We were both born for this, Lina heard Pilar whisper. We were born to be together.
She stood in the shadow-draped living room of her mother’s house, disturbed from slumber by a soft but persistent rustling sound, the creaking of furniture, from out on the lanai. Barefooted and in her pajamas, she stole out of Latisha’s darkened bedroom and toward the strange sounds, her hair in a sleep-tousled mess, her face scrunched in a groggy scowl. At the sound of Pilar’s telepathic voice, however, rippling through her mind in a low, sultry purr, she froze.
Please don’t stop, she heard Pilar say. Oh, God, please…!
Lina heard a slapping sound; it grew louder and faster as she hurried now for the lanai. The glass door had been left open, the room dark beyond the threshold. When Lina paused, peering past the doorway, she saw silhouettes moving to her right, a figure hunched over in the darkness.
No… she thought, as her eyes adjusted to the gloom. Not a single figure but two, a man and a woman making love missionary-style. The woman had her legs propped against the man’s shoulders to give him unabated access as he drove himself vigorously into her, and he gripped her hips tightly with every pounding stroke. Her breasts bounced and she clutched at his arms, raking his skin with her nails, her dark hair spilled in a glossy tumble against the pillows beneath her.
“Don’t stop,” Lina heard Pilar beg aloud, her voice ragged and hoarse as she neared climax. “God, Brandon…please…!”
At this, the mention of his name, Lina drew back in shock, even though a part of her had known all along, from the first soft sounds that had roused her from sleep. Like a fool, she hadn’t heeded her own mental warnings; she hadn’t wanted to believe, but there was no denying what was right in front of her eyes: Brandon, stripped nude, his body sweat-glossed in the moonlight filtering through the lanai windows, his dark hair swept about his face, the twin lengths of his exposed fangs.
I want to make you come. Brandon’s voice filled Lina’s mind, and she stumbled backwards into the doorframe, uttering a low, wounded sound he couldn’t hear.
Come on, Pilar, he grunted, fucking her hard. That’s it…come for me.
Pilar cried out, arching her back off the futon mattress, obviously in the throes of orgasm. Lina heard Brandon utter a breathless sigh as he came inside of her; it felt for all of the world like he’d just taken a steak knife and plunged it between Lina’s ribs, sinking the blade deeply into the meat of her heart.
Holy shit, Brandon whispered with a shaky laugh, crumpling onto Pilar. That…was incredible. He kissed her, his mouth stretched in an exhausted smile. I feel like I was born to make love to you.
That’s because you were, Pilar said.
* * *
“No!” With a cry, Lina jerked in start, sitting bolt upright in bed, bathed not in moonlight, but the bright light of the midmorning sun.
What the hell…? Her heart pounded beneath her breasts. Her entire body felt tremulous, her breath fluttering, her skin damp with a light sheen of perspiration.
A dream, Lina thought, clapping her hand over her face, not the least bit surprised to realize she was shaking. Just another goddamn dream.
She’d spent the night in Augustus’s hotel suite. Despite her insistence that she was fine, he’d carried her from the car up to the suite upon their return to the hotel from the emergency room. And despite her protests, she had to admit, she was grateful for the genteel gesture. It had felt good to be able to tuck her cheek against the nook of his shoulder and close her eyes; she’d felt safe there from the strange and unexpected sorrow that had overwhelmed her at the hospital. He had delivered her to the bedroom and flipped back the sheets, laying her gently down and tucking her in with equally tender care.
“You take the bed,” Lina had said. “I’ll take the couch.”
“Absolutely not,” Augustus had replied.
“You paid for it,” she protested.
“I paid for the couch, too,” he countered.
She’d been too damn tired to argue with him. And, as she’d settled herself beneath the crisp, cool Egyptian cotton sheets and down-filled overlay, sinking into the padded mattress and mountain of pillows, she’d been glad. Closing her eyes on the crazy, heartbreaking day had been akin to heaven; Lina had secretly been grateful to Augustus for his persistent courtesy.
She would have thought sheer exhaustion alone would have kept the nightmares that had plagued her since her breakup with Brandon away, but apparently not. Every night it was the same haunting, hurtful, humiliating images—Brandon and Pilar making love. Every night, she’d wake up near to tears, all of the pain and outrage fresh and new again, like a wound bed, exposed and raw after the scab is picked away.
“Goddamn it,” Lina whispered. She pushed the heavy blankets back and swung her legs around, sitting up and blinking in the sun’s dazzling glare. The bedroom had its own balcony, smaller than the one in the living room, and she’d fallen asleep with the draperies all left open wide. Like the living room, from the vantage of the glass-paneled doors leading out onto the veranda, she could see the expansive breadth of beach and oceanfront view below.
She stumbled to her feet and shuffled to the bathroom. For a long moment, she stared at her reflection in the mirror, the dark shadows ringing her eyes, the gaunt and haggard appearance she wore like a cowl. A peek down the front of her panties confirmed that her bleeding hadn’t stopped; the maxi pad she’d been given at the hospital hadn’t soaked through overnight, but was still red-tinged with blood.
It’s for the best, she thought, reminding herself of all the reasons in the world she hadn’t needed to be pregnant with Brandon Noble’s child. Because if she had, the whole fantasy that she would ever be ready to move on, that her heart could somehow heal the tremendous, aching sinkhole that Brandon had left behind—it would be impossible.
Brandon belongs with Pilar, she told herself. He’s her parejo. They’re meant to be together. Even if that’s nothing but a crock of shit, it’s obvious that she’s who he wants to be with. Not me. Being pregnant wouldn’t have changed anything—just complicated matters, made them all worse for everyone.
Her cell phone rang from the bedside table in the other room, startling a quiet yelp from her. Spinning on her heel—and wiping away the unbidden tears that had sprang to her eyes—she hurried to answer it.
“I didn’t wake you, did I?” Marcus asked.
“What? No. Not at all.” Lina sniffled, then cleared her throat, trying not to sound like she had only seconds earlier be on the verge of tears.
“How are you feeling? Were you able to get any rest?”
“I…I’m fine, Marcus. Thanks for asking. And yeah, I slept pretty good, in fact.” Until my dream about Brandon anyway, she thought sadly. “Anyway, what’s up?”
“Not much,” Marcus said. “And that’s the problem. The guy we booked at the Cadana scene last night, Vladan Nikolić? The good news is that he’s wanted.”
“Really?”
“On international charges, no less.”
“You’re kidding!”
“Yeah. Apparently he was in a Serbian militia gang called Munja back in the late 1990s, took part in the ethnic cleansing raids of Albanian settlements. He and his unit, they’d go in and wipe out entire villages—men, women, children. Killed them all on sight. Nikolić’s said to have a habit of raping women with his bayonet, earning him the nickname Vlad Țepeș, which in Romanian means ‘Vlad the Impaler.’”
“Nice,” Lina muttered.
“Which also happened to be the nickname for the guy who inspired Count Dracula,” Marcus added.
“You don’t say,” she remarked. That’s not his only connection to vampires, she added darkly to herself.
“Anyway, I pulled that info from INTERPOL. As for Vladam himself—he’s not talking.”
“He doesn’t speak English?”
“No. I mean, I don’t know. He’s not talking period. Not to me, not to any of the translators we’ve brought in. There are apparently six different dialects of Serbian, and one…Torlakian, or something like that…it’s basically a separate language altogether. And that’s not even counting the fact that in Serbia, they also use Albanian, Hungarian, Romanian, Slovak, Russian, Ukrainian, Bulgarian, Romanian, Czech, Bosnian, and about a half-dozen other languages, too.”
“What about Spanish?” Lina asked. “If he’s working with Cervantes, maybe…”
“Already thought of it, already tried it,” Marcus cut in. “Still no luck. The closest Serbian embassy’s in Washington, D.C. I’ve made some phone calls to see if we can possibly fly one of their guys into Miami. I don’t know if they’ll be willing to help us out or not, but I’m running out of options here.”
Marcus hadn’t asked her to come in to the office, but then again, he hadn’t exactly told her to stay away, either. He’d sounded tired, and more than a little frazzled; the unspoken inference she thought she’d detected was that he wanted some help. She hadn’t packed any clothes, had come to the hotel with only the shirt on her back and a pair of scrub pants she’d been given in the emergency room.
I’ll have to swing by Mama’s house first and change, she thought, bee-lining for the bathroom for a quick shower.
Once she stood beneath the lavish spray, however, she found herself loath to leave. For one thing, the shower was enormous—almost as big as the entire bathroom in Latisha’s house. Tiled with bronze-colored granite, the overhead spout was the size of a dinner plate, sending a pulsating, steaming downpour over her. The hotel’s bath oils and soap smelled like citrus fruits and flowers, and the double glass doors steamed opaque with condensation by the time she’d finished rinsing the rich, soft lather from her skin, working from her neck to her toes in slow, luxuriating fashion.
I need this, she thought, closing her eyes and hanging her head, letting the water coax all of the tense knots in her neck and shoulders loose. She didn’t realize that she’d spent more than forty minutes in the shower until she stepped out and glanced at her watch, which she’d left on the counter by the sink.
Shit, she thought, wrapping a towel around her waist and scurrying into the bedroom, ushering out a wafting cloud of steam in her wake. She’d meant to be dressed and long gone by now. As she hopped from one foot to the other, yanking on her pants, she caught the distinctive aroma of fresh coffee.
Augustus is awake. She’d hoped to slip out somehow without him noticing, to grab the keys to Latisha’s Honda from the valet and be on the road before he’d even stirred. As she pulled on her T-shirt, she tiptoed to the bedroom door, leaning close enough to rest her ear against the wood.
She could hear him, his voice muted from the other side; since the conversation seemed to be one-sided, she assumed he was on the phone. Since it was also in French, she figured it was someone in his family, Eleanor again perhaps. Good. He was distracted. Lina opened the bedroom door a slight, wary margin, and glanced out into the living room beyond.
Augustus was on the phone and, like Lina, already dressed, with his long hair tied back in a ponytail at the nape of his neck. She made a run for the door, scurrying out of the bedroom, but when he caught sight of her, he smiled; without breaking his conversation, he beckoned to her with a wave, then indicated where a table had been set for breakfast out on the sunny balcony.
Good morning, Angelina, he said within her mind.
Uh, hey. She flipped him an uncomfortable wave. Good morning.
Did you sleep well? He walked over to her and kissed her lightly on each cheek, a cosmopolitan sort of greeting. It occurred to her that smelled good, goddamn it—some kind of undoubtedly expensive cologne; she’d always been a complete sucker for a man wearing good cologne.
“Very much so…thanks,” she mumbled.
Although Augustus continued listening to whoever was on the other end of his phone conversation, he offered his arm to escort her out onto the balcony. At first, she hesitated, then with a sigh, tagged along.
A quick cup of coffee couldn’t hurt, she thought. It’s not like Vlad the Impaler’s going anywhere anytime soon. And besides, it’d be kind of rude of me to just high-tail it on Augustus. He didn’t have to let me crash here.
“Thank you,” she said as he slid one of the chairs back for her, and as she sat, eased it comfortably beneath her at the table.
“I hope you don’t mind,” he said, moving his mouth slightly to avoid directing his comment into the phone. “But I took the liberty of ordering breakfast.” As he spoke, his brows crimped and he looked away. “No, Benoît, not you. I have company this morning. I told you—Miss Jones, Brandon’s paramour.”
At this, Lina’s thoughts turned to her dream and she felt a pang in her heart again. I’m not his paramour, she thought forlornly. I’m not anything to him…not anymore.
But at the same time, she felt absurdly touched by Augustus’s reference; it was the first time she could remember him ever acknowledging her as having anything at all to do with his grandson. Although, all at once, it seemed hard for her to wrap her head around the idea that Augustus was Brandon’s grandfather—hell, that he was over three hundred years old. He looked maybe mid-forties, tops and she supposed he was handsome enough. She’d never thought about it, really; had never thought much about him period, except to consider him a meddling piece of shit who seemed hell-bent on wrecking her relationship with Brandon.
But now…
Now it felt like she saw Augustus through new eyes, a different perspective, if only because of everything that had happened to her—to them—in the last twenty-some-odd hours. She’d gone from wanting to strangle him with her bare hands to trusting him—and more than that, to having him earn that trust, not just once, but time and again. He’d surprised her—shocked the shit out of her, really.
“My apologies for keeping you waiting,” he said as he set his phone aside, his call apparently finished, and returned to the table. “That was my brother, Benoît.”
“He’s the one you left in charge of things in Kentucky?”
“Yes.” Augustus nodded, settling himself into the chair across from her.
She looked over the serving platters between them. One was laden with fresh fruit—sliced melons, oranges, strawberries, kiwis, blueberries and grapes. Another held an assortment of muffins, croissants and breads. She had a stainless steel egg cup in front of her with a hard-boiled egg waiting to be peeled; beside her coffee cup, she saw a glass of orange juice, and another, like an oversized shot glass, with something raspberry colored she took to be a smoothie.
“I can call for something else…” he began, mistaking her silence for disapproval.
“No.” Lina shook her head. “This is fine. It’s more than fine. It’s wonderful. Thank you.”
He nodded once. “How are you feeling this morning?”
He looked somewhat worried as he spoke, almost hesitant, and she forced a smile. “I’m fine.”
“Are you…” His awkward expression grew all the more so. “Are you having any pain?”
“I told you. I’m fine. You don’t have to keep babying me.”
“I’m not.”
“Good.” Lina reached for a serving spoon and shoveled some melon onto her plate. “Then let’s eat.”
“Benoît relayed some disturbing news, I’m afraid.” Augustus seemed as outwardly eager as she inwardly felt to divert the topic of conversation. “It would seem Aaron Davenant did not murder Michel after all. Phillip Morin did. His son.”
“What?” Lina choked the word out, stunned.
Augustus nodded as he smoothed the napkin across his lap, his gaze distracted, mournful. “Phillip hated Michel. Michel knew it, of course. He’d spent decades trying to make it up to him, to make peace between them.”
“For what?” Lina whispered. What could make a man hate his father so much that he’d kill him in nothing short of cold blood?
“Michel fell in love with Phillip’s wife,” Augustus said. “One of them anyway. Phillip had pretty much cast her aside.”
“Why?”
“Lisette was unable to have children. Or so Phillip believed.”
Lina bristled, the pain and grief from last night still too raw for her to not take it personally. “And that meant…what? That she had no value to you?”
“Relatively speaking, yes,” Augustus said and he must have noticed Lina fuming at this, because he added, “Throughout history, in various civilizations, a woman’s value has been largely perceived by her childbearing ability. It’s not so unusual. And the Brethren society depends on procreation among a relatively limited population for us to survive. One of my wives—Julianne—was infertile. She was a Davenant, so I agreed to take her anyway in the hopes it might make some peace between our clans. It didn’t.”
He added this last as if it explained everything away, all of the bullshit he’d just spouted. Lina felt herself seething again in indignant outrage, her brows crimping, her face growing hot.
“How big of you,” she quipped drily.
Her sarcasm didn’t escape him. “In earlier times, she might have been outcast altogether, made to starve to death, so that resources would not be wasted on one unable to fully contribute, as was her due.”
“Her due.” Lina could feel her frown deepening by the second.
“I offered my home to her,” Augustus said. “Both as a gesture of goodwill toward Lamar, an amends of sorts for all of the long-standing ill will between us. But also out of compassion for Julianne. God only knows what sort of life she would have had if she’d remained among her kin.”
“Compassion.” Lina snorted. “You mean pity. I feel pity for her, too—pity she had to live in such a god-awful environment. What the hell kind of back-ass-wards, medieval mindset is that?”
“I beg your pardon.” His brows rose in tandem. “Julianne has enjoyed a perfectly comfortable life as my consort. She went to college and studied nursing. I’ve allowed her opportunities to have a home and family that—“
“Allowed?” Lina exclaimed. “You’re not her master, Augustus. A marriage is supposed to be about equal partners—fifty-fifty, not this ninety-nine and one percent bullshit you call it! You’ve never considered that any of your women have worth, and could make the same kinds of contributions to your so-called society as the men.”
“That isn’t true,” he said.
Her eyes flashed. “Like hell!”
“I valued Julianne’s contributions,” he insisted. “Both as a nurse and my companion.”
“She wasn’t just your companion. She was your wife,” Lina snapped. Shaking her head incredulously, she exclaimed, “You’re a chauvinistic ass, Augustus!”
He studied her for a moment, then the corner of his mouth tugged up slightly.
“What the hell are you smiling about?” she demanded hotly.
“Nothing,” he murmured, shaking his head. But at the same time, he didn’t stop smiling either. “It’s just that…I do believe that’s the first time a woman other than Eleanor has ever called me out.”
Lina snorted. “There’s your problem, then,” she grumbled. Several minutes passed with silence between them during which time she stabbed the tines of her fork repeatedly into the same square of melon. “You said Phillip Morin’s wife was named Lisette?” she asked at length, and Augustus nodded as he sipped his coffee. “Wasn’t that the name of Tristan’s mother?”
Augustus nodded again. “It would seem Phillip was mistaken in his conclusion about her sterility. Michel is Tristan’s father and…” His voice cut short, and he looked down at his plate, his brows lifted as if he felt pain. “Michel was Tristan’s father, I mean. Mon Dieu, that…that is so hard for me to say.”
He pushed his chair back and stood, his mouth a thin, unreadable line. “Excuse me, s’il vous plait,” he murmured, turning on his heel and ducking quickly back into the hotel room.
She knew he hadn’t meant that saying Michel had been Tristan’s real father had been hard, and she hadn’t missed the sudden sheen that had glossed his eyes. She sat still, feeling awkward and uncomfortable because on the one hand, she was still fuming from the heated discussion they’d just had about women in Brethren society. But on the other, she felt badly, because she knew he was grieving the loss of his friend. He’d also been nice to her, damn it. Really nice—and in spite of their past differences.
Lina stood, following Augustus inside.
“I’m sorry,” she said quietly, finding him with his back to her, his arms folded in front of him, his posture rigid and tense. He nodded once, but said nothing. She reached for him, hesitant, and when her fingertips lighted against the back of his shoulder, he jerked, as if her touch burned him. She drew back, then mustered her courage and touched him again, laying her hand against his arm and offering whatever comfort that brought. Because I owe him, she thought. Because he did the same for me.
“I miss my friend,” Augustus said softly, his voice strained. “And I miss my son. I hope…I hope Sebastian didn’t breathe his last hating me.”
He said nothing more, not at first, but his shoulders trembled. As the shudder grew in intensity, working its way through his form, he clapped his hand to his face and uttered a low, hoarse gasp.
“Hey,” Lina said, because this was another surprise—another instance of unexpected vulnerability and grief. Catching him by the sleeve, she turned him around to face her. “Hey,” she said again, and he opened his eyes, blinking tearfully at her. “Don’t do that to yourself. Don’t punish yourself that way. No one deserves that.” Tilting her head, holding his forlorn gaze, she tried to smile. “Not even you, you lousy, self-serving son of a bitch.”
He managed a laugh. “Thank you for that.”
“You’re welcome,” she said. “Now come on.” She caught him by the hand and gave his arm a little tug. “Have breakfast with me. We’ve got a lot to do today.”
As they walked together back to the patio, it occurred to her again how much her perception of him had changed over the last twenty-four hours. How it seemed, at least to her, he’d become more human.