Vincent had gone quiet now, though. He didn’t seem inclined to play their game any longer, even though he hadn’t answered her first and most important question yet—how he’d become a vampire. Obviously, he hadn’t died the night he was shot, but just as obviously, it had somehow led to his becoming a vampire. She didn’t think he’d have shared something so personal otherwise. And what about his younger brother? Had John died? Or had he become a vampire, too?
She was dying to ask, but didn’t have the heart for it. For all that Vincent was acting cool and unaffected, no one could recount their own near-death experience and not feel something.
“Story time’s over for tonight,” he said finally. “The sun will be up soon. We have to think about stopping.”
Lana checked the in-dash nav system. They’d made good time, although they’d been forced to slow down for the more-populated areas. Vincent was determined to keep a low profile for reasons he hadn’t shared with her, so he didn’t want to risk getting pulled over for something as trivial as speeding. They could probably get away with nothing more than a fine, but even that would create an official record that a determined person could use to track their whereabouts.
They were also slowed by all that bulletproofing which made the Suburban an excellent choice for crossing dangerous territory, but also made the vehicle a lot heavier. It drank fuel like a motherfucker, and since there were stretches where they couldn’t be sure of a gasoline station, they sometimes had to stop even before the tank was empty, just to be sure it didn’t happen at the wrong time.
And let’s not forget that at each place they stopped, Vincent had to charm every female in sight. Old, young . . . hell, if there was a baby girl around, he’d probably have charmed her, too. And none of the women seemed to care that Vincent was traveling with Lana. For all they knew, she could be his girlfriend, even his wife. It didn’t matter. The worst one had been the teenager at the first place they’d stopped. She’d taken one look at Lana, scoped her up and down, and completely dismissed her. As if the girl knew that Vincent would happily replace Lana with some dopey teenage gas station cashier.
Not that Lana wanted him for herself. Hell, no. It was just the principle of the thing.
She narrowed her gaze on Vincent, then rolled her eyes in disgust, as much with herself as with him. What did she care how many women he flirted with? She pulled out her cell phone and punched up their location. Her energy would be better spent finding a place to stop before morning.
“What about Guamúchil?” she asked, zooming in on the map. “We can stop there. It’s a good-sized city, and we shouldn’t have any—”
“We’ll be stopping before that,” Vincent interrupted. “A small town about fifty miles northeast.”
“I don’t see—”
“It won’t be on the map. The town’s too small.”
“Then how do you—”
“I’ve been there before. There’s a cantina. She has a couple of rooms and the place should be empty this time of year.”
She. Of course there would be a she. It seemed that men, or maybe she should say males, were the same everywhere. At least the kind of males she seemed doomed to meet. They were risk-takers, thrill-seekers, high testosterone, adrenaline junkies who drew women like flies and seemed incapable of settling for just one. She reminded herself that she didn’t give a damn how many women Vincent charmed, seduced, or fucked.
“Did you program it into the nav?”
He glanced at her, perhaps sensing something of her mood, but his only verbal reply was a terse, “Yep.”
Almost twenty miles later, the nav system dinged a warning. Vincent immediately slowed, coming to a near stop in order to make a sharp left turn onto a road that Lana wasn’t sure she’d have noticed even in daylight. It wasn’t paved. She could see, and feel, that much. The Suburban took to the new surface with relative ease, but then, Vincent was barely doing thirty miles an hour. She could hear rocks pinging off the undercarriage, but there were no potholes and the tires weren’t slipping as much as she’d have expected if they’d gone truly off-road.
Vincent suddenly turned off the headlights, but kept going as if nothing had changed. Lana couldn’t make out a damn thing.
“What are you doing?” she asked, straining to see ahead.
“I can see better without them out here.”
Lana shifted her gaze back and forth between Vincent and the pitch black road. “You can?”
A tiny smile lightened his expression for the first time since he’d interrupted his own story. “I can. Don’t worry, Lana. I’ll take good care of you.”
“I’ll take care of myself, thank you. You just drive.”
His smile grew. “Whatever you say.”
“What about this cantina?”
“What about it? It’s fairly popular with the locals, mostly because of the music. There’s a classical guitarist there. One of the finest in the world.”
“What’s his name?”
Vincent shook his head. “You won’t have heard of him.”
“How do you know?” she demanded, feeling insulted. She happened to like classical guitar.
“It’s not you, querida. No one’s heard of him unless they’ve been to this place. He doesn’t record, he doesn’t travel. He simply plays his guitar.”
Lana gave him a curious look. There were layers to Vincent Kuxim. Layers wrapped up in a very pretty package. She blinked and brought herself back to reality. Pretty or not, he was a vampire and a player. And she wanted no part of either.
Chapter Six
“VICENTILLO, MI corazón! Tanto tiempo sin vernos!”
Lana stood in the doorway of the small, crowded cantina and watched as the woman greeted Vincent like a long-lost friend. Or a lover. She called him her heart, although she did add that she hadn’t seen him in a long time. So maybe they were old lovers, still friends. Fuck buddies, maybe, Lana thought nastily and didn’t know why she cared.
The woman had been beautiful in her youth. You could see it in the smooth, golden glow of her skin, the flash of her dark brown eyes, the soft curve of her jaw. She was lovely still, but age and life were reflected in her face now, too. That life had been a good one, though, if her broad smile was any indication. She was the very picture of a woman who’d found a life she wanted and lived it to its fullest.
Lana wondered at the stab of envy cutting into her chest. She had a good life, didn’t she? She was doing what she wanted, something she loved. Sure, she couldn’t see herself chasing down bad guys when she was forty . . . or fifty, like Vincent’s latest admirer. But for now, she was exactly where she wanted to be. Wasn’t she?
Vincent certainly seemed as happy to see the woman as she was to see him. He had a big smile on his face—not the snarky grin he usually favored Lana with, but a genuine smile filled with warmth and something more than simple affection. Had they been lovers? Their close embrace certainly spoke of a long and intimate familiarity.
“Marisol, te me haces más bella cada vez que to miro,” Vincent said, gazing down at her. You’re more beautiful every time I see you.
The woman, Marisol, brushed away the compliment the way beautiful women did when they thought the sentiment was true, but were pretending modesty. She and Vincent kissed cheeks and then went in for a full-on lip lock. Okay, maybe that was an exaggeration. Their mouths touched, but Lana didn’t think there was any tongue involved. Once the kissing was done with, they hugged again, then exchanged a few soft words. Marisol patted Vincent’s chest and started toward Lana, moving with purpose. Lana drew back before she realized that Marisol wasn’t aiming for her, but for a small desk in a shallow alcove on the wall to her left.
Vincent followed and the two of them continued their conversation, speaking Spanish so rapidly that Lana had to strain to catch what they were saying. Even t
hen, she couldn’t be sure she was translating every word correctly, but the general context was clear.
“Rodrigo showed up again, and you know I can’t say no to him,” Marisol was saying over her shoulder to Vincent as she bent over the desk.
“Rodrigo? Shouldn’t he be in your bed?”
“Vincent! What kind of question is that?” she exclaimed, turning to gaze up at him, one hand to her chest in a gesture as scandalized as it was fake. “Besides, you know I like younger men,” she added with a lascivious wink that confirmed Lana’s earlier suspicions.
“More than one, as I recall,” Vincent teased back, which had Marisol fanning her face.
“Well,” she said, clearly still flustered by the memory Vincent had invoked, “it means I have only the one room, but it’s yours if—”
“That’s fine,” he assured her, even though Lana found the words anything but reassuring. One room? “Lana’s my bodyguard,” Vincent continued. “She’ll stay with me.”
Lana’s stare bored holes in his back as she contemplated all the ways she could kill him without moving a foot from where she stood, but he remained blissfully unaware. So much for vampire telepathy. Either that, or he was ignoring her.
Marisol handed Vincent a key, then stretched up to kiss him, her hand lingering along his jaw. “You know where it is, my darling. Will I see you tomorrow night?”
“Of course, do you think I would leave without hearing Chencho play?”
“Sweet boy.” She patted his cheek, then hurried back to her guests, but not without giving Lana a thorough head to toe scan on her way past.
“Come on,” Vincent said, turning toward Lana and tilting his head to the outside door. “We have time to clean up and get you something to eat before sunrise.”
Lana couldn’t help noticing that his voice was all-business, completely lacking the warmth he’d shown to Marisol.
“I’m your bodyguard?”
“I thought you’d prefer that to lover.”
She scowled at him. “Look, if you’d like to stay here with—”
“Lana.”
She looked up to meet his gold-flecked eyes.
“I’m tired,” he told her. “I may be a vampire, but I don’t enjoy sitting in a car for hours at a time any more than you do. I want a shower, and then I’m going to sleep.”
“Sleep as in . . .”
“Yes,” he said, looking somewhat bemused at her inability to come right out and say he’d be doing his vampire thing. “Sleep as in. Now, can we go to the room?”
She turned to follow him out the door. “I can’t share a room with you.”
“Why not?” he asked, leading the way down a narrow path between the cantina and another low building.
“I barely know you.”
He shrugged. “Your virtue is safe with me. I’ll be dead to the world.”
Lana frowned. “I told you, I know vampires aren’t dead.”
He turned around to face her. “It’s a saying, Lana,” he informed her dryly, then took a curving path to the left, which ended at a small cottage with two separate entrances. They were on opposite ends of the building and each was marked by a short walk and a wooden door painted a bright color. Vincent’s door appeared to be blue, although in the dim light, she wouldn’t have sworn on it. Both doors were framed by crawling vines that Lana thought to be jasmine, given their lovely, light scent. Although, with her knowledge of flowers, they could have been almost anything else and she wouldn’t have known the difference.
Vincent unlocked the door, then pushed it open and walked inside without turning on a light. Lana paused in the doorway to let her eyes adjust, then crossed to a small table and turned on a lamp.
“Sorry,” he said from across the room where he was already stripping off his jacket. “I forget sometimes.”
“Forget what?”
“That humans can’t see in the dark.”
“You can?”
He nodded absently. “Quite well. Do you mind if I take the first shower?”
Lana blinked at this reminder that she was sharing a room with Vincent. Vincent of the broad shoulders and washboard abs. She sighed. She was definitely earning her paycheck on this one.
“Sure, go ahead.”
He grabbed the hem of his long-sleeved T-shirt and pulled it over his head. She swallowed a second sigh. She’d forgotten the tattoo. Broad shoulders, washboard abs, and a tattoo. Good thing he was ugly. Fuck.
“I need to get something from the SUV,” she said, knowing it was lame even as she said it. “Will you be okay here?”
“Quite safe,” he assured her and began popping the buttons on his 501s.
Lana caught a glimpse of flat belly and chiseled obliques and yanked the door open. “I’ll be right back,” she said. Then she quickly made her escape.
VINCENT GRINNED as the door closed behind Lana. He’d needed some privacy and figured if he started undressing, she’d run for it. Nice to know he hadn’t lost his touch completely, though he’d begun to wonder. She did seem impervious to his charm, but maybe not his body. Hmmm.
Marisol clearly didn’t think he’d lost his touch, or anything else. If he’d even hinted, she’d have dumped the young man in her bed and spent the night with him instead. But he wasn’t here for that. Besides, he was determined to win Lana over. She was resisting him for now, but he did love a challenge. And he didn’t like to be ignored.
He heard her footsteps fade down the walkway and pulled out his satellite phone. Michael hadn’t called all day, which he took as a good sign. But he wanted to be sure. He entered the number from memory. He didn’t program numbers into this phone, since the fact that he was carrying it meant he was traveling, often in unfamiliar territory. And that usually meant there was the potential for danger. Best not to hand out information to one’s enemies.
Michael answered on the second ring. “Good evening, Sire.”
“Strictly speaking, it’s morning, Mikey.”
“Yes, but there’s generally nothing good about morning, so . . .”
“Point taken. Anything I need to know?”
“No one’s noticed you’re gone, if that’s what you’re asking.”
“I don’t know whether to be hurt or relieved.”
“Be relieved. The club’s shut down for repairs, so activity is on the slow side. And there have been no calls from Enrique.”
“Speaking of . . . any news on Raphael’s sister?”
“Possibly. I have one report that says she’s dead. I’m trying to confirm it, but my source says she was questioned, determined to be useless, and then executed on the spot.”
“Cold. Was it Enrique?”
“On that my source is unsure. It was done in Mexico City, in Enrique’s headquarters, but indications are that he was not the executioner.”
“Interesting. Of course, her very presence in his HQ is evidence that Enrique plotted against Raphael.”
“Yeah. Tell me something, jefe. Alexandra was double bound to Raphael. They were human siblings by birth, plus he was her master for a couple of centuries, right?”
“Something like that.”
“So, even if he wasn’t her master anymore, wouldn’t he know if she was dead? I mean, Raphael is hella powerful. Wouldn’t he feel her death anyway?”
Vincent considered Michael’s question. There was no bond stronger than that of a vampire and his Sire—or so he’d been told. He’d never felt particularly attached to Enrique, that’s for sure. His loyalty to the old man was based solely on practicality and personal ambition. On the other hand, he was Michael’s Sire and they were tight. He’d die to defend his child, and he was pretty sure Michael felt just as strongly about him.
But Raphael had been Alexandra’s master, not her Sire. The stor
y was that they’d been turned during the same attack, but by different Sires. He’d heard that it had been a couple of centuries before Raphael had rescued Alexandra from unknown but awful circumstances. He’d then killed her Sire and had been her master ever since. And while that bond might not have the same strength as that of a Sire, two hundred years was a hell of a long time. And as Michael said, they had the sibling bond going for them, too.
“You may be right,” he said thoughtfully. “In fact, I bet you are. So, if Alexandra’s dead, then Raphael already knows it. So what’s his next step? He hires Lana Arnold to deliver a message to a vampire no one’s seen in more than a hundred years. At least no one reliable. And not just that, but he writes me a letter, asking for help, and making it clear he’d prefer that I be there when she finds said vampire. Those events have got to be related.”
“My thoughts, exactly. So what’re you going to do?”
Vincent blew out a long breath. “If a powerhouse like Raphael thinks that I need to meet Xuan Ignacio, then I’m going to find the fucker and figure out why. I’ll keep the sat phone live, if you need me.”
“And remember your promise.”
Vincent frowned, but didn’t say anything.
“No Mexico City without me,” Michael reminded him.
“Not a chance, Mikey.”
“Stay safe, jefe.”
“Talk to you tomorrow.”
Vincent disconnected, then stripped off the rest of his clothes and walked naked to the shower. He hadn’t been lying to Lana. The Suburban was a comfortable ride, but spending that many hours sitting on his ass was exhausting. And his trip down memory lane with Lana hadn’t been a thrill either. He’d liked hearing her story, but then for some reason, he’d volunteered his own, even though he hadn’t thought about that final trip with his brother in a long time.
Vincent (Vampires in America Book 8) Page 7