by Michele Hauf
“That’s completely wrong.”
“Ch’yeah, well, they also think I know where the gown is. It was a foolish move on my part to take you to the club.”
So now she’d involved an innocent in her oh-so-unclever foray into escape.
“I predict they’re already on the prowl,” Vail said. “The Unseelie.”
“So correct it. Turn me over to my mother and you’re in the clear.”
He tossed the towel aside and combed his fingers through wet ribbons of her hair. “You willing to give up the gown?”
Not until she’d worked one last angle, which involved giving Leo a call. And as long as he was only aware the gown was the biggest lure for Zett, and not her, she intended to keep it that way. Much as she loved getting it on with Vail, the truth was they were more enemies than allies. Vail’s alliance was clearly to Hawkes Associates.
“That’s what I thought,” he said when she didn’t answer. “Get dressed.”
She tugged on the faery dress, which now felt blatant and too sheer even though the heavy shades to block the sunlight allowed in no light, and she stood in only the glow from the bathroom light.
“I think I’d better go with my green dress.” He nodded, but gave a whistle when she stripped off the one to put on the other. That felt better, still snuggly and sexy, but not so exposed.
Vail put on dark gray crushed-velvet pants and tossed a silk shirt over his shoulder. Lyric followed, observing quietly. He strode into the kitchen and opened a drawer to pull out a short-bladed dagger, which he sheathed at his hip. He grabbed the jacket he’d worn last night, spikes rimming the wrists and along the shoulder seams, and headed back into the humid bathroom.
“What are you doing?”
“What are we doing,” he corrected.
He took a violet jar out from the medicine cabinet and twisted off the cap. A dark, odorless, gloopy substance shimmered inside.
“Is that what you put around your eyes to see faeries?”
“Yep.” He dipped a fine-tipped brush into the ointment, and painted it beneath his eyes, doing an expert job without the aid of a reflection.
“I don’t understand. You said we were going to do something?”
Eyes lined with the dark ointment, Vail grabbed her hips and kissed her soundly. A claiming kiss. An urgent, quit-asking-stupid-questions kiss. “We’re going on the run.”
CHAPTER NINE
VAIL DECIDED TO protect the girl rather than turn her in to save his own ass. It hadn’t been a snap decision, but it felt more right than anything in his life had felt for a long time.
Had anything ever felt right?
Not until you met Lyric.
He navigated a narrow cobbled street in the Maserati, sensing Lyric tightly clutching the door handle as he avoided clipping the back tire of a nearby biker.
While in Faery, he’d always known he was vampire, and had been born in the mortal realm. His stepmother, Cressida, had been forthright with all the details. She’d taken him in payment for a boon, expecting him to be the half-breed son of a vampiress and another half-breed, Rhys Hawkes. Only when he reached puberty had Cressida realized Vail was merely a bloodborn vampire. Cressida had been vocal about her disappointment.
Ever unwanted. Never loved.
Get over it, he muttered to his whiny subconscious. He’d survived Faery, and had made a few friends, and had never backed away from a fight, or the malicious eye of Zett.
If anything, Faery had taught him to survive. It had also taught him no one could ever be trusted, and family was just a word. It meant nothing. He didn’t need family. He didn’t want it.
Except, he wondered about it now. Rhys continued to tease him into the familial folds, and while Vail had initially resisted, he felt his shoulders relax now. The half-breed wasn’t so bad. Hell, maybe he could orchestrate an alliance between Vail and Trystan? Having a werewolf as a brother fascinated him, and he’d like to talk to Trystan about this mortal realm and how to exist within it.
One confidant was all he needed. He was ninety-five percent sure Lyric wouldn’t bolt on him and take off with the gown, never again to be seen. But the remaining five percent? He wouldn’t let down his guard around her.
He pulled the Maserati into a narrow lot behind a cheesy supermarket. The bumper nudged the steel light pole.
He rubbed the dashboard lovingly. “Sorry, sweetie.”
“I thought I was your sweetie?” Lyric delivered him a quirk of her brow, then got out before he could reply.
“Oh, you are,” he muttered. Then he patted the dashboard again. “Just kidding, sweetie.”
Clasping Lyric’s hand, because he needed to feel in control after their disastrous club visit, Vail led her inside the supermarket. The fluorescent-lit green Formica floor disturbed his love for nature and all things wild. Hell, most of the city did—save for the royal gardens—but he wanted to get a handle on mortal existence before moving out to the country. And, well, there was no FaeryTown out in the countryside.
And right now too much was at stake, like learning his father’s whereabouts.
“You willing to go all the way with me on this adventure?” he asked.
Lyric flashed him her bright smile as they wandered the store. “Hell, yes. But why are you willing to do this for me?”
He stopped in the beauty supply aisle. “Maybe I like you.”
“You don’t like me. You like having sex with me.”
“True. But I like you even when you’re not naked. I swear it.”
“Liar. You don’t like what I am. We’re enemies, remember?”
“I may have been quick to label. Perhaps I’ve been a wib all along for assuming the vampire race is subordinate to me.”
“The vampire race? Those faeries worked a real number on you.”
“They have no love for vampires, for sure. Though certainly Cressida would have taken a half-breed over me.”
“So you said you were getting something out of the deal. You hand over the gown to Hawkes Associates…?”
“Hawkes gives me information I need.”
“Such as?”
“Sweetie, we aren’t that close yet.”
Pausing in the middle of an aisle stocked with stuff he’d never need if he lived a millennium, he toyed with Lyric’s hair, loving the play of her ribbony curls between his fingers. “If we’re going to lie low, you need to change your hair color. You stick out like an Amazon in Faery with your height and ice-blond hair.”
“Are you going to change yours?”
“I don’t think there’s much you can do with this dark stuff.”
“Probably have to bleach it, and that would be a mess. Would totally screw with your goth-vamp-lord look.”
“I am not—”
She pressed a finger to his lips. “I know, you’re not a vampire, but you can still be a goth one, maybe even a little emo.”
“I don’t know what you just said.” He should protest her mockery—he did know what the words meant—but he let it slide.
“Do you have glamour? So you can disguise yourself?”
“Nope. But I do have dust in my arsenal, which could come in handy.”
“Really? You can dust someone? How does that work?”
“I just blow some in their face. Vamps inhale the stuff and—bam! They’re high and out for the count. You okay with that?”
“Truthfully? Yes, I am. All right, I’m in.”
“Great.” The quicker they got out of this dismal store, the better. “What color?”
They perused the shelves of hair color and Vail was thankful men didn’t have to worry about such things. As a vampire, he’d age gracefully. One reason he should be grateful for his heritage.
“What about red?” she said with a tantalizing tease.
Vail imagined Lyric with siren red hair. The image hung in his brain, yet quickly moved through his body as if silk were sliding over his pores, teasing his nerve endings to a blissful memory of their lovemak
ing. Those shoes had glided down his legs and back up to dig into his hips as he’d slid in and out of her.
He grabbed a box that featured a woman with mousy brown hair and handed it to her.
“That’s not red.”
“Exactly. You with red hair would be twice as devastating as blond. I wouldn’t be able to concentrate around you. Every man you pass would stumble and crash, face-first onto the tarmac. Do you really want to be responsible for all those bleeding faces?”
“When you put it that way…dull, librarian-brown it is.”
She walked away with box in hand, and Vail commented, “I think librarians are hot.”
“Don’t tell me you’ve a fantasy about tight buns and schoolmarm glasses.”
“Works for me. But don’t forget the brains, too. I love a smart woman.”
“My attempt at ditching my mother and the Unseelie lord was a stupid disaster.”
“It was smart, if perhaps underplanned. You don’t know how good it will be until we figure out what the hell is going on between your family and Zett.”
“Thanks for this,” Lyric said as they took their place in line behind a queue of shoppers. “I needed an ally.”
“Don’t get ahead of yourself, sweetie. Ally is pushing it.”
“What about business partner?”
“That implies we would work together for a common goal.” He kissed her behind the ear, where it was warm and soft and tendrils of her hair tickled his nose. He liked it there. But she pressed her fingers along her ear, nudging him away. Hmm, didn’t want him to touch her? Her nerves were beginning to emerge. To be expected. “Okay, that works. But in the end, I’ll be getting the gown to hand over to Hawkes Associates. What do you get out of it?”
“Freedom?”
He looked aside so she wouldn’t see his falling smile. Freedom could never be possible. Rhys had promised Charish Santiago he’d return her daughter. And if Zett now wanted her for reasons beyond Vail’s imagining, the Unseelie lord would step in line.
“I’m not going to get freedom, am I?” she asked from behind the box of hair color she held to her lips. “Don’t say anything. I won’t ask you to compromise your job. Just promise me one thing.”
“What’s that?”
“When we do figure things out, and if we finally find the gown—”
“Or you reveal the gown’s hiding spot.”
“Ahem.”
“All right. What do you want?”
“Five seconds. I want you to turn and look the other way and give me a head start.”
Five seconds? He’d be on her ten seconds after that pause. She may be vampire, but he was stronger and faster than she was. Yet part of him wished she’d asked for an hour.
Vail nodded. “Deal.”
* * *
THEY STEPPED OUT of the supermarket into the balmy evening sky. Before Vail could clasp Lyric’s hand, something whisked past his head. “What the—?” He grabbed Lyric around the waist. “We gotta run, sweetie.”
“But the car is right—”
“Right where the sidhe is standing.”
“A faery? Let me go. I can run.”
Vail sensed the noise of the arrow before seeing it, and squatted, Lyric in arm. The arrow skimmed his hair.
She shuffled from his grasp, but he tugged her aside and pushed her into the darkness hugging the supermarket wall as another arrow cut through his pants.
“Damn it, that bastard is accurate!”
“I don’t see him!”
He shoved Lyric into a run. “You can’t. He’s wearing glamour. Just run.”
They zigzagged down the alley. The way to survive elf shot was to avoid it. Though Vail had immunity having lived in Faery, he’d still suffer for days from the poison-tipped arrows. Lyric would not be so lucky.
The next arrow splintered into the brick wall, sending shards of ironwood at Vail’s face. He closed his eyes as the razored shards cut his cheeks. The poison stung, but better him than Lyric.
Without pausing, he swung Lyric around the corner and onto the busy street in front of a nightclub doorway, which was surrounded by massive, pink neon lips.
Lyric amazed him. She didn’t slow, and ran right for the traffic alongside him. Horns honked and drivers slammed on their brakes. Vail jumped up on a trunk and leaped, gripping Lyric’s arm as he did, and the twosome soared to the opposite curb, landing crouched.
Elf shot bulleted the concrete sidewalk before them.
“He’s relentless,” Lyric gasped, clutching the plastic grocery bag to her chest. Her bright hair had to be the beacon the elf followed. “You’ve been cut.”
“It’ll heal.”
Vail twisted to spy their stalker, standing on the opposite side of the busy street. The tall, bald sidhe with glowing green eyes patted his back in search of another arrow. He wore a carapace of emerald armor that resembled a tenacious insect’s horned shell. Mortals didn’t give him a second glance, thanks to his glamour shield.
One thing Vail did know—without the telltale luminescent markings, this wasn’t one of Zett’s men.
“He’s splinter sidhe. Has to be.” Gripping Lyric’s hand, Vail took off down the street.
“What does that mean?”
“He is aligned with neither Seelie nor Unseelie.” He dodged in through a DVD rental store swarming with customers. The blue lighting eerily blanched everyone’s faces. Weaving through the bins of DVDs, he tugged Lyric after him.
When they reached the back wall, he shoved open the office door and spied the outer door. They escaped into the night, yet Lyric tugged at him to stop.
“We can’t stop,” he said, then saw her slip off her high heels.
“I can keep up better this way,” she said, tossing the shoes aside but keeping the bag of hair dye. “So he’s not Zett’s man?”
“Something worse. A rogue sidhe who answers to no one but himself. My guess is he’s heard the rumor I may have the gown and wants it. That thing will bring in a fortune on the faery market.”
“But if he kills you that won’t help,” she suggested as they raced down the alley.
“He’s not trying to kill me, just poison me to put me out of commission. He’s out of arrows,” Vail called back. “But he’ll never run out of energy. His sort feed off mortal energy. In this realm, he is all-powerful. The best we can do is lose him, or hope for a kill shot.”
“Kill shot? With what? That little stick of a blade you carry?”
“Exactly.”
“Why can’t I see him?”
“He’s using glamour. Let’s go.”
Vail turned a corner, taking a breath when he saw the alley was empty and stretched a long ways. Free rein from here on.
Until he heard the warrior’s yipping cry. From the top of a building jumped their pursuer, landing twenty feet in front of Vail and Lyric. The lithe, sinuous sidhe loomed a head taller than Vail’s lofty height. His neck grew to his ears, emphasizing his small, round, hairless head, and his shoulders were spiked with the horned armor.
“I just want her,” the sidhe growled. “Dead.”
“The vampiress?” Vail’s jaw dropped open. He’d thought the elf was after the gown. Had Zett placed a price on Lyric’s head? Why did the faery lord want a vampire?
When the sidhe lifted a hand to indicate that Vail approach him, the iridescent emerald sheen of faery swept across his bald head and face. That indicated he could be a worm wraith, Vail guessed. He knew what the man looked like in his actual form, and it wasn’t pretty.
A challenge over who gets the girl? He had only the sidhe blade in his boot. It wasn’t designed to poison, but rather maim. And he had to get real close, which he didn’t favor against an opponent wielding poisoned arrows. It would be like using a pin against a battle sword.
Vail tilted his head first one way, cracking his neck, and then to the other side. He reached back, touching Lyric and giving her a push. He sensed she moved against the wall. If she couldn’t see the da
nger, she’d never be able to get out of harm’s way.
“Get as far from here as you can,” he muttered, then turned to face his opponent.
It had been months since he’d been in Faery and had practiced the sidhe martial arts. He’d been talented, and many times had gone head-to-head with Zett, each match resulting in a tie.
But the worm wraith, snarling and gleaming dangerously, gave imposing a new definition.
Glancing about, Vail searched for a more worthy weapon than the blade he held. A rusty tangle of iron railing was piled behind the wraith, perhaps fallen from the balcony overhead. Nice, but not where Vail preferred it to be.
He stepped forward and crouched slightly, spreading out his arms in preparation. Blade held ready to strike, he gestured with two fingers for the wraith to bring it on.
The sidhe nodded in confirmation, “Let’s do this, longtooth.”
Vail’s jaw tightened at the epitaph. He could call the sidhe an earth slug but he didn’t need to make the thing any angrier than those glowing green eyes already displayed. Faery eyes didn’t glow unless their ichor boiled.
Not sure if the sidhe had weapons beyond his depleted cache of arrows, Vail waited to see what the guy would use to come at him.
After a growl and a twist at his waist, the sidhe soared through the air, his horn-armored boot aimed for Vail’s head. He saw it coming, but the sidhe moved so swiftly—the mortal realm doubled his speed—that by the time Vail thought to duck, he felt the skull-cracking pain of spiked horn connecting with the side of his head.
He wobbled but did not go down.
Another kick landed on the same spot above his ear. Vail charged forward, using the pain to focus his anger. He head-butted the sidhe in the chest and rammed the blade into its torso. The blade broke off at the handle.
The wraith tugged out the blade with a yowl and tossed it over his shoulder. The glisten of ichor oozing from his opponent’s chest brought the saliva to Vail’s tongue. The sidhe cracked a knowing smirk. Not the time to feel the hunger.
Vail rushed his opponent and the two went down against the brick wall. Slamming his palm against the sidhe’s face, Vail smashed his head against the rough brick. Faery ichor glittered on the bricks. It smelled delicious. It spattered his face. He dashed out his tongue to test the ichor—then spit.
