IT ALL HINGED on Vail gaining Lyric’s trust so she would eventually give him the gown. He knew she had it. An item so valuable as the gown would definitely stir up talk if it should surface with a fence or in the hands of a buyer.
Unless the vampiress had faery contacts? Hmm…he doubted it. Lyric and Zett as allies didn’t jive. And yet, what if they had previously met?
Why she was so tight-lipped about it was not hard to figure. She must view the gown as a bargaining chip or a means to a new start. Hell, from what he knew of the Santiago family, it wasn’t a place for anyone to grow up, let alone survive.
He could relate.
Which meant Vail had an idea how to win Lyric’s trust. Because sex was just that, a means to let off aggression and steam. To get off. It wasn’t going to enamor him to her. And anyone who believed trust was gained by sharing a bed and a few throaty gasps of pleasure was fooling himself.
Though he wouldn’t mind another round—in a clean bed. That woman’s skin…yippi-i-oo!
He opened the car’s passenger door and Lyric got in. Swinging around to the driver’s side, Vail hopped inside, slid on a pair of Ray-Bans and switched on the engine. The Maserati purred, and he wanted to pat the dashboard and tell her how sweet she was, but the sexy leg distracted him.
Lyric kicked off her high heels and put one bare foot up on the dashboard. He wished the clingy black slacks were a skirt, but he could still recall those legs wrapped around his hips. She leaned back in the seat and closed her eyes, making herself at home with a contented hum.
Vail slid a palm along her leg and the vampiress purred as sweetly as the car. She didn’t open her eyes, and he suspected she’d let him touch her as long as he wanted to. Maybe even higher…
He shifted into gear and rolled the Maserati into traffic, before returning his hand to her thigh. He teased a fold in the thin fabric with his smallest finger.
“So you want to know what’s up with my mom and the Unseelie lord?” she asked, eyes still closed. The windows had been shaded and treated against UV rays before Hawkes had given it to him, but he figured she was tired after last night’s adventures. “Why? I thought you wanted to find the ugly gown and drop me off on Mommy’s doorstep?”
“To gain your trust,” he said. No reason to sugarcoat things.
“Learning what secrets lurk in my family will gain my trust?”
“I’m giving you a bone, Lyric. I haven’t taken you to Mommy’s doorstep, which should gain me some points.” Turning at a light, he headed toward the tenth arrondissement, where he lived. He didn’t signal, and a passing Smart Car laid on the horn. Vail nodded at the driver, but ignored the nasty hand gesture. “And because I’m a curious guy when it comes to anyone from Faery making deals with a vampire. You have no clue what the deal was?”
“Nada.”
“How is that possible when you agreed to do the exchange with the guy? You had to have expected something in return.”
She grabbed his hand, stopping his constant strokes, but didn’t move him away from her thigh. “I’ve already told you I had ulterior motives. When Charish told me she’d made a deal with Zett to trade the gown for services—”
“Services?”
She shrugged. “That’s all I know.”
Ch’yeah—no. She was lying, but if he let her talk, sooner or later she’d get trapped in her lies and reveal the truth. Because, apparently, torture worked for neither of them.
“Anyway, after they’d made the deal, the faery lord insisted I deliver the gown.”
“And his reason was…?”
“Mother assumed he wanted to keep us on our toes and add the element of danger. Send a helpless woman instead of some capable demon thugs. And it also provided the added threat of locating the exchange site next to a faery portal.”
“And you had no problem with that?”
“Like any sane vampire, I freaked. I refused.”
“And yet…?”
She toyed with the rings on his fingers, and he liked the soft tickle of it, and that she hadn’t moved his hand from her thigh.
“I thought about it a few days,” she finally said, “and realized this was an opportunity I couldn’t pass up. I planned the kidnapping to take myself out of the equation.”
“Why didn’t you just refuse?”
“Zett was adamant. And my mother really needed this.”
Curious. “Yet your plans, beyond getting out of the house with the gown, seem to have stopped right there.”
Lyric sighed and turned to face him. He smoothed his palm along her leg, reassuring—yet she tugged him right back to the sweet spot high on her thigh where he didn’t mind being at all.
“I had the apartment,” she said, “and had intended to decide on a country or state where I could go hide out for a few years. Leo, my brother, was going to help me. It’s not so easy to disappear when your mother runs a network of thieves that stretch across Europe and the United States. I was thinking either Russia or the Arctic.”
He twisted to gape at her.
Lyric laughed. “I know! I couldn’t be happy in either place. I need to be around people who are modern and, well, I’m still working that part of the plan out. Joining the circus was another option. You ever see the Demon Arts troupe? They are fantastic.”
“Really? You? The circus?”
She nodded enthusiastically. “Actually, a tropical island would be my number-one choice, but I don’t think there are too many available for sale.”
“You’d be surprised. I bet you could buy your own little island, if you wanted to.”
“What a dream. One needs cash to buy freedom. The Santiago family is broke. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve got my mother. And, hell, I should have stayed to help her out, but she can’t see beyond her fiancé Connor’s influence. I hate to see her lose her freedom….”
Her sigh entered his pores and scurried about inside his chest. She wanted to get lost on a deserted island? Didn’t sound like such a good life if she was alone, without anyone to please her.
“So why did you feel the need to get away from Mommy? I mean, it seems like the faery lord should have been your only worry.”
“There are just some things I haven’t told her. I…didn’t know where to begin. And this all happened so quickly. Escape seemed the easiest option until I could work things out.”
He tapped his fingers gently over her mons, and she tilted her leg out to give him better access. Vail slid his hand between her legs where it was warm. The car swerved. He avoided missing another stoplight by pulling a sharp right turn.
“So you didn’t expect anyone to look for you?” he asked.
“I figured Charish would send out someone to find me, but I didn’t think you’d find me so fast. I’ll be at Mommy’s soon enough, thanks to you, so why bother with the dreams?”
“You’re giving up that easily?”
“Not giving up. Just…so ready for a little respect.” She sighed and dropped her foot to the floor. At the same time she brushed his hand away, and he retreated.
She didn’t say more, and Vail felt pushing wasn’t the right move at the moment. The woman wanted something everyone should have. He could relate, in a manner. But when he felt he didn’t get respect, he took it. Not the smartest way to do it, he knew. People like Lyric’s mother took things and expected others to respect them for it.
Probably Constantine de Salignac had been cut from the same cloth.
I need to find the gown if I ever want to find that bastard.
Taking a sharp corner, the Maserati nipped the concrete sidewalk pole on the corner.
“You are the worst— Do you even know how to drive?” she asked.
“I’ve been driving for three months. I think I do pretty well.”
“Three mon— Did you take lessons?”
“Ch’yeah right.”
Lyric shook her head. “That explains all the dents in this pretty baby.”
“She is my baby,” he agreed, finally comfortable with patting the dashboard. “And she doesn’t mind a little rough handling.”
“You’re not so rough as you like to think, vampire.”
His jaw tensed at that title. He was not vampire, he was…just not.
Vail pulled into the car park below his building, wondering how this vampire ice princess was able to get under his skin with such ease.
* * *
“THE BATHROOM IS DOWN THE HALL,” Vail said as they entered his loft apartment and he handed her the duffel he’d carried in. “You can shower first. I have a call to make.”
Lyric dangled her shoes on her fingers and padded about the space. “Nice. Very…industrial.”
Indeed, all the furniture was gray velvet, the floors were high-gloss black marble, and the walls and appliances were burnished steel. Vail liked the hard edges of it all. It wasn’t cozy or homey, just there. Completely the opposite of most things in Faery. A serviceable means to exist in a world he’d not yet decided if he preferred over Faery.
“What I expected from you.” She wiggled her toes and inspected her shadow dashing across the marble floor. “Especially since you like to work the goth-vampire-lord look to the hilt.”
Vail ran a hand over his hair. “Far from it.”
“Right. Because you don’t like vampires. And yet, you are one. I don’t even want to figure that out.” She sauntered down the hallway to the bathroom.
Flicking the window shade switch activated the electrochromic shades and gave a calm, gray tone to the room. Vail plopped onto the sofa and waited until he heard the water spatter the bathroom tiles before dialing up Hawkes Associates.
“Vail, you find her again?”
“Yes, I have her in hand.”
“For how long this time?”
He rubbed his forehead. The old man knew how to go right for the jugular. Damned half-breed vamp. “Until it comes time to bring her in.”
“What’s wrong with right now?”
“What’s wrong is, I still don’t have the gown. I need to gain her trust, because I know she’s got it hidden somewhere.”
“Torture didn’t work?”
Oh, how it had worked. He’d never had a taste for torture after witnessing it a few times in Faery, but the kind he’d used last night? Hallelujah, to the mortal Christ! And that was saying a lot for someone raised with sidhe spiritual values.
“Torture proved ineffective in getting me closer to the ultimate goal. I think the key is to learn what deal Santiago made with Zett. Santiago gives Zett the gown, and Zett hands over…something. Whatever that something is, is the key.”
“Why did the daughter have to deliver the gown? I thought faeries didn’t like vampires?”
Why, indeed? That was the part where Vail sensed Lyric began to weave her lies. But knowing she’d never had any intention of going peacefully to Faery gave her a little credit.
“It baffles me,” he said simply. “I need to investigate further.”
“We’re not a detective agency, Vaillant,” Rhys cautioned Vail in a fatherly tone that irritated him. “We store valuables. If one of those valuables gets lost, we find it. Don’t get in over your head. Find the gown and bring it in, along with the girl.”
“I’ll gain the girl’s trust by learning her mother’s secret. I know it. I’m going to ask around the faery clubs later. See if there are whispers.”
“Be careful.”
“Don’t worry, old man.”
“I do worry.”
Vail closed his eyes. Rhys had a certain tone of truth that touched his core like no one had ever touched him before. As if he was trying to play the father role when he had no right. No man had that right, not even his real father.
“Don’t let the vampiress pull the wool over your eyes, Vail. Remember who her family is.”
“Won’t happen. I can see all, remember.”
“Faeries, yes. But backstabbing vampires?”
“I see their red auras when they are coming.”
“Really? Vail, I didn’t know you had the Sight.”
“What’s that?”
“Vampires can’t tell one from the other without feeling the shimmer. But if you can see their auras, that means you’ve the Sight. Usually only witches have it.”
“I’ve always seen the auras. Yeah, okay. Talk to you later.”
He set down the phone and closed his eyes. The Sight and the shimmer? He knew what the shimmer was. It was a tingly sensation vampires were supposed to feel when they touched one another, confirming they were in the presence of another vamp. Now he thought about it, he hadn’t felt it when touching Lyric.
Had she felt it when touching him?
Come to think of it, he hadn’t noticed her aura, either. That was odd.
The water had stopped and Vail jumped as Lyric tiptoed into the room. She now wore a tight-fitted green dress that looked as if it had been sewn to her curves, no shoes and a tumble of dry blond curls.
Still no ashy, red aura. Weird. On the other hand, all his vampiric senses had altered slightly since stepping into the mortal realm.
“I just took a quickie. Your turn, if you want to shower,” she said.
Vail grabbed her arm and spun her about to sit on the chrome barstool. Opening the drawer under the bar, he took out the handcuffs and, before she could question what was happening, secured her to the metal rail edging the bar.
“What the hell?”
“I don’t trust you’re going to sit tight while I’m in the shower.”
She tugged against the wooden handcuffs. “Are you serious? I’ll break these like a child’s toy.”
“I wouldn’t try. They’re fashioned from the wood of wild roses.”
“You asshole!”
Wild roses, when planted by a witch, were excellent vampire deterrents. Or they could be used to contain a vampire, if needed. Vail had been schooled in Faery, and Other Societies 101 had covered all subjects, including the paranormals of the mortal realm.
“If the wood is broken or slivers,” he warned, “you get a nasty sensation of thorns prickling through your entire body. If you think the torture I gave you last night was rough, contemplate that.”
“Did I mention you are an asshole?”
“Sorry, sweetie, just taking precautions.” He kissed her nose, paused to inhale her cherry perfume, and then touched her chin. Nope, no shimmer. “Do you…?”
“What?”
“Never mind.” He strolled down the hall, and called, “I won’t be long.”
He’d wanted to ask if she felt his shimmer, but suspected with his reduced abilities he possibly did not send out such vibrations to another vampire.
He wanted to feel Lyric’s shimmer. More than he wanted to solve this mystery.
WITH HER FREE HAND, Lyric gripped the vampire by his crisp black shirt collar after he strode around the corner and gave her a wink. “Not long?”
“What?” He had the audacity to feign innocence.
“That was the longest shower in the history of mankind and the paranormal nations. I thought you’d fallen and knocked your head and were bleeding out on the tiles.”
“It was twenty minutes, tops.”
“It was forty-five freakin’ minutes!”
“Why so upset?”
She tugged at the handcuffs—carefully. Just thinking about what the rosewood could do to her had kept her fuming over his nerve, his utter lack of compassion. They had shared some great sex. Shouldn’t he be a little softer on her?
Vail retrieved a key from the drawer—that had been right in front of her—drawing out the action nice and slow, then unlocked her.
“Bastard.” Rubbing her wrists, which were not abraded or sore in any way, she stomped to the gray velvet couch and sat down.
“I thought it was asshole,” he volleyed. “Does bastard move me up or down the scale of unsavory villains?”
“It’s about equal. But you do that again and you’ll definitely slide down.”
“I’ll remember that. Though, sliding down before you would not be a burden.”
He stepped over to the couch and stood in front of her. “What do you say?”
Lyric sucked in her lower lip. He slicked back his moist hair with both hands, which spread his open silk shirt to reveal the hard abs and pecs she’d licked only hours earlier. Silver snakeskin pants hugged low on his hips to reveal the delicious, defined cut of his abdomen muscles and a dusting of dark hair. Bare feet rocketed the sexy level of his look right out of this world.
Had he just said something about sliding down before her?
Yes, please.
And that quirk of his eyebrow was so dangerously sexy. The sexy rocker with a dark glamour look worked for her. Frustratingly, Lyric couldn’t stay angry with him, because the whole package was too enticing. If not strangely sparkly.
He buttoned up his shirt and took a step back. Not about to slide down to his knees now. Bummer.
“How long does a guy have to live in Faery to sparkle like you do?”
He strolled into the kitchen and flicked on the coffee machine. “All his life.”
“Really?” Lyric moved onto her knees and leaned her elbows on the back of the couch. “Why Faery? How’d you get there?”
He pressed the grind button and the noise obliterated the quiet for five long seconds. Slipping a glass pot into the machine, he pushed Start.
“I was taken to Faery two days after my birth by a faery named Cressida, Mistress of Winter’s Edge.” He regarded her curious look. “I was payment for a boon.”
“No way. Like a changeling child or something?”
“Sort of. Not really. I don’t call myself a changeling, because I’m not. Those things are mentally unbalanced.”
And this vampire, who hated vampires and feared drinking their blood, and who had such a bad-boy appearance, wasn’t a little touched in the head?
He leaned a hip against the kitchen counter and crossed his arms over his chest. “You really want to hear this?”
She nodded eagerly. “Your plan was to gain my trust.”
Vail bowed his head, considering. Lyric had the distinct feeling she tread in dangerous emotional territory, and that it was too soon to do this with a guy who only had plans to use her. But right now, with the two of them alone, she felt a connection to him. And she wanted to learn all she could about the mysterious vampire whose kisses made her squirm in delight.
“Fine.” He heeled the counter behind him with the pad of his foot. “My mother gave birth to me and my brother at the same time. But we’re not twins. We each had a different father.”
“How does that work?”
“I don’t want to think about it too much, but I know my mother slept with two different guys within a week of each other. It happens. Children born from the same womb, at the same time, but with different fathers.”
“That’s interesting. So your brother is a vampire, too?”
“Werewolf.” He chuckled at her dropped jaw. “My brother’s father is Rhys Hawkes, a half-breed—half wolf, half vampire—who owns Hawkes Associates. He’s the guy who hired me to track you and the gown. But I’m sure you know a lot about Hawkes Associates, don’t you?”
She didn’t respond. The things he thought he knew about her and her family were close, but not quite on the mark. No reason to make it too easy for him.
“Hawkes is also my uncle. My father…”
His entire frame stiffened, and Lyric noted his jaw pulsed. This was the pricking point. And man, did she ache to know more.
“Well, let’s just say he was a bloodborn vampire,” Vail said quietly. A heavy sigh, and he switched feet against the counter. He was so obviously uncomfortable revealing information about himself. “My mother was bloodborn, as well. So there you have it.”
“So are your mother and father close? Does she live with him or with Rhys Hawkes?”
“She is married to Hawkes. My father is not in the picture.”
“Oh. But you and he get along?”
“Me and my father? Never met him. My mother is insane,” he stated flatly, and turned to tend the coffee machine, which didn’t need tending; it was still brewing. “And my father made her that way. I’ve been in the mortal realm three months, and I’ve never met him, or my mother. And that’s the end of that story.”
“Your father made your mother insane? How?”
“Done talking,” he called over his shoulder.
“Sure, but not done prying over here.” The side view of his face revealed a grin, so Lyric dared to push further. “Pretty please? I told you about my mother.”
“Not much. As for you and your history…”
“You don’t need to know anything about me until I get more about you.”
He left the coffee cups on the counter and strolled over to where she leaned on the back of the couch. “I know one important thing about you.”
“And what’s that?”
Leaning in close to her face so his lips brushed her ear, he said, “When I put my fingers inside you and curl them forward, back and forth, slow and fast, you come loud and proud.”
He returned to the coffee machine. And Lyric’s heart hovered somewhere around throat level. His breathy whisper had achieved a partial result to what he’d just described. Her core throbbed for his expert touch. The man had talent. And yes, she had never come like that for a man before.
Something about Vail melted her icy exterior, and she didn’t feel her self-imposed guardrails so necessary. Yet she knew he could possibly be the most dangerous opponent she had faced. Because if he thought she held only the one secret, he was sadly mistaken.
She should have never made love with him. Because now they did have a connection, and disregarding that wasn’t going to be easy.
“Coffee?” he offered.
What had the man asked? When he smiled like that the one side of his mouth curled up and his dark eyes glittered mischievously. It was a devastating mix of innocence and tawdry. Naughty thoughts going on behind those eyes, for sure. And her body reacted by softening even more, aching for his attention.
“Lyric?”
“Er, I don’t consume mortal food.”
“Not at all?”
“Not even chocolate wine, though doesn’t that sound tempting? You don’t eat, do you?”
“No, but some mortal liquids offer a treat from my usual diet.”
“That would be ichor? Why do you keep drinking from faeries if you’re no longer in Faery? To maintain? What if you went cold turkey?”
“I’d go through withdrawals.”
Says the man who claimed he only did it to maintain. “But you’d come out clean.”
“Clean is all in the point of view.”
“Apparently your point of view is hazed by faery ichor.”
“You don’t understand me, Lyric, and don’t try.”
She understood that when a person avoided the topic of their addiction it truly was an addiction. Last year, one of her mother’s best men had succumbed to an ichor addiction. Charish had allowed him to stay at the house a week before Lyric had convinced her to get rid of the dust freak. It had taken two strong demons to carry him out, and a warding spell to keep him off the property.
“Fine, I don’t understand you,” she said. “But I’ll still pass on the coffee. That stuff smells nasty.”
“Suit yourself. I’ve absinthe, if that rocks your boat.”
“Alcohol makes me dizzy. So what are your plans for me now? I’ll have you know your kind of torture only works once.”
“I doubt that.”
She met his daring gaze over the rim of the coffee cup. He was so full of his own appeal he likely thought he could have any woman he winked at. Which was probably true.
He’d broken his rule against vampires easily enough, though.
“I’m going to head over to the Lizard Lounge,” he said, “see if I can stir up some info on the Unseelie deal. You’ll come along.”
“Of course. You can’t have me sitting here handcuffed to your bed all night.”
Again, that wicked smile accompanied by a naughty lift of his eyebrows.
Lyric’s neck and cheeks heated and she turned her head away from him because she had actually blushed.
What was wrong with her? The guy had manhandled her, bound and handcuffed her, and insisted on keeping her in hand and telling her what to do. And here she sat in a ridiculous state of arousal. She’d welcome him into her arms again in a heartbeat, just to feel his sensual power encompass her.
She knew what it was. Vail wasn’t uncaring when he did those things to her. He did it all with an alluring smirk and a deep desire for contact he’d never readily admit to. The guy was as needy as she.
“Isn’t the Lizard Lounge a faery club?” she asked.
“That it is, though not a full-on sidhe club like you’d find in FaeryTown. I’d never take you there.”
“Why not?”
“Unless you’re a dust freak, you wouldn’t survive the visit. Er, not necessarily a dust freak…”
He’d trapped himself with an accidental admission to his addiction. Lyric wouldn’t press.
“We should stop and pick up some clothes for you,” he suggested as he headed down the hallway.
Lyric followed. “What’s wrong with this dress? It’s club worthy.”
His bedroom was styled with more of the steel and gray marble. Who’da thought? Vail stood before the closet, which oozed out darkness from the black clothing within.
“That dress,” he said as he pulled out a black jacket studded at the wrists and along the sleeve seams with silver spikes, “would make a man come just looking at you. But we’re going to a faery club, sweetie. It ain’t no vampire club.”
“So what? Do I have to sparkle? Do I get to wear the eye paint like you?
“I wear this ointment to see faeries.”
“You can’t see them otherwise?”
“Not the ones cloaked in glamour.”
“Well, what about me? Do I get some eye stuff so I can see faeries?”
“You won’t need to see them—they’ll be everywhere.”
He pulled the coat over his shirt and then selected a skinny silver tie. It went well with the silver snakeskin pants. It was rock ’n’ roll glam, and would certainly fit into any of the vampire clubs Lyric had been to.
“Why aren’t we going to FaeryTown? Wouldn’t we find a lot more faeries there?”
“It’s not where any sane sidhe goes to have a good time. Not that the club is much safer. This might be too dangerous for you. Change of plans. I’ll have to lock you in the car while I’m inside.”
“Uh-uh, no way. I’m a big girl. I can handle a club full of faeries.”
“Faeries who will know you’re a vampire and want to lure you to bite them just so they can watch you succumb to their addictive ichor? A high that’ll change your life, Lyric. Ruin it, in fact.”
“I’m not going to bite anyone. I’ve seen dust freaks. They are pitiful.” She glanced over Vail’s hands; a few glints of dust were visible. “But will the dust get on my skin and make me high?”
“A little, but not so devastating as inhaling it or drinking directly from the vein. You sure you want to try this? I can do this myself.”
“Are you embarrassed to show up in the club with a vampire on your arm?”
He toed out a pair of boots that sported steel spikes on the backs of the heels. “Nope. In fact, I’ll be admired for having you on my arm.”
“Tell me how a vampire is admitted to such a club in the first place? Is it because you sparkle?”
“I’ve a certain aura. They know I’m more their kind than yours. I’ve never had trouble walking amongst the sidhe in the mortal realm.”
“I wish I could figure why you’re so set against your own species.”
Vail closed the closet door and turned about, eyes dark and serious. “I lived in Faery almost three mortal decades. Never been around my own kind much. Hell, not at all. Faeries believe vampires filthy bottom-feeders who infuse their systems with the tainted blood of mortals who consume chemicals that destroy this Mother Earth. They are a part of the ecosystem that will destroy the planet, sooner rather than later. You still think it odd I favor them?”
“So you’re into the whole save-the-world crap?”
“Lyric, it’s where you live. Don’t you want it to last?”
She nodded. “Never thought about it much, I guess. I understand, you living in Faery all your life, how you wouldn’t feel comfortable around your own kind. So I’ll give you that.”
“Generous of you.”
“Well, you did screw a vampire last night.”
“That I did. And I still don’t regret it.”
He held out a hand, and she took it, feeling as though she were being invited to experience a ball set in an alien world by a prince from that foreign land. It would be exciting, and it was spiked with a jolt of danger.
“If you think I need different clothing, where are we going to shop?”
“There’s a sidhe fetish store on the way.”
“Joy.”
“Not into whips and chains?”
“It sounds so unoriginal. And vampirish.”
“This store is nothing of the sort. I wouldn’t be caught dead doing the vamp thing, sweetie.”
Lyric didn’t reply. As far as she could see, he was already doing the vamp thing. Was it possible he felt himself a faery more than vampire? That was messed up. Both his parents had been bloodborn, which made him bloodborn. They were the most powerful vampires.
The man couldn’t have any idea of the power he possessed. And it was apparent he wasn’t willing to recognize it. That was just sad.
On the other hand, maybe, having been raised in Faery, he didn’t have any such power.
Could he ever gain the power his birthright promised? What a spectacular vampire Vail could be.
Maybe he just needed a firm nudge toward taking mortal blood.