WALKING OUTSIDE TO talk with Lyric’s mother could be nothing but a trap. But Vail took comfort that the gown was still hidden. It could be used as a bargaining chip. The mother would never take back the daughter without that valuable item, or so he suspected.
Although, now that he thought on it, Lyric should prove more valuable to Zett than the gown. Unless he no longer cared if anyone discovered his mistake.
No, Zett would not stop until Lyric was dead. It would humiliate the faery lord should anyone discover he’d marked a vampiress for his bride.
Slipping his hand into hers, Vail paused in the building’s foyer doorway. “Will you have me?”
“What deep thoughts are rushing through your brain, lover?”
“You’ve taken my blood.” He kissed her hand and rubbed the back of it across his lips. She in turn, inspected the cut on his arm, which had healed but left behind a smear of blood. “I want you to be mine. Forever. If you’ll have me.”
“Yes, forever, vampire.” She touched a smear of his blood to her tongue. “I will have you.”
That answer put him over the moon and into the stratosphere. Vail didn’t even register descending the stairs to street level, until he stepped out into the over-cast sky and rain droplets trickled from the roof onto his shoulders. A white limousine waited at the curb. Rain drooled down the darkened windows. He clasped Lyric’s hand and tugged her next to him, kissing her on the forehead. “I’m here for you.”
“Touching.” The voice sounded from beside them, tucked in the shadows of the building’s overhang. A petite blonde woman stepped forward as they looked toward the car and street. “You found yourself a pretty toy, Lyric.”
“Mother,” Lyric said sharply. Her fingers tightened about Vail’s until he winced.
“This is Vaillant,” she said. “Vail, my mother, Charish.”
“We’ve met,” Charish said. “I see you’ve done the job you were hired to do, Monsieur Vaillant. You’ve found my daughter. But I suspect you have no intention of returning her. Is that Hawkes Associates’ standard operating procedure?”
“I haven’t yet located the gown,” he said, knowing the woman would not be such a pushover as her small frame suggested. “I never do a job halfway.”
“Well, I thank you for your work, monsieur, but now that my daughter is safe, she can return home with me.”
“Perhaps you should ask Lyric if she wishes to go home?”
“Don’t be ridiculous.”
“Mother, he’s right. I’d prefer not to return.”
Charish Santiago’s jaw dropped open, but she snapped it shut. “I don’t understand.”
At that reaction, Vail took a step back from his rigid suspicions. Was it possible Charish did love Lyric and really had no clue what she may have gotten her daughter involved in?
“I can’t go home now, Mother, not while Zett is looking for me.”
“Because you have the gown we agreed to give him in the bargain. Just hand it over to him, dear. You know I will send protection for you.”
“The bargain,” Vail said. “To see the gown handed over to Zett in return for faeries? That’s a crime punishable by the Council.”
Charish sucked in a gasp. He’d been right on one part. The woman was trafficking in faeries. He’d figured out the mystery. Yet, why couldn’t he feel the satisfaction he should feel?
“You make assumptions. I’ll not abide such accusations. Do you know who I am?”
“Yes, you’re the matriarch of a family of thieves, murderers and liars.”
Lyric squeezed his hand, as if to warn. He saw in her eyes a misty plea. She didn’t like his harsh manner with her mother. And he shouldn’t be so cruel. She was Lyric’s mother, and Lyric worried she was involved with a tyrant. The deal with Zett could have been a desperate attempt to free herself. Would both women succumb and return home?
“Let’s go, Lyric.” Charish stepped onto the sidewalk. “Tell Monsieur Hawkes he may keep the fee I paid even though the job was not finished.”
“You don’t want me to find your precious faery gown?” Vail asked. “Zett won’t like that.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about, and if you continue to accuse me, you’ll never live to see the next sunrise.”
“Mother!”
“Sunrises are overrated.” He put an arm around Lyric’s shoulder and she melted against him. She was on his side—for the moment. “Nor will Lyric live to see another dawn should you allow her to go anywhere near Zett. There’s nothing easy about leaving Faery.”
“I know that.”
“And yet you would have sent your daughter to Faery to make the exchange.”
“It wasn’t required she go into Faery. The meeting was just outside a portal.”
“Come on, Charish, you know better. If you’d trusted Zett to not take your daughter why did you intend to send along demon guards? Be truthful. She was bait to sweeten the deal.”
“No, I—”
“For a vampiress who wears a faery mark, she would have stood on Faery ground less than a mortal minute before Zett slayed her.”
“A mark?” Charish flickered frightened eyes at her daughter. “What mark?”
Hell, Vail had forgotten the mother wasn’t aware of the damning mark.
“There’s something you need to know, Mother. I met the Lord of Midsummer Dark the last summer of camp before my blood hunger developed.”
Charish gasped. “You never told me that.”
“I was young and thought if I ignored it, nothing would come of it. He…marked me. I didn’t know what it meant until much later when I dared to tell Leo.”
“You told your brother but not me?”
“I never dared tell you. You were so strict, and only let me date people you knew. I thought you’d keep me a prisoner forever to protect me—”
“You’re damned right! I can’t believe this. Lyric? Oh, my baby, if I had known, I would have never agreed to such a bargain. I would have never put you in harm’s way. Oh.”
“I know that. I’m sorry, Mother. I thought I could buy some time by disappearing while Leo searched for a way to have the mark removed, and then still have the gown for you to hand over. I had no idea you were dealing in such horrid crimes.”
“I’m—”
“Don’t deny it, Mother. We saw the Santiago crest on a faery in FaeryTown.”
“What were you doing there? You took her to that vile place?”
“Does it matter?” Vail countered. “Are you involved in the heinous crime of trafficking faeries?”
Charish hung her head. Arms clasping across her chest, she shook her head and touched Lyric’s arm. “Your father has trafficked in faeries for decades. It’s an easy way to make money. And Connie insisted.”
“Connie?” Vail asked.
“Connor,” Lyric explained. “Her fiancé.”
“Connie, Connor, Constantine.” Charish waved the matter away with a gesture. “He goes by so many names. Well, you know our breed has to change our names every century or so. He insisted this could be the deal to save our family.”
As if shot in the chest by a high-powered rifle, Vail staggered. What the Santiago matriarch had so casually revealed. Could it be?
Blinking, as if surfacing from a fog of dust, he gripped Charish by the lapels of her fitted suit coat. “Constantine?” He revealed his fangs to the woman, but she didn’t flinch.
“Pretty,” Charish commented snidely, “but just for show, eh? I’ve heard about you and the faeries.”
“You called him Constantine?” he insisted again. “Your fiancé. Constantine de Salignac?”
“Well, yes. How do you know his last name—” The woman stiffened suddenly, eyes going wide, and clutched her throat. Crimson trickled over her grasping fingers and spilled onto Vail’s hand.
Reacting, he shoved Lyric behind him. She stumbled, bracing herself against the wall. He leaped to catch Charish as she collapsed in his arms. The tip of a wooden stake pierced through her bleeding throat. He reached to pull it out, but retracted, not knowing if the stake had been poisoned.
Down the street a dark fog billowed. It thickened and expanded, like darkness clouding over a midsummer revel.
“Lyric, get in the car!”
“What happened?”
“Just get in the car. And don’t come out, no matter what.”
“But my mother?”
“I’ll get her onto the backseat. Get in there. Now!”
She scrambled into the car and Vail kicked the door shut. With little time to make sure the mother was safe, he gently laid Charish on the sidewalk and spun up to meet the fog, which quickly formed into the shape of a man.
Thin yet regal, the silver-haired sidhe lord’s violet eyes locked on to Vail’s fierce gaze. Zett’s red coat was open to reveal bare skin, covered over with luminescent marks that resembled mortal tribal tattoos, yet these pulsed and glowed as if alive, and some could even produce magic if touched with alternating fingers in a coded manner. At his hip a weapon belt revealed another wooden stake. The faery had the skill to throw the stake from long distances and hit his mark.
“Why the mother?” Vail called. “It’s not her you want.”
“Exactly.” Zett’s voice slithered silver upon black waves. His long fingers weaved before him as if concocting a ritual, yet he did not make a move to strike with what Vail knew could be powerful dust. “I need the vampire bitch’s daughter. But she decided to renege on our bargain, and so she must be punished.”
Vail fisted his hands and spread his feet, thrusting back his shoulders. He stood before the fallen vampiress, prepared to block any magic Zett should send at him. “You made a mistake when marking Lyric. Let her go. She’ll not tell anyone.”
“You know about the mark? That’s two vampires too many who possess such knowledge, Vaillant the Unwanted.”
The word was just a word, but it never failed to strike at Vail’s soul when issued in Zett’s scathing tone.
“What if I offer the gown instead of Lyric?”
He had no such right, but he wasn’t thinking on game, and was allowing the faery to make him nervous because his thoughts were ruthlessly divided. Charish was engaged to Constantine? And Lyric had known, except she’d never associated the name Constantine to Connor. All this time, he’d been so close!
Zett sucked in a breath, and Vail felt the air grow heavy. The Lord of Midsummer Dark could command the elements. The very earth would rise up as his throne if commanded. “Where is the fucking gown, Vail? I need it.”
“Enough to sacrifice the one you marked?”
Oh, he did like to see Zett riled. Rarely did a sidhe resort to using mortal oaths. Zett stood as high as Vail, yet his slender frame looked awkward and spiderish. However, Vail knew that delicate bone structure hid a powerful mien, and Zett would not stop to harm anyone who stood in his path to power.
“That gown would grant you power untold. And a certain status amongst the Unseelie. Still trying to steal the lost king’s throne?” Vail put out, and then braced for Zett’s retaliation.
The Lord of Midsummer Dark did not disappoint.
The faery touched the luminescent symbol just below his throat with his middle finger, sliding it around the circumference of the design. With a hiss, he commanded the rain puddles on the street, water slicking across the rooftops, and all the rain yet spilling down the windows and gutters into a hurricane that swept toward Vail.
Vail was hit with sharp, piercing water that cut open the skin on his face and hands. The water swirled about him, crushing him in a liquid cage that he could not penetrate with a punch or kick.
Gasping, he swallowed icy water and sputtered. A shout sucked in more water and he choked, heaving up gasps. He put up a hand, but before he could command his own dust, he remembered he was now clean. Defenseless against sidhe magic.
The cyclonic spin of water dropped to the sidewalk, splashing up around Vail. Had Zett given up so easily? Never.
Thrusting back his shoulders, Vail marched toward the faery prince. Zett gestured to the building exterior, and with his other hand tapped a mark at his hip. Bricks loosened from the wall and aimed for Vail. The vampire blocked them with an elbow or a punch that shattered them into dust.
“You can do better than that,” Vail taunted.
“I see the mortal realm has been good to you,” Zett said, stepping backward.
“I’m clean of ichor now. It makes me strong,” Vail corrected. And indeed, he did not feel defenseless, as he had expected.
“So you’ve come into the taint of mortal blood?” Zett spit to the side, showing his disgust. “No surprise. You always were just another filthy longtooth.”
Vail lunged and delivered a fist to the faery’s jaw. Ichor sprayed the air, yet Zett snapped back with an evil grin. “You want to play it that way?”
“I’m still owed a duel against you.”
“You think you have a claim to stand against me after I rightfully banished you for your crime against me? Ha!”
“Hell, yes.” Zett would deem it a crime that he’d been denied his way, though Faery did not mark it as such.
The faery lord narrowed his piercing eyes. The symbols on his skin glowed fiercely. “Why are you protecting Lyric Santiago? Have you finally bonded with your own kind? Have you taken her as your lover? I would congratulate you, but I’d rather rip your veins out through your throat and strangle you with them.”
“By your leave.” Vail offered an arm and tapped the thick vein. “Begin with this one.”
Zett blew faery dust into a billowing cloud.
Vail dropped to the ground, avoiding the cloud but sensing it would rain upon him in seconds. He snapped his legs forward and came up on the other side of the cloud as it dispersed and settled. Wheeling around, he grabbed Zett by the back of his neck and willed down his fangs.
“Go ahead, Unwanted One.” Zett chuckled. “Bite deep and drink well.”
How he would love to bite into the man’s neck and tear out his veins. But he was clean now. And getting stronger, thanks to Lyric’s support. He would not risk succumbing to the addiction after all her hard work. And yet the faery smelled sweet…so sweet.
“Vail!” Lyric leaned out the back window.
“Ah. There is the beauty who will become my bride.”
“You would sooner die than marry a vampire. You requested she deliver the gown so you could do away with your mistake.”
“True. Well then, I’ll have to rip out her veins instead and tie them into pretty bows about her body.”
That horrible image zapped Vail’s fall into the sensory allure of the faery and made him wish for an iron stake so he could plunge it into the faery’s heart. He rubbed fisted fingers in his palm, testing the edges of his rings. “Like I said, the gown for Lyric.”
“You don’t have the gown.”
“She knows where it is. We can complete the deal, if you dare.”
“If I dare?” Zett cocked his head to the side.
“You bastard, you are selling your own to the vampires! I don’t believe the Unseelie court would abide that.”
Zett kicked, landing Vail on the hip. He staggered, but lost the pain of the hit immediately, and delivered a solid right hook, catching the faery on the jaw and tearing through his skin with the iron rings. Zett screamed as the iron burned his skin.
The faery lord leaped away from Vail and hit the brick wall and clung to it, a foot off the sidewalk. His jaw smoked and oozed ichor. “You will not win this one. I will have the gown, and the miserable vampire bitch,” he cried, then pushed off and leaped into the sky. He slipped through to Faery, leaving behind only a glitter of dust.
Vail didn’t give him a moment’s bother. He scooped up Lyric’s mother and slid into the back of the limousine, and ordered the driver to take them to the Santiago home.
* * *
THE CAR PEELED ONTO the pebbled driveway before the Santiago mansion. Lyric sat next to Vail but hadn’t looked at her mother. He sensed her fear and confusion. She was returning to the one place she had escaped, and with the one person who had betrayed her.
Though, it hadn’t directly been Charish. She’d been pushed by Constantine to put her daughter into a dangerous position. Vail was not surprised at all.
After the car parked, he lifted Charish, who felt much heavier than when he’d initially picked her up from the ground. He swung his boots out onto the dew-dappled grass, aware of Lyric exiting out the other side.
The stake still stuck out of Charish’s throat. Fingers to the woman’s neck, he felt for a pulse and could not find one. Her chest did not rise and fall. Impossible. The only way she could perish from being staked in this manner was if Zett had used poison on the wood—then Vail realized this wasn’t a stake, but rather, elf shot, which always contained poison.
Even so, the blood that spilled from her neck glittered. Like ichor. Take it. Vail winced as the strange hunger clenched his gut.
“Hurry,” Lyric said. “We’ll bring her inside. She keeps a doctor on staff.”
“Lyric.”
“Vail, why are you sitting there?”
He bowed his head, and Lyric stopped. She stood straight, hands once fisted, falling loose at her sides.
Moonlight glinted on the toes of Charish’s red shoes. The vampiress’s head hung limply over his arm, spilling blond curls under the silvery shine.
The world stopped breathing. Everything was silenced. No wind shimmied through the tree canopies. Not a cricket chirped in the tall grasses. A night bird fluttered its wings in the fountain, stirring up a noiseless spatter.
With “I’m sorry” on his tongue, Vail stood, yet when he opened his mouth, Lyric said, “No, don’t speak. Just—come this way.”
She turned and, wobbling once on her high heels, she inhaled a breath, seeking composure. Lyric walked toward the mansion, her shoes the only sound. Click, click. Click, click.
Vail carried Charish’s body in his arms, but it suddenly felt airy, almost as if…
Flakes of black ash fell over his arms and down his thighs to land on his boots and the sidewalk. Her clothing dropped in a pile. All vampires older than a century ashed with death. She must have been alive after taking the elf shot. The poison had worked slowly, and she’d only expired as they’d arrived at the mansion.
“Lyric,” Vail whispered.
He didn’t want her to turn around. Didn’t want her to see, to associate her mother’s death with him. He should have been more alert. Could have grabbed Charish from the sidewalk before being injured. He could have done so much more.
Zett had won this round.
Lyric stopped and looked over her shoulder at the ash at his feet and the traces littering his arms. She did not turn completely around, only bowed her head.
He stepped over the ash and pulled Lyric in for a hug but she shoved him away. “I don’t need that. I don’t even—”
Love her were the unspoken words Vail heard louder than his heartbeats. “Yes.” He pulled her unresisting body against his. “You do.”
She nodded that she did, and tucked her head against his shoulder. “Take me inside.”