The sun rose. The rays shone through the bars of the single tiny window. They didn’t do anything to warm Raff or the man in his lap, and they were soon gone as the sun rose higher in the sky and away from the window.
Around midday, Kourey shuddered in Raff’s arms. He shivered and shook as a human would in extreme cold. Raff, hoarse from the need for blood as it was, had never stopped talking to his friend. He held Kourey tighter and pressed his lips into Kourey’s hair. After about ten minutes, Kourey’s body stilled again, but his breathing was faster.
A couple of hours later, Kourey’s fingers wound into the waistband of his trousers and held on.
The daylight was fading again when Kourey moved properly for the first time on his own. He pushed his head farther into Raff’s neck and breathed deeply a few times. The point of a fang scraped across Raff’s neck. Raff didn’t push him away. Though Raff needed blood himself, he wouldn’t deny Kourey anything. Kourey didn’t bite though. He was only scenting Raff more closely. It took half an hour of pressing his face into Raff’s neck before he did anything else.
“Is this another trick?” The words rasped in Kourey’s throat as though he hadn’t spoken in a long time.
“Kourey? It’s not a trick. It’s me.”
“Raff? How? You didn’t give in to him, did you? You can’t.” How could Kourey possibly still tell Raff to resist Maurice after all he’d been put through?
Raff opened his mouth to speak again but stopped when the sound of the key being turned in the heavy iron lock clanked loudly in the room.
The door opened, and Maurice swaggered in. “Well, I hope you’ve had a good catch-up with your friend, Raphael. Time for you to go to your room now.”
Raff looked around. “But I thought…” Had he been listening? Waiting for Kourey and Raff to start talking?
“You thought I’d keep you in here? With him?” Maurice laughed. “Oh, Raphael. Why would I keep you together? No. That’s not happening again.” He stood aside and gestured from the men who moved passed him and into the room, to Raff. “Get him.”
“No. No!” Raff tried to hold on to Kourey, but his claws dug furrows across Kourey’s skin as the two men were pulled apart. Kourey didn’t attempt to fight back or hold on to Raff, and he didn’t say a word, but his eyes weren’t as dead as they had been when Raff first laid eyes on him the night before. “Kourey, I’m sorry,” Raff cried as they dragged him away.
“I’m glad seeing you brought some life back into him,” Maurice said conversationally as he walked in front of the men dragging Raff. “Jules will be happy to see that.”
From struggling to go back to his friend in the cellar room, Raff lunged forward at Maurice’s back. One of the men caught him around the waist. Maurice spun, grabbing Raff and pinning him to the wall under a small window by his neck. Raff gasped and clawed at Maurice’s hand. He kicked out, but his feet wouldn’t even touch the ground, and it was impossible to get the leverage he needed.
“That’s enough. I think I’ve been good to you after you ran from me. I want you willing, Raff, but I will have you either way, and you need to get used to that. Jules has been the only one to touch that one, but I have no problem giving your friends to all my men to share. Play nice or I will.” He held Raff there long enough that spots started to dance in front of Raff’s eyes. Maurice squeezed his fingers tighter in warning before letting go.
Raff hit the ground and glared up at Maurice through watering eyes as he coughed and gagged. He pushed himself up using the wall as a prop and stood, resisting the urge to spit in Maurice’s face or claw the bastard’s eyes out. Friends. Maurice had said friends. He had more than one.
As he walked behind Maurice upstairs to his old room, he contemplated trying to rip the man’s throat out or snap his neck, but he doubted he’d make it with the guards walking half a pace behind them both. And he also had no doubt Maurice would punish Kourey rather than Raff directly. Kourey had been put through enough because of Raff.
In his room, nothing had been touched. All the things he’d left behind were exactly as they had been when he hurriedly shoved a few items into a backpack and run. Drawers had been pushed closed and the bed made neatly, but that was all.
No. That wasn’t all. Raff bounced up from his full-length sprawl on the bed and began ripping off the covers. Maurice’s scent permeated the bed coverings so thoroughly, he must have lain there for hours upon hours. And he’d jacked off in Raff’s bed. Disturbing the material sent clouds of the stench into the air, and Raff gagged. Wanting the smell away from him, Raff poked the material between the horizontal bars on the window. They were new, too. Not that Raff could have fit out of the old arrow slits anyway, but he supposed Maurice had been proving a point when he had them put up. Raff wasn’t escaping this time. The covers fluttered in the wind until they were all the way out and fell to the roof of a different part of the building, below the tower. He leaned over the bed and breathed in, grimacing when he realised he could still smell Maurice on the bare mattress. Gross. Definitely not sleeping on that.
The sofa had been bought by his mother over a hundred years before, and its spindly legs and roll-top back looked nice enough, but the lumpy, tapestried cushions barely promised more comfort than he’d had the previous twenty-four hours in Kourey’s cell. Even so, Raff felt guilty as he carefully lowered himself onto its dusty surface. All Kourey had was the cold, hard stone of the floor. The sofa wasn’t long enough, but if he slung his legs over the bottom arm and twisted a little, he could lie full length.
After his injury with not enough blood to recover, no food, and not a wink of sleep since he’d woken up in the cheap hotel room nearly two days before, Raff was asleep almost before he could close his eyes.
The only thoughts he had as the darkness pulled him under were of the coven he found himself back in. When he’d run, years before, he hadn’t been able to consider the people he left behind and though it was far from the first time he’d felt guilty about it, he had no idea how he could help them.
Chapter Twelve
Ves
“As good as your people are at what they do, I’m not taking you or them up against a coven of vampires.”
Jake opened his mouth to protest.
“No. I’m sorry, Jake. I know you all care about him, too, but I’m not going to be responsible for all your deaths,” Ves said. “Your men can come as backup and help with the aftermath, but I’m not taking them in with me. They’re staying outside until I give the all clear. I don’t know how many we’re up against.” Ves had done his best to dismiss his earlier worry. The Durand coven might be huge, but he had no way of knowing how many of them stood with their leader and how many of them were under his boot.
The men of AlphaSec sat in a tense, watchful silence as Ves talked to their leader. Freddie was up front, flying the plane, but everyone else was in the main cabin. Ves had fourteen of his own people with him, including Eddie, but not counting Freddie, and eleven from a coven based in Leeds. There hadn’t been time to contact any others and wait for their people to get there, but he’d been on good terms with the leader of the Leeds coven for a while now, and the woman hadn’t hesitated in sending her people to aid him. The small plane was full to bursting, but with no luggage except for the AlphaSec team’s weapons and communication gear, the weight wasn’t a problem.
“Jake, I’ve given them several comm units. I can monitor the situation, and you can go in in moments if it becomes necessary,” Daniel said.
Ves had been horrified to see Jake’s mate at the airfield, but Daniel’d stalled Ves’s objection, saying he was only there to coordinate and wouldn’t be going in. Daniel, Freddie, and two of the other AlphaSec men were staying with the plane.
“Besides,” Daniel continued with a wry twist to his lips. “They’re faster. They’ll outrun you on the sixteen klicks between the airfield and the coven house in Cahors.”
A quiet barked laugh caught Ves’s attention and the muttered words that follo
wed. “They ain’t outrunning me.”
Ves glanced up. “Who was that?”
“Damn it.” There was a pause. One of the shifters got to his feet and moved closer. He stopped in the aisle and leaned on the headrest of one of the seats. “Can’t outrun me, mate.” The man was on the small side for a shifter and almost pretty, with floppy brown curls. Ves hadn’t paid much attention to him before now among the rest of his team.
“Shifter”—Ves pointed to the man, then to himself—“vampire. We can outrun you. Go sit back down.” He wasn’t usually so terse or condescending, but his temper freyed with every additional moment he couldn’t lay eyes on Raff and know his mate was okay.
Jake winced and glanced between the two of them. He cleared his throat. “Something you’re not telling me, Butch?”
“Sorry, boss.” Butch didn’t elaborate. He didn’t sound all that contrite, either.
“If Butch says he can keep up, you’d better believe him. He doesn’t say something unless he can do it. And can apparently do plenty he doesn’t confess to.” Jake shot the small man an aggrieved look. Butch stared back blandly. There was something in his gaze that promised death to any who crossed him.
“Whatever. If you fall behind, we’re not waiting, and if you join us, it’s your neck. Don’t forget vampires are fond of those. The rest of you, when you get there, stay out until I give the all clear. Andre, you’re with us.” Ves didn’t look Jake’s way. Andre was Jake’s man, but he was a vampire, and Ves needed him more for the breach and hopeful rescue than Jake would in the aftermath.
Andre nodded. His jaw hadn’t unclenched since Ves laid eyes on him at the Leeds airfield, and he hadn’t spoken a word.
A click from the speakers heralded Freddie announcing they were coming in to land.
Ten minutes later, as his vampires flooded from the plane and set off at a run, Ves saw that the odd shifter could indeed keep up. He only hoped the man wouldn’t be dead by the time Jake and the rest of AlphaSec joined them.
Slightly less than another ten minutes after that, Ves glanced back as he slowed on the approach to the Coven house. Butch had disappeared. He must have fallen behind. That’s good, I suppose. At least he’ll be alive when Jake gets here.
The chateau loomed in the dark, tucked into the curve of a river, walls on one side rising directly alongside the flowing surface. Ves checked the coordinates. Yep, that was the place. They didn’t have long to get inside. The number of vampires he’d brought with him and the shifters who wouldn’t take all that much longer to get there all gave off scents that the coven members would be able to detect, even with the wind in their favour. They had minutes at best to get in while they still had the element of surprise. But how to get in?
There was a light westerly breeze blowing their way from the chateau, carrying a hint of Raff’s scent along with so many others. Ves sorted through them, looking for the one he’d smelled back at the hotel. There. I’m not letting him go this time.
Ves led the way around the north side of the building and over a point in the river narrow enough for a vampire to jump. The shifters would have to go around unless they wanted an impromptu dunking. He paused, frowning. There was a strange pattern in the air. Disturbed earth. Scraped stone. Crushed grass and moss. He focussed on the scent. The barest hints of…jet fuel, washing powder, mineral oil, and metal fragments. What the hell? There was no person’s scent to go with them. Plenty up ahead, but no one to carry the trail that was being left.
The scent of blood bloomed in the air, and Ves snapped his head up. It was coming from the battlements on one of the towers.
“Follow me,” he whispered as quietly as he dared while still allowing the people he had brought to hear him.
The walls of the chateau had been constructed to protect its inhabitants. They had been built strong, thick, and tall. But they hadn’t been built to keep out vampires. Just because vampires now lived within those walls didn’t alter the exterior to prevent others from getting in. Climbing the grey stone of the tower in the corner wasn’t much of a challenge. Nor was the open door or the guard lying dead half in, half out the doorway with a stab wound to the kidney and his throat sliced open. The pool of blood was still growing.
A smear of blood on the downed vampire’s clothes told of a knife being wiped, but there still had to be traces on the blade because the trail in the air now contained hints of it, strengthening the trail Ves had detected before.
Ves was torn. The strongest source of Raff’s scent emanated from higher up the tower, where it narrowed after the first battlements. The other scent he had identified in the hotel came from below. His blood and guts ached with the need to see his mate, but there was something he had to do first. Reluctantly, he pointed at Eddie and Silas, gesturing for them to go up, and then he headed down.
“What the hell is going on?” a voice roared up ahead. “You and you, go find out.”
More blood hung in the air. Ves had passed another downed vampire and the scent of many others. He’d heard heartbeats and footsteps and doors slamming hurriedly, but not seen another living soul. What’s going on? Yeah, I’d like to know the same thing.
“You,” the voice shouted. “I can smell you now. Come out and face me, you coward. You don’t have Père dearest to hide behind anymore.”
Ves, having just crept up behind yet another half-open door, pushed it flat to the wall, strolled through, and looked on the man he hadn’t seen in a very long time.
The hair was as black as his own natural colouring, though cut ruthlessly short since he’d last seen him. The body was thick with yet more muscle. The face, twisted and red with rage, was unchanged.
“What happened to your men, Mathieu? They seem to be dropping like flies,” Ves asked as he walked into the room. His men filtered in behind him and arrayed themselves off to both sides. He held up a hand to stall them from doing anything rash. Mathieu might only have a handful of supporters at his side, but who knew how many others he had throughout the coven and what they might do to the more innocent members if provoked.
Mathieu growled, baring fangs. “You tell me, Sylvestre. Who have you got running around here, butchering them in the shadows?”
Butchering? “Interesting choice of words. You know we did have one guy with us. I thought he fell behind, but now I’m thinking he got ahead of us somehow and cleared our path.”
“Sending others in to do your dirty work?”
Ves shrugged. “As long as it gets done. What do I care who does the deed?”
“And what about Raphael? How much do you care who does the deed with him?” Mathieu mocked.
An upsurge of fury almost knocked Ves off his feet, but he pushed it down. “Why do you want him, Mathieu? Is it because he’s mine?” He was trying to throw his brother off balance, not lose it himself.
“He’s not yours until you claim him.”
“Like you tried to do with Annette?”
“She was so beautiful when she was young. How could I not? Just like Raphael.”
“She’s our sister. She deserved your protection and love, not your twisted obsession.”
A gasp from the still open door behind him, and a wave of Raff’s scent told Ves his mate had arrived.
“Come on in, Raff. There’s someone I should introduce you to,” Ves said.
Raff stepped into the room. Ves didn’t take his eyes off Mathieu, but he felt the warm presence of his mate move to his side.
“How did you find me?”
“Yes, how did you find him?” Mathieu added.
“You never were the sharpest fang in the coven,” Ves said to his brother. Then he talked to Raff without taking his eyes off Mathieu. “Given what you told me about his obsession with you, I figured he’d take you home where he could hole up and think no one could get at him.”
“You know, when you first told me about him I didn’t put two and two together. Maurice is a common enough name. It was even my brother’s middle name. Did you know it wa
s once a custom to name babies after saints? It didn’t last long among vampires, but it was around long enough for my brother to be born. Mathieu Maurice Desmarais. Wasn’t until I smelled him in the hotel where he took you that I realised the two men were one and the same. Not sure why he decided on Durand for a last name, but it wasn’t all that imaginative sticking with the same initial. With what you told me about Maurice Durand, and what I knew about my brother, I didn’t think there was much doubt he’d bring you here. You never were the brains of the Desmarais coven, were you, brother?”
“Well, it certainly wasn’t you,” Mathieu shot back. “You didn’t have a clue what was going on until Annette ran and tattled. Neither did Père or Mère.”
“What bothers you more? That Annette got wise to what you were doing to her? Or that Père exiled you for it?”
“You’re asking the wrong question, Sylvestre. Don’t you want to know why I went after Raphael? As beautiful as he is, there are others out there. Not many as pretty, but some. So why him?”
“Fluke? Honestly, I don’t really care about whatever reasoning you might have inside that twisted brain of yours. I don’t care why you do what you do. I only care that you’re stopped.”
“And you’re going to be the one to stop me? I hardly think so. Bring him out.” Behind Mathieu, two men entered the room dragging a third between them. “I don’t think your pretty mate wants anything to happen to his friend.” Mathieu stepped over and grabbed a handful of blond hair, yanking up the man’s head for everyone to see his face.
“Kourey?” Andre asked from behind Ves in a shattered voice.
“And on three.” The voice in his ear startled Ves, and he flinched. The voice was barely a whisper, and it was hard to tell for certain the identity of the whisperer. “For fuck’s sake, don’t give the game away. Don’t forget, no one without the comm units can hear me. Get ready to take that bastard down. On three. One, two, three—”
Trusting His Vampire Lord Page 10