Harlequin Nocturne May 2015 Box Set: Wolf Hunter\Possessed by a Wolf (31 page)

“That's new,” Faran said, his voice brittle with disgust.

Lexie's lips moved in a silent curse. She took a step toward Faran. His arm circled her waist and pulled her away from the smoking ruin. He'd gone pale, but his hand was firm and warm against her. They stopped a few yards away, Lexie stumbling against Faran. She leaned into him, grateful for the solid wall of his body. Lexie wanted to bury her face against him like a child and wish the world away, but instead she simply stood with her head bowed, her back against his chest. His support, at least, was something she could accept.

For that instant, she could almost believe that everything would be all right. They'd stopped fighting each other and conquered a common enemy. But now her nerves were jittering, flooding every muscle with the need to move. She curled her fingers, nails biting into the palms of her hands. It was as if a spring was overwound inside her and fighting that energy would only make her crack.

In the distance, Lexie heard the wail of distant sirens. Had somebody on one of the nearby farms heard the gunshots? “Do you think that's the police? Are they coming for us?”

“Do you feel like trusting our luck?” Faran replied in a weary tone.

She looked at the crumpled car, the stinking smear on the ground where Gillon had been, and at the glittering—stolen—rubies on her hand. Even with no actual dead body, there was no way this would end well.

Her hand gripped Faran's. “You know how I like to run?”

Pressed against him, she felt as much as heard his reply. “Yup. I'm right behind you. Let's get out of here.”

Chapter 7

F
aran studied the image of Serge Gillon on Lexie's phone, anger prickling his skin. “Now that I look at him again—when he's not strangling me—I do recognize him. That's one of the guards who chased me last night. He has to be connected with the Vidonese.”

They were sitting on a bench in one of the back streets near the palace, counting on the afternoon shadows to hide their dirt-streaked clothes. Both of them had needed a moment to regroup. Faran's side ached; the wound had reopened during the fight. They'd driven back in the Peugeot, this time with Faran at the wheel. He'd taken some questionable goat paths to avoid the emergency vehicles summoned by the gunshots, much to the distress of the vehicle's paint job. But it wasn't as though the car didn't already need repairs after being run off the road, and a mechanic's bill was the least of their worries.

Lexie's face was wan, making the scattered freckles stand out along her cheekbones. For an instant, Faran thought she might throw up. “Are you all right?” he asked.

She sat back, swallowing hard. “I don't deal well with violence.”

“I know.”

Lexie shook herself, visibly sliding her tough-girl mask back into place. “I don't suppose anybody does.”

Faran shrugged. “No one is supposed to.”

“But you're used to it?”

“No one likes an emo werewolf.” He gave her a bitter smile. “I'm one of those things that go bump in the night, remember?”

She turned a shade paler, licking her lips. “I do. You're good at violence when you need to be.”

“Yeah, well, it comes with the package.” Sadness burned like silver.

Her mouth tightened. “Why do you think Gillon was after us? To get to you?”

Faran dragged his brain back to the problem in front of them. “Maybe. It would be flattering to have my own personal assassin. How thoughtless of me to break him so soon.”

She heaved a sigh. “So what do we do next?”

“I think we need to return the ring, and then you need to get out of Dodge. Whether it was me he was after or not, it's not safe for you here.”

She ducked her head, but then raised it slowly, her hazel eyes dark with something he couldn't name. “You're getting rid of me?”

Faran couldn't stop a wry smile—even though his insides lurched. “I don't know what that thing was back there. I'd rather you were far away right now.”

“Do I get a choice?”

But you're so good at walking away. Why stop now?
Faran mentally slapped himself. He might be angry, but he had to be fair. As little as she hated violence, Lexie had fought bravely that day, as coolheaded as any Company warrior. Whatever else, she was good in a crisis—and with a tire iron. “Do you want to stay?”

Her fingers twisted in her lap. “Will it help if I do?”

Faran could see the reluctance in the set of her mouth, but there was also determination there. Lexie clearly wanted to do the right thing, and he had to respect that. “One step at a time. We should deal with the ring right away. The sooner it's back with Amelie, the better.”

“Okay,” she said, shifting impatiently. “Then let's go.”

They rose from the bench and began walking. Pigeons fluttered away from their feet as they stepped off the curb and took a cobbled alleyway between bookstores and an antiques emporium. Faran cast a glance around, memorizing faces. He wasn't going to let his guard down again.

Lexie hunched her shoulders, slowing to a stop. “I need to see Valois,” she said in a low voice. “His men seized my camera equipment.”

“Why?” He stopped as well, turning to face her.

“I think they assumed the ring was hidden inside.”

Faran winced. Although there were other, more pressing dangers than damage to her cameras, Lexie was madly protective of her equipment. Small wonder, since some of it was insanely expensive. “Once your name is cleared, there's no reason for Valois to keep your things. Is there any danger they'll erase the photos you've taken?”

“No,” she said, sounding relieved for the first time. “There are too many publications who'd pay top dollar for pictures of this wedding. I've been keeping the memory cards with me.”

People were starting to notice them standing there, deep in conversation. He urged her forward with a hand on her back. She shivered slightly, and he released her. His old anger—the one that resented her fear of the wolf—flared up, but he forced himself to let it go. They'd fought together. They were solving problems. That had to suffice for now.

But his old feelings refused to be silenced. This uneasy truce would never be enough. He loved her.

And yet she'd left with no more than a note scribbled with two words:
I'm sorry
. There was no reason to think anything would ever be different.

Lexie hugged herself, looking miserable. “If Valois suspects us already, if we just walk into the palace and hand the ring over, won't they think we took it?”

“You're asking for my advice?”

“I'm asking for your help. The prince and princess know you and they trust the Company. I'm asking you to go with me and help me clear my name.” She brushed her hair back in a gesture he knew all too well. “I have no right to, but I am.”

Faran cleared his throat. He should have been happy, or vindicated, but what he felt was too complicated for that. He'd assumed he'd go with her, but as usual Lexie had been planning on her own. She'd never thought like part of a couple. “Of course,” he kept his voice cool. “I owe you for last night. It's the least I can do.”

“Okay.” Lexie's eyes held something almost like regret. She parted her lips to speak, but then pressed them tightly together. The clouds had thinned and the winter sun washed her in a clean white light that recalled another moment long ago.

She had stood in the middle of their Paris apartment, wearing nothing but a wispy white silk robe. The late morning sun had turned her long waves of red hair to molten gold. He'd spent the night tangling it with their lovemaking, and it had been wild as a fairy woman's locks. At that moment, he'd decided she was the one love he'd want forever.

The whole thing had been a terrible idea—a foolish, romantic, awful idea that had proved how young he was, despite all his years on the street. He'd been a grubby urchin clutching at a work of art.

He sucked in his breath, forcing the memory away, but the emotion lingered. “Let's get this over with.” It came out almost as a growl.

She gave him a startled look, but he ignored it. He'd have to ignore everything about her if he didn't want to go mad. He couldn't bring back the past, and why would he? It had fallen apart in his hands.

This is just business
.

* * *

Returning the ring right away meant getting a private audience with Princess Amelie on short notice. Since Chloe was in constant communication with Amelie and her staff about the wedding, she was the logical one to help. Chloe's schedule made her hard to reach, but by the time they reached the palace, she'd finally returned Lexie's call.

“I'll see what I can do,” Chloe said briskly, back in wedding-wrangler mode. “You and Faran stand by.”

“Stand by?” Lexie sighed, putting her phone away. She didn't want to wait. She wanted desperately to thrust the ring at Amelie and then jump on a plane. “That requires doing something with ourselves in the meantime. Without being arrested again.”

“I can't see how we can possibly manage,” Faran replied in a dry tone. “Perhaps if I stand very still. Oh, wait. That's loitering.”

“With you it's more like looming.”

He gave her a wounded look that seemed too real. “I don't loom.”

Barely an hour ago, Lexie had seen him twist in the air and land like a cat. The memory of it still made her shiver. “Lurking, then. You've got to stipulate to the occasional lurk.”

“I'll plead you down to hovering with intent.”

He was hiding behind jokes—and that had always driven her crazy. Yet now it was weirdly comforting. Everything was in turmoil, but Faran remained stubbornly who he was.

They waited for Chloe in the Queen's Gallery, which was a long, wide hallway that stretched from one side of the palace to the other. The walls were molded plaster, the ceilings high and painted with designs of cherubs and clouds. Hung with selections from the royal family's considerable art collection, it was one of the attractions open to the public. Normally it would have been packed, but there were no tourists that day, since security was on high alert. They had the place to themselves.

It was the first time Lexie had been able to see the pictures without being elbowed by the crowd and, despite her mood, their beauty pulled her in. She wandered slowly from one canvas to the next, so lost in the study of colors and textures that she almost forgot everything else. Art was an almost physical pleasure for her, the sight of it as tangible to her as a bubble bath or silk against her skin. It was one of the few things that could make her stay still.

And it mercifully stopped the image of the melting
thing
in the woods from replaying on an endless loop through her mind, though nothing drowned out her hyperawareness of Faran's prowling, restless presence.

She stopped before a portrait of a rugged young cavalier sprawled in an armchair, dangling a broad-brimmed hat in one hand, the feather sweeping the floor. His eyes were half-closed, as if he was amused and bored and maybe a little drunk. He might have been one of the three musketeers. Strangely, there was no card to identify either the subject or the artist.

“He looks familiar,” Lexie said. “I know it's not possible, but I could swear I'd met him.”

Faran had finally sat on a bench, his hand pressed to his ribs as if his wound hurt. “Take away the moustache and beard.”

She squinted, studying the shape of the eyes and nose. “He looks a lot like Chloe's uncle.” Chloe had lived with Jack Anderson after her parents died, and Lexie had been to her house plenty of times during their college years. Jack had been funny, dashing and kind. Of course, as a vampire hundreds of years old, Jack was an ancestor rather than an actual uncle—not that either girl had known it at the time.

“Jack lived in Marcari in the old days. He was one of the king's favorite companions,” said Faran.

Lexie let out her breath with a whoosh of surprise. “Of course.”

Unfortunately, he'd been burned to death in a car crash not all that long ago. A really hot fire was one of the few ways to kill a vampire—even the Horseman named Death.

“He used to call me Little Red,” said Lexie. “He thought I was skinny and kept trying to feed me whenever I visited Chloe.”

Faran rose to stand beside her. His mouth turned down in a rare show of emotion and was silent so long she wondered if he'd say anything more. When he did, his tone was wry. “He arrested me when I was sixteen and gave me a choice to clean up my act or else. He never said what that
or else
was, but I was scared enough that I listened. Jack could be...daunting.”

Arrested?
So that was the end of the cat burglar story! “He must have been something to impress a sixteen-year-old.”

Faran gave a lopsided smile. “I thought he was a stuck-up corpse with delusions of social reform. I thought he was torturing me.”

“Why?”

“He made me go to school—I had to do both academics and a trade. Pure hell. It was a long time before I appreciated any of what he did.”

Lexie had never heard any of this before. The moment felt rare and easily lost, as if she held a feather that would fly away if she so much as breathed the wrong way. “Is that how you got your chef's papers?”

Faran cast her a sidelong look, his blue eyes bright. “Yup. I had to work at an honest job for years before he let me near the spy game. He made me learn discipline. Horrible man. He probably saved my life.”

“And you learned to make those crispy shrimp things. You know, the ones with lemon.”

“You remember those?” A flash of pride flickered and was gone almost before she caught it.

“Uh-huh.” Lexie was adrift in memory and salivating just a little. “You turned out okay.”

Given their history, it was the wrong thing to say. His back stiff, Faran turned away from the portrait of his mentor. “I manage functional adulthood at least once a week.”

“And the rest of the time?”

His eyes scanned the ceiling. “Same old stuff. I save the world. Day in. Day out. It's a living.”

“Does it really need that much saving?”

“Look around. You see paintings, but my mind goes automatically to how I could crack the security system. I know the kind of people out there because I've been one of them.”

Lexie was speechless. Coolly, Faran checked his phone. “Still nothing from Chloe.”

Confession time was over. Disappointment itched. Lexie wanted to say something to smooth the sharp edges in his tone, but she was fresh out of clever words.

Any answer she might have made was drowned out by a burst of noisy conversation echoing off the gallery walls. A gaggle of young men in tennis whites burst through a side door that led into the private part of the palace. The way they walked—as if they owned the world and everyone in it—made Lexie tense. They reminded her too much of her brother, Justin, and her body gathered itself for flight. As if he sensed her apprehension, Faran closed the gap between them until he was almost touching her shoulder.

The man in the lead was Prince Leo, looking in surprisingly good spirits despite the events of last night. “Why, it's the heavenly Ms. Haven,” he said, changing course in her direction.

She had to admit Prince Leo looked good in whites, the crisp, bright clothes showing off his dark coloring. He had the same classic good looks as his brother, but they were muted—as was his popularity and his talent in school and on the playing field. It was as if he got a smaller helping of everything than the heir of Vidon.