“Hurry,” Jean-Michel said from the other side of the door. “She’s on her way up.”
Rafe growled. “Give her a fucking minute.”
He spun me around and pulled the dress down so he could refasten the bra, then set the straps back on my shoulders. The panties were a lost cause.
“Lift your foot,” he muttered and jerked the panties over my sandals. He stuffed them in his pocket and rose to his feet.
“Open up, damn it.” Jean-Michel rattled the doorknob again. “She’ll be here any minute.”
I dragged a shaky hand over my head. “I’m sorry,” I told Rafe. “I don’t know how she found out I’m here.”
“Hey. Whatever happens, it was worth it.” His crooked smile slammed into my heart with the force of a fist.
Regret filled me.
It’s just sex. Yeah, he’d made me feel beautiful, wanted, but we both knew it couldn’t be anything more.
I snatched up the stiletto and its sheath and turned to face the door.
Bold. Take charge.
“Don’t worry,” I told Rafe. “I’ll tell her I—”
“Go,” he said at the same time, pulling open the door. “I’ll stall her.”
Jean-Michel took my arm and nodded at the fire exit. “This way. We can take the stairs.”
The elevator pinged. The doors opened and a trio of black-suited men spilled into the hall—two enforcers and Étan, my mother’s current lieutenant—followed by my mother in one of her trademark scarlet dresses.
Jean-Michel swore under his breath. He released my arm and stepped back.
Victorine took in the stiletto and sheath in my hands. Her mouth thinned into a harsh red slash. “I’m sure you can explain.”
A sick panic closed my throat.
She knew exactly what Rafe and I had been doing. With her vampire senses, she could smell the hot, dark scent of sex emanating from us both.
But she wanted to force me to admit it.
“I—”
“Not you.” She sliced a look at Rafe. “Him.”
He gave an easy smile and spread his hands. “There’s nothing to explain, really. I invited the princess up here to go over the final details of the joint venture.”
Victorine drew herself up to her full height. “Do I look stupid?”
“No.” His smile turned rueful. “Look, I’m sorry if I broke some unwritten rule. But don’t blame Zoe. This was all my doing.”
“Oh, I don’t doubt that for a moment.” She flicked a finger. Étan and the enforcers flowed forward in a black triangle, taking Rafe with them into the penthouse. With a snap, the door shut behind the four of them.
I rounded on my mother. “He’s done nothing wrong, damn it. I’m here because I want to be.”
Her hand slammed into my throat, shoving me against the wall.
Jean-Michel drew a breath. “Victorine…”
“Quiet,” she hissed and he subsided. “You slut.” She shook me by the throat like I was a naughty kitten. “You think I’d let you risk getting pregnant by a Kral? And a dhampir, yet?”
I knew better than to fight back. She was twice my strength and ten times more ruthless.
“I’m sorry,” I said as best I could past the bruising grip she had on my throat.
From the penthouse came the thump of flesh against flesh, and a stifled groan that I knew had to be Rafe.
My stomach contracted.
“I trusted you.” Victorine shook me again. “You were supposed to get close enough to make sure he didn’t try any tricks. Not let the bastard seduce you.”
She set me back down. “You’re weak. Just like him—a dhampir.” She shook her head. “Maybe I should let you have each other.”
My gaze slid to the side. Maybe you should, whispered the bold, happy Zoe.
But that was crazy talk. We both knew she’d never let me go. Not her only spawn.
“I’m sorry.” I schooled my face to show no more emotion than my cramped, stunted heart. “It won’t happen again.”
She jerked the door open. Rafe was on his knees, the vampires looming over him. Étan had my panties in his hand. He threw them in Rafe’s face with a feral growl, followed by a vicious kick to his ribs.
Someone moaned. I didn’t know it was me until Étan’s head snapped around.
“Well?” Victorine asked me. “What do you have to say to him?”
Blood trickled from Rafe’s temple. His left arm dangled at his side; the wrist bent at an unnatural angle. He looked up at me and attempted a smile through his bloodied lips. “Sorry.”
Do something.
Étan sneered. “She doesn’t need your apology, dhampir.” In the past few years, the hundred-year-old vampire had shot up the hierarchy to become Victorine’s most trusted man, but this was the first time she’d allowed him to speak for her.
Rafe growled. “I wasn’t talking to you.”
“No?” Étan hit him open-handed. Rafe’s head snapped to the side. An enforcer grabbed his broken arm and twisted it further.
I lurched forward. “Enough.”
My mother’s arm shot out, blocking me. “Think,” she hissed. “You’re a princess. My only spawn. And he’s a dhampir.”
I opened my mouth. Shut it.
Speak up for Rafe, and I’d lose everything. Rafe might be a syndicate prince, but he’d never be good enough for Victorine. Vampire spawn didn’t mate with dhampirs, especially vampires as high in the hierarchy as me.
And recently, my mother had said she was considering promoting me to lieutenant.
Rafe could never be more than a guilty pleasure.
Victorine lowered her arm. “Well?”
Rafe’s eyes burned into mine. Seeing me for the hypocrite I was.
I had to force myself to hold his gaze.
“I was just playing around.” The words tasted bitter on my tongue. “I wanted to see if you lived up to the hype. You didn’t think I was serious, did you?”
“No.” His mouth wrenched to the side in a grotesque imitation of his famous grin. “I didn’t think you were serious.”
Victorine stepped inside. I couldn’t see her face, but I suspected it wore a satisfied smile, the kind a cat wears as it eyes a cornered mouse.
I had the bad feeling we’d played right into her hands.
I dug my nails into my palms hard enough to draw blood. Because if I didn’t, I was going to attack my own mother.
The enforcers snapped silver cuffs on Rafe’s wrists. The smell of burning flesh filled the air. His face contorted, but he didn’t make a sound.
The door closed. A quiet but definite click that echoed in my head like a slam.
My chest constricted.
Rafe would survive. Victorine was too smart to stake him. Take out one of Karoly Kral’s sons, and the Kral Syndicate would come after us with everything they had.
Bold. Take charge.
Yeah, right. I closed my eyes, so disgusted with myself I could barely breathe.
“Let’s go.” Jean-Michel nudged me forward.
I walked down the hall. Shoulders back, spine straight, and shame like acid in my stomach.
2
RAFE
THE PRESENT DAY
The July sun shone hot and bright on Montreal’s swanky Crescent Street. I exited the metro, put on my sunglasses, and glanced into a shop window, checking my glamour.
Yep, I looked just like another American tourist. A short, stocky tourist in a Disturbed T-shirt and running shoes.
I didn’t dare travel the city in my real skin. The Tremblay vampires would be taking their day sleep, but every syndicate included a few dhampirs like me, vampire-human mixes who could move about during the day.
I wasn’t even supposed to be in Montreal. I’d warned my father that sending me to Canada was a bad idea. After Victorine’s men had finished with me, the prima had told me that if I ever touched Zoe again—if I even breathed the same goddamn air as her daughter—she would consider it an act of war.
But Father had somehow learned the real story behind my abrupt departure from Montreal two years ago. Not from me, that was for damn sure. All I’d told him was that the negotiations for the joint venture had fallen through because the Tremblays had imposed too many conditions.
“Use a glamour on the daughter,” he’d said. “Or that famous charm of yours.”
I’d shrugged a shoulder, but my gut had churned with humiliation. I’d replayed that scene in the penthouse a thousand times in my mind. I’d thought Zoe and I had something real, something bigger than the Kral/Tremblay blood feud.
I was wrong.
“I was just playing around.”
Father had insisted I try. My brother Zaq was being held prisoner somewhere in Paris, and Father suspected Victorine was behind Zaq’s abduction, that she’d formed an alliance with Slayers, Inc. to take out me and my two brothers.
If so, it was my fault. I was the one who’d fucked up by messing with Victorine’s precious only daughter, putting not just myself, but Zaq and Gabriel at risk.
And I was the only one who could fix this. Because despite what Zoe had told her mother that night in the hotel, the princess had a weakness for me.
A weakness I intended to exploit—if I could just get to the woman.
I’d spent the last couple of days working my few contacts in Montreal, trying to find out something, anything that would help Zaq.
I’d bribed, pleaded, threatened. But nada. I hadn’t even found any proof tying Victorine to the slayers.
Meanwhile, my brother was wasting away in a cell somewhere in France. Chained in silver and being fed on by a vampire.
Crescent Street was full of humans enjoying the warm summer afternoon. They strolled past Victorian brownstones and a few out-of-place high-rises that shot like weeds above the field of trendy boutiques, galleries, and restaurants. I joined the crowd, matching their plodding, window-shopping pace until I reached a high-end chocolate shop.
Inside I was greeted by a blast of cool, chocolate-scented air. My quarry, Felix Fortin, was waiting on a pair of tourists. A bilingual native of Montreal, what Felix didn’t know about the city’s residents—vampire or human—wasn’t worth knowing.
I waited until the tourists took their chocolate and left, then locked the door behind them.
Felix started to object. I removed my sunglasses and shed the glamour.
“I need some information.”
Felix blinked rapidly. He was a Kral informant. He knew exactly who I was, although he didn’t look happy to see me. “Of course, m’sieur. How may I help you?”
“I’m looking for Princess Zoe.”
He darted a glance at the locked door and smoothed down his white chef’s coat. For a man who spent his days making candy, he was damn scrawny, with lanky limbs and a nervous, high-strung energy.
Or maybe it was me making him nervous.
“La Princesse isn’t in the city,” he said.
My back teeth clamped down. I’d figured that much out for myself. “Then where is she?”
Felix edged backward. I relaxed my jaw and reminded myself to be charming.
But I didn’t feel charming.
Two years since I’d last seen Zoe, and the anger was still fresh, raw.
Two years since Victorine’s thugs had tossed me onto a jet out of Montreal, broken and bleeding and bitter as fuck.
Two years since I’d sworn never to get played like that again.
Now, Zaq’s kidnapping had changed everything.
I had to get to Zoe.
But she’d apparently gone to ground. Burrowed into some Tremblay lair.
I’d been searching Montreal for her since Thursday. Today was Sunday, and all I’d discovered is where she wasn’t.
Not in her family’s mansion in Old Montreal. Not at the Tremblay Vampire Syndicate’s downtown headquarters. And not at any of the usual society parties.
You’d think Zoe knew I was looking for her, but that was impossible. I hadn’t gone anywhere without my glamour. If Victorine found out I was in Montreal, my life wouldn’t be worth the pack of cigarettes Felix was nervously fingering.
I dredged up an engaging smile, the one that usually had humans falling all over themselves to please me. “Think, Felix. You must have some idea of where she is.”
He shoved the cigarettes back into his coat pocket. “La Princesse spent the last week on her family’s private island.”
“What’s the name of this island?” I dropped any pretense of charm.
Fuck charm.
I was blood-hungry—I hadn’t drunk in days—and on edge. Each day I wasted trying to find Zoe was another day Zaq spent in captivity.
“Isle de Minuit.” Fear emanated from Felix in sour waves.
I took a calming breath. Felix wasn’t the problem here.
“Midnight Island? That’s northeast of here, right?”
I’d heard the Tremblays owned a private island. Hell, they probably owned more than one. My family did. But last I’d heard, Zoe had been living with Victorine in the Old City mansion. Maybe she’d finally asserted her independence from the vicious two-hundred-year-old bat.
Felix bobbed his head in a jerky nod. “Oui. On the Rivière des Mille-Îles. The Thousand Islands River. But the only way to reach the island is by a private causeway owned by the Tremblays.”
I set a stack of large bills on the counter. “How do I get to her?”
Felix licked his lips and eyed the money like he wanted to grab it and run. “You can’t. The causeway is guarded twenty-four/seven. The only other way to reach the island is by boat, and there’s an electrified, silver-reinforced fence around the entire island. You could take a chopper, but the guards would have you surrounded the moment you landed.”
“There has to be a way.”
“I’m sorry.” He spread his hands. “There’s no way on or off without the Tremblays’ permission. You’ll have to wait until the princess returns to the city.”
“That’s not good enough.” By then, Zaq could be dead. I reached for the money.
His fingers closed over mine. “Wait.”
I snarled and showed my fangs. Felix snatched back his hand.
I waited a few beats, then nodded. “Go ahead.”
He shot another anxious glance at the door. “The Crimson Ball. It’s the big party the prima throws for Princess Zoe’s birthday every year. But you can’t attend without an invitation.”
My skin prickled and my heart picked up speed.
I pushed the cash at him. “July twenty-fifth, right?” That summer two years ago when Zoe and I had first met, preparations had been underway for her birthday ball. Not that I’d been invited.
“Oui. In the Tremblay Chateau ballroom.”
“Which is on the damned island.”
And July twenty-fifth was Thursday. Four nights from tonight.
I shoved a hand through my hair and stared at the shop’s black-and-white checkerboard floor.
I had to attend that ball.
“If that’s all, M’sieur?” Felix attempted to shoo me out of the shop.
“Who prints the Crimson Ball invitations?” I tossed more cash onto the marble counter.
“Please.” His Adam’s apple bobbed. “They’ll kill me. Or make me a blood slave.”
“The name.” I shoved my face into his and put the force of compulsion into my voice. “Now.”
Felix’s thin face contorted as he fought the urge to speak. But he gave me the printer’s name.
“Good man,” I said. “Now forget I was ever here. You never saw me. You didn’t speak to me. As far as you know, I’m not even in Canada. Got it?”
“I never saw you,” he repeated, eyes glassy. “Never spoke to you. You’re not even in Canada.”
Leaning over the counter, I tucked the money into his pocket behind the cigarettes and called on my glamour. It shimmered over me like a magical paint job. My curly black hair straightened and turned dirt-blond, my chin sprouted
a wispy stubble, and my body seemed to shorten and thicken.
I helped myself to a box of chocolate truffles. “Á bientôt, mon ami. It’s always a pleasure doing business with you.”
The print shop was fifteen minutes away on a narrow cobblestone street in Old Montreal.
And it was closed on Sundays.
I glared at the carved wood “Fermé” sign. I could break into the shop, but all the invitations would have been sent out by now. I’d have to return tomorrow.
I headed back to the Latin Quarter, resigned to holing up another night in my rented apartment.
At dusk, I gulped down a bloody steak. Outside, the party-loving Montrealais were out in force. They packed the restaurants and bars of Rue St. Denis and overflowed into nearby streets, including the one beneath my third floor window.
I stared out at them, edgy and hungry despite the steak. Itching to go out hunting. But the Tremblay vampires would be out, too, prowling among the humans.
I turned from the window and reached for the truffles. The scent had teased my nostrils all afternoon, rich and dark and sweet. I opened the box and froze, staring at the truffles like they were tiny hand grenades.
I’d grabbed a box of Zoe’s favorite candy.
Chocolate and alcohol are the only human foods a pureblood vampire can tolerate. During the casino negotiations, we’d usually taken a break around midnight for chocolate and a glass of blood-wine.
And each night, Zoe ate the same thing—a dark chocolate salted caramel truffle. Slowly, with an intent expression that had made me want to drag her onto the conference table and do dirty things to her.
It was the only time she’d let on there was a real person behind that unsmiling exterior.
After a few days, she’d started playing up to me when no one was looking. Running her tongue over her lips. Making little hums of satisfaction. Licking the chocolate and caramel from her fingertips.
Things had progressed from there. We’d managed to steal away from our respective security and spend an hour alone at a hole-in-the-wall pub. The time flew by, the two of us absorbed in each other.
Zoe had told me she envied my being the third son. “No pressure,” she’d said.
Craved: A Vampire Syndicate Paranormal Romance (The Vampire Syndicate Book 2) Page 2