As a child, I’d longed for color, warmth. My face raised to the summer sun.
But I was that rare being, a vampire born to two vampires. I hadn’t been able to tolerate more than a few minutes of sunlight until I’d reached my teens.
I blinked, moved closer to the glass.
A man stood in the woods. I unhooked the casement window’s lock and pushed it open.
Rafe?
My cheeks heated. My heart banged against my ribcage. I set my palms on the windowsill, staring hard at the deepening shadows.
But it was only a guard. He moved out of the trees flanked by the pack of wolfdogs that helped patrol the island.
Disappointment whooshed through me. I shook my head at myself. It was only in children’s books that the prince rescued the princess.
A rustle in the bedroom doorway made me spin around.
Victorine—I hadn’t called her “Mother” since I was a tiny girl—stepped out of the shadow dimension, her slim form sheathed in a chic red dress, accompanied by the spicy orange-and-clove of Opium, her favorite scent.
The door to my suite was still shut. She must have slipped inside when Lainey had left. She’d been here all this time, watching me.
My jaw tightened. I hated being watched when I didn’t know it.
“Victorine,” I said stiffly.
“You and Lainey have chosen your outfit?” She spoke in clipped Parisian French.
“Oui. Although we had a difference of opinion on my hair.”
She took in the bangs and shrugged a shoulder. “No matter. The dress, c’est parfait, though.”
The fine hairs on my nape lifted. I fingered the barely-there skirt. “Why am I wearing white?”
Last summer, I’d been commanded to wear red; and the year before, a dramatic black-and-white, shoulder-baring confection. I hadn’t worn all white to the Crimson Ball since the year I’d turned twenty-one.
“You look young, very innocent. The men, they will eat you up.”
Something was definitely up.
“Victorine,” I said between clenched teeth. “What. Have. You. Done?”
She looked at me down her straight nose. No one could do haughty like Prima Tremblay. She was the real thing, an aristocrat who would’ve died during the French Revolution if not for the vampire who’d rescued and turned her. She’d lived with him in Paris until World War I, when she’d been sent to Montreal by the Paris Primus to found our syndicate.
“I’ve assured your future. You should be thanking me.”
“My future?” My stomach jittered. “Is it Étan?”
The lieutenant had had his eye on me since I was a teenager. Victorine said I should be flattered. The man was gorgeous even for a vampire, with pale blond hair and the face of a storybook hero.
Too bad he made my skin crawl.
My fingernails dug into my palms. “Tell me you haven’t made an arrangement with that tarbanak.”
Victorine’s full red mouth turned down. A Tremblay didn’t swear, especially in Quebecois. A Tremblay spoke only perfect Parisian French.
“Only if you agree,” she said.
I eyed her. What was the catch? Because with Victorine, there was always a catch.
“Then we don’t have a problem,” I said. “Tell him I don’t agree.”
Her nostrils flared. “Do it yourself.”
“I can turn him down?”
A slight hesitation. “Oui, although I don’t advise it. But Zoe?” Her voice chilled. “You will choose a mate. By the end of the Crimson Ball.”
“But…that’s two nights from now.” Fury and a sick panic churned in me. “For the Lady’s sake, I’m only twenty-six. You didn’t take a mate until you were well into your second century.”
“You’ll be twenty-seven on your birthday. And I was more stable. You’ve shown a regrettable tendency to listen to your heart over your head. You do want to replace Étan as my lieutenant, n’est-ce pas?”
“Of course.” How could she even ask? In the past year since she’d tapped me as her lieutenant-in-training, I’d worked my ass off for her and the syndicate.
“Then prove it.”
“I have proved it. I’ve done everything you asked and more. You know I’d make a better lieutenant than Étan.”
“But his loyalty isn’t in question.”
“What—?” My mouth dropped open. “This is about Rafe Kral, isn’t it? It’s over. Finished. I haven’t seen the man in two years.”
And I missed him. My chest squeezed.
Even though I’d pushed him away myself, I missed him. Étan and Victorine had even showed me proof that Rafe had been using me, and even through my humiliation, I’d tried to make excuses for him.
Not even dozens of social media posts of Rafe with beautiful women—on a yacht off the Greek islands, partying at Mardi Gras, clubbing in Manhattan—had cured me of wondering What if?...
“And yet, in those two years you’ve refused every man I sent your way. No, you’re still pining for that boy. That dhampir.” Victorine’s mouth pinched like she’d tasted something bad. “I know what happened last year in New York. How you slipped away from your guards and tried to contact him. The son of our enemy. I won’t have it, Zoe. Do you hear me?” Hard, cold words that battered me like stones. “I won’t have it.”
“I hear you.” I’d wanted to ask Rafe straight to his face if everything between us had been a lie.
At least, that’s what I’d told myself.
Victorine wasn’t finished. “Karoly Kral staked your father. Remember that when you yearn for his so-charming spawn. The Krals stole my mate and deprived you of your father. I only made peace with Karoly to save you—he would have come for you next. I will not lose my only daughter to the blood feud.”
Her face had gone dead-white, her dark irises edged with the unnerving blue of her vampire. “And I will not lose you to his half-breed son.”
I stared back, throat tight. I knew all this, of course. I’d grown up with stories of the evil Kral Primus. Karoly Kral had been the monster in my closet.
“Don’t worry. You’re not going to lose me to Rafe Kral. He’d never have me now, anyway. You made sure of that.”
“It was for your own good. He was only using you. The man’s a liar and a cheat, just like his father. Have you forgotten those texts?”
“No,” I said woodenly. “I know he only pretended to be interested in me so the Krals would have an edge in the negotiations.”
I’d seen the proof myself on the phone Étan had taken from Rafe. Texts from Rafe to his father, where he’d boasted that I was falling for him: I’ve got her so hot for me, she can’t think straight.
To have Étan see the texts had been the final humiliation. I’d wondered if Victorine had done that deliberately, to grind the broken glass of Rafe’s deception deeper into my heart.
“See that you remember that,” Victorine said. “And Zoe?” Cool fingers touched my cheek. “Choose a mate, ma fille. Or I will choose him for you.”
She glided from the suite as noiselessly as she’d entered.
4
RAFE
On Tuesday I moved out of my apartment as soon as the sun was high enough to send all but the most powerful vampires to their day sleep. This time, I chose a place thirty minutes north of the city.
I pulled my motorcycle into the driveway, killed the engine—and threw back my head and laughed aloud. My new digs were like something out of a 1950s sitcom: a small red brick house with green shutters and a white picket fence. Pink geraniums sprang from big copper pots on the stoop.
The last place anyone would look for Rafe Kral.
Even better, I was only five miles from Midnight Island.
I unstrapped my luggage from the back of the bike and carried it inside before heading out to the nearest Walmart, where I paid cash for groceries and a half-dozen new SIM cards. Back at the house, I switched out the card in my phone with a new card, disabled the GPS tracking, and used an alias to sig
n up for a new number. A Canadian number.
Now I’d be damn near untraceable by anyone in the Kral Syndicate, even the inner circle. The flipside was no one—not even my brothers—would be able to contact me.
But Gabriel would guess why I’d gone dark, and if necessary, pass it along to Father and Tomas. And Zaq wouldn’t be contacting anyone.
My hand fisted around the phone.
It should be me in that Paris cell.
Zaq was the good brother, big-hearted, laid-back. The Kral who’d emptied his trust fund to aid homeless humans and who volunteered in war zones helping refugees from the humans’ endless conflicts.
The only glimmer of hope was that he hadn’t been staked right off. They wanted him alive for something—to extort a huge ransom from my father, or perhaps as bait, because Father had flown to Paris to rescue him. Whatever the reason, it bought him some time.
I passed a hand over my face. I’d been up for close to twenty-four hours, and I was exhausted, and hungrier than ever. A bloody steak helped take the edge off, but I needed to feed, and soon.
I crawled into bed and sprawled on my stomach.
Two more days until the Crimson Ball.
I rolled onto my side. The hours were going to crawl by.
Tomas’s words niggled at me. “You must work twice as hard if you are to be worthy of your father.”
Me and my brothers had spent hours each day in physical training, and the vampire spawn had still beat on us at coven gatherings until we’d gotten big and crafty enough to fight them off. Still, Gabriel and Zaq couldn’t be everywhere.
Eventually, I’d stumbled on a strategy that worked: Always do the unexpected.
If another spawn came at me with fists, I kicked him in the balls. If he looked for me on the ground, I dropped onto him from the roof. If he tried to make me cry, I laughed in his face.
My scrappiness had earned me a grudging respect, and eventually, the abuse had stopped. But you don’t forget something like that.
I hadn’t trusted another young vampire until Zoe—and look where that had gotten me.
My mouth twisted. I flopped onto my back and stilled.
Why wait until Thursday?
Maybe most people couldn’t get on Midnight Island without the Tremblays’ permission.
But I wasn’t most people.
Shortly before dusk, I rode the Honda up the road that intersected the causeway. I pulled a glamour over myself and drove slowly past the entrance, studying it from the corner of my eye.
A solid, silver-reinforced wood gate topped with razor-sharp spikes kept out intruders. A sign warned that the gate was electrified to a voltage that would knock out even a dhampir.
Behind the gate was a second electrified gate, and beyond that a guardhouse with at least one guard. Security cams bristled from tall poles on either side of the guardhouse.
They wouldn’t pick me up in the shadows; vampires still hadn’t figured out how to detect movement in the other dimension. But on the other hand, while I was in the shadows, I couldn’t pass through a solid object like a wooden gate.
I circled back and parked the bike a half-mile down the road, then slipped into the shadows and jogged back to the causeway. On either side was a sheer drop to the river with more silver laced into the concrete supports. A small, dimly lit yacht motored beneath, heading home for the night.
I hunkered down near the outer gate, considering my options. The only way inside was to wait for the gates to open and enter through the shadows. But remaining in the shadows too long exacted its own cost—I was burning through my magic at a rapid rate. Plus, stay in this dimension too long, and I’d become disoriented and pass out—and return to the physical world.
Even as I thought it, a wave of dizziness rolled over me.
Think.
With this level of security, they wouldn’t expect an intruder to come through the front gate. That was a weakness I could exploit—but how?
A black SUV exited the island and headed down the causeway.
My heart kicked into gear. I watched intently as the inner gate slid open. The SUV drove through and paused between the two gates while the first gate closed.
Smart. Anyone attempting to slip through while a vehicle entered or exited would be trapped between the gates.
The outer gate opened. The SUV crawled forward.
And I saw my chance.
I shot through the outer gate, leapt onto the SUV’s roof, and used my momentum to catapult myself over the inner gate. I came within a hair of touching the top and frying myself, but I twisted my body in time to clear it and landed on the other side. I took off up the causeway.
On the other side of the river was a narrow gravel road that disappeared into the island’s thick, old-growth forest. A half mile away, the chateau’s rooftop was visible through the treetops.
First things first. I had to get out of the shadow dimension for a few minutes at least.
I raced up the gravel road until I was deep in the forest, then swerved into the trees—and back into the physical world. The forest swooped dizzily around me. I took a few deep breaths, waiting for my head to clear before threading my way through the towering maples and oaks.
A quarter mile in, I came upon a path of black pebbles that led up to the chateau.
My skin tingled. I was one of the Syndicate’s best trackers, even if my father seemed to think all I had going for me was charm and a pretty face.
Sometimes I just knew something, and right now I knew Zoe was nearby.
The trees thinned. Another few yards and I stood at the edge of a large night garden. Creamy flowers glowed in the gathering dusk. The sweet smell of honeysuckle and roses mixed with the forest’s earthy scent.
Crouched on a small hill above the garden was the Tremblay Chateau, a gray gargoyle of a building with thick medieval walls and narrow window slits. A three-story turret with a clock tower at its apex marked the entrance, with a matching turret at the back. On the black slate roof, a flock of turkey vultures perched, backs hunched, like beady-eyed familiars.
On the third floor of the back turret, a woman appeared in the center window. I hurriedly backpedaled into the trees.
Zoe Tremblay, in a dress as pale as the garden’s flowers.
I knew even before the setting sun touched her face with gold.
She opened the casement window a crack, and my heart lurched and skidded in my chest like an out-of-control car. Two years since I’d seen her, and she could still make me want.
Gods, I was pathetic.
Zoe turned from the window and spoke to someone.
A low growl made me whip around. A pack of wolfdogs raced out of the woods followed by a vampire in a Tremblay uniform. I re-entered the shadows and darted into the garden.
They halted at the spot where I’d stood and sniffed the ground, whining and snarling. The vampire scrutinized the area, eyes narrowed.
On the chateau’s opposite side, an engine purred to life. I glanced back at Zoe’s window. She was no longer visible, but somehow I knew she was still in the tower.
So who was leaving? I slipped around the front in time to see Victorine herself exit through the medieval wooden door.
Hate flamed in my chest. I fingered my switchblade.
After Zoe had left that night, Victorine had watched, expressionless as a rattlesnake, while her men beat me.
They started with my face, then moved down my body, concentrating on pressure points.
Throat. Groin. Kidneys.
When I lay broken and bleeding on the floor, the silver cuffs burning into my wrists, Victorine had leaned forward and hissed, “Tell your father the joint venture is off. And if you ever touch the princess again—” she ground a pointy heel into my solar plexus—“I will consider the truce broken. I won’t rest until I’ve sent you and your brothers to the final death.”
Now I watched as Victorine descended the chateau steps trailed by two hard-bodied blond vampires. I clutched the switchbl
ade’s stainless steel handle.
So. Damn. Tempted.
I’d have signed over my entire trust fund to be able to drop out of the shadows and stab the long silver blade into her heart. But I’d be captured, recognized—and the blood feud would be back on.
I might as well sign Zaq’s death warrant myself.
I gritted my teeth and let her pass.
But her exit had given me the perfect opportunity to investigate further. When the heavy door started to close, I went with impulse and shot up the steps and into the chateau. The door thudded shut behind me and I grimaced. I wouldn’t be able to leave again without exiting the shadows.
I was in a huge Goth-style foyer. The thick walls and narrow window slits made it feel like I was underground. A typical vampire’s lair, although the Tremblays probably had rooms in the basement.
An over-the-top crystal chandelier presided over miles of creamy Italian marble. The window slits were draped in red velvet curtains dotted with tiny black vultures, the Tremblay mascot. Scattered around the foyer were heavy Gothic couches and chairs covered in more vulture-dotted red velvet.
Preparations for the ball were underway. Crates of glassware, plates and other party paraphernalia lined the walls, and black tables and chairs were stacked near the open double doors leading to the ballroom.
Other than the two humans I heard chatting in the rooms off the kitchen, the upper chateau seemed empty except for Zoe. I remained in the shadows anyway, certain that somewhere, a guard was watching through the cams trained on the foyer.
I closed the switchblade, shoved it into my back pocket and went exploring. At the back of the chateau, I came to a parlor filled with more dark Gothic furniture—the real kind, antiques from hundreds of years ago.
At the rear of the parlor, the door to the back turret stood ajar. A wrought iron staircase spiraled up the center. Worked into the rails were whimsical bats—bats on the wing, bats mating, bats feeding, bats caring for their young. There were even bats hanging upside down from the metal curlicues, asleep.
I jogged upstairs. After the main floor’s heavy Goth theme, the second floor was a surprise—an airy conservatory crammed full of plants and flowers. Ivy cascaded down a cast iron gazebo that looked like a giant white birdcage, and more iron benches and chairs were set among the ferns and palms. The windows were of smoked glass that would protect a vampire from the sun’s rays.
Craved: A Vampire Syndicate Paranormal Romance (The Vampire Syndicate Book 2) Page 4