Page 73 of Vampire's Choice
As sensitive as he was about the topic, she wasn’t going to push him to confirm it. However, finding someone else to ask might be okay.
That ended up being Gundar. He was at his smithy. He’d been making metal roses lately, tinting them with hints of color. She admired a bouquet of them, noting the stems were flexible enough to deliver a stinging bite to soft flesh, thanks to their metal thorns.
Intentional, she was sure. Gundar confirmed it by showing her the roses’ other uses in that realm. He had her put out her arm and pressed the metal rose against her flesh. When he took it away, there were tiny marks.
“You can heat one and apply it like a temporary brand.”
“I better place my order before everyone else does.”
Gundar grinned beneath his dark beard and patted the bench next to him. “What do you want to ask? You have that expectant look.”
“Can Merc leave the grounds by himself? Without Marcellus or Yvette saying it’s okay?”
“Technically, no, but he’s been with us long enough to earn some slack to that leash. Yvette doesn’t ping him if he’s gone for a couple hours. More than that would be a problem. And he’s definitely not supposed to navigate the portals on his own.”
“How did he learn to do that? It takes a lot of training.”
“Apparently angels just know how.”
She filed that away, another piece of information suggesting Merc might have more angelic abilities than he claimed. Or maybe knew.
“Shouldn’t you be asking him these questions?” Gundar gave her a steady look.
It was a Dom-to-sub kind of question, and Gundar had major Dom vibes, even as Yvette’s servant. A human servant, she reminded herself, and made herself react as a vampire was expected to do.
“I’m asking you,” she said evenly. However, keeping in mind he was also indirectly her boss, she relented with honesty. “I don’t want him to see me as another babysitter.”
Gundar snorted. “I don’t think you have to worry about that. You’re capable and a good fighter, so don’t take the next part the wrong way. Merc is way above your league when it comes to strength, speed and power. It would be like making a mouse the housecat’s babysitter. And the housecat is a saber tooth tiger.”
She knew that, but it did offend her, enough that she couldn’t stop the retort. “I was using the word babysitter to be diplomatic. I meant spy or snitch.”
Gundar’s coal-black eyes sharpened, reminding her he was also connected to Yvette, mind-to-mind. She shut her mouth before she said more inadvisable things.
“Does the Circus seem like a place that wants to curtail someone’s freedom?” he asked.
“No,” she admitted.
“You’ve seen his intensity. If he’s having to work his ass off to keep himself from sucking away a female’s life energy, it’s probably good that someone’s keeping tabs on that. Right?”
She thought of Merc’s close regard as they listened to music. If he was fighting that hunger, it wasn’t obvious. But if people she respected kept warning her not to make assumptions about him, she knew she should give those warnings the weight they deserved. Even so…
“The death sentence hanging over him. That’s from when he was a lot younger, right?”
“Yes,” Gundar said soberly. “Some people believed he should have been consigned to Hell for a much longer redemption period, rather than getting the second chance Circus option.”
She thought of Merc offering her a bite of cake. The yearning in his expression when their bodies were joined. “Some people don’t know shit.”
Gundar’s coal-colored eyes glinted. “You like him.”
“I find him interesting. And I think there’s a lot more to him, though I get that I haven’t been here long enough to know shit, either. I appreciate you answering my questions.”
The dwarf picked out one of the roses, tinted in red and silver, the petal tips scorched with black smoke color, and handed it to her. “Don’t assume he needs a champion, Ruth. He has more of them than you think. Else he’d have been dead long ago. His champions just don’t ride white horses and kiss his ass. They kick it, as often as he needs it, because they want him to succeed.”
“Why?” she asked bluntly. “No one seems to like him.”
“You said you like him. Why do you think that is?”
She twirled the rose, pressing her finger against one of the sharp metal thorns for the kiss of pain. She was pretty sure Yvette was listening in, maybe feeding Gundar the questions she wanted Ruth to answer. So her response was for both of them. “Because he’s trying. He’s trying hard, even if it doesn’t look like it. I think he’s trying to find his way out of a swamp no one but him knows how to navigate.”