Heat spread from her neck to her ears in a flash. Begrudgingly she added, “Sometimes we talk alot.”
A shrewd look entered Maxine’s eyes. “What do you talk about?”
Francesca ran her palms up and down her silk-covered legs in quick strokes. Looking anywhere but at her friend, she answered, “I don’t know. Normal stuff. How was your weekend, what are your plans, that sort of thing.”
“And it’s never been anything more than that?”
She very deliberately avoided looking at the bedroom door. “He asked me out.”
Maxine recoiled, gloved fingers curling and lovely mouth pinched. “And you said no?”
“Of course I said no,” she exclaimed, standing up from her chair. “Ikeepsaying no! He asked me out and I turned him down because we’re way too differentandI’d already signed the contract. He then broke in here and offered me money to leave with him, so of course I told him to shove it up his ass! Who does he even think he is? No one with any self-respect would say yes to someone who does that.”
Voice going a little higher than her normal calm, collected tone, Maxine pressed, “And that’sall?”
“Well…” Sweating a little, Francesca picked the lesser of two evils. “We kissed. Once.”
Her dread mounted considerably when Maxine lifted her chin and looked away, her eyes wide. In a mutter, she said, “And that was before he knew you were a golden anchor. Oh, gods.”
“If it makes you feel any better, I’m pretty sure he doesn’t really care about that part,” Francesca offered.
Easton sank onto the mattress and covered his eyes. “I’m gonna die.”
TEN
Francesca stared balefullyat the ring and realized it was going to be a very long night.
She’d never been to any sort of martial arts match before, mostly because she had absolutely zero interest. Understandably, she was fairly invested in that night’s events, but that didn’t mean she liked it.
The massive basement of the rented mansion had been turned into a lavish arena, including stadium-style seats and the VIP area that’d been built to house — and display — her. She was sandwiched between Maxine and the white-painted priest who’d blessed the Games. Easton was somewhere down by the ropes, schmoozing and doing whatever it was the organizer of this sort of thing was supposed to.
There were a lot more people than she’d been led to believe would show up.
“How many contestants are there?” she whispered into Maxine’s ear. Her eyes scanned the crowd, searching for a dark head of hair with a single stripe of white.
“Only eight,” her friend explained, pointing to the far end of the room. A cluster of huge, shirtless men and their suit-wearinghandlers gathered there. “But the actual contestants won’t be fighting. They choose a proxy to do it for them.”
Francesca made a face. “Why? I thought the whole point was to prove how tough you were? Someone else doing the fighting for you seems to defeat the purpose a bit.”
“You’ve got a lot to learn about vampire society,” Maxine informed her. From someone else that might’ve come off as mean, but with Maxine, it was simply the truth as she saw it. “Nothing matters more than prestige, and nothing is more prestigious than being able to pay someone to fight your battles for you. Kings have been doing it for thousands of years.”
“I don’t see any kings,” she wryly noted.
“And you shouldn’t, no matter what any of them say or what they try to do to prove that they’re important.” Maxine pointed a silk-covered finger at the group of fighters. “This is the syndicate, Frankie. It’s full of hotheads, hotshots, and hot pieces of shit. If you keep that in mind and you look after yourself, you’ll be okay.”
Beginning to doubt that more and more, Francesca chose to change the subject. Nodding to the crowd beginning to take their seats, she asked, “Do Games normally bring in this many spectators? I thought this was sort of a hush-hush thing.”
“It is, but nothing stays a secret for long in this city. A small portion of people come to watch it for sport, while the rest are here to make money.”
Floundering a little, she wracked her mind trying to figure out how that would be possible. “Gambling?”
“Mostly.” A bell rang through the speakers in the ceiling, briefly interrupting Maxine’s explanation. When it died away and everyone began to settle into their seats, she continued, “People bet on who’ll win, obviously, but also other things. Who’ll cheat. Who’ll take a dive. Who’ll be murdered before they get to the ring. Other people are here to make valuableconnections. It’s not often that you’ll get so much of the syndicate elite in one place, so it’s worth showing up even if you don’t have any skin in the game.”
Who’ll be murdered before they get to the ring?A sick feeling swirled in her stomach.
She was startled when the priest laid one cold, dry hand over hers. Looking up into his veiled, painted face with its red circles, she found him staring avidly into the crowd, as if he couldn’t wait for the violence to start.
“They know the risks,” he glibly informed her. “Grim blessed the Games, and that means she might choose to take her share when the time comes. Don’t let it twist your panties.”