Tempt the Stars

boost, as well.
    When they spoke of wealth in the vampire world, they spoke in terms of how many masters you controlled.
    And Mircea now had one less, thanks to me.
    I stared at the phone gleaming ominously on my bedside, and wondered how long I had. It was late afternoon, so normally, Mircea wouldn’t even be up yet. Of course, his usual schedule couldn’t always be relied on these days.
    The senate had lost a lot of its members in the war, which meant that every senator who remained had had to do the work of two. Plus, Mircea had been negotiating a treaty with the other senates, and doing some other stuff I wasn’t clear on, but that had to do with finding new senators to help carry the burden. He’d said that would be over soon, maybe by the end of the week. But right now, he was really busy, and there were a lot of people who needed his time and—
    And I was a coward who should just woman up and call him, already.
    My hand actually stretched out to grab the phone, because that was the one useful thing I could do while flat on my back. But then it dropped. Because where did I
start
?
    And where would it lead?
    It was the same problem I’d had all week. I loved Mircea; I didn’t
like
keeping things from him. But telling him anything was basically the same thing as telling the senate, like telling Jonas would have been like telling the Circle.
    Only I wasn’t dating Jonas.
    Which actually made things easier sometimes. I didn’t feel guilty that Marco had bum-rushed Jules into one of the spare bedrooms before Jonas had a chance to get curious. This was family business; it didn’t have anything to do with him. And I didn’t think Mircea would appreciate having the Circle learn that I could unmake masters now.
    But, technically, the same argument could be made for the whole Pritkin thing, which didn’t have anything to do with Mircea.
    Yet I felt guilty for not telling him anyway.
    And that was such bullshit! Mircea wasn’t any better at sharing than I was; in fact, he probably took the closemouthed prize. From the vamp’s perspective, I was
married
to the guy, yet I didn’t know what his favorite color was. Or his favorite drink. Or what he did all the time when he wasn’t here, which was most of the time lately.
    I didn’t really know that much about him at all, and it was maddening. But worse, I couldn’t even complain. Because then he might—hell, he
would
—suggest an exchange of information, and there was so damned much I couldn’t tell him. . . 
    I stared at the phone.
    It stared back.
    I chewed my cheek for a while and then got disgusted with myself. I wasn’t going to wait around like this for hours. I’d have a stomach full of ulcers by then to go with whatever was making me so exhausted. I was going to do it. I was going to call him. I was going to do what I should have days ago and just pick up the phone and—
    Someone knocked on the door.
    I looked up, my heart in my throat, sure it was Marco with a phone in his hand.
    And then Fred pushed open the door with a foot, because his hands were full of beer, one of them wrapped in a paper towel because we’re classy like that.
    “Oh, thank God,” I said as he handed it to me.
    He looked a little surprised at the fervency of his welcome. “Figured you could use a drink,” he said, and tossed my phone on a chair so he could sit down on the bed.
    I drained half the bottle in one go and then flopped onto my back again. And stared at the ceiling some more, which looked slightly more friendly now that I had beer. But no more helpful.
    “Is Jules all right?” I asked, after a minute.
    “He’s human,” Fred said, with an odd lilt in his tone. Like he still couldn’t quite believe it. “He’s a little hysterical, sure, but otherwise, he’s fine. I mean, maybe not if he stays like this, you know, but for now . . . So there’s no need to go tearing yourself up over it, all right?”
    Yeah. Unless I couldn’t figure out how to reverse this.
    “Did everybody go home?” I asked hopefully.
    “Oh, hell no.”
    Of course not.
    “Jonas and the witches are having it out. You know, I used to think it was just an old fairy tale, but witches
really
don’t like missing a party, do they?”
    I couldn’t help it. I laughed. “I guess not.”
    “I tried to eavesdrop for you, but they’re in the kitchen under a silence spell. And they closed the blinds.” He looked aggrieved. “All I got was that they think he’s monopolizing you,