by Michele Hauf
Vail winked at her, and she noticeably swooned.
Mortals. They were too easy.
Hawkes was on the phone, and gestured him inside the sparely furnished, large corner office.
Swinging by the bar, Vail nabbed a goblet of the expensive wine and sucked it down. It tasted like fruit warmed by the sun, but could never match any faery vintage.
He walked to the window that wrapped the two corner walls of the office. Spreading out his arms, he felt the sudden daring desire to jump through the glass, to discover the exaltation of flight. Despite growing up in Faery, the closest he’d come to flying was a raging orgasm. Not to be disregarded on the list of adventures one must constantly pursue.
Yet any attempt at flight would result in a vampire smashed on the tarmac—not dead, but aching and damaged for weeks, surely. He’d save it for desperation.
Rhys Hawkes showed his age with sublime protest. Pushing three centuries, Hawkes had told Vail his hair had once been black with a gray streak striping one side. Now it was gray with threads of black here and there. His harsh European bone structure battled for notice but the man’s whiskey eyes were always what garnered observation.
The man was the father of Trystan Hawkes, Vail’s brother. Vail and Tryst had the same mother, Viviane LaMourette. He and his brother had been born on the same day; Vail first, then Trystan not two minutes later.
They were not twins.
Vail’s father was a vampire who had once been Rhys Hawkes’s nemesis—and his brother.
Viviane LaMourette was all vampire—bloodborn in the sixteenth century—but also insane.
What a twisted web woven through this family’s history, Vail thought with a mirthless smirk. Made for interesting coffee table talk, if one owned a coffee table. Well, he did own the coffeemaker.
Mortals and their curious habits.
Vail had never met his father. He would, as soon as he could get Hawkes to cough up information on how to find him. If anyone knew where to find Constantine de Salignac, it had to be his own brother. Yet Rhys had been evasive the first time Vail had begged the information from him.
Vail needed to see the man who had driven his mother insane. To look into his eyes, and to know whether or not his own eyes were the same. And then? Well, then.
Hawkes hung up and gestured for Vail to sit on the other side of the sleek stainless-steel desk before him. The man wore a comfortable gray sweater and dark jeans, and a silver wedding band on his left hand. He looked more Aging Rock Star than Vicious Half-Breed.
“I’m pleased you’ve come. It’s been months, Vaillant. How are you getting on in the mortal realm?”
Vail slouched onto the chair and propped an ankle across his opposite knee. He shrugged fingers through his hair, liking the scrape of the iron rings he wore on most fingers against his scalp. He noted Hawkes zoomed in on the rings.
Cracking a lazy grin, he tilted his head. “I’m assimilating. But it’s got nothing on Faery. So what’s up, Uncle?”
“You feel ready to visit your mother yet?”
Hell, not this scam again. Vail leaned his forearms onto his knees and shook his head.
No, he’d never met his mother. He was too freaked to know she was literally a loony after his father had buried her in a glass coffin under the city of Paris for over two centuries. Rhys had told him the tale when he’d first visited.
What was even freakier? Thanks to a warlock’s spell, Viviane LaMourette had been kept in a stasis for those centuries, alive and aware, yet frozen.
But the freakiest thing yet? She had been pregnant before being buried alive, and the stasis had also affected the embryos in her womb. She’d given birth to Vail and Tryst nine months after Rhys had finally found her in the twenty-first century. Two hundred and twenty-five years after she’d been buried.
Talk about a long gestation period.
He eyed Hawkes. Did the half-breed look hopeful? What was it with the paranormal breeds in this realm? They were all so…emotional.
Vail should have never left Faery. Not that he’d had much choice.
“A visit to my mother is not on my radar.”
Rhys tilted his head, nodding with weary acceptance. Vail could smell the man’s feral nature, and it reminded him of open fields dotted with summer blossoms, edged by verdant forest. And he could see a faint, red, ashy aura surrounding him, which proved there was vampire somewhere inside the man.
“That all you want from me, old man?”
“What’s that stuff?” Rhys pointed to Vail’s eyes. “You go out to a nightclub last night?”
“I do the clubs every night.” Vail smeared a forefinger under his eye, smudging the black ointment he wore. “It’s for the faeries. I need to be able to see them.”
“Hmm.” Hawkes nodded. “I suppose.” But he could never understand why.
When a mortal wanted to see a faery they smeared an herbal ointment around their eyes. When a vampire wanted to see one in the mortal realm, he did the same. The magical, mythical elixir never worked for mortals. It worked for Vail because he’d come from Faery and knew the right ointment to use—the ingredients could only be obtained from a sidhe healer.
“Makes you look like a rock star with a heroine addiction,” Rhys commented.
“I have no addictions,” Vail said, but was ashamed his voice faltered on the word addiction.
“Right.” Rhys leaned back in his chair, assessing Vail to the very marrow. A certain faery, Mistress of Winter’s Edge, had utilized the same assessing gaze on Vail. He had never liked that look, and so openly defied the man by stretching back his shoulders and looking down his nose at him.
“I need you to come to work for me,” Rhys said, repeating the same words he’d spoken the last three times he’d phoned Vail.
“Not this again—”
“This time it’s different,” he rushed out. “No office work. No pickups. This is a recovery mission. Actually, it’s a private investigation thing.”
Vail lifted an eyebrow. He had no such skills. “You lose something?”
He glanced to the wall where a large safe door hung open. The firm stored smaller items here in Rhys’s office, with a massive storage area in the basement of the building, which was entirely owned by Hawkes.
Inside the safe were priceless artifacts, totems, magical objects, currency in all denominations (and from all centuries), and other collectibles. Hawkes Associates was a security house for the paranormal nations, and took in objects of value and stored them for as little as a week or as long as centuries. If you were an immortal, it was a good thing to have a storage facility that would be there as you walked through the centuries. This Paris office was one of about half a dozen locations all over the world.
“As a matter of fact, something was stolen from us about a week ago. But that’s not the assignment. Well, it is, but not.”
“Don’t have time for this, old man, just spit it out.”
“Charish Santiago, kingpin for a splinter group of vampires unaligned with any tribe, wants me to find her daughter. She’s been kidnapped.”
“You want me to track a missing vampiress?” Vail thumbed his chin. “You know I don’t do vampires.”
“Yes, you can’t stand them. And yet you are one. How does that work again?”
“They disgust me.” Vail leaned forward. “They are weak, reek of mortal blood, and are unworthy of regard.”
Rhys sighed heavily and tapped his fingers on the desk. They’d had this conversation before. Vail didn’t need to convince the man of his prejudices. Hell, he knew it was a ridiculous prejudice. But when a vampire was raised in Faery, he developed certain dislikes, and vampires were one of them.
“What if I told you this mission isn’t going to benefit the vampires, but rather Faery?”
“I don’t get it.”
“A valuable Seelie court gown was also taken, along with the vampiress. Her name is Lyric Santiago. Seems she was wearing the gown at the time because she was abo
ut to hand it over to the Unseelie prince, or some dark lord—I don’t recall his title.”
“Lord of Midsummer Dark?”
“Yes, that’s him. I believe Zett is his name. You know him?”
The muscles strapping Vail’s jaw tightened. Zett had been his nemesis since childhood. But Vail had had the last laugh before being banished from Faery months earlier. Zett had been outraged. Heh.
“Ever wonder where the title Vail the Unwanted came from?” he tossed out.
Rhys nodded. “I see. So you don’t like the guy.”
Vail blurted out a huffing chuckle. “To put it mildly.”
“More reason to help me recover the gown.”
“And the vampiress?”
“Yes, her, too. But it’s the gown I’m focused on. Up until ten days ago, that gown was in the safe here in the office. We’d taken it in from the Seelie court as a means to cleanse it of some dark sidhe vibes. Something like that. I don’t understand it, only that it needed to be in the mortal realm a fortnight. They intend to reclaim it after that fortnight. Which is marked four days from now. Someone stole it from me, and I’ll give you one guess who that someone was.”
“The Santiago clan?”
Vail had heard the name muttered in the dark nightclubs as a connection to deeds even he could not fathom. The Santiagos were old-school vampire mafia, a self-styled tribe that followed none of the legitimate tribes’ ways. Thieves, cutthroats and murderers populated their ranks.
Vail avoided tribes—he didn’t require any modicum of family, no matter the form—but most especially he avoided the vampires.
“So why steal the thing, then put it on her daughter and hand her off to the Unseelie lord?”
“I’m told she was merely trying it on, and had intended to take it off before the exchange. I’m guessing the gown was leverage for something.”
“Not the daughter? What, is she ugly and has a snaggle-fang?” Vail chuckled to imagine a vampiress with such an affliction.
“She’s known as the ice princess, and I’m told she is stunning. Well, I’ve a picture here.” Rhys thumbed through a row of files in his bottom desk drawer and tossed a photo across the desktop to Vail. “I’m not sure what sort of deal was made between Santiago and the Midsummer darkness—”
“Lord of Midsummer Dark.”
“Yes, whatever. All I know is I need to get that gown back before the Seelie representative returns for it. The sidhe are the last nation on this earth I want to piss off.”
“You are not a wib, old man.”
“I don’t know Faery speak.”
“It means you’re not stupid.”
Vail leaned forward to glance at the photo. He wasn’t about to touch it—that would show too much interest—but then he did. Bright white teeth. Brilliant whites surrounding blue eyes. And long ribbons of white-blond hair. She was a stunner. And he could appreciate a gorgeous woman.
But not a vampire.
“So how is this not helping the vampires?”
“You find the woman and retrieve the gown,” Rhys explained. “We give the woman back to her mother, but—oops, we couldn’t retrieve the gown. The mother is happy to have her daughter back. And I have the gown in hand, ensuring the Seelie court is pleased with my work.”
“And Zett is left empty-handed.”
“Exactly.”
Vail thought about it. Why would a faery lord make a bargain with a vampire? Vampires stayed away from faeries because their ichor was addictive, and faeries generally regarded bloodsuckers as unclean and not worth a glance.
Something didn’t figure.
“You in?” Hawkes prompted.
“No.”
Vail stood and shoved a hand in his pants pocket. The pants were soft and well worn; buckles circling one thigh hung unbuckled here and there (though most of the unbuckling had been done by random women). So he was still wearing last night’s clothes. Sue him.
And yeah, he probably did look like some drug-addicted rocker, but he couldn’t deal with how vamps in this realm tried to appear similar to mortals just to fit in. Had to be exhausting.
“Vail.”
“I know the drill,” he rambled off quickly. “You need to do something with your life, Vaillant. You can’t walk about pissed at the world because you didn’t grow up with a mother and father. When will you claim your rightful power? You’re bloodborn! You could be so powerful in the vampire community! Did I get all that right, Hawkes?”
The man nodded.
“What power?” Vail challenged. “You say both my mother and father are bloodborn? Well, where is he? How am I to win this power without challenging him to what you say is mine?”
“Vail, Constantine is—”
“I know. A vicious old vampire who harmed you irreparably and drove my mother insane. Why didn’t you kill him when you had the chance?”
Hawkes lifted his chin, his lips compressing. After a moment’s heavy silence, he said, “He is my brother.”
“Right. Blood being thicker than water, and all that crap. Tell that to your son, who likes to slam me around every time he sees me. Blood means nothing. I know you think keeping my father’s whereabouts a secret from me is a means to protect me, but it’s not, Rhys.”
“I don’t know where he is!”
“How can you not?”
“It’s a long story.”
“Well, find him. I need to face him. I need to see where I came from.”
“The son is not a product of his father, Vail. You are what you were raised to be.”
“A fucked-up vampire who inhales faery dust like cocaine and wouldn’t touch one of his own kind if you paid him?”
“You still do dust?”
“No, just ichor.” It kept him alive. Mostly. “It is my breath. Without it I die.”
“It keeps you in a haze, Vail. You’ve never taken mortal blood. How do you know you will not like it? It would clear you. Only then will you see what you can become. Only then, can you claim the strength that is yours.”
Vail snorted. “I think I saw that movie. Use the force, Luke!” He shook his head and stomped toward the door. He’d known this visit would result in more of the same bullshit.
“All right!” Rhys called. “If you find the Santiago woman and return the gown safely to Hawkes Associates, I’ll tell you everything you want to know about your father.”
Vail paused before the glass door and pressed the silver toe of his boot against it, testing its strength until he heard the glass creak in the hinges. “All I want is an address,” he said.
“Done,” Rhys offered. “I’ll start looking for him immediately.”
Vail glanced over his shoulder and met the man’s tired gaze. Constantine de Salignac was Rhys Hawkes’s half brother. They too shared the same mother, but different fathers, though Rhys had been born ten years after his vampire brother.
The man had lived what Vail was now enduring. He knew what could hurt, harm and irreparably change Vail. Rhys just wanted to keep him safe.
Screw safety.
Vail wanted one moment with Constantine de Salignac. That was all he required to shove a stake through the bastard’s heart.
“Deal,” Vail said.
CHAPTER TWO
VAIL EXAMINED THE cleanly cut edge of the glass window. Charish Santiago stood behind him at the door, quietly observing. Her presence echoed louder than her voice. The bold red flower in her oddly poufed hair, the bright red nails and lips, and that short flounced white skirt screamed slutty vampire.
Slutty vampire who headed an evil clan of thieves and murderers, Vail corrected his thoughts. He was so not going to give her another glance.
Something more precise than a glass cutter had been used on this window, but he guessed the device had been silent, allowing the woman who had been in the room little time to realize what was happening after the window was pushed inside.
But shouldn’t a vampire have sensed the intrusion? Heartbeats? Breaths? A scent?
>
He sniffed. Expensive chick perfume tinted the air. And it wasn’t cheap cologne, because he didn’t pick up the note of alcohol, but instead a deep, ripe cherry infused with jasmine petals. If he passed by a woman smelling like this anytime soon, he’d know it was the missing vampiress, Lyric Santiago.
“The meeting was scheduled for six,” Charish explained. “We checked her room at five-fifteen and found her missing. I had talked to her a half an hour earlier.”
No footprints out on the balcony, or on the manicured lawn edged with hawthorn shrubs. Vail had walked the perimeter before coming inside. Whoever had jumped the viciously thorned shrubs had to have bled. Which meant nothing. All sorts of paranormal breeds could lighten their steps, or jump or even fly, depending on what had taken the woman.
Assuming the kidnappers had not been mortal. No, a mortal kidnapping a vampire made little sense. On the other hand, Vail knew little about The Order of the Stake. They were always a possibility.
“What makes you think the Unseelie lord didn’t take her?” he ventured, his attention on the glass, because he didn’t want to look at Santiago’s red highlights.
“The faery? Why would he kidnap my daughter when I was going to hand the gown over freely to him?”
“Maybe he wanted her, too.”
“But we had a—”
Vail swung toward the vampiress, an inquiring expression on his face. A deal. They had a deal. So why hadn’t mommy dearest delivered the gown? Had she been afraid to make the handoff, so had sent her daughter in her stead? What had made her believe her daughter would be in no danger?
“Maybe Zett didn’t like the terms of your deal,” he ventured, “and decided to cut out the middleman, and any reason for him to pay his portion of the deal? Take the girl, get the gown, and extort more money out of the Santiago clan in return for the daughter. Sounds far-fetched,” he examined the idea out loud. “The sidhe have no need for mortal money. What could Zett want beyond the priceless gown?”
The vampiress tightened her jaw. “Nothing. I expected my daughter would return safely.”