He surprised himself by smiling. “Yes, cariño. It will be done.”
“Did he know where the bastard is hiding, by any chance?”
“France. I was right about that, at least.”
“What’s he doing there?”
“Apparently making excellent use of his and others’ talents in pursuit of criminal activities, most of which are aimed at building his fortune. He hasn’t drawn much attention to himself, which is why I assumed he was long dead. Unfortunately, it’s easy to hide in France, because it’s in such disarray. Their current lord has been in power less than a year, and the two before him were both executed by Raphael, who’s the very powerful vampire lord over the Western United States. You may have heard his name, seen his picture. He’s quite the media star, though not by his choosing, I’m sure.”
“If he’s American, why did he kill vampires from France?”
“Because they tried to kill him first, the fools. It’s a long story that I’ll tell you some night when we’re lying in bed exhausted from hours of sex.”
“Hours?” she asked skeptically.
“Vampires have extraordinary stamina. Did no one ever tell you that?”
She laughed and squeezed him tightly. “I love you.”
He stared at her. “I know that, but I never expected to hear it.”
“Oh, well. Don’t get too excited. This might be the only time.”
He shifted his hold, so that he was the one doing the squeezing. “I love you, Layla mine.”
She tipped her head to his, but said, “No mushy stuff during war councils.” Then she kissed him, long and lingering. “You ready to go be a vampire lord?”
“I am a vampire lord.”
“Annnd he’s back. Come on, let’s go kick some fucking sorcerer ass.”
They walked together down the hall to the larger conference room, where the others were already gathered. Layla’s stride was strong and confident by his side, where she belonged. Her heartbeat was a drum in his soul, the scent of her blood inside him, pulsing in time to his own heart. He’d worried for nothing about the strength of their connection. She was already a part of him and they weren’t even truly mated yet.
They reached the open door to the conference room and she paused, indicating he should go first. “My lord.” Her smile was amused, but in her eyes, he saw his own pain reflected. She was putting on a show for the others, but she knew his heart still ached with loss.
He nodded and strode into the room. “Let us begin,” he said, then pointed to the chair next to him. “Sit.” The last was more of an order than a suggestion. Her very presence was a temptation, but today, he needed her close.
She sat without a word, which anyone who knew her would know said more than any words how concerned she was about him. But now, it was time for war. Setting aside his grief, he reminded himself who, and what, he was and faced his military commanders. “As some of you know by now, just before dawn this morning Chuy and I set out to ambush Sakal in his own lair, and found ourselves ambushed instead.”
His military staff, who were hearing this for the first time, reacted with concern tempered by the certain knowledge that he was well and whole, and plotting revenge.
“We had verified intel that Sakal was still at his nearby compound when we arrived at the lair to set up our ambush, so imagine my surprise,” he added wryly.
“Was it magic, Sire?” one of his vamps asked.
“No. Sakal is a strong sorcerer, but even he cannot whisk himself from place to place in the blink of an eye. I’ve heard that there are at least two sorcerers capable of such magic, but they’re living in North America. So they’re Raphael’s problem, not ours.”
Every vampire present chuckled at that, though the humans didn’t seem to get the joke. Probably because they didn’t pay much attention to vampire politics and conflict that didn’t affect them. Layla had spent considerable time in the United States or fighting abroad on their behalf, so maybe he’d explain it to her later.
“The answer was much simpler, as it usually is. Sakal has a brother who is virtually identical in appearance, and also a pathetically weak vampire. But unlike Sakal, he has no magic of his own. If Sakal is to be believed, it’s the brother who’s been most active in recruiting followers, although it was obviously Sakal’s magic that permitted his fighters to approach undetected and seem to disappear when they left. And it was very much Sakal who attempted to kill Chuy and me this morning. I say ‘attempted’ because he obviously failed, and has now fled.”
“Do we know his location, Sire? Is he still in Spain?”
“No, there was . . . one close to us who turned traitor, which is how Sakal was able to time his own ambush to foil ours. Fortunately, Layla Casales”—he gestured in her direction, then across the table to where Brian sat next to Chuy—“and the rest of her team discovered Sakal’s plot in time to get us to safety.”
“A traitor?” One of the commanders repeated, disbelief written on his face. “Sire, who would—?”
“His identity no longer matters, nor does he. However, before I executed him, I scoured his mind for any knowledge he had on the sorcerer—including the location of his current lair. It is in France, but close enough to my border that, knowing he was there, I was able to verify his presence. He thinks himself safe for having fled over the border. He’s a fool.
“I will contact my fellow vampire lord in France. With or without his consent, we will be moving on the sorcerer and destroying everything he holds dear, before I kill him. However, I am confident we will be given leave to cross the border for this purpose, given the circumstances.”
He activated a digital display hanging on the wall to one side of the table. “This is aerial drone footage of the estate where Sakal lives. As you can see, it is remote enough that a nighttime battle won’t be detected by anyone except those who value their privacy too much to intervene. The estate is also separated from its neighbors by several acres.
“Now . . . ” He zoomed into a close-up of the estate itself. “This will be a brutal, bloody, take no prisoners battle. A battle for vampires,” he added, looking directly at Layla and her lieutenant, Brian. Her reaction was exactly what he’d anticipated, but before she could finish a sharp inhalation to power her even sharper protest, he cut her off by saying, “But first, I’m going to request the assistance of our human allies in scouting the location during daylight hours before we go in. Although these images are recent—”
“Acquired how?” Layla interrupted to ask. “And from whom?”
He regarded her for a long moment, not accustomed to being interrupted. She had certain privileges as his lover, and very soon his mate, but it set a bad precedent. Although not really for anyone in this room, except maybe her Brian. “Friends,” he said finally, answering her question. “Reliable friends who own a fleet of drones for commercial purposes, and who are willing to turn them to our purposes instead.”
He raised a questioning eyebrow in her direction, which she returned with an unapologetic shrug, before he continued. “As I said, these images are very recent, but they are prior to Sakal’s recent escape and return to the estate.” He paused. “Layla? Brian? Can we count on your assistance?”
She seemed surprised at his question. “Yes, of course. After yesterday, we all want that asshole dead. What do you need from us?”
He eyed her with some amusement, though strove to keep it off his face. She deserved respect as a military leader, just as much as he did. “Scouting. Before finalizing our attack plans, I want the latest information on defenses and troop placement, including vampires. Your people should be able to catch the first vampire movements as evening settles, and before we can get there. There are also human guards for daylight security, which you can see in the footage. I expect they’ll fight for him, night or day.”
&n
bsp; “What of the sorcerer’s magic, my lord?” Xavier wasn’t surprised when Chuy asked the question. After all, he’d been with Xavier earlier when they’d both almost died as a direct result of Sakal’s magic.
“I am, luckily, immune to sorcery and human magic,” Xavier said, looking around the room. “I was too complacent, too certain of my facts, when we entered Sakal’s lair this morning. That was my ego, my failing. It won’t happen again.”
Xavier paused long enough to sip from a small glass of warmed blood and wine Chuy had placed in front of him. Then he zoomed to a detailed close-up of the estate. “Layla, Brian, this is what I’d like you to do . . . ”
TWO HOURS LATER, Xavier’s blood hunger was a living thing inside him. He hadn’t felt this way in such a long time that it had taken him a moment to reason out why he was not only hungry but could feel the edge of exhaustion creeping into his muscles. It was the fight in Sakal’s lair, compounded by the sorrow of Joaquim’s treachery that had drained him. What he wanted more than anything at this moment was to drag Layla to his bed and spend the rest of the night feeding and fucking. The combination would leave him fully restored and at the peak of his power for tomorrow’s battle.
“Remember, gentlemen—and lady,” he said, hoping it would signal the end of the meeting. “We will surround the fortress discreetly as soon as it’s practical after sunset, and move as one on my command. Rules of engagement . . . we spare any humans who do not threaten our fighters, whether they were previously combatants or not. We’re not in the business of slaughtering humans. That said, if they do threaten our people, they will be killed. And, of course, every vampire is fair game.” He looked around, careful to meet the gaze of every person at the table. “Questions?”
When no one spoke up—much to his relief—he said, “Departures will commence by helicopter at one hour past sunset for my vampires. Layla, if you’ll provide”—he stopped before he could speak Joaquim’s name—“Chuy with your preferred departure time and any equipment you’ll need, he’ll arrange for a helicopter and a human pilot to be ready for you. Once sunset is past, all pilots will be vampire. For now, all of you should find what rest you can. The next time we meet, it will be war.”
As the others stood, gathering papers or electronic devices, he said, “Layla?”
She gave him a private half-smile and said something quietly to Brian, who glanced at Xavier, then nodded his agreement and left. She strolled over to join him as Chuy followed the others out of the room and closed the door, leaving the two of them alone.
First, there was one more piece of battle planning that he needed to bring up with Layla. Looking down at her, his hands on her arms holding her body away from his so he wouldn’t be tempted before he’d made a final request, he said, “I didn’t want to say this in front of the others, since I’m not sure how many are aware, but I wanted to ask you something. You mentioned your Kerry has some magical sensitivity.”
“She does.”
“I’d like her to use whatever skill she has to detect any magical defenses Sakal will have deployed over the estate. He’s not powerful enough to cast an overall defensive shield—”
“What about the shield that kept you trapped in his lair? Wasn’t that a defensive shield?”
“No. First, it was a contained space, especially compared to an entire estate. And it was also indoors, which is more defined and easier to control, or at least that’s how magic works in my experience. I’m also told by those who understand such things that few sorcerers are capable of casting several spells at once and Sakal isn’t one of them. And before you ask, he must have been preparing his ambush for me for a long time.”
“Okay. What if he waits until the battle starts tomorrow night to cast any spells?”
“He won’t. Again, he can’t cast several at once, so unless he is planning to use all of his power on a single trap—which is a risky proposition in war, as you well know—he’ll be working tonight to lay as many spells as he can. His people escaped with him just before sunrise, which means he slept through the entire day, so he should be fully rested.”
“All right. I’ll brief Kerry before we leave, which should be midday. We’ll want to assess the situation before we move in. But now . . . ” She went up on her toes and kissed him. “It’s time for you to rest and replenish.”
He gripped her arms and, pulling her up to her toes, sank into the kiss. Her lips were so soft, her mouth so warm as his tongue stroked along hers, until desire had his fangs pressing against his gums for release, and he had to lift his mouth lest he slice the delicate skin of her lips. Because once he tasted her blood, even a single drop, he wouldn’t stop. She’d be naked and spread out on the conference table in seconds. Unable to forego the taste of her altogether, he kissed her neck, her throat, while she spread her hands through his hair and wrapped her arms around his neck.
He pulled back, wanting her breasts in his mouth, and ready to rip apart the long-sleeved T-shirt she wore, until a voice from the hall outside the closed door reminded him this wasn’t his office. He stopped and set her on her feet, then took her hand, opened the door to the hallway, and tugged her back to his office. He didn’t stop there, but walked through the office to his bedroom, and farther, crossed to where a thick tapestry hung on the wall. Reaching behind it, he keyed in a ten-digit code, followed by his thumbprint on the reader.
Layla uttered a surprised, “Oh!” when the wall split along a previously invisible seam to reveal a set of stairs going downward.
Xavier pulled her in behind him, scanned his entire hand to close the door, then led her down two flights of stairs to yet another door, which opened to a second scan of his hand and a ten-digit code. That door opened in turn to reveal a short, silent, and dimly lit hallway that went nowhere, except to his private vault. One more biometric scan, this one of his eye and five fingers together, and he was pulling her inside before the door had finished its slow swing open. Still holding her hand, he shoved the heavy door shut, locked it with the same double scan he’d used to open it, and then turned to study her.
AS SOFT LIGHT slowly filled the room, Layla realized they were standing in another bedroom. A much bigger bedroom than the one upstairs, with a huge bed and very little else in the way of furniture. She’d had no idea that this place even existed. Hell, that this level even existed. She turned back to Xavier, to ask him about it, but found him studying her with the utterly focused gaze of a predator who’d just caught himself a tasty rabbit.
As if reading her thoughts, his lips curved into a lazy smile, while his eyes filled with a muted silver light, as if reflecting the gleam from another source. She didn’t have to look around to know there was no other silver light, that this was a physical manifestation of Xavier’s power, unique to him alone.
“I’ve never seen you really use your power, before today, with the door,” she said, realizing it was true. Oh, there’d been the telepathy he used as casually as if everyone possessed the talent, and she knew he could heal horrible, even fatal wounds on others as well as himself. But she’d never witnessed an explosion of his vampire magic, never seen him— what the hell—never seen him stop a train, for example. Or anything equally dramatic and impossible. And yet, when they were close, when he was relaxed the way he was now, she could feel his power simmering just below the surface, like a static electric charge on her skin that was so strong it actually made the hair on her arms stand up.
“Most people don’t want to see me use my power. They don’t want to risk the chance that I’d be using it against them.”
She closed the few inches of space between them, until she could slide her arms around his waist. “But I’m not most people, am I?”
He gripped her upper arms and yanked her even closer, until her breasts were crushed against his chest, her thighs pressed against his, and . . . . “Oh fuck,” she whispered, as the bulge of his
straining cock pushed right between her thighs.
“I can feel your heat,” he murmured back to her, his breath warm, as his tongue explored the curve of her ear, dropped to nibble at the earlobe, and then farther yet as he sucked the skin of her neck and throat hard enough to leave a trail of bruises, before sliding his fingers under the fabric of her T-shirt and shoving it aside so he could kiss her bare shoulder. She was still shivering under the sensual onslaught when he gripped the hem of the shirt with both hands and stripped it off over her head so fast that by the time she registered what he was doing, he had the front closure of her sports bra open, and was pushing it off her shoulders, until she was bared to his gaze.
“Xavier,” she said in what she meant to be a protest. She was sure it started out that way. But when he ripped off his own shirt to crush her against his gorgeously naked chest, she could only hum with pleasure at the delicious sensation of her soft breasts against hard male muscle, puckered nipples scraping the thatch of dark wiry hair that thinned to a narrow trail before disappearing into a pair of black, low-slung jeans that barely managed to hang on his hips and showed off the tight oblique V that seemed to point directly at his bulging cock.
“Layla,” he breathed against her skin before his teeth closed over the delicate arch of her clavicle, hard enough to break skin.
Years of fighting had warning bells going off in her head, telling her that he could snap her fragile bones with a single bite. That with his strength, he wouldn’t even have to put much effort into it. She silenced the damn bells without a care. If she knew one thing in this world, it was that Xavier would never hurt her. Not physically. Her heart though . . . .
The pain when he’d broken her young heart ten years ago was nothing compared to what he could do now, in this moment, this time they had together. But despite knowing that, she couldn’t make herself step away, couldn’t ask him to stop, to let her go.
Xavier: Vampires in Europe (Vampires in America Book 14) Page 31