“If Madame Celeste is smart enough to try something during daylight…” Caleb measured off the miles to New Orleans.
“Which she never has been,” Jean-Marie reminded him yet again.
“We’ll call in Hennessy’s oldest pair of compañeros from Dallas if there’s serious trouble,” Ethan said firmly, sliding the keyboard out of sight.
“It’s more important our only pair of cónyuges are on the same shift,” the alferez mayor reasoned. “Gray Wolf has to work nights, which means you’re there, too.”
Caleb hesitated.
“You know damn well two cónyuges, even if one’s a compañero, are damn near unbeatable in a duel,” Jean-Marie drawled, deliberately keeping his voice calm. “With Beau and Devol—Madame Celeste’s top two assassins—here in Texas, we need the two of you as our strike team, ready to stop any trouble those assholes might start.”
“Shit, I know it’s the only way,” Caleb muttered, throwing up his hands. “But there’s no guarantee we’ll succeed, especially if Beau and Devol work together. It’d be different if I was a vampiro.”
“Giving us two experienced duelists and cónyuges—both of them with vampiro speed and strength? You couldn’t wish you were a vampiro half as much as I do.” Ethan snorted and started double-checking his revolvers. “But it won’t happen in time for this fight.”
“Takes a minimum of two years to make a vampiro,” Jean-Marie confirmed, double-checking his knife sheaths in preparation for departure now that Caleb had agreed.
“Yeah—but first, Gray Wolf has to agree to let Don Rafael turn me into a vampiro.”
Ethan flinched.
Jean-Marie whistled, not quite glancing at the alferez mayor out of the corner of his eye. “Oh ho ho, is that the worm in the apple?”
“Yeah.” Caleb slammed down his hands, propelling him into movement. “Hell, we’re cónyuges! He knows down to his bones how completely I’m committed to him.”
“But only Don Rafael can create vampiros in Texas.” Jean-Marie quoted the Texas esfera’s first law.
“Yeah—but there’s no way in hell Gray Wolf will let me near Don Rafael’s bed, even if it’s only for a few months during La Lujuria while I become a vampiro. Despite the fact it’d give us immortality together.”
“Shit, you are in a mess,” Ethan agreed, coming up beside Jean-Marie. His voice was a shade too hearty.
“I tell you, I’m jealous when I look at some of the couples who’ve pulled it off—Eli and Sam, Gregor and Anders…On the other hand, unlike the fellows who prefer girls—at least I’ve got hope Gray Wolf will change his mind one day.”
Beside Jean-Marie, Ethan was immobile, hard grooves carved into his face.
Jean-Marie winced. Agonizing though it was, at least he’d buried Hélène and knew he’d never find the same heart’s ease with anyone else. He wasn’t someone desperately in love with a woman. He didn’t have to pray Don Rafael would reconsider one of his famously immovable decisions and permit a lady to become a vampira in Texas.
NORTHERN SCOTLAND
The small plane burst out of the fog, catching sight of the landing pattern only at the last moment. Hélène automatically planted her feet firmly, bracing herself for the coming steep descent and screeching stop. Despite the decades the British Secret Service had used this isolated station, they’d never bothered to lengthen the runway. Supposedly, poor facilities deterred detection.
Right, just like an empty wallet improved creativity and everyone needed to be toughened up to do a good job. Her mouth tightened.
The plane bounced, and she flung her arm across her sleeping seat mate, making sure he wasn’t harmed. But his all-too-even, painkiller-assisted breathing never changed. She sighed, thankful for one small favor.
They’d lost two of her team’s eight people during this last mission. No matter what the official report would say, she and the rest knew the true cause—exhaustion. Too many missions, coming too close together, had left too little time to rest and learn the ways of the new enemy. Damn those hard-pushing, shortsighted bureaucrats to hell!
Three of the remaining five had privately told her they didn’t plan to reenlist, while the other two were already slated to become instructors. Her team was wiped out—and they’d been the best of the best.
The outcome might have been different if the damned Secret Service still permitted a mix of vampiros and compañeros, instead of demanding only vampiros and prosaicos. Compañeros’ greater stamina and lifespan permitted greater skills and longer missions, as had been proven during both world wars.
And by dearest, dearest Jean-Marie…
But, no, the penny-pinching accountants had ruled out compañeros, calling their pensions too expensive.
Damn fools. They could have at least looked at how those American patrones were using compañeros as warriors and future vampiros. Texas’s Don Rafael, in particular, was a vicious fighter ruling an enormous esfera. He’d only incorporate compañeros into his men’s ranks if they were effective.
She growled under her breath. The plane’s engines screamed while it fought to land, echoing her opinion of the bureaucrats.
Duncan glanced sideways at her. Probably wondering why she was visibly angry, instead of her more typical icy calm.
The plane brought itself to a stop, and the lights came up. Its passengers unfolded themselves from their team, silently gathering their duffels with the ease of long practice. Hélène went down the stairs first, expecting to find someone from London to give them passes home. Duncan brought up the rear, using his strength to ease the injured.
Fog wrapped itself around them, barely bothering to reveal an architectural abomination’s sullen lights squatting next to the tarmac. Diesel fumes touched the air, along with jet fuel. Somewhere in the distance, waves beat relentlessly upon the land, a reminder of tides’ inevitable success.
“About time you made it back.” A tallish man, on the shady side of thirty, shoved his thinning blond hair back from his forehead. “There’s a coach waiting to take you lot in for debrief. After that, the chief wants to start planning the next mission.”
Two of her men groaned, very softly.
Hélène’s hackles rose at the fool’s tone. Another of those stupid prosaico bureaucrats, who thought he was powerful because he was one of the very few who knew about vampiros.
It was past time for Whitehall to learn what a treasure her people were. If that meant doing without them for a while, the lesson could start immediately—before anyone else died.
The only sure way to give her team a break was to remove herself, since they were trained to work with her—the rare and dangerous firestarter.
“Any questions?” asked the young bureaucrat, stomping his feet in a futile attempt to warm them.
“What’s the magic word?” She smiled at him sweetly.
“What?” His brows snapped together.
“The magic word that will make me want to take my people on this mission.”
“What the hell are you talking about? Of course you have to do this!”
“I don’t have to—and neither do they. You see, my contract with the British Crown ends when I can walk in twilight—which now I can. So time’s up, and you have to convince me to accept a new mission.”
“That’s insane.”
“No, that’s a fact. You can look it up in your own archives. It gets better, too.” Tossing in an American colloquialism was delicious fun—it made his face turn even redder, his neck swell, and her people glow. “Since every team member is trained to work only with one vampiro, not as individuals—if I don’t go, they don’t either. At least not until they’re retrained, which takes time.” She goaded him a little more. “I’m still waiting to hear that magic word…”
He came out of his stupefaction with a roar. “By God, I’ll have you arrested for treason!”
“Try it and every other vampiro in Britain will come after you, starting with the vampiros mayores.” That home truth was ed
ged with steel. “Do you have a fine speech for me?”
“Of course not!”
“In that case, I bid you au revoir.” She bowed slightly, never taking her eyes off him. “Come along, friends, we’re taking that vacation they promised us a year ago.”
She entered the building’s dubious warmth, and the others followed, never looking back at the gobbling bureaucrat.
She’d have to make sure her people were taken care of next, before she rested.
But what could she do after that to heal? Make more money?
She harrumphed softly and barely refrained from rolling her eyes. Nothing had ever distracted her from missing Jean-Marie. She’d even tried the wildest debauchery.
What else was there?
Her beloved house in Oxford and the simple life she led there, filled with books, intellectual challenges, and dreams of sharing her discoveries with Jean-Marie.
For brief diversions, she could go shopping in London. She’d always enjoyed the hunt for the perfect dress, although not as much as little Celeste had. It would at least be better than sitting at home, wishing Jean-Marie was cuddling her again.
Celeste brought the monitors up with a practiced hand. It suited her to let the world believe she was solely interested in power, carnal pleasures, and shopping, while being bored with technology. Only Georges—the one man in the world she utterly trusted—knew how completely she could observe every word and gesture which occurred in her New Orleans headquarters.
She certainly hadn’t told Beau just how closely she watched him. He’d already been an experienced assassin and a vampiro mayor when he’d emerged from nowhere to help Ivan the Terrible five hundred years ago. All of Russia’s subsequent rulers had claimed his services over the following centuries, keeping him hidden in that icebound land until the Berlin Wall had fallen. He’d made his way here a few months ago, claiming remarkable sexual prowess. Surprisingly, he’d had the skills to match his boy toy looks and had soon earned a regular place in her bed—but only when Georges was present. She wasn’t enough of a fool to close her eyes near a man obsessed with killing Don Rafael, especially when he quite possibly had the strength and skill to do so. She’d fought too hard and too long for her esfera, loved New Orleans too much, to risk it all on momentary ecstasy with a blond slut.
Only Don Rafael, dammit, was worth remaking her world for. The wealthy patrón who’d smiled at her on that Mardi Gras and treated her like a lady. And created such surprises for her infinite pleasure. How could she forget what an incredible beauty he’d been in the bedroom? Who else could spend so much time, find so many ways to love a woman’s clit with his tongue? Or the positions he knew for taking a woman from behind? Mon dieu, she’d never expected to come so hard when not seeing her lover’s face!
Who could wonder that she’d called him her stallion and craved him? Measured every other man against him? Dreamed of him for decades?
Until he’d cruelly, stupidly rejected her and signed his own death warrant.
Celeste owned an entire block in New Orleans’ Warehouse District, an easy walk from the French Quarter. An enormous, deliberately gaudy casino on the first floor and a nightclub on the second floor lured in hordes of tourists with their King Bacchus theme, providing regular meals for her cachorros. Like most young animals, they lacked both taste and discretion. Visiting idiots were therefore the perfect offering, since they lacked the sense to avoid obvious traps like a casino and wouldn’t discuss their humiliation after they returned home.
She personally usually looked for tidbits among the world’s beautiful people, where they fought for invitations to the private club on the third floor. With both Beau and Georges in Texas, she’d long since exhausted her other hijos’s ability to interest her, let alone bring her lusts to a wonderfully hot, angry edge just this side of a murderous rage.
Her fingers flew rapidly over the control panel, keying in commands. The great monitor hummed into life, its green power light reflected in her dressing room’s mirrors and the highly polished armoire, where she kept the precious mementos of France.
She’d ordered the fashionable club to be kept extra busy, and her men had done well. Beautiful, half-naked, male and female prosaicos sweated to display their charms on the dance floor under ever-changing lights. A bar covered one wall, above which shadow dancers flexed and intertwined lasciviously. She could almost smell the musk rising from their audience.
The private booths were immense, the seats actually circular beds barely screened by floor-to-ceiling shimmering curtains. The walls were covered with pale golden woods, on which flashed an ever-changing montage of past Mardi Gras celebrations. She’d removed all photos of the one Don Rafael had attended, of course.
Drugs and alcohol were common, an easy ploy to ensure her vampiros were always under her thumb. Vampiros, feeding off prey who believed their emotions came from a bottle, were predators eating a weak diet and therefore desperate for a richer meal—like their patrona’s blood. They always begged so prettily to come to her bed.
She began to scan the crowd, her long, red fingernails curling over the joystick. Who should she take to her bed tonight—a prosaico or a vampiro? Or a mixture? Probably several, since she was so very hungry.
“Quel canon!” she cooed, zooming in on a stunning blond vampiro. He was gorgeous enough to make her forget Beau’s attractions for at least a few days, even if his features had more of a knife-edged beauty than Beau’s angelic perfection. He was muscular, too, moving with the easy grace of somebody who’d earned his strength through daily work, not conquered it in a gym. He definitely had potential. Still…
“But are you strong enough to enjoy my kind of pain, mon brave?”
Behind her, Raoul’s eyes narrowed from where he watched in her boudoir mirror.
Jean-Marie stood at attention with Ethan, Luis, Gray Wolf, and Caleb in Rafael’s office at Compostela, inwardly gagging at just how close the afternoon’s attack had come. A woman and her three very young children had nearly died. And for what reason? Because their names exactly matched those of Rafael’s long-dead family. The warning that a terrorist would strike Rafael’s nearest and dearest whenever he chose could not have been clearer.
It was no wonder that Rafael was furious—but that didn’t make enduring his reprimand any easier. Steel shutters covered the windows against the sun, and a small spotlight picked out Rafael’s knightly sword above the fireplace mantel.
“It does not matter what you thought, Ethan, or you, Gray Wolf,” Rafael continued, his anger still dangerously raw. “The enemy penetrated into the heart of my lands, something you said was impossible. He injured my people—innocent people—solely because of their likeness to me.”
“My humblest apologies, patrón.” Ethan prostrated himself, something he hadn’t done in decades. “It will not happen again.”
“Bien,” Rafael all but snarled, gesturing him up. “And you, Jean-Marie, your networks should have done better than this.”
“Mille pardons, patrón.” Next time, he damn well would provide advance warning of Beau’s approach.
“Take the men away from guarding me and set them to hunting these devils.”
What the hell?
Everyone began to talk at once.
“Throwing more men into hunting for Beau will only cloud the waters. Mesnaderos are warriors, not spies,” Jean-Marie countered, terror for his creador and oldest friend boiling up. Dammit, he knew they hadn’t done the job Rafael needed by preventing the attack. But this?
“We already have plenty of men hunting for them,” Gray Wolf argued, his voice deepening in a rare sign of imminent rage. “To add more men means taking away from—”
“That’s a trap! It’s exactly what Madame Celeste wants us to do,” Ethan shouted.
“Risking yourself like that is foolish, Don Rafael,” Luis snarled, directly disagreeing with Rafael for once. “It won’t help the prosaicos or the esfera if they lose you.”
Curses spilled i
nto their logic.
“¡Sí!” Rafael roared.
They snarled and growled but reluctantly fell silent under the weight of his glare.
Jean-Marie silently berated himself for his own failure, his jaw tightening. He was a diplomat and a spy, not material for a patrón. He couldn’t help shoulder all of his oldest friend’s burdens, especially since they’d never talked as equals. Not with four hundred years between them and those two centuries of torture Rafael had endured.
Nom de dieu, the burdens Rafael carried! It was no wonder the man lost his temper sometimes.
“We must stop them, no matter what. The penalty for failure is death, mis hijos. You do not like my punishments—but you will hate those doled out by the enemy more.”
A boot heel struck wood floor, instead of carpet, in the great room just outside, and the assembly fell silent in shock. Definitely not one of Luis’s well-trained servants—but a woman?
“Doctora O’Malley?” Rafael called. “Please come in.”
A woman, Rafael’s amante, perhaps, since the step didn’t sound and smell like any of the prosaicas from the comitiva. But here at Compostela? Impossible.
Everyone inside the office turned to face the newcomer, grabbing for their politest masks.
“Doctora,” Rafael began a formal greeting.
Still dusty and sweaty, reeking of horse and deathly ill dogs, a tall, red-haired woman tossed her Stetson onto the hat rack, strode past everyone else without a second glance, and wrapped her arms around him.
Rafael choked with laughter and hugged her close, his body promptly curving into a protective, loving embrace.
She’d approached him as an equal, and he’d greeted her as one. Sara had offered Rafael something similar, an affection born of shared decades of pain and companionship. But they’d never been peers, not like this.
For the first time in his long life, Jean-Marie openly gawked. In three centuries, he’d seen his creador enjoy the charms of many women, but they’d always been well-polished females. What the hell did this one offer to keep him so fascinated? He couldn’t guess.
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