass of his hair, and my leg wrapped around him. His hand clenched on my ass, pulling me against him, and he was already half hard behind the thin material of his trousers. One of us groaned—I wasn’t sure which—and his lips moved to my ear.

“Please get dressed,” he said hoarsely.

It took a second to register, and then I jerked away, snatching up the T-shirt.

“Make up your damn mind!” I told him, pulling it on. “One minute you strip me; the next you tell me to get dressed. One minute your tongue is down my throat, and the next you’re glowering at me. Do you even know what you want?”

“There are things we want, and things we may have,” he said tightly. “Sanity lies in knowing the difference.”