by Michele Hauf
“Well, everyone can see through the dress. It’s sheer.”
He chuckled, glad for a moment of levity. “I think the only way this can work is to bring the Seelie court in on it. But how to do that without revealing Rhys Hawkes had lost the gown in the first place? Much as the old man pisses me off, I would never put him in such a position. I’ve got to figure a plan. We can’t trust anyone.”
“But Rhys Hawkes is the one who sent you on this mission. Surely you can trust him?”
“I don’t want to bring this mess to his doorstep. It wouldn’t be fair, and I don’t want to cause further harm to…” Vail exhaled and sank against the wall, catching his head in his hands.
* * *
LYRIC COULD FEEL her lover’s exasperation radiate from his body. She hated seeing him collapsed in on himself, defeated by something he couldn’t touch. She sensed if he would release his burden he might be able to get beyond it and start thinking about solving their problem.
Kneeling before him, she stroked his hair. It glittered with iridescent dust, more than usual. She wasn’t worried about getting a contact high. She hadn’t so far and they’d been closer than close. She did trust Vail. He would protect her with his life. If he didn’t first lose that life.
“Rhys lives with your mother,” she said, remembering what he’d told her. And then she understood. “You don’t want to bring this to her.”
He shook his head and looked into her eyes. “She doesn’t need this. She doesn’t need me, to see me and be reminded.”
“Of what? She’s never known you, Vail.”
He pulled her to him and nuzzled his face into her neck. He clung to her and she sensed he simply wanted the connection without the words, the confession she wanted to hear, the tender inner layer stripped away from his hard core.
“I can’t understand you never seeing your mother,” she offered quietly. “I would give anything to see my father again, just for a day. He died when I was eight.”
“I’m sorry.” He pulled her around to sit on his lap. His strong thighs paralleled her legs and she felt like a bird sitting within a protective cove. He kissed the side of her neck, below the faery mark. That went a long way toward his acceptance of her.
“Some days I think I want to see my mother,” he said softly. “I’m not sure. I don’t want to make her worse than she already is.”
“How could seeing her son make her worse?”
He clasped her hand and kissed her knuckles. “Rhys describes her madness as frustrating and unpredictable.”
“Is she ever lucid?” she asked.
“Rhys claims she is lucid more than not. When she takes blood she is completely sane. She spends all her time at home, though. Doesn’t ever want to go out into the world.”
“That’s so sad.”
“Rhys brings blood to her daily. She needs it often to stay sane.”
That was a lot. Most vampires took blood about once every two weeks. It was all they needed to sustain, though some drank more often because they liked it, and others less often for reasons Lyric could not comprehend.
Vail’s warmth enticed Lyric to snuggle closer to him, but she would not misinterpret this moment for anything other than what it was. A tense balance limned the edge between Vail’s desire for acceptance from his family and his fear of that same acceptance. Yet he’d never admit to that.
She tilted her head against his shoulder. “I bet a visit from you would cheer her up.”
“Lyric.” Now he pressed her hands firmly between his and clasped them to her chest. His lips pressed her shoulder a moment. She felt him nod against her as if coming to a decision. “There’s something you need to know about me and my brother, and how we came to be.”
“You said you had two different dads, and one mother, but were born at the same time. That’s as far-out as it gets.”
“My father raped my mother. I was born of that crime.”
She twisted to meet his eyes, moved to touch his cheek, but he flinched. How terrible. To carry that stigma? But surely his mother… Oh, hell, it must be the reason she was mad. “I’m so sorry.”
“So you see why I think it would do more harm than good to visit her?”
“Is that…is that why she gave you away?”
“She did not give me away. The faery Cressida chose me. Rhys Hawkes owed her a boon after she had enchanted his vampire. Rhys is a half-breed, both werewolf and vampire occupy his body. When he’s vampire, his werewolf mind rules. When werewolf, the vampire takes over. And that vampire, denied blood during the month because his werewolf mind doesn’t desire such sustenance, is vicious and blood hungry. Centuries ago, Cressida enchanted him so the werewolf would only come out at the full moon, thus lessening the risk during the rest of the month that he may kill an innocent.
“In exchange for that enchantment, she asked for his firstborn. Rhys has told me he was young and had thought he would never have a child—not purposefully, for he feared what the child of a half-breed would become. He had no clue Viviane was pregnant when she was buried alive. Hell, he thought her dead in the eighteenth century.”
“Buried alive?”
“My father wanted Viviane, and when he couldn’t have her because she and Rhys were in love, he had Viviane bespelled by a warlock. The spell rendered her aware yet unable to move. He placed her in a glass coffin and buried her beneath Paris. Rhys thought her dead. He didn’t find her until three decades ago after hearing an urban legend about the Vampire Snow White.”
“I’ve heard that one. Seriously? That was your mother?”
He nodded.
“The rivalry between him and your father must have been fierce for one of them to have buried your mother alive. But I don’t understand. If she was found two centuries later…”
“She was pregnant with my brother and I when she was buried. The spell kept her frozen yet aware. When she was released from the spell by taking mortal blood, we began to germinate as normal babies. I gestated in my mother’s belly for over two centuries.”
“Wow.”
“Tell me about it. So when the Mistress of Winter’s Edge came to claim her boon, Rhys had no choice but to offer one of his children. One must never refuse to pay their part in a faery bargain. At the time, he assumed both of us were his progeny—because how could he know differently?—and couldn’t decide, so he let the faery choose.
“Cressida chose me, expecting I was a half-breed vampire/werewolf. Faeries use half-breeds to strengthen our—their race. I was groomed as a child, unaware that I was not the half-breed Rhys Hawkes’s son. I grew up knowing some day I would be expected to mate with a faery woman. Very likely the Unseelie princess.”
“That’s a huge expectation.”
“It gave me a big head, let me tell you. I strutted around Faery like I owned the place.”
“You still have that strut.”
“Yes, well, it was diminished when I came into my blood hunger. Cressida was enraged. Only then did she figure my father had been vampire, and that I was bloodborn. And a bloodborn vampire is worthless in Faery. Well, as I’ve explained, we’re considered filth.”
Now Lyric understood how Vail could pin that label on all vampires. He knew nothing else.
“When Cressida arrived in the mortal realm to rage at him, it was the first time Rhys knew I was not his son. When the blood hunger insisted, I was forced to feed on ichor. By that time I’d developed an immunity to it, so it didn’t make me high.”
“Cressida ignored you after that, I suppose.”
“Ch’yeah. It was like losing the mother I never wanted in the first place. Because I’d always known I had a vampire mother somewhere, and believed I had a half-breed father. But I’d grown to love Cressida because she was the only parental figure I had in my life. Not that she was motherly in any fashion.”
“So how does Zett play into all this? Let me guess,” Lyric said. “Zett was supposed to marry the Unseelie princess until you came along.”
&n
bsp; “Not at all. The prince and princess always marry a mixed-blood breed to further mix the bloodlines and create new breeds. Zett and I were reluctant childhood friends. Cressida was his aunt, or else his sister. I’ve never been clear on that—Faery family trees are strange, to say the least. She wanted him to play nice with me. Zett would toss me a ball, then when Cressida wasn’t looking he’d slap me across the face. He’s always hated vampires, even if at the time, he believed I was vampire by half. I think I know why, too.”
“Because he mistakenly marked a vampiress as his bride,” Lyric decided. “But the timeline doesn’t jive.”
“Faery time is different from mortal time. He could have marked you when I was yet young.”
“That freaks me out.” She squeezed his hand. “You had a tough childhood. I’m so sorry for that.”
“I survived. I had a few friends, mostly half-breeds taken for boons, like Kit.”
“A woman? You had a girlfriend?”
“We were best friends.” He pulled Lyric closer and hugged her from behind. “She was a half-breed shifter. Half kitsune, half familiar.”
“A fox and cat?”
“Yep. We both knew we’d grow up and be married off someday and bonded because of that common fate.”
“And when she learned you were bloodborn?”
“Didn’t change a thing between us. Kit is one of those rare souls who doesn’t judge, and only sees into a person’s heart.”
“Where is she now?”
He pressed his forehead to her shoulder and Lyric felt his chest muscles tense against her back. A touchy subject.
“She’s the reason I was banished from Faery,” he said.
CHAPTER TWELVE
“YOU WERE BANISHED because of a woman?”
Vail jumped up from the bed to look out the window. “They’ve found us.”
Lyric peered over his shoulder. “I don’t see anyone. You’re just trying to avoid the truth.”
Tension drew his frown tight as he moved her to look him directly in the eye. “Look now.”
She turned her head, but he slid a hand to her cheek to maintain her gaze on him. “Don’t turn your head, look out the corner of your eye.”
She did, and— “Something fluttered past the window.”
“We should be going,” he said.
She clasped his hand, wanting to know about the woman he’d been friends with. The reason he had been banished? It was too fascinating not to learn about, but she wouldn’t sacrifice safety for a few juicy tidbits about his life.
They needed to move, to stay safe from vigilante faeries who wanted to bring her to Zett or, worse, kill her.
“We could go to my brother,” she suggested. “I swear to you he is a safe retreat. Trust me, neither of us want what the Santiago family has to offer.”
He stroked her cheek and in the darkness the fine glimmer on his skin made her feel protected, as if an entire universe surrounded her.
“Being a Santiago hardened us,” she said. “Made us something we didn’t want to be. All right, so Leo took to thievery well, and hasn’t stopped, but he doesn’t want to serve Mother’s whims anymore.”
“Yet he stole the gown?”
“To appease her. He had no idea Charish intended to hand me over with the gown. If Leo had known he may have never stolen it.”
He opened the door and headed for the emergency exit. “So you kept the secret because…? You wanted to do this for your mother, didn’t you?”
“She’s in a bad situation with a lover who thinks he can take control of her and the family. You know how it is when an abused woman stays with the man because she doesn’t know how to begin to escape?”
“Sorry, I don’t.”
“Well, that’s my mother. I thought going along with this deal would make her rich. Give her a means to escape.”
“Why doesn’t someone take out the bastard vampire who’s threatening her?”
“He’s got a powerful hold on my mother, Vail. He remains in the shadows, yet controls her and, soon, the entire Santiago clan, I’m sure. I hate him. I fear him.”
“I don’t like hearing that you fear anyone. I’ll kill the bastard for you, and end this whole problem.”
She tugged him to a stop at the outer door. “Is it so easy for you to take a life to make your own better? Even for my mother, I would never condone murder.”
He kissed her. “And that is what I like about you. Your strange morality makes me want to do better.”
“So you think I’m strange now?”
“Not so strange as I am. All right, no killing for now. We’ve faery vigilantes to escape. Let’s head to your brother’s place.”
“Come on,” Lyric encouraged. “He’ll want to meet the man who’s been protecting me.”
“Are you going to tell him that before or after you tell him about the broken neck fiasco?”
“Haven’t decided yet.”
* * *
CRUISING IN THE MASERATI through Paris in Vail’s usual speeding, careless style wasn’t exactly playing it on the down low. Innocent bystanders fled the sidewalks for their life. Johnny Cash crooned about a boy named Sue who’d had to learn to tough it out in the world branded with the awful moniker.
Lyric turned down the music. Vail may have flashed her a wild look, but dark sunglasses shaded his eyes.
“What did you say you get out of all this?” she asked. “After you’ve handed me and the gown over? I think you missed that part when you were telling me about living in Faery and your mother.”
Vail cocked his head to the side and took a sharp turn that slammed her against the passenger door. She didn’t wear a seat belt. After all, a crash wasn’t going to kill her. But she got the I-don’t-want-to-talk vibe from him, loud and clear.
They drove through a tunnel, which briefly blocked the late-afternoon sun. The mirror flashed brightly in Lyric’s vision when they emerged to daylight.
“Your silence does not deflect my curiosity,” she said, rooting around in the backseat and finding Green Snake. She allowed the three-foot-long green mamba to curl about her forearm. “It means you’re not willing to be as honest with me as I have been with you. Typical.”
“I am the furthest from typical,” he snapped.
“Physically, sure. But mentally? You’re like all the rest of the men. Closed up emotionally, hot to get it on physically.”
He shifted and navigated another sharp turn. “We had sex too soon. That was probably wrong.”
“Hey, I’m not complaining. I wanted it. I thought you did, too.”
“I did. I enjoy having sex with you, Lyric.”
“You’re changing the subject, yet another typical male reaction to being asked the important questions. If you’re not going to spill about the kitsune cat shifter, then I need something.”
Another swerve. This time the Maserati clipped a hedge.
“Hawkes is going to give me information to find my father. I’ve never met him.” Short, precise answer. He definitely did not want to elaborate.
“What will you do when you see him?”
He stopped at a sign and tugged his glasses down to look over the rims at her. The faery ointment around his blue eyes was always startlingly sexy.
“I’m going to look into his eyes,” he said. “To see if they are mine.”
Lyric couldn’t remember her father’s eyes. “You’ll be lucky to have that opportunity.”
“Yeah?” He shifted and revved the engine but didn’t take off. “After I see what I want to see, then I’m going to kill him.”
The Maserati peeled through the intersection. With a flick of his fingers, Vail twisted the music volume to high.
* * *
VAIL PULLED INTO an underground lot beneath the building Lyric had directed him to and got out, attempting not to slam the door, but he was riled and—fuck it—he slammed the door. It wasn’t Lyric’s questions; it was that he’d let those questions get to him. So he had father issues. Mo
ther issues, as well. Didn’t everyone?
Apparently, he and Lyric shared virtually the same issues. He should be able to talk to her about them. They’d shared a lot in the few days they’d known each other. So why had he clammed up and acted the asshole?
Lyric strolled around the trunk of the car behind him, tugging self-consciously at the dye-stained T-shirt she yet wore. They both needed a change of clothing.
He scanned the dark lot, seeking anything out of order. Now, more than ever, he had to remain alert, and see everything before it saw him. The ointment would help him spot the sidhe. What he needed was some serious weaponry for when he did see them. His blade had been sacrificed when fighting the worm wraith.
“I don’t understand you wanting to kill someone you’ve never met,” Lyric said.
Didn’t the woman know when to stop?
“He’s your father. Like him or not, aren’t you at least going to give him a chance?”
Apparently she did not know when to stop.
Vail turned and clamped his hands onto her shoulders. She took off his sunglasses and propped them atop his head, which he didn’t like, but he’d learned she was a female version of him—strong, stubborn and persistent.
“Listen,” he said. “I told you my father buried my mother alive beneath Paris for over two centuries, but before doing so, he raped her. My brother, Trystan, hates me because he claims I’m the one who made our mother insane, regardless of the fact I served the blood debt he should have paid. Do you really have to wonder if the bastard who fathered me deserves a chance?”
Leaving her by the car, Vail strode off toward the building elevator. He had pushed the button when Lyric whistled and pointed to a door.
“Penthouse,” she said, without looking at him. “He’s got a private entrance.”
Another elevator pinged open and Vail followed Lyric inside.
“Sorry,” she said, and hit the single button with the side of her fist. “Won’t bring it up again.”
She positioned herself to the right of the elevator, staring at the camera mounted above the door. Wanting him to stand behind her, she tugged him over by a belt loop. Vail removed himself from her grip and stood, arms crossed, in the middle of the elevator.