Étan and Blaise dragged Zaq out of the van and set him on his feet.
We were at the back of Philippe Moreau’s mansion. The Paris Syndicate’s top enforcer, Moreau had carved out a three-level lair beneath a gorgeous old limestone building in Saint-Germain-des-Pres, an artsy Left Bank neighborhood.
Two wolfdogs raced up and growled lowly at Zaq. Their dhampir handler followed. “Stay,” he ordered the dogs in French.
Zaq swayed, still woozy from the drug. Étan and Blaise exchanged a smirk and released him. He stumbled forward and would’ve face-planted on the gravel drive if I hadn’t leapt from the van and caught his arm.
Étan lifted a corner of his lip, showing me some fang.
Poor vampire. I’d spoiled his fun.
“Take him to his cell.” He flicked his fingers at me like I was one of his thralls.
I gave him a long look and didn’t move. I didn’t take orders from Étan and we both knew it. He was only in Paris to supervise this operation for his boss, the Tremblay Prima, and I was a Paris Syndicate employee.
At least, I was as far as Étan and Blaise knew.
When I was sure Étan and I understood each other, I hustled Zaq toward the mansion’s service entrance. The cloakroom had been converted into a laundry with two washing machines and a dryer, but wooden pegs still hung on the walls and the cook had stacked bins of potatoes, garlic and onions to the side of the door.
The kitchen was state of the art: a terracotta floor, gleaming granite counters and appliances that cost as much as I made in a month. Right now it was empty. The vampires were on their way to their beds and the humans were just waking up.
Zaq had recovered his balance. The drug seemed to have worn off, or maybe he’d faked the stumble to keep us guessing. He zeroed in on the knife block next to the stove, but the knives were stainless steel and wouldn’t do him much good even if he wasn’t handcuffed. Yeah, he could do some damage with stainless steel blades, but only silver can kill a vampire.
The butler, a dhampir like me, appeared. Picture the undertaker in a horror movie, and that was Aubin: tall, long-faced and wearing a dark suit and a thin-lipped smile.
“Mademoiselle. Messieurs.” Aubin took in the handcuffed Kral Syndicate prince without losing the smile. But then, he was employed by a vampire enforcer. He’d probably seen worse.
“This way, please.” He indicated the salon. I didn’t need an escort—I’d been on staff for three weeks now—but Aubin took his butlering seriously.
I urged Zaq forward and got another whiff of his scent. My jaw hardened. I had time to think about that scent, and I’d decided he was using his magic to amp it up. Why else would he smell so good? The man was messing with my head, trying to lure me to his side.
I sipped air through my mouth. “Move.”
The salon was jewelry-box lush in a disturbing way. Hand-painted griffins and snakes in vivid greens and golds writhed across the black wallpaper. Gilded wood furniture with clawed feet hunched on a green marble floor shot with dark swirls, and old-fashioned wrought-iron chandeliers dripped with crystals.
Heavy gold curtains were drawn against the sun with blackout shades beneath. The only lighting came from the glowing amber eyes of the griffin wall sconces.
This was Moreau’s public salon, the place where he conducted business with humans: politicians, CEOs, the French military. As an enforcer, his job was to bribe or intimidate humans for the Paris primus, Leo de Froulay.
It was also the setting for his famous parties. Anyone was welcome, as long as you were beautiful and had the right look.
And yes, they vetted you at the door. The parties were a pipeline, of course, bringing new thralls into the Paris Syndicate. Some of those thralls weren’t really thralls, either. I was pretty sure Moreau traded in blood slaves on the side.
My mouth turned down. Enforcer Moreau was an evil S.O.B., and I hated being forced to work with him.
Aubin opened the door to what appeared to be a closet but was actually an entrance to Moreau’s underground lair. Behind it was a second door, locked and reinforced with silver.
Étan and Blaise removed their hats and gloves and tossed them on a small table.
Beneath my fingers, Zaq’s bicep tensed. He lurched to the side, like he’d lost his balance again, but kept going.
Ah. Of course he wouldn’t go quietly. But he was bigger and heavier than me, so why fight it? I released his arm.
He hit the floor and rolled, coming up in a crouch. His fangs glinted in the low light. I felt a twinge of respect; the man had to know he couldn’t escape, not with his hands bound behind his back and with three of us to his one.
Étan and Blaise moved forward. They grabbed Zaq, shoved him up against the wall and worked him over. They were pros. They went for the soft, unprotected parts—his belly, his groin. Taking their revenge for the blows he’d gotten in at Charles de Gaulle.
I stood back and let them.
Telling myself Zaq deserved it, that I couldn’t stop them anyway.
But my chest was tight and my stomach clenched into a sick ball, because Zaq’s grunts and heavy, broken breaths didn’t sound like a monster’s. They sounded like a man in pain. A defenseless, half-drugged, hands-bound-behind-his-back man in pain.
It seemed like an hour, but it was really just a few minutes before the vampires stepped back. Zaq wavered on his feet, blinking like he was having trouble seeing. He slid down the wall to the floor and sat there, legs sticking out, head lolling to the side.
Satisfaction flickered across Étan’s face. He gave Zaq a last kick, then he and Blaise jerked Zaq to his feet, each taking an arm. Zaq hung between them.
The butler opened the silver-reinforced door. We followed him down three flights of stairs, Étan and Blaise dragging Zaq.
At the bottom, Aubin keyed in the five-digit code that opened a second silver-reinforced door, then headed back upstairs. I held the door open while Étan and Blaise took Zaq through.
We were deep underground in the lowest level of Moreau’s lair. His private dungeon of five windowless cells carved into the bedrock and lined with concrete blocks. No one, even a vampire with their superhuman strength, could get out without the enforcer’s say-so.
Four of the cells were currently empty. The fifth held an old vampire, a blood-mad woman who should’ve been staked. To be honest, it would’ve been a kindness—she’d sunk so deep into the blood craving, she was more animal than human. But apparently she was the woman who’d turned Moreau, and he had a fondness for her.
Blaise and Étan put Zaq in the middle cell and released him. The tiny lights on the walls’ upper perimeter came on. Zaq’s knees wobbled, but he kept upright. He faced us and tried to straighten to his full height, but couldn’t. Somehow he managed to look proud, even bent at the waist like an arthritic old man.
I felt another reluctant flicker of respect. He should’ve crumpled by now. Maybe not all his press was a lie. The pampered prince had a tough core.
Blaise pulled out a knife and cut off Zaq’s cuffs, and Étan put a hand on his chest and pushed until he was forced to back up. He hit the concrete blocks.
“Raise your hands,” Étan said.
Zaq leaned his head against the wall and shook out his hands, working his fingers back and forth. Then he drew a breath and raised his head.
He bared his fangs. “You want them there, you do it.”
Étan grabbed his arms and shoved them against the wall, then slammed a knee into Zaq’s balls.
Zaq grunted. His face twisted. He hung in Étan’s grip, panting audibly, one knee raised to shield his groin from another blow.
“Next time,” said Étan, “when I tell you to do something, you do it. Comprenez?”
“Jesus.” I pushed between the two men. “Give it a rest, already.” I fitted the first cuff around Zaq’s wrist.
Zaq turned his head. For the second time that day, our gazes snagged.
I felt him pleading with me not to do this. Felt it in my gut, a primal cry from him to me.
I set my jaw and focused on the cuff. The silver singed my fingertips but I’d tolerated pain like that—and worse—during training.
Think like a slayer. Fight like a slayer. Live like a slayer.
I touched two buttons in rapid succession and the cuff snapped into place.
The cuff burned a red line into Zaq’s wrist. He stiffened, but didn’t make a sound. Étan stepped back so I could get to Zaq’s other arm. I snapped that cuff into place, too.
Zaq stood against the wall, arms clamped on either side of his head, a menacing expression on his angelic face. “Bastards.” He glared at us, a travel-stained, T-shirted demi-god. “I’ll see you all in a light-filled hell.”
I swallowed uneasily. The Op Angel slayers had given each of the Kral princes a nickname. Gabriel was Prince Responsible, Rafael was Prince Charming, and Zaq was Prince Fuck-with-Me-and-I’ll-Fuck-With-You.
Zaq was the quiet one. Not weak in anyway; just thoughtful, focused. And when he made a promise, he kept it.
“Tais-toi,” Étan snapped. Shut up.
Zaq didn’t seem to hear. His fierce green gaze fastened on me. “I’ll get out of here. And when I do, I’ll come after you, one by one.”
Étan and Blaise snorted but alarm tripped up my vertebrae.
He meant it.
My inner thighs tightened at the picture of me and Zaq Kral locked in combat. No knives, just hand-to-hand.
And he was shirtless so I could see every move his hard, sinewy body made.
Crap. What was wrong with me?
I wrenched my gaze from his and left the cell.
The level above the dungeon was a labyrinth with an operations room, a gym, and bedrooms for both the members of Moreau’s coven and visitors like Étan. Now he and Blaise went to their rooms to take their day sleep. I made a quick stop to change my leggings for Army green tactical pants and a fresh T-shirt, then continued to the ops room.
The room was lit by the bluish glow of a dozen video screens, the feed from various cameras around the mansion. A large digital map took up one wall, a map that currently showed the Paris streets around Moreau’s lair but that could be manipulated to show any street in the world. An open-faced cabinet held an array of silver weapons—ornate daggers, solid-silver stakes, and so on.
Personally, I preferred a switchblade. Easier to conceal.
Samir, the vampire on duty, was kicked back in a chair, eyeing the feed from the security cams. “You’re late,” he grumbled in French.
“Things took a little longer than expected,” I replied in the same language. My French wasn’t great, but I could make myself understood. “Anything to report?”
“No.” He rose to his feet. “It was a quiet night.”
I nodded. “Moreau’s asleep?”
“Yeah. He’ll send for you at dusk.” Samir left the room.
I sank into his chair.
We’d done it. Operation Angel was a go.
I should be excited. I was excited. Months of planning and preparation had gone into this day.
Op Angel was my final test. If we succeeded in eliminating Karoly Kral and his three sons, I’d be promoted to lieutenant. Instead of taking orders from above, I’d get to run my own ops and help choose our targets.
I took out my phone and sent an encrypted message to my alpha, the woman I knew only as Crow, using the code for Zaq Kral.
Reaper: P2 has been detained.
Her reply was immediate, telling me she’d been waiting to hear one way or the other.
Crow: My compliments.
From her, that was as enthusiastic as I’d get. She was happy with me.
Now if I could only drum up some enthusiasm of my own, but all I felt was tired and a little queasy.
I massaged my abdomen. I was hungry. That was the problem.
The cook should be awake by now. I put my phone back in my pocket and pushed a button to order a steak sandwich from the kitchen. “Rare,” I added.
“Of course, Mam’selle.”
As a dhampir—half-human, half-vampire—I could get nourishment from either blood or human food. I chose food except for a single glass of blood-wine per day.
Ridley Crawford didn’t drink fresh blood. Blood was for monsters.
No one in Moreau’s lair knew that. The vampires would see my aversion for fresh blood as a weakness, and my life depended on them thinking I was as strong and ruthless as they were.
Fortunately, the ruthless part wasn’t a problem.
I stowed Zaq’s phone in the safe of the ops room and monitored the video feed. In the kitchen, the cook was broiling my steak. In the formal garden, the wolfdogs slept in the sun. The beasts were a cheap and effective early-warning system.
Moreau didn’t have a camera in his bedroom, but I watched as his favorite thrall—or maybe she was a blood slave, I wasn’t sure—exited his room. Her face, throat and arms sported fresh bruises, and she had a blood addict’s zombie eyes.
Bastard. I swallowed something acrid.
I turned to the cams in Zaq’s cell. It was pitch-black, but I could see the darker shadow of his body against the wall, his arms bent.
I touched a control, turning up the lights in his cell so I could see his face. His chin rested on his chest. His closed eyes had dark circles under them, and he had a red welt high on his cheek.
I pressed my lips together. They could’ve let the man lie down.
He’s a monster. What do you care how he’s treated?
But something about Zaq’s kidnapping didn’t sit right with me. I’d been a slayer for nine years. I’d stalked syndicate vampires around the globe, and I was damn good. For me, it wasn’t a job, it was a calling.
My mom and I had spent my childhood running from syndicate vampires. When they finally caught us, my mom had died, but I’d gotten away. They hadn’t expected a twelve-year-old dhampir to be so fast.
Their mistake.
Six months later, I’d started training as a slayer. I staked my first vampire a week after turning nineteen. Since then, I’d notched up a dozen more kills, more than any slayer in my cohort, male or female.
And that’s what felt wrong about this job.
Slayers didn’t kidnap the bad guys. We staked them.
We didn’t cuff them to a wall so they couldn’t lie down or sleep without silver burning into their wrists and slowly poisoning them. This wasn’t the clean death I’d been trained to deliver.
They were trying to break Zaq Kral. But why?
I squeezed my nape, hating that I didn’t know all the facts.
The cook arrived with my sandwich, a thin-cut steak smothered with mushrooms and cradled in a crusty roll. It smelled amazing, but my appetite had fled.
I took a bite, set it down. I stared at the sandwich for a good thirty seconds, then picked it up again and made myself finish it.
You didn’t waste food. You never knew when your whole life might be ripped out from beneath you like a cartoon rug and you’d sell your soul for any food you could get your hands on, even a half-eaten sandwich someone else had thrown away.