by Evie Byrne
It was convenient for the Faustins to involve themselves so actively in Minnesota. She’d been waiting for years for an opportunity to take New York, and finally her patience had paid off. Her intelligence told her the Faustins were in a particularly weak moment. If she could just get Mikhail out of Manhattan, she could take it. He’d never get it back.
The problem was Mikhail was a homebody. Not only did he never leave New York, he spent all his time on the streets with his ear to the ground. So she’d been skirmishing with his people in Minnesota, pretending she wanted it. It looked like she’d almost lured him out.
“Dom, I want you to put out a rumor that we’re going to hit the North Woods, the whole territory, not just Minnesota. Move some of your men up there, have them make themselves conspicuous. Say we’re going to take out their leader…who is he again?”
“Halverson.”
“Yes. Say we’re going after him. Say I’m coming kill him myself and make a formal claim. That will get Faustin on a plane right away—along with his lieutenants. Soon as he leaves for Minnesota, we’ll stroll into Manhattan.”
That idea made her very happy. New York City was a vampire’s paradise, and she hadn’t been able to set foot there for thirty years. She wanted it. Bad.
“What about pere Faustin?”
“Way past his prime. And the brothers are no match for me. Mikhail is the only one we have to worry about.”
“Your Majesty?”
Alya slid out from under Matthew and went to crouch by Frank’s head. His head resembled an eggplant. Remarkably so. She pulled off the earbuds. “Yes?”
“I’ve been thinking.”
“Astonishing.”
“It’s not fair. You drink vamp blood, and no one kills you for it. And then what about those whatchyacall them? Bonded mates?”
“Oh, I’m sorry. I didn’t realize you had feelings for Jason.”
“No! What I’m saying is why am I going to die for tapping that asshole when all this other shit going on and that’s okay?”
Dominick strolled over and looked down at Frank with folded arms. “Sure now, we haven’t sunk to citing medieval customs for our defense, have we? Though I must admit I’m impressed you know any medieval history at all.”
“Fair is fair, that’s all.”
“I don’t think this argument is going to save you, Frank.” She popped the earbuds back in and gave him another twirl.
The intercom buzzed. Alya went to her desk to answer it. “Ms. Adad, I have a call from security. Mikhail Faustin and his attorney, Joshua Silver, are downstairs.”
“You’re joking.”
“No, Ms. Adad. They say they’ve come to…parlay?”
Alya’s skin prickled. Never speak the Devil’s name.
Chapter Three
She widened her eyes at Dominick, covering her mouth in mock horror. But he, of course, turned dead serious. “Should I go downstairs?”
“Security will screen them. Stay here.” She waved at Maya, Matthew and dangling Frank—who couldn’t hear her. “All of you can stay and watch history unfold. I don’t know if a Faustin has ever set foot in California.”
To the intercom she said, “Tell security to send them up once they’re cleared.”
Alya settled herself behind her large desk. She swept a few pens, paper clips and notes into her top drawer, then took them out again. She wouldn’t tidy up for Mikhail Faustin.
Why would Mikhail ever—ever—visit her?
It must have to do with Minnesota. But why a parlay now?
She wasn’t worried about him ambushing her. If his intention were murder, he wouldn’t come to her office under a flag of truce. If Mikhail struck, it would be a complete surprise, scrupulously planned, utterly devastating and yet perfectly legal under vamp law. That was how he’d taken out all his enemies thus far. So she had to assume he had some sort of legitimate business with her.
Security took their sweet time. Wisely. In the meanwhile, she relaxed into the idea of Mikhail being in LA, and even began to like it. It was so damned convenient, almost as though the universe had dropped him in her lap.
It was also a bit sticky, because she’d figured they’d fight over New York, and she’d kill him in battle. That was how she liked to work. It was direct—and fair.
But if he was going to come uninvited into her town and stroll right into her office, she’d be a fool if she didn’t grab this opportunity to take him out quickly and quietly. Then, in the confusion following his death, she’d take New York. It would save lives in the long run.
Mikhail Faustin. She hadn’t seen him since he was younger than Matthew and Maya. She glanced their way, admiring their supple, slender bodies and their flawless skin, her mouth quirking into a smile. She and Mikhail had been very young indeed.
It seemed like there should be a law against killing your first lover, though considering their history, Mikhail probably wouldn’t mind driving a spike through her head. She wondered exactly how much he hated her.
Dominick paced, checking his weapons as he did.
Alya kicked off her heels and put her feet up on the desk, all the while keeping one eye on the front office monitor. “I hope security remembers to use plenty of lube. Did you get some of that knyaz lube I asked you to stock for distinguished visitors?”
Dominick scowled at her. This would be his first face to face with a genuine Faustin, and it had him all riled up.
Maya spoke through a yawn. “Is the Iceman as gorgeous as they say?”
Alya shrugged. Iceman, Ice, Frost—these were all street names for Mikhail. He must have changed a lot over the years, because when he was young, he ran as hot as any man she’d ever met. Even his pale blue eyes burned like the heart of a flame.
Mikhail walked into the front office that moment. The security camera caught him from a high angle, showing her a sleek animal in a severe black suit. Her chair hit the ground with a thump as she leaned close to the monitor.
Rapt, she chewed on the side of her thumb while she watched him speak to her secretary, marking all the ways he’d grown up. He was taller, broader through the shoulders, and the sweet lines of his face had turned austere and sharp as a blade. His straight, platinum hair brushed his collar. That hadn’t changed. She remembered his hair well, how it slid through her hands, heavy and fine.
As she’d heard, he did absolutely nothing to hide his vampirism anymore. Some vamps could pass naturally. Others made adjustments in order to pass. For instance, she wore contacts and sunglasses when she went out, and she did her best to move slowly, like a human. If you knew what to look for, it was easy to spot a vampire in any crowd, but no one would ever mistake Mikhail for human.
The power he held as his family’s leader shimmered around him like a second skin. He made a beautiful prince. Once upon a time she could not resist the draw of that power, but she wouldn’t pay the price for it anymore. Princes demanded absolute submission from those around them, especially their lovers. Now that she was a prince herself, she submitted to no one—not on the street, not in the council chamber and never, ever in the bedroom. She’d done her time on her knees. She had no intention of kneeling ever again.
Tapping Mikhail’s image on the screen with her fingernail, she murmured, “Very pretty. Too bad I’m going to have to kill you.”
He chose that moment to look up, directly into the camera. Straight into her eyes. Alya snatched her hand from the screen.
Her assistant buzzed. “Ms. Adad? Mr. Faustin and Mr. Silver are here.”
Mikhail continued to stare into the camera lens. She could not shake the feeling that he was tracking her with his uncanny eyes. Alya turned off the monitor, annoyed that he could rattle her with a trick like that. She checked her knives and leaned back in her chair. “Send them in.”
When Mikhail walked through the door the curtains stirred and the air temperature dropped. In a glance he took in every detail of the room, just as she would, memorizing the layout, cataloging the feeders,
Dominick, and hanging Frank, and tucking that information away for future use.
Alya stood to greet him. She sampled his power, letting it brush over her skin before shaking it off with a shiver, like a cat that’s been stroked backward.
Their eyes locked and held without the camera as intermediary. She’d not been challenged so directly for a long time.
For the briefest moment, she glimpsed him as the angelic boy he’d been, kissing her with a smile. Was that really him? Had that girl been her? Some version of them, maybe. An incarnation on another plane. Butterflies filled her stomach, a visceral memory of how he’d once thrilled her. She hardened herself against the unsettling feeling. Sentimentality was a dangerous luxury.
“Knyaz,” she said, inclining her head without lowering her eyes. She used the title he’d be known by among his own people.
“Knyaginya,” he said, his gaze level, his hands folded in front of him, his expression that of a church saint. His use of the feminine honorific made her smile. It was quite an ugly mouthful. And properly, she should be knyaz too. She was no one’s princess.
“To what do I owe this unexpected pleasure?”
Mikhail gestured to his lawyer. Alya had forgotten the man even existed, but he’d been standing there at Mikhail’s left shoulder all along, grey and unobtrusive. He stepped forward with a letter sealed with black wax and dropped it on the table.
“Ms. Adad, I’ve come to testify that this sworn affidavit from Natalia Faustin is certified as genuine prophecy by the Council of Mothers.”
What in the hell did that mean? Now she’d have to call in her lawyers to find out. She didn’t touch the letter.
Mikhail pulled back his coat sleeve, revealing a strange bracelet—no, rather a slender black rope coiling up his arm. She hissed as she recognized the magic crawling over it. How had security let that by?
Shit. Hoping against hope, she pushed her panic button with her toe. Dominick raised a brow at her. She made a subtle “wait” signal with one finger.
“Alya Adad, I declare you mine by right of dream, bound to me by fate and blood—”
And then she understood. He hadn’t come to kill her, he’d come to marry her.
“You are fucking kidding me.”
Mikhail didn’t falter. He continued reciting the proposal. There was probably some rule that he had to say the whole thing, and Mikhail was never one to break a rule. And it wasn’t a proposal, she realized, it was a declaration of intent.
“This rope, woven of both craft and magic, symbolizes the unbreakable bonds of marriage.”
The rope came alive, uncoiling itself from his arm, slithering into a loop between his outstretched hands. From the corner of her eye, she saw Dominick tense, ready to leap at her slightest gesture. She also knew that Mikhail could kill him with a single blow. And security was not coming.
She had to get out of there. Lead Mikhail away from her people, and get some distance between herself and that rope. Then she could take him on.
“It will ensure your submission to me as a bride—”
Saying this, he stepped into range. She kicked the desk, sending it hurtling against his legs, knocking him backward. Seizing the second she had before he recovered, she sprinted out of her office, down the corridor to the central staircase, praying Dominick wouldn’t engage him.
Her building had a central staircase made up of wide oak steps and curving banisters which wound three stories down to the marble clad lobby. She bypassed the stairs entirely, vaulted the railing and plunged down the well. Landing on the ground floor in a deep crouch, she sprang toward the exit. No one was down there. Security was gone, the lobby still and silent as a tomb.
Just as she hit the doors, Mikhail landed exactly where she had. He’d come slower than she expected, and that meant he’d spent a second or two on Dominick. God damn him.
As he sprang up from his landing crouch, she drew two knives from her waist and sent them spinning at his face. He blocked the first with his forearm and got nicked at the hairline by the second.
She sprinted out into the sparkling lights of Sunset Boulevard. Barefoot and fleet in her jeans, she ran straight into the crawl of Saturday night traffic and bounded onto the hood of the first car that got in her way. He jumped on another. Hopscotching cars, they crossed the boulevard, shouts, honks and camera flashes in their wake.
She hit the opposite sidewalk, leapt for the low roofline and swung her body over the top, legs extended, toes pointed like a gymnast. He was right behind her, his hands gaining hold of the roof just as she rolled to her feet, so close that his fingers grazed her back through her thin silk blouse, raising goose bumps.
But by the time he swung over the side, she was two rooftops away, waiting for him, exactly where she wanted to be.
Mikhail jumped the last gap between them, and paused, letting the vibrations fade under his feet. Alya waited for him, straight-backed and tall, her long black hair shifting and stirring in the breeze.
Long ago he’d known her well, and he’d heard what she’d become since. But nothing could have prepared him for seeing her in person. Or for wanting her so much.
In the office he’d used every ounce of restraint in him to hide this desire from her, but from the moment he’d scented her from the outer office he’d been possessed by a stupefying, blinding lust. If he couldn’t figure out how control it, it would get him killed. Soon.
Still, he wanted to see her move, because her every gesture flowed like water, so he began to stalk her in a slow circle. She matched him step for step, her amber eyes watchful but fearless.
The air on the rooftop was fresh and cool and the city spread out around them, white, gold and red lights blurring and flashing. The only sound was the rumble of engines beneath them. Their feet made no noise at all. She was evaluating him, waiting for him to speak, but he didn’t plan to say much .
“So, you want a bonded wife. Tell me, are you keeping serfs too? Doing that whole feudal thing?”
Silence did bother her, it seemed. They continued their slow dance.
“If you killed my people—”
That he had to answer. “No one is dead.”
Her voice was deeper, and her accent had changed. As a girl, she’d arrived in New York speaking English with an Arabic-inflected French accent. The first time she spoke to him, that accent struck him dumb. It made her sound sophisticated and exotic. It made him want to kiss her every time she moved her lips. In the intervening years, her accent had faded, and she’d picked up plenty of Americanisms, but intriguing traces of it still survived in the sensual vowels and throaty consonants.
She stopped circling, widened her stance and snapped her elbows straight. A gleaming knife dropped into each of her hands. “I assume you came here to die?”
Death would be a relief. As would murder. Or rape. As far as he was concerned, any release would be welcome after thirty years in purgatory. She wouldn’t remember that he’d tasted her, or know what it meant if she did. That was to his advantage. She thought he could walk away, like she could. She thought he’d act sensibly. The idea almost made him laugh aloud.
He threw aside his coat and unfurled his rope. It slithered into a loop between his hands. Alya’s full lips hitched into a snarl. She raised her knives, daring him to approach. He played the rope out into a wide loop. Casually, almost carelessly, he tossed the loop in her direction, trusting the magic to guide it over her head. It opened wide. She sidestepped it, but it followed her, centering over her head again. Angry, she lashed out with her knives, her movements a blur even to his eyes. Any other rope would have fallen to the ground in confetti. Not this one.
With a sharp tug he pulled the loop tight, pinning her upper arms to her sides. Another tug and she was against his chest. He spun behind her, pressing his forearm tight against her larynx.
“Drop the knives.” Mikhail whispered the command because he could not draw a full breath. Not with her hair against his lips, not with her body against his.
He ran his free hand along her left arm, closing his hand over hers. When she didn’t release the knife, he increased the pressure on her throat.
Her grip softened reluctantly. He opened her fingers and took the knife, forcing back memories of them holding hands. She let the second knife fall to the ground and he kicked it away.
The pulse in her carotid artery leapt against his arm. His heart pounded against her back. She was rigid. Seething. But her scent wound through him like honeysuckle vines. He brought the knife in his left hand to her throat.
“Let’s review,” he said, unable to restrain himself from swiping his nose along the edge of her ear as he spoke. “The rope is binding your arms. You could still struggle, but if you do, I’ll snap your neck or cut your throat. And I’ll do it, believe me, because I know you’ll kill me if you get an opening.”
He dragged the knife down her sternum, letting it catch on the first button of her blouse. “Isn’t that true?”
She said nothing. He flicked the knife and sent the button flying. Still she made no noise, but a faint tremor rolled down the length of her spine. He was holding a storm in his arms. There was no turning back for him, and no quarter for her.
He cut off another button. Her chin jerked up like a horse fighting the reins, and her weight shifted ominously. He didn’t intend to wait to see what she was planning. Instead, he spun her around and slammed her head into the ventilation shaft behind them. The sharp, metallic reverberation thundered down into the building.
It wasn’t his noblest moment, but it was completely satisfying.
Face pressed against the dented steel, she said, “Where’s the romance gone, Misha?” Her voice was frighteningly even. Mocking. The use of his pet name, insulting. And as she spoke she was trying to hook her leg behind his to throw him off balance.
