“Leave her be,” said Stefan. “She’s checking for magic. Bonarata has a few witches in his employ, had a very good witch at one time, and, according to rumor, a fae half-blood. There are a lot of things a witch could do to us without breaking guesting laws. I don’t have to tell you to clean your hairbrushes and burn the stray hairs, do I?”
“Standard stuff,” grumbled Larry amiably. “Trimmed toenails get eaten, I know.”
Honey made a sound, and the goblin flashed a grin at her. “Of course, you can flush them if you’d like. I prefer to be certain. Witches are bitches and they’ll burn your britches sure as kittens have itches if you give ’em half a chance.”
Elizaveta was in one of the bedrooms. She might not have heard Larry. But Honey was standing right next to him.
“I’m a bitch,” said Honey in a smooth voice.
The goblin laughed. “That you are, dearie. Don’t take offense where none is meant.” He wasn’t dumb, thought Adam. This was about establishing boundaries. He was telling the room that he was sure enough of his ability to protect himself that he wasn’t afraid of offending anyone in the room.
Good to know. Adam was sure he’d appreciate the information at some other time. Just as he was sure that another time he’d have been pleased and impressed with the suite they’d been given.
“Just keeping things out in the open,” said Honey, but she wasn’t really paying attention to the goblin. She was watching Adam out of the corner of her eye.
The noise of their getting-to-know-you bickering rubbed like sandpaper on Adam’s skin. Adam was sure before this was over he’d be wishing for a hotel room by himself. Or with Mercy. He checked, like a man with a toothache, and their bond was still there. He wasn’t getting much from it. He knew it was because she was no longer here and that without more of the pack, he couldn’t reach her more clearly.
His control was fraying. His wolf . . . no, to be honest, it wasn’t just his wolf who wanted to rip out Bonarata’s throat. Having his pack back home was not making his wolf any more comfortable, any safer for the people around him.
Honey knew it. She wasn’t exactly avoiding him, but she was being very careful not to meet his eyes and to give him plenty of space. If he let this continue, he’d either kill Bonarata or Bonarata would kill him—and that’s what they had come here to prevent, right?
Part of him, the biggest part of him and not just the monster, wondered why he was standing in the vampire’s stronghold and not over the vampire’s dead body or out hunting down Mercy.
He abruptly turned to Marsilia, interrupting a quiet-voiced conversation she was having with Stefan about sleeping arrangements.
“Tell me that leaving Bonarata animate another hour is the right thing to do,” he said. “And make me believe it.” If he couldn’t figure it out, maybe someone else could. If not . . .
Adam didn’t know what was in his face, but Marsilia looked at him and stilled. But it was Stefan who answered him.
“Iacopo Bonarata is a monster,” Stefan said. “He does terrible things, then lies to himself about it because he doesn’t want to believe that he is any different from the Renaissance prince he once was.”
“I agree,” Marsilia said a little sadly. “He was never a hero like you were, Stefan—no matter what either of us tried to believe.”
Stefan didn’t look at her, just continued to speak. “Iacopo Bonarata is an addict who glories in his addiction because it brings him more power. He broke the werewolf he feeds upon so that no one will ever believe that the addiction he won’t admit to is a weakness or a problem to anyone except the poor damned wolf.”
Everyone, including Elizaveta, had stopped doing whatever they’d been doing to pay attention to Stefan.
“He is a monster,” said Stefan. “But he is good at it. Good at survival—and that makes him good for the rest of the monsters who have to live, seen or unseen, with the human population, who have grown a lot more deadly since they virtually wiped out the witch population in Europe.”
“It was a civil war among the witch families that did the most damage,” said Elizaveta. “But the Inquisition was thorough about sniffing out the remainders.”
Stefan nodded carefully in Elizaveta’s direction, giving her the point. Then he continued, “Bonarata is smart, savvy, and incredibly wealthy, and he uses it to ensure his own survival. But because he sees his survival as depending upon how the supernatural predators interact with humans, he is a very strong force for stability.”
Marsilia put her hand out and touched Stefan, who fell silent.
“Killing him,” Marsilia said, “will cause the death of thousands—not just vampires, but all of the people who will fall victim to their power plays.” She hesitated briefly. “Mercy doesn’t need you, Adam—she doesn’t need us—to rescue her or avenge her. She rescued herself. By doing so, she gave us the opportunity to build bridges, to keep all the monsters”—here she curtsied with an ironic lift of her brow—“behaving themselves.”
It was a good answer. Adam didn’t know that it would be enough of a good answer to keep him from going for Bonarata’s throat at the first opportunity. Mercy’s rescuing herself didn’t mean that Bonarata deserved to be excused for taking her in the first place. He remembered the blood and glass all over the SUV, all of Mercy’s blood staining the leather seat, the necklace he kept tucked safely in his pocket.