Deadly Is the Kiss (4 page)

Her head was starting to pound with the mother of all headaches. “I don’t know the answer to that, either. Maybe they didn’t know.”

He lifted one hand from his pocket, rubbing his palm along the edge of his hard, stubble-covered jaw. “Or maybe he or she wanted to be the one to decide how we ran into each other. We were more than likely being watched. Hell, they could still be watching us now.”

“What do you mean?”

“I was told to come to that restaurant to find you.”

Chills spread over the surface of her skin, her already frayed nerves unraveling even more. She couldn’t shake the horrible suspicion that she was just a pawn in a game being played out on a political chessboard, her family’s well-being simply some casualty of a power play. “Who was it?” she asked, wishing she wasn’t so afraid. And wishing she were better at hiding it. The slight flare of his nostrils as he pulled in a deep breath told her that Ashe had caught the embarrassing emotion on her scent. Fear was bad enough—but she hoped to hell he couldn’t detect the desire she was trying so hard to tamp down and ignore, fully aware this was neither the time nor the place…nor for that matter, the right man. Not unless she wanted to be made a fool of for the second time in her life.

“I don’t know who it was,” he finally said in response to her frantic question. “They sent some drugged-out vamp to relay the information to me.”

Pushing her hair back from her face, she exhaled a trembling breath. “Someone is setting this up to help me, but I swear I don’t know who. Or why? And why you? I mean, there are other Förmyndares with your connections. How did they connect us?”

He tried to conceal the flicker in his eyes by lowering his lashes, but she caught it. “What?” she demanded, fisting her hands at her sides. “Just tell me. What have you done?”

He ground his jaw so hard it looked painful. “I haven’t done anything other than ask questions about your family’s banishment.”

Frustration flared through her system, potent and hot. “Damn it! You just can’t leave well enough alone, can you?”

“I wanted answers!” he growled, his broad shoulders bunching with tension as he glared down at her.

“Even if they put you in danger?”

Her words seemed to throw him a little, as if he hadn’t expected her to care one way or another about his safety. Narrowing his eyes, he said, “I can handle whatever gets thrown at me, little girl. What I can’t handle are lies.”

She shoved that statement to the side, not wanting to think about it. “Well, it’s obvious why they picked you to help me. God, Ashe, your stupid questions about my family could be what set this whole thing off!”

Derision darkened his expression. “That’s a pretty big leap.”

“Ha! You’re stirring it up, making people question what happened nine years ago, and now they’ve decided to silence us!”

“And who exactly would ‘they’ be?”

“I can explain later.” She cast an uneasy look at the darkening sky. “Right now, we need to get someplace safe. I don’t like wandering the streets once the sun goes down. I was warned to be careful. If the assassins have any reason to suspect I’m no longer in the Wasteland, they’ll be coming for me.”

He turned his head to the side, lost in thought and pissed with her answer…or her lack of one. Anger radiated from his big body in powerful waves, a muscle pulsing in the hard line of his jaw as he stared into the thickening shadows.

“Ashe, please.” She took a step toward him, touching the steely strength of his arm, his biceps impossibly hard beneath the soft leather of his jacket. “We need to get moving.”

“You’re assuming I believe what you’ve told me,” he bit out, the expression in his hooded eyes impossible to read as he slowly brought his gaze back to hers. “But I don’t. There are too many damn holes in your story. I don’t believe in mysterious benefactors, and I don’t buy that you’re just caught up in some conspiracy about your family. You’re too involved in this, Juliana. There’s something about you that stands out. It’s why you carry so much guilt on your shoulders. Why you practically run that damn compound, working yourself to the bone to make sure that your family is as safe and as well cared for as they can be.”

She blinked up at him, too unnerved by his insight to argue his words. Instead, she latched onto one of the only bits of truth she could give him. “Ashe, no matter how this came about, the truth is that I do need your help,” she said, rubbing her hands over her arms to ward off the growing chill of the evening. “And, I hate to admit it, but I probably would have come to you anyway. Even without the letter I found in the pack.”

“Why? It’s no secret that we don’t get along.”

She couldn’t disagree with the statement, since it was true. She’d always been wary of the sexy vamp because of how badly she wanted him, while at the same time despising the way he lived his life, moving indiscriminately from one woman to another. It reminded her too much of another man she’d once known, and in this case, the adage of “once burned, twice shy” was a perfect fit.

And as for Ashe…well, she wasn’t exactly sure why he disliked her so intensely, aside from the fact that she was a convicted criminal. That definitely seemed to have put her on his shit list, whether she was innocent or not.

“That’s true,” she finally murmured. “But I’m not looking for someone to hang out with and be my pal. What I need is someone who can help me.”

Frustration coated his words. “I want to know what you’re up against. You’d better at least give me a name.”

“Fine.” Her breath shuddered past her lips. “If you must know, it was the Delacourts.”

Shock registered in his wide eyes with a look of instant recognition. “Raphe Delacourt?”

She wasn’t surprised he knew the name. Raphe Delacourt was a legendary crime lord who ruled the Deschanel underworld with a crafty intellect and bone-chilling ruthlessness…aided by lofty connections within the vampire hierarchy that protected him from the vampire Council’s laws.

“Yes,” she rasped, an unmistakable catch in her voice that she hoped he’d put down to fear. “Raphe…and his mother.” Lenora Delacourt was a longstanding member of the Deschanel Council. One who, with her son’s help, had managed to retain her position of power every time some crusading idealist tried to get rid of her. “Nine years ago, Raphe had her under his thumb, forcing her to follow his orders. As far as I know, he still does.”

“I don’t suppose you have any proof?”

She shook her head again. “The letter warned me that assassination orders had been purchased against my family by the Delacourts, but it was only a piece of paper. As for actual evidence, no, I don’t have any.”

“Of course not,” he mocked. A sarcastic smile twisted across his firm, masculine lips.

Bristling, she said, “Look, my family is living on borrowed time. Either agree to help me or don’t. But don’t waste my time.”

He moved a bit closer, his voice dropping to little more than a whisper. “And what will you do if I refuse?”

Hoping he couldn’t tell how badly his words affected her, Juliana scrounged up every ounce of bravado she could find. “Then I’ll find someone who
can
help me. You’re not the only Förmyndare I know.”

“But I
am
the one you came to first,” he murmured, arching one dark brow. “Which was either incredibly smart…or incredibly stupid.”

Her spine stacked up with indignation. “I’m not an idiot. I know what I’m doing.”

“Like hell. You don’t have a clue what you’re doing,” he snarled, all traces of his lazy arrogance vanishing beneath a rise of hard, biting fury. “Do you have any idea how foolish it was for you to sit out on that restaurant patio? You drew the eye of every damn male who walked by!”

“That’s ridiculous,” she scoffed.

“It’s the bloody truth, you blind little fool. I’d be willing to bet there are Förmyndares already out searching for you.”

“Not yet. Our compound isn’t scheduled for our quarterly check for another week. No one knows I’m missing.”

“You’d better hope to hell they don’t,” he ground out, coming even closer.

Craning her head back so that she could hold his stare, she said, “If I
am
being hunted, it won’t be by your colleagues. It’ll be by the same people who are trying to kill my family!”

A deep, shuddering breath shook his chest as his gaze moved slowly over her face, settling on her parted lips for several heart-pounding seconds before lifting back to her eyes. She wanted to look away, but she couldn’t. She was trapped, caught in the raw, primitive power of his stare, the force of emotion burning in the stormy depths of his eyes nearly making her gasp.

“I swear to God,” he warned in a tone that was low and dark and uncomfortably delicious. “If you’re lying to me, I’m going to drag your little ass back to that hellhole myself.”

“I’m not lying. Please, just bel—”

“Shut up.” One arm suddenly snaked around her waist like a steel band, crushing her against his body, while his other hand covered her mouth. She had no idea what was happening, but the leather of his jacket was wonderfully soft beneath her hands as they flattened against his chest, the smell of his skin outdoorsy and fresh, sending an unwanted surge of hunger through her veins, desire pooling low and deep in her belly.

Panicked by her reaction, Juliana had shoved his hand away from her mouth and drawn in a deep breath, preparing to tell him to get the hell away from her, when he slapped it over her mouth even harder.
“Quiet,”
he snapped, staring into the thick shadows that darkened the far end of the narrow lane. “Something’s coming,” he breathed out so softly, she could barely hear him.

Some
thing
…not someone.

Within seconds, there was a musky scent in the air, like a primal predator closing in, the cold breeze bringing a stronger whiff of the scent as it surged around them, blowing against her face. Her blood chilled, a different kind of fear quickly spiking through her system, sending her pulse racing.

Ashe’s jaw hardened, and she knew he could detect every shuddering beat of her terror. His eyes drifted closed for a moment as he pulled in a slow breath, his brow furrowed with a deep frown, as if he was carrying on some kind of troubling internal debate. Then he exhaled with a sharp huff, lifted his dark lashes and looked her right in the eye.

Their faces were close enough that she could feel the warmth of his breath against her cheek. “Whatever happens, stay behind me.”

She blinked, hope soaring, almost afraid to believe he wasn’t going to leave her to deal with the threat on her own.

“Thank—”

He cut her off before she could finish. “Don’t thank me too soon,” he growled in a low voice, turning so that his back was to her. “We haven’t made it out of here yet.”

“What do you think it is?” Juliana asked, releasing the talons at the tips of her fingers as Ashe did the same, her fangs dropping with a burn of heat as she prepared to do whatever she could to help him.

There was a surge of movement before he could answer, five hulking, fur-covered bodies prowling into the flickering glow of a neon sign. Werewolves. Big, ugly, nasty ones.

And the monsters looked hungry.