by Michele Hauf
“What?” he asked, pausing from his preening to glance over his shoulder.
“Just looking at the sexiest man I’ve known,” she said. “Make that the sexiest vampire.”
“Vampire,” he said, as if trying on the word for the first time. “It works for me. I think Hawkes was right about me claiming my power. I feel great, Lyric, like a new man since taking your blood. It’s weird, but I feel I can conquer nations and leap tall buildings, and—”
“Look through women’s clothing with your X-ray vision?”
They laughed and sealed their shared happiness with a kiss that only lovers could share. Tongues danced and fangs pricked at lips. Sips of blood, sighs of pleasure led to her pulling down Vail’s jacket and him sliding up her dress.
A courteous knock at her open bedroom door startled them. “Miss Santiago?”
The door opened inside and they turned to the driver, who stood holding a small box. It had to be Charish’s ashes.
“Not now,” Vail said.
The man, a vampire Charish had turned only a few years earlier, nodded and backed away, but Lyric sensed he wasn’t sure about Vail.
“He’ll want instructions,” she said, finding no sadness for the death of her mother now. She was in a better place, far from the aggressive command of her fiancé. “From the one in charge. Who is probably me, for now. I’ll need to contact Leo. Not sure he’ll want to step into my mother’s role. Hell, I can’t remember where he said he was going.”
“Berlin. You should call him. The two of you can create a new beginning for the family, if you wish,” said Vail.
That sounded wonderful. But she had no idea how to make the first step. And she knew Leo had no desire to take position as a leader of the Santiago clan. Her brother liked his freedom and his lack of alliances.
“Is there an advisor or someone your mother trusted who can assist you until you can get your bearings?”
“No, only…” Connor.
Vail nodded. “Constantine.”
“If I had known, I would have told you, Vail.”
“I know.” He kissed her forehead. “How could you have known? You should talk to the driver. I’ll wait for you.”
“What are your plans now?”
“Today is the day the Seelie come for the gown. I have to find it.”
She kissed him quickly. “Give me a few minutes, and then we’ll end this crazy gown chase for good.”
TEN MINUTES LATER, Lyric returned to her room and found Vail putting the faery ointment under his eyes. She dallied with the idea of tearing off his clothes and kneeling before him to pleasure him until his fingers gripped in her hair and a moan followed, but she couldn’t erase the uneasy feeling she’d had since talking to the driver.
“The driver told me he thought he saw someone enter the mansion through the garden doors.”
“When?” Vail clasped her hand as they walked toward the south wing. “An intruder?”
“No, he said he entered with purpose as if he had a right and obviously an invite wasn’t necessary, so it’s someone who has been in the Santiago mansion previously. Many of Mother’s men and the guards she employs have free run of the mansion. Whoever it is, they’ll need to know what has happened.”
Ahead, the door to the conference room hung open. It was where Charish had held weekly meetings with her closest advisors, and where she kept, in a wall safe behind a treasured Dali painting, all the Santiago family’s important financial information.
Lyric quickened her steps. When she rounded the door and entered the conference room’s hazy morning light, her heart fell.
It was him.
Vail crowded up behind her in the doorway, but she stayed him with a hand to his arm. She hadn’t expected it to happen this way, but now that they both stood here, she must act as liaison for this incredible meeting.
Lyric approached the man who stood at the far end of the conference table with caution. He waited, arms behind his back. Only once she’d seen the flash of broken fang he tried to keep concealed. Charish had told her it was the result of a tussle between him and another vampire. He may have been an imposing tribe leader centuries earlier, but now he looked tired, defeated. Desperate.
“Your mother is not around?” he asked, noting with vague interest Vail, who lingered in the doorway.
Lyric could sense Vail’s increased heart rate. His heartbeats matched her own. A condition they would experience thanks to sharing each other’s blood. “There’s something I need to tell you, Connor.”
“Constantine?”
The room grew cold as Vail marched inside and stopped at the opposite end of the table from where the old vampire stood. Lyric would have never wished for the meeting to go this way, but there was no stopping it now.
“Constantine de Salignac?” Vail asked.
“Yes,” Salignac answered, unimpressed with the vampire who had charged in. He was always dismissive toward Charish’s men. “Who are you?”
Lyric felt Vail’s sudden nervous tension stir her blood. His fists formed on the table. The pulse of his jaw intensified.
“Vaillant,” he offered, as if a question. “Do you know me?”
“Why should I?” Constantine tossed out. He narrowed his eyes, inspecting Vail too briefly, then dropped his interest. “Where is your mother, Lyric? She’s always here. We’ve business to attend.”
“Why don’t you know me?” Vail insisted.
“Is this the man your mother hired to find you?” Constantine asked Lyric. “I’ll pay you for your trouble if that’s what you’re waiting for,” he said to Vail.
“I can’t believe this.” Vail clasped the air, and Lyric swung her hand to catch his. His fingers trembled. Were those tears in his eyes?
She glanced at Constantine, and for once, she really looked at him instead of trying to avoid his often leering gaze. His dark hair held no sheen, and was as dense as a moonless night. His blue eyes reflected none of the sunless daylight that forced its way through the bamboo shades. His square jaw and thick brows…she had touched many times when admiring her lover’s face. This man was indeed Vail’s father.
Vail whisked her out of the room before she could offer an introduction. Lyric twisted her arm from his grasp, yet followed his hasty retreat. “Where are we going? Don’t you want to speak to your father?”
“Don’t say that,” Vail said. “Don’t give him a title he does not deserve. He doesn’t know me. What the hell?”
“We should go back and talk to him. I’ll introduce you two. I have to tell him about Charish.”
“Lyric?” Constantine called down the hallway. “Where’s your mother?”
Vail ran toward the front door, Lyric’s hand clasped in his. “I need to be away from here.”
Of course, if he’d found the one man he’d wanted to meet all his life—and that man hadn’t a clue who he was… Hadn’t Rhys Hawkes told his brother he’d a son?
“Sorry!” she called back to Connor—Constantine, or whoever he was. “There’s an emergency!”
Lyric ran along with Vail to the limo parked haphazardly in the driveway.
“I’ll drive,” she offered, and Vail got into the passenger side. The sun was masked by gray clouds, yet she flipped on the UV protection, which slid over the windows. She spun out of the driveway.
“Fuck!” Vail punched the dashboard, cracking the hard plastic. “He doesn’t know me? How is that possible? Didn’t Rhys tell him?”
“We could go back and ask—”
“No! Just get me away from here.”
“Where do you want to go?”
“Anywhere. Just drive.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
THE FIRST ELF shot pierced the windshield and stuck in the front seat next to Lyric’s shoulder.
“Step on it!” Vail shouted.
“Where are they?”
He twisted on the seat, scanning the sky. “Above!”
Out of the corner of her eye, Lyric spied the glitte
r of wings—a lot of them—and turned the hulking limo down a narrow street. The car was too big to navigate with ease, and she cursed this alley, which was lined with garbage cans that buffeted the chrome bumper as the vehicle stormed through twice as fast as the speed limit allowed.
“You want me to drive?”
“Are you kidding me?” she said. “I do have a driver’s license, thank you very much. I don’t see them anymore. How did I see them?”
“Must have caught a glimpse of them from the corner of your eye.”
The passenger window broke and Vail yelped. He pulled the arrow from his shoulder. “They’re using elf shot. Get inside a building, or parking lot. Someplace we can ditch the car and go on foot.”
“Are you okay? Is that going to hurt you now you’re not a, you know?”
“Dust freak?” He tossed the arrowhead out the window and shuffled off his jacket. “Here, put this on. It might help you see them.”
She struggled into the inside-out jacket. The spikes were dull but they still poked. Meanwhile Vail squeezed the wound on his shoulder, wincing as he forced out the blood. “If there’s poison in it, I might be able to get it out.”
“You feel woozy?”
“No, and the wound isn’t deep. I’ll be fine. Don’t take any more narrow streets, or you’ll crush me.”
Before she could protest, Vail leaned out the passenger window and sat up on the door. What he was doing, without any weapons, was beyond her.
She wished she had some of the faery ointment around her eyes. If she could see the enemy, they would be easier to avoid. Would a reversed coat really work?
A piece of newspaper stirred up by the wind slapped onto the windshield and blocked her vision. Lyric swerved right. Vail’s boot kicked the car roof and he swore. Something cracked the windshield. A body rolled off, leaving behind a wing wedged in the broken glass.
Now that she clearly saw.
“Tell them I’ll give them what they want!” she yelled. “If I can get there quick enough.”
She headed toward the Gare du Nord in the tenth arrondissement. The midafternoon traffic wouldn’t allow her to go much faster than thirty kilometers.
“How do they dare attack in daylight?” And then she realized mortals would not be able to see what she initially hadn’t been able to see.
A clatter of wings slashed into the car as Vail dragged in a faery, or some gray creature that was the size of an infant and squealed like a rabbit. One of its wings cut Lyric’s arm.
“What is it?” she frantically asked, keeping her focus on the road, and not hitting the biker up ahead.
“Fucking sprites. Who sent you? Zett?”
The squirming faery spit ichor at Vail. He managed to block the spittle with an arm, and whipped the faery out the window. “I hate sprites!”
“Did any of that get on you?”
“No.” He inspected his sleeve, which oozed with ichor. “Wait! Stop!”
Lyric pulled the car to an abrupt stop. Vail jumped out and ran toward a business building. What was the guy up to?
Then she noticed Rhys and Trystan Hawkes walking toward the building, as well. And with them, a woman with long dark hair.
“His mother?” Lyric got out and read the sign on the five-story steel building: Hawkes Associates.
* * *
TRYSTAN SPUN AROUND and at the sight of Vail took a defensive stance before Viviane. What was his mother doing out in daylight? Could she withstand the sun if it slipped out from behind the clouds?
Rhys extended his hand to shake with Vail, but instead Vail shoved him at the shoulders. “Why didn’t you tell him? He doesn’t know I’m his son!”
Lyric touched Vail’s shoulder, possibly to calm him, but he shrugged her off. Viviane peeked around her werewolf son’s shoulder.
“You’ve seen him?” Rhys asked. “Where? Vail, I had no idea where he’s been. I knew he was in the city, but—”
“He’s been right under my nose, colluding with Charish Santiago all this time.”
“Are you serious?” Hawkes gave Lyric a scathing look, but dropped it quickly to focus on Vail. “If I had known…”
“If you had known you would have still kept this information from me. It was just a ruse, wasn’t it? You get me to do your dirty work, and I get the shaft.” Vail rubbed his palms together furiously. “He didn’t know me. And I look just like him!”
He turned, and Lyric stood waiting for him to step into her embrace. He was in no mood for a pity hug. He snarled at her and she stepped aside to allow him room to vent and pace.
“Is he talking about Constantine?” Trystan asked.
Rhys swung a warning look at Trystan, then turned to Vail, and said, “I have not seen my brother since the day we found Viviane wandering the streets, mad and bloodthirsty, after over two hundred years of being buried alive.”
Vail tightened his jaw. He didn’t want to hear this. Didn’t need to hear Hawkes’s lies!
“I would have told him, if I’d had opportunity, but I have had no desire to seek him out all these years. After what he did to me and Viviane, well, I wanted to start fresh, give your mother the best future I possibly could. You must believe me, Vaillant.”
“Constantine?” Viviane nudged aside Trystan and stepped up to grip her husband’s arm. “Is that bastard still alive?”
“Yes,” Vail said.
The vampiress gaped. He bowed his head, feeling the despair at his mother’s rejection curdle in his gut. He could not look at her now.
Why had he ever sought to know either of his parents? He should have been content with Cressida’s twisted affection. At least with Cressida he knew where he stood: she hated him, and she admired him. No lies, no hiding or madness. Just bald truth.
Viviane railed. “No! He cannot be. You told me he was long dead. First this…this man who you claim is my son, and now…?”
The look Viviane gave Vail burned the remnants of his desperate heart to ash. He would never know her love. He was not worthy of it.
Vail said to Rhys, “Enough secrets. The Unseelie are after Lyric and me, but all I want to do is return to Constantine and rip out his heart.”
“Yes!” Viviane stepped up to Vail and pressed her hands to his chest, sharp fingernails cutting through his shirt. Her wide eyes darted back and forth between his. “Rip it out and give it to me, will you?”
“I, uh…” Vail swallowed. He would rip out his own heart and give it to Viviane if he thought she could learn to love him. But he would not infect her further with Constantine’s taint.
“Who is she?” Viviane did not look at Lyric, but he knew that’s who she asked about.
“She is Lyric Santiago,” he said, clasping his mother’s hands to keep her nails from doing him further damage. The contact shimmered boldly through his system. “I love her.”
A light brightened Viviane’s mad eyes. “My dark prince is in love?” She tilted softer eyes upon Lyric.
Dark prince? Vail mouthed to Rhys.
“It is what she called you after you were born,” Rhys confirmed. “And what she calls you when she dreams of you, which is often.”
Having such knowledge wrapped around him like a long-desired hug. It clasped about his shoulders, and Vail slapped his arms across his chest to hold on to the strange feeling. Fragments of his ashy heart coalesced and grew stronger, pulsing surely.
“Where is he?” Viviane pleaded him. “Tell me where he is!”
Rhys said, “No, Viviane,” while at the same time Vail said, “The Santiago estate.”
“We can find the bastard later,” Trystan said. “Ever since I was attacked, I’ve been able to see things I’d rather not see. Are those gray things faeries?”
Vail turned to spy the dark cloud of winged creatures swarming closer. “Sprites. They’re nuisance sidhe, unless they’re armed with elf shot, which they are. Take her inside and keep her protected.” He shoved Viviane toward Rhys.
Trystan pulled out a pistol from th
e back of his jeans and fired, dropping one sprite in a squealing splatter of ichor on the sidewalk.
“Nice,” Vail said to his brother.
“You know it, but we have mortal observers, and I’ve not enough bullets for them all. We need to stop this.”
“I can do that,” Lyric said, and she grabbed Vail’s hand. “We have to get the gown.”
“Viviane!” Rhys, his cheek bleeding from scratch marks, pointed down the street. “She took off. When she’s manic like this, she is very strong. I’m going after her. Tryst, help me.”
Firing five more shots, and taking down five more sprites, Trystan holstered the weapon under his arm and took off after Rhys. “They’re all yours, brother!” he called back.
Vail shoved Lyric toward the car. “We can outrun them, but this time I drive. You’re too light on the gas.”
She slid into the passenger side, brushing out the broken glass, but when she heard the squeal of oncoming sprites, she stopped and closed the door. “Head west to the train station!”
Vail shifted into Drive and sped down the busy street, swerving to pass another car. The Mercedes kissed the back bumper of a delivery truck but didn’t miss a beat.
They squealed onto a busy street and Lyric saw the cloud of sprites flicker away. “I can’t see them. Are they gone?”
Vail scanned the rearview mirror. “For now. Where are we headed?”
“Just ahead. That big building at the end of the street.”
Shifting down and pulling the emergency brake, he spun the Mercedes into a parking space that gave but half a foot on bumper to bumper.
Lyric unclenched her grip on the door and opened it. “Come with me!”
“What the hell do you need in a train station?”
“Just follow me.”
The Gare du Nord, one of the largest train stations in Paris, was never empty, and right now it was rush hour. People leaving work crowded into the station where the imposing facade gleamed with rain.
Lyric rushed inside and took in the scene. Mortals wandered about, some listening to music, others rushing to catch a train. The air was cooler in here and she felt less safe surrounded by so many mortals. Vail clasped her hand. She wanted to hug him, to hold him and never let go. Because together they had flown to a place that existed only for them.
