“Juro?” she asked.
“Lucia is right,” he murmured, his voice so deep that it was little more than a rumble of sound.
Cyn opened her mouth to ask what he meant, but he was already out of the vehicle and striding up the walkway, taking the four steps to the front porch in a single, graceful bound and pulling the screen door open.
“Who the fuck put a burr up his ass?” Elke muttered as she slid out of the truck, but her feet no sooner hit the grass than she was snapping out an arm to stop Cyn from following Juro into the house. Or at least she tried to.
“Fuck that, Elke,” Cyn said, slipping around her bodyguard. “I’m going in there.”
“Of course you are,” Elke agreed, rolling her eyes. “Why do I even bother?”
“Enough with the long-suffering bullshit,” Cyn said as she climbed to the porch and yanked the door open. “You live for this stuff. Before I showed up, you were bored to tears guarding Raphael’s front door from all those threatening bimbos.”
“Yeah—” Elke snorted, “—now I only need to worry about the one.”
Cyn gasped in feigned outrage. “Are you calling me a bimbo?”
“If the shoe fits, sugar. Everything here looks—” Elke’s words cut off as she put on a burst of vampire speed to get ahead of Cyn, then stopped so suddenly that Cyn nearly ran into her. Any shred of playfulness disappeared as Elke blocked Cyn from moving any farther into the house, her entire body stiffening into readiness like an immoveable stone statue, her fangs emerging from her gums in an unmistakable display of aggression.
Cyn didn’t try to get past her, but she did take a step to one side so that the weapon she drew would hit the bad guy and not Elke. Her eyes were on Juro as he moved purposefully down the short hallway to the back of the house where Luci was engaged in earnest conversation with a teenaged boy. He was taller than she was, slender, with dark scruffy hair, and wore battered jeans and a T-shirt, along with a pair of athletic shoes that stood out not only because they looked too new, but because they were a recent and highly coveted design. On runaway kids, it was a red flag that the shoes had probably been stolen. He was also standing too close to Luci, looming over her and invading her space with clear intent, if not to intimidate, then at least to establish dominance in the conversation. But Luci dealt with young men like him all the time, treating them with compassion and a real affection that the teens inevitably warmed to. For all this kid’s aggressive posturing, he was just another unhappy teenager, and Cyn didn’t understand Elke’s extreme reaction.
At least not until she saw Juro insert himself between Luci and the boy. Without a word, Juro reached one huge arm behind him and tucked Luci into a protective curl against his back. Normally, that proof of the big guy’s affection would have been enough to catch Cyn’s attention, but not today. She was too focused on the threatening glare that Juro was directing at the teenager, who Cyn abruptly realized wasn’t a teenager at all. He was a vampire, and he was the reason they were all here.
“Elke?” Cyn whispered. “Do you know him?”
Elke shook her head sharply. “But Juro doesn’t like him, and that’s good enough for me.”
“Who are you?” Juro’s deep voice rumbled. “And why are you here?”
“My lord,” the newcomer said smoothly, “forgive me. It was not my intention to disturb anyone as exalted as yourself.”
When Juro didn’t react to the blatant flattery, the strange vamp gave a longsuffering sigh. “My name is Pascal, and I’ve come from Chicago,” he offered grudgingly. “Nothing against Aden, but he does carry a grudge, and he’s none too welcoming for those of us who worked for Klemens. I thought I’d try my luck out here. I’ve nothing but respect for Raphael.”
Cyn frowned. Aden was the new Lord of the Midwest. He’d defeated, aka killed, all other challengers after the former lord Klemens’s unlamented death. Klemens had been an asshole of the worst sort, so she could understand why Aden wouldn’t want any of Klemens’s old henchmen working for him.
“You’ve a strange way of showing your respect—lurking among teenagers, threatening friends,” Juro said, not making any attempt to conceal his distrust. The intruder shrugged, the simple gesture demonstrating an otherworldly grace that Cyn had only seen with vampires. She chastised herself for missing the obvious. She shouldn’t need Juro or anyone else to identify a vampire for her. Cyn lived with vampires. She knew the little things to look for, the unmistakable signs. That she’d missed this guy told her she was getting too complacent, too reliant on her vampire bodyguards. And that was never a good thing.
“I meant no harm to anyone,” the vamp was saying. “But I wasn’t certain of my welcome. I’d heard on the street that vampires hung around this house, so I did what we’ve always done to survive. I blended, hiding in plain sight until I could figure out a way to contact Raphael without getting summarily executed.”
His words practically reeked of sincerity, but there was something not quite right about it, about him. He was a little too sincere, a little too intense, as if he was trying a little too hard.
“If you want to live beyond the next two minutes, you’ll stop that,” Juro growled.
The other vampire laughed skittishly. “Can’t blame a vamp for trying.”
Juro didn’t respond, but the exchange caught Cyn’s attention. Had this guy tried to use his vampire-given abilities to manipulate Juro? What an idiot.
“I’m a little thrown by the four-alarm response is all,” the vamp continued, twitching nervously and unwisely in Cyn’s opinion. “Rumor has it that Miss Luci there is a friend of Raphael’s mate.” He gave Cyn a sly glance that told her he knew who she was, even though no one seemed to know him. “But all of this fuss over … Oh,” he said, his eyes widening in exaggerated surprise as he took in Juro’s protective posture. “It’s the lovely Luci herself, isn’t it? Is she yours?”
Juro regarded the smaller vampire through half-lidded eyes that had taken on the golden glow of his power, even as he tightened his arm around Luci. Cyn couldn’t help noticing that her friend appeared quite comfortable cuddled up against the Japanese vampire’s broad back, and she decided that she and Luci were definitely going have a talk later . . . after they swept up the dust of this interloper who was clearly too stupid to live.
“Don’t worry about Lucia,” Juro rumbled, his voice filled with more menace that Cyn could remember ever having heard from him before.
“No offense intended,” the vampire muttered, his gaze shifting to take in Cyn and Elke. “Ms. Leighton?” he asked, staring at Cyn.
Elke immediately shifted to place herself more directly in front of Cyn.
Cyn studied the new guy briefly then deliberately slid her weapon back into its shoulder holster. “I’m Cynthia Leighton,” she confirmed. “Who’re you?” She permitted nothing but polite curiosity to shade her words. The first rule of dealing with vamps was never to let them know, or even think, that you were intimidated by them.
“Raphael’s mate,” the vampire whispered. “I’m honored, my lady.”
“Don’t be,” Cyn cautioned him dryly. “I’m here for Luci, not you.”
He gave a delighted laugh and started toward her, only to be thwarted by both Juro and Elke.
The vamp blew out an exasperated breath. “All right, all right,” he muttered, raising both hands in surrender. “How do I petition Lord Raphael, then?”
“You can ride with us,” Cyn offered on a whim. Most vampires went out of their way to avoid meeting Raphael, preferring to deal with intermediaries like Juro. But not this guy. He clearly had a hidden agenda, and she figured the best way to blow it into the open was to call his bluff. See what scuttled out. It wasn’t like he was any kind of a threat, not to Raphael anyway. And sure as hell not by the time he got through all of the screening Juro would subject him to first.
Elke and Juro obviously didn’t agree with her thinking, however, as both of them shot her deadly glares. “What?” she demanded. “He’s got to talk to Raphael and we’re going there.”
Elke only glared harder, but Juro studied her briefly and then let the bare curl of a knowing smile move his lips. Then, being a man of few words, he simply nodded once in assent.
“Thank you, my lady!” the newcomer enthused, then turned to face Luci, leaning sideways to see her behind Juro. “Miss Luci, your hospitality has been unparalleled,” he said and reached for her hand, stopping abruptly when Juro growled a wordless warning. The vamp settled instead for a short bow, then headed for the front door, giving Cyn a cheerful wink when Elke backed her out of the way.
The vamp exited first, with Cyn and Elke following. Cyn glanced back for Juro just in time to see him run a big hand down the length of Luci’s long hair then bend over and drop a soft kiss on her lips. Cyn smiled. These were two of her favorite people; how could she not enjoy seeing them together? She was still smiling when Juro joined them, his dark gaze narrowing at her in an unspoken warning. Cyn swallowed her laugh, her eyes going wide with the effort. Which only made Juro glare even harder.
“Elke—” he growled, without looking away from Cyn, “—you and Cynthia sit in back. Our visitor will ride up front with me.”
Elke nodded once then turned to Cyn. “You’re behind Juro,” she ordered. She was in full bodyguard mode, so Cyn obeyed without question, sliding across the seat. She was grateful for the size of the big SUV, because Juro had the seat pushed all the way back to accommodate his considerable length. And at six feet tall herself, Cyn needed the leg room too.
Elke climbed into the back seat next to her, pulling the door closed as Cyn fastened her seatbelt securely. She was the only one to do so. She’d never seen a vampire who bothered with it.
The trip back to Malibu was thankfully short. Juro wove in and out of traffic like an Indy race car driver and didn’t say a word. Their visitor, on the other hand, never shut up. He kept up a continuous stream of chatter, half of it meaningless observations about Malibu, its houses, the ocean, and the other half sly digs at Juro, as if he wanted the big vampire to snap and attack him.
Cyn watched all of this curiously, taking in not only what the vamp was saying, but what he wasn’t. For a guy who claimed to be seeking a new home in Raphael’s territory, he didn’t ask a single question about life under Raphael’s rule, or even about Raphael himself. He also didn’t show the slightest nervousness about going before Raphael to petition for residence in the West, even though earlier he’d claimed to be afraid Raphael would execute him before he could plead his case.
Cyn was also getting a creeping sense that, despite every word he spoke being aimed at Juro, she was the true target. It was almost as if his words were a cover for what he was really doing: that while he chattered away, he was working some other magic aimed at Cyn. Maybe it was because she was the only human, because he’d tried something on Juro earlier and had been shut down. Or maybe he was specifically targeting her for some reason. But whatever his game was, it was constant and unrelenting. Her fingers itched with the urge to grab her weapon and shoot the asshole just to stop whatever the hell he was doing. It was only the certain knowledge that Raphael would want to talk to him that stopped her. But frankly, Raphael or not, if this fucker didn’t shut up soon, she was going to shoot him anyway.
PASCAL SAT IN the front seat of the giant SUV, his mouth spewing a free flow of inane chatter while his brain worked on the problem at hand. Fucking Juro. That had been unexpected. Pascal had been thorough in his research for this assignment, reading everything he could find on the vampires who constituted Raphael’s inner circle. There wasn’t that much out there because first, Raphael’s vamps were loyal to a fault and refused to gossip about him. But also because, for the most part, the vamps closest to Raphael had all been sired by him and had remained at his side from the moment of their rebirth. Raphael’s lieutenant, Jared, was the only exception. Although he, too, had been sired by Raphael, he’d become Raphael’s man on the scene, traveling all over the West, wherever he was needed. And because of that, Pascal had been able to learn a little bit more about Jared. But Juro . . . Juro had been at Raphael’s side since he’d been turned, and no one was even sure when that was. He was one seriously badass motherfucker, almost as famous as Raphael, and known for his unflinching loyalty, as well as his power and skill as a warrior. He was also the very last vampire Pascal would have chosen to tangle with.
Fortunately, the big guy seemed to be underestimating Pascal’s threat potential. It was the lone benefit of having been turned at such a young age. In his early days as a vampire, during the flower child era of the 1960s, Pascal had lived among the legions of lost youth in the big cities, finding his victims among his fellow street dwellers. But once he’d come into his full vampiric power, there’d been no more need to dwell in poverty.
Pascal wasn’t strong in the way things were measured in vampire society. If he ever went head to head with a vampire like Juro, he’d be crushed like a bug. But he had one unique and powerful talent, so powerful that he’d earned a nickname among the vamps he ran with. They called him The Mesmer because that’s what he did. He mesmerized others into doing whatever he wanted. The common term was hypnosis, but what he did was far more complicated than that. He reached right into their brains and persuaded them that what he wanted was their greatest desire. It worked on vampires as well as humans, especially if the vampire was unaware of what he could do and was therefore unprepared to defend against it. As for humans . . . well they were such simple creatures, it was child’s play to persuade them to do whatever he wanted.
And that was why it vexed him that the Leighton woman was proving so resistant to his manipulation. She’d been his target all along. Within a day of his arrival on the streets of L.A., he’d heard about Lucia Shinn’s house of losers, but he hadn’t paid much attention until the word vampire was mentioned. He’d slipped in among a group of teens dropping by the runaway house and done a little snooping of his own. It hadn’t required any of his talent to discover Cynthia Leighton’s connection to the shelter, and only a smidge to persuade Lucia Shinn to call her good friend about the new, possibly dangerous teen hanging out on her couch.
And Leighton had shown up right on cue, with goddamn Juro in tow. How was Pascal supposed to have known that the Shinn bitch was fucking Raphael’s security chief? The minute Pascal had met Juro, he’d known that his talent wouldn’t work, that the big vamp was far too powerful, but sheer reflex had made him try it anyway. In retrospect, it had been an ill-considered impulse. Especially since it might have something to do with why he wasn’t able to penetrate Leighton’s natural shields. Maybe she’d picked up on that little exchange with Juro and was now guarding against him.
But even forewarned, she shouldn’t be able to block him so completely. His talent was unmatched. And that wasn’t ego; it was fact. In his more than fifty years as a vampire, he’d never encountered either a single human or a vampire who could resist his influence, excepting only the most powerful vampires. It was the reason his current mistress had sought him out, why she’d dragged him away from his merry band of thieves and given him this mission. And he couldn’t afford to fail her. His talent was strong and useful, but if he failed her, she’d destroy him without a thought.
The only good thing to come out of this fiasco was the fact that he was now on his way to Raphael’s huge estate, pulling through the gates with an all-access pass, courtesy of not just Leighton, but Juro. It was exactly what he’d hoped for. Except that the very last thing he wanted in this life or the next was an actual audience with Raphael himself. Raphael would suss him out in a heartbeat. And if Juro could squash him like a bug, Raphael was . . . well, let’s just say that what would be left of him after Raphael finished wouldn’t be worth squashing.
&
nbsp; Unfortunately, a meeting with Raphael seemed to be where he was headed unless he acted quickly. His clever plan for how to get onto Raphael’s estate had somehow gotten twisted into a giant comedic clusterfuck.
He sighed as Juro drove the SUV through the gates and into the magic kingdom of Raphael. Pascal wasn’t a vampire who worried about things like manicured grounds or aesthetically pleasing landscapes. He preferred living in the big cities where his only acreage was the balcony off a high-rise condo. But even he appreciated the elegant grace of Raphael’s grand estate, with its rolling lawns of green and stands of ancient trees, all lit up with tiny white lights like a fairy princess’s dream.
He caught a glimpse of the main house, its clean white lines splashed with even more light, but then they were driving past it, the road twisting through the dense trees until a house of an entirely different sort appeared out of the darkness. This one looked like a transplant from somewhere in Europe, which was a place that Pascal had never been. It was dark grey stone with blue-peaked roofs, climbing ivy, and an elaborate maze of shrubbery covering the entire front entrance. Which was probably why Juro was pulling the SUV up to a side entrance instead.
“Out,” Juro ordered, apparently a man of few words.
Pascal swallowed his sigh of relief at what seemed to be a temporary reprieve, since it was doubtful that Juro would let him get close to Raphael alone. Plus, he was the only one getting out of the truck. It was also obvious that Leighton and Raphael didn’t reside in this pseudo-European dwelling. Why would they, when they had the big white mansion to live in?
Unforgiven (A Cyn and Raphael Novella Book 3) Page 2