nightrise

by Nell Stark

  I moved close enough to edge one hip up on the desk. “I want you to have dinner with me.”

  Her smile was triumphant. “Where?”

  If it might be her last human supper, I wanted it to be one of the best. “Jean Georges. When can you leave?”

  “Soon. I just need to call for a replacement here.”

  I settled into one of the chairs in the nearby reception area. “I’ll be waiting.”

  *

  Hours later, Giselle lit a cluster of candles at her bedside while I drew the curtains across her window. Her apartment was small but elegantly decorated—a far nicer place than most receptionists in this city could afford. I wondered if it felt like a gilded cage, and whether she wanted her freedom.

  I sat on the bed and she sashayed forward to stand between my legs. But when she began to undo my shirt buttons, I stilled her hands.

  “What has Helen promised you?”

  Giselle slipped her fingertips beneath my collar and stroked lightly. “She promised to make me one of you, in exchange for my loyal services.”

  Just as I’d suspected. “Did she give you a time frame?”

  Her fingers stilled. “I never dared to ask.”

  I touched her then, cupping her waist and sliding my thumbs along the flat plane of her stomach. Beneath the silken fabric of her dress, I felt her tremble.

  “If you had the power to decide, when would you choose?”

  A tiny frown line materialized on the bridge of her nose as she searched my face. “Now. I would choose now.”

  “Why?”

  She pulled back and walked to her window. Drawing the curtain, she stared out at the small slice of cityscape in her view.

  “I’m young. I’m beautiful. Isn’t it every woman’s dream to freeze herself at this moment?”

  I kicked off my shoes and reclined on the bed. “Not when the price for doing so is eternal darkness and unquenchable thirst.”

  She turned to face me. “I’m not some naïve human who thinks vampires are a pretty myth. I’ve been on the other side of that thirst enough times to understand it.”

  “You can never understand it,” I said softly, “until you’ve felt it yourself.”

  “Then let me. I’m ready. I want this—more than I’ve wanted anything.”

  She sat on the bed and I propped myself up against the pillows. I traced my thumb along the line of her jaw until I reached the corner of her mouth. When her tongue flicked against my skin, I inhaled sharply. She smiled.

  “Helen will be angry with you,” she said.

  “It won’t be the first time.”

  She sucked the tip of my thumb into her mouth and swirled her tongue. I shuddered, desire pulsing between my thighs in time with the thirst that pulsed in my throat. But I had to keep a clear head for a few moments longer.

  “If you do this for me,” Giselle said, “I’ll serve you forever.”

  “That’s not how it works.” I pulled away just enough to cup her face. “You won’t ever be a servant. But you will come and work for me at the bank—or anywhere else I might need you.”

  She rose onto her knees and moved until she was straddling my lap, then guided my hands to her breasts. When I stroked her ever so gently, her body quickened beneath my touch.

  “I will be loyal to you,” she pledged breathlessly. “Always. I swear it.”

  I leaned forward to kiss her, sealing her words between us. When I made my touch firmer, she gasped into my mouth. Within moments, her dress was on the floor, and my shirt and slacks followed soon after.

  I laid her back on the cool sheets and covered her body with my own, exulting in the softness and heat of her skin against mine. I stirred her passion with deep kisses even as I drove her relentlessly toward climax with my touch. For minutes, I held her on the edge of abandon and teased the racing pulse in her neck with my tongue. And then, when her begging became incoherent, I claimed her.

  Giselle’s blood was reminiscent of sweet vermouth, and I drank until my world was sparkling clear and hers went dark. As soon as I felt the slackness in her muscles that belied her slip into unconsciousness, I withdrew my teeth and set them to my own wrist. My skin to hers, my blood joining her veins, my parasite colonizing her cells.

  Once I had ensured the mingling of our blood, I got to my feet and went in search of my phone. I prided myself on being adept at walking the line between leaving my so-called victims strong enough to fight off the parasite, and draining them to the point of death. Still, to be safe, I wanted Giselle to have medical attention tonight.

  After arranging for one of the Consortium physicians to transport her to the hospital wing of Headquarters, I dressed both myself and her limp body. Her pulse remained slow and steady, but I monitored her closely as I waited for the emergency team to arrive. Giselle’s surrender to my touch and my teeth had temporarily sated my thirst and my desire, and now that I could think clearly again, I turned my mind to the intricacies of how I might yank Pritchard’s hedge fund out from under him.

  Within the hour, I was sitting in my office with Bridget where she and I began the process of scrutinizing the spreadsheets Pritchard had sent over that morning. After projecting them onto the plasma screen, she and I combed through his numbers and debated a course of action.

  “There’s no way he can survive for another month on his own,” Bridget concluded. “What do you think of his deal?”

  Pritchard had taken the liberty of including a proposal with his data—a deal to bring me in as a thirty-percent partner of his earnings in exchange for a loan that would allow him to meet his next two quarters’ worth of client payouts.

  “I think I don’t want thirty percent. I want one hundred.”

  Bridget pushed her glasses up on her nose, a small bit of body language that I had learned meant she was deep in thought. She didn’t need the glasses, of course. All vampires had perfect vision. But she claimed that wearing them made her better able to concentrate—some sort of Pavlovian association from her days as a human.

  “We could play stall ball,” she said. “While reaching out to his investors behind his back.”

  I leaned back in my chair and considered her plan. If we pretended to go along with Pritchard’s proposal but deliberately threw up roadblocks to the deal’s closure, we could drag out the proceedings for at least a month. In the meantime, we could contact Pritchard’s investors—all of whom were wealthy individuals who would not enjoy being associated with a bankrupt hedge fund—and persuade them to force Pritchard out of power.

  “I like that idea.”

  When she took off her glasses and smiled, Bridget looked more like the dangerous predator she truly was. “I thought you might.”

  “So tomorrow,” I began, plotting our next moves as though I were sitting before a chess board, “you’ll call Pritchard and propose a counter-offer.”

  “Of course.” Bridget’s eyes twinkled. “The negotiations could take days and days.”

  “Wouldn’t that be a shame.”

  After she left, I decided a celebration was in order. I had likely succeeded in turning Giselle, which would send a message to Helen about just how little I appreciated her interference in my affairs. Now, I had a solid game plan for acquiring a hedge fund while simultaneously avenging myself on my bully of a cousin. Not a bad day’s work. But as I was pouring myself a glass of Macallan 30, Sebastian called.

  “I’m returning your message from yesterday,” he said tersely.

  “How very kind of you.”

  He ignored my mocking tone. “What do you have on Blaine?”

  “His sister is Annabel Surrey,” I said, wondering whether he would make the connection.

  “That can’t be right. Annabel Surrey is one of my half-siblings. We met in—”

  “In August at the Consortium. I know. Apparently, Blaine is her older brother, twelve years her senior.”

  “How is that possible? He’s not a Were.”

  “Are you sure?” I shot ba
ck. “In any case, I’m looking into it. I’ll let you know if I find anything of interest.”

  “Fine. Good.”

  At the beep in my ear, I glanced down at my phone’s display to find Helen’s name blinking at me. Was she already calling to berate me for turning Giselle?

  “I have a call on the other line,” I said, and before he could protest, I had switched over. “Hello, Helen.”

  “Valentine.” Her voice was taut, fairly vibrating with tension. “Are Bai and the rest of the delegation with you?”

  The unexpected question drove any calculated replies from my head. “With me here at the bank? No.”

  “Very well. Thank—”

  “Tell me what’s happened,” I said before she could disconnect the call.

  “They haven’t checked in with their driver, who was supposed to pick them up half an hour ago, and I can’t reach any of them by phone.”

  She did hang up then, and I was left to speculate about their fate to myself. All I could be sure of was that if foul play was involved, so was Balthasar Brenner. Immediately, I called in my head of security, a vampire named Caleb Lee who had been Sebastian’s head vampire bouncer at Luna prior to coming to work for me. As a human, Caleb had been a federal marshal, and he was well connected as a result. Sebastian had let him go with regret after Caleb himself had pointed out that the recent resurgence in tension between Weres and vampires meant that his presence as club security was putting most of Sebastian’s clientele on edge instead of making them feel safe.

  Unlike his shifter counterparts, Caleb was slender and of average height—not the kind of person traditionally associated with security work. But he had five different kinds of black belts, and he moved faster than anyone I’d ever seen—including myself. As he sat in the chair Bridget had vacated, I slid a photograph of Christopher Blaine across my desk.

  “I need you to put tails on this man. They have to be invisible and unshakeable.”

  “Christopher Blaine.” If Caleb was surprised, he didn’t sound it. “He’ll be well-protected. How close do you want me to get?”

  “Close. I have reason to believe that Balthasar Brenner might try to get in touch with him, and if that happens, we might finally be able to get a drop on the bastard.”

  Caleb’s expression never changed, but a telltale flush rose along his neck. He wanted Brenner’s head, and I didn’t blame him. Every vampire felt that way, ever since he had nearly extinguished an entire clan and tried to turn the shifter population against us.

  “This might get expensive,” was all Caleb said.

  I leaned back in my chair and smiled for the first time since Helen’s call. “Then it’s a good thing I own a bank.”

  Chapter Fourteen

  Three nights later, I was in a follow-up meeting with Bridget about the status of her negotiations when Kyle called from the front desk with the news that Caleb needed to see me. Urgently. When I greeted him at the door, his smile was grim and his eyes glittered like mica chips.

  “We’ve got him,” he said as soon as we were alone in the privacy of my office.

  “Brenner? You’ve located him already?” I had never expected a payoff this soon.

  Beneath his triumph, Caleb seemed as incredulous as I was. “In a matter of days, we’ve done what Summers has been unable to do for months. How the hell did you know to watch Blaine?”

  “A hunch. Where are they?”

  Caleb flipped open the file folder he’d carried in under his arm to reveal a photograph of Blaine dining with a tall, distinguished-looking man who appeared to be in his early forties but was actually ten times that age. In every other picture I’d seen of Balthasar Brenner, his long dark hair had been pulled back from his face. In this photo, his hair was loose in a wavy mane brushing the shoulders of a gray suit jacket that managed to look expensive despite the graininess of the image.

  “They’re eating at a very exclusive French restaurant in Georgetown,” Caleb said.

  I looked at the time stamp on the photograph: ten minutes ago. “You’ll shift your tails to Brenner?”

  “Yes. Do you still want anyone on Blaine?”

  “Only if you have someone to spare.” My brain had jumped into hyperdrive. Brenner’s location was almost as much of a Holy Grail as Brenner’s head.

  “I do,” said Caleb. “Who knows? He might lead us to something else of interest.”

  “He might.” Perhaps Caleb’s people would be able to discover for certain whether Blaine was human or Were.

  “Any word on the delegation?”

  Like every other vampire with whom I’d spoken in the past few days, Caleb was concerned about the fate of the missing Sunrunners. They seemed to have suddenly disappeared from the face of the earth. The news had spread quickly, with rumors cropping up in its wake. Most believed Brenner to be responsible. Others thought Helen had angered the delegation and that they had subsequently broken off communication. A few even suggested that Helen had kidnapped them herself, in order to consolidate her power through fear-mongering.

  “No word,” I said. “I think Brenner has them, and that he’s playing cat and mouse with us. The longer Helen has to stew, the more likely she is to feel pressured into doing something desperate.”

  Caleb nodded. “Even more incentive to find his hiding place.”

  “Keep me informed of every change. Every single one.”

  “I will.” In the ensuing silence, he drummed his fingers lightly on the table top—a sign that he wanted to offer me a piece of advice but was concerned about how well I would take a suggestion that hadn’t originated with me.

  “Out with it,” I said, and his smile was rueful when he realized that he had betrayed his tell.

  “Are you planning to go to Foster or Summers with this information?”

  I considered the question. By all rights, Leon Summers should be my first call and Devon Foster my second. They were officially in charge of Consortium law enforcement, and each had made it their personal mission to capture Brenner. They had far more resources at their disposal than I did, but if I turned over this information, they would take charge.

  “Why do you think I shouldn’t?” I asked Caleb.

  “I didn’t say that.”

  “You didn’t have to.”

  He blew out a sigh. “Foster and Summers will want to add their people, and that might spook Brenner. The coverage we have right now is working.”

  “I’ll wait to call them until we have more information,” I said. “Preferably when he’s in a stable location. Not a restaurant—some kind of base.”

  “Fair enough.” Caleb got to his feet, but when he headed for the door, I stopped him with one last question—about the one thing I was never quite able to banish from my mind, regardless of what else was happening.

  “In all this chaos, have you heard anything about Alexa?”

  “Not a thing. But the minute she gets on any plane larger than a crop duster, I’ll know.”

  When he left, I returned to my desk and sipped lightly at my scotch—not to celebrate, now, but to settle my nerves. So much could go wrong with this operation—Brenner could realize he was being followed, or Caleb’s team could lose him. My mind raced as I considered and rejected possibilities, and I soon found myself pacing the length of my office.

  I finally returned to my desk, determined to read through a stack of paper work that had been piling up since the beginning of the week. But instead of serving as a welcome distraction, the work bored me and my mind began to wander, as always, to Alexa. She had been gone for a full week now, and I was starting to regret my order not to have her followed outside the country. My lack of knowledge was a distraction; I needed to know what she was doing, and with whom.

  Thankfully, Caleb called a few minutes later with an update on Brenner: he and Blaine had moved to a club for drinks, and Caleb had replaced their shadows to cut down on the risk of suspicion. His contacts hadn’t gotten close enough to overhear conversation, but they had
witnessed the exchange of a thin envelope from Brenner to Blaine.

  It was just shy of midnight—still early, by vampire standards—but I was too preoccupied to get anything done and would be more comfortable in my apartment. When Caleb’s next call came through, I was lounging in my hot tub and wishing I could be one of the operatives tailing Brenner instead of someone who had to sit on the sidelines getting intermittent updates. But even if I could have hopped on a plane to D.C., it would have been too risky. Brenner and I had never met face-to-face, but I had no doubt that he knew what I looked like; he’d tried to have me killed three times, after all.

  I wasted no time on pleasantries. “Is he on the move?”

  “He was just picked up from the club. The car windows were tinted, so my people couldn’t make out the driver.”

  I sat up so quickly that water cascaded over the lip of the tub. “But you’ve got him covered?”

  “Yes. I’ll call back as soon as we have a fix on where he’s going.”

  When he disconnected the call, I hastily dried off and threw on some clothing, wanting to be prepared for anything. A few minutes later, I received a text that Brenner appeared to be headed to a private airfield in Virginia and that Caleb was pulling strings to get the passenger manifests of every plane scheduled to leave within the next few hours. I checked my watch and muttered a curse; there was no way I could follow him with only two hours until dawn.

  Finally, Caleb called back. “You’re not going to believe this. The only plane scheduled to fly out before the morning is headed to Linden Airport.”

  Linden Airport was a tiny airfield across the Hudson River that catered to the rich and famous who didn’t want to interact with the crowds at Newark International whenever they came to the city. The sudden rush of adrenaline made my ears ring.