Xavier: Vampires in Europe (Vampires in America Book 14) Read online

  Walking back to the table, she pulled out the chair opposite his, sat down, and took a long sip of her drink before lifting her gaze to his. “So, what’s this all about?”

  He shrugged, feeling the same sensory tug from her that he always had. The only difference was that he knew what it was now. He’d figured it out before she’d left for university. It was one of the main reasons he’d let her go. And, yes, he had let her go, because he could have stopped her with a single word if he’d chosen to.

  “It’s as I said. This was your first full day. I thought we might discuss it.”

  It was her turn to shrug. “It’s not like I haven’t been doing the same job for years. The location changes, but nothing else does. People are people. Buildings are buildings.”

  He raised a skeptical eyebrow.

  She rolled her eyes and said, “Fine. Buildings change. A lot. Which affects tactical planning. But I deal with that on every new assignment.”

  “Like the vineyard? What are you doing there? No, the real question is what Clyde Wilkerson is doing that requires a special forces level of military protection.”

  “You know Wilkerson?”

  “We’ve met.”

  “Before we started working for him obviously, since I never heard of it.”

  “What’s the answer?”

  She tilted her head, then said, “Oh, right. Wilkerson’s not doing anything except having a lot house guests and parties with the rich and famous. I’m sure there are illegal substances making the rounds during both of those activities, but we have nothing to do with it. Besides, he’s too rich to get picked up on a drug charge. You’re rich—you understand that.”

  His mood had softened along with her attitude, though he remained cautious. “I don’t give or attend parties anymore. I never enjoyed them, and haven’t seen the need for a very long time.”

  She gave him a real smile. “You’ll get a reputation if you keep that up. The billionaire vampire recluse. They’ll make movies about you if you’re not careful.”

  “I’ll keep that in mind.” He sipped his wine and said, “No new attack today.”

  “No, not so much as a single head popping up to spy on us. I’m not sure what that means, though, since we can’t figure out what they want, and they don’t seem inclined to tell us. I’ve decided to bring in a couple of the people from my team to help out. Not—” She held up a hand to forestall his objection. “Not for regular guard duties. You don’t need that. The Fortalesa is well-fortified and relatively easy to defend with the number of daylight guards you already have. Not to mention your vampires if these assailants are stupid enough to continue past sunset. Which they haven’t been, so far.

  “But my colleagues bring some specific talents of their own, including a wealth of battlefield experience that your people simply don’t have. And I wouldn’t expect them to. They’ve been trained to defend this very defensible stationary position. My team specializes in maneuvering through and behind enemy lines for both reconnaissance and sabotage, which is both effective and demoralizing. Also—and don’t brush this off without listening first—I want to bring in one of the women on my team. Kerry Nask. She gets very reliable . . . hunches, I guess you could call them.”

  He drew a slow breath and let it out. “I am not one to discount the possibility of hunches, though humans tend to see magic where it’s not. Many of you assume the process of becoming vampire is itself a function of magic. It is not, in fact, but the mistaken belief among humans serves us well.”

  Her eyes went wide with curiosity. “If the vampire thing doesn’t use magic, then what happens to you guys? What’s the truth?”

  “A secret. One which we only share with those very few humans we trust absolutely.”

  She frowned. “Does my father know?”

  He wanted to laugh. She was so predictably competitive, even with her own father whose job she’d now taken over, which she took to mean that she should know everything he did. Xavier almost regretted disappointing her. “Ferran does not know. There’s no reason he needs to.”

  “Oh. Damn.” She laughed and every nerve, every blood cell in his body paid attention.

  It was such a free sound, the laugh of a small child who hadn’t yet learned that the world was a dangerous place. And for the briefest moment, it transformed her features, making her resemble the young woman she’d been before she left. Before she’d not only learned of the world’s danger, but had gone out and dealt with it in some of the most brutal conflicts around the globe.

  “You’re staring,” she said softly. “Did I get too close to some secret?”

  He shook his head and forced himself to relax. “No, I was just . . . surprised. You haven’t seemed very happy to be back. You’ve been mostly angry . . . at me.”

  She regarded him silently, then said, “I was. I’ve been nursing hurt feelings from that last night for years—probably blowing it up in my mind to be more than it was. But now . . . I hate to say it—your ego’s big enough—but—” She made a slight shrugging motion with one shoulder. “You were right. I was a stupid teenager, which is redundant, I know. But you could have taken advantage of my stupidity. A lot of men would have. And you didn’t. I should probably thank you.” She grinned abruptly. “But I’m not that evolved yet.”

  He grinned back at her, more relieved than she could possibly know that they’d achieved, if not friendship, then at least a détente. “And now?” he asked, knowing he was pushing her, but unwilling to let it go.

  “And now I’m here, and we’re working together. I’d be stupid to sit around sulking instead of doing my job.”

  So. She wasn’t yet ready to accept what was between them. He could wait.

  He nodded once and said, “Bring whichever colleagues you think are necessary or useful while we figure this out. Did your father tell you how to invoice the Fortalesa for the services or supplies you need?”

  “He left notes. I’m sure I can figure it out, but if not, one of the guys I’m bringing in is a mathematical genius. How difficult can it be?”

  “Not at all. Or so I’m told. I don’t do accounts payable.”

  She chuckled. “Was that a joke, Lord Xavier? Did you hurt anything?”

  “Very funny,” he said dryly. “There’s much you don’t know about me.”

  She gathered her papers and stood. “I’m sure that’s true.” But then she looked at him in chagrin. “I’m sorry. I’m getting ready to leave here, and I didn’t even ask if there was something else you wanted to address.”

  “No, that was everything. When will your people arrive?”

  “Tomorrow probably, the next day at the latest. I’m not asking for the whole team, just a few specialists who really aren’t necessary at the damn vineyard.”

  “If you all dislike the assignment in France, why are you still there?”

  “We signed a contract for eighteen months, covering two harvests. That’s the big party time in the world of vineyards, apparently. Especially the ones that are nothing but vanity properties for billionaires. It pays well, and Wilkerson isn’t a bad guy. When I took the contract, we’d just come off a brutal assignment. Every one of us was injured and exhausted, a couple of the guys pretty seriously. A peaceful cruise of a job sounded pretty good, so we took it.” She sighed. “You know what they say, right? Be careful what you wish for? Yeah, well, turns out we’re a bunch of adrenaline junkies who, after three months of sitting around the vineyard, started getting stir crazy. It’s been over a year now, and we’ve begun inventing dangerous things to do.”

  “And now you’re here, where people are shooting at you.”

  She made a dismissive noise. “This barely qualifies as being shot at, believe me. You don’t know some of the places we’ve all been.”

  Actually he did, but he didn’t tell
her that.

  She picked up her whiskey and drained the glass. “Same time tomorrow?” she asked.

  He nodded. “Same.”

  She gave a little salute and said, “See you then.”

  XAVIER LISTENED to her footsteps moving down the hall, heard the heavy door open as she took the stairs up to the shaded courtyard outside the Fortalesa’s vampire wing. She was only able to come and go freely because he’d inputted her likeness into the biometric database controlling the various locks. It gave her access to most of the vampire wing, but not all. There were vaults on the floor beneath this one. A second basement level where he and his vampires slept during the day. Very few humans ever gained access to that floor, much less to the vaults themselves. And no one did so without his personal approval.

  Layla would eventually be one of those people, although she didn’t know it yet. She probably didn’t even know, didn’t understand, that she very likely would become important to him, that she’d be given extraordinary access. That someday she might even hold the very lives of his vampires in her hands. She would hold his life, too. And he had never sufficiently trusted anyone, vampire or human, to put his life in their hands.

  But he would do it for Layla. Because he’d finally figured out what the pull was that he felt toward her. The same kind of pull that he’d bet millions she also felt toward him. Because Layla was the one woman whom he could truly love, the woman who was destined to be his mate. He hadn’t believed in destiny when he’d been human. The church taught free will and he’d believed, helped by the fact that he’d come from two loving parents and enough wealth to determine his own future.

  Now, centuries later, fate seemed determined to prove its power. He and Layla were both either totally fucked, or incredibly lucky. From the vantage point of his much greater lifespan, as well as the fact that he’d figured out what was between them a long time ago, he knew he had no choice. He loved Layla as much as he always had, but those feelings had matured over the years. She’d become a woman and gained experience of life and death. Layla was the love of his life, his mate.

  But only if she made the same choice. And he had no fucking clue whether she would or not.

  LAYLA WAS GLAD for the moonless night when she opened the outside door and stepped into the courtyard. She’d managed to make it up the stairs and out of the building without crying, but as if opening the damn door had flicked a switch, a silent flood of tears began flowing over her cheeks to drip off her jaw. She didn’t want anyone to see, didn’t want anyone to ask her what was wrong.

  What could she tell them? That she was fool enough to fall in love with a vampire? Hell, there wasn’t any falling involved. She’d fallen a long time ago, but had worked so hard convincing herself that she hated him that she’d begun to believe it.

  But not any longer. One look at him and she’d known it had been a mistake to come back. It hurt to sit across the table from him without touching, to talk about inventory and weapons, and training and all the other bullshit that was so important, but wasn’t what she wanted to say. Wasn’t what she wanted to do. She wasn’t a teenager anymore, with no knowledge of what it meant to have sex. That it could be so much more than an athletic exercise. That your soul was laid bare and the only barrier you had was the absence of any deeper emotion. Love. She’d never loved any of the men she’d dated, had sex with. Hell, some of them had been more sex than dating. They simply hadn’t mattered to her, any more than she’d mattered to them. And she’d been fine with that.

  But she had no barriers with Xavier. He was so circumspect with her, so damn careful to maintain his distance, to limit their exchanges to professional concerns. That smooth whiskey voice of his that could be so warm and inviting with others, remained cool and distant with her. Just the sound of it was like a knife in her chest.

  She wanted to think it had been a mistake to come back, after all. That she could have found someone else to step in until her father returned, excusing her reluctance by insisting she wanted to be in Barcelona with her father and mother. Hell, Brian would have done it, and with a lot less drama on both sides. Would Xavier have approved Brian, she wondered? Or was there a perverse part of him that had wanted her to be the one to come, so he could prove, without a doubt, that there could never be anything between them, that he’d done the honorable thing, the moral thing by turning her away all those years ago.

  Well, if that’s what he’d wanted, he’d gotten it. She’d admitted he’d been right back then. Maybe she should leave now, after all. Maybe Xavier wouldn’t even object if she did so. Brian would be arriving soon enough. He could easily take over, and she could go back to France and the vineyard.

  That’s what she’d do. She’d call Brian tonight, before she fell asleep, so he and Kerry and one or two others could catch a morning flight and be here by tomorrow afternoon. That would allow twenty-four hours to transition between the two of them, and she could leave for France the next day.

  Her eyes ached from the combination of tears and not enough sleep by the time she let herself into the apartment. Dropping everything on the kitchen table, she made her way to the bathroom, where she soaked a washcloth in cold water, then laid down on her bed with it over her eyes. She’d just rest there for a few minutes, until her eyes felt better. Then she’d brush her teeth and call Brian before going to sleep. That was the plan.

  The next thing she knew, the sun was in her eyes.

  Chapter Eight

  LAYLA HATED running late, especially when it was only her second day on a job. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d slept through her alarm. That had to be what had happened, she thought as she climbed the stairs to the top of the wall, taking them two at a time. She hadn’t so much as checked her phone this morning, to see if her regular alarm was still set, or if she’d somehow switched it off. Why the hell would she do that? No, she’d slept right through the damn thing.

  When Layla stepped out onto the wall, Danilo was there, standing with legs braced in a resting position as she stared out over the gate.

  “Sorry I’m late,” Layla said, joining the other woman.

  Danilo glanced at her watch, then looked at Layla in surprise. “Five whole minutes,” she said.

  “Still, it won’t happen again. Let’s walk. You can give me your report.”

  They started off at a slow pace, taking time to scan the surrounding forests, giving special attention to the trees beyond the kill zone in the rear of the Fortalesa, where they’d found the young woman’s body the previous day. No missing person reports had come in, which wasn’t a surprise. If she lived out of the area, or even worse, in another country, it could take weeks or months before the report made it this far. Xavier’s data gathering operation had all the advantages the latest tech could give them, but law enforcement didn’t always share. Or if they did, it was low priority. Especially for one missing young woman. Now, if she’d been wanted for murder or something equally heinous, the process would have worked more efficiently. Hell, for all they knew, no one had even missed her yet. Her family might assume she was still away at college, working hard.

  “We didn’t have as many vamps as usual with us last night,” Danilo commented. “Lord Xavier apparently has them combing the streets looking for weapons, as well as the people who’ve been using them against us. Joaquim, who I’m assuming you know is Xavier’s security chief, kept watch with me for part of the night. He’s pissed as hell that we haven’t found the enemy yet.”

  “I can imagine. I can also imagine his lord and master is doubly pissed.”

  Danilo studied her for a moment and said, “You mean Lord Xavier?”

  Layla knew she’d made a mistake. She had to stop thinking of Xavier in the familiar mindset of her childhood, or as her father’s good friend. To Danilo and everyone else on this wall, he was Lord with a capital “L” Xavier. Vampire lord of the entire country.


  “Yeah, sorry,” she said immediately. “I’ve been away too long. I grew up here, and Lord Xavier was always very approachable when I was kid. But I can tell you firsthand that he’s definitely pissed as hell that it’s taking so long to find answers. With my father gone, I’m the one in the nightly briefings, even though you probably know more than I do at this point. Maybe you should come too?”

  “Oh no,” Danilo said quickly. “You’re not sticking me with that assignment. I’m happy to skip mornings with the family, but if I missed dinner, I’d never hear the end of it. My mama’s in charge of that table.”

  Layla grinned. “Sounds like my mother, except she’s so happy to have me home that I can get away with almost anything. For a while anyway.”

  Danilo shared the grin. “We didn’t miss the absent vamps much. Don’t tell anyone I said this, but nothing happened all night. The vamps who were up here with us could have run races on top of the wall and it wouldn’t have mattered.”

  “I was surprised when my father said the night guard was human and vamp both. Is that usual, or a reaction to the recent hostilities?”

  “Only since the first attack. We always have a few humans up here at night, in case the vamps get called away, or in the event we need to rouse the entire Fortalesa. If that happened, it would make more sense to use the human guards as runners, to sound the alarm, and knock on every door.”

  “There’s a general alarm for that, isn’t there? Something zapped out to every cell phone in the Fortalesa?”

  “Absolutely, but some people—civilians mostly—mute their phones at night. I’d do it myself, if I could. There are too many notifications and shit, not to mention messages from people who stay up late, or even all night, and forget that the rest of us don’t. But we also have the grandparents who simply don’t hear as well as they used to.”