“It’s a very nice gift,” Lucifer said, not waiting for her answer. “Was it from a boyfriend . . . maybe a lover?” His voice went deep and chocolaty smooth at the end, and Eleanor found herself responding to the seduction packed into that single word. She could only imagine what it was doing to the human woman. But he wasn’t finished yet.
“What’s his name, Fiona?” he murmured. “You know you want to tell me.”
She was staring at Lucifer, her eyes big and round, and filled with tears, her teeth biting into her lower lip hard enough to draw blood. The scent filled the air of the small room. Eleanor felt Lucifer’s attention shift, and looked up to meet his gaze. She saw hunger there. And heat. And it wasn’t for the small drop of blood on Fiona’s lip either.
A corresponding heat filled her chest. Her lungs expanded with deep, slow breaths. Such a common thing, breathing. And yet it suddenly seemed as if she hadn’t breathed fully in so long that she’d forgotten how. Not since . . . oh God, not since she’d been made a vampire and had run away from Lucifer, who was staring at her right now as if he could read every thought in her head, every desire.
Fiona’s loud sobbing abruptly shattered the loaded silence between them, dragging Lucifer’s attention back to the human woman. Eleanor almost sobbed herself, drooping in exhausted relief, as if she’d just run a few miles instead of simply staring at her former lover for a few minutes. Why had she thought she could do this? She’d been with Lucifer on this hunt for only one night so far, and already she was filled with more emotion than she’d permitted herself in the last twenty years. It was crushing her, forcing her to feel. And it wasn’t fair. Fate and Derek Pratt had taken him away from her. It wasn’t right that she had to sit so close to him, work with him, watch him seduce fucking Fiona Denis and who knew how many other women. And all because of God damned Derek Pratt.
“Get a grip,” Eleanor scolded herself. She was better than this. She owed Sophia better than this. The vampire lord needed Eleanor to find her kidnapped mate before something even more terrible happened. There was nothing more sacred to a vampire, nothing closer to one’s heart, than a mate. And Sophia had trusted Eleanor to save Colin, to bring him back home. It was time to do her fucking job.
She forced her attention back to Lucifer’s interrogation.
“Who is it?” Lucifer was asking, his knuckles stroking Fiona’s cheek gently, before he cupped her fragile jaw in his big hand. “Tell me, Fiona,” he commanded softly, but not so softly that Eleanor couldn’t hear the force behind the quiet words.
Big fat tears rolled down the woman’s cheeks, dripping over Lucifer’s fingers. “It’s his tattoo,” she whispered, and then choked out a single, loud sob.
“The pendant, you mean. It’s based on a tattoo,” Lucifer said, and Eleanor could hear the satisfaction in his voice. “Where?” he asked, the single word uncompromising in its demand.
“On his hand,” Fiona said, crying so hard now, that the words came out on a hiccup of sound.
Lucifer exchanged a triumphant glance with Eleanor, before turning back to his witness. “And what’s his name? Your lover,” he said quickly, clarifying the vague question. “The one who gave you the necklace.”
Fiona had stopped crying, stopped doing anything. She slumped over the table, her head hanging low, her hands clutching her forehead, staring at nothing. “Kevin,” she said, her voice hoarse and exhausted. “Kevin Russell.”
“Kevin Russell,” Lucifer repeated, looking at Eleanor to see if she recognized the name. She shook her head. The name meant nothing to her. “Where’s Kevin now, sweetheart?” he asked the woman gently.
She rolled her head on the palms of her hands, seeming too tired to do anything else. “I don’t know. I swear. This wasn’t his idea.”
“What wasn’t?” Lucifer asked coyly, but with an edge of cruelty that Eleanor had never seen in him before. It made her stomach tighten painfully, and she wasn’t comfortable with his interrogation anymore. He was forcing the woman to betray the person she loved, perhaps to his death, if Lucifer needed him dead in order to get to Colin. And he was doing it casually, as if it meant nothing. Just another piece of the puzzle, another step in the hunt that would end with Lucifer’s victory.
“The kidnapping,” Fiona said dully. She looked up suddenly, giving Lucifer a pleading look. “They offered him a lot of money, because he worked on the tunnels. You know, like putting in the walls and stuff.”
“The tunnels. Is that where they’re holding the prisoner?”
She nodded, shuddering with fear. For herself, and her lover. “I think so. But I don’t know exactly where, and Kevin hasn’t been back since they took him.”
“You said they gave him money. Who’s ‘they’? Give me a name.” Lucifer wasn’t seducing anymore. There was no kindness, no persuasion. It was a demand for information, and if he liked what she told him, he might let her live. He didn’t say the words. He didn’t have to. Some part of the human woman’s genetic memory, some instinct buried so deeply she didn’t even know it was there, understood. Her life was on the line, and Fiona wanted to live.
“Chase Landry, but . . .” She sucked in a tentative breath, as if afraid to say whatever came next. Her eyes widened, and her pupils, already dilated with fear, nearly drowned out her irises completely. “They’re vampires,” she said quickly. “Kevin and Landry, and probably some others, too.”
Lucifer tilted his head curiously. “Well, that makes sense.” He glanced at Eleanor once again, asking silently if she knew either of the vamps Fiona had given up. But she shook her head. This was Darren Yamanaka’s home ground. He was the one who’d know the names, know the vampires. That was his job. He should have been the one standing here, questioning Fiona, leading the effort to save Colin. His complete absence spoke louder than any accusation about his involvement.
“My lady will know,” Eleanor said quietly, then tipped her head in Fiona’s direction. She wanted to ask a question. Lucifer nodded.
“Did Kevin ever talk about someone named Darren?”
Fiona shifted her attention to Eleanor, eyeing her up and down, the way some women do. Scoping out the competition, deciding if they can be dismissed as a serious contender. Whatever she found in Eleanor, it made her sit up straighter in her chair, thrusting her breasts out to good advantage, while she ran her fingers under her eyes to remove any mascara that had gathered there. Eleanor could have told her it was way too late, that she was sporting a pair of raccoon eyes that would need a hell of a lot more than a quick swipe of her fingers. But she wasn’t feeling particularly charitable toward the woman, so she said nothing at all, simply flashed a hint of fang to let the human know what she was dealing with.
Fiona blinked in surprise, but her survival instinct was in complete on-mode by now, so she nodded eagerly. “Kevin talked about him. Darren Yama-something. Japanese, I think. He’s a vampire, too, but way more important than Chase. I think he might even be Chase’s boss.”
Eleanor sighed. She wasn’t exactly surprised that Darren was involved. But it still shocked her that he could have betrayed Sophia so badly. That kind of disloyalty, a violation of every oath he’d made to Sophia as his lord . . . Eleanor simply couldn’t imagine it. She looked up and met Lucifer’s questioning gaze, nodding to indicate she was finished with the woman.
“Thank you, Fiona,” he purred, stroking the woman’s cheek in a gentle caress that made Eleanor want to snatch his hand away. “You can go now. And if anyone asks, you told us nothing about the kidnapping, nothing about Kevin or his friends. Because you don’t know anything about that, do you, sweetheart?”
Fiona shook her head, an innocent smile on her face. “Kevin told me not to say,” she confided sweetly. “So I can’t tell you.”
“Of course, not. I understand. You can go back to work now. Maybe stop in the restroom to fix your makeup first, a
ll right?”
Her smile widened in relief as she stood up, brushing her hands over her blouse and along the sides of a skirt so tight that Eleanor didn’t know how she managed to walk. Fiona gave Lucifer a final flirtatious glance, and then with a little wave of her fingers hurried out the door.
Eleanor waited until the door closed behind her. “Was that wave your idea, too?” she asked sourly.
Lucifer laughed. “Oh, no. That was all Fiona,” he said cheerfully, but quickly sobered. “So you don’t recognize any of those names?”
“I know Darren Yamanaka, but the others?” She shook her head. “Sophia should know them, though. Maybe not Russell—he seems low on the ladder—but she should recognize Chase Landry if he worked directly with Darren.”
“Even if she doesn’t know him personally, she sure as hell can still track him down quickly enough. He’s a vampire; she’s his lord—assuming he’s Canadian. She can reach out and touch his heart if she wants.”
Eleanor swallowed. She knew that was true. She remembered the night she’d taken her blood oath to Sophia. Her heart had seemed to stop beating for a moment, and she’d been afraid she was about to die. But then she’d felt Sophia’s power flowing over and around her, and she’d known she was exactly where she was supposed to be.
“It’s late,” Lucifer said, gathering up the few files he’d brought with him. “We should get back to the hotel, but first . . .” He studied her from across the room. “Do you need to feed, Elle?”
She found herself blushing, which was stupid. And it was Lucifer’s fault. Being around him left her feeling off-balance, not herself. She needed some distance. She needed privacy. Who cared if he was right; she was hungry. But the very last thing she needed was to go on a blood run with Lucifer Scuderi. Whether it was a club or a dark street corner, the very act of feeding was far too intimate to share with him.
His gaze darkened abruptly. “Stop doing that,” he snapped.
Eleanor scowled. First, he had no right to snap at her like that. He wasn’t her boss; he was barely an acquaintance. But secondly . . . “Stop doing what?”
“Acting human. It’s not necessary. We’re vampires, we can be vampires, and fuck whatever the humans might think.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she said, her own anger rising to meet his.
He studied her silently. “You were doing it last night, too,” he said. “The longer you’re with me, the more . . .” She watched realization darken his eyes even further. “Is that why you left me?”
She didn’t want to answer that question. She’d spent the last twenty-three years avoiding those answers, and she had no intention of letting Lucifer change that now.
“You’re right,” she said abruptly, and started for the door. “I need to feed. I’ll update Sophia, and then I’ll see you tomorrow night.”
“Eleanor!”
His voice chased her down the hall, but she pretended not to hear, doing what she did best. Running away.
LUCIFER PACED THE main room of the suite he shared with Eleanor, watching the windows, waiting for her to return, feeling the heat of the impending sunrise in his bones. She should be back by now. She was young by vampire standards. She wouldn’t be able to remain awake much past the first swell of the rising sun. Perhaps not even that long. It depended on how much vampire power she had packed into her tight little body. He could have checked that easily enough, but he hadn’t, because he didn’t want to push too hard. Logically, he knew she must be strong, because she was Sophia’s bodyguard. It helped that she was a woman, but Sophia would never have agreed to the assignment just because Eleanor was female. If she wasn’t up to the task, she wouldn’t have the job, no matter how much Sophia liked her personally. In the final analysis, vampires, especially the truly powerful ones, were coldly practical. They made the hard decisions, weighed lives in their hands like so many pennyweights every single night. Power was great, but power brought responsibility with it, the need to do what was necessary, rather than right or convenient. He understood this. Those same instincts flowed in his veins, too. It was what would make him a lord someday, with a territory of his own.
But right now, those instincts were telling him that Eleanor had some power of her own, something she tried to hide when he was around. Hell, it was more than just hiding her power. It was almost as if she was pretending not to be a vampire at all. He was surprised it had taken him this long to recognize what she was doing, but he’d been distracted by the fact that she was here at all, that she was alive.
Unfortunately, now that he’d discovered that Derek had lied and Eleanor hadn’t died back in New Orleans, he was beginning to suspect why she’d run. And there was nothing he could do to change it. No, not true. There was nothing he could do to change the fact that they were both vampires. But he sure as hell could demand to know why she thought it made a difference.
His head swung toward the double doors as a distant ding announced the elevator’s arrival. He heard Cal Christensen, and then he sighed in relief at the sound of Eleanor’s voice returning the human guard’s greeting. She was back in time; she was safe. But it was too late for the conversation they so needed to have.
Moving quietly and swiftly, he slipped into his bedroom, pushing the door nearly shut just as he heard the hallway door click open. Eleanor’s soft footsteps paused for a moment inside the main room, and Lucifer could picture her standing there, her big blue eyes first searching, and then closing in relief to discover he’d already gone to bed. A moment later, she hurried through the living area and into her private half of the penthouse, shutting the heavy doors with a firm click.
Lucifer smiled. She was safe, and that was all that mattered for tonight. But tomorrow was another sunset, and Eleanor was forgetting one thing. He was older and stronger, and he’d be awake much earlier than she would. Which meant that when Eleanor emerged from her bedroom tomorrow night, he’d be waiting. And at long last, there would be nothing but truth between them.
Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada
SOPHIA GLANCED out at the waiting limos as her private jet rolled to a stop on the wet tarmac. It rained a lot in this part of Canada. What had possessed Lucien to establish his territory in such a cold, wet place? He easily could have ruled somewhere in South America. He’d had the power. She missed South America sometimes, with its balmy heat and slow nights. Or maybe she was missing the freedom she’d had when she’d lived there, rather than the place.
She looked away, studying the vampires onboard the aircraft with her instead. She touched each of them in turn, a light touch there and gone, nothing they’d have sensed. But she was driven to test their loyalties these days. It was becoming an obsession. It was becoming a problem. She’d had no indication that any of the people closest to her were disloyal, none of her Vancouver staff. Someone had betrayed Colin and set up his abduction, but that had been in Montreal, far from her headquarters and her personal security people or advisors. It was insulting to all of them for her to suspect otherwise.
And yet she couldn’t seem to stop herself from doing exactly that.
One of the pilots unlatched and opened the jet’s heavy exit door, then pulled it open to admit a wave of cold, wet air. Sophia sighed.
“Welcome home, my lady,” someone said.
Sophia looked up at the unexpected greeting. Or rather, not so much the greeting as the person saying it. “Danika,” she acknowledged, concealing her surprise. The tall, slender vampire with her white blond hair was well down the ranks of Sophia’s security personnel here in Vancouver. So why was she the one meeting Sophia’s plane?
“Where’s Tambra?”
Tambra Laws was one of the few Vancouver vampires whom Sophia trusted implicitly. This was largely because Tambra was Sophia’s own vampire child. When she’d responded to Lucien’s call to return to Vancouver near
ly two years ago, she’d had no children of her own and hadn’t particularly wanted any. For that matter, becoming a vampire lord hadn’t been on her radar either. Then Lucien had died, and left her in charge. But not before fucking up everything. She’d inherited all of his problems and his people, with no popular base of her own. She was sure that most of Lucien’s people supported her, if for no other reason than that they depended on her to keep living. But the only way for a vampire lord to be absolutely sure of her people’s loyalty was to fill the inner ranks with her own children.
Great. As if Sophia had had nothing else to do over the last year and a half except searching for suitable candidates and creating new vampires. It wasn’t something she could do on a whim. She couldn’t simply point at humans on the street, and say, “I like the looks of that one. Let’s do him.”
Her vampire children would be bound to her for life, just as she’d be bound to them. And a vampire’s life could be a very long fucking time. She didn’t want a bunch of assholes hanging around forever, just because she’d been feeling needy.
She had managed to make a few children, but they were scattered across her very large territory. Tambra was one of the few who resided on Sophia and Colin’s estate in Vancouver, in the barracks, which were far more elegant than the name implied.
When Sophia had left Eleanor behind in Montreal, she’d fully expected to have Tambra by her side in Vancouver. Keeping her temper in check . . . for now . . . she gazed up at Danika, and waited for an answer.
“Tambra’s in Calgary, my lady, dealing with that business over the human trespassers on the Calgary compound.”
Sophia knew the case, but she’d thought the hearing was still some weeks away.
Danika saw her frown and intuited its meaning. “The hearing was moved up. We barely had any warning.”
Lucifer (Vampires in America: The Vampire Wars Book 11) Page 9