His gaze had lingered at her head. He gave her a small, grave smile. “I’m sorry to see the little rascals are tucked away today.”
Warmed, she touched the back of her head with a self-conscious hand. Many people were afraid or repulsed by a medusa’s snakes, and at various times throughout history, medusae had been persecuted and killed because of it. The most famous example of a medusa being murdered was in ancient Greece, when Perseus had beheaded a woman who was supposedly so ugly, the sight of her could turn people into stone.
But Duncan wasn’t like most other people. He seemed to enjoy the snakes, and he had treated them with indulgent amusement when they had flirted with him at Carling and Rune’s winter solstice Masque party.
Her snakes didn’t have the slightest problem with social situations—not that they ever behaved appropriately.
Once at a work party, she grew lightheaded and extremely giddy while she talked with the woman who was her boss at that time. When she turned around, she caught several of her snakes lapping at leftover alcohol in the bottom of several glasses on a table behind her. Thankfully her boss had been amused and helped to call her a cab ride home.
“They needed a time out,” she confessed. “What a surprise to see you, Duncan, especially in the middle of the day.”
His smile widened briefly before it disappeared. He said, “I remembered the layout of your apartment building and the basement garage from when I dropped you off after the Masque party. It’s a simple matter to park in the garage and come up the elevator, and the windows at the end of the hallway are quite easy to avoid. This building is very Vampyre friendly.”
“I see,” she said.
Duncan drove a silver Aston Martin V12 Zagato with windows that had been tinted with full spectrum UV protection. The price tag on the car had to be well in excess of half a million dollars, but when you were the founding partner of one of the premiere law firms in the United States that specialized in Elder Races inter demesne law, you could afford some unusually nice perks.
She glanced at the open balcony doors that led out to a wide patio. Not only did she and Duncan stand well away from them, but it was still dark outside and raining hard. Even though her apartment faced the east, there wasn’t any danger of sunshine streaming in the windows until the storm blew away.
No doubt Duncan had already calculated all of that even as he stepped inside her apartment. For him, any contact with the sun would be excruciating and would turn lethal within a matter of seconds. He must be aware of the sun’s position every moment of his life.
She turned back to him and met his gaze. “What can I do for you?”
“I’m butting in where I haven’t been invited, Seremela,” he said bluntly. “And I hope you forgive me for it. I happened to be in a meeting with Carling when she received your email. I know you have a family emergency, and I wanted to stop by to make sure you were okay.”
Her lips parted and her eyes widened. She had left her medical examiner position in Illinois and moved to Miami to focus on private medical research for Carling and Rune. Ever since then she had enjoyed getting to know Duncan.
Duncan was Carling’s youngest progeny, and as Carling and Rune’s lawyer, he was working closely with them on setting up their new agency. Seremela was one of the agency’s first employees.
Duncan wasn’t Seremela’s boss, by any means, but he would be aware of any administrative decisions Carling and Rune made, and they certainly wouldn’t hesitate to mention confidential matters to him.
As their group was small and most were new to the area, they tended to socialize together as well as work together. Seremela and Duncan had shared good conversations at group events, and she had hoped they might have begun to develop a friendship, but coming in person to check on her wellbeing went beyond anything she could have expected.
He cocked his head. “Are you okay?” he asked gently. “You haven’t had a death in the family, have you?”
“No!” she blurted out. “No, I haven’t. Duncan, I—this was so thoughtful of you. Thank you.”
“Oh, good,” he said. The set of his shoulders eased, and he gave her that crooked smile of his that was so damn charming. “Nobody has died, and you aren’t angry with me for intruding. I count both those things as wins. Do you mind me asking what has happened? We’re all transplants to Miami, and it’s all too possible to feel cut-off and alone. Carling and I were both concerned you might need help but not feel comfortable enough to ask for it.”
She groaned and gestured. “I just found out my niece ran away from home a few months ago. My sister has kept it under wraps all this time. She hired a detective to find Vetta—that’s my niece—and now that he has tracked her down, we need to bring her home.”