Deadly Is the Kiss

by Rhyannon Byrd

  At least, that’s how she was with everyone but Ashe. He didn’t know whether he should feel special…or like a total jackass.

  Ashe had contacted Gabby not long after his Burning had begun, swearing her to secrecy before asking for her help, though he wouldn’t even tell Gabby the identity of the woman who’d started the change in his body. She’d told him the same thing that everyone else had, claiming that there was no cure for the infuriating phenomenon. But after he’d practically begged, she’d offered him a new concoction she’d been working on. She hadn’t made any promises, but it’d been Gabby’s belief that the special blend might lessen the effects of the Burning for him, and so he’d been taking it religiously every day.

  “Before you think of running off with him,” he advised Sybil, who was currently eyeing Knox’s ass as he headed back to his office, “I should warn you that his longest relationship with a woman lasted little more than a half hour.”

  Sybil arched her brows as she settled her onyx gaze on him, sliding into one of the chairs at his table. “So Knox has a short attention span, hmm? Sounds like a typical guy.”

  With a snort, he said, “Women are just as bad, Syb. If not worse.”

  Her laugh was deep and throaty. “Gods, Ashe. Has anyone ever told you that you’re a cynical ass?”

  “Believe it or not, I get that a lot.” Which wasn’t entirely true. Over the past year, he’d actually done his part to ease several misunderstandings between his male friends and their women. Despite his own crap experiences, he’d seen enough happy couples among his friends and family to know that not all relationships sucked. He’d seen love and devotion and happiness. But that didn’t mean he could ever take such a risk for himself simply because of the Burning.

  Forcing his attention back to Sybil, he watched as she reached into a pocket in her silk pants and drew out a small glass vial filled with a clear liquid. “I know this isn’t much,” she said, passing the vial to him. “But it’s all Gabby could make on such short notice.”

  “Tell her I’m going to need more,” he said, slipping the vial into his pocket. “I’m going to double up on the doses because it isn’t working.”

  The witch eyed him with the shrewd gaze of a scientist. “How do you know?”

  His words rumbled in his throat like distant thunder. “I know because I still want to get inside the woman more than I want to breathe.” Though both Gabby and Sybil knew that he wanted the concoction to reduce the effects of his Burning, neither woman knew the identity of the responsible female, and Ashe planned on keeping it that way. Which was why he’d warned Juliana to stay up in the room, and had forbidden Knox from mentioning her name to Sybil.

  The witch studied him for a moment, her head cocked a bit to the side, her dark eyes swirling with shadows and light that could have made him dizzy if he stared at them for too long. Just when he was about to demand to know what the hell she was doing, she crossed her arms on the table and gave him a careful smile. “Ashe, have you ever considered that your attraction to this woman could be about more than just the Burning?”

  Pushing his knuckles into his tired eyes, he growled what he knew was more than likely a lie and told her that it wasn’t. Only, he said it a lot more colorfully.

  “I wouldn’t be so sure,” she murmured. “After all, the whole purpose of the Burning is to bring two complementary forces together. It’s meant to be fate’s way of joining two vampires with his and her ideal mate.”

  “Not in all cases,” he argued.

  Sybil’s smile was knowing. “There are always exceptions to a rule, Ashe. But you’re a smart guy. I’m sure you’ll figure it out.”

  With those frustrating words, she leaned over the small table and kissed his cheek, told him to give Knox her number, and then made her way out of the bar, leaving him feeling even edgier than before. Taking the vial she’d given him from his pocket, he twisted the cap off and downed two sips of the blend, hoping like hell that it worked.

  Scrubbing his hands down his face, he drew in a couple of deep breaths, waiting to feel some relief. But it wasn’t coming. He was just getting edgier…his tension mounting. The crowd in the bar was starting to pick up, the noise growing louder, grating on his nerves, so he used it as an excuse to do what he’d wanted to do ever since he’d come downstairs, and headed back up to see Juliana.

  He opened the door to their room without knocking, and found her sitting with her legs crisscrossed in the middle of the bed, dressed in a T-shirt and jeans. Her long hair tumbled over her shoulders as she stared down at the dark duvet beneath her, completely lost in her thoughts.

  “I asked Knox to send up some food for you in a little while,” he said, drawing her gaze. He tried to keep his eyes on her face, but failed, his gaze dipping lower, lingering on the way the tight gray T-shirt cupped her breasts, the soft material clinging like a second skin. He knew damn well she wasn’t wearing a bra, the shape of her nipples growing more distinct the longer he stared.

  She muttered something under her breath, then crossed her arms over her chest in a nonverbal message he heard loud and clear.

  Forcing his attention back on her face, he swallowed the lump of lust in his throat and managed to ask, “Are you hungry?”

  * * *

  “A LITTLE,” JULIANA replied, watching him close the door…and lock it. “Can we leave soon?” she asked, her voice trembling with nerves at the idea of being alone with him. “I’m not comfortable here.”

  Which was true. She’d felt ready to come out of her skin ever since she’d awakened from an erotic dream almost two hours ago. One that had her twisting on the bed, a throaty moan spilling from her lips as a stunning orgasm had ripped through her body. She’d felt destroyed, and that was only from “imagining” sex with Ashe Granger. God only knew what the real thing would do to her, and she wasn’t ready to find out yet, too worried she’d do something unforgivably stupid, like fall in love with the sexy vamp.

  A much better plan was to get back on the road and out of this room, away from the bed and the disturbingly vivid memories of that dream.

  “I told you this place is safe,” he said, turning and propping his shoulder against the door. He’d obviously mistaken her nervous tension for fear. “You don’t need to worry. No one will find us here.”

  “So I should just take your word for it?” she drawled, knowing she sounded bitchy.

  With a dark expression falling over his face, he started toward her. “Trust isn’t negotiable in degrees. You either trust me or you don’t, Juliana. There’s no middle ground.”

  “And what about you?” she demanded, glaring at up him as he loomed over her from the side of the bed.

  His voice was deceptively soft. “What about me?”

  “Never mind,” she muttered, sliding toward the opposite side of the queen-size mattress. She moved to her feet and started to pace barefoot on the hardwood floor, her arms crossed over her chest again, only sneaking glimpses at him from the corner of her eye. “Have you learned anything?”

  Pushing his hands in his pockets, he answered her question. “A little. It sounds as if Raphe has been busy these past few months. In addition to destroying another South American cartel that had been giving him some heavy competition, he’s also built four different high-security compounds across Europe. He’s obviously gearing up for something, and it’s making the Deschanel Court nervous as hell, not to mention the Council.”

  It was impossible to miss the derision in his tone whenever he said that particular vampire’s name. Stopping in the center of the room, she slid him a curious stare. “Are you ever going to tell me what your connection is to Raphe Delacourt? Or am I meant to guess?”

  “My connection?”

  “Come on, Ashe. I’m not an idiot. Every time his name comes up, you look ready to rip out his throat. I have a right to know what your association is with him.”

  His tone was dry. “You’re hardly one to lecture about keeping secrets.”

 
; “I’ve told you everything you need to know.” Which was true. Mostly. Minus a few potentially deadly details.

  Getting back on topic, she said, “It’s obvious from listening to you and Knox that you have some kind of history with the Delacourts. I’d like to know what it is.”

  He walked over to the room’s lone window, which looked down on the main floor of the bar, and braced his hands against the window frame, the masculine position doing incredible things to his broad, muscular shoulders and back. Staring out the tinted glass, he gave a tired, drawn-out sigh. “It’s a long, boring story, Juliana.”

  She made a dry sound that could have almost passed for a laugh. “I’ve spent years trapped in the Wasteland, Ashe. At this point, you could recite the alphabet and I’d probably find it fascinating. So you needn’t worry I’ll be bored to tears.”

  His head fell forward, one hand rubbing over his eyes, then shoving back through his short hair. It was clear he was carrying on some kind of internal debate. She waited to see what he would decide, a spark of relief spreading through her insides when he braced his hand against the frame again and said, “Gideon and I have been trying to nail Raphe Delacourt for a long time now, but it isn’t easy. Not when his mama sits on the Council, doing whatever he tells her to do, using her position of power to protect him.”

  “Lenora Delacourt adores him,” she said in a low voice, picturing the lovely, raven-haired vampire in her mind. If ever a woman’s angelic face had hidden a black soul, it was Lenora’s. “She’s the one who ordered my parents’ execution.”

  He spun toward her, his expression one of grim surprise. “What do you mean their execution? I thought they died in the Wasteland.”

  Rolling her lips together, she said, “No. By the time the Council convicted my mother and father of conspiring against them, they were already dead. Lenora Delacourt’s private guards had supposedly killed them by accident when they’d tried to resist arrest. But it was a lie.” She took a deep breath, deciding she could go ahead and give him at least a little more information. “My parents were on their way to the Council with damaging information about the Delacourts when her guards attacked them. They both died at the scene.”

  His stare was dark and penetrating. “What kind of information? What did they have on the Delacourts?”

  Juliana chose her words with care. “They were taking evidence to the Council that proved it was actually the Delacourts who intended to overthrow them.”

  He absorbed that with a quiet curse, then asked, “Did Lenora have the authorization to bring them in?”

  “No. It was all a huge embarrassment for the Council. I mean, one of their own members making an illegal kill against two esteemed vampires. I think that’s why the Council was so eager to believe Lenora’s bullshit story about our quest for power and why they sentenced the entire family line. They wanted us somewhere we couldn’t cause them any trouble.”

  * * *

  AS FAR AS STORIES WENT, this one wasn’t so far-fetched. Ashe had heard tales of the Council doing extraordinary things to save its ass. But he could tell there was more she wasn’t telling him.

  Still, she’d given him something, and he could do the same.

  “Raphe Delacourt killed one of my cousins. His name was Sanders.” Dropping into a nearby chair, he leaned forward, elbows braced on his parted knees, and locked his gaze with hers. “He was a punk of a kid,” he admitted with a wry smile, “but he had a good heart. Gid and I tried hard to get him to join the Förmyndares, thinking a little discipline was all he needed to get his priorities straight. But he…” His voice trailed off as he felt the familiar burn of rage pouring through his system, and he blew out a rough breath before going on.

  “But Raphe got his hands on him, instead, offering him a life that Sanders saw as an easy way out.” His lip curled with a sneer. “Get rich quick, without having to work very hard for it. All the women and drink and drugs he could want. Gid and I started investigating Raphe, looking for a way to bring him down, without the authorization of the Förmyndares. We were still hoping to get Sanders out, hoping we could save him before he ended up serving time for the rest of his life.”

  He paused for a moment, wishing like hell that he had a bottle of whiskey with him. “It was a bad time for us,” he finally forced out, lowering his gaze, watching his hands as he rubbed one thumb into the palm of the other. “Our family’s main nesting ground had been hit at the start of the war last year, and we’d lost so many. Gid and I were willing to do anything to keep from losing Sanders, too. You name it, we tried it. We blackmailed, threatened, even took a shot at acting as if we’d switched sides, trying anything we could think of to take down Delacourt’s operation.

  “Hell, I’d have even taken out Delacourt myself,” he growled, his hands slowly curling into fists, “but the bastard hides behind a damn battalion of private guards, as well as his mother’s protection. In the end, nothing Gid and I did worked. Sanders just got sucked in deeper, and before we knew it, the kid we’d watched grow up was no longer even there. From what we were able to put together, it sounds as if Raphe killed him for becoming a liability to his operation. He’d become a hard user, and started making serious mistakes.” Lifting his head, he stared into her dark eyes as he said, “We finally found his body toward the end of the summer.”

  “I’m sorry,” she whispered, her soft voice rough with emotion. “I know what it’s like to feel responsible for your family.”

  “Speaking of which,” he grunted, clearing his throat as he moved to his feet, “I’ve made arrangements to have extra protection provided for your family at the Sabin compound. There’s a unit from Specs on their way there now. They’ll make sure that nothing happens to your family while we’re getting to the bottom of those assassination orders.”

  She returned his stare with a look of complete amazement, her eyes wide, breaths coming in rapid little puffs that made him think of sex. “I…I don’t know what to say.”

  “You could thank me,” he suggested, doing his best to appear easygoing and relaxed as he shoved his hands back in his pockets. “With a kiss.”

  “I could,” she replied, looking as if she was trying to hold back a smile, her eyes shining with laughter and some deeper, vibrant emotion that made him want to do ridiculous things like grab hold of her and refuse to let go. “But I think I’ll just say thank you, instead.”

  “You’re a coldhearted woman,” he proclaimed with a playful sigh. He was enjoying this easy banter with her, his chest actually feeling a little lighter after telling her about Sanders. In a softer voice, he added, “Cold and beautiful and cruel.”

  She snuffled a quiet laugh as she shook her head. “And you’re too pretty for your own good, when you stop scowling and actually smile.”

  “Pretty?” A theatrical wince twisted his features. “Christ, you don’t call a man pretty, Jules. Not ever. It’s just…wrong.”

  Juliana raised her brows. “Oh, I’m sorry. Is that too feminine? Should I say something like ‘ruggedly godlike’ instead? Is that masculine enough for your fragile ego?”

  “God, you’re a smart-ass,” he drawled, admiring her gutsy personality on so many levels. Despite the strain she was under, she was never afraid to tease or argue or demand. She was the perfect combination of gentleness and strength, of mystery and directness, and it was worrying the hell out of him that he actually liked being around her as much as he did.

  “A smart-ass, huh?” A sad smile hovered on her lips. “So my brother always says.”

  “Micah?”