Sweep in Peace

“We’re going to make a big circle and come into the inn through the back, so the camera doesn’t see us.”

“Won’t there be a break in recording?”

I shook my head. “My camera recorded over four hours of video and then looped it into seven hours of footage, using a random algorithm complete with a false time stamp. It overwrote your arrival completely. Right now the real dashboard camera is recording over that video. By the time he wakes up, the tail end of the looped footage will be overwritten with the real video as well. When Officer Marais watches it, he will see hours and hours of the inn sitting there with no activity.”

“Clever,” Arland said.

Yes, clever and very expensive. The remote camera cost me a lot of money and a favor that had been difficult to repay.

We turned right on Bedivere Road.

“Dina,” Arland said. His voice had a slightly rough quality to it. Not Lady Dina, but Dina. He was up to something. That wasn’t good.

“Yes?”

“I’m but a humble soldier.”

Here we go. He had given me a version of this speech before. This definitely wasn’t good.

“You and I, we have a history.”

Okay, what could he possibly be upset about?

“We were comrades at arms, fighting at each other’s side for the common goal. We have broken bread together.”

Was this about the food? Was he upset that we didn’t serve red meat at dinner? But we told them not to expect a big meal the first day, because separate meals would be served at their quarters. We would not set up the big dinner until tomorrow.

“That kind of connection, it stays with you.”

Was he offended because I let the otrokari fire a weapon? Was it because the otrokari were scheduled to be the first to arrive to the inn and the vampires were last? But we had compensated the Holy Anocracy by inviting them to be the first to officially enter the ballroom.

“Dina…”

He dipped his head and looked into my eyes. A small shiver ran down my spine. Arland had focused completely on me. His face was handsome, but his eyes were breathtaking. Deep intense blue, they usually communicated power or aggression, but right now they were warm, softened by emotion until they seemed almost velvet. He reached over and took my hand into his, the calluses on his strong fingers scraping against my skin.

I realized we had stopped under an oak by some house. The night was suddenly very small and Arland had filled it completely.

I had left my broom at the inn. It was just me, the darkness, and the vampire knight.

He held my hand, running his thumb over my fingers. “I want to know what I have done to offend you. Whatever blunder I committed, I will strive to remedy it.”

It would help so much if I knew what he was talking about. The way he looked at me made it difficult to concentrate.

“Tell me,” he asked. He was standing too close. His voice was too intimate. And he was still looking at me with that warmth, as if I were someone special.

“What may I do to get back into your good graces?”

He stroked my hand. For some reason it felt more intimate than a kiss. My pulse sped up. This was ridiculous. If I didn’t put some distance between us, I might do something I would regret. If you said yes to a vampire, he heard “I surrender” and I had no intention of surrendering.

“You’ve done nothing to offend me.”

“Then why did you acknowledge Robart before me?”

What?

“You addressed him before you addressed me.”

I cleared my throat. “Just to be clear, you’re upset because I spoke to Robart before I spoke to you? In the ballroom just before we went to check on the car?”

“I understand that the circumstances of the summit prevent frank exchanges,” Arland said. “An appearance of propriety must be maintained and any hint of favoritism is to be avoided at all costs. But when one travels so far, one looks for the small things. A chance glance. A brief kindness, freely offered and gone unnoticed by all except its intended recipient. Some hint, some indication that he has not been forgotten. One might take an acknowledgment of a bitter rival before him, in public, as an indication of certain things.”

It dawned on me. His feelings were actually hurt.

“You haven’t been forgotten,” I told him and meant it. “I looked forward to seeing you. I spoke to Robart before I spoke to you, so I could get him to leave. If I didn’t, he would still be in the ballroom waiting for me to return.”

Arland smiled at me.

When they said a smile could launch a thousand ships, they had Arland in mind. Except in his case, that thousand ships would be an armada carrying an army of some of the best humanoid predators the Galaxy had managed to spawn ready to slaughter their enemy on the battlefield.

I wanted to exhale and back away slowly. But he was still holding my hand.

I pulled whatever will I could scrape together and made my voice sound casual. “Arland? Can I have my hand back?”

“My apologies.” He opened his fingers and let my hand slip back through. “It was quite forward of me.”

Judging by his self-satisfied smile, he didn’t have any regrets. He had wanted a reaction and he got one.

I made a mistake. I’d dealt with plenty of vampires before. Few months ago, when he helped Sean and me destroy the dahaka assassin, he’d all but said that he was interested in me. I hadn’t heard from him in months, but that changed nothing. Vampires tended to be infuriatingly single-minded.