Читать книгу Forever Vampire - Michele Hauf - Страница 7

LYRIC SANTIAGO STEPPED into a pair of diamond-encrusted Louboutins. They merely twinkled as if they were paste jewels when compared to the fabric hugging her body. A sexy gown shimmered over her skin with her movement. It felt like a summer breeze had wafted through the closed bedroom window. Lyric smiled at the unexpected sensation.

That was about the only thing that could make her smile today.

“Gorgeous,” Charish said.

Charish lingered by her daughter’s bedroom door, observing. The matriarch of the Santiago clan looked as young as Lyric, but had lived as a vampire for over a century. Her blond hair was pinned up in a 1960s beehive hairstyle with a tiny pink bow attached front and center.

No matter how many centuries she lived, Lyric swore she would never get stuck in a fashion decade.

“I’m so glad you decided to try it on before you leave for the exchange,” Charish said.

“How could I resist something that is probably a dream to most?”

Striding before the floor-length mirror framed upon the closet door, Lyric gasped at her first sight of the gown on her body. It dazzled. She could not see her reflection, but the dress conformed to her shape in the eerie manner she’d become accustomed to when viewing clothing on her body.

The gown had been made and was treasured by Faery’s Seelie court. Fashioned from thousands of faery-mined diamonds, each of them no larger than an ant’s head, it had been sewn together with spider silk. The silk was almost invisible, and it looked as though the diamonds that lay upon her skin were droplets of water under the sun, until the skirt swung gracefully about her ankles creating swishy waves of blinding brilliance.

It was rumored to give the wearer unimaginable magic should a faery don the gown. Holes could be torn in the sky to reveal other worlds. Entire faery clans could be leveled. Love (an uncommon sentiment to the fickle sidhe) could be annihilated or made pure.

On Lyric, a vampire, it would grant no such power save the sensual prowess to make men drop their jaws, stumble over their own feet and profess true lust for one promising wink from her.

She turned sideways and looked down her figure. Slender and toned, thanks to her gymnastics hobby, the gown clung to a taut stomach and her lean thigh muscles. The bodice slipped along the sides of her full breasts.

She liked the tease, and yet only wielded it when necessary.

A twist to check her backside showed the gown plunged to just above her derrière. Were the plunge an inch lower it would reveal things even she preferred to keep covered.

The gown, while revealing more than enough, could never keep all her secrets. Tugging her blond hair forward to cover her left ear, she made sure her mother had not been aware of the move.

“You should take it off now,” Charish suggested in her quiet yet demanding tone. “Wouldn’t want to muss it.”

“Of course. It does feel … powerful.”

“That could be the faery dust. Take it off, dear, before you get a contact high. Leo wore gloves when he handled that thing.”

The gown had once belonged to the Seelie court, yet had been stored in a security safe by Hawkes Associates, a firm that represented the paranormal nations and acted as a sort of bank and store-all for their assets.

Priceless, the gown was a huge coup her brother, Leo, had stolen a week ago after her mother had requested he do so. Lyric had been surprised at Leo’s easy submission to the one person he complained stifled his freedom. Yet at the same time, Charish Santiago could squeeze a tear out of the most stalwart warrior: she was master of manipulation.

Fact was, the Santiago clan was nearly bankrupt. Charish needed money. Fast. Pity, the domineering fiancé Charish claimed to love couldn’t provide financial support. Lyric thought him worthless, but her mom did seem to genuinely love him.

If it would help her mother, Lyric was in for the ride tonight, even with the danger it promised.

Another glance in the mirror stirred up the frustration Lyric had thought she’d long pushed aside. She hadn’t seen her reflection in nearly two decades. Sure, she’d seen it until puberty, when bloodborn vampires came into their blood hunger, but her memory was of a towheaded young waif whose love for summer camp and horses diametrically opposed what stood before the mirror.

She teased a strand of hair over her shoulder. Nothing good had come of that final summer before she’d completely transformed. Tonight brought up memories that she must vanquish once and for all. But would she be successful?

“The demon guards are prepared?” she asked her mother.

“Yes, three of them. Don’t worry, Lyric.”

“I’m not.” Yes, she was.

“The guards will accompany you to the handoff site, and have been instructed not to allow the Lord of Midsummer Dark to take the exchange into Faery. You’ll be safe.”

Safe? Lyric sighed. If only.

The handoff site was at a known doorway to Faery. One wrong step and Lyric would never return. But she couldn’t express her worries to her mother. She’d kept it a secret for so long, it was best she continue. If things went tonight as planned, it would be the beginning of the end.

“Give me a bit to get changed.”

“Certainly. The driver isn’t scheduled to leave for another hour, so take your time, dear.”

“You going to wait with Connor?” She couldn’t summon enthusiasm into that question. If the fiancé would show some initiative toward supporting Charish, she could at least bless her mother’s choice.

“I wish you’d give him a chance, Lyric,” Charish said. “He loves me. I need someone to take care of me. It’s been difficult heading the Santiago clan since your father’s death. People rely on me and expect certain rewards and contributions in exchange for an alliance. I can’t do it all.”

“I wouldn’t expect you to, Mother.”

Lyric wished Connor wasn’t so … devious. She suspected he was at the root of the pilfered Santiago fortune—it had literally run empty over the past year—but she couldn’t prove it.

Five decades earlier, Charish had married a thief, and a damned good one. John Santiago had not aligned himself with a vampire tribe, and had instead created a sort of mafioso ring of unaligned vampires across Europe. He had sought power and money, and all the blood a vampire could drink. Lyric wasn’t sure exactly what had brought money into the family, but it did—or rather, had—flowed generously. Her father had died when Lyric was eight, but not before teaching her older brother, Leo, the skills of the trade.

Since Leo had left the family nest two years ago, Charish had faltered, taking on the weight of her deceased husband’s responsibilities as if a blow to her soul. Until this newest opportunity had presented itself.

Maybe she could convince her mother to keep the reward she’d win from the exchange and ditch the fiancé? The exchange tonight was not for cash, but the return payment, if handled correctly, could prove profitable.

Lyric ran a finger along her ear, tucking her hair behind it, which was a habit she’d developed when she was thirteen. Last year of summer camp …

“I’ll see you in a bit, dear.” Charish blew her daughter a kiss—actual physical affection was not in the matriarch’s arsenal—and backed from the room, her high heels clicking on the tiles as she went in search of her lover.

Another sigh could not be helped. Tonight would decide her fate. Running her palm over the diamonds felt as if she had skimmed a cool stream. The gown fascinated her, but much as she adored fashion, Lyric preferred a more subdued look. She didn’t like to stand out in a crowd.

Behind her, a glass-on-glass scraping noise cut through the twilight. The floor-to-ceiling bedroom window, secured at each upper corner by a large rubber suction device, popped inside the room.

Lyric backed toward the mirror, slapping her hands to it as two figures in dark clothing stalked toward her. Just as she was about to scream, one of them punched her across the jaw, knocking her out.

Her body wilted in a glitter of priceless faery diamonds. The intruders opened up a black body bag and stuffed the vampiress inside.

THE GRANITE-COLORED Maserati GranTurismo convertible squealed around a corner in the tenth arrondissement, clipped the bumper of a parked BMW, yet continued onward at twice the speed limit on the narrow, cobbled street. The driver spied a parking space and swerved, hitting the brakes, which swung around the tail of the vehicle and nestled it between two parked cars. Neither car sustained damage, which surprised the hell out of the driver.

He was still mastering the mortal means of transportation.

Killing the ignition abruptly cut off Johnny Cash’s voice from the CD player. Vaillant tugged a pair of dark sunglasses from the rearview mirror and slipped them on. He checked his reflection, still not used to the fact he could not see his reflection in the mortal realm—sunglasses hovering above a coat collar was just wrong.

Snakeskin boots hitting the tarmac (fake—you gotta respect the wildlife), he stretched to his six feet six inches and nodded at a passing mortal woman who pushed a pink baby stroller. Her blush amused him.

It was rare Vaillant walked the streets before noon. He was a late sleeper. The nights were much cooler here in the summertime, which decided his preference, though his bad vampire self could walk in the day, longer than most due to his heritage.

“Heritage? Ch’yeah,” he muttered as he hopped the curb and marched inside the five-story business complex nestled within view of the train station. “Lot of good family blood has served me.”

In truth, such blood had only hindered every step he’d ever taken.

Addicted to the sensory marvel of touch, Vail ran his fingertips along the black marble walls leading up to the elevator bays. The iron rings on his fingers clattered. His boots clomped nastily on the marble floor. The unfastened leather buckles on his right thigh swayed like banners.

Chipped black nail polish from a night he couldn’t remember caught the eye of an elderly security guard. Vail didn’t usually go in for mortal adornments, but he liked the grungy look of the polish and he wasn’t sure how to remove the clingy stuff.

He nodded at the security man, an elderly mortal with a thick crop of gray hair under his official cap. Running fingers through his hair, Vail then stopped before the elevator and punched in the digital code Rhys Hawkes had provided him.

Hawkes Associates was the last place he wanted to visit. He’d been here once, days after arriving in the mortal realm. He’d left with a new bank account, a new car and a new uncle—but no answers.

Now, three months later, he suspected what Hawkes wanted from him. Vail had no intention of working for his pseudostepfather, who was officially his uncle. But Rhys Hawkes—half vampire, half werewolf—was interesting enough for Vail to give him another chance.

He’d swing in, listen to what the centuries-old half-breed had to say, suck down the five-hundred-euro-a-bottle wine Hawkes kept on hand, then breeze off to the Lizard Lounge where he could slake his thirst for faery ichor. It wasn’t FaeryTown, but close enough.

The elevator doors slid open to reveal a lean young man with shoulder-length red hair, freckles and muscles that would intimidate a bouncer at a biker bar. The man nodded his head to the tunes blasting through his earbuds. He took one look at Vail and lunged for him, vising his hands about the vampire’s neck.

Not about to be taken down, and judging his strength equal to his attacker’s, Vail shoved the redhead against the wall. With a glance aside, they were both aware the security guard stood nearby, but the mortal with a pistol secured at his hip belt didn’t make a move. Smart guy.

“What the hell are you doing here?” Trystan Hawkes growled. He released his hold on Vail and tugged out the earbuds. The werewolf sneered, and spit, “Longtooth.”

“I love you, too, brother. Just come from talking to Daddy?”

“He’s not your father.” Tryst set back his shoulders and assumed a modicum of calm, but his adamant sneer told Vail what he wouldn’t say. He had already said it all, so why bother again? “You slumming with the normal folk?”

“Your daddy called me here.” Vail waggled a brow in a malicious tease. “Maybe he likes me better, eh?”

Tryst chuffed. “In your demented sparkly dreams.”

Vail did not sparkle, though the faery ichor he had imbibed had seeped through his pores and left a sheen on his skin. It had freaked out Tryst the first and only time they’d met right here in this building. Things had gone downhill from there.

“Glad to see there’s no love lost,” Vail countered. “Wouldn’t want my werewolf brother to go all mushy on me.”

He wanted to punch the bastard, but a frustrating sliver of need inhabiting his hardened black heart also wanted to pull the creep in for a brotherly hug. What a wib you are, Vail.

“You must be a force, brother,” Vail said. “But wait. You don’t run with a pack. Just a sad little omega wolf—”

The wolf wielded a sneak-attack high kick. Tryst’s hard rubber sole landed on Vail’s jaw and ratcheted back his skull on his spine. He saw stars for a few seconds.

Rubbing his jaw, Vail smirked. “Nice one.”

“You keep her insane,” Tryst said forcefully.

“She’s my mother, too. Like it or not,” Vail said, but he couldn’t get behind the retaliation. Did he keep her insane?

“You.” Tryst stabbed Vail in the chest. The wolf reeked of aggression. “Stay away from our family.”

“Seems your damned family keeps wanting to pull me in.”

“You have no right being here!”

“Yeah?” Vail slammed Tryst against the wall, pushing his anger through his brother’s shoulders. “I paid your father’s damn blood debt! A debt you should have paid.”

Trystan’s pale blue eyes went soft. He blinked and looked aside. Vail felt the tension in his brother’s muscles slacken under his grasp. He stepped away from the werewolf.

He’d spoken the truth. Neither could deny it. Tryst and Rhys Hawkes, and perhaps even his mother, Viviane, owed him more than they could ever give. But Vail knew the blood debt was one bargain for which he’d never know reciprocation.

“Gentlemen?”

The security guard knew they were brothers.

“It’s cool, Harley,” Tryst said to the guard. “All in jest. Brotherly love, and all that crap.”

The guard nodded, but his smile didn’t express amusement.

The lanky wolf nodded once, an odd acknowledgment, which either agreed that, indeed, he should have paid the debt himself, or that he didn’t care what Vail had suffered.

Vail didn’t have to guess at his brother’s meaning.

Tryst curtly waved him off and strode toward the entrance, calling, “Stay out of my life, vampire!”

Vail flipped off the werewolf and jumped inside the elevator as the doors closed. Releasing his breath, he then shook out his fists, working his tense muscles loose.

The surprise of learning, three months earlier, he’d a brother could never top the innate desire to connect with Tryst. Vail didn’t know where that feeling came from, but he’d fight it to the death, if he had to. Tryst hated him without knowing him. Vail had best accept that.

You are unwanted in Faery. You will be unwanted in the mortal realm.

Tough words to hear from his enemy. But not difficult to believe they were true.

Landing at the top floor, he assumed calm as he slicked back his hair and strode into the marble hallway. The place always smelled like leather polish, and that disturbed his respect for nature.

The receptionist, a petite, strawberry blonde with a sexy librarian’s penchant for tight, tailored clothing, adjusted her glasses at the sight of Vail and sat straighter behind her desk, offering a bright red cupid’s bow smile.

Vail winked at her, and she noticeably swooned.

Mortals. They were too easy.

Hawkes was on the phone, and gestured him inside the sparely furnished, large corner office.

Swinging by the bar, Vail nabbed a goblet of the expensive wine and sucked it down. It tasted like fruit warmed by the sun, but could never match any faery vintage.

He walked to the window that wrapped the two corner walls of the office. Spreading out his arms, he felt the sudden daring desire to jump through the glass, to discover the exaltation of flight. Despite growing up in Faery, the closest he’d come to flying was a raging orgasm. Not to be disregarded on the list of adventures one must constantly pursue.

Yet any attempt at flight would result in a vampire smashed on the tarmac—not dead, but aching and damaged for weeks, surely. He’d save it for desperation.

Rhys Hawkes showed his age with sublime protest. Pushing three centuries, Hawkes had told Vail his hair had once been black with a gray streak striping one side. Now it was gray with threads of black here and there. His harsh European bone structure battled for notice but the man’s whiskey eyes were always what garnered observation.

The man was the father of Trystan Hawkes, Vail’s brother. Vail and Tryst had the same mother, Viviane LaMourette. He and his brother had been born on the same day; Vail first, then Trystan not two minutes later.

They were not twins.

Vail’s father was a vampire who had once been Rhys Hawkes’s nemesis—and his brother.

Viviane LaMourette was all vampire—bloodborn in the sixteenth century—but also insane.

What a twisted web woven through this family’s history, Vail thought with a mirthless smirk. Made for interesting coffee table talk, if one owned a coffee table. Well, he did own the coffeemaker.

Mortals and their curious habits.

Vail had never met his father. He would, as soon as he could get Hawkes to cough up information on how to find him. If anyone knew where to find Constantine de Salignac, it had to be his own brother. Yet Rhys had been evasive the first time Vail had begged the information from him.

Vail needed to see the man who had driven his mother insane. To look into his eyes, and to know whether or not his own eyes were the same. And then? Well, then.

Hawkes hung up and gestured for Vail to sit on the other side of the sleek stainless-steel desk before him. The man wore a comfortable gray sweater and dark jeans, and a silver wedding band on his left hand. He looked more Aging Rock Star than Vicious Half-Breed.

“I’m pleased you’ve come. It’s been months, Vaillant. How are you getting on in the mortal realm?”

Vail slouched onto the chair and propped an ankle across his opposite knee. He shrugged fingers through his hair, liking the scrape of the iron rings he wore on most fingers against his scalp. He noted Hawkes zoomed in on the rings.

Cracking a lazy grin, he tilted his head. “I’m assimilating. But it’s got nothing on Faery. So what’s up, Uncle?”

“You feel ready to visit your mother yet?”

Hell, not this scam again. Vail leaned his forearms onto his knees and shook his head.

No, he’d never met his mother. He was too freaked to know she was literally a loony after his father had buried her in a glass coffin under the city of Paris for over two centuries. Rhys had told him the tale when he’d first visited.

What was even freakier? Thanks to a warlock’s spell, Viviane LaMourette had been kept in a stasis for those centuries, alive and aware, yet frozen.

But the freakiest thing yet? She had been pregnant before being buried alive, and the stasis had also affected the embryos in her womb. She’d given birth to Vail and Tryst nine months after Rhys had finally found her in the twenty-first century. Two hundred and twenty-five years after she’d been buried.

Talk about a long gestation period.

He eyed Hawkes. Did the half-breed look hopeful? What was it with the paranormal breeds in this realm? They were all so … emotional.

Vail should have never left Faery. Not that he’d had much choice.

“A visit to my mother is not on my radar.”

Rhys tilted his head, nodding with weary acceptance. Vail could smell the man’s feral nature, and it reminded him of open fields dotted with summer blossoms, edged by verdant forest. And he could see a faint, red, ashy aura surrounding him, which proved there was vampire somewhere inside the man.

“That all you want from me, old man?”

“What’s that stuff?” Rhys pointed to Vail’s eyes. “You go out to a nightclub last night?”

“I do the clubs every night.” Vail smeared a forefinger under his eye, smudging the black ointment he wore. “It’s for the faeries. I need to be able to see them.”

“Hmm.” Hawkes nodded. “I suppose.” But he could never understand why.

When a mortal wanted to see a faery they smeared an herbal ointment around their eyes. When a vampire wanted to see one in the mortal realm, he did the same. The magical, mythical elixir never worked for mortals. It worked for Vail because he’d come from Faery and knew the right ointment to use—the ingredients could only be obtained from a sidhe healer.

“Makes you look like a rock star with a heroine addiction,” Rhys commented.

“I have no addictions,” Vail said, but was ashamed his voice faltered on the word addiction.

“Right.” Rhys leaned back in his chair, assessing Vail to the very marrow. A certain faery, Mistress of Winter’s Edge, had utilized the same assessing gaze on Vail. He had never liked that look, and so openly defied the man by stretching back his shoulders and looking down his nose at him.

“I need you to come to work for me,” Rhys said, repeating the same words he’d spoken the last three times he’d phoned Vail.

“Not this again—”

“This time it’s different,” he rushed out. “No office work. No pickups. This is a recovery mission. Actually, it’s a private investigation thing.”

Vail lifted an eyebrow. He had no such skills. “You lose something?”

He glanced to the wall where a large safe door hung open. The firm stored smaller items here in Rhys’s office, with a massive storage area in the basement of the building, which was entirely owned by Hawkes.

Inside the safe were priceless artifacts, totems, magical objects, currency in all denominations (and from all centuries), and other collectibles. Hawkes Associates was a security house for the paranormal nations, and took in objects of value and stored them for as little as a week or as long as centuries. If you were an immortal, it was a good thing to have a storage facility that would be there as you walked through the centuries. This Paris office was one of about half a dozen locations all over the world.

“As a matter of fact, something was stolen from us about a week ago. But that’s not the assignment. Well, it is, but not.”

“Don’t have time for this, old man, just spit it out.”

“Charish Santiago, kingpin for a splinter group of vampires unaligned with any tribe, wants me to find her daughter. She’s been kidnapped.”

“You want me to track a missing vampiress?” Vail thumbed his chin. “You know I don’t do vampires.”

“Yes, you can’t stand them. And yet you are one. How does that work again?”

“They disgust me.” Vail leaned forward. “They are weak, reek of mortal blood, and are unworthy of regard.”

Rhys sighed heavily and tapped his fingers on the desk. They’d had this conversation before. Vail didn’t need to convince the man of his prejudices. Hell, he knew it was a ridiculous prejudice. But when a vampire was raised in Faery, he developed certain dislikes, and vampires were one of them.

“What if I told you this mission isn’t going to benefit the vampires, but rather Faery?”

“I don’t get it.”

“A valuable Seelie court gown was also taken, along with the vampiress. Her name is Lyric Santiago. Seems she was wearing the gown at the time because she was about to hand it over to the Unseelie prince, or some dark lord—I don’t recall his title.”

“Lord of Midsummer Dark?”

“Yes, that’s him. I believe Zett is his name. You know him?”

The muscles strapping Vail’s jaw tightened. Zett had been his nemesis since childhood. But Vail had had the last laugh before being banished from Faery months earlier. Zett had been outraged. Heh.

“Ever wonder where the title Vail the Unwanted came from?” he tossed out.

Rhys nodded. “I see. So you don’t like the guy.”

Vail blurted out a huffing chuckle. “To put it mildly.”

“More reason to help me recover the gown.”

“And the vampiress?”

“Yes, her, too. But it’s the gown I’m focused on. Up until ten days ago, that gown was in the safe here in the office. We’d taken it in from the Seelie court as a means to cleanse it of some dark sidhe vibes. Something like that. I don’t understand it, only that it needed to be in the mortal realm a fortnight. They intend to reclaim it after that fortnight. Which is marked four days from now. Someone stole it from me, and I’ll give you one guess who that someone was.”

“The Santiago clan?”

Vail had heard the name muttered in the dark nightclubs as a connection to deeds even he could not fathom. The Santiagos were old-school vampire mafia, a self-styled tribe that followed none of the legitimate tribes’ ways. Thieves, cutthroats and murderers populated their ranks.

Vail avoided tribes—he didn’t require any modicum of family, no matter the form—but most especially he avoided the vampires.

“So why steal the thing, then put it on her daughter and hand her off to the Unseelie lord?”

“I’m told she was merely trying it on, and had intended to take it off before the exchange. I’m guessing the gown was leverage for something.”

“Not the daughter? What, is she ugly and has a snaggle-fang?” Vail chuckled to imagine a vampiress with such an affliction.

“She’s known as the ice princess, and I’m told she is stunning. Well, I’ve a picture here.” Rhys thumbed through a row of files in his bottom desk drawer and tossed a photo across the desktop to Vail. “I’m not sure what sort of deal was made between Santiago and the Midsummer darkness—”

“Lord of Midsummer Dark.”

“Yes, whatever. All I know is I need to get that gown back before the Seelie representative returns for it. The sidhe are the last nation on this earth I want to piss off.”

“You are not a wib, old man.”

“I don’t know Faery speak.”

“It means you’re not stupid.”

Vail leaned forward to glance at the photo. He wasn’t about to touch it—that would show too much interest—but then he did. Bright white teeth. Brilliant whites surrounding blue eyes. And long ribbons of white-blond hair. She was a stunner. And he could appreciate a gorgeous woman.

But not a vampire.

“So how is this not helping the vampires?”

“You find the woman and retrieve the gown,” Rhys explained. “We give the woman back to her mother, but—oops, we couldn’t retrieve the gown. The mother is happy to have her daughter back. And I have the gown in hand, ensuring the Seelie court is pleased with my work.”

“And Zett is left empty-handed.”

“Exactly.”

Vail thought about it. Why would a faery lord make a bargain with a vampire? Vampires stayed away from faeries because their ichor was addictive, and faeries generally regarded bloodsuckers as unclean and not worth a glance.

Something didn’t figure.

“You in?” Hawkes prompted.

“No.”

Vail stood and shoved a hand in his pants pocket. The pants were soft and well worn; buckles circling one thigh hung unbuckled here and there (though most of the unbuckling had been done by random women). So he was still wearing last night’s clothes. Sue him.

And yeah, he probably did look like some drug-addicted rocker, but he couldn’t deal with how vamps in this realm tried to appear similar to mortals just to fit in. Had to be exhausting.

“Vail.”

“I know the drill,” he rambled off quickly. “You need to do something with your life, Vaillant. You can’t walk about pissed at the world because you didn’t grow up with a mother and father. When will you claim your rightful power? You’re bloodborn! You could be so powerful in the vampire community! Did I get all that right, Hawkes?”

The man nodded.

“What power?” Vail challenged. “You say both my mother and father are bloodborn? Well, where is he? How am I to win this power without challenging him to what you say is mine?”

“Vail, Constantine is—”

“I know. A vicious old vampire who harmed you irreparably and drove my mother insane. Why didn’t you kill him when you had the chance?”

Hawkes lifted his chin, his lips compressing. After a moment’s heavy silence, he said, “He is my brother.”

“Right. Blood being thicker than water, and all that crap. Tell that to your son, who likes to slam me around every time he sees me. Blood means nothing. I know you think keeping my father’s whereabouts a secret from me is a means to protect me, but it’s not, Rhys.”

“I don’t know where he is!”

“How can you not?”

“It’s a long story.”

“Well, find him. I need to face him. I need to see where I came from.”

“The son is not a product of his father, Vail. You are what you were raised to be.”

“A fucked-up vampire who inhales faery dust like cocaine and wouldn’t touch one of his own kind if you paid him?”

“You still do dust?”

“No, just ichor.” It kept him alive. Mostly. “It is my breath. Without it I die.”

“It keeps you in a haze, Vail. You’ve never taken mortal blood. How do you know you will not like it? It would clear you. Only then will you see what you can become. Only then, can you claim the strength that is yours.”

Vail snorted. “I think I saw that movie. Use the force, Luke!” He shook his head and stomped toward the door. He’d known this visit would result in more of the same bullshit.

“All right!” Rhys called. “If you find the Santiago woman and return the gown safely to Hawkes Associates, I’ll tell you everything you want to know about your father.”

Vail paused before the glass door and pressed the silver toe of his boot against it, testing its strength until he heard the glass creak in the hinges. “All I want is an address,” he said.

“Done,” Rhys offered. “I’ll start looking for him immediately.”

Vail glanced over his shoulder and met the man’s tired gaze. Constantine de Salignac was Rhys Hawkes’s half brother. They too shared the same mother, but different fathers, though Rhys had been born ten years after his vampire brother.

The man had lived what Vail was now enduring. He knew what could hurt, harm and irreparably change Vail. Rhys just wanted to keep him safe.

Screw safety.

Vail wanted one moment with Constantine de Salignac. That was all he required to shove a stake through the bastard’s heart.

“Deal,” Vail said.