When Wicked Craves (11 page)

She shook her head, understanding what he was thinking. “No. No, just the general area. A city block, maybe. And even less accurate the farther away I am from him.”

“So right now you’re golden,” Nicholas said. “Even
if he can sense where you are, it’s too broad an area, and the signal will be even more fuzzy with our protections. Besides, he has no reason to come. Right now, he thinks you’re coming to him.”

“And soon you won’t even blip on his radar,” Luke added.

“Why?” She glanced at Nicholas, but it was Rand who answered.

“Gunnolf’s prepared to help,” he said, referring to the Paris-based therian—or shape-shifter—liaison to the Alliance. “Under the table, of course.”

Petra bristled. “Maybe he should have thought of that before they stuck me in an execution cell.”

“Maybe he should have,” Rand said. “But if he had, then they’d be watching him now. This way, he can actually help you. And he wants to, Petra. He told me how grateful he is for the role you played in keeping his Alliance seat secure.”

“That’s me,” Petra said. “The Alliance’s go-to girl.” She crossed her arms over her chest and scowled, but truthfully, she was pleased. Because of what she and Serge had done, the Alliance had to publicly acknowledge that the therian leader had played no role in a spate of human murders that had rocked Los Angeles. Without those charges hanging over his head, Gunnolf was able to maintain his seat at the Alliance table.

In other words, he was just as indebted to Petra as Tiberius was. Gunnolf, though, was actually doing something about it.

“Look,” she said grudgingly. “That’s nice but if he’s not going to buck up against the Alliance, what exactly can he do for us?”

“He can lend you his plane and his pilot,” Rand said. “It’s here, hangared in Burbank. Same plane I flew in on a few months ago.”

“And the pilot?”

“He’s solid,” Rand said. “He’ll do whatever Gunnolf says, no questions asked.”

“Then that’s how we get to Paris,” Nicholas said.

“Paris?” Petra asked.

“Don’t expect Gunnolf to meet with you in person,” Rand said. “He’s offered the plane. I don’t think he’d agree to a face-to-face.”

“And I wouldn’t ask for one,” Nicholas continued. Something like regret shadowed Nicholas’s face, and he looked away, focusing his attention only on Luke. “I need to find Ferrante.”

Whatever Luke might have been expecting Nicholas to say, it wasn’t that, and surprise registered on those stoic features. “Do you think that’s wise?”

“We need a cure,” Nicholas said. “And if anyone can find one, I think it’s Marco.” He straightened his shoulders. “It has been a very long time. He will not turn me away.”

She couldn’t hold her questions in any longer. “Wait a sec,” Petra said, moving to stand in Nicholas’s line of sight. “Who is Ferrante?”

Nicholas hesitated, but she shook her head. “Oh no.
Everything
, remember? What’s good for the goose is good for the vampire, and all that shit.”

“He’s an alchemist,” Nicholas said after a hesitation so brief she wouldn’t have noticed had she not been looking for him to dodge the question. “Once, he was a friend.”

She heard the edge in his voice. “Once?”

“Later,” he said. “We need to move.”

“Wait. How long ago did you know him?”

He met her eyes. “I haven’t seen him for more than seven hundred years.”

“Oh.” She took a small step back. She’d lived in this world long enough not to be surprised, but still … “I guess he’s an alchemist who knows his stuff.”

Nicholas turned to Rand. “The hangar number?”

“Fifteen.”

“I’m glad you’re going to Paris,” Lissa said. “I’ve remembered something from there.”

Petra turned toward Lissa, her heart pounding. “Wait. What? You’ve remembered something?” As a succubus, Lissa had lived multiple lives. And although she didn’t remember many of those lives in detail, she’d once told Petra that she did remember something about a monster like Serge. A monster created by touch. A clue, maybe, to Petra’s background. At the time, though, she couldn’t recall any of the details.

“Not much, but, yeah. A glimpse, a name. Rumors that her touch destroyed. And Paris.” She closed her eyes as if trying to draw the memory closer to her, then shook her head, frustrated. “But that’s all.”

“What name?” Petra asked, hoping it was someone new, and not someone in her family tree.

“Vivian Chastain,” Lissa said, and from the far side of the room, Luke swore under his breath.

“Chastain?” Nicholas repeated. “You’re certain?”

Lissa reached out, finding Rand’s hand, as her eyes darted between the two vampires. “As sure as I can be about a hazy memory. Why?”

Luke looked hard at Nicholas, who nodded.

“Dammit,” Petra said. “What’s going on? Who is she?”

“I don’t know,” Luke said. “Not really. But in 1714, I was ordered to kill her. More specifically, I was ordered to use a sniper’s bullet. No contact.” His smile was thin. “Not my usual style.”

Petra’s throat thickened, and she had to try twice to get the words out. “Oh. At least I got a trial. For what it’s worth, anyway.”

“Were you told anything about her?” Lissa asked. “Anything about her background? Her family? Anything that might help Petra?”

Nicholas shook his head. “I was Luke’s second. They told us nothing.”

“A second?” Petra asked. “Is that usual?”

“No,” Luke said.

“Apparently the Alliance was taking no chances.”

The fact that Petra’s heart still beat suddenly seemed like even more of a miracle than it had a few hours ago. She turned to Lissa. “Do you remember anything else?”

“Nothing. I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay,” Petra said, though she wanted to scream with frustration. “We know I’m not the only one. And we know the Alliance has killed to stop the Touch before.” She drew in a breath. “Killed instead of cured. Maybe there isn’t a way.”

“We’ll find one. We’ll go to Ferrante.”

The sharp chirp of a phone startled them all, with the exception of Luke, who pulled out his phone and eagerly opened it, then listened to the caller before ending the call and facing the group. “I can see Sara now,” he
said, his voice choked with emotion. And before anyone had the chance to say good-bye, he’d transformed into sentient mist and was racing toward the exit.

“We need to go, too,” Nicholas said to Petra. “Your house first, then straightaway to Paris.”

He held out his arms, and she took an automatic step backward.

“Only for a moment,” he said. “Two layers of cloth and it will only be an instant before we’re mist.”

She didn’t argue, realizing as she moved toward him that there was more anticipation than fear associated with the action.
Not good.
She couldn’t become lax about touch. Not now, not ever.

“Why do we need a plane?” she asked. “If we can travel like this, what’s the point?”

“Your body wouldn’t take it,” he said matter-of-factly. “Are you ready?”

But before she could say that she most certainly was
not
ready—not after hearing that traveling by mist lacked the National Transportation Safety Board seal of approval—he dissolved. And Petra, of course, dissolved with him.

As soon as he gave himself up to the mist, with Petra twined safely around him, Nick allowed himself to relax and his mind to return to the past, to Ferrante and his studies and the hopes and dreams he’d nurtured before the change. For years, he had pondered the mysteries of the universe, exploring and studying the elements not because he sought gold or wealth, but because he wanted to unlock the key to existence.

His studies had grounded him to the earth, and pushed him to the stars, contemplating the length and breadth of infinity. Once upon a time, such activities had been the focus of his life. Searching the heavens with his mentors. Charting the movement of the stars across the sky. Looking for something bigger than the ephemeral shell of man, a shell that began to return to dust at the very moment of birth.

He hadn’t found the answer as much as it had found him. And the dark kiss had made him not only immortal but like a god. Who else could live for millennia? Could move through the world as mist or animal? Could turn the will of lesser beings to their own?

Even in a shadow world filled with creatures who existed only in the nightmares of humans, vampires reigned supreme. And yet the universe still sought balance—yin and yang. For every benefit, there was a price.

Nick had paid dearly. And so, to his deep regret, had his friends.

So many years had passed, and now he must seek out Ferrante again.

He felt a stirring within, a combination of anticipation and fear. Ferrante would have every justification to put a stake through Nicholas’s heart. But there was no other choice: They needed answers. They needed a cure. And Marco Ferrante was their first, best option.

The girl was soft in Nick’s arms as they materialized in her kitchen, the beat of her heart against his chest bringing him back to life, back to the world, and firing the familiar desire to touch, to lose himself in a woman’s embrace.

In front of him, she pushed away. Understandable, but definitely not the response Nick was used to.

“Contact,” she said.

“Of course.”

She looked around at the room. “How did we get inside?”

“Mist,” he said. “I can’t travel through walls, but stove vents work nicely.”

“So all that bullshit about vampires needing an invitation …?”

“Bedtime stories to keep humans feeling safe. But you’ve been walking in this world long enough. You didn’t know that?”

“Kiril put protections on all the doors and windows.” She glanced ruefully at the polished hood above the old-fashioned stove. “Never even occurred to me.”

“Only need a crack,” he said, looking around as well. No frills, but cozy and well stocked. A well-used room,
with the aroma of garlic and basil lingering in the air along with the soft, sweet scent of the girl herself. “You spend a great deal of time here.”

She glanced at him. “So?”

“Merely an observation.”

“I don’t like restaurants,” she said, then pushed through the room toward a darkened hallway. He caught the scent of magic, then glimpsed the interior of a dark room filled with books and crystals. “The magic office,” she said, following his gaze. “For our shadow clients.”

“So this room is only for show?”

“Kiril practices magic in there, and he likes to write at the desk. I don’t spend a lot of time in it, though.”

“Don’t you practice?”

She shook her head. “No.”

“Why? You have power. You just told us about it at the warehouse. Hell, I saw it when we were at Division. The wall of flame. The way you almost burned through that guard’s uniform.”

She lifted a brow. “And you’re still willing to get close to me?”

He took a step toward her, knowing damn well she was avoiding the question. “I am,” he said, then traced his fingertip just below the neckline of her shirt, the cotton soft against his skin.

“Oh.” She swallowed, and he bit back a curse. He was flirting, and he damn well knew it. It was so easy to fall into the pattern with women. So easy to turn it on. And so damned unfair to turn it on with her, when there could be no follow-through.

God, he was an ass.

He turned to look around the room, wanting to shift the subject and take her mind off what she didn’t and couldn’t have. Feeling damned protective, but that was the role he’d thrust himself into. She was his responsibility now, and he took care of what was his.

“What?” She was following the direction of his gaze, looking amused.

“I was just wondering if this is where you bring the human clients.”

She laughed, the sound relieving some of the pressure on his chest. “No, we converted the entire front of the house to a reception area for the human clients. I spent a month decorating. It’s all flowers and pastels. Not a deck of tarot cards or one ceremonial candle to be found.”

“Sounds charming.”

“It’s an explosion of floral insanity,” she said, cricking her finger and leading him toward the front. She opened the door, then stepped aside so he had a view that made the term
floral insanity
seem like an understatement.

“You did this?” he asked, looking at the vases of silk flowers, the huge prints on the walls, the chair and loveseat upholstered in floral material. There was a warmth to it—a vulnerability that seemed in contrast to the strong woman he knew Petra to be. “Just for the humans?”

She shrugged. “Maybe I like it a little, too. I have a thing for flowers.” She pulled the door shut, then headed for the stairs. “You want jewelry and the Bible, right?”

“Anything left to you from your mother,” he said,
following. “Anything and everything that might reflect your family history.”

Everything …

She kept her face forward so that he couldn’t see it, then led him up the stairs. She’d share her mom’s bracelet—why not?—but the story about how she got it? That, she couldn’t share. Not the whole story, anyway.

“Petra?”

She realized she’d stopped on the stairs. “Sorry. I was thinking.”

“About your mother?”

“No.”

“The jewelry?”

“No,” she snapped. She didn’t want to talk about it.

“Dammit, Petra. We agreed to everything.”

“Fine. Shit. Whatever.” She glared at him. “I was thinking about the first time I turned somebody. Satisfied?”

She saw him cringe. “Your father, you mean?”

“No. You’re right. That was the first.” She met his eyes, determined to just tell it straight out. He wanted the story, he’d get the story. “I was thinking about the second time.”

“What happened?”

“There was this guy, and he snuck up on me.”

“Tell me.”

“I was fifteen,” she said. “And I didn’t get out much.”

“I can’t imagine why,” he said. She laughed, appreciating the way he was deliberately trying to lighten the moment.

“Yeah, well, even so I managed to catch the eye of this man. No,” she corrected. “Not a man. This bastard was a monster even before I touched him.”

“What did he do?” Nicholas asked, his voice as tight as his face. “Did he harm you?”