Ridley’s kiss felt like the truth.
Her heartbeat sped up and she pressed her body against mine with a raw urgency that seemed real.
But maybe I was lying to myself.
She could be playing you.
I’d heard the stories. Slayers would do almost anything to get to their target. Maybe she thought that if she had sex with me, I’d be easier to control.
That didn’t stop my arms from wrapping themselves around her and pulling her up against me. And it didn’t stop my mouth from kissing her back.
She tasted warm and wet, her mouth moving seductively beneath mine.
Who cared if she was playing me? I’d just play her right back.
I palmed one of her ass cheeks, working my fingers under the frayed threads of her jeans shorts.
Gods, the woman did something for frayed shorts. She should wear them all day. Every day. Even in the winter.
Watching her from the shadows, I’d itched to take hold of the threads and jerk, ripping the shorts off her trim little ass. And then I’d drag her panties off and bend her over…
Ridley took a breath, changed the angle of her mouth and dove back in.
But I’d had time to catch my breath as well, and I wanted to slow things down. Otherwise things were going to end too fast.
Hot and heavy could be good, but I wanted to savor her. Do a couple of the things I’d fantasized about.
I threaded my fingers through her corn silk hair and broke the kiss. Her eyes were closed. She made a needy sound and tried to bring her mouth back to mine, but I tightened my grip on her hair, halting her.
Her eyelids fluttered, then opened. “Is something wrong?” Her gaze darted between my eyes.
“No. I’m just—” I started to say I was slowing things down, but she didn’t let me finish. Instead, she pushed at my chest, straining to get away.
I resisted for a few seconds, then let her go.
She took a stumbling step backward until her back hit the wall. A loud exhale escaped her lips. “You’re right. This is a bad idea.”
A harsh laugh tore from my throat. “No. It’s not. It’s a very good idea.”
She set her feet a little apart. A warrior’s stance, hands fisted at her sides. A pulse beat at the base of her soft, pretty throat.
A throat I literally ached to drink from—and if that made me a monster, then I was guilty as charged.
Her head tilted. She studied me. “You want this—me?”
“You have to ask?” I gestured to where my erection strained against the fly of my jeans.
She glanced down. “Oh.” The corner of her mouth edged up in a sassy little smile that was like an erotic lick up my spine.
I dragged off my shirt, because it was damn hot in here even this late at night, and eased my zipper open because my dick needed the space.
Her gaze tracked my movements. Her swallow was audible. Her mouth opened. Closed.
Triumph surged through me. She wanted me. And by the Dark Lady, I wanted her.
The beast was alive, but this was no longer about revenge or punishment or bending her to my will. Well, maybe it was about bending her to my will, at least in part.
Whatever. All I knew was that I wanted Ridley No-Last-Name with a blood-pounding, can’t-run-from-it craving.
“Like what you see?” I closed the space between us.
A faint flush tinged her cheeks. She nodded, swallowed again, the movement working the muscles of her throat. A movement that drew my gaze to her long, creamy neck.
Without my willing it, my hand reached out.
Her eyes widened but she held her ground. I touched her throat. Her heartbeat leapt in response, and she shuddered.
I stroked a fingertip over her throbbing pulse, then continued down her silky flesh. Tracing her collarbones, one at a time, then moving lower to the upper curve of her breast beneath the plain gray athletic bra.
That plain, utilitarian undergarment was so Ridley, I almost smiled, but I knew she’d misunderstand. The bra—so different from the sexy underthings most of my women went for—sent tenderness curling through me.
No. Not tenderness.
This is fucking. Nothing else.
I removed my hand from her breast. “Take off your bra.”
It was a demand, not a request. I was determined to keep this about sex. Not tenderness.
Her eyes flashed. I waited for her to tell me to go to hell or pull one of those damned switchblades on me.
But she didn’t. Her gaze flicked to my mouth. She licked her lips and I stifled a groan.
I stepped back and folded my arms over my chest. “Do it.”
Her eyes came back to mine. Her pupils had expanded. They were huge and black, edged by a thin rim of gray that was almost silver.
I’m not sure what I’d have done if she’d said no. The beast was riding me hard.
I wanted her submission. I wanted her real and raw and begging me for anything I chose to give her.
But she didn’t say no.
She crossed her arms over her torso and pulled her bra over her head, holding my gaze the whole time. The bra dropped to the floor.
I looked at her breasts. Hell, I devoured them with my eyes. They were as I’d pictured them, only better. Perfect apple-sized globes. Glowing, fine-grained skin topped with soft pink nipples.
My dick jerked and thrust against my boxers.
I crossed the step between us so I could caress her breasts. The skin was even softer than it looked. I brushed my thumbs over the points of her nipples. They hardened and I gave them a pinch. She moaned low in her throat.
I crowded closer, trapping her between my body and the wall.
Her eyelids lowered to half-mast. She put her hands over mine, helping me touch her.
Fuck that.
I wanted her to suffer—just a little.
I wanted her to beg—more than a little.
I caught her wrists and set them against the wall by her head. Growled, “Keep them there.”
She blinked at me, then glanced from one arm to the other.
I think we both realized at the same time that I’d put her in the position I’d been forced to hold in the cell.
She grimaced. She opened her mouth and started to apologize—and I didn’t want to hear it. Not again.
I believed she was sorry about how I’d been treated. What I didn’t know was if I could forgive her. But at this moment, it didn’t matter.
I covered her mouth with my left hand and touched my lips to her throat. She tensed, and I could tell she was afraid I was going to drink from her. She apparently had issues around blood-drinking.
Right then I’d have given up the rest of my trust fund to sink my teeth into her throat. She was beautiful, we were alone. She’d kissed me first. Taken her own bra off.
And the dark bastard in me growled that she owed me.
But I’d never taken blood from an unwilling woman in my life, and something wouldn’t let me do it now.
A vampire would probably shake their head, say I was a weak dhampir. Hell, Étan had said it straight to my face. But Étan was an asshole.
So instead I murmured, “You’re sorry? Then make it up to me,” and scraped my teeth over her skin.
She shuddered and grabbed my shoulders. “Zaq, I—”
I licked the scrape I’d made. “Shh. I know.”
More and more, I seemed to know what she wanted. Right now she wanted kisses and maybe a little teeth, but she didn’t want me to feed from her.
I nipped her under her jaw. “I’m not going to drink from you. Not today. But someday you’re going to beg me to drink from you and, Ridley, it’s going to lead to the best fucking you’ve ever had. But for now, I want you to put your hands against the wall like I told you.”
“Is this payback?”
I hesitated. “Maybe. A little. But it’s not just payback. It’s me showing you how good things can be when you let me take charge.”
Her breath hitched. “Oh.”
“But,” I added, “move those hands from the wall again and I will stop.”
She immediately set her hands on either side of her head.
I stepped back a few inches so I could take her in. “Higher. Stretch them over your head.”
She obeyed, moving her hands up the wall. The position raised her breasts. She looked so beautiful, so ready for anything I wanted to give her.
“Good girl.” I caught a rosy nipple between my fingers and twisted it a little. “I’ve had fantasies about you.”
“Me, too. About you.” She grimaced. “That’s so messed up, isn’t it?”
“Maybe.” I tugged at her other nipple, harder. She sucked in a breath and squeezed her thighs together. Her legs were long and supple. I could’ve watched the muscles flex in her thighs all night. “But who cares?”
She licked her pretty lips. Her breasts heaved like she couldn’t take in enough air.
I set a hand on her stomach. “Stay where you are.”
Her chin dipped in a jerky nod. “Okay.”
I bent my head and tongued her areola, sliding my hand beneath her waistband and into her boyshort panties. I worked my hand lower and used my middle finger to toy with her clit.
Her body twisted against the wall. “Zaq…”
I went to my knees, sending her a stern look. “Remember what happens if you move your hands?”
She licked her lips. “Yes.”
“Good.” I undid her shorts and jerked them and her panties down her thighs.
She moaned and I glanced up. Her fingers opened and closed, but she kept her hands above her head.
I moved my hands down her waist and over her hips. The darkness—the beast, my vampire-half—loved having her confined by her clothes and her hands against the wall.
Hell, I’ll be honest; it wasn’t just the vampire that loved it. I loved it—Zaquiel Kral. It was fucking erotic to have this strong, tough woman at my mercy.
And she was loving it. If she didn’t, she wouldn’t be moaning my name and keeping her hands where I’d told her.
I dug my fingers into her ass and kissed her clit. Then I tongued it. Her moans turned into whimpers
I kept licking and kissing her. Tasting her. Lapping up her sexy, salty woman-spice.
She tried to widen her legs to give me greater access but her shorts only allowed her to open them an inch further. She brought her hands down and tried to push them lower herself.
“Uh-uh,” I said against her sex. I grabbed her hands and held them to the wall by her hips. “Do I have to stop?”
Her breath hitched. “No. Don’t stop.”
“Then be good.” I licked a circle around her clit. Making her wait.
She cursed me, and then she pleaded. “Don’t stop, don’t stop, don’tstop, pleasepleaseplease.”
Oh, yeah, I liked hearing Ridley beg.
I sucked her clit into my mouth.
Her body bowed and her thighs flexed around my face. “I want—”
I sucked and tongued her for a minute, then stopped and looked up at her. “What do you want?”
She looked down at me, dazed, her lower lip reddened from where she must have bitten it. “You.”
“Say it.” I nipped her taut little stomach. “Where do you want me?”
“I want you. Inside me.”
My answer was more growl than speech. I stood up and dragged off my jeans and boxers.
Ridley stared at me, dazed, still against the wall.
I stalked back to her, put my hands on either side of her head, caging her in, and gave her a long, wet kiss. “Get undressed.” I stepped back.
She lurched into motion, tugging her clothes the rest of the way down her legs and kicking them off in a couple of lithe moves.
I took her by the waist and swung her around. Walked her backward until her calves hit the mattress.
She sat down and I knelt between her legs. My hands were on her thighs. Her gaze went to my wrists. The wounds had finally healed over, but the silver had left a thick band of scar tissue.
Her teeth dug into her lower lip. “I’m sorry about that, too. I wish things were dif—”
I was tired of her apologizing. I pushed her legs further apart.
“You don’t have to keep saying you’re sorry. And don’t make this more than it is. This is just fucking, and we both know it.”
I said the words, even though I wasn’t sure I believed them. Maybe I was saying them for myself, not her.
Something flashed in Ridley’s eyes. Sadness, but I pretended I hadn’t seen.
She put her hands on the mattress. I waited for her nod, then took my hand from her mouth and trailed my fingers up her inner thighs. Touched the deep pink flower at the center. She was flushed and slick with arousal.
I played with her clit. It was swollen, and I could tell from how she sucked in a breath when I caressed her with my thumb that it was sensitive.
“I want to taste you here.” I ran my finger down her slit. “Would you like that?”
Her inner thighs constricted. She moistened her lips, nodded.
“Say it. Say you want me to taste your pussy.”
She obediently repeated the words in a low, needy voice. “I want you to taste my pussy.”
I didn’t move.
“Zaq,” I prompted. “Say you want me—Zaq—to taste your pussy.”
She said it again, adding “Zaq” in husky tones that made my balls clench.
The mattress was on the floor, too low to make it easy to kneel between her legs and kiss her the way I wanted. I gave her a little spank on the side of her hip. “Scoot back.”
She shimmied backward. Propping herself on her forearms, she watched as I bent forward and hooked my hands under her thighs. I captured her gaze, and, bending forward, brought my mouth to her clit again. It pulsed beneath my tongue.
Her eyes closed. She tensed and dug her heels into the mattress.
I kept licking and kissing her. Still somehow knowing what she wanted, exactly what worked for her and what didn’t.
So I gave it to her. I kissed her, sucked her soft, pulsating flesh.
Her hips rocked up and I lightly closed my teeth over her clit. That made her groan and start saying please again.
I slid two fingers into her passage and swirled my tongue over and around her sex. It took only a few more licks until she went off, her inner muscles convulsing around my fingers, a raw sound on her lips. I eased off, lightening the pressure until she relaxed onto the mattress.
I grabbed a condom—I’d picked up a box while I was out because I’d decided we were definitely going to fuck, if not tonight, then soon—tore it open and crawled back over her.
She opened her legs for me. I knelt between them without entering her, took her head between my heads and gave her a hard, hungry kiss. She squirmed beneath me, rubbing her belly against my dick.
“Now,” she said when I broke the kiss. “I want you inside me.”
I reached down and fitted myself to her entrance. She tilted her hips up, and I slid inside.
It was my turn to groan. Holy fuck, she was hot and tight, and I was primed from all the foreplay. I gritted my teeth and slowed. Determined to make it last.
I thrust in again, a sweet, slow slide. Her fingers dug into my ass, urging me to take her harder—and I complied. Firm, leisurely strokes. Angling myself so I was rubbing against her clit.
“Yes,” she said. “That. Please.”
I nipped her ear. Loving how she jolted.
“Faster,” she said.
“No, I think we’ll take it slow.” I raised my head so I could see her face. “Do you know why?”
She wordlessly shook her head, her eyes huge in her heart-shaped face.
“Because when we’re in bed, I make the rules. I say whether we go fast or slow.”
Her breath caught and her pussy clenched around me. Oh yeah, she liked me dominating her.
I pulled almost all the way out and halted, putting my mouth to her ear.
“And right now,” I growled, “I want to fuck you nice…and…slow.” I punctuated each word with a hard stroke.
She whimpered.
I thrust in again, hard. Rubbed myself against her clit. Repeating the sequence over and over until she was pleading with me to finish it.
“I’m so close, so close.”
I increased the speed of my strokes and she rasped my name and climaxed, arms and legs wrapped tight around me. The sensation of her sex milking my cock sent me over the edge.
Lightning zinged up my spine. Sparks exploded far back in my brain. I gave a guttural growl and thrust again and again, emptying myself inside her.
After, I brought my forehead to hers. My breath shuddered out.
Ridley traced a lazy path up and down my back with her fingers. “Mm,” she murmured.
It was a very satisfied “mm,” which made me move my head enough to give her a soft kiss. “You’re beautiful,” I said against her lips.
I was more than satisfied myself, and a helluva lot more relaxed than I’d been in months. I didn’t want to move. I could happily have fallen asleep inside her. But I eased myself out of her and rolled to the side.
We lay on our backs, staring at the ceiling. I wanted to pull her into my arms, wanted to feel her head nestled into my shoulder, but I didn’t. Cuddling her would make this into something it wasn’t.
It’s just fucking.
Still, I moved my hand and covered hers. I felt her look at me. I turned my head and smiled at her, and she smiled back.
I turned my gaze back to the ceiling. The smile slid off my face and the after-glow faded, leaving a hollow space in my chest.
Sex with Ridley didn’t change anything except make me feel like maybe I could trust her, and that would be thinking with my balls, not my brain.
The hell with it. I was too exhausted to keep worry at the problem of Ridley No-Last-Name. I got up to dispose of the condom, then took my place on the mattress next to the wall. Closing my eyes, I dropped like a stone into sleep.
Two hours later, Ridley’s cell phone vibrated, waking us both. She got up and dug it out of the pocket of her shorts.
“It’s a text from my alpha.” She sat down on the mattress and frowned at the screen. “She says you’re going to get a call and I should let you take it.”
“A call?” I rubbed a hand over my face, still half-asleep. “Did she say who?”
She shook her head. “No.”
The call came within minutes. Ridley handed the phone to me.
I didn’t recognize the number. I rolled onto my side, propping myself on a forearm, and brought the phone to my ear. “Yeah?”
“Zaquiel Kral?” A woman’s voice, tinged with a French accent.
I exchanged a baffled glance with Ridley, who lifted a shoulder in a shrug.
“That’s me,” I said.
“This is Zoe Tremblay.”
That made me sit bolt upright. What the hell could Victorine’s daughter want with me?
“You heard that?” I mouthed at Ridley.
She nodded, a perplexed line between her eyes.
“Yeah?” I said into the phone.
Zoe expelled a breath. “I’m calling about your brother. Rafael.” Her tone was so empty, so devoid of emotion it chilled me even through the phone.
I gripped the case, white-knuckled. “Go on.”
“He’s been captured.”
“Who?” I went taut, my muscles and sinews snapping to attention. “Who has him?”
“I can’t tell you that. But I’ve been instructed to tell you that you have one week to complete your mission. If anything goes wrong, Rafael will be sold to a brothel as a blood slave.”
I didn’t say anything. I couldn’t speak over the anger and fear.
“Did you hear me?” Her robotic tone fractured into something frantic. Like Zoe Tremblay gave a fuck about my brother. Two years ago, she’d stood by while Victorine’s goons had beaten Rafe into a pulp. “Do you understand?”
“Why are you telling me this?”
“I—” She gulped, then spoke in a rush like at any moment the phone would be taken away from her. “Because they’re forcing me to. But I can tell you that they mean it. If I could help, I would.”
Yeah, right. “Then get him away from them.”
“I can’t,” she said in a voice I had to strain to hear.
“I see.” A hot fury clamped like a band around my chest. It was an effort to speak. “Tell them I’m already in New York,” I said and ended the call.
Ridley took the phone from me and set it on her backpack.
I met her eyes. Whatever she saw in my gaze made her flinch.
Smart woman.
It took a lot to make me really, truly angry, but I was there. Scorch-the earth, take-no-prisoners enraged.
“You heard what she said?” My voice sounded harsh in my ears. I didn’t wait for her nod. “She said they captured Rafe. My brother, Ridley. If I don’t kill my father, they’ll make my brother a fucking blood slave.”
“God damn it.” She spun and smashed the side of her fist against the wall.
I glared at her, my anger wanting an outlet. But unless she was a world-class actress, she was as upset as me.
“This whole thing is so messed up,” she bit out. “I don’t know who’s running the show, us or Victorine and Moreau. But I swear I didn’t know anything about this. I didn’t even know Rafe had been captured.”
Her chest heaved. Her gaze willed me to believe her.
“Okay.” I dragged my hands down my face. “Okay. The motherfuckers have my brother. Do you know where he is?”
She shook her head. “I don’t know. Montreal, maybe. But I think I can find out.” She grabbed her phone and sent a text.
The reply came back almost immediately.
Ridley’s lips pressed into a thin line. “He’s not in Montreal. He’s in Paris.”
“In Paris? Why?”
“Probably to rescue you.”
I cursed and closed my eyes. Getting up, I pulled on a pair of boxer-briefs and paced across the room. “Tell me Moreau doesn’t have him.”
Ridley pulled on a tank and a pair of boyshorts. “I don’t know.”
Her phone buzzed again. We were both on our feet now. She snatched it off the mattress and let out a vicious curse.
“What?” I grabbed the phone and stared at the message.
Twilight: With M.
“‘With M’?” I showed her the text. “Is that Moreau?”
“Yeah.” She swallowed audibly. “I’m sorry, but it looks like Moreau has him. Twilight is a slayer; she’d know.”
Blood pounded in my ears. My brain felt like it was going to explode.
Not Rafe. Please, not Rafe.
Not my kid brother. This wasn’t supposed to happen.
My fangs extended. The scars on my wrists burned and itched.
“That sonuvabitch.” I tossed the phone onto the bed. “That motherfucking, lying sonuvabitch.”
Ridley’s mouth was white around the edges. “This is so effed up.”
I took a deep breath, willing myself to calm down. “He’s dead. I’ll stake the bastard myself.”
Another text arrived. We both went for the phone. I got there first and read the message aloud. It was from Twilight again.
Someone informed on him. They knew he was here.
I felt sick. I shoved the phone at Ridley. “Ask who informed on him.”
“Okay.” She typed the question and hit Send.
We waited, both of us staring at the phone. The short delay seemed endless but was actually only a couple of minutes. The screen lit with the reply.
Don’t know. But P3 took out Étan.
“P3 is Rafe?” When she nodded, I said, “Rafe sent that bastard Étan to his final grave?”
“Guess so.” Ridley didn’t seem concerned. Apparently she hadn’t liked the Tremblay lieutenant any more than me.
“Good.” My lips peeled in a smile.
Étan had been sent to his final grave—and by my own brother? Another so-called “weak dhampir”? Talk about poetic justice. The only thing better would’ve been if I’d skewered the prick myself.
I focused on the first part of the text. “So either Twilight doesn’t know who’s the informer—or they’re not saying. Fuck, Ridley. We have to know. Tell them that.”
She shook her head. “Won’t do any good. Twilight won’t know. Intel is on a need-to-know basis only. That way if we’re captured, they can’t torture it out of us.”
Gods. Ridley sounded so matter of fact about the possibility she could be captured and tortured.
It made my stomach clench and my heart burn. I shouldn’t care about her. But I did.
I brought my brain back to Rafe. “We have to do something.”
Ridley texted back a TY and returned the phone to her backpack. “At least Rafael took out that prick Étan before he was captured.”
“I thought you two were working together.”
“I told you, that wasn’t my choice.” She hesitated. “Slayers, Inc., has changed in the last few years. I’m not sure whose side we’re on sometimes.”
I felt a stirring of hope. “What do you mean?”
“Just…I don’t know why SI took the contract on you and your brothers. Your father’s another story. But I don’t care how much Victorine is paying us to take you three out, too, that’s not how we work.” She grimaced. “Especially the contract on you. Now that I know you, it makes even less sense. Before I met you, I figured you must be doing something undercover for your father’s syndicate—maybe recruiting blood slaves while pretending to help those poor displaced people. But that’s not true, is it? You really do all those things—those good things—that they say you do. You’re for real.”
“I don’t know how ‘for real’ I am, but yeah, I was in Aleppo because I was trying to help. And the Kral Syndicate doesn’t keep blood slaves, not these days. My father banned the practice years ago. And if we did, we could find displaced humans right here in New York or Baltimore or Atlanta or New Orleans.” I named the cities where the syndicate had a large presence, adding, “I’m not even a made man in the syndicate. Yeah, I work for my father from time to time, but I wouldn’t recruit blood slaves for anyone.”
“I see that now.” Her lips pressed together and to the side in an ashamed expression. “I wanted to think the worst of you, so I did. I can be too single-minded. It’s a fault, and I know it.”
Her immediate, obviously sincere apology defused my anger somewhat. I jerked my chin in acknowledgment.
Ridley pulled at her lip, thinking. “Whoever informed on Rafe is someone high up. Your father wouldn’t have told many people that he was sending him to Montreal. And apparently, they knew he’d gone to Paris with Princess Zoe.”
I sank onto the mattress. “So again, we’re down to my father, his lieutenant, and maybe a few other people. Gabriel probably knew, for instance. And he could’ve told Camila, although I doubt it.”
I was still tired and my joints ached. Even my fucking eyes burned. The side effects from the silver poisoning seemed to ebb and flow, and right now I was pretty sure I was spiking a fever again.
But what did that matter compared to what Rafe was going through?
I pressed the heels of my palms to my burning eyes.
Desperate to do something. Right. Now.
But that could play into their hands. Whoever the hell “they” were.
While I was in Manhattan, I’d heard something I was still trying to make sense of. Andre Redbone, a Kral kapitán, had been slain by one of our own men. His elimination, along with my disappearance, had sent shock waves through the Kral Syndicate.
“Zaq?” Reaper’s concerned voice made me lower my hands.
“Yeah.” My mind was spinning five different directions like a juggler rotating a plate on his right index finger, his left index finger, a foot, his knee and his nose. “We need a plan.”
“They can’t know I’m helping you.” Her brows were lowered, her mouth pulled into a distressed, sideways oval.
I focused on her. She was Rafe’s best chance to get out of this alive. “We had a deal, and I kept my part of it. You’d better fucking make sure my brother stays safe or I’m walking.”
“No, you won’t.”
“Try me.”
She rubbed her forehead. “Look, I kept my part of the deal. I’ll help anyway I can. Tell me what I can do.”
I eyed her. In her own way, she was as trapped as me. If I didn’t complete the mission, she’d have to stake me. Yeah, she’d sworn she wouldn’t. But when it came down to it, would a slayer really choose me over her mission?
“You want the truth?”
“Of course.”
“I don’t know where the fuck my dad is. Those vampire dives I went to were full of rumors. He’s been in and out of the city. No one knows what’s going on. Apparently he’s gone dark. Right now, Tomas and Gabriel are running things.”
“So we find him. You must have some idea, some place you haven’t looked yet.”
I considered her for a beat and made up my mind. “Yeah. I do.”