by Michele Hauf
Yet with thoughts of Verity dallying with his need to rush out and find the vamp, it had been difficult to concentrate on a plan of attack. Thus, the breath of fresh air.
“Meow.”
“Bonjour, Monsieur le Chat.”
The brown-and-gold-mottled tomcat sidled up to Rook’s leg and rubbed a cheek across his leather pants. Rook scratched the cat between the ears, and the feline nuzzled up appreciatively.
“Aren’t you a handsome fellow? I’d ask if you’re hungry, but to judge that wide belly, you look well fed.”
The cat sat beside him on the step, and Rook marveled at the ease with which the creature took up place. Normally felines were more skittish around humans, especially the strays that scampered in every alley, nook and rooftop in Paris. But he knew animals could sense when a human was trustworthy.
It had been a long time since he’d thought about Acteaon, the grey destrier that he had ridden while serving King Henri IV as a carbineer in the household cavalry. By the time Louis XIII had formed the musketeers from the carabin troops in the mid-seventeenth century, Rook had already been demon-inhabited and missed serving in the ranks. That horse had served in battle and peace time and had never flinched from rushing the vanguard.
“You look familiar,” he said and wondered where he had seen this cat before. Could it be the same one who had so casually strolled into Verity’s home as if he’d owned the place? “Are you—”
At that moment, a black Audi pulled up and King got out of the backseat. The man had never learned to drive, nor had he the desire to learn. It stymied Rook that anyone who had lived so long would not feel the call to learn all that he could about the modern world.
Of course, King still possessed the entitlement he’d been born with. Servants and drivers were de rigueur for him.
“Talking to strays?” King closed the car door. “Or recruiting for a secret four-legged tactical force?”
Rook scratched beneath the cat’s chin. The feline stretched up his neck in delight. The car rolled down the alley to park but didn’t drive away. “You have work here today?”
King approached but maintained his distance by about ten feet, hands in his pockets. “No, I saw you sitting out here and thought to stop and see when you’re going to ask me for help.”
He could use the help.
The cat suddenly hissed at King. Its back arched, and Rook could hear its claws scratch the cobblestones.
“I don’t like you much either, cat,” King spat.
“What is it about animals that they never like you?” Rook asked, though he knew the answer. “Remember the stallion in the eighteenth century?”
“Threw me thirty feet through the air to land in the Seine. Hated that damned horse. I should have had it bespelled.”
“They can sense your nature.”
“Get out of here, you mangy beast!” King hissed at the cat and sent it scrambling off with a hasty meow. “So what’s up with the imminent war?”
Rook did not care for him referring to it as thus. “I got a name. Clas Dreher.”
“Never heard it before, but that means little. He going to lead you to Slater?”
“I can hope.”
“You want me to take the left bank and ask around?”
“And I’ll do the right,” Rook agreed.
“You heading straight to work or going to stop in to see the witch first?”
“Work,” Rook said curtly, annoyed King assumed incorrectly.
“Good. That’s the hunter I’ve known for more than four hundred years. Yet…”
Rook stood and splayed his hands in annoyance. “What?”
King squared his stance and shoved his hands in his pants pockets. He arrowed a serious summation over Rook. “What, exactly, does the witch mean to you?”
Rook shrugged, but he spoke the first word that came to mind. “Everything.”
“That’s the most interesting word I’ve heard you utter in a long time. You like this woman?” King sat next to Rook on the step.
“I do. She’s, hell…everything might be stretching it, but—I don’t know. Maybe I want her to be everything. It’s been so long. I’m not even sure what that means anymore.”
“Enough said. The occasional distraction is something you’ve earned. I’ve had a change of heart since our scuffle. You deserve this.”
“Thanks, but I won’t use her as bait. I can’t put her in danger like that.”
King sighed. Rook guessed that had been his reason for the sudden change of heart. A smart knight used any resource available to track his prey, including informants and friends. But Rook had never considered using someone he cared about.
“Does she know about Marianne?”
“No.”
“Will she know?”
“Don’t know. It’s still new with us.”
“Yet, new as it is, she has become everything to you.”
Was that a trace of jealousy? King hadn’t dated for the long term in decades. Both had settled into a hunter’s lifestyle, seeking their pleasure in one-night stands or weekend flings.
“I want to keep her alive,” Rook said.
“Another damsel in distress for you to rescue.”
“Fuck you, man.”
Truthfully, how many had he rescued over the centuries? A few, certainly. It polished a man’s pride to help. Thus, much as he’d fought against pridefulness through Oz’s yoga studies, he could never completely release himself from ego. Nor did he want to.
King shrugged. “Too bad you can’t read your own truths. Oz would agree with me, I’m sure.”
Oz did agree with King, and that was the kicker. Why couldn’t Rook read Verity’s truths? Had she cast a spell, some sort of glamour that hid something so deep and dark she couldn’t reveal it to him? If so, it had to have been cast before he’d even met her.
I could read her truth.
That hadn’t occurred to him. Should he let Oz read her? He wanted to know Verity. He should trust she would tell him what she wanted to tell him. Yet, he was keeping things from her. Could her secrets be keeping him from his soul?
I have already suspected she is hiding something. Let me at her. There is little time for dally. My wife will soon give birth. I must be there!
“Rook?”
“Huh?”
“Oz?” King guessed, familiar with Rook’s occasional inward distractions.
“Sorry. Oz and I were discussing Verity’s truths and why I can’t read them.”
“You can’t? That sounds dangerous. I’m not going to step back into the role of warning you to be careful again, but—”
“I’ll take care of it on my own time. Let’s get to work. We each have half a city to cover. Check in with me on the hour.”
“Will do.”
* * *
Verity clipped the lemon thyme and laid the stiff stalks in a low-sided wicker basket with a wide handle that reminded her of the baskets the bunnies toted on the Christian Easter holiday. No chocolate eggs in hers, though, unfortunately.
She’d decided not to wait for moonlight, instead hoping she’d see Rook later. And who could bother with silly old herbs when a gorgeous man might show up to sweep her off her feet and into bed?
Well, she had to. She wanted to try another spell, something that would soften the hunger pangs, make them invisible to her. Tonight she would tell him. Time was running out. She would not fall to her knees again, enraptured by the utter sexiness of him. She must not.
She would not be stupid about this anymore.
When she heard the rustle in the nettle and the angry meow, she laughed. “Thomas, I’ve told you not to go back there. That’s where I grow the thorned and poisonous plants.”
“Merde,” blasted out from behin
d the shrubbery. “The things I do for you, witchy chick. Ouch! Those things sting.”
“That’s why they call it stinging nettle. What are you doing shifting out in broad daylight? You want me to get your robe?”
“No, I’ll make this quick.” A toe popped out from behind the thick foliage. “Besides, I’m bleeding. I don’t want you to see me like this.”
“Poor Thomas.”
“Do not condescend to me, Veritas Von Velde.”
The scent of his blood carried to her, and Verity leaned forward, catching her palms on the soil. “You are bleeding.”
“You smell that? Sweetie, do not come any closer.”
“I won’t.” But she did want to get a look at the blood. Maybe inhale—Verity! She sat back on her heels. “Chill,” she whispered to the annoying hunger.
“I’ve returned from a visit to your hunter,” Thomas announced from within the greenery. “He was sitting outside the Order’s headquarters.”
“You know where that is?”
“I know everything about everyone in this city. That’s what I do. I prowl and observe, prowl and observe.”
And when he wasn’t doing that, he was shagging human women while in his human form. Such a player.
“And what did you observe about Rook?”
“Something troubling.”
Verity set another clipping of thyme in the basket and turned to the shrub. The solemn tone of Thomas’s voice worried her. “And?”
“Tell me why a vampire hunter would so casually welcome a vampire and sit and chat with him on the back stoop of their headquarters, as if they were old friends?”
“A vampire? How do you know that?”
“I can smell a vamp a mile away. They can never erase that minute metallic blood scent. And he was not too pleased to have me near him.”
“That’s…” Verity slumped into a thoughtful pose. “…weird. Rook hates vampires. It’s his job to slay them.”
“Exactly. I think you need to be cautious around him, Verity. He is not the man your grandmother told you to trust. And by all means, do not tell him about the bite. Not if you value your safety and want to keep his stake out of your heart.”
Verity swallowed and clasped a hand over her chest. She glanced skyward where the moon was already visible in the twilight sky, three-quarters round and quickly growing more tumescent.
She had to stop this transformation from happening. But how to do so if she did not tell Rook?
“He’s my only option,” she whispered.
Because she’d been going through the motions of cutting herbs for yet another spell to keep her hopes up, but she knew the spell would not work. The vampire who had bitten her needed to die. Either that, or she must make it beyond the full moon without drinking blood. And that wasn’t looking very possible when she nearly stabbed stranger’s steaks off their plates.
“Find someone else to help you,” Thomas said. “Or kill the bloody vampire yourself.”
“But if you said he was talking to a vampire, then perhaps…” Would Rook befriend her too if she transformed?
No! She couldn’t think like that. The last thing she wanted was to have to drink blood to survive.
“You’re confusing me, Thomas. I don’t know what to do anymore. I shouldn’t have let it go as long as it has. I should have told him immediately. But I had confidence in my magic. And then when I do want to talk to Rook, I can’t think straight around him.”
“Be careful around the hunter. He has secrets. I don’t trust him with you.”
The nettle rustled. Another crazy meow protested. Verity collected the basket and her pruning cutters and wandered back into the kitchen. If Rook did have a vampire friend, she needed to determine whether he was an ally or a future enemy.
* * *
“Tonight,” Rook whispered as he strode across the bedroom floor.
As planned.
He toweled the sweat from his shoulders and abdomen. A long session of yoga had stretched his muscles nicely.
“You ready for this?”
What if she does not come?
“She will,” he said to Oz. “She has to.”
* * *
After her act, Verity rushed to the dressing room, seeking something to quench her thirst. The bottled water tasted awful, like salt to a dying man. She tossed it aside as Lyric entered.
“Whoa! You almost hit me.” The vampiress brushed water droplets from her arm. “Verity? What’s wrong? You’re sweating.”
“Uh…it’s the fire.”
“Your fire has never made you—you’re also clammy.” Lyric pressed her palm over Verity’s forehead. “Are you coming down with something? I didn’t think witches got sick.”
“Oh, Lyric.” Verity hugged her friend.
She needed to talk to someone, and she wasn’t sure when she’d find a chance to tell Rook. She just needed a hug and an understanding ear.
“I have to tell you something.”
Lyric nodded, and Verity confessed about the vampire attack, how it had brought her and Rook together and how she’d thought the spell had worked, until it had not.
“I’ll sic Vail on the vampire. Clas is his name? What about the hunter?”
“I’m not sure.”
“You have to tell him everything, Verity.”
“I want to, but I just told you what Thomas learned. Can I trust Rook?”
“You have to. He may be your only hope. Go to him. Tell him the truth.”
Chapter 13
Knowing that she was welcome to walk into Rook’s home without knocking, Verity folded her sweater coat over the back of a kitchen chair, then strolled into the living room. Changing into her usual clothes after the performance, she’d dressed to seduce. It was her style to wear short skirts and silky fabrics. And the thigh-high stockings always made her feel sexy. She needed that confidence to be able to set aside her worries and confess all to her lover.
A man who may love her. A man she knew she could love. A man who may have his own secrets. Only when all their secrets were finally pushed out into the open could she truly surrender to her soul’s desire to trust him.
The living room was empty. He must be in the bedroom.
“Rook?”
No answer.
Feeling only a little sneaky, she wandered to the next room. He was home. The door would not have been unlocked otherwise. Entering the bedroom, her eyes took in the exotic blue fabric draped above the bed and—Verity stopped in her tracks. Her fingers clutched the air. Heartbeats speeded.
Standing before the window, shadowed by the hazy evening illumination from streetlights three stories below, was not Rook.
Her senses sorted the visual cues and determined it was demon.
The man—creature? demon?—turned toward her, his sleek black horns cutting the air in arcs and his snow white Mohawk jutting high and prideful as a stallion’s tail down his back. Red eyes glowed. “Verity.”
She pressed her back to the door frame as he approached on slow, agile, bare feet. He did not wear a shirt and his abdomen and chest were ripped with muscle, much like Rook’s. He wore Rook’s leather pants low on his hips. And he was about Rook’s height and shape—but he was not Rook.
“Asatrú?” she tried.
“Call me Oz,” he offered in a baritone that almost touched Rook’s easy tone but was dipped in something murky and deep. Dangerous. “Do not be frightened.”
“I’m not.”
Maybe. She tried not to cower, pressing back a shoulder, but the stance felt too open and she clasped her arms across her chest. As a witch, she’d avoided conjuring demons simply because they were often malicious and hard to control.
“Okay, I am a little scared.” She hadn’t expected a de
mon to greet her today. “How are you out? I thought Rook said you only—”
“The full moon is my day. Rook hasn’t completely untethered me, so I will only be able to stay out a short while.” He stopped two feet in front of her, and she eyed his horns warily. Obsidian scythes cut the air. They were ridged along the spiral twist of their form, and the tips were pin-sharp. “We decided that I should have a talk with you.”
“We? You and Rook? Is Rook in there? In you?”
“I am Rook. He is me.”
The demon stretched back a shoulder, and his muscles flexed. Verity watched the sinuous movement with admiration. And then she adjusted that thought. A demon stood in front of her. And he was also her lover. Maybe? His
human-like face was not at all like Rook’s, yet they had the same of angle of jaw and, yes, the high forehead. No scar at his eyebrow. Different hair and eye color. Cleanly shaven. But his mouth…hmm. Perhaps a bit like him.
How interesting that he was completely separate from Rook and…not.
“Rook cannot see your truths for some frustrating reason,” Oz offered, “but I thought that I might be able to. I am a truth demon.”
Verity crossed her arms tighter over the silk dress. “Why is Rook so worried about my truths? Does he think I’m hiding something? Maybe I think he is hiding something. Like, is he friends with a vampire? What do you think about that?”
The demon tilted a straight grin at her but offered no reply.
Verity stepped from foot to foot. She felt exposed. “Is Rook aware of our conversation?”
“He is always aware, as I am when he is in command. But I control this body for the moment. So.”
A tilt of his head averted her attention to the horns that looked as if they belonged on a charging bull. She had never felt the urge to ward herself against demons. Until now.
The demon nodded. “You are part faery.”
“Well, duh.” Verity released her held breath and relaxed at the unsurprising revelation. “When Rook initially asked about my hair color, what part about my answer that it was natural didn’t imply faery heritage?”
“Indeed.” The demon grinned genuinely. “Sometimes Rook can be a little slow on the uptake.”
