by Nalini Singh
Feeling like a voyeur, she continued to watch as Monique ran her hand down her thigh. “Has my father agreed to your ransom?”
Callan’s eyes locked on Monique’s fingers where she touched herself with slow, hypnotic strokes. “I haven’t asked for a ransom.”
Monique pouted, all sex and a sweet, dark hunger. “Are you planning to kill me, Callie?”
5
“You’re not that good, Monique, so stop with the seduction act.” Hard words, but his voice had dropped, his face tight with strain.
Getting up off the stool, the beautiful vampire crossed the thick cream-colored carpet. “Liar. I’m very good. I had Jean for a mentor.” Putting her hands flat on Callan’s wide chest, she rose on tiptoe. “And you’re quite luscious.”
Callan held her back with a hand fisted in golden hair that screamed Monique’s immortality. “Try leading me around by the cock, Monique, and you’ll find your hand hacked off.”
Monique’s lips seem to grow even fuller at the threat, her nipples beading against the satin. “Take me.” She rubbed herself sensually against him. “It’ll be the best choice you ever make.”
“I’m fully capable of having sex with you,” Callan whispered against her throat, “then burning you to true death.”
“I’d be more useful to you alive.” Trembling visibly, Monique ran her hands up to cup Callan’s face. “I hate Simone. She takes Grandfather’s attention away from me.”
“Are you saying you’ll betray Antoine to get at Simone?”
“I’m saying we could work out a mutual agreement.” Her nails were perfect ovals against Callan’s skin. “You get rid of Simone for me, become my consort and my grandfather’s right-hand man. The old transitioning to the new.”
Callan’s jaw hardened. “Sorry, sweetheart. I’m not playing second fiddle to anyone—least of all a vicious brat who’d sell out her own family.”
Ashwini saw the flash of surprise in Monique’s eyes the instant before Callan kissed her. Hearing the other woman moan in the back of her throat, Ashwini decided she’d seen more than enough to form a conclusion, though what that conclusion might be, she had no idea. Two wrong turns later, she found herself back in her bathroom. Jumping out of the vent, she replaced the cover, then got into the shower and scrubbed herself until her skin stung.
When she walked out into the bedroom, dressed in jeans and a tee, she wasn’t surprised to see Perida waiting for her. “We got worried when you didn’t answer the door,” the vampire said.
Ashwini held out a hand, palm up. “Earplugs. Hate getting water in my ears.” Rubbing at her hair with a towel, she looked at the woman questioningly. “Where’s Janvier?”
“Walking in the gardens.”
Ashwini threw the towel over a chair. “I think I might join him.” She felt Perida’s eyes on her all the way to the roses where she’d spied Janvier. “You won’t believe what I saw,” she said, wondering if Monique and Callan were even now locked in that embrace powered by equal amounts of lust, ambition, and loathing.
“Try me.”
She did, had the satisfaction of seeing his eyes widen. “Think Callan still intends to go through with his plan of wiping out Antoine, then getting rid of Monique?” she asked.
“If he wants to seize power in Atlanta,” Janvier said with the icy pragmatism of an almost-immortal, “he’ll have to eliminate Jean, Frédéric, and the others, too.”
Ashwini thought of the ruthlessness she’d seen in Callan’s expression as he spoke to the Beaumont vampire. “He’s capable of it. But, no matter what he says, he’s also susceptible to Monique.”
“There’s a chance Monique won’t want to be rescued,” Janvier pointed out, “not if she thinks she can get Callan ’round to her way of thinking.”
“Doesn’t matter. Nazarach wants her.” And not even the most ambitious young vampire would dare gainsay their sire. Angels had torture down to a fine art—and those screams locked in the walls of his home told her Nazarach was better at it than most. “You’d think,” she murmured, “that Monique would’ve had better sense than to ask to be Made after seeing the life Antoine and Jean lead.”
“There are advantages to being a vampire.” Janvier stopped to pick up and bring the trailing edge of a climbing rose to her nose.
The scent was decadent, luxurious. “Maybe,” she said, taking another perfume-laced breath, “but once Nazarach has Monique back, he’ll use her as he might use a chess piece. And she has to let him. For a hundred years, she’ll have no freedom, no self-will. She’ll be less than a pet.”
Dropping the rose, Janvier thrust his hands into his pockets. “You’ve never asked how I was Made.” His voice was missing its usual music, something brittle and hard in every syllable.
“You fell in love with a vampire.”
He froze. “Been researching me?” His anger was hidden but as apparent to her as the sickle-shaped moon in the soft summer sky.
“Didn’t have to.” She shrugged. “Man like you, your personality, doesn’t easily accept submission. But if you decided to give yourself to someone, you’d do anything for that person—even if the choice half killed you.”
“I’m so obvious?”
“No.” She met his eyes, stripped away a single fragile layer of her own shields. “You’re like me.”
“Ah.” That beautiful hair of his glittered under the moonlight as he began to walk again. “Have you ever trusted that deeply, cherie?”
Yes, and she bore the scars still. The marks on her back she could almost forget… but the ones on her soul? Those, she wasn’t sure she’d ever be able to forgive. “We’re not talking about me. What happened to your lover?”
“Shamiya became tired of me after a few years. I was left to the most tender mercies of Neha.”
“The Queen of Poisons?”
A slow nod. “Being in her court was… part nightmare, part ecstasy. I’ve never experienced such pain as I did at Neha’s hands, but she also showed me pleasure I didn’t know could exist.”
Ashwini thought of the archangel, with her skin of dusky brown, her sloe-eyed gaze, her exotic sexuality. “Is that why you’re drawn to me?” She was no beauty, but her skin was the same Eastern shade, her eyes as dark. “Because she imprinted on you somehow?”
Janvier laughed and it was a truly delighted sound, one she’d heard from him only once or twice—usually when he bested her on a hunt. “Neha,” he said, “is as cold as the snakes she keeps as pets. You, my fierce hunter, are wildfire. Two more different women could not exist.”
The cold feeling in her stomach dissipated under the heat of his laughter. “So, what did you learn before Callan went to play tonsil hockey with Ms. Beaumont?”
“He asked me to stay on, join the Fox kiss.” His body brushed hers as they walked.
She wanted to get even closer, touch, be touched. Feel human. “I thought he’d know you aren’t the joining type.”
“I will fight for what’s important,” he said, his voice missing its usual amusement. “But this—petty politics—non.”
“Is that what you told Callan?”
“Of course. Anything else would’ve made him suspicious.” He nodded left and, seeing the lily pond in the distance, she acquiesced. “But now he accepts that I will not take sides.”
“Too bad he forgot the biggest player.”
“Only a fool forgets an angel.” Going down on his haunches by the pond, he put one hand on the back of her calf when she came to stand beside him.
Aching for contact that demanded nothing from her except the most human of sensations, she didn’t shift away, didn’t remind him of her rule against dating vampires. She simply stood there and let the warmth of him soak into her bones. He was an enigma, Janvier. She’d seen him ice-cold, a predator, and she’d seen him bathed in sunshine. Some might’ve asked which was the real man—she knew he was both.
“Do you love her still?” she found herself asking.
“Who?”
“The vampire. Shamiya.”
His hand squeezed her calf in gentle reproof. “A silly question, cher. You know love cannot survive where there is no light.”
Yes, she thought, he was right. “What was she like?”
“Why so curious?”
“I just wonder what kind of a woman would’ve captured a man like you.”
“But I wasn’t this man when she knew me.” He leaned his body against hers. “I was a callow youth. I’ve learned since then.”
Accepting the answer, she turned her eyes to the pond, where the sickle moon made the lilies shimmer with midnight shadows. For the first time in years, her mind was completely quiet, completely her own. The peace of it was extraordinary.
When she ran her fingers through Janvier’s hair, he sighed but held the silence.
Three hours later, the peace was a memory as they found themselves in an alcove in the corridor leading to the bedroom where Monique was being held. “You sure Callan’s still in his study?”
Janvier nodded. “I saw him return to it not long ago.”
“Good, but even if we manage to sneak Monique out of her room,” she murmured, peering around the corner, “how do we get her past the guards?”
Janvier fiddled with the lock pick kit he’d produced out of nowhere. “This would be much easier if we could use Nazarach’s name.”
“Games.” Seeing who’d come out on top. “He’s pitting the two vampires against each other, us against Callan. We matter nothing except for the weaknesses we expose in Callan’s operation.”
“Nazarach has grown old fast.”
“He looks in the prime of his life.”
“No. Here.” Janvier put a fist over his heart. “I’ve met Favashi, the archangel who rules Persia. She is over a thousand years old—but Favashi still has her heart, still has a humanity that is utterly lacking in Nazarach.”
Ashwini gave a slow nod. “There are vampires like that, too.”
“If I ever become one, my darling Ashblade, consider it a mercy killing and take me out.”
“Shh.” Spying Perida’s petite form coming to relieve the guard on duty, Ashwini motioned Janvier to step back with her. “We take Perida hostage, use her to get Monique out.”
“Callan will shoot Perida to keep Monique,” Janvier told her. “Perida would let him—she knows she won’t die unless Cal turns out to be a very bad shot.”
“And people call me crazy.” Squatting in the alcove, she blew out a breath. “Trigger the smoke alarms, cause a panic?”
“Vampires are immune to smoke,” Janvier murmured, eyes the green of the bayou at night, “but not to fire. Set something on fire if you really want panic.”
“I don’t want to kill innocents.”
“No vampire over fifty is innocent, cherie.” But his voice was gentle. “We can use the curtains down the hall—it’ll get them far enough away, without endangering anyone in the rooms.”
Ashwini checked her pockets and came up with a lighter from what Sara called her Girl Scout kit. “Go distract Perida.”
A flash of teeth, pure sin in a smile. “Remember, you asked me to do it.”
Narrowing her eyes, she waited as he circled around to enter the hallway from the other end. Perida immediately went to intercept him, and while Janvier flirted with her using that lazy Cajun charm, Ashwini crept out and down to the curtains, hoping like hell there were no security cameras in the hall. She’d spotted none, but she’d have felt better if she’d been able to do a full scan.
Unfortunately, there was no time—according to the gossip Ashwini and Janvier had both picked up, Callan intended to move against Antoine tomorrow morning. The instant he did, Atlanta would turn into a bloodbath as the Beaumont vampires went up against the Fox kiss. Knowing Nazarach, the angel would let the city burn no matter that it was the innocent who’d get caught in the ensuing inferno.
Holding her breath until the edge of the curtain flickered yellow, she made it back to her hiding spot just as Perida laughed and pushed Janvier gently in the chest. Janvier put a hand dramatically to his heart but backed off, calling out a friendly bonne nuit as he disappeared around the corner.
Perida was still smiling when she reached her spot in front of Monique’s room. It didn’t last long. “Fire!” Screaming out the warning, she unlocked Monique’s door and ran in to grab the hostage.
The gorgeous Beaumont vampire had obviously been asleep, her body clad in a filmy white nightgown that barely touched her thighs. However, she assessed the situation fast. “Go, help put out the fire,” she ordered Perida. “I’ll make my way outside.”
Instead of obeying, Perida took Monique’s arm and began to pull her down the corridor. “I don’t think so, Ms. Beaumont. You stay with me.”
“Where exactly do you think I’ll run in a nightgown and bare feet?” came the lethally cultured response.
“You’re as immortal as I am,” Perida said, every inch the cold-eyed enforcer. “A bit of weather and a few cuts won’t do anything but inconvenience you for a couple of minutes.”
“Then perhaps I wish to stay for another reason.” Monique’s tone was all innuendo. “He is rather delicious.”
Perida’s back snapped steel straight… leaving her vulnerable for the barest fraction of an instant. It was all Ashwini needed. Slipping up behind the enforcer, she hit Perida hard enough on the back of the head to have killed a human. It only just put the vampire out. The other vampire, the beauty, stared at her. “Who are you?”
“I’ve been sent to retrieve you.”
“I’m not planning on leaving.”
6
Ashwini gave the other woman a smile she’d learned to form in that white-on-white hell her brother had dumped her in, all the while telling her it would hurt him more than her. “You signed your Contract in blood. You’re now in default.”
Monique’s face went sheet white. “Surely he won’t hold me to account for that.” A wire-thin voice. “I was under duress.”
“Doesn’t look like it. Now shut up and follow me.”
The fact that Monique suddenly turned meek told Ashwini all she needed to know about Nazarach. “Down here.” Grabbing the vampire’s arm, she thrust Monique into an alcove an instant before several of Callan’s men came pounding down the corridor. Raising her arm, she pointed toward the smoke. “Fire’s that way!”
One almost stopped, his eyes narrowing, but then a shout went up as someone found Perida’s collapsed form and he went running. Ashwini pulled Monique out of the alcove, pelting down the hall at breakneck speed.
“Ash!”
Twisting toward the door Janvier had shoved open, she almost threw the target inside before snapping the lock. A brush of wind against her face had her noticing the wide-open balcony doors—she could’ve kissed Janvier at that moment. Then he reached behind himself to pull off the crossbow she’d resigned herself to abandoning, along with the rest of the stuff in her duffel. Swinging the precious weapon over her head, she pressed her lips to his surprised ones in a hard, nibbling caress. “Don’t suppose you managed to scare up a car, too?”
The Cajun blinked, shook his head, smiled. “We can do that once we’re outside.”
They were moving even as they spoke, heading to the balcony. “Can you jump?” she asked Janvier.
His answer was to pull himself up to crouch on the railing. “Monique.” He held out a hand.
Ashwini wanted to cut off the lily-white hand that slid into his—Monique’s skin was as flawlessly delicate as the fine bones of her face. Instead, she kept watch on the doorway as the two vampires jumped the considerable distance to the ground and came to a safe, catlike landing on their feet.
Janvier looked up just as someone began to kick at the bedroom door. Running back, she locked the balcony doors to slow them down a bit more, then swung over the railing. Janvier was holding up his arms in a promise to catch her, but Ashwini didn’t trust anyone that much.
Snapping out the thin cable wor
ked into the bracelet she wore on her left wrist, she tied one end around the balcony struts, then wrapped the rest around her hands and rappelled down at speed that cut burn marks into her palms. She left the cable where it was, knowing the Fox vampires would have no use for it, and turned to find Janvier waiting for her, eyebrow raised.
“Car,” she said pointedly.
He waved left. “The drive is that way.”
“It’ll be swarming with Callan’s people.” Scowling, she turned right. “Isn’t there a garage back there?”
Janvier’s eyes gleamed. “I think I saw a Hummer drive in an hour ago.”
They looked at each other. Smiled.
“What?” Monique made a show of stepping from foot to foot, as if cold, when the temperature was well above balmy.
“Keep up,” Ashwini said and took off toward the garage, knowing the vampire would do as directed—the fear in her eyes at the mere allusion to Nazarach’s anger had been punishingly real.
The garage was locked, but there were no guards, likely thanks to the fire. “Up there.” Ashwini pointed to the window just below the roof.
Janvier didn’t wait. Jogging back several feet, he came toward the wall at a hard run, jumping up to the window ledge in a single powerful leap. Hearing Monique’s gasp, Ashwini turned. “You haven’t seen anyone do that before?” She’d assumed all older vamps could move with that feral grace.
The blonde shook her head, lips parted, eyes wide-open. “I’m pretty sure even Grandfather can’t move like that and he’s starting on his sixth century.”
Glass rained down as Janvier punched his way through and dropped inside the garage… in the nick of time. Because Ashwini could feel the thunder of pursuit under the soles of her feet. Taking out her gun, she turned to Monique. “You have any offensive capabilities? Know how to fire a weapon?”
“My face and my body are my weapons, Guild Hunter.” A hint of that upper-class sneer entered her tone. “Sex is about as physical as I get.”
