Lord Maccon was a bit insulted by the casualness with which she assumed control of his change. “Alpha,” he admitted. “And age. Those of us who have been around the longest control the change best. It is called the Anubis Form, from the olden days.” Brought to fully human state by Alexia's hand still resting on his shoulder, he seemed to register their surroundings with new eyes. The hackney's wild flight and sudden halt had placed them in a residential part of London, not quite so up-market as the hive neighborhood but not so bad as it could be.
“We should get you home,” Lord Maccon asserted, looking around furtively. He removed her hand gently from his shoulder and curled it about his forearm, leading her at a brisk pace down the street. “Sangria is just a few blocks away. We should be able to hail a cab there at this time of night.”
“And somehow you think it is a good idea for a were-wolf and a preternatural to show up at the front door of the most notorious vampire club in London looking for a hackney?”
“Hush, you.” Lord Maccon looked faintly offended, as though her statement were one of doubt in his ability to protect her.
“I take it you do not want to know what I found out from the vampire hive, then?” Miss Tarabotti asked.
He sighed loudly. “I take it you want to tell me?”
Alexia nodded, tugging down the sleeves of her over jacket. She shivered in the night air. She had dressed to go from carriage to house, not for an evening stroll.
“The countess seems an odd sort of queen,” Miss Tarabotti began her story. “You did not let her appearance mislead you, did you? She is very old, not very nice, and only interested in advancing her personal agenda.” He removed his evening jacket and wrapped it around Alexia's shoulders.
“She is frightened. They have had three unexplainable new vampires appear inside Westminster territory in the past two weeks,” said Miss Tarabotti, snuggling into the jacket. It was made from a high-end Bond Street silk blend, cut to perfection, but it smelled of open grassland. She liked that.
Lord Maccon said something very rude, and possibly true, about Countess Nadasdy's ancestry.
“I take it she did not inform BUR?” Alexia pretended artlessness.
Lord Maccon growled, low and threatening. “No, she most certainly did not!”
Miss Tarabotti nodded and looked at the earl with wide innocent eyes, imitating Ivy as best she could. It was harder than one would have thought. “The countess gave me tacit permission to involve the government at this time.” Bat, bat, bat, went the eyelashes.
This statement, in conjunction with the lashes, seemed to make Lord Maccon even more annoyed. “As if it were her decision! We should have been informed at the onset.”
Miss Tarabotti put a cautionary hand on his arm. “Her behavior was almost sad. She is quite frightened. Although she would never openly admit to being unable to cope with the situation. She did say the hive has managed to catch two of these mystery roves and that they died shortly thereafter.”
Lord Maccon's expression said he would not put it past vampires to kill their own kind.
Alexia continued. “The mysterious newcomers seem entirely new. She said they arrive knowing nothing of customs, laws, or politics.”
Lord Maccon walked along silently, processing this information for a few steps. He hated to admit it, but Miss Tarabotti had single-handedly ascertained more about what was transpiring than any of his agents. He was forced into feeling... What exactly was that sensation? Admiration? Surely not.
“Do you know what else these new ones do not know about?” asked Alexia nervously.
The earl suddenly had a very odd expression of confusion upon his face. He was eyeing her as though she had changed unexpectedly into something entirely non-Alexiaish.
“You seem to be far better informed than anyone else at the moment,” responded the earl nervously with a sniff.
Miss Tarabotti touched her hair self-consciously under his appraising look, and then she answered her own question. “They do not know about me.”
Lord Maccon nodded. “BUR, the packs, and the hives try to keep preternatural identity as secret as possible. If these vampires are being metamorphosed outside the hive, they would have no reason to know your kind even existed at all.”
Miss Tarabotti was struck by something. She stopped in her tracks. “That man, he said they wanted to know who I was.”
“What man?”
“The man with the handkerchief.”
Lord Maccon groaned. “So they were after you specifically, blast it! I thought they might be after any drone or vampire, and you were just exiting the hive at the wrong time. You do realize they are going to try again?”
Alexia glanced up at him, pulling his jacket closer about her. “I guess I had best not give them another opportunity. “
Lord Maccon was thinking exactly the same thing. He moved a little closer, curling her arm more firmly about his. He started them both moving once more toward Sangria, light, and company, and away from the empty, echoing side streets. “I'll have to set a watch on you.”
Miss Tarabotti snorted. “And what happens at full moon?”
Lord Maccon winced. “BUR has daylight and vampire agents, as well as werewolves.”
Alexia got on her proverbial high horse. “I will not have strangers dogging my every step, thank you. You, certainly, Professor Lyall if I must, but others...”
Lord Maccon grinned foolishly at that particular prioritization. His company had just merited a “certainly.” What she said next, however, drove the smile right off his face.