I came back to consciousness with a jolt. I was sprawled face down on a dirty metal floor, arms secured painfully behind my back.
My lungs seized. For a few seconds I was back in Syria, where relief workers were always at risk of being captured.
The floor was moving. No, we were moving. I was in the back of a van, or maybe a closed truck.
It came back to me then. The sad-faced woman in the oversized Ravens hoodie. The syringe. The vampires.
I’d survived a bombed-out city only to be kidnapped in fucking Paris? Served me right for traveling without a bodyguard. Father had warned me I was asking for trouble, but I’d always been able to blend in with humans, even though I sucked at producing a normal, feature-changing glamour. Instead, I somehow dimmed the slight radiance that marked me as a dhampir and threw up a barrier that made the viewer’s gaze slide past me.
Snick, snick. “You’re awake.”
I turned my head. The woman from the airport was crouched on the floor of the van, extending and retracting a switchblade. She eyed me through dark glasses like she was sizing up dinner with me as the main course.
So much for the damsel-in-distress act.
That’s what you get for playing hero, Zaq.
She extended and retracted the switchblade again. Snick, snick.
My nape tightened. The blade was long and silver, the kind you used to stake a vampire—or a dhampir.
I drew my legs beneath me and sat up. The inside of the van swooped around me, an aftereffect of whatever they’d injected me with.
My stomach heaved. Bile burned my throat. I braced my feet on the floor and concentrated on not throwing up.
Snick, snick.
I gave my aching head a shake to clear it. Not a good idea. A bright bolt of pain lanced through my brain. I gritted my teeth and scooted backward until my shoulders were against the wall, my bound hands pressed into the small of my back.
The two vampires were in the front, the big dark-haired man at the wheel and the lean blond on the phone.
I gave the woman what I hoped was a death’s-head glare, but was probably a helluvalot more wimpy, given that I had trouble focusing my eyes. “What the fuck’s going on?”
“You’ll see.”
I growled. “That’s not an answer.”
“It’s the only one you’ll get.”
The van rounded a curve too fast. Brakes squealed. I braced my feet against the floor so I wouldn’t be thrown back onto my face.
My companion easily kept her balance, even crouched on the floor as she was. The too-big hoodie hid her upper body, but her legs were long and strong and supple. The legs of a dancer—or a black belt.
The heavy dark hair had fooled me into thinking she was older, but now I could see it was probably a wig. The color didn’t fit her roses-and-cream complexion. Her real hair must be lighter—blond or even red.
And she was younger than I’d first thought—around my own age, twenty-seven.
Behind my back, I twisted my wrists, trying to work them out of the plastic cuffs. The blond asshole had cinched them good and tight.
“Who are you with? The Paris Syndicate?” It didn’t make sense, because Paris was one of my father’s allies, and besides, she had an American accent, but it was the only explanation my foggy brain could come up with.
A shake of her head.
I strained at the cuffs again, this time trying to break them apart. “Not the Paris Syndicate, then,” I said to distract her. “The Fuentes?”
The Fuentes Syndicate had started in Chile, then crept north, first into Central America, then Mexico. Now it was trying to expand into the United States, including the Kral Syndicate territory on the East Coast.
She didn’t bother to respond, just stared at me, playing with that damn switchblade.
Snick, snick.
I felt in my back pocket for my phone. My last call had been to my older brother Gabriel in New York. If I pressed Send, he’d guess something was wrong when he answered and heard me speaking to a strange woman.
“I have it.” Snick, snick.
“Have what?”
“Your phone.”
Damn. I closed my eyes and shifted against the wall of the van to ease the strain on my shoulders. It didn’t work.
I opened my eyes again. “What’s your name, anyway?” I didn’t expect an answer, but once again she surprised me.
“Reaper.” A feral smile. “They call me Reaper.”
Ohh-kay.
“Well, Reaper, what’s this about? You haven’t staked me, so I’m guessing it’s money.”
“Yet.” Snick, snick. “I haven’t staked you yet.”
This time her smile was enough to shrivel my balls, but I was damned if I’d let her see it. “So it’s about money?”
A shrug. “Don’t ask me. I’m just the hired help.”
Like hell she was. That operation had been too smooth. And tranquilizers that could knock out a dhampir weren’t that easy to find.
They had to have made me as a Kral. I’d been too exhausted for my glamour to fool anyone but a human. So why kidnap me? My best guess was they planned to extort a ransom from my dad.
Hell. Father was going to be pissed off. Bad enough that I spent all my free time working for human aid organizations instead of his syndicate, but now I’d allowed myself to be kidnapped.
Reaper pulled off the wig and shoved it into the front pocket of her hoodie, then removed the sunglasses and rubbed the bridge of her nose.
I gaped at her. Her real hair was a bright, silky platinum. She had a heart-shaped face and large gray eyes fringed with dark, curly lashes.
Holy Dark Lady. I’d been abducted by a long-legged, badass sprite.
Her mouth bent down. She shoved the sunglasses back onto her face. “Take a picture, why don’t you?”
“I would,” I growled, “if I had my phone.”
She grunted.
I kept staring. Somehow, she managed to look both delicate and edgy. And beautiful. Stunningly, jaw-droppingly beautiful.
A blur of motion. The sharp point of her switchblade pressed into my sternum. “Let me put that another way. I want you to stop staring at me. Now.”
I made a scoffing sound. “We both know you’re not going to use that.”
She bared her teeth. “Yet.”
Her scent filled my head, fresh and green, like summer grass after a rain.
My gaze went to her mouth. It was soft and full. Unpainted. Bitable.
I wanted her. Maybe because the tranq had messed with my brain, but I wanted her.
I gave her a slow smile. “Whatever you say, cher.”
“Don’t. Flirt. With. Me.” She pressed the point in harder. The tip pierced my T-shirt but not my skin.
I raised a brow, innocent as fuck. “Was I flirting?”
“Yes.”
“Mm.” I forced my gaze back to her eyes, trying to see them through the dark glasses. “By the way, I’m impressed.”
I heard the sound of her back teeth grinding together. “At what?”
“Your control with your blade.”
Her scowl deepened. She sat back, shook her head. “I can’t figure out if you’re too dumb to know you’re in deep shit or if you just don’t care.”
I moved a shoulder. “Does it matter?”
“No.” She retracted the switchblade.
Snick.
I waited for the second snick, but she shoved the blade into her pocket. I decided to take that as a positive sign.
I strained against the cuffs one last time, twisting my wrists in opposite directions to break the plastic, but it was too thick. Military grade. I was definitely in deep shit. I gave up and leaned my head against the side of the van.
The burst of adrenaline that had brought me back to consciousness had worn off. I’d been dog-tired at the airport, and now I had whatever they’d injected me with to contend with as well. I slipped into a groggy, half-awake state.
A half-hour passed, maybe more. The van slowed and joined the halting Paris morning traffic—or at least, I assumed we were in Paris. Trucks rumbled, motorbikes accelerated, and pedestrians hurried past, heels tattooing the pavement. From somewhere nearby came the nee-eu, nee-eu of a French emergency vehicle.
The van stopped and the vampires got out of the front seat. I straightened up. My hands had gone numb. I rolled my shoulders and flexed my fingers, trying to get the circulation going again.
Reaper rose to her feet, head bent so it wouldn’t hit the roof.
The back door opened. The vampires had put on hats to protect themselves from the morning sun, to go with the sunglasses and gloves they already wore.
They’d also dropped their glamours.
I strained to focus. The blond man looked familiar, but I couldn’t place him until his companion said his name.
Étan. The Tremblay Syndicate lieutenant.
My stomach lurched, and not from the drug this time.
Maybe this wasn’t about money after all.