by Adrian, Lara
Kaya regarded him with what she hoped was an admiring gaze. “One thing the wife of a powerful man must learn to accept early on is that she not only wed the man, but his work.”
Mercier nodded approvingly. “How right you are, Elizabeth. And how rare it is to find a woman who recognizes that truth. Perhaps I could persuade you to impart some of your wisdom and advice to Anastasia.”
He gave her a sly wink that made Kaya’s skin crawl. Nevertheless, she laughed as if she were charmed. “I’m sure she’ll come around to seeing things for how they really are. If anyone knows what it means to sacrifice personal wants for the greater good, it’s someone like your wife. After all, she comes from a long line of successful people who’ve devoted themselves to duty and country.”
“That she does.” A mercenary smile stretched his lips. Precisely why I courted her in the first place. That, and the many doors that her family’s name could open for me.
Kaya felt a pang of regret for Anastasia Rousseau. It was obvious the happy, unsuspecting woman thought she’d found her prince, when in reality she’d just bound herself to a snake.
Worse than a snake, if the sick feeling in Kaya’s stomach could be trusted.
Time to poke Mercier’s soft underbelly and see if she could get him to bite.
Kaya shrugged, exhaling a wistful sigh. “Still, it is a shame that the reality of work and obligations has to intrude on a beautiful event for you and your wife. Days like this are such a welcome escape from the fear and terror that’s become our daily routine lately.”
“Yes, they are.” Mercier’s lips thinned in a chilling smile. “But we will never know true peace so long as we’re living among blood-drinking monsters.”
Her stomach clenched. She hadn’t been expecting him to openly express his hatred for the Breed so freely, but he was hardly the first human unafraid to publicly condemn the entire vampire race as monsters. Protesters and militant groups vocally opposed to the tentative truce that had been in place for the past twenty years were epidemic in recent months.
And at the heart of all the strife was Opus Nostrum, gleefully pulling strings and sowing seeds of mistrust on both sides of the problem.
It took immense control to simply continue dancing and smiling blandly instead of defending her friends and the rest of their kind. Kaya’s struggle must have shown in her face. Or in the furious shudder she was unable to contain.
“Have I upset you?” Mercier asked, leaning closer than was necessary. “Forgive me. Weddings are no place for politics or talk of war.”
Kaya froze. “Is that what you think is going to happen--war with the Breed?”
“My dear, it is inevitable.”
Especially if I have anything to say about it.
Very soon, I’ll have a hundred million reasons to make it an absolute certainty that we push the bloodsucking animals into war with mankind.
And then the whole world will beg Opus to eradicate the scourge from the Earth.
Shit. There it was. All the confirmation the Order needed to drop a net on Stephan Mercier.
Kaya didn’t need anything more from the bastard. But it was difficult to walk away without giving him a dose of truth.
And besides, Aric would still be coming in behind her for the clean-up. After a quick mind scrub, Mercier would have no recollection of anything he and Kaya spoke about.
“You consider the Breed monsters?” She kept a firm grip on him, her blood simmering even as she spoke in a sweetly conversational tone. “They’re not the ones who tried to set off an ultraviolet detonation at a peace summit last month. It wasn’t the Breed who razed JUSTIS headquarters in London a few nights ago, either. Nor did they assassinate half of the Global Nations Council, then boast about it to anyone who would listen. Opus Nostrum did all of that and more. If anyone is ripe for eradication, it’s the cowards hiding behind that organization.”
Mercier’s feet stilled. His eyes took on a wary sheen, but he only chuckled as if she were a dull child in need of schooling. “You have a lot of interesting opinions, Mrs. Bouchard. You might do well to keep some of them to yourself. You never know whom you might offend if a careless statement reaches the wrong ears.”
Her tongue wouldn’t be so loose if she had any idea how many people from all walks of life have quietly pledged their support to Opus. Time to ditch the bitch. Before anyone overhears her and assumes I could be anything but loyal to the cause.
Especially someone like the man who’ll be dropping a cool hundred million from the organization into my bank account in a couple of days.
Mercier’s gaze left hers and flicked out over the crowd. It was a purely reflexive glance that on its own would mean nothing. But having come on the heels of his last thought, the casual search of the reception guests in that moment was more telling than anything else he’d said or thought all day.
Holy shit. Had he just let it slip that one of Opus’s members was here at the estate?
Kaya followed Mercier’s gaze into the crowd that was spread out over the lawn and gardens. At first, she wasn’t sure what she was looking for. But then, she found him.
A portly dark-haired man casually making his way out of the reception.
Without looking back, he walked up the marble stairs and through the open French doors of the mansion.
Whoever he was, he was determined to get out of there without drawing attention to himself.
Which only made Kaya’s curiosity deepen.
“Thanks for the dance,” Mercier muttered. He released her as if he’d been burned, their connection instantly severed.
She no further use of it, anyway. Right now, she had her sights locked on bigger game.
There wasn’t a second to waste.
Not even to signal to Aric somewhere on the dance floor that their mission objective had suddenly taken a sharp left turn. Her conversation with Mercier was a problem they would have to clean up later. Right now, there was only one thing Kaya had to do and that was ID the man currently attempting to leave the reception unnoticed.
Kaya stepped away from the pavilion to cut an arrow’s path across the grass then up the stairs to the mansion. A smattering of wedding guests congregated inside, their conversation and laughter punctuated by the rapid tick of her high-heeled sandals as she hurried through, her gaze searching for Mercier’s Opus contact.
Holy hell, there he was. Several yards ahead of her, weaving around Phillipe Rousseau and a circle of well-dressed gentlemen chatting and smoking cigars just off the foyer. Kaya picked up her pace. She’d chase the bastard down in the parking area if she had to. Anything to get a glimpse of his face. Better yet, a glimpse into his mind.
Although how she would manage that with a small army of guards posted all over the estate and the surrounding grounds, she wasn’t certain. She only knew she had to try.
One of those uniformed men watched her intently as she strode toward the foyer. She recognized him from their arrival. Beneath his cap of close-shorn red hair, his gaze held on her with pointed interest, even suspicion.
“Can I help you with anything, ma’am?”
Kaya smiled and shook her head, her feet still moving in the direction of her target. “I just... forgot something in the car. But thank you.”
He didn’t return her smile.
She kept walking, alarm seeping into her when she sensed him behind her now, following at her heels. When his strong hand clamped around her arm and forced her steps to halt, every nerve ending in her body jangled with sudden dread.
Dammit. Had Mercier sicced security on her? But then, if he had, she would likely be facing a team of armed guards on orders to escort her off the property, not just one man who seemed to have a more than passing interest in her.
“What are you doing?” she demanded, trying to wrench out of his grasp without success.
“A better question is, what are you doing?” He kept his voice down as if to avoid upsetting the other guests, but his hold on her left no room for nego
tiation. “I’m going to need you to come with me now.”
Given little choice unless she wanted to create a very public scene, Kaya walked with him. He brought her into a vacant room down one of the main floor’s hallways, pushing her inside. He shut the door behind him, then turned around to face her.
Kaya crossed her arms, her heart racing. “Have I done something wrong?”
He didn’t answer, but his eyes scrutinized her with a familiarity that unnerved her. “You and I both know you’re not who you say you are.”
Oh. God. Kaya swallowed. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
He chuckled. “Damn, you’re good. But then, you always were.” He reached behind him and turned the lock. Then he started to advance toward her. “It’s been a long time. Two years, is it? Three, maybe?”
She shook her head. “I swear, I’ve never seen you before today.”
Another chuckle, but this one had a menacing edge. “You can drop the act now. Just what kind of game are you running here, Raven?”
CHAPTER 7
Where the hell had she gone?
Aric saw Kaya abruptly leave the pavilion. Her pace had been purposeful, even verging on urgent. If there had been any graceful way to extricate himself from his dance with Mercier’s bride, Aric would have gone after her immediately.
Now, she’d been inside the mansion for several minutes and counting.
Something wasn’t right.
With murmured excuses as soon as the song ended, he left the dance floor and weaved through the clusters of swaying couples, his warrior instincts growing increasingly taut with each brisk step he took.
No sign of Kaya among the other reception guests inside. He scanned each cluster of well-dressed attendees, searching for a splash of dusty rose silk or Kaya’s long dark hair.
It was as if she had simply vanished.
And then he heard it.
Just the slightest bump of noise coming from one of the closed rooms along the main floor’s hallway. To any of the humans in attendance the sound was too muted to register at all. But to his Breed ears, it was unmistakable.
The sound of a scuffle.
His senses on high alert, he ducked into the passageway. Behind one of the ornately carved doors, another tangle of movement sounded. Followed by the unmistakable thump of a body hitting the floor.
Fuck.
Aric freed the lock with sharp mental command. Then he threw the door open.
Holy shit.
“Kaya.”
She straddled the big body of one of the estate’s security detail. The guard who’d cleared them through the metal detectors when they arrived lay supine on the room’s thick Oriental rug, his face splotched red as he struggled and sputtered under Kaya--no easy feat when her bent knee was jammed against his throat.
Her pretty dress was torn in several places, her glossy dark hair drooping into her face in wrecked disarray. Her breath gusted through her parted lips, one of which was split open and bleeding.
A growl exploded out of Aric. There was no stopping the battle rage that flooded him as he flicked his furious gaze back to the man who’d hurt her. His vision burned instantly, hotly, amber. His fangs ripped out of his gums, not only in anger, but in reaction to the sudden olfactory blast of Kaya’s blood.
The guard’s eyes flew wide when he realized what Aric was. There was horror in those human eyes, but there was hatred too. “Fucking bloodsucker!”
In a panicked scramble beneath Kaya’s hold on him, the man somehow managed to free his service pistol as Aric stalked forward.
The shot he squeezed off was wild, aimless. But it was lucky. Aric felt the bullet’s sting as it grazed his shoulder. He glanced down in reflex, and when he looked back at Kaya it was just in time to watch her crush the guard’s throat under her knee.
Her fury was swift and cold. Lethally so.
“I had no choice,” she murmured softly, while outside the room the sound of gunfire had ignited panic among the reception. She looked up at Aric, her eyes stark, but without apology. “The son of a bitch was on to us.”
He frowned. “How?”
She shook her head as she climbed off the body. “I don’t know. He seemed to believe he knew me.”
“Did he?”
Her gaze strayed to the dead man on the floor. “I never saw him before in my life.”
Aric had questions for his partner, dozens of them. But they would have to sort everything out later. Right now, they had a bigger problem to deal with.
Screams of frightened wedding guests and the cattle stomp of rapidly moving feet filled the air. But not everyone was fleeing the mansion. Guards swarmed. Their heavy boot falls and low shouts sounded in the hallway just outside the room.
“The shot came from somewhere down here,” one of them called to his comrades.
Damn it.
They were too close already. Aric might elude them by calling upon his Breed genetics to speed him past the men like a chill breeze, but Kaya didn’t have that gift. And he’d be damned if he left a partner behind--even if she was the one who brought this trouble down on them.
Aric ground out a curse and grabbed Kaya by the wrist, stepping away from the body and pulling her into a corner of the room just as a trio of uniformed men burst inside.
Her eyes rounded as he held her tightly against him, with one arm keeping her close, the other bent between them, his index finger pressed over her lips to encourage her silence.
“It’s Portman,” one of the guards said. “Shit. He’s dead.”
Another let out a hissed curse. “Who the hell did he piss off? Looks like someone drove a hammer into the poor bastard’s larynx.”
Dread seeped into the dark brown pools of Kaya’s eyes as the men spoke only a few feet away from them. Aric willed her to stay calm. Any movement could betray them now. He didn’t blink, just held her uncertain gaze as steadily as he held the rest of her, unmoving, with barely an inch of space between her face and his.
He understood her worry. Kaya couldn’t see the shadows that hid them from the armed men searching the room. Aric had to count on her to trust him now, to trust his ability. With Kaya melded against him, he bent the gloom of the small chamber, gathering it around them like a cloak. All while trying to ignore the erotic sensation of her soft curves fused against the front of his body.
His skin felt too hot, too tight, burning everywhere they touched.
“We got blood over here,” announced the third man. “At least Portman left us something to go on. Looks like his final shot hit its mark.”
“Call it in,” ordered one of the others. “Alert the gate too. As of right now, this whole fucking place is on lockdown. Nobody leaves the estate until we’ve turned every corner inside out.”
Aric kept the shadows close even after the men had gone. “Are you okay?”
Kaya nodded. “What about you? Your arm--”
“Already healing,” he said with a shrug, showing her the vanishing wound.
“You just saved our lives, Aric.”
He gave a grim shake of his head. “Not yet. We still have get off the property. Driving out of here is no longer an option, so that means we’re leaving on foot.”
“How? You heard those guards. They’re putting men at every corner of the estate as we speak.”
“There’s three hundred acres of woods abutting the property to the north.”
“Yes,” Kaya agreed. “All of it surrounded by a ten-foot high electric fence.”
He wasn’t going to mention that technicality, but it didn’t surprise him that she was already aware of it given the way she’d devoured the rest of the operation intel. And damn if he wasn’t impressed, despite the gravity of their current situation.
“Let me worry about the logistics. I just need you to stick close to me and do what I say. Think you can handle that?”
She didn’t even attempt to argue. That’s when he knew she was truly afraid. For all of her toughness and appa
rent need to be in control, what happened between her and the man who assaulted her in this room had Kaya Laurent rattled.
He gently caught her chin and lifted her gaze to his. “You can trust me. Okay?”
“Okay.”
As she quickly slipped out of her heels, he crept toward the open door and looked out. The hallway was empty now. The mansion was being cleared of wedding guests and all but a handful of security personnel.
“Come on,” Aric said, taking her free hand. “The only way we’re getting out of here is by getting lost inside the crowd.”
He saw the flicker of apprehension in her eyes, but when the time came to make their dash between the clusters of people being corralled back out to the gardens, she proved herself a match for both his pace and his nerve.
It wasn’t easy keeping the shadows gathered around them as they hurried out to the sunlit lawn. The pack of moving bodies all around them was the only thing he had to work with, and once he and Kaya made their break for the perimeter of the massive property, he wouldn’t even have that small advantage on his side.
Aric took the first opportunity he had to veer away from the crowd, using the shade behind one of the large white catering tents for cover. “Shit,” he bit off in a harsh whisper. “The closest edge of the tree line is about a hundred yards from here. I can’t shield both of us that far in open daylight, so we’re going to have to make a run for it.”
Kaya’s beautiful face was set in a look of pure determination. “I’m ready.”
God help him, it was all he could do to resist touching her now. There was chaos and danger churning all around them, but all he wanted to do was bury his hands in her tangled hair and kiss her. Instead he dragged his hungry gaze from her trusting brown eyes and measured their chances of escaping without being caught.
The odds weren’t good. Guards fanned out over the rolling lawn and gardens, some trying to calm anxious guests while others prowled the grounds like soldiers eager for a fight. Aric cursed under his breath. If he and Kaya didn’t get out of there fast, their fucked up mission was heading straight into the catastrophe zone.