Page 9 of Bitten & Burned
He walked over in front of the mirror to tie on his cravat. He caught my gaze in the reflection.
“By the way, Dmitri came by before you woke,” he said as he deftly tied it. “Dropped off more of that tea blend you liked last time you visited. He left it in the kitchen. He told me to tell you to ‘drink up, Mishka’…it sounded better when he said it.”
‘That tea blend I liked’ was a blend Dmitri got from his mother when she was alive. It was a common, old-Norlese tea blend, a favorite of the Volkov family, but it was hard to come by now.
I chuckled. “That was nice of him. I wish he’d stuck around so I could talk to him.”
“Yeah… that might have been my fault.” Vael’s smile turned apologetic. “I may have implied that we had…” he coughed, “plans for later.”
“He’s bound to think I’m some kind of nymphomaniac with all the plans you keep hinting at.”
“Dmitri would never think that. Anton, on the other hand…”
“Oh gods, you didn’t tell Anton that, did you? I’d never be able to keep a straight face around him.”
“No, I didn’t. Idid,however, tell him you’re coming up to Halemont for a visit this weekend—and he’s excited to make your favorite pain au chocolat. You know how he is with puff pastry.”
“Were you planning to tell me I’m coming up for a visit?”
“I meant to ask, then forgot, and I know you don’t have plans, so…”
“Fine, I guess…” I sighed with mock exasperation. “I’ll gorge on pastries and play with Fig in the library.”
Fig’s bell jingled in the living room, where he’d run off to when Vael and I had turned amorous.
Vael chose a cravat pin from a tray on top of the chest of drawers, one with a sapphire to match the cravat. “We’ll go over all the plans your heart desires. But do you mind terribly coming up to the manor this weekend? You can, of course, bring Fig.”
“Fig loves it up there. Must be something in the air… or the mice. Either way, he’s one happy kitty when we’re there.”
“He’s one happy kitty anywhere you are,” Vael countered. “You didn’t answer—do you mind coming up this weekend?”
“I never mind. I love going. Love seeing everyone—Cassian, Dmitri, Anton… even Quil. Isuppose.”
“You’re a dream, a vision of acceptance,” Vael teased, choosing a royal purple velvet coat from the armoire and sliding it on. “Speaking of Cassian, he passed along a message: bring your chess set. He wants to play you again.”
I laughed. “He always loses. I think he does it on purpose. There’s no way someone that experienced in tactics and…” I waved a hand, “…things would lose that many times. To me.”
“To you? You say that as though you aren’t ranked.”
“I’m barely ranked.”
“Candidate Master.”
“Right,” I nodded. “Barely a rank.”
“It has ‘master’ in it, Ro.”
I rolled my eyes. “Please. You could probably beat me.”
“No, and I don’t want to try.”
“Why not?”
“Because if I won, you’d sulk. And if I lost, you’d never let me live it down. You’d be unbearable.”
I smirked. “That sounds more like Quil.”
“Cassian at least loses gracefully,” Vael said. “Quil would turn chess into a fistfight.”
