“Aye, I’ll be leaving for California tomorrow night, courtesy of Ms. Harper’s private jet.”
Fergus scowled. “And when you said, ‘I,’ you meant ‘we.’ Isn’t that right, cousin?”
Lachlan made a face. “And there’s the rub. He’s only letting one other accompany me—”
“Take Fergus, then,” Munro said immediately. “He’s handier at such things.”
“You’d both be good to have with me, but the other person will be Julia Harper.”
Fergus exploded to his feet. Munro was right, he was the better hand when it came to military matters, or simple security. He also had a fierce temper that he rarely tried to contain, just as he didn’t now. “Gads, hae ye lost yer mynd? You’re taking that woman? If it’s the damn jet, we’ll get our own. We don’t need her fecking charity. I can’t believe—”
“Sit doon ‘n’ listen.” Lachlan was on his feet, too, the laidback cousin persona burned away by the authority of both clan chief and vampire lord surrounding him in a corona of raw power. “Ye think a’m that stupid?” he hissed, as Fergus took his seat, eyes downcast, but his jaw still clenched.
Lachlan drew a calming breath, then reached down and gripped his cousin’s shoulder. He didn’t like to use his authority over these two. Fergus and Munro had been with him from the very beginning, when the decimated clan had looked to them for leadership. Three vampires barely-turned were suddenly making life and death decisions for everyone they loved. But alone of the three, it was Lachlan who ultimately had proved he had the power to rule. He was their lord and sometimes he had to act like it.
He sat again, forcing himself to relax. “It was Raphael who dictated the terms,” he said quietly. “It’s natural for him to be suspicious. I would be, too, under the circumstances. He may have heard my name, but he doesn’t know me. And Julia, as you well know, works for the American government. He probably wonders about the whole setup, given the hostilities lately between the continents.”
Fergus’s eyes met his, anger and suspicion still simmering in their depths. “You think we should have gone through Quinn instead? Raphael underwrote his takeover of Ireland, so they must know each other.”
But Lachlan shook his head. “I would have come off as weak if I did that. Quinn’s na more powerful than a’m. Why appeal to him? No, it had to be Raphael directly. You don’t see it, but Julia’s involvement is good for us. And I’m not talking about the damn jet. She’s the one who knows where Erskine’s money is hidden—or at least has the data trail for Munro to follow—and she got us through to Leighton and Raphael.” He shrugged. “The private jet doesn’t hurt either, especially when it comes to dealing with sunlight—which I’ll have to, either on the flight or the runway when we arrive.”
Fergus shook his head. “I still don’t like it, but I see your point. Sorry, m’laird.”
Lachlan hid his reaction at the title from his cousin’s lips. He didn’t mind hearing it from Lennon and the others. He was their Sire, which among vampires was a relationship so critical that it was built into their DNA. But it still made him wince coming from Fergus or Munro.
“I wasn’t all that happy myself,” he admitted. “I would at least have liked more time to prepare, but it is what it is.”
“How long will you be—?”
“Can I get her records before you leave?” Munro asked, talking over Fergus, who scowled at him. “What?” Munro demanded. “Those records are important. We need to know where Erskine’s hid the territorial funds. Lachlan’s like tae need thaim.”
“Not if he’s dead,” Fergus growled.
“Raphael has no reason to kill me,” Lachlan said confidently. “If he doesn’t think I’m up to the task, he’ll just sit back and let Erskine take me out of the game.”
“Erskine doesn’t have the power or the balls to defeat you.”
“I hope you’re right.”
“Feck. You know I am.”
Lachlan grinned. “Let’s talk about what I say to Raphael, then.”
The three of them talked for about an hour, hunched over the coffee table, trading insults and advice. But in the end, it was all up to Lachlan. He was the one who’d be walking into Raphael’s lair and stating his case. Though that wasn’t right either. He didn’t need Raphael’s permission to take over Scotland. He didn’t need anyone’s permission. That’s not how it worked among vampires. If you were strong enough, if you could take the territory and hold it, you were a vampire lord. Simple as that.
So why was he traveling so far to meet Raphael? Because once he became the Lord of Scotland, he didn’t want to end up fighting a slew of skirmishes with his neighbors. Not Ireland, not England, and sure as hell not anyone from the continent. As far as he was concerned, those fuckers over there needed to clean up their own mess. And if they tried to use his territory to solve their problem, then they’d die. Simple as that.
Chapter Five
LACHLAN WOKE THE next night to a message from Julia Harper, giving him a choice. She’d calculated the maximum darkness for their flight to Los Angeles. By leaving London at roughly 10:00 p.m., they’d arrive in LA by 2:00 a.m. Lachlan didn’t know if they’d hit daylight during the flight or not. Munro could have told him, but it didn’t matter. He’d be stuck on the plane, one way or the other.
The choice she gave him was their departure date. Did he want to wait until the next day, or would he prefer to fly that same night? If so, he’d have about three hours to pack and get himself to the airport. Julia didn’t know if that was enough time, but she was going to have the pilots file a flight plan and prep the jet, just in case. And would he please call her as soon as he got the message to let her know his preference? It was all said very politely, in her cool, unruffled Julia voice. The one that made him want to ruffle her a bit. He thought of all those hours they’d have together on the plane, and all the ways he could muss her up.
He hit return on her message. She answered on the third ring, sounding out of breath.
“Did I catch you at a bad time?” he asked.
“No. Well, not exactly. I was getting ready, in case you decided to fly tonight. I showered earlier, but I was packing.”
The slight tremor in her voice told him she was probably lying. He suspected she was standing in her bedroom, still wet from the shower, maybe wrapped in a towel. He smiled. He’d told her she couldn’t lie to a vampire, but maybe she’d thought that only applied to in-person conversations. For most vampires, it would have, but then, he wasn’t most vampires.
“Are you still there?”
Julia’s voice jarred him out of his thoughts. “I am,” he said. “Just thinking.” Which wasn’t a lie. He smiled. “We’ll go tonight. I doubt we’ll need to stay more than a night or two. At least, I won’t. You may want a lengthier visit with Leighton. If so, I can—”
“No. The shorter, the better. This is business. Cyn and I can catch up another time. But she did say something about daylighting at the airport? And that if you wanted, you could go directly to the estate for the day. She said they have plenty of room in the vault,” Julia said, sounding puzzled. “Does any of that make sense to you? Because it doesn’t to me.”
He smiled. It was refreshing to discover something she didn’t know, and given her overweening need to have everything all neat and tidy, he couldn’t let this pass without comment. “A flaw in your intelligence gathering, princess?”
“I beg your pardon?” Her tone was all snotty upper-class. She even added a faintly posh accent, despite her American origins.
“I quite like the begging, as long as you do it right pretty-like.”
“Fuck you.”
He laughed. Mission accomplished. “Sunlighting is when we sleep on the plane, usually in an airport hangar, because there’s no time to get to a safer place. And the vault simply refers to secure sleeping quarters,
which these days resemble bank vaults more than bedrooms.”
“Oh. That makes sense, then.” Her reply was so stiffly polite, he had to swallow a second laugh, figuring it might push her right over the edge. And while he wouldn’t mind seeing his princess lose her cool, he wanted it up close and personal. He’d wager she looked beautiful in a full temper.
“Glad you approve. I’ll meet you at the airport, shall I? Which one?”
“London City. I’ll be in the first class lounge.”
“Of course, you will. See you soon.” He hung up without giving her a chance to respond, though there was really nothing else to say, and he had to check in with his cousins. He’d throw together a duffle bag of clothes and supplies, but he wouldn’t need much, because he didn’t plan on staying long.
He took a quick shower, then walked out to the sitting room to find Fergus waiting for him. He’d updated both his cousins on the situation insofar as Julia had told him the previous night. They were no more happy about him going to California without them, but they agreed that her story made a lot more sense than it had. Especially since Munro had verified the basic details about Masoud’s death while they’d been discussing it.
“You hear from the woman?” Fergus asked. He might have reconciled himself to not going on the trip, but he wasn’t any happier with Julia’s involvement, no matter what she’d revealed.
“I did. We’re leaving out of London City at 10:00. If you drive, we can talk on the way.”
Fergus glanced at the clock on the side table. “When do you want to leave?”
“Twenty minutes? Departure is at 10:00, but we’ll board before that.”
“I’ll bring the car around. You want Munro in on this?”
“Aye. I’ll talk to Julia before we take off, see if I can persuade her to share the records this Masoud guy left her about Erskine’s finances.”
“You think she’ll go for it?”
“Depends on her mood. She doesn’t trust me yet.”
Fergus scoffed lightly.
“Ah ken,” Lachlan agreed, telling them he knew the problem. “Hard to believe, but ‘tis true. I might have to do some work to get in there.”
His cousin gave him a knowing look.
“It’s not like that. This is business.”
“Uh huh. You forget I’ve met the woman, and I know you.”
“Business, cousin. Now let me finish packing.”
JULIA GLANCED UP from reading the morning paper—something she only ever did when she was traveling and stuck in an airport lounge—to see Lachlan making his way toward her. He was dressed much as he had been that first night, in black jeans and a t-shirt, a black leather jacket and boots. Julia couldn’t decide if she liked him better this way, or in the suit he’d worn the previous night. He had looked quite handsome, and she did like a well-built man in a nicely tailored suit. But his chest was huge beneath the smooth t-shirt, and he sure filled out his jeans well. She wasn’t the only one who noticed, either. Every pair of female eyes, and more than a few male, were glued to his progress through the lounge. Damn vampire. He had to be aware he was the center of attention, but you wouldn’t know it to look at him. His stride was easy and relaxed, and his gaze was firmly fixed on her. She fought the urge to squirm under the power of his attention. He was just so there. It was the same sense of presence that had drawn her notice in the bar that first night. It had to be a vampire thing, and that made her wonder if he could turn it off. Could he be invisible if he wanted? Not literally, of course, but could he disappear into a crowd? She made a note to ask him. Not because it mattered, but because she was curious. She scowled. Asking “curious” questions might stroke his ego, and one thing for sure, his ego did not need stroking.
“Why the scowl, princess?” he asked, pulling out a chair and sitting down, without waiting to be invited.
She gritted her teeth, determined not to react to him calling her “princess.” She didn’t know why he’d settled on that, but suspected it was because he knew it pissed her off. So her new strategy was not to pay attention. She glanced up as if just noticing he was there. “Oh, I was just working some things out in my head.”
“Like what?”
“I was running details of where to go when we land. I haven’t been through LAX much, and not at all lately, but I arranged a limo pickup, so at least we won’t have to deal with traffic.”
“Is the limousine service reliable? Have you used them before?” It should have been a casual question—chit-chat while waiting for a flight—but Lachlan said it with such intensity that it took on new meaning.
“Like I said, I don’t get to LA often, but it’s the same service my dad uses, so they must be okay.”
“What else did you decide?”
“About what?”
“About where we’re going once we arrive.”
“Oh, right. I confirmed our arrival with Cyn, and she said it’s up to you. The jet will be moved into a private hangar, since we won’t be here long. The pilots are pretty happy about having a couple days in LA, actually. Anyway, Cyn said you might want to sleep on the plane, although I don’t know how comfortable that’ll be. The bed’s big, but the mattress . . . I mean, I’ve slept well enough on it, but you’re a very big guy.”
“No room for both of us?”
He said it with a completely straight face. Not even a twinkle of humor in eyes that were more green than brown tonight. Oddly, that made it more difficult for Julia to know how to respond. Maybe he was serious, saying they could share the one bed since she’d be stuck on the plane, too. But wait—he’d be in his vampire sleep. Wouldn’t he be horribly vulnerable? Why would he want a stranger next to him? Then again, he had saved her from being kidnapped, so that counted for something. Maybe if you saved someone’s life, they weren’t a stranger anymore.
“You’re thinking way too hard, love. It was a simple question.”
Julia’s internal dialogue ground to a halt. She hated to admit it, but he was right on this one. She’d been chasing her own thoughts like a hound after a rabbit. Except she was the rabbit. And she was doing it again. She decided not to answer his question at all.
“We could go straight to Malibu instead,” she countered. “It might be better for both of us.”
He smiled then. “Sturdier bed?”
“I’m sure it would be,” she said, refusing to be baited.
“Sounds lovely, but I’ll stick with the plane.”
“You’re kidding.” She was honestly stunned. Why the hell would he want to be stuck on a plane all day?
“I like to control my surroundings, especially when I sleep. I trust Raphael more than I would most vampires that I don’t know, but he probably has a small army of vamps on his estate, every one of whom is completely loyal to him. Let’s just say that I’m not comfortable sleeping surrounded by someone else’s warriors.” He fixed that dark gaze on her. “Unless you’d like to sleep with me and keep me safe?”
Again, she couldn’t tell if he was being serious. But she knew she didn’t want to find herself in a bed with Lachlan McRae. And she didn’t want to consider why that was, either.
“The plane it is, I guess,” she said somewhat wistfully. It was a very posh jet, but there was only one bed. She’d have to make do with a reclined seat. There was a short bench seat in the back, but it wasn’t long enough for her height, nor wide enough to curl up on.
He smiled again. “I’ll be dead to the world, princess. You’ll be perfectly safe if you want to share the bed.”
No. Nope. Nyet. Non. She was not going to share a bed with him, no matter how innocent he made it sound. Because she had a feeling “innocent” and Lachlan did not ever belong in the same bed.
Her phone pinged with a message from their pilot, saving her from the need to respond to his offer. “We can board
, if you’re ready. Our scheduled departure is in forty minutes.”
He pushed back the chair and stood, then offered her a hand. Her heart did a weird little dance, and before she knew it, she was placing her fingers in his broad palm. The touch of his skin, rough with callouses and warmer than she expected, gave her that same electric jolt, just as it had in the bar. She would have pulled her hand back, but his fingers curled over hers and it was too late.
As soon as she could, she slipped her hand away to reach for her briefcase. She expected to be relieved, but what she felt was closer to remorse for the loss of that contact between them. She cleared her throat nervously. “Did you bring a bag?” she asked, feeling stupid. What a lame thing to say.
He gestured toward the entrance. “I left it with the charming ladies up front.”
Of course, he had. She’d seen more than one person ask to leave a case, and the “charming ladies” had declined. But they did it for Lachlan. Damn vampire.
LACHLAN STUDIED the jet’s luxurious interior. No wonder Julia had wanted to take her father’s plane. He routinely booked private flights on the rare occasions he flew anymore, but although they were exceptionally comfortable, they were nothing like this. The plane wasn’t one of the Lear-type private jets he was used to. This was a full-scale 707, with conference tables, and seats for conversation groups, in addition to individual seats large enough that even he was more than comfortable. The hush of money infused the very air. If not for the pervasive hum of the engines, he wouldn’t know he was on a plane at all.
He still wasn’t looking forward to the long flight, but it had more to do with timing than equipment. He would almost have preferred to leave at a time that would put him in daylight for the entire trip, so he could sleep for the entire 11 hours. That didn’t work when going to California, unfortunately, so he was going to be stuck wide awake for most of the trip. And at the end of it, he’d have the so very special experience of daylighting on the plane. This is why he rarely left the UK anymore. Oh, he’d done his time in the US, back in the 70s. The 1970s. His princess would probably be stunned to discover he had an MBA from Stanford University. He’d had to negotiate a special program that permitted him to matriculate at night, but enough money could buy anything. He could have gotten the same degree at any one of the UK universities, but he’d seen the way the world was going, with ties among countries spanning the globe. His clan wasn’t as wealthy as some, especially not back then, but they’d all agreed it would be a good investment. In return, he’d made sure he earned that Stanford MBA and had made good on the trust they’d given him. It was a trust he continued to reward, using his newly acquired knowledge to enhance the clan’s investments. He’d discovered a talent for anticipating the next big trend, and between that and Munro’s ability to read the market, the clan was now wealthier than ever—a wealth that translated into stability and security for the clan and all its members. It had taken all the decades since that one fateful evening to reach this turning point. The McRae vampires were safe enough, strong enough, to follow Lachlan’s path of revenge. He would kill Erskine and become Lord of Scotland. And then, finally, their dead ancestors would rest in the peace they deserved.
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