by Zoe Forward
“I want her to know we’re still around and that we will be talking later. We stay here until she leaves.” Lexan removed the gold chain he’d left in the glove box and fastened it around his neck. His fingers automatically caressed the small gold ring that dangled from the intricate links, the only remnant of his mother, who’d died as a vampire’s slave centuries ago. Vampires had stolen too much from him—his parents, his brother, and too many friends. The ring reminded him to be strong for his species. He must never forget those who were lost, and the vampires who killed them.
“It helps if you tell me the full plan.”
Lexan didn’t have a plan, only the need to see her again.
“All right. Keep the plan to yourself, then. The Squad might find us here.” Eric checked a handgun, performing a quick slide to chamber a round before holstering. “We can take them, if they show up.” He grinned. “I’m up for wiping out a few undertrained vamps.”
“You can tell half the team to head out. The Squad will be at the wedding, not here.”
Eric texted. One SUV pulled out and left.
Lexan looked two cars over and met TC’s gray gaze. The guy lounged against the driver’s side door of his SUV, flipping one of his beloved jambiya short curved daggers into the air before shoving it back into his pocket. The wolf refused firearms, a habit ingrained into him during his three decades in Yemen. He’d been forced into assassin training after his mother sold him to a wolf extremist sect. Hand-to-hand combat was TC’s hometown.
Lexan thought to TC, “Get in the car. Stop drawing attention to yourself.”
TC’s head slow-swiveled a scan of the parking lot. He ran a hand over the bristle on his shaved head, nodded, and disappeared behind the tinted glass of the SUV.
Eric flipped through screens on his cell phone. “She’s not what I expected.”
“She is different.” Lexan fixed an impassive look on his face to hide his internal chaos, which had detonated the moment she entered the exam room and still gripped his mind. He’d wanted her, but not for a solitary night like his rare encounters of the past half century. This fascination was driven by a need to know everything about her: what’d she like, how’d she taste, what noises she’d make when she came, how many males had she been with… No more. He blamed his anomalous reaction on going too long without sex. Years.
Eric eyed him suspiciously. “You should’ve seen your face when your woman-magic didn’t work on her. I don’t recall ever meeting a female who could say no to you. That alone was worth the absurdity of this trip.”
Her resistance to his innate enthrallment made her different…intriguing.
He didn’t need her to be interesting. He just had to teach her how to handle shifting from vampire to wolf, and then drop her off in a country that wasn’t in the middle of the wolf hate zone, which had to be far away from Scarpas and DiFalcos. Too bad she had no clue she was about to grow fur. “Did you obtain her historical information?”
“Don’t you mean background check? That’s what they call it these days.” Eric smiled smugly with a gotcha-speaking-like-an-old-guy-again grin.
Lexan glared. This game Eric waged to see how often he could catch him using dated terminology wore thin.
Eric scanned his cell phone. “Public record says Velvet Scarpa did undergrad at Princeton. Then she got an MD from UNC Chapel Hill and graduated in the top ten of her class. Started an internship at Carolinas Premier Hospital. That’s here in Charlotte. Abruptly quit to do veterinary school at UC Davis.”
“Why’d she run to the West Coast for vet school? Wonder what made her flee the family coop, and then return.” Lexan ran a finger along his lips and gazed at the hospital’s side door.
“Maybe the temptation to bite humans was too much as an MD.” Eric turned his way. “I hope she’s worth all this.”
“I made a promise.”
“To whom exactly did you promise to relocate her?”
The IOU that brought him here required he keep the identity of the ancient wolf a secret. “It’s complicated.”
“No shit it’s complicated. If she’s a wolf-vamp mix, she doesn’t seem to know.” Eric massaged his forehead. “A bloody demisang. Are we even sure she’s a half blood?”
Lexan nodded.
“I highly doubt the psychotic vamp clan who raised her instilled her with love for us, given a wolf murdered her mother.”
“There is no concrete evidence to prove a wolf killed Velvet Scarpa’s mother. She’s also not a Scarpa by blood. Dominic isn’t her father.”
“So your source says.” Skepticism oozed from his words. “You could end this fight once and for all. We could bomb the Scarpas with one of the new chemical weapons we designed.”
“I haven’t decided on the ethics of using the chemicals yet.”
“You question ethics when they already do it to us? Sometimes I don’t get you.” Eric sighed. “I didn’t detect even a hint of wolf off her. She reeked of pure vamp. Are you sure your info is true? Not many demisangs survive infancy. Those that did… Well, there aren’t many, if any, who survived the past decade.”
“She’s a mix. No question.”
Eric shifted in his seat to stare at him. “Did you get a clear read on her?”
He’d tried to read her but couldn’t. The only other being he couldn’t read was her real father, Blaylock, who was an ancient werewolf.
“She’s a healer.” He recalled the soothing euphoria she infused into his mind before her exam. That small comfort had kicked his respect for her up several notches.
“Her impending DiFalco union complicates things.”
“No shit.”
Lexan rubbed a finger along his eyebrow. “She’ll be hunted and executed when Ambrose’s father finds out she’s not pureblood. If the elitist prick finds out I was involved in introducing her to her inner wolf, it might push his complacent ass off his throne and into open war. The one thing Viktor hates more than mixed-bloods is me.” Lexan preferred to avoid warfare for his people, but he thought it inevitable. The DiFalcos started an underground war several years ago. Few knew about it. How he’d establish peace…he hadn’t worked out the specifics yet. “Get me Roman’s phone number. I need to know what she meant by protocol for wolves to show up here.”
“Of course.” Eric texted for a moment.
“I don’t know how it’s possible to have remained concealed for so long, but I’m convinced she has no clue. The wolf side in her won’t remain silent forever. My source predicts it to hit her on this moon cycle.”
“That’s three days away. You didn’t say we’d be here three more days. I thought it was today and tomorrow? Do you plan to help her through the change?” Revulsion passed through Eric’s eyes. “She’ll need blood. I heard a rumor she might need wolf blood. Never seen it, though.”
“Maybe.” Lexan also hadn’t seen it. He worried his blood might kill her.
“I’m sure as hell not letting her near my veins,” Eric grumbled.
Awareness pricked his skin. A quick glance at the clinic’s rear door confirmed her exiting. Everything in him stilled.
She had spectacular bone structure. Wide set, large green eyes with a brown splash in the left, which pinned her as her father’s daughter. Her mouth, now highlighted scarlet, would make even the most pious have visions of her on her knees.
The animal within him readied. It wanted to stalk. To study her until the right moment for him to make his move presented itself.
Mating predation. Shit.
The red silky sheath wrapping her body dipped low over her breasts and accentuated the erotic way she moved. His eyes zeroed in on the slow, sensual way the fabric tightened over her hips with each stride. A vicious response gripped his body. He’d been with his share of women over the centuries. Never had a female elicited a reaction like this. He wanted to press her up against the nearest wall and lodge himself deep insider her. Then he’d mark her with his bite.
What the hell?
H
e took a slow deep breath to regain calm. He was centuries old. This kind of crazy didn’t happen to him. He did not mark women. Never had. Probably never would, especially not a half-vampire female.
Lexan rolled down his window. His breath caught when her scent hit him. He closed his eyes in a slow inhale. Amazing. His blood roared. With a low growl, he gripped the door handle.
A loud quadruple click indicated Eric had hit the auto-lock.
“Please tell me you don’t have it for her. I’ll grant you she’s attractive, but don’t forget she’s a leech. Or at least half leech. Plus, the girl was clearly not interested in you, and she’s engaged. You’ve got prime wolf females throwing themselves at you every day. Pick one of them. What about the wolf from a few months ago? Extraordinary bloodline. You two seemed to hit it off pretty well.”
Lexan’s gaze never deviated from his target as he replied, “She didn’t warrant a repeat.”
Eric said softly, “You didn’t touch the wolf a few months ago, did you?”
As he met Eric’s worried gaze, he didn’t want to lie. The female wolf months ago had bored him. He hadn’t even been marginally tempted by her, not like the surge beelining for his southern region right now. Instead, he’d mesmerized that girl into thinking it the best sex of her life.
He should lie. He should reassure Eric he was fine. “The guys needed to believe I did. That I’m okay.”
Eric cursed in two languages. “I thought you were close to the ennui. I’ve heard the boredom can lead you to do extreme things. Suicidal things. Is this your way of acting out, your form of going insane? You convince a vampire she’s about to turn into one of us? If so, it ranks pretty high on the lost-your-mind scale.”
Lexan had been searching for an escape from his world-weariness. He basked in the sensations now streaking through him as he tracked her. Unlike any moment in the past half century, right now he was very interested in living.
Eric waved his hand in front of Lexan’s gaze. “Snap out of it. She’s a bloody vampire. If you’re horny, I’ll find you someone to work it off.”
“I don’t want another meaningless…forget it.” I want her.
Eric clapped his hands together so loudly that it echoed like a gunshot through the car. Lexan’s gaze snapped to his guard.
“Need I remind you what her people did to you? They kept you in chains for over a hundred years. They fought you against other wolves like a common dog.”
“I have forgotten nothing.”
“Now would be a good moment to tell me your plan. You’ve seen her. Now what?”
Lexan glanced away and pressed his eyes closed. At this point, he was so aroused that remaining still was agony. He fidgeted when base needs to possess, dominate, and mate swamped his brain. He fingered the ring again, remembering his days of enslavement, which ensured hatred for all females of the blood-sucking species. The humiliations he’d suffered at the hands of vampires still remained a festering wound.
“Get us out of here.” Before I do something I’ll regret, even if I might enjoy the hell out of it.
Eric pulled out. The SUV passed her right as she opened her car’s door. Her head turned in their direction. Lexan met her startled gaze. Time froze between them in a moment of connection. Those beautiful eyes widened, and her mouth parted. Her body swayed his way.
The wolf in him roared with need to go to her and answer her invitation.
Intuition blasted him with a premonition of foreboding. She shouldn’t attend the wedding.
He thought to her, even though she probably wouldn’t hear: “Go home. No wedding tonight.” It wouldn’t work. He hadn’t yet discovered her mental wavelength. It took a bit of time to find the right way to think to each individual before the person understood him.
“Stop. Maybe I should talk to her now,” he ordered.
Eric braked.
Vee already had her car cranked. She backed out and sped away.
“Do I pursue, sir?” Eric asked.
Lexan massaged his forehead. Had she heard him? They’d had no more than a moment. Would she listen, even if she had heard him? The need to follow her clawed at his mind. It hurt his chest. He rationalized himself back to sanity.
“No. I’ll find her later. After the wedding.” They couldn’t follow her to the wedding. If spotted, their presence would be a declaration of global war. He and his guard were good, but the eight of them couldn’t fight hundreds of vampires.
The wildness of his reaction to this particular woman troubled him. He couldn’t be into a vampire. Period.
Chapter Three
“Come on, come on. Answer the fricking phone, wolf.” Vee slammed on the brakes at a stoplight and drummed her fingers on the steering wheel. Now fifteen minutes south of Charlotte, she still had another ten to fifteen minutes until she reached the wedding.
She disconnected and dialed again. Roman must be on shift tonight. Even so, he always had his phone on him. Always. Even in surgery.
Finally, on the sixth ring she got a hushed, “Hello?”
“Did you send someone my way tonight?”
Roman spoke in almost a whisper. “Why are you calling me? I was about to go into surgery.”
“I don’t care if it’s not a good time. If you’re going to send someone my way, especially your king, I need a head’s up.”
“What? Who? Hang on, let me go somewhere else.” There was a long pause. Then he spoke in a normal tone. “Okay, better. I haven’t sent anyone your way. After last month you said it was too dangerous for you to continue.”
“Your king, Aleksander Dimitrov, showed up to see me for gunshot wounds. He had one of his bodyguards with him, named Eric. Any comment?”
“I didn’t…I don’t know him. I’ve never met him. You met him? What was he like?”
“Roman! Seriously?”
“He’s like a mythological creature and probably as old as one. Maybe older. There are so many rumors. I’m just curious.”
“He’s not a myth, and he’s very much alive. He wants something but wouldn’t tell me what. He wanted to meet later but I said no. Do you know what he wants?
“No.”
“I don’t think he knew I helped you out from time to time. His visit wasn’t just about getting medical care. He targeted me. This isn’t good.”
“I can ask around. See what I can find out.”
“Thanks.” She disconnected the call.
Vee cornered onto the ostentatious driveway of the Scarpa estate, which sat in the middle of thousands of acres of reclaimed farmland. She braked before continuing to the gate, bringing the car to a halt. For the hundredth time, her mind reviewed Lexan driving by her. Of meeting his pale gaze, glowing in the ambient light from streetlamps. Had he tried to communicate something to her?
She’d detected mental vibrations from him. Maybe it’d been imagination only. Yet, for a brief moment, she’d been mesmerized with longing to drown in his gaze. To keep staring.
Maybe Roman was right. She should turn around. The instinct was so strong that she almost put the car in reverse.
This was her half-sister’s celebration. The event wasn’t about Vee. She could handle her father…unless he was angry. Dominic should be riding on a serious high tonight after brokering this marriage, which united him with the aristocratic families in Canada.
She opened her handbag and pulled out the emerald engagement ring, sliding it onto her ring finger. Showtime.
She rolled forward slowly until the unwelcoming Scarpa estate gate loomed ahead. At least eight guards dressed in standard issue black camos stepped toward her car. A burly guard stooped to her level, allowing his blond flattop to touch the top of the driver’s side window.
“Invitation, please,” he requested.
“It’s me. I’m running late.” Vee forced a smile. She put her left handle on the sill, allowing the emerald to sparkle in the ambient light. This particular vamp gate guard had the IQ of an onion and the bulky body of an anabolic steroid junky.
Even vamps could dope.
The burly troglodyte flashed fang and held out an expectant hand. “You look nice tonight, my lady. But I have orders. Security is tight tonight.” He leered down her dress. Hello tittays, he thought.
“I don’t have the invitation.” Vee hid her revulsion at the guard’s fantasized sex-a-thon with him doing things to her breasts that involved biting and pumping.
“Then I’ll have to call up to the house to get an ‘okay’ to let you in.”
“I’m the bride’s sister. Do you think I’m a werewolf wearing a Vee-suit or something?”
“We’re not supposed to let anyone in without an invite tonight. It’s not like you’re a regular here.”
“Open the gate, or I’m driving into it. You can explain that to my father and fiancé. I know you want to have a one-on-one with Ambrose DiFalco.”
He grumbled as he stepped away from the car, but the electrified iron monstrosity started its slow mechanical grind to open.
She executed a poor parallel between two cars at the end of the long triple-parked line around the circular drive. Before she got out, she ate two Hershey’s Kisses.
Outside her car, she steeled herself. She opened her purse for one more fortifying Kiss. The October air remained unseasonably warm and sticky. A delicate breeze whistled through the trees, sending more than a few dead leaves airborne.
The moon mesmerized her—not quite full, but luminous and mysterious. Something deep in her gut shifted. A wild urge to run sent her heart into a gallop. She shook her head at the anomalous instinct and frowned at the moon. Its glow was the same hue as Lexan’s eyes. A woman could lose herself in that pale hue, preferably while lying on his naked tattooed chest. Okay, that thought needed to go into the locked vault of don’t-ever-think-that-again.
He was a wolf. Since birth, she’d been taught wolves were savages who’d viciously dismembered her mother when Vee had been barely two months old. Dominic had annihilated the one who supposedly killed her mother and then waged this never-ending war. She should want to plan Lexan’s execution, but the war’s instigating event reeked of a setup.