But that night Lexie saw what a rage-filled werewolf could do. She was gone by the next day, leaving no more than a note. His need to protect—as much a part of him as his head or hands—had driven her from his side.
And now Chloe had saddled him with a cover identity as Lexie’s husband and assistant. Chloe had meant to give him a plausible excuse to be in the palace, but that meant Lexie would be close to whatever trouble Faran might stir up. This is going to be no end of fun.
Regret stewed with anger in his gut. It was true what they said about love and hate being one step apart. He’d never hate Lexie, but his love had edged to that painful point where it was hard to tell the difference. He was a lone wolf, orphaned and raised up rough. Self-worth had come hard, and trust even harder. Lexie hadn’t destroyed him, but she’d left a hole that still hadn’t healed.
Disgusted with everything, Faran took another swallow of coffee, feeling the sugar and caffeine already buzzing along his nerves. The wound in his side was a steady ache.
Instinctively, he watched the street. Crowds walked by, some locals and some clearly visitors. No one seemed to notice the green-coated Vidonese guards everywhere, replacing the usual patrols like a spreading stain.
They were, however, looking at the red-haired woman striding down the street like the hounds of hell were at her heels. Faran set down his coffee. He knew that set of her mouth. She was swallowing back tears. He had to go to her. Now.
Or not. Hadn’t he tried the whole rescue thing once already today? And yet, he had to know what Valois had said about the ring. There was every chance its theft was connected to the scene last night. He had to talk to her, whether he liked it or not.
Faran abandoned the coffee and strode after her. He caught up in seconds.
“Lexie!” he cried, grabbing her arm. “What happened after I left?”
She turned, her hair whipping around her face. In the thin sunlight, the long waves were the color of turning leaves—not one shade of orange or red, but all of them—like a riot of flame. He dropped his hand as if the hue alone could scorch.
To his utter surprise, she fell against him with a strangled noise, her arms around his neck. Not sure what else to do, he held her. The way her tall, slender frame fit against his was all too familiar. They’d stood like this a thousand times, her cheek against his shoulder, the curve of her back under his hand. He tensed, afraid to remember too much—even if his body knew her soft skin and sweet, womanly scent.
It was just as well he held back, because the next instant Lexie pulled away, her eyes wide as if she couldn’t believe what she’d just done. “I’m sorry.”
“No problem,” he replied.
She scanned his face, her expression cautious. It rankled.
“What happened in there, Lexie?” he asked, keeping his voice neutral. “How come they let you out?”
She didn’t answer, just studied the pavement.
“What happened?” he asked again in a flat tone.
She heaved a slight sigh. “Valois can’t prove anything right now, but I think we’re still in trouble. More trouble. I was actually— I was actually going to find Chloe and see if she knew where you were. But I kept getting her voice mail.”
“Okay,” he said, his voice careful. This was a complete reversal from telling him to get lost. “Now you’ve found me.”
With jerky movements, she looked around. “We need to go somewhere private.”
“How private?”
Lexie angled away, her shoulders tight. “Away from the palace. I feel like there are eyes everywhere.”
She was probably right. Besides, staying put wasn’t in Lexie’s nature. She didn’t even like going to the same restaurant twice. Faran nodded, but not too eagerly. He’d learned his lesson about overenthusiasm that morning. “Let’s go for a drive. That always makes me feel like I’m getting somewhere, even if I’m not.”
They could be alone in a car. Lexie gave him a look just shy of apprehensive, but nodded. They went to the garage at the far end of the palace grounds where her rented Peugeot was parked. Since it was her car, Faran was content to let her drive. Sort of. Lexie was an excellent driver, but she’d never met an accelerator she didn’t like.
Soon she was tearing down the service road that wound behind the myriad stables, garages, work sheds and other utilitarian buildings that kept the Palace of Marcari functioning. At the bottom of a sloping hill, she turned right onto the scenic coastal highway.
“So tell me what wasn’t safe to say on the street,” Faran ventured.
Lexie ran through the interview blow-by-blow. “Valois is suspicious. He pulled a lot off the computer about both of us. I think that’s why he kept leaving the room. He wanted to check on the progress of his computer minions.”
“Minions?” Faran echoed.
Lexie frowned. The expression looked dangerous with all that red hair. “Men like Valois have minions. He hinted about your associates in the jewelry business. What was that about?”
“That file was supposed to be buried deep.” The Company had pulled him out of a bad life and given him choices. Part of that had been wiping the official slate clean. Faran looked out the window. “I was a kid. It was stupid kid stuff.”
“Something illegal?” she asked in a quiet voice.
“You could call it that.” Some were still doing time for their last score, but Lexie didn’t need to know the details. “I was on my own. Some people had uses for a small kid with exceptional agility. I could get around obstacles they couldn’t.”
“You were a cat burglar.”
“I don’t like cats.”
But the label was accurate. He’d received an education in thievery, especially precious stones. It had been a crack team, going after the best pieces. With Amelie’s ring missing, no wonder Valois was interested.
“Why didn’t you ever tell me?” Lexie asked.
Because you already had one foot out the door. “I’m not proud of it. There’s never a good time to start a discussion about your juvenile arrest record.”
She shifted gears to take a hairpin curve. “Before we moved in together would have been good.”
But by then he was too far gone in love to risk losing her. “I didn’t plan to screw everything up.”
“We never do,” she said quietly. “I’m sorry for all the ways I hurt you.”
The soft words surprised him so much he forgot everything else. “You are?”
She didn’t answer, but the blood rushed to her cheeks. He looked away, knowing that if he pushed her to say more the moment would be ruined. In the brief silence, his gaze drifted to the passenger-side mirror.
The back of Faran’s neck tingled in warning. “Don’t look now, but someone is doing an amateurish job of tailing us.”
Chapter 6
Lexie looked anyway. There was a dark gray sedan behind her—which was not by itself a suspicious fact, but when she changed lanes, it changed with her.
“Told you,” Faran said. “I’d give him five and a half out of ten.”
“Yeah, whatever.” Even before she’d known he was a real spy, he’d liked to give a play-by-play review of the covert ops on TV. “What do I do?”
He cocked an eyebrow. “Do you know who it is?”
“No.”
“Think you can lose him?”
Irritated and apprehensive, Lexie looked behind her again. The sedan was still there. “Maybe.”
“Go for it.”
Conversation died. Full of curves and switchbacks, the scenic road had been used in more than one sports-car commercial and Lexie needed all her concentration. The first chance she got, she made a left turn off the highway, picking up a smaller road that wound through the hills. The sedan didn’t change course.
“Wait a minute
,” she said, oddly disappointed. “Did we completely misread the situation?”
“I dunno,” Faran said, but he didn’t sound convinced.
Disgruntled and feeling as if she was missing some punch line, she let the road take her along a twisting loop that wandered back toward the city. It wouldn’t take long to reach the suburbs—Marcari’s capital was small. No place was more than ten minutes to the countryside and bad roads.
Lexie looked for another turnoff to take her back to the highway, but there was nothing in sight—not that one could see very far in front or behind with so many twists and turns.
“I don’t like this,” Faran said. “It’s like driving blind.”
“I’ll get back to the highway as soon as there’s a turnoff.”
But there were just lanes here and there leading to farms or the wealthy estates that were hidden along Marcari’s coastline. She drove along the hilly, bumpy terrain, sometimes surrounded by clumps of scruffy pine and other times overlooking the blue sea and whitewashed houses below. Another day, she wouldn’t have minded getting semilost, but right then she wasn’t in the mood.
Apart from everything else, Faran’s presence in the passenger seat was reminding her of too many road trips that had ended up at little wayside inns. There had been magical evenings—sometimes with long walks or music festivals or just a local dinner and bed. They had all started out in a car going nowhere in particular with the whole world ahead of them.
Those scattered images of their past made the space between them far too small. Faran had a formidable presence, but Lexie was especially aware of his square, practical hands resting on his knees. Those hands had often told her so much more than his words. They were capable of incredible tenderness, but right now their nervous fidgets said he was every bit as uneasy as she was.
“Lexie!” Faran shouted, snapping her out of her thoughts. “Behind you!”
She glanced in the rearview mirror just in time to see a car speeding into view around a steep curve. Instantly, she swerved to avoid it, but the road was too narrow. The car clipped her back bumper, jolting her against her shoulder belt. The Peugeot lurched forward, the front tire sliding off the road and slewing into a sapling. Wood snapped as Lexie cranked the steering wheel hard, forcing the vehicle back onto the road before it skidded completely out of control. She felt the bump as the car regained the solid surface, and only then saw the gray sedan speed past. Furious, she leaned on the horn. Faran swore.
The sedan disappeared around the bend, going far too fast for the sharp curves. Lexie fell back against the seat with a gasp, almost deafened by the thunder of her own pulse. She lowered the windows a few inches, allowing the cool breeze to chill her sweat-soaked skin.
“Good driving,” Faran said. His voice sounded almost normal, but his fingers gripped her forearm as if he would never let her go.
“If you hadn’t spotted him, I wouldn’t have been able to get out of the way.”
“That was a close call. He meant to run us off the road.”
Lexie’s hands turned to ice. It wasn’t just the idea of being targeted that bothered her—she’d lived with her brother’s malevolent temper for years. She just couldn’t understand how a random attack on the road connected with anything. “What’s going on?”
“I wish I knew. A warning, maybe. Against what, I don’t know.” He cursed again.
She put her hand over his, trying not to meet his eyes. At first she simply meant to reclaim her arm, but his touch was electric, as if that small span of skin against skin was all it took to loan her a bit of his unnatural strength.
“It’s okay,” Faran said finally, though which one of them he was reassuring wasn’t clear. Slowly, he uncurled his fingers.
She didn’t reply, not trusting herself. Words never worked well between them. With every heartbeat, she became more aware of the purr of the idling motor, the chirping of the birds hopping from branch to branch in the trees. The world was still there.
“I should check the bumper,” she said.
“Don’t get out,” Faran said, his voice tense. “Not yet. Drive slowly until we get someplace where we can turn around and go back the way we came.”
Spooked again, she inched the car forward, looking for a wider spot and wishing she could see more than a few car lengths ahead. She cautiously rounded a fork in the road. Tall poplars framed both sides of the avenue, turning the late winter shadows to a purplish blue.
“There,” Faran said, pointing. He indicated a dirt lane that led through an old arched wooden gate in a high fence. Judging by the thick growth of grapevines shrouding the gate, it probably went to one of the local wineries. “Careful, though, visibility sucks.”
She slowed, thinking she’d drive past and then back into the lane to turn around. It would take good aim, but the Peugeot was nimble. Even though she was on high alert, she didn’t see the dark gray sedan speed out of the gate until it was too late.
With a yell, Lexie slammed on the brakes, swerving the car to the side. It was the only thing that saved them. The Peugeot skidded and slid, finally bumping to a stop.
A horrible noise followed, like a giant pop can crunching in an ogre’s fist. That had to be the other car.
Lexie sat frozen, hands clenched around the steering wheel. Breath came in short, sharp gasps, her pulse pounding in her throat. At first she felt nothing, just a remote sort of panic. How bad was the damage? Was she hurt? Faran? What about the other driver?
The other driver had turned and waited to ram them on purpose. Why? Her vision focused and found the sedan. It had crumpled against one of the poplars, which was now leaning at a dangerous angle. The motor was silent, the door open and a man sprawled out of the driver’s side.
“Oh, God!” she breathed.
Faran reached over and killed the motor of the Peugeot. “Are you okay?”
Lexie made a mental check of her limbs. “Yeah.”
“Stay here.” He opened the door and slid out, drawing a gun from beneath his coat.
Lexie watched him prowl toward the other car. She managed to wait five seconds before she followed. Her door jammed on the uneven ground, but she wriggled out, sucking in air as if she’d been drowning. As she stood, the smell of dust and gasoline assaulted her, and then she fell against the Peugeot, her knees weak with shock.
Faran circled the driver, gun pointed at the downed man’s head.
Lexie drew in a slow, shaking breath. Her mind raced as she forced herself forward a step, eyeing the driver. His face wasn’t visible, and he was wearing a plain black suit that told her nothing about his identity. It looked as if he was alone in the car.
Who was this guy? Her fear was draining away, pushed out by a rising anger. She’d been dragged out of her bed, questioned, locked up and now run off the road. If the driver hadn’t been flat on the ground already, she was furious enough to put him there. She marched toward the sedan, wanting answers.
Faran kicked a stone toward the unconscious man. The prone figure didn’t flinch. “Take the gun and cover him,” he said to Lexie. “I’ll check for a pulse.”
“I hate guns.” And she was in no mood to take orders. Despite Faran’s protest, Lexie came forward and crouched, pressing her fingers to the man’s neck. She gasped and yanked her hand away. “He’s icy cold!”
His gun still aimed at the man’s skull, Faran bent and felt for himself. His mouth flattened into a grim line. “This one’s been dead awhile. No wonder his driving sucked.”
“Is he one of yours?” Lexie asked in a tight voice.
“I don’t recognize him,” Faran replied. “Besides, he followed us from the palace. Vampires are banned from there now and, in case you hadn’t noticed, it’s broad daylight. Not even the old ones like moving around in full sun. This one has a tan.”
“Are you saying he’s n
ot a vampire? Then what is he, a zombie?”
“He doesn’t smell bad enough.” Faran holstered his gun. “Stand back while I turn him over.”
This time Lexie didn’t argue, and she retreated a step. The countryside fell eerily silent. Only the ping of the cooling engines interrupted the shushing breeze. “Why do you think he followed us?”
“That depends on who he’s working for.” Faran grabbed the man’s hip and shoulder and flipped him so that he was faceup. The limbs splayed lifelessly. Faran gave him a critical look, then bent and peeled back his upper lip. There were no fangs. “Not a vampire for sure. Let’s look for a name.”
“I’ll check his pockets,” Lexie said. “You take the car.”
Faran raised an eyebrow, but left her to it. Caution and curiosity warred inside Lexie. She folded her arms, fingers curling into fists as she knelt beside the man. There was something compelling about the still form, which was why she wanted to be the one to check him over. Maybe it was because she finally had the upper hand in this bizarre chain of events. Maybe it was because she felt as though she was on the brink of an understanding she couldn’t define. The guy was weirdly familiar. Not his face but...
She gave up trying to capture the thought and got to work. Gingerly, she reached over and pulled his wallet from his pants pocket, snagging a wrapper for salted peanuts along with it. He must have been a pack rat, because the wallet was stuffed with more wrappers and receipts. There was a Vidonese driver’s license showing the same bland, round, brown-haired face.
“His name is Serge Gillon and he’s thirty-two,” she said.
Faran looked up from searching through the sedan. “Probably fake but it’s a start.”
Out of force of habit, Lexie pulled out her phone and snapped pictures of Gillon, the cars and the scene. She knew she’d forget half the detail any other way. She pocketed her phone again and tried to stuff the wallet back into his jacket pocket. A crumpled snack food bag blocked the way—apparently Gillon liked salty treats. She tossed that aside and tried again. As she reached into the satin lining of the pocket one more time, her fingers brushed something cold and metallic. With a sudden leap of suspicion, she grasped the metal object and plucked it free.
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