Deadly Is the Kiss

by Rhyannon Byrd

  “It won’t.” She pried his fingers off her arm and carried them to her lips, kissing his battered knuckles. “You’re the one I’m worried about. I hate that I dragged you into this. I feel so guilty.”

  “Don’t,” he said in a low voice. “You didn’t do anything that wouldn’t have happened anyway.”

  She cocked her head to the side. “What do you mean?”

  He kept his gaze locked tight with hers. “I mean I would have learned about your escape eventually, and once I did, nothing in heaven or hell would have been able to keep me from coming after you and making sure you were safe.”

  In that moment, she wanted so badly to ask him about the Burning, but knew he didn’t remember any of their shocking conversation from that morning. If he did, he would have already said something. So she settled for simply saying, “Would you have really come after me?”

  “Oh, yeah.” The truth of those husky words smoldered in his eyes, and Juliana felt something warm and wonderful unfurl inside her, glowing like a burst of light in the center of her chest.

  “By the way,” he murmured, the look in his eyes turning dark and sensual, “did I remember to thank you for saving my life?”

  “No, but I’ll think of a special way you can thank me later,” she teased, laughing when he made a playful grab for her as she scrambled off the bed, a blissed-out smile on her face that felt strangely comfortable, as if it belonged there.

  And as she rushed to get ready, that smile never once left her lips.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  IF ASHE HAD EVER felt this good before, he couldn’t recall the occasion. The Burning was still simmering through his veins, but for the moment, the need seemed to have been tempered by the feel of Juliana’s slender hand gripped in his. It was almost as if his body sensed his capitulation in the near future, and knew it wouldn’t be long before it got everything it wanted.

  The idea should have scared the ever-loving hell out of him, but after the way she’d cared for him and stayed by his side, he only found his smile getting wider, his chest so light he felt ready to float off the friggin’ ground. Something was happening to him, changing him and reshaping him, like shaking off his old skin and stretching to life inside a new one. Everything looked brighter, scents sharper…richer, the world exploding around him in a burst of color and light and beauty.

  He was waxing poetic like a damn idiot, but he was too ramped up to worry about it. He just wanted to enjoy the afternoon as they headed to Mo’s, the smiles Juliana kept sliding him making him restless with excitement. He just wanted to keep wallowing in this feeling, soaking it in… . And he wanted this shit with the Council and the Delacourts behind them so he could focus all his time and energy on the woman walking at his side. He was determined to strip all the secrets down between them, getting it all out in the open, so that they could both see just what they were dealing with.

  Then, together, they could figure out what they were going to do with it. With each other.

  Ashe knew that meant he’d have to tell her about the Burning, and though it made his damn knees shake to think about it, he would man up and do it. If he was going to demand she open up to him, then he could bloody well do the same for her, no matter how fucking vulnerable it made him feel. She’d either be happy about it…or run screaming.

  And if she ran, he’d just go after her stubborn little ass and drag her right back. Then he’d put his mind to work and figure out a way to make her fall in love with him. He didn’t think it would be easy, but then, he’d been alive long enough to know that nothing worth fighting for ever was.

  Feeling her shiver as a cold breeze tugged at their jackets, Ashe wrapped his arm around her shoulders and pulled her against his side. They’d traveled to Toulouse by train, and were walking the mile from the station to Mo’s house. “We don’t have much farther to go,” he said. “Mo’s is just around the next corner.”

  “And to think that I complained about the Wasteland being cold,” she drawled, snuggling closer to his side. “But at least the sun is shining here. You can’t imagine how much I’ve missed the sunshine.”

  Ashe watched as she tipped her face up to the sky, a pang in his chest as he pictured her spending so many years in that hellhole of a prison, where the sun was seldom brighter than a faint glow. Feeling as if he had his heart stuck in his throat, he said, “Whatever I have to do, Jules, I’ll make sure that you never have to go back there.”

  Her brow creased with concern as she shifted her gaze to his. “I just hope that you don’t end up there with me.”

  “What do you mean?”

  He could feel the tension moving through her shoulders. “I’ve been thinking about what happened last night. If word gets out that you killed one of those Royal Guards in Nice, the Council is going to send the Förmyndares after you.”

  “It depends on what kind of headway Gideon is able to make at Court,” he murmured, “but it’s always a possibility.”

  She shot him an incredulous look. “How can you be so calm about it?”

  He shrugged. “Because I’ll deal with whatever they throw at us. I’m not going to feel bad that those bastards are rotting in hell. And if the Förmyndares end up coming after us because the guards are dead, then I’m willing to accept that.”

  Her voice was strained. “But did you think about that at the time? That by choosing to fight them, instead of handing me over, you were probably destroying not only your career, but your life? Because if we fail to find the evidence we need, that’s exactly what’s going to happen!”

  Hating to hear her so upset, he stopped and pulled her against his chest. “First of all,” he told her, staring down into her shimmering eyes, “there’s no way in hell I ever would have let those bastards take you. And secondly, you let me worry about my life and career. I know what I’m doing, and I’m… I feel good about my choices, Jules. I feel…right.”

  She sniffed, saying, “I just don’t want anything to happen to you.”

  “It won’t.” Lowering his head, he pressed a soft, tender kiss to her lips, then gave her a smile. “Now stop worrying. I swear I know what I’m doing.”

  Moments later, they were walking into Mo’s, the familiar scent of tea and cookies filling his nose, reminding Ashe of the times he’d visited there as a child. He kissed Mo on the cheek, then made the introductions, and could tell his old friend was as charmed by Juliana as he was.

  Knowing how secretive Mo’s son Alex was when it came to his work, Ashe left Juliana sipping tea in the conservatory while he went down to the basement, where Alex had his computers set up. Despite being a self-proclaimed computer geek, Alex looked more like a surfer, with pale blond dreads reaching his shoulders, his lanky body eternally dressed in shorts, T-shirt and flip-flops, no matter how cold it was outside. The two vampires gripped hands as they greeted each other, and then Alex told Ashe to take a seat in the extra chair he’d pulled up to his workstation, so that he could bring him up to speed on what he’d been doing.

  “After you called my mom,” Alex said, tucking a dread behind his ear, “I started digging into the Council’s financial records, pulling up as much account information as I could find.” He swiveled his high-tech monitor around so that Ashe could see the numerous lines of numerical data filling the screen. “I’ve already gone through the private accounts assigned to the individual Council members, and they were all clean. Even Lenora’s.”

  Ashe blew out a rough breath, and said, “Shit.”

  “No, it’s okay. Keep listening,” Alex told him. “In addition to the personal accounts, there are always hundreds of secret miscellaneous accounts tied in with the Council’s system, and that’s where they hide things they don’t want going on public record. A certain number are for mistresses, others for money laundering. You name the vice, and they’ve probably used one of those accounts to pay for it.”

  Ashe could only imagine what kind of look was on his face. “Are you telling me that you have actual proo
f that the Council is laundering money?” he asked, his voice gritty.

  Alex leaned back in his chair, put his hands behind his head and waggled his brows. “I have proof of lots of things. Trust me, man. If you knew what I know, your brain would have melted by now.”

  “Christ,” he muttered, pulling his hand down his face. The implications of what Alex was saying were huge, especially if the money they were laundering belonged to Raphe Delacourt.

  “So, anyway, as I was saying—” Alex’s fingers moved with lightning speed over his keyboard “—there are a shitload of these secret accounts just waiting to be explored by geniuses like me.” He nodded at the monitor, where a new list of data was filling the screen. “These are most of them. I started going through them yesterday, one by one, which was way beyond tedious.” He shot Ashe a cocky smile. “But it paid off.”

  “How?” Adrenaline punched his system, sending him to the edge of his chair. “What’d you find?”

  Alex tapped away at the keyboard again, and the lines of account numbers disappeared until only one remained on the screen. Narrowing his eyes, Ashe studied the data. There was only one transaction listed under the account, being paid to a Carlos Chacal in the amount of ten million pounds.

  Holy hell…

  He swung his gaze to Alex, who was still smiling. “Is that what I think it is?”

  “Oh, yeah,” Alex drawled, clearly enjoying himself. “Carlos Chacal is a name that the League sometimes uses, referencing Carlos the Jackal. Guess even assassins can have a warped sense of humor, eh?” He pointed a finger toward the screen. “I’d be willing to bet my favorite body part that this is the payment on your lady friend’s life.”

  “So who used this account?”

  “That’s what I have to figure out,” Alex said, leaning back in his chair again. “They funneled the money in through a bunch of different offshore accounts, trying to cover their tracks. But I’ll crack it.”

  “How long do you think it’ll take?” he asked.

  Alex scratched the blond stubble on his chin, and said, “For anyone else, I’d say at least a week, if not longer. But since it’s you, I’ll keep working on it till I’ve got an answer.”

  They both moved to their feet, and Ashe slapped him on the shoulder. “I owe you, man. Big-time.”

  Alex gave him a sly grin. “You can thank me by letting me borrow that Ferrari you were driving the last time I saw you.”

  Ashe laughed. “You trace that transaction,” he said in a low rumble, “and you can forget borrowing it. I’ll give you the damn thing.”

  Leaving an inspired Alex hunched over his keyboard, fingers moving with supernatural speed, Ashe walked back upstairs, where Mo was waiting for him. They talked for a few minutes, and then he made his way back to Juliana.

  She was still in the conservatory, but instead of sipping tea at the table, she was now sitting in the middle of the floor with three of Mo’s grandchildren. The four of them were coloring with crayons, telling funny stories and jokes, the little ones rolling with laughter, clearly delighted with her.

  Shaking his head, Ashe lifted his hand to his chest, rubbing at the funny feeling that was tingling there as he watched this different side of her. It made him think of the family he had never wanted. But he could see a dream of it in his mind. A beach with lapping waves and warm sunshine. Laughter filling the air as his wife built sandcastles with their daughter and son. A little dark-haired girl with rosy cheeks and a grinning boy who had a bit of the devil in his eyes.

  Looking up, Juliana saw him standing in the doorway, a radiant smile spreading over her beautiful face. “Did Alex find what we need?”

  He had to swallow twice before he could say, “He’s close. As soon as he’s got something concrete, he’s going to let us know.”

  “Where’s Mo?”

  Pushing his hands in his pockets, Ashe rested his shoulder against the door frame. “She’s looking something up for me.”

  “Oh?” she asked, as the children’s nanny came in and took them off for dinner. But not before each one had given her a hug and a kiss on the cheek.

  When they were alone, he said, “Her husband Henry collects all kinds of clan medical journals, and even writes some of his own. He’s out of town right now, but she’s going through the journals up in his study, trying to identify the poison that was used on me last night.”

  “What?” she gasped, the blood suddenly draining from her face as she dropped the crayons box in her hand and lurched to her feet.

  Before he could say anything more, Mo moved past him in the doorway, a large, open leather volume in her wrinkled hands as she sat at the table. “Here it is,” she murmured, running her finger down the page. “I found something, Ashe, but it’s so odd. According to Henry’s journal, the only poisoning he’s ever heard of with the same type of symptoms you had came from the poison that’s carried in a Medeiros vampire’s claws and fangs.”

  “That is odd,” he murmured. “It must be three hundred years since the Medeiros were marked for elimination.” Ashe knew, because he’d been taught about the fallen Medeiros line during his studies at the Förmyndare academy. Originally, there had been two clans that were classified as vampires: the Deschanel and the Medeiros. The two species shared certain characteristics, but unlike the Deschanel, the Medeiros were more violent in their hungers, often draining their victims to the point of death. They were considered colder, harder and far more unpredictable than the Deschanel. A dangerous distinction, especially in light of the fact that unlike their Deschanel cousins, the Medeiros could turn humans with their bites, their darker characteristics magnified in the changelings, who were often so violent and vicious they killed anyone they came into contact with.

  For centuries, the Deschanel did their best to control the Medeiros, monitoring their behavior. But as time passed, the line became more dangerous, until the decision was made to exterminate the Medeiros in order to protect the secrecy of the clans. It was considered a dark spot on the legacy of the vampire clans, and one that Deschanel scholars still debated today.

  Mo continued reading from the page. “It says here that the poison collects in pits which are located beneath the skin on the vampire’s wrists and in their throats, just under their jawline. If you stab them in one of the venom pockets, it kills the vampire almost instantly.”

  “Son of a bitch,” he cursed, cutting his gaze toward Juliana, who was standing in the center of the room with her hand over her mouth, her eyes wide with panic. His memories of the battle against that blond guard were dim at best, but one thing he could clearly recall was sliding down that bloody wall, his gut twisting with fear for Juliana as he watched her thrust the knife into the guard’s throat. Just under the bastard’s jawline.

  “How the hell did you know to do that?” he growled, fisting his hands at his sides to keep himself from crossing the room and doing something he would later regret.

  Juliana lowered her hand, licking her lips as she cast a nervous look toward Mo, who had gotten up from the table and was quickly leaving the room, the door closing softly behind her. Returning her gaze to Ashe, she swallowed, and said, “I…I didn’t. I just got lucky.”

  His expression darkened with rage. “Don’t lie to me. Not anymore! You didn’t stab him there by accident. That much I remember. You aimed right for that specific spot!”

  “Okay, fine. I knew!” she shouted, her insides twisting with agony from the way he was looking at her. “I knew what he was!”

  With a guttural groan, he lowered his head into his hands, shoving his fingers back through his hair, his body rigid with tension. “How?” he demanded, forcing the words through his gritted teeth. His head shot up, his dark eyes burning with raw, savage fury. “How the hell did you know? And why didn’t you tell me?”