When she didn’t immediately respond, Adam looked at her thoughtfully.

“No,” she said at last. “Though if you let us leave with Honey, I’ll let you pay me to remove that unfortunate addiction you have.” She pursed her lips. “It won’t be cheap, I warn you.”

“He could not keep Honey,” Adam said coolly, because it had been obvious from Bonarata’s expression at Elizaveta’s reply that the vampire had been considering how he might do that very thing.

“No?” asked Bonarata silkily.

“No,” said Marsilia.

He turned on his heel so that he faced Marsilia. Her shoulders were back, her weight was balanced over the balls of her feet: she was ready for a fight.

Bonarata’s mask held for a heartbeat, then it was gone.

Adam realized that they had done what they set out to do—upset the Master Vampire in the middle of his own game. The bonhomie of their first meeting was no longer a solid disguise behind which Bonarata could run the show. Adam could see the monster quite clearly—and as Bonarata looked at Marsilia, Adam could see the man, too.

A man with a million regrets that mostly surrounded the woman who defied him.

Ironically, now that Adam knew where Mercy was and he just had to shake himself free of Bonarata, Adam would have been happier with the genial host. They could have taken care of business in a cool and logical fashion, and Adam would be on his way by now.

Instead, Adam could feel his wolf’s satisfaction as it settled itself for the brutal fight the beast foresaw. Something would happen. The energy of the room had tipped into potential violence. Because if Bonarata said the condescending pablum Adam could see his mouth forming—Marsilia was going to hit him.

No matter how happy that would make his wolf, it would be faster to go if a fight didn’t break out, so Adam broke up the moment between Marsilia and Bonarata by saying, “If you don’t have a witch of my Elizaveta’s power at your call, how did you heal Mercy from her ‘near-fatal’ wounds?”

His intention was to turn the vampire’s ire from Marsilia to himself and to force Bonarata to backtrack. Because, logically, either Bonarata had lied about what he’d done for Mercy—and Adam knew those wounds had been bad, he’d felt her pain and seen the blood—or just now Bonarata had lied about not having a witch.

Bonarata dragged his eyes from Marsilia, and the look he gave Adam was almost grateful. It was a guy thing. He, too, knew whatever he had been about to say to Marsilia wouldn’t have been useful. It had just been beyond his power to not say it. Adam was happy to help.

“We didn’t have a witch mend your wife,” Bonarata said. “A healer did it. Come and meet her.”

A healer?

Bonarata didn’t wait for questions. He looked around the dining room and led them to a back table with a soft-looking vampire male who was playing games designed to encourage the girl sitting next to him to eat. Adam recognized those games because he’d played them more than a time or two when Jesse was a toddler.