“You heard him,” Bel said. “In 1942 he flew up and down the coast inspecting military fortifications. Today he could only hop onto the roof.”
“Oh. What about you, Kos? Can you fly?” Pedro asked.
“No. You have to be an old vampire before you are strong enough to fly. And I left the homeland very soon after turning. I will never fly.” He said it too matter-of-factly, his way of hiding his feelings.
The gray light of dawn peeked over the horizon as they entered the house. Andre said to Bel, “It’s clear we are significantly diminished. We can’t fight them. What do you suggest we do?”
“I’d like to call in my soldiers,” Bel said.
“Vampires?” Andre asked.
“Some, and others with unique talents. They could provide a measure of protection day and night. There are a dozen of them.”
“Yes. Call them right away,” Andre said. “Of course we’ll pay your usual rates.”
Bel flinched, and his shoulders sagged.
His son’s mannerisms were too much like his own for Andre not to notice. Bel was in a position to help him, and Andre had stolen his thunder, not on purpose exactly, but on instinct. A part of Andre wanted to engage in their usual pissing contest and insist he didn’t really need Bel, but it seemed wiser to give in. One of them had to start acting like an adult if things were going to change between them.
“Bel, I’m grateful for your help. We’d probably be packing our bags tomorrow without you here.”
Bel nodded. “I also think you and Kos should start drinking the wine. As much as you can tolerate. Let’s see how much strength it will give you.”
Andre had been so focused on how to share his success with his brother and sister vampires that he hadn’t considered how much he needed it himself. This time the praise came easier. “That’s a good idea.”
“I agree. I’ll even enjoy taking this medicine,” Kos said.
Chapter 13
ZOEY LET HERSELF DOZE IN BED much later than she would have at home. The yellow room invited the luxury in a way Zoey’s bare white walls did not. The morning sun poured in through the windows she had left uncovered and warmed her on the bed, as did the memories of Andre. Her skin began to flush. She wondered what would happen when she saw him. Would it be awkward? Would he be affectionate with her? She didn’t doubt his desire, but she couldn’t guess how he would act on it.
She grew restless thinking of him, no longer enjoying the bed. After a quick shower, she pulled on cotton slacks and a white blouse.
As she stepped out of her room, Andre’s door opened at the end of the hallway and Ally, the pretty bookkeeper, stepped out. She straightened her clothing, her skin flushed just like Zoey’s had felt only minutes ago. There was only one thing she could have been doing in his room that would have left her looking that way. Zoey stared, mouth agape. Mr. Quick Fuck was at it again.
As Ally exited Andre’s room, the man himself was revealed behind her in the doorway. When their gazes met, she turned toward the stairwell. Ally was several steps behind her, but her footsteps sounded on the hallway leading to the south wing of the house as Zoey continued on to the kitchen.
Her heart pounded, and she wanted to hide. What was this feeling? Embarrassment? Disappointment? Whatever it was, she didn’t like it. But one thing was abundantly clear—she wasn’t numb. She should give him credit for that. Andre Maras had stirred up plenty of forgotten feelings in her, even if they were unpleasant. Unlike the base physical responses Ethan elicited from her, these feelings twisted her nerves and churned her stomach.
She tried to rally her sense of dignity and walked into the kitchen. Some of the women who worked on the estate were seated around the table. Yesterday, Pedro had introduced her to the cook, a housekeeper, and the winery’s administrative assistant. Now, it appeared that Lena was holding court.
The women turned toward her, and she had the strange feeling they had been talking about her. What could they possibly be saying? No one uttered a greeting or offered her a cup of coffee. They simply stared. Zoey set her jaw and walked toward the coffee maker to help herself.
She pulled a barstool up to the kitchen counter and sipped her coffee, trying to ignore the awkward quiet. She was halfway through her mug, and still no one spoke. Being the odd one out was perfectly fine—she preferred to keep her distance from people. Being the object of scorn—that was different. The fraught silence exacerbated the yucky, unnamable feeling in her stomach.
For some reason, it put Zoey at ease when Susan came into the kitchen. She quickly saw the household staff seated around the kitchen table.
“Shame on all of you,” Susan whispered, loud and clear. At full volume Susan continued, “Lena, Andre just called me with a message for you. He wants me to take Zoey wine tasting today and asked that you prepare her a nice big breakfast. She’s drinking, I’m driving.”
Zoey was surprised to hear he had given the instructions. “I don’t think that’s a good idea.”
“He said you’d resist. He wants you to go tasting to get a feel for the competitors. He gave me a list of six wineries, several wines each. Lay down a good base to soak up the alcohol. Lena, she’ll need eggs and toast. Oh, you made fried potatoes,” she said while lifting the lid off a pan. “Perfect. Fruit, Zoey? Lena’s got beautiful berries in the fridge. And here’s some sliced melon.”
Stunned, Zoey sat down on her stool and sipped coffee as Susan piled her plate with impossible amounts of food.
After devouring all her eggs and some of her potatoes, her stomach revolted at the thought of another bite. Susan must have sensed that she was upset. She hovered nearby, like Zoey’s personal cheering squad in the clean plate competition. When she crossed the finish line, Susan swept her up quickly and led her outside and into a new model Mercedes coupe.
“It’s Andre’s. The car is so tiny, I think he must have to fold himself in half to fit in it.” Susan chuckled at her own joke.
Zoey didn’t want to talk about him. “Hmmm.”
“…and Rock Fall, their Zinfandel is supposed to be very good,” Andre said into the phone. “That’s six wineries. Plenty to fill a day. I’ll call ahead and let them know you’re coming.”
Kos entered his bedroom as Andre wrapped up his instructions to Susan.
“Sounds good,” she said.
“Susan, I can’t thank you enough. I’m afraid I’ve seriously offended her.”
“I’ll smooth things over for you, don’t worry. If she’s in the kitchen now, I better go rescue her—Lena’s got her claws out. Bye.” She hung up before Andre could reply.
“Lena’s claws?” Kos asked.
“Don’t ask me.” Andre set the phone down hard. He would finish getting dressed, go to his office, and order that new bottling machine.
“What was all that about?”
“Zoey saw Ally leave my room just now. She looked…” Andre stared into his closet.
“You’re worried you hurt her feelings?” The bed squeaked as Kos sat down. “Damn, Andre, you’ve got it bad.”
He pushed the worries over what shirt to wear out of his mind, closed his eyes, and blindly grabbed the first in reach—stripes. Fine.
“I’ve got it under control,” he said, turning to look at his son.
Kos raised his eyebrows as if he intended to challenge the assertion. Andre bared a sliver of teeth. He had tamed his animal instincts to be nearly invisible and had taught Kos to do the same, but sometimes it was just easier to snarl than to speak.
“I’m sure you do.” Kos backed down from the challenge with a hint of sarcasm, squinting at Andre. “I have to admit, I don’t really understand the problem—just sleep with her.”
Unbuttoning the shirt off the hanger gave him an excuse to look away from Kos. “I can’t—I’d bite her.”
“So bite her. I’m sure she’d like it. They always do.”
Andre barked out his reply. “Kos, I just can’t!”
A quick gasp told him Kos fi
nally put the pieces together. “You think you’d bond with her?” His tone was so gentle it completely disarmed Andre.
He sat next to Kos on the bed. “Yes. I can’t keep my hunger for her blood and my…desire…separate. She’s the first woman I’ve really wanted since your mother—”
“How did it happen so fast?”
“I don’t know. It was the same with Mila. Within a day of meeting her, I wanted her beyond all reason.” And there had been the little blond boy she always had in tow, who was equally irresistible in his own way. It had been a bad match from the start, and he would have spared himself centuries of pain if only…
If he had resisted his desire for her, there would be no Bel, and Kos would have never become his son. He would not trade them for anything—at least now. In the worst of his torment, if he’d had the choice, he might have wished them out of existence. Squeezing his eyes shut, he stopped what-iffing. What a terrible father he was.
“But how do you know you’d bond with her?”
Andre tensed at the words, sitting up straight. “Davo. I should have explained this to you long ago.” No one had given him the vampire birds and bees talk. He owed Kos better.
“Give yourself a break. You’ve explained. Many, many, times.”
Andre wiped his brow.
“But how do you know for sure?” Kos continued. “Blood and sex always go together—”
Andre’s voice came out a whisper. “Since your mother’s death, I have been cured of that particular association. The constant torment of being ripped apart cell by cell will do that to you.”
“I was scared the severed bond would kill you,” Kos whispered back.
“Many times I wished it would.”
Kos patted Andre’s back sympathetically. “I know, Father. I know.”
Andre suspected he wasn’t done with his questions about Zoey, but it was time to change the subject. “What did you want anyway?”
“What?” Kos replied.
“Why did you come looking for me?”
“Oh, right. Just wanted to tell you Bel arranged things with his crew and went to stay at my place.”
“Good, that sounds good. I’ll be in my office all day if you need me.”
When he woke up, Lucas surveyed the meager supplies in the dilapidated kitchen of Hunter headquarters. In a rotten mood from a night’s sleep on the floor, he became more irritable when he found there was no coffee in the house. He called Ethan.
“They are eating oatmeal from envelopes for three meals a day up here. Bring me a goddamn cup of coffee.”
“Hello, Lucas.” Ethan laughed. “Thriving in your native environment are you? I’m only half an hour away. I’ll stop now, looks like the last chance for a coffee. Funny how every ten-person town in Northern California has at least one espresso bar.”
“Yeah, funny.” Lucas knew he did not sound amused.
“See you soon.”
Ethan pulled up in his sports car half an hour later with a large cup of coffee for his brother. The first sip of milky coffee tasted like heaven, and the caffeine fix it promised was a godsend. Instantly, Lucas relaxed, shedding the thick skin he’d been wearing. Just having Ethan there made him feel less alien among the Hunters.
The brothers walked back into the house together to the master bedroom, which Stephen had claimed as the command center. Mick and Stephen stood at a makeshift table they had assembled with shipping pallets. Both men shook hands with the new arrival, and Lucas stiffened at the friendly pat Stephen delivered to Ethan’s shoulder.
Lucas turned to his brother. “The initiates are restless and looking for action, but I don’t want to pull out Zoey and storm Kaštel Estate with guns blazing. I’m still hoping she’ll call us with some useful intel. Have you spoken to her?”
Ethan took out his phone and looked at the screen. “Only briefly, no news.”
“So, I suggested to Lucas that we kidnap someone from Maras’s household to keep the initiates occupied,” Mick said. “We may get intel that way too.”
“Who do you have in mind?” Ethan asked.
“Whoever we can get our hands on.” Stephen answered Ethan’s question, but he stared directly at Lucas. A shudder started at the base of Lucas’s spine, causing his whole body to tense. It was the shudder of sympathetic pain, as if he had seen someone else get injured. Only then did the kidnapping victim become real to Lucas. Plan B was a real person, a woman with hopes and dreams, soon to be at the mercy of sick creeps like Stephen and Mick.
Chapter 14
AT EVERY WINERY, Susan simply flashed her Kaštel Estate business card and they received generous hospitality. The wine and the VIP treatment began to relax Zoey.
They wound down a narrow highway shaded by redwood trees until they arrived in Guerneville, where Susan bought them both an ice cream. At a table in the shade outside the ice cream shop, Zoey asked, “What was that all about in the kitchen this morning? I don’t know how I have made all the staff hate me in less than twenty-four hours.”
“Oh, relax. It’s not everyone. It’s just Lena. She can tell Andre likes you and she’s jealous.”
“Well, she has nothing to fear. I’m not interested in becoming a part of his harem.” Zoey spooned a bite of strawberry ice cream into her mouth.
Susan licked her spoon clean. “What do you mean?”
“I saw that pretty bookkeeper leaving his room this morning. They obviously weren’t going over the books.”
Susan laughed.
Confused, Zoey tried to explain. “If Lena is jealous of me, I’m guessing Andre must be sleeping with several of them, maybe all…” She set her bowl down. “Wait, are you sleeping with him too?”
Susan wagged the spoon at Zoey like she was a naughty child. “No, I’m not. And neither is Ally. I know that’s what it looked like to you, but I also know for certain that’s not what happened.” She scooped chocolate ice cream onto the spoon and swallowed it. “Ally is my girlfriend; she’s not into guys.”
Zoey felt her forehead crease with doubt.
“I’m serious. Andre has a medical condition, it’s not my place to tell you more about it—you’ll have to ask him. But, Ally helps him out with it sometimes. Most of the staff is trained to help him with his condition.”
“Really? You’re sure? She looked rather…ravished.” Zoey stared into the empty ice cream cup, embarrassed she might have assumed incorrectly about Andre.
“Ravished? That’s funny. Yes. I’m completely certain.” Susan scraped the last bit of ice cream for her cup.
Zoey was almost convinced. “But then why would Lena be jealous of me?”
“She wants him for herself and she’s mad that he wants you instead.”
“I’m not sure he does.”
“I am. I noticed the way he was looking at you and the way he was not looking at you yesterday in the kitchen.” She glanced up, her look knowing.
Zoey tingled all over, her skin heating. Susan’s words pleased her too much.
“And he asked me to take you out tasting today. He’s not a jerk, but he’s not exactly considerate either. You know, he called ahead to each of these wineries. I expect he called in some favors.”
“Really?” The possibility made Zoey’s heart flutter.
“So what about you?”
“What do you mean?” Zoey asked.
“Do you want him?”
Zoey tilted her head. “He’s very attractive.”
“That’s not my question.”
“I don’t know. I thought I didn’t want to be with anyone, but we have a connection that I haven’t felt in a long time.”
“When did you feel it before?”
“With my husband.”
“Oh.” That seemed to catch Susan off guard, and she stopped asking Zoey personal questions. “On to the next stop?”
“Sounds great,” Zoey replied.
Ally and Pedro met them for dinner. It cleared up Zoey’s last doubts about Ally and Andre to see her with
Susan. From the way they leaned their heads into each other to the way they finished each other’s sentences, it was obvious they were totally in love.
“Pedro, what’s your opinion of Kaštel’s current marketing strategy?”
“Strategy?” Pedro blew air from between his lips. “There is no strategy. Andre makes damn good wines. To the extent they sell, they sell themselves.”
“But you advertise some. In magazines and online.”
Ally leaned over the table and spoke in a stage whisper. “Don’t tell that to Andre. You’ll get us in trouble.”
“What do you mean?”
“He forbids it.” Pedro laughed. “Honest to God, Andre refuses to use the Internet.”
“But I’ve seen the Kaštel Estate website.”
“It’s awful. Kos and I built it. Andre doesn’t know.” Pedro’s laughter grew deeper.
“It’s true.” Ally giggled too. “I buried the costs in the accounting books.”
Their laughter was contagious, but as Zoey joined in the mirth, the story seemed odd. Pedro made Andre sound like a grandpa and not a strapping hunk of a man that she wanted more than she ought to.
It was a rare warm evening and Pedro enjoyed the feeling of the air rushing past him in his open jeep. Pushing down the gas pedal, he hoped he didn’t get pulled over for speeding. He turned on Miles Davis and the sultry blues horn solo led his thoughts straight to Lucas. Those golden eyes, hooded with desire, and that serious mouth turned hungry were proving hard to shake.
The wind moved over him like a lover’s touch, caressing his arms and feathering through his hair.
Hard not to wish things were different. Zoey didn’t seem like much of a threat, so maybe Lucas wasn’t as bad as Andre thought. If everything just blew over, he could call the guy—have, like, a date.
Yeah, right. And then he would exfoliate four layers of skin so that Andre didn’t accidentally rip his throat out.
He pulled up to the cottage and turned off the ignition. Something felt wrong. He scanned the bushes around the house, looking for anything unusual. That was when he noticed his front door was slightly ajar. Had someone been here and gone? Or were they still inside? Pedro reached into his glove compartment and pulled out his trusty pistol. Nothing would teach a guy to be ready to defend himself like school yard beatings for being joto.
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