by Zoe Forward
He said, “I’ve given you leeway to do whatever it is you do for human pets. We’ve put on a decent front to the world that we’re well on our way to marriage. It’s bloody humiliating to have my future wife working. Most think it’s some sort of modern male feminist crap. Interestingly, it’s playing fairly well among the female royals. You let slip a single word of my other life and I’ll make sure you don’t survive the treatment. Many don’t.” He smoothed her hair and traced a solitary finger over her lower lip, even though his grip on her neck didn’t ease. “You’re too smart not to see the utility of this method. I think it’s for the best, but I prefer it not start right now. I have affairs to attend to out West this week. The treatment must be scheduled at a time of better convenience. Tell me you understand the advantage of this.”
She nodded. She understood his point, not that she wanted any part of it. “Are you going to turn me in as a wolf sympathizer?”
“I’m not from this country and not subject to its rules of war. My family is not officially at war with wolves right now. Once you are with child, I will remove you to Italy where you will be safe.”
She’d never move to Italy, where restrictions on females were a zillion times worse than in the States. Her freedom plan may have to take effect now. “I don’t sympathize with wolves. They murdered my mother. They keep showing up and taking advantage of me at work.”
“Yet another reason you’re going to quit.” He leaned close. “Go to your apartment. Gather your things and move to my country house tonight or at least by early tomorrow. You will not return to your job. Avoid vamps. I will speak with Dominic about timing.”
She didn’t move. “What are you going to do about the other stuff? About the werewolf king?”
“I shall find out Lexan’s purpose. He hasn’t been in the States for more than a few days. For some reason, he’s targeted you. I know not if this is about me or if it’s vengeance that drives him.”
“Vengeance for what?”
He smiled a chilling upward turn of his lips. “Trace had a little tête-à-tête with his wife before Lexan divorced her.”
“What? I don’t believe you. Trace and a wolf? Impossible.”
Ambrose didn’t lose his smile.
“Okay, oddly possible. Does Dominic know?” She thought she knew her brother well. Perhaps, not so much.
“Your brother slept with that female wolf off and on, and right beneath Dominic’s nose until she had an unfortunate car wreck a few years ago. I’m not entirely certain Dominic knew. It might have been Trace’s roundabout way to hurt his father. Or, maybe, Dominic did know and instigated the crash. Perhaps he let it go on because some twisted part of his mind liked knowing his son hurt Lexan. Although, I’m pretty sure Lexan lost interest in what his ex-wife did long ago.”
“Then how do you know about Trace?” This couldn’t be true. Trace led the Termination Squad. She pulled against the pressure Ambrose applied to keep her still. He didn’t release.
Ambrose’s attention lay on the wedding party milling around the head table. A cunning smile played at his lips. “It’s my business to know all of your family’s dirty secrets.”
“I detected no malice from the king. He got shot and needed help.”
He smoothed a hand against her cheek. “You are so naive. So young. It’s almost adorable, if it wasn’t so stupid.”
“I’m almost seventy. That’s not young.”
“Two superficial bullets for a wolf of his age? Oh, please. He was toying with you. The question is for what purpose. You may think Dominic is dangerous, but he is nothing compared to Aleksander Dimitrov and the wolves who protect him. That wolf doesn’t do anything without a reason.” Ambrose glanced inside. “Leave. I’ll distract Dominic tonight and delay the treatment. He wants to hurt you for defying his demand for allegiance.” His look turned possessive, and he traced a finger along her neckline. “No one mars this skin other than me.”
…
Vee cut a sharp left to walk the outside perimeter of the house toward her car. A huge hand clamped down on her biceps and spun her. That would bruise.
“Going somewhere, Lady Scarpa?” Hsu-Li smirked. The jerk assumed she’d wilt and bend to his command. Had he forgotten her notorious fights with her father?
She excavated her haughtiest tone, learned from years of aristocratic parties. “How dare you? Let me go.”
“Your father requests a word with you. Now.”
“Maybe tomorrow. Ambrose has ordered me home.” A yank to free her arm failed. “You have no right to treat me this way.”
“I have every right when Dominic gives an order.”
She grabbed her wrist with her opposite hand and jerked, freeing her arm from his grasp, a self-defense move Trace taught her. Instead of running, she leaned into him, surprising him. And jabbed him in the throat.
He gurgled and grabbed his neck.
The move probably bought her mere seconds. She sprinted for her car. One moment she was running. The next she was face down with a burning pain in her back. A huge knife jutted from her side. Bad location. Important organs, like kidneys, were in that area.
Hsu-Li moved fast toward her. She yanked out the knife, took aim, and launched it back at him, scoring a direct chest hit that sent him to the ground. Thank you for training me all those years ago, Trace.
She fumbled her key fob to unlock the car, press the start button, and gun it down the drive. The gate opened automatically from the inside. She tapped out an agitated beat on her steering wheel at the gate’s slow grind to open. The gate guards didn’t make a move to stop her. Dominic must’ve assumed her weak enough for Hsu-Li to handle.
This wasn’t over. Not by a long shot. They’d come for her.
Chapter Six
Vee eyed her apartment building from her car. She loved her place—sleek, modern, and in a safe, upscale downtown neighborhood. The neighbors were quiet and private.
A mental scan of the area came up with no vampires in the area. Dominic’s goons would come unless Ambrose brokered a miracle deal. Unlikely. When her father got an idea in his head, he stuck to it. He probably determined the only way to force her to quit work was to get her pregnant and married, in that order.
Her phone buzzed with a voicemail. A number flashed on the main screen, one she knew by heart as the Scarpa estate main line.
She clicked the message to play. “Velvet, why must you always be difficult?” Dominic purred into the phone. “Requiem” by Verdi played in the background. He only listened to this opera aria when in the foulest of moods. “Hsu-Li says you were…hurt. I do hope you are okay. Go home, my dear. Sleep tonight. Heal. Tomorrow I expect you here at precisely one hour past dusk. Ambrose will be here as well. He informed me you are moving permanently to his country estate. Good, good. So, you may come with him to our meeting tomorrow, if you prefer. If you fail to show… I know you will not disappoint me.” The call ended.
Her freedom plan would have to begin tonight. Maybe a little under budget, but she’d make it work. Phase one was to fake her death.
Her back throbbed, reminding her she might not need to fake her own death if she didn’t take care of herself. Fortunately, her car had dark leather seats. Easy to clean. And, good for masking blood stains, not that she’d bought it with that thought in mind. She craned around to see the knife’s entry point, which hurt. A lot. The seat didn’t show the blood’s color, but it was wet. The coppery smell in combination with light-headedness suggested significant loss. It was almost two a.m., an unlikely hour for a neighborly run-in.
The trek from her car into the apartment building guaranteed to be painful. After a few deep breaths, she pushed out of the car. Vertigo slammed her hard. She stumbled, catching herself on the side of the car before she asphalt face-planted. Get inside. She stumbled to the foyer elevator. This wound might require a lot more than one day of sleep and a few liters of Type O. She didn’t have the luxury of a day’s sleep ahead, not when she’d be on the first
possible flight out of Charlotte in the morning.
She flipped the light on as she entered her apartment and threw the keys on the side table. As she turned, her heart took off in a drag race toward panic. “Why are you here?”
“How’s your night going, catifea?” Lexan rose from her suede sofa. His long, powerful legs were encased in denim. His hair was drawn back, throwing his striking face into relief. A black T-shirt with a logo she didn’t recognize was pulled tight over his wide, flat chest beneath a biker jacket. Was there anything sexier than a black T-shirt and jeans?
Not sexy. Scratch that thought from your brain. Think: dangerous, uninvited werewolf in your apartment.
Making a break for it wouldn’t work. She’d be lucky to stumble a few feet down the hallway before she collapsed.
“We need to talk,” he said.
Everyone had an agenda that involved her tonight. She whispered an exaggerated scream, “Get out.”
“Why are you whispering?”
“Dominic has this place wired for surveillance.”
“We swept it. Removed a couple of bugs and a camera.”
“A camera? He had no right.” Who had seen her on film? All those times she’d paraded around naked or in underwear. She couldn’t shake off the creepy sensation.
Lexan closed the distance between them. She feared what would happen when he reached her but was struck immobile. The guy wasn’t just hot. He was throw-your-clothes-off-and-beg magnificent, and he smelled incredible—pure male mixed with a subtle cologne that could be aftershave, and there was a hint of fine port. Her mouth watered at the memory of the aroma of his blood.
It’d been far too long since she’d last had anything fulfilling to drink.
A smile twitched the edges of his lips.
Her neck snapped backward to meet his gaze, unwilling to be intimidated by the fact the most lethal and powerful wolf in existence had broken into her home. The intensity in his pale blue gaze burned her as if he knew her secrets and wasn’t bored.
If she wasn’t about to collapse from blood loss and pain, she might find his gaze hot.
“Are you here to kill me?” An attempt to read his thoughts caught only hazy images of two naked bodies. That couldn’t be her in his head. Her quick glance to his jeans showed a bulge that made her more nervous. Apparently, she wasn’t the only one afflicted by this abnormal attraction.
“I’m not going to hurt you.” He shot her a devastating smile again.
Obviously.
“Then to what do I owe the honor of your presence twice in twenty-four hours?” Nervousness tinged her voice. She started at his chest, unable to maintain eye contact. When she stared at his eyes they made her want things she couldn’t have.
“We have a few things to discuss.”
She got no distinct thoughts from him on the topic he wanted to hash out.
“I can’t keep patching you guys up. I will not contract any further with your people to be a wolf doctor. It’s become life-threatening for me to help any of you again. Everything has become…complicated. You in the mix right now? Let’s just say I can’t handle it. Please go.” She pointed at the door, proud of herself for holding it together when she was seeing sparkles around the edges of her vision. She wobbled and put a hand on the entryway table for support when weakness hit her brain.
He caught her elbow, stabilizing her. “Are you hurt?”
“I’m…fine.” She tried to yank her arm from his hand but staggered. The world went hazy and she almost fell over.
“You’re bleeding. I can smell it.” In one smooth motion he caught her up into his arms, handling her as if she was weightless. Fight him.
She didn’t. His scent lulled her into a haze of hunger. For some bizarre reason, now pressed against the hard contours of his chest, she felt safe. She wanted to burrow and sleep. The sensation made no sense.
He’s the enemy. Make that the enemy’s supreme leader.
This close she could see his lengthy black lashes, the faint lines at the corners of his eyes, and his sculpted, soft lips. She ran her tongue nervously over her dry lips.
“Who hurt you?” He pulled his hand away from her back and showed her the blood. His eyes flashed with danger.
Chills ran down her back at the implication; she had but to say a name and he would annihilate the being. “It’s nothing.”
“I know when a vamp is so weak she’s about to pass out.”
His hand gently rubbed her injured side. Air hissed through her teeth in reaction to the pain while her body bowed to escape his hand. Without warning, she found herself face down on the sofa. He unzipped her dress to expose her back.
“Where’s all this blood from…someone knifed you?”
She wiggled to free her arms. When that failed, she tried to roll. Pain shot down her back and leg, momentarily paralyzing her. She glared over her shoulder at him. “Get off me.”
“Stay still. You must be in a lot of pain.” The genuine concern in his tone surprised her.
The pain she could handle. His concern? That she wasn’t sure she could deal with.
His weight shifted. Taking advantage, she rolled out of his grasp to a sit, ignoring the biting pain racking her body at the movement. She pulled the dress back into place, even though the back gaped open.
“It’s none of your business. Get out of my apartment.” Okay, that hadn’t come out as forceful as she’d intended.
He cupped her chin gently, pulling her gaze to his. “Did Dominic do that to you? Was it my fault?”
The concern in his gaze sucked her in. His thumb reached out to flick over the curve of her lower lip. Oh. My. God. She was doing it again. She was falling victim to his allure.
She batted his hand away from her head. “Stop trying to seduce me. I’ll heal. Go away. Let me sleep.”
“You won’t heal fast enough. I can speed the process.”
“Fast enough for what?” She opened her mind and caught a flicker of his thoughts, “You must be at full strength.”
For what must she be at full strength?
“Let met help you,” he said.
“I already said I can’t be an ER doctor for you guys anymore. There are things in motion that might make me remaining a veterinarian difficult. For God’s sake, Dominic is my father, and I’m about to marry Ambrose DiFalco. Is your motivation political? If so, then forget it. I’m nothing but a pawn.” She moved a couple feet away to rest her shoulders against the wall. If he attacked, he’d win. She had nothing left to fight with. That didn’t mean she wouldn’t try, but she’d die. “You here has catastrophe written all over it.”
“I will not hurt you. Trust me.”
“I don’t trust you by nature of what you are, and the fact you broke into my apartment. I don’t need your help to heal. What I do need is for you to GET. OUT.”
He frowned. Using a paranormal superspeed move, something she’d never mastered, he was in front of her. Promptly, she was face down on the sofa again. The weight of his legs pinned hers.
“Stay still,” he ordered. She heard a strange noise almost like he’d spit.
A warm, moist softness hit her back in the area that hurt most. With a startled shriek she bucked. “Did you just spit and then wipe it on me?”
“Shh.”
“Hurts,” she complained.
“Let me do this for you. Call it making us even.” His beautiful voice rumbled close to her ear. Soothing. Hypnotic. All pain disappeared, as if he’d applied a topical anesthetic. Weird.
She needed to get her arms working and fight. She should want to battle him to death rather than let him touch her like this. But her mind drifted, woozy. The short strokes of his fingers felt so good. Better than any massage, reflexology, or hot stone therapy.
“What does catifea mean?” She’d forgotten to Google it.
“Velvet.” His mouth tickled the skin near her ear in what could’ve been a kiss. Or maybe he smelled her hair. “Relax. Soon this won’t hurt anymore.
”
Lethargy swamped her brain. She already felt better.
…
“Are you asleep?” He nudged her shoulder.
Out.
Incredible that she’d remained upright so long.
Lexan allowed himself to catalog the damage to her beautiful skin. The knife wound was no more than a few inches, but it had bruised into a cantaloupe-sized circle. So much blood had crusted on her back and clothes. Too much.
Before, he’d suppressed emotion when he’d first glimpsed the knife wound. It’d heal. It was a scratch in comparison to wounds he’d seen over the years, but injury on her twisted his gut into something fierce and brutal with a violent need to retaliate.
Who the hell knifed her? Dominic? Ambrose?
And why?
He fingered the wrecked fabric of her dress. The soft material was as marred as her skin, although the material was irreparable. The wolf in him reacted lightning fast with a dangerous need to strike. Had he allowed himself to respond to this damage earlier, he would’ve terrified her with the depth of his rage.
A growl, long and low, started in the depths of his chest as the animal within pushed for freedom. It wanted to hunt her attacker. It wanted to taste the blood of the leech’s throat as he yanked it out. He jumped away from her, strode to the bathroom, and shut the door. He gripped the counter, fighting the need to shift into his wolf form.
Not here. Not now. If he went to wolf form with this much drive and anger, he’d hunt with single-minded focus until his prey was dead. He wasn’t even sure who’d done it, but he’d kill all of them. No remorse. He’d call all of his Elites off their duties to aid him in this hunt. They could easily annihilate the Squad vamps and rip Dominic’s estate to shreds, especially now that most of the vamps had left. Ambrose and his guards posed no threat. But this wasn’t their purpose here.
Deep breaths. You will have your chance. He soothed the animal side of him. Next time he saw Dominic he would tear him apart and watch him bleed out in the sun.
