Sophia (18 page)

“So why send for Elke specifically?” she asked, stopping halfway across the room to confront him.

“I asked Duncan to reinforce the security on the compound with some of our own people. Not that I don’t trust Wei Chen or his guards, but mine are better.”

“So, Elke’s just part of that?”

Raphael closed the distance between them, brushing her body with his and cupping her face in both hands. He whispered a kiss against her forehead, her eyes, traced the soft fullness of her lips with his tongue before claiming her mouth with a long, slow kiss. She responded automatically, lifting herself onto her toes to meet him, her arms sliding beneath his jacket and curling around his back.

He gave up her mouth reluctantly, swirling his tongue over her lips and dropping several gentle, swift kisses on her mouth. “I love you, my Cyn.”

Her eyes were bright with emotion when they met his. “I love you, too. You know that.”

“I do.”

She blinked, suddenly recognizing she should be worried. “But?”

He smiled to reassure her. “No but,
lubimaya
.”

“Don’t
lubimaya
me, you sneaky bastard. I know a ‘but’ when I hear one.”

Raphael laughed. “I told you, I’ve decided you’re right.”

“About what?” she demanded.

“About your need to move about more freely while we uncover whoever’s behind these murders. I brought you here, after all, not just because I wanted you with me—”

Cyn scoffed noisily and he smiled.

“I
would
miss you, my Cyn,” he chided.

“Uh huh. Go on.”

“I
also
brought you with me to make use of your investigative skills. Skills which you cannot employ fully if you’re pinned to my side all night and day.”

She was listening to every word, clearly trying to find the catch. And there was a catch, Raphael knew. He just hadn’t gotten to it yet.

“On the other hand—” he began.

“I
knew
it.”

“—because your safety is far more important to me than your investigative skills—”

“I am
not
going to hide out here in the basement while you and everyone else get to—”

“I’ve brought in the appropriate personnel,” Raphael continued, talking over her protest, “to serve as your bodyguards.”

She stared at him open-mouthed. “Fuck that! That’s the real reason Elke’s here, isn’t it? You lied to me. She
is
my babysitter.”

“She is one of your
bodyguards
, just as Juro and the others are mine. You’re the one who insists I need protecting. Surely one could argue the same of you?”

“It’s not the same. You’re the damn vampire lord! Everyone wants to take you out. No one up here even knows who I am. They—”

“Of course they do.” Raphael’s temper finally snapped. “Three minutes after you walked down that poor excuse for a main street, every soul in this misbegotten village knew
exactly
who you were and what you were doing here. You’re being unreasonable.”

“
I’m
being unreasonable? Fine. Elke can sit and watch me read all fucking night long, then. I’ll just wait until the sun comes up and then go about my business. Unless you’re planning on chaining me to your bed every morning, too?”

Raphael fought for patience. If any of his vampires had spoken to him thus, they’d have been groveling on the floor by now, begging for their foolish lives. But, as she pointed out to him over and over again, Cyn was not one of his vampires. And the last thing he wanted was to see her hurt. Which was why they were having this damn argument in the first place.

“I would not require anything so crude as chains to keep you here if I chose,” he said at last. “However, when you leave the compound in daylight, a human guard will accompany you.”

“No.”

“Yes, my Cyn.”

“You can’t do that.”

“I can.”

“Fine. You go ahead, assign your little watchdog. I’ll just ditch him,” she retorted childishly.

“Oh, no,
lubimaya
. I know you far too well to trust your cooperation. If you
ditch
your assigned guard, there will be a price.”

“I’m terrified,” she drawled.

Raphael gave her a slow, satisfied smile. She saw it and gasped softly. “What?” she breathed.

“There
will
be a price, my Cyn, but you will not be the one to pay it. Your human bodyguard will. And I think we both know the price I would exact for a failure of this nature.”

“You can’t do that.”

“Of course, I can.”

“There are rules, Raphael. You can’t just—”

“Ah, but, my Cyn, I am Vampire. I don’t follow
your
rules.”

She glared at him, hearing her earlier words thrown back at her. “Fine,” she snapped, ripping off her jacket and starting on her shoulder harness. “Have fun in Vancouver. I’m not going.”

“I didn’t think you would,” he said mildly. “Should you decide to go out later this evening, Elke will be waiting for you upstairs.”

He pulled her toward him as she slipped out of her shoulder holster, drawing her in for an entirely different sort of kiss, this one hard and proprietary. She kissed him back, giving as good as she got, and finally bit his lower lip until he laughed and stepped away. He watched her lick his blood from her mouth, seeing the flush it brought to her cheeks, and felt his groin grow heavy in response.

He met her gaze, which was half angry and half aroused. “Be safe,
lubimaya,
” he said and left her there, not looking back until he was inside the elevator and the doors were almost closed. He met her eyes at the last moment and saw her lips move almost silently.

“You, too,” she said.

Chapter Nineteen

Raphael came out of the elevator, locking it behind him. It wouldn’t lock Cyn in, but it would keep anyone else out. Elke was waiting for him, standing in the open doors between the elevator hallway and the great room where she could see anyone coming or going from either area.

“My lord.”

“She doesn’t go anywhere alone,” he ordered. “Nowhere, Elke.”

“Yes, my lord.”

Raphael met her eyes with a flat stare, emphasizing the seriousness of his order. He knew all too well Cyn’s ability to talk people into things they wouldn’t do otherwise, and she and Elke were friends of a sort. But he was Elke’s Sire and his will would trump or heads would roll.

He put all of this into a single glance that had Elke stiffening to attention. “I will protect her, my lord. On my life.”

Raphael nodded and turned his attention to Duncan, who’d crossed to his side. “Sophia is waiting outside, Sire. And our people are working on ferreting out Colin Murphy’s record. Maxime insisted on doing it herself. She seemed to feel cracking the Defense Department’s records would be an enjoyable exercise of her skill.”

“I’d rather she focus on the possible breach of security.”

“I said as much to her, but she indicated the diagnostics will run without her intervention for several hours, while the records search on Murphy would take, in her words, a fun few minutes.”

“Tell her to keep in touch, Duncan. This little trip to Vancouver will probably take up most of the night.”

“I’ve already instructed her to call as soon as she has anything.”

Their conversation had taken them across the great room to where Juro waited near the entrance. At a nod from Raphael, the big vampire opened one of the heavy glass doors to admit a blast of wet, cold air.

“Lovely weather,” Raphael commented.

“Yes,” Duncan agreed. “Perhaps we should consider relocating from the Malibu estate.”

Raphael grunted and climbed through the open door of the waiting SUV, sliding across the bench seat to make room for Duncan. “I shall give the idea all due consideration,” Raphael replied.

The journey to the border was surprisingly quick. The three SUVs slowed as they neared the boundary between the U.S. and Canada, and Raphael waited to feel the press of Lucien’s power against his own. It struck him that he should have sensed the first trickles of the other vampire lord’s power long ago, leaking across their territorial lines. He knew with certainty that Lucien could detect
his
power from well inside the Canadian side of the border, even within his own lair. Try as they might to respect each other’s sovereignty, power was not something that could be cut with a knife. There was always leakage.

But tonight, there was nothing of Lucien to be felt, not even within the border checkpoint, where they waited while the Canadian agents verified their identification. Sophia’s Brazilian passport caused a small delay, but only because it was unexpected. Raphael and his people were all perfectly legal citizens of the U.S. and carried valid passports to prove it. Vampires might not consider themselves subject to human law, but neither did they flaunt it unnecessarily.

As they waited, Raphael sent out feelers, searching for Lucien, but he still felt nothing at all. He frowned, concentrating harder as they crossed the territorial line and headed toward the lights of nearby Vancouver.

“We’ll go to Lucien’s headquarters, Juro,” he said, suddenly. “Have Sophia call ahead to prepare his staff. I don’t want any pointless shows of defiance.”

“Yes, my lord,” Juro said and gave directions over the radio to the SUV in front of them.

Raphael paid little attention to the city as they sped through. The clouds had closed in again, cloaking everything in darkness, but the general impression was one of a typical big city, with its brightly lit business and residential towers marching right up to the water’s edge. Streets and highways were full of cars and trucks, and even at this hour, they had to slow several times for traffic. There were occasional flashes of the bay, but that too was crowded, with fishing boats and warehouses.

Raphael was certain the humans who lived here were fond of their city, and he knew it had a deserved reputation for sophistication and charm. He also knew that Los Angeles was a far more crowded city. But then, he rarely had to deal with L.A.’s suburban sprawl or its packed freeways. When he thought of L.A., it was only of his estate in Malibu with the endless, empty sea stretching beyond the cliffs below his home.

As they neared the city center, Raphael finally felt the first stirring of power, so faint he would never have credited it as coming from the Canadian lord if he didn’t know better. Sitting quietly in the backseat, he tried to reach out, to grab hold of the weak tendril and follow it to its origin, but it was gone, lost in a wash of general vampiric power. Most of Lucien’s Canadian vampires lived here in Vancouver, and most were concentrated in the downtown area. There was a large contingent in Toronto and a smaller one in Montreal, with the rest scattered throughout the vast Canadian territory. But none of those equaled the Vancouver nest in size, simply because this was the city where Lucien spent most of his time.

Even so, it shouldn’t have been possible for a vampire lord’s signature to be lost among those of his subjects. Something was seriously wrong with Lucien, and Raphael was beginning to suspect he knew what it was. But first, he would have to deal with Lucien’s people, who would not welcome his intrusion into their master’s domain.

* * * *