you asked?”
“I haven’t met him yet. He comes in this afternoon.”
“Aha. So we’re off for tonight. Well, damn.”
“I can make it up to you.”
Margrit tilted back in her chair, an eyebrow arched. “How?”
“The lieutenant says she’s heard Kaaiai is generous to the people who work for him, and I guess he is. He’s issued a package of invitations for the events he’ll be attending while he’s in the city. Theater, dinners, lunches, concerts—the guy’s booked. Looks boring as hell to me, but the point is I can bring a date.” Wryness crept into his voice. “Anybody who passes the security clearance and doesn’t mind her date working all night and not paying attention to her.”
Margrit laughed. “You know anybody like that, Detective?”
“I had a girl in mind,” he said good-naturedly. “She works for Legal Aid, but I think this is probably her kind of thing. She’s gotten kind of high-profile lately.”
“Really?” Margrit’s laughter left a broad smile stretched across her face. “What’s she done?”
“Got the governor to pass clemency on a murd—”
“Self-defense.”
Tony hitched a moment before agreeing. “Self-defense case.”
Margrit leaned forward in her chair again to put an elbow against her desk and press her fingers into the inner corners of her eyes. Long before the Old Races had interfered in her life, her job had been the major crack in her relationship with Tony. Coming, as they did, from different angles on the same side of a flawed legal system, the topic incited them to breakups as often as passion got them back together.
The case she had on the table was the sort they could never discuss. The very necessity of building a decent defense for a rapist was offensive to the cop in Tony. Margrit sympathized, even wondered sometimes if he was right, but her ability to abhor the crime and still do her job effectively was a dichotomy Tony could barely fathom. Arguing that anything less than her best would create an opportunity for appeal or mistrial fell on deaf ears.
Curiosity tickled her, making her wonder if Alban would have the same difficulties. The world he came from might be so different from Margrit’s own that no evident double standard in human behavior could distress him. Margrit curled her lip, trying to push the thought away as she listened to Tony’s amused litany.
“Then she took on the richest guy on the East Coast over a squatters’ building, and he backed down. I think she’s got some high-minded ambitions. Hanging out with this kind of crowd might be good for her career.”
“She sounds like somebody you wouldn’t want to mess with.”
“I dunno, I kind of like messing with her. Whaddaya say?”
Margrit laughed. “I think it sounds fantastic, but isn’t offering tickets to exclusive events very much like bribing an officer of the law?”
“I’m not getting any personal gain out of it.” A thin note of strain sounded in the words, as if Tony was censoring himself on the topic of how he might be rewarded. Margrit pinched the bridge of her nose harder. Weeks ago, he’d used her to set a trap for a killer, and she’d lied to him consistently about Alban, leaving them both regretful but not repentant. Their relationship had been rocky since then, as they tried to work out with words what they’d always solved before by going back to bed together. But too much had changed this time for such an easy resolution, and while Tony had agreed, she thought he’d expected a quicker return to the intimacy they’d once shared.
She put on a smile and deliberately lightened her voice, forcing pleasantry back into the conversation before it soured too much. “It’s a date, then. Or not, as the case may be.”
Tony hesitated a barely noticeable moment before responding in kind. “Great. I sent a courier over with the invitation—”
“I got it a few minutes ago. Hadn’t opened it yet.”
“Good. I’ll see you tonight, okay?”
“I look forward to it,” Margrit said, and hung up the phone with a silent chastisement. There were things Alban could never offer her, just as Tony couldn’t spread wings and fly with her above the city. Tony was solid and reliable, and when something came through from him, it was tangible: evenings out, time spent together, and in this case, a deliberate attempt to help her career. That was selfless, especially considering the ease with which they argued over her job. There were things to be said for the ordinary. It would stand her well to remember that.
The memory of a kiss, stolen in the midst of flight, heated her skin and made Margrit knot her fingers around her phone. Alban’s body playing under hers as muscle bunched and stretched, bringing them in leaps from danger into safety. The sting of air imploding against her skin as he shifted from one form to another, becoming more and less than a man within the compass of her arms. There was nothing ordinary in those memories, and the ache of desire they brought didn’t belong in the workplace. Margrit caught her breath and spat out a “Dammit!” that did nothing to relieve the pulse of need that had caught her off guard.
“Margrit?” A coworker’s concerned face appeared over the edge of her cubicle.
Margrit put on a smile. “Sorry. I’m fine.”
“It’s okay. Hey, have you finished the paperwork on the Carley case?” He tapped his finger nervously on the cubicle’s metal frame and Margrit started, shaking her head at the reminder.
“Sorry, no.” She dug the files she needed from below a stack of papers. “I’ll have it to you by five.”
“Thanks.” He beat the flat of his fingers against the cubicle edge twice, then scurried off. Margrit tucked an errant curl behind her ear and moved the files again, hunting for the courier package and the evening’s agenda. A moment’s search told her the soiree was at eight. Plenty of time to go home after work, get a snack and find something appropriate to wear to a high-society function.
She puffed her cheeks out and exhaled noisily. Plenty of time. The only problem was squeezing in a dragonlord who wouldn’t take no for an answer.
Janx was not going to kill her. Margrit smoothed a hand over her stomach, the nubbly silken fabric there sending a wave of chills up her arm. Janx was not going to kill her for the same reason Daisani wouldn’t: she was useful to him. Especially to Janx, because she owed him two favors of incalculable size. At worst, he would be irritated.
At worst. Margrit’s stomach flip-flopped, another shiver washing over her. At worst, a man whose presence could eat up all the air in a room would be irritated with her. At worst she’d annoyed someone who considered her life to be an amusing trinket to play with.
She hadn’t left work on time, research for the Carley case turning out to be more time-consuming than she’d expected. Then she’d found a deep stain on the dress she’d intended to wear, wine discoloring creamy velvet. Margrit had stood over the dress for long moments, too frustrated to move on. Finally she’d called, “Cameron?”
Her housemate, clad in a T-shirt and workout shorts that showed long legs and a dramatically scarred
