By the time she emerged from the shower wrapped in a fluffy towel, I was packed and ready to go. “We have a flight out of Buffalo in two hours.”
“Perfect,” she said and dropped the towel on the bed.
My brain fogged. I swallowed hard. I’d never seen her completely naked.
She opened her suitcase and took out a pair of black boyshorts, pulling them up over her toned thighs and ass. Next was a plain black bra.
I watched, my mouth literally watering with the need to taste those dusky-rose nipples again, as she put on the bra and the same clothes from last night.
She sleeked her damp hair back into a ponytail and reached for the suitcase. “Ready.”
I moved around the bed and blocked her, so close the toes of my boots touched hers.
Her brows lifted. “Something the matter?”
“No.” I wrapped a hand around her ponytail and tugged back her head. “Just a promise.”
“And what’s that?” Her tone was almost bored, but her pupils were large and dark.
“This.” I nibbled my way along her firm little jaw until I reached the soft spot right before her ear. I caught the skin between my teeth, hard enough to make a mark.
She shivered; the kind of shiver that makes a man want to pounce, and dug her fingernails into my arm.
I gave the mark a slow lick and flicked her on the nose. “Let’s go.”
I tucked our luggage under one arm. With the other, I opened the door for her.
She shrugged into her leather jacket. “Not bad, Kral.” She patted my cheek as she passed me. “But can you make good on that promise?”
I stared after her, mouth ajar and so hard I hurt, as she walked, heart-shaped ass swinging, to the elevator.
13
ZOE
I hid a smile and pressed the elevator button. I liked teasing Rafe. The man was entirely too sure of himself, although maybe he had a right to that self-confidence. For a guy who was only twenty-five, he sure knew how to push all the right levers on a woman’s body.
That sharp little bite had had me creaming my panties, everything female in me crying out. Yes, please.
While Rafe checked out of the hotel, I picked up my suitcase and headed outside. The parking lot was empty. A warm drizzle fell from the dark sky, the kind of rain you can walk through for hours. I left my hood down and lifted my face to the misty drops.
Rafe caught me a few feet from the Honda. He looped an arm around my waist, pulling me against his hard body. The suitcase dropped at our feet, forgotten.
“Fair warning,” he growled. “This is the last time you’re walking away. Next time, I’m not stopping for anything. They can set off a fucking bomb, for all I care. But we will finish this.”
I turned in his arms. He smelled of leather and hot, aroused male. I pressed a kiss to the underside of his jaw. “I can’t wait.”
His mouth opened, then shut. I’d surprised him again. This time he saw my smile.
He shoved his duffle bag into the bike’s luggage compartment and strapped my suitcase on the back. “Get on the damn bike.”
I did, setting my hands on his hips as he accelerated out of the parking lot. My core was liquid, my clit way too aroused to be riding a motorcycle pressed up against the man who’d starred in my every fantasy for the past two years.
We hit a bump. I stifled a moan and tightened my thighs around his hips.
Rafe’s tone was raw. “Hell, woman. You’re killing me here.”
I fingered the ridge tenting his jeans. “I can’t wait for ‘next time.’”
“You are so bad. But if you don’t want me to run off the road, you’d better keep your hands to yourself.” He moved my hand back to his hip.
“Yes, sir,” I said, all fake obedience.
“Very bad. I may just have to spank you.”
I chuckled, giddy with arousal and freedom.
Freedom from Victorine. Freedom from the Tremblay Ice Princess and everything that meant. Freedom to be with Rafe.
Just free.
I’d made it out of Montreal—on the back of a motorcycle, yet. And no one in the whole world knew where I was except Rafe.
I knew I didn’t have much time. By now, Victorine would have the entire Tremblay Syndicate looking for me. But they’d search Montreal first, then turn to New York and the Kral Syndicate. Victorine wouldn’t contact Paris for a while, if only because it would never occur to her that I hadn’t been kidnapped, I’d left under my own power.
Meanwhile, I was driving into the night with my own private Dark Angel. My birthday wish come to life.
I laid my cheek against Rafe’s leather-clad shoulder—and smiled.
At the Canada/US Border, a bored customs guard glanced at our passports—Rafe’s fake, mine real.
I caught his eye. “You didn’t see me,” I murmured.
His face slackened. “I didn’t see you,” he repeated—and waved me through.
Our next test came at the Buffalo airport. “Use your glamour,” Rafe said as we pulled into the parking lot.
“Got it.” I conjured my human-looking glamour, and for good measure put on sunglasses and pulled up the hoodie, hiding my hair and most of my face.
Rafe got our luggage from the back of the bike. “Let’s go. If our flight is on time, it’s already boarding.” We took off at high speed for the terminal, weaving through the cars dropping off passengers. To humans we’d be a blur, and hopefully, there were no vampires at the terminal. Even though we were in Kral territory now, I had the distinct feeling Rafe didn’t want to be seen any more than I did.
We slowed to enter the terminal. I shot more power into my weak glamour with an envious glance at Rafe, who had changed everything about himself—hair, face, even his freaking height—except for his dark eyes. He even had a passport to match.
The next hurdle was TSA, but a nudge of compulsion, and the woman on duty ignored the blades we both carried on our bodies. We made it to the gate just before they closed the plane door.
I slid into the window seat. Rafe shoved our luggage into the overhead compartment and dropped onto the seat beside me. “Sorry it’s not first-class,” he said, “but that’s what your mother would expect.”
I touched the vinyl-covered armrest. I couldn’t remember ever taking a commercial flight before. Victorine kept a Gulfstream jet for our personal use.
“You don’t have to apologize. I’m not the princess you think I am.” Well, I was—a little, anyway—but I was trying to change that.
He slanted me a look. “You’re having fun, aren’t you? This is a big adventure.”
“So?” My chin jutted. “I’m helping you, aren’t I? Nothing says I can’t have fun while I do it.”
A grin spread across his face. “Well, hello there, Zoe Tremblay.”
I narrowed my eyes. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
He squeezed my knee. “You’ll figure it out.”
In Newark, things went smoothly until Rafe saw a vampire he apparently knew. He muttered a curse and changed his appearance yet again.
“This way.” He urged me down another corridor.
So he was avoiding his own syndicate. Interesting.
Dropping our luggage, he pressed me to the wall and hovered his mouth over mine. He looked like a California surfer with sunburnt skin and a mane of blond hair, but he smelled and sounded and felt like Rafe, and my body responded.
My heart gave a skip of excitement. I wound my hands around his nape.
“Don’t look around,” he said against my lips.
“What’s the matter?” I whispered back.
“You saw the vampire?”
“Yeah, but he’s one of yours, isn’t he?”
The vampire hadn’t hidden who he was—a high-ranking syndicate man. Dark suit, dark hair, cool dark eyes. The humans had given him a wide berth.
“I don’t want to have to explain why I’m with you.”
“But you’re a Kral prince. You could order
him to keep his mouth shut.”
“Mm.”
I pulled back so I could see his expression. “What’s that mean?”
His eyes slid from mine.
My mouth compressed. “So I have to trust you, but you don’t trust me?”
“Damn it, I can’t tell you. My dad would have my head.”
Holy bat crap. I dropped my head back against the wall with a thump.
“It’s not just Victorine,” I breathed. “You suspect someone in your own syndicate.”
He released me, picked up our bags. “It’s safe now. Let’s get to our gate.”
“I’m right, then.”
“Drop it, Princess.”
“D’you think they’re working with the slayers, too?”
A hard stare. “I said, drop it.”
So the Kral Syndicate had a traitor. Someone they suspected was working with Slayers, Inc.
We were almost to the gate when my step faltered.
What if SI didn’t stop with Zaquiel? He was the Kral who didn’t give a bloody damn about the Syndicates. He did only what his father required of him and spent the rest of his time in war zones and refugee camps, aiding humans.
If you really wanted to hit Karoly Kral where it hurt, you might start with Zaquiel, but you wouldn’t stop there. You’d go after his other two sons next.
Which meant Rafe could be heading straight into a trap.
“Zoe?” Rafe frowned at me over his shoulder.
A chill trickled down my spine. He knows.
Rafe was too smart not to have realized this could be a trap.
But everyone knew how close the Kral brothers were. I might not know Rafe well, but I knew this much: Nothing would stop him from getting on that jet to Paris and doing whatever it took to rescue Zaquiel.
That was when I knew I was in deep.
Because my whole body clenched up tight at the chance Rafe might end up in a cell next to his brother…if he didn’t end up dead.
I blew out a breath and hurried to catch up with him.
14
RAFE
I stared at the flight announcement board, barely aware of the humans hurrying past.
That had been close. Too close.
My shoulders were still knotted, my heart pumping, my whole body battle-ready.
Jozef was one of the soldiers who’d come from Slovakia with my father to help found the Kral Syndicate. Not part of the inner circle, but close enough. He could be the spy.
Zoe bumped her shoulder against mine. “Maybe we should sit down?”
I took a deep breath, rolled my shoulders and focused on the board. Our flight wasn’t due to take off for another hour. “Yeah, sure.”
We found an out-of-the-way corner and sat down. My jaw was still clenched. I worked it from side to side.
Jozef hadn’t realized it was me or he would’ve approached us. My glamour was solid, and I’d used a brand-new persona that no one, even my brothers, had seen before. I could’ve explained my own presence in the airport, but explaining why I was with Zoe would’ve been a hell of a lot tougher.
Why had the soldier been in Newark, anyway? We were in the international terminal. It didn’t make sense for a Kral to take an international flight from New Jersey—we almost always flew out of JFK Airport in Queens. In fact, I’d chosen Newark because I’d figured we weren’t likely to run into anyone I knew.
Maybe I was just paranoid? But this was no longer just about Zaq; Zoe was involved, too. Even if Jozef wasn’t the mole, a Kral traveling with the Tremblay Princess would send shock waves through the vampire world. Victorine would hear, and the gods knew what she’d do.
I massaged my nape. Damn, I hated not knowing whom to trust.
“Are you hungry?” Zoe asked.
“Nah. You?”
She shook her head. “I fed right before the ball.”
A man in an expensive suit headed toward us. My jaw tightened again. The tension spread to my shoulders and down my back. I slid a hand into the pocket of my jacket over my switchblade.
But he stopped a few yards away, broke into a grin and greeted another human in a Midwestern accent.
I let go of the switchblade and fingered the phone in my other pocket. Desperately wanting to talk this over with someone, but my reasons for going dark still held. I simply couldn’t trust anyone except family, and maybe Tomas, my father’s lieutenant. The big blond man was more like an uncle than an employee.
Should I call Tomas? Just before Father had gone dark, he’d ordered me to inform Tomas as soon as I made contact with Zoe, but things had happened too fast last night.
Still, I could’ve phoned him earlier tonight while I waited for Zoe to wake up. I’d decided against it for the same reason Father had gone dark. If no one knew I was in Paris, the information couldn’t be leaked.
Now, I was uncomfortably aware that if I didn’t call Tomas soon, I’d be disobeying a direct order from my primus. Yeah, it was because I was worried about the mole, but I knew damn well Tomas wasn’t a spy. He was my father’s oldest friend, the two of them a team since they’d been turned back in a little Slovakian mountain village.
Hell, I might as well admit it. I hadn’t contacted Tomas because I’d pictured myself springing Zaq and returning home with him, triumphant. The youngest brother, the lightweight, playboy Kral succeeding where everyone else had failed.
Uneasiness pricked at me. Father was already in Paris, and as far as I knew, he hadn’t managed to find Zaq yet. He’d be furious if I appeared out of nowhere and fucked things up.
I slid lower in the cramped plastic chair, stuck out my legs and stared at my boots. Zoe sat primly beside me, legs crossed at the ankles, hands folded on her lap, gazing with interest at the sea of humans.
I came to my feet and excused myself to use the john. On the way back, I ducked into an alcove and called Tomas.
“Where the hell are you?” he demanded in his Slovak-accented English. “Karoly has been asking about you.”
That was Tomas, blunt, unpolished. No one would call him a diplomat, but everyone trusted him. No one guarded my father’s interests better than Tomas.
“Newark,” I said.
“You have left Montreal? Why?”
“First, what about Zaq? Has Father found him?”
“No. He is still missing.”
My heart sank. I’d hoped Tomas would have good news for me.
“Okay. I’m on my way to Paris to follow up a lead.”
“I see. And what about Princess Zoe? You have seen her?”
I hesitated, suddenly reluctant to tell him Zoe was with me. She’d stuck her neck out for me. The least I could do was keep her presence a secret.
“I spoke to her, yes. She says that Victorine has nothing to do with Zaq’s disappearance.”
“And you believe her?”
“I believe that she believes it.”
“So, what is this lead you are following?”
“I’ll know more when I get there. I’m sorry, I don’t have much time. My flight’s about to board. Just let my dad know I’m on my way to Paris, okay?”
“Do not hang up,” he barked out. “You have spoken to Gabriel?”
I gritted my teeth, but said, “Not since Monday, and that was just a text.”
“Good, good. Do not speak to him. Do not text him, either.”
My nape tightened warily. Something seemed off.
But this was Tomas. The man was practically family.
“Why not? What’s the matter?”
“He has taken that human woman into his home. Camila.”
“She’s back?” Camila Vittore had broken Gabriel’s heart, not that my big brother would admit it.
“Yes. And your brother, he trusts her immediately.” Tomas’s tone was thick with disapproval.
“He loves her,” I said simply.
“Bah. What is love? You are both too trusting. He does not see this woman for three years and now, she returns—and Zaquiel disappea
rs.”
“Yeah?” I thought about it, shook my head. “Mila’s good people. She just got scared when things got serious between her and Gabriel. She didn’t want to be mated to a Syndicate man, so she ran.”
That’s what my brother had said, anyway, and he’d know.
“She could be a slayer,” Tomas said.
“Mila? A slayer?” From what Gabriel had said, she was just a young, in-over-her-head human who’d freaked when she realized she’d fallen for a syndicate prince. “They were together for two years. If she’d wanted to stake him, why not do it then? Why leave and then come back three years later?”
Tomas grunted. I knew that grunt. It was his I-know-better-than-you grunt. I’d heard it enough times as a kid.
I darted a glance around me. I’d left Zoe alone and unprotected for too long.
“They’re calling my flight,” I lied.
“I will let Karoly know you are on the way. What day will you arrive?”
“Tomorrow night. Or Sunday at the latest.” It was Friday night. We’d land in Paris early Saturday morning, but Zoe would have to sleep until nightfall. “Don’t contact me—I’m switching phone numbers when I land in Paris. I’ll be in touch if I find anything important.”
He started to object, but I pretended I hadn’t heard and ended the call.
Zoe didn’t appear to have moved since I left except to remove her leather jacket, which she’d folded and set on the suitcase by her legs. Her hood was still pulled around her face, her glamour dimming her allure. She would’ve looked like just another young human, if not for her straight back and neatly folded hands.
I concealed a grin. We’d have to work on that finishing-school posture of hers.
“Hey, beautiful.” I dropped onto the seat next to her.
“Hey.” She smiled at me. A shy, happy-to-see-you smile that sent a stab of want straight to my lower belly.
Craved: A Vampire Syndicate Paranormal Romance (The Vampire Syndicate Book 2) Page 11