Rook crawled over to Verity. He wanted to embrace her, to kiss her, to whisper that it was all going to be fine. And it would be.

But not with vampires running amok.

He dug out a blade from his boot and sawed through the ropes around her wrists.

“Rook, look out!”

Rook spun around to see flame following the thin line of gasoline up to the second circle. It ignited the gasoline around Verity’s feet.

Verity screamed. He cut through the thick rope and freed her hands. Rook pulled off his coat and wrapped it about her shoulders. He lifted her, rushed the outer circle and leaped over it, turning to hit the floor with his shoulder while he kept Verity safely to his chest to avoid the impact. He rolled over on top of her. A quick kiss was necessary. She tasted like fear and ash.

MICHELE HAUF has been writing romance, action-adventure and fantasy stories for more than twenty years. Her first published novel was Dark Rapture. France, musketeers, vampires and faeries populate her stories. And if she followed the adage “write what you know,” all her stories would have snow in them. Fortunately, she steps beyond her comfort zone and writes about countries she has never visited and of creatures she has never seen.

Michele can be found on Facebook and Twitter and at www.michelehauf.com. You can also write to Michele at PO Box 23, Anoka, MN 55303, USA.

Beyond

the Moon

Michele Hauf

www.millsandboon.co.uk

This one is for me, because Rook is mine.

Contents

Cover

Introduction

About the Author

Title Page

Dedication

Prologue

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Epilogue

Extract

Copyright

Prologue

Verity Von Velde’s mother, Amandine, had the ability to determine the origin of a person’s soul. So when Verity was born in the 1860s, Amandine had known her child’s soul had once belonged to a witch—who had died twice.

Knowing she possessed a reincarnated soul helped Verity to understand the strange compulsions she experienced on occasion. The first time, at fifteen, had been on that horrible night she’d been compelled to rush to the forested village of Clichy, just outside of Paris, and had spied the bonfire. Amandine Von Velde had been betrayed by the witch hunter to whom she had unknowingly promised her heart. “Witch!” the crowd had shouted, and they’d laughed and clapped as the flames had consumed her mother’s screams.

That night, left alone in the small cottage she had shared with her mother, Verity had fallen into a deep sadness. Years later, the compulsion had once again led her to the aqueducts beneath Paris where her grandmother, Freesia, had apported out of a Faery portal to hug the granddaughter she hadn’t visited for years. Freesia had been born with a faery soul. Of all the witches in the Von Velde family, she was the only one with sidhe ichor running through her veins.

Freesia had carried with her the quilt Great-Grandmother Bluebell had made for Verity’s mother. Because Bluebell had decided not to prolong her immortality and had died a natural death (which was rare for witches, even in a time when the burnings had begun to fade), her compassion lived on in the quilt. As Freesia had wrapped the quilt about Verity’s shoulders, she’d felt the hugs her mother and great-grandmother could never give her again.

“I know your mother begged you never to trust a man,” Freesia had said as they’d stood beneath the city beside the gently flowing aqueduct waters. For men had been Amandine’s curse and death. “But I would bid you trust the right man.”

Verity had liked the sound of that and had nodded, promising her grandmother she would give it consideration. When she began to protest that she did not know what to do all alone, Freesia had added, “Stay in Paris. It will take care of all you need. Trust your soul’s compulsive ways. It is your birthright.”

Freesia then fluttered through the portal, and Verity would not see her lavender-haired grandmother for a long time.

Years after Grandmother Freesia’s visit—Paris, 1908

Verity tripped through the field grass that the city attendant had not scythed, for this swath of land that edged the forest was kept wild. Tourists did not venture off the paths or cobblestone roads that cut through the Bois de Boulogne. She would not normally skip through the overgrowth in a long skirt and button-up chemise, scratching at the buzzing insects, had she not been compelled.

Sometimes Verity’s soul insisted so profoundly, she had no choice but to listen. And follow.

Now, she raced toward a massive tree stump that pushed up from the earth, its serrated edges jutting like castle crenellations. Thick, verdant moss coated the south side. The rowan tree must have fallen naturally from age or perhaps a lightning strike. The stalk, branches and leaves had long been cleared away, most likely for firewood.

Arriving at the grand root base, Verity sighed in awe. She had great respect for nature and knew all living things were connected, be they human, paranormal, animal or botanical. Kneeling before the trunk, she laid her palms on the cool moss coating and smiled. It must have taken four men to clasp hands and surround this tree when it had once proudly held court here at the forest’s edge.

The wood pulsed with life. And there, in the center of the stump, which had been dug out by animals and insects over the years, grew four new shoots of life. All things renewed and lived on.

Much like her soul.

Reaching down, she played her fingers over the wood where it was wet from yesterday’s rain and smelled earthy and sweet. Insects had not chewed through this part for it was solid and strong. The heart of the rowan. Verity felt the pulse. She curled her fingers within the core of the tree, and it pulsed again.

And yet…

She tilted her head, her dark, unbound hair spilling across the stump. The pulse felt familiar. Human? Perhaps, and long lost.

“A soul?” she wondered.

And then she knew, indeed, that it was. This is why her soul had compelled her here.

Sliding her fingers inside her ankle-high leather lace-up boot, a gift from her mother for her fifteenth birthday, Verity drew out the silver-handled athame. Her mother had always chastised her for carrying it about. One must honor the sacred tools of magic and keep them wrapped and tucked away until required to conjure a spell. Silently mocking her mother’s nagging words—may she rest in peace—Verity tapped the wood core with the blade tip. “If I had kept this tucked away, I wouldn’t be able to free you now.”

She worked at the wood, carefully carving around the core, which was about as wide as her fist and shaped like a pain de campagne. An hour later she’d set the core free. Verity turned and sat against the mossy base of the stump between two thick, twisted roots, smoothing her hands over the rough, moist core of the rowan tree.

“I know you belong to someone. What did he do to lose you?”

She pressed the wood against her chest and felt the subtle resonance of the long-lost soul and knew, without doubt, a man had sacrificed this soul in great sadness. She also knew that the man yet walked this realm.

Did he seek what he had lost?

“I’ll keep you safe,” she promised. “Someday he will come for you.”

Chapter 1

Paris—now

King laid a manila folder on Rook’s desk and then stepped around to stand beside it, arms crossed.

“Got time to take a look at this?” King asked Rook. “I’m getting itchy about Slater with the Zmaj tribe. He’s been acting out through others. Over the past six months the tribe has turned sour. Too many murders linked to their vamps, and the increase in their numbers is disturbing. Slater is creating vampires without regard. I think it’s time the Order stepped in.”

The Order of the Stake policed the vampires across Europe and took out the ones who proved a danger to mortals. One of the Parisian tribes, Zmaj, had been peaceable since its inception early in the twentieth century, but recently the Order’s intel had noted a shift in power within the tribe. And a disturbing penchant for violence.

“I’ll put our best knights on it.” Rook, King’s right-hand man and the figurehead in control of the Order, tapped the keyboard to boot up the computer screen. “I might even scout them out myself. Been feeling the need to return to the field lately.”

“Is that so? I thought you’d grown accustomed to your cozy office chair.”

“That’s just it. Do you know what happens when a man rests?”

King shrugged.

“He rusts,” Rook replied. “I haven’t trained a new knight in months. I need to do something physical. Go beat in some vampire skulls and get the death punch out of the bottom drawer.”

The Order’s knights called the specially designed titanium stake the death punch. Standard gear—no knight went on the hunt without three or four in his arsenal.

King, the founder of the Order, had recruited Rook about a decade into his project. They’d known each other since the end of the sixteenth century and had been friends and brothers through the ages. Rook loved and admired the man. He would do most anything he asked, and he knew the respect was reciprocated.

While King watched over his shoulder, Rook scanned through the Order’s database on tribe Zmaj. Their computer network kept detailed records on all known vampires and tribes in Europe and the surrounding nations. Although they focused on vampires, the Order also recorded information on all other paranormal breeds because their work tended to overlap.

They’d been keeping an eye on the vampire Frederick Slater for more than a decade, since his creation in the early part of the twenty-first century. Before that, he’d been mortal for thirty years. The sick bastard had asked for vampirism. The tribe leader was aggressive and devious, yet used others to do his dirty work. And he had entitlement issues. Took things that didn’t belong to him, such as expensive cars and nightclubs. And innocent mortal women he then turned into vampires. A nasty habit the Order had overlooked because he hadn’t been killing them. Until now.

Rook opened the manila folder, a recent file on Zmaj. The first picture was a crime scene photo of a young woman lying in an alley, her neck torn out. Dead. A bloody handprint marked her cheek, a common indicator in the other photos that followed.

“Zmaj is marking their kills,” King noted, tapping the handprint. “Why?”

Rook had no clue. “Vampires tend to be secretive and hide their mistakes.” He shuffled through the photos, each flashing bloody handprints. “These kills are bold and blatant, as if they wanted someone to discover them. Or, rather, to know they are the tribe responsible for the death.”

“They’ve captured the attention of the mortal authorities.”

“Which means,” Rook said, “it’s time the Order shut down tribe Zmaj before Tor has his work cut out for him.”

Torsten Rindle did spin work for the Order. He was a master at convincing the mortal press that a vampire bite on a dead body was simply deranged fandom at its worst.

Rook closed the manila folder. “I’ll take care of this personally.”

“See that you do.” King strode out of the office as silently and unexpectedly as he’d entered.

From the drawer at the bottom of his desk, Rook drew out a titanium stake. With a squeeze of his hand to compress the paddles, out pinioned the deadly stake from the sleek column. Pressed against a vampire’s chest, the weapon pierced the heart and reduced the vamp to ash. Rook had created the stake centuries earlier, and as technology had improved, so had the original design. He took pride in the implement.

He spun the weapon smartly, slapping it solidly into his palm. A bloody palm print? “You just signed your death certificate, Slater.”

He stood and, with a keystroke, put the computer to sleep. In the closet at the back of his office hung a long, leather cleric’s coat with a bladed collar and reinforced Kevlar panels on the chest and back. Leather pants, a cotton undershirt and a Kevlar vest hung inside.

Stripping off his crisply ironed gray dress shirt, he tossed it aside and caught a glimpse of his bare chest in the mirror inside the door. He proudly fisted the raised brand of the Order of the Stake on his left shoulder and announced, “Tonight I’ll turn this city gray with vampire ash.”

* * *

With full intel on the Zmaj tribe, Rook had headed toward the seventh arrondissement, where most of the attacks marked with the bloody handprint had been reported. It was an affluent quarter where old money mingled with the new. The Eiffel Tower and Les Invalides attracted tourists, which led Rook to believe Zmaj was hunting either unknowing tourists or the established, yet oblivious, rich.

His steel-toed boots took the cobblestones swiftly, quietly. His senses were alert for sounds beyond the incessant traffic noises. The city never slept. It was something he had in common with Paris. The air was crisp with imminent autumn, a season he enjoyed because it softened the city’s harsh odor as the ominous dread for winter settled in.

As the principal trainer and supervisor for the Order, Rook took knight trainees out in the city on the hunt, but he hadn’t hunted alone in years. Not for lacking desire to stake some longtooths. He had simply been too busy training and running the Order. The paperwork involved in keeping their secret order an actual secret was ridiculous. He never could have imagined, four centuries earlier, filling out computer database profiles or making duplicates over an office copy machine.

The vampire population in Paris was high, but most of them enjoyed their anonymity from mortals and worked hard to keep it that way by not killing humans and thus raising the Order’s ire. Best way for a vampire to ensure immortality? Avoiding a stake to the heart.

Yet there would always be the young and reckless vamps who deemed the world their playground and enjoyed the kill. They never survived long. And although the Order served only to protect mortals from vampires, Rook knew many breeds appreciated the work they did because keeping all vampires mythical in the eyes of the mortal population benefited everyone.

Some mortals believed in vampires, werewolves, faeries and all the other breeds that shouldn’t exist. Those mortals were few and were rarely considered a problem. It was those who did not believe but then had been attacked by a vampire—forcing them to believe—who Rook wanted to keep far from the fangs of hungry vampires. Those victims who would scream, raise a holy stink and invite investigation, and Rook wanted to avoid that.

And the only way to do that was by ashing the culprits.

Closer.

Directing his attention inward, Rook questioned Oz’s statement.

Something feels…familiar.

Rook always paid attention to the entity within him. Asatrú, an incorporeal demon, had been trapped within him for four centuries, accompanying him through this thing called life.

“What seems familiar?” he asked Oz. Sometimes he spoke aloud to the demon, but he could think the question and the entity would understand just as well.

It is a feeling. You are close…to something important.

Not far ahead of him, a female cried out.

Rook fitted a stake into both hands and ran toward the harrowing sound. It was before midnight, yet this section of the city was quiet and dark with only intermittent vehicle traffic. Ancient buildings that had seen war, revolutions, and the rise and fall of monarchies closely paralleled the street. The alleys in between buildings were claustrophobic. Street lighting was at a minimum. Not the optimal place for a lone female to go walking.

Nowadays mortals had lost their sense of danger. Their naïve complacency never ceased to astonish Rook. One must always be vigilant.

He spied a crowd of young men looming around something, or someone, he could not see. Yet he could feel fear in the air as tangibly as he could read a person’s truth by placing his hand over their heart. Had to be the woman who had screamed.

One of the men hissed dramatically and exposed fangs.

“Thought so,” Rook muttered. He picked up his pace.

What was that?

A fireball, small and tight and flaming orange, zipped through the air and singed one of the vampires on his bald head. The vamp yelped and batted at the flame, hissing and cursing at the one who had lobbed the attack.

Was the woman they had surrounded a witch? Had to be to throw fire like that. A rare witch, though. Few practiced such magic because fire promised a witch’s sure death.

Another ball of flame looped in the air but fell onto the cobblestones like a deflated balloon. Sparks sputtered, and the flame hissed to smoke. She didn’t have control. Had her hands been shackled by an attacker?

Rook shouted, catching the vampires’ attention. Four charged toward him. He took one out with a plunge of the stake to his chest. Ash formed in the air in the shape of a man. The remaining three vampires scattered in the inky darkness.

Rook ran through the ashy cloud toward the woman clinging to the brick wall. In the confusion of having one of their comrades ashed, the vampires had left her alone. Fire burned in patches on the ancient cobbles before her, finding tinder in the dry autumn leaves littering the ground. She huddled against the wall, her dark hair spilling over her face and wide eyes taking in the scene. Hands out before her, her fingers shook, and he thought perhaps the flames on the ground danced at the command of those shaking fingers.

Rook lunged to kneel beside her, laying a hand high over her breast to feel her frantic heartbeats. It was a conditioned touch. He could read a person that way, but—not this time. What the hell? Perhaps her fear blocked his read.

“You okay?”

She nodded frantically.

He was getting nothing from her. Not the clear read of truth he always did when touching another. Yet he felt a strange sensation of recognition surge through his system. Something familiar but so distant he couldn’t touch it. He’d lost it so long ago.

That is it!

He winced at Oz’s inner outburst. Looking into the woman’s shadowed eyes that flickered with small red flashes from the flames, he wondered aloud, “My…soul?”

“Get him!”

Jerked away from the woman by a vampire’s claws, Rook switched from the sudden, overwhelming knowing that clenched about his heart to fierce and ready fighting mode. He twisted at the waist, swinging out an arm and slashing the stake across a vampire’s face.

Behind him, three vamps lined up. He caught a glimpse of the woman. Now on her feet, she ran away from them.

Get as far away as you can, he thought.

No, we need her! Oz said.

Perhaps, but right now he stood his ground surrounded by vampires. All thoughts focused on getting the job done. This night, no longtooth would walk away from him alive.

* * *

Verity ran down the dark street, her heartbeats racing her strides. A short skirt and heels were not optimal running attire, but when her ankles threatened to buckle, fear pushed her.

After a long night at the gym practicing her performance piece for the Demon Arts Troupe, she’d looked forward to strolling home in the crisp night air to walk off the strain in her muscles. Her mind reviewing the new routine she’d been perfecting, she’d walked right into the gang of vampires. Though she’d never feared them in numbers before, immediately she had known they hadn’t wanted to chat.

She’d thrown fire at them, but there had been too many. Two had wrangled her wrists, stopping her from casting more flame balls. They’d begun to reason out who would bite her first when the hunter had charged onto the scene, stakes swinging like some kind of samurai warrior.

Though he’d worn the coat of the Order of the Stake, the long leather jacket had not concealed his muscular physique. His movements had been skilled and swift. Nothing like having a knight in dark leather rush in for the save. Verity had swooned a little when he’d held his hand against her chest and their gazes had locked. When he’d said “My soul,” she had gasped.

Could it be?

She clasped the wooden heart that hung from a leather cord around her neck and ran faster over the cobblestones, her heels clicking too loudly. So long she had wondered about what she held in her hand, and—could he have finally found her?

Sensing someone was quickly gaining on her, she couldn’t risk turning back for a look. One of the gang must have escaped the hunter and now pursued her, a panther hot on the rabbit’s tail.

She dodged to the right down a narrow alley, seeking the streetlight some hundred yards ahead and cursing the fact that she didn’t know where she was. She needed a moment to reorient herself with the neighborhood.

Testing her magic, with a thought she sent out a spurt of fire. That was all she could manage, a tendril. She’d expelled most of her fire during practice. She needed a night of rest to properly recharge and restore her magic.

And although she was skilled in gymnastics, this running in heels business was quickly taxing her after hours of exertion in the gym. In proof, she stumbled on a loose cobblestone, but instead of her body floundering, she felt a hand sweep around her waist, turn her and slam her shoulders against the concrete wall. Impact jarred her teeth. Her ankles wobbled. Verity could barely hold herself upright as she faced the bald vampire with fangs revealed and menacing eyes.

“What the hell do you want?” She tried to say it with command, but without any magic to control, she had lost her only defense.

“Your blood, witch.” The vampire slammed his hands to either side of her shoulders and leaned in to sniff at her hair. “You burned me, so now I’m going to make you scream before you die.”

Before she could reward him with the scream he sought, the vampire sunk his fangs in her throat. Instinctively, Verity jammed her knee upward but only managed to connect with his thigh. The bloodsucker didn’t even groan. She beat his chest with her fists, but he easily wrangled her hands with strong, pinching fingers.

The teeth in her neck tore at her skin. It hurt like nothing she’d ever experienced before. She’d never been bitten. Would not suffer a vampire to be so intimate with her, despite having once dated one. The creep sucking at her vein drew out her blood. He moaned as if in the throes of orgasm and—

A yell from down the alley stopped the vampire. He tore out his teeth from Verity’s skin, twisting his head to pinpoint the origin of the shout. The wounds hurt so badly, the pain manifested as a scream. Slapping his hand to her cheek, the vampire mimed a goodbye kiss, but thankfully, his bloody lips did not touch hers.

As the vampire ran off, Verity sank against the wall. Grasping her neck, her fingers slipped in her blood.

The hunter lunged to a diving kneel before her and lifted her chin to peer at her neck. He inspected her cheek and swore. “Damn it. I didn’t see that one get away!”

Eyelids fluttering, Verity tightened her jaw to keep back the tears that threatened. She wanted to beg him to save her, to make it all better, but she knew it was too late. She’d been bitten. And the vampire couldn’t have had time to seal the wound. If the wound was not properly sealed, the victim risked becoming a vampire.

“You a witch?” the hunter asked quickly.

She nodded.

“Impressive fire magic back there. Are you going to be okay?”

“Of course,” she gasped. Dragging her knees up, she hugged her arms about her legs. “Just a little nibble.” It hurt to conceal the pain, but she was an expert at hiding her weaknesses.

“I think I got here in time.” The hunter stood.

He scanned down the street. She knew he wanted to go after the vampire—and he should. But he squatted again before her, drawing her in to his overwhelming presence. An easy authority that felt not too harsh and not too hesitant. When he wrapped his arms around her shoulders and pulled her against his chest, she sank into the comforting embrace.

How strange that he gave her the comfort she had craved, yet had thought to skillfully conceal that need.

You must get home and find a spell to counteract the bite!

But right now Verity could only tilt her head against the hunter’s shoulder. She felt so good in his strong arms. He smoothed a hand over her hair. Perhaps a teardrop spilled down her cheek. Or it could be the repulsive heat of the blood the vampire had taken from her vein and smacked onto her cheek.

She clutched his jacket, and he suddenly tugged it away from her face. The Order knights wore blades at their collars to deflect vampire bites. Verity wished she’d worn more than the comfortable slip dress. Like full armor with a neck guard.

Get to safety!

She was safe in this man’s arms. She knew it without doubt. That was her mother’s voice prodding her to flee. Never trust a man. Most especially a hunter.

“Who are you?” she managed between sniffles and gasps for breath.

“Name’s Rook,” he offered. “I’ll see you home?”

“No, go after the vampire. He could harm someone else. And I need to fix this. To find a spell to stop the vampire taint from changing me.”

He bent to meet her eyes. Compelled to look into his eyes, Verity’s breathing calmed. Despite the frail light from the distant streetlamp, she clearly saw his irises were blue. Intense, bright and true. Yet something about him was as far from the truth as it could ever be.

She had no idea what that meant.

“I felt…” He looked at her chest where he’d touched her earlier. “But not now.” He shook his head and stared at his hand, as if battling with an inner argument. Then he touched her cheek where the vampire had slapped her. “Zmaj.”

She knew that tribe. How did he know? He must have been tracking them.

“You sure you’ll be okay if I go after the longtooth?”

She nodded fervently and looked at her shaking, bloody fingers. “Yes, you’ve a job to do.”

“I will—uh, what’s your name?”

“Verity.”

He gave her the oddest look. “Your name means truth, yet…” Now he laid his hand against her chest again, and she wanted him to hold it there forever, imbuing his surprising coolness into her very being and stealing away her fears. “I can’t read you. Strange.”

“Go,” she said against the screams from her heart that begged her to swoon into his arms so he’d have to carry her home.

He nodded and, helping her up, walked her to the end of the alley. “You live around here?”

“I—yes. I need to orient myself. Where is Les Invalides?” The military museum, which was also a hospital, always served as a navigation point for her.

“That way.”

“Then I can walk home in five minutes. I’m good now. Thank you, Rook. You’re with Order of the Stake?”

“Yes.” He took out a metal stake and spun it between them. His body shifted as he stepped from foot to foot, eager to return to the chase. “Start walking. I want to make sure you can so I don’t have to worry about you.”

Taking directions, she meekly turned the corner and scampered homeward, finding adrenaline carried her to the front door. Once inside, she raced upstairs to her attic bedroom and through to the bathroom.

Flicking on the light, she leaned toward the vanity mirror. A bloody handprint dripped down her cheek. But that wasn’t half as disturbing as the actual bite mark. Panic rose at the sight of her bleeding neck—and then she adjusted that unnecessary fear into more helpful focus. She twisted on the faucet and sloshed hot water on the wound. Cleaning it wasn’t important. Vampires rarely carried disease or anything communicable—save vampirism itself. Stopping the vampiric taint from entering her bloodstream was paramount.

Verity raced out into the attic bedroom, half of which was her spell area. The lofty room was dark, save for moonlight that beamed through the cathedral window on the south end and across the gray floorboards and walls. Silvery light glittered in the dozens of grounding crystals she’d strung from the ceiling beams, like stars to capture the night’s enchantments.

Grabbing the centuries-old grimoire that she’d been writing in since she was a child and slamming the massive tome onto the floor, she then knelt over it and paged through the spells.

“Please let there be something in here to stop me from becoming a vampire.”

* * *

The bald vampire tossed the bloodied necklace onto the table before Slater.

“You did it?” Slater asked. He stood before the window, looking out at Sacre Coeur’s multiple travertine domes, lit from below by spotlights.

The vampire nodded. “She’s dead.”

“What’s that thing?”

“A trophy. Ripped it off her neck after I bit her.”

Slater studied the simple wooden heart, stained with blood. A worn leather cord had been run through a small metal loop at the top. It felt warm, almost as if it possessed a pulse. He recalled Verity’s skin had been warm and soft, electric against his skin. He inhaled the blood scent but didn’t want his tribemate to see him devour her essence.

And then he remembered. She’d always worn this necklace. Had once even said something curious like, “I’m keeping it safe.”

For what, he often wondered. Heh. Guess she hadn’t succeeded.

“That’ll be all, Clas. Thanks.”

“No problem. Let me know when you need another favor.”

“You know I will.”

The vampire left, closing the door behind him, and Slater lashed his tongue over the bloodied heart. Verity’s taste burst on his tongue. She’d never allowed him to bite her. He’d always known she’d taste sweet. Pity he only got to experience her sweetness postmortem.

“This is what happens when you piss me off, witch,” he muttered and tucked the necklace in his desk drawer.

Chapter 2

A beam of morning sunshine prodded at Verity’s eyelids. She popped upright from lying on her side in the middle of the hardwood floor. Looking about the attic bedroom, discombobulated by the sudden awakening, she winced as sunlight flashed through a crystal suspended overhead and lasered her directly in the eye.

With a yawn, she stretched her arms and legs, curling her toes inside her boots. She still wore her ankle boots? And her clothing from last night.

Her fingers landed on the open grimoire, a thick, centuries-old book that had been in the Von Velde family for six generations. Bound in blue leather, it was two feet long and almost as wide. Beside it sat black and red candles, both guttered to wax puddles that would leave a stain on the painted floor. Beside that lay a dead dove that she’d deftly eviscerated to get to the beating heart. The heart lay embedded in the guttered black wax.

The grimoire was opened to a blood-spattered (from the dove) page that detailed the spell for Fending Off Imminent Vampirism in Mortals. She wasn’t mortal by any means, but it had been her only hope. In desperation she had recited the ancient Latin incantation and torn out the dove’s heart.

Once bitten, the vampiric taint entered the victim’s system. If the wound was not properly sealed with the vampire’s saliva, the victim could then turn vampire by the next full moon if one of three things did not occur: the victim killed the vampire who had bitten them; the victim refused to drink mortal blood before the full moon (which generally resulted in madness because the blood hunger was relentless); the victim committed suicide.

Verity had walked through one and a half centuries and had not been bitten once. Hell, until two decades ago, vampires would have never dreamed of biting a witch because of the Great Protection spell enacted a thousand years earlier to safeguard witches from vampires enslaving them for their magic. It had made all witches’ blood fatal to the vampire.

And then the spell had been lifted as a means to bring peace between the two breeds.

“Idiotic plan,” Verity muttered. “What witch had thought that a good idea?”

When the vampire she recently dated but had not allowed to bite her had turned on her after a month, she’d realized he’d been grooming her to steal her magic all along. The only way to do that was with bloodsexmagic. Lots of sex and biting and drinking blood imbued the vampire with the witch’s magic. It also left the witch’s magic drained and lacking.

Verity would have none of that and had broken it off with the vampire. She would never rule vampires out completely as dating prospects, but she would be much choosier next time she fell for a fanged one.

She rarely went beyond the three-date mark. It was safer that way. It was difficult to shake the mantra her mother had ingrained within her soul: Men were not to be trusted. But the three-date minimum had been stretched to a few more with the last guy. Rules were not meant to be rigid.

Her ex-vampire lover had stalked her for months after their breakup, but she’d thought he’d finally given up when she had been forced to move two months earlier. He hadn’t found her new address.

Or had he? The hunter had said the vampires last night were from tribe Zmaj. Same tribe as her ex-lover.

“No, if he wanted to hurt me, he’d do it himself,” she said, stroking the rough wounds on her neck. “Blessed goddess, I hope the spell worked. What am I saying? It did work.” She tapped the grimoire. Never did her spellcraft fail her. “I’m fine. Just a little bite mark that should heal within a few days.”

As a witch, she didn’t heal quickly—perhaps only fifty percent faster than a mortal. The healing arts had never been her talent. That was her friend, and fellow witch, Zoë’s forte.

As she studied the wound with her fingers and trailed them over the dried bloodstains on the dress neckline, she realized something was missing.

“My necklace.”

The vampire must have torn it off as he’d ripped his teeth from her neck. Why would he take that precious bit of wood and leather from her? Or could it have simply fallen off during the attack? She’d had the necklace since early in the twentieth century. Had been waiting for its owner to come and claim not only the wooden heart, but also the very soul within.

“I have to go back and look for it.”

She had protected and cared for that soul too long to give up on it now. And because of what the hunter had said last night. Rook. She couldn’t get his startled exclamation out of her head.

“His soul?” As bedraggled and exhausted as she felt, Verity couldn’t help but smile. “Could he be the one?”

Sure she’d find the necklace lying in the alley near her dried bloodstains, she pushed to a stand and wobbled. Weak and drained, she felt as if she’d run two marathons. Curse her girlie need to always wear high heels.

“First a shower,” she muttered. Making a beeline for the bathroom, she stripped off her clothes along the way. “And then back to the scene of the crime.”

* * *

The Order had intel on the majority of vampires across the world. Rook wasn’t a computer expert—he employed a team of IT techs for that—but he did use the database frequently. Actually the IT team was one man, and he was currently in the States setting up operations because the Order didn’t have an official US headquarters yet. He and King hoped to open the New York base within a few years.

In the database, Rook located the Other section, which detailed all breeds not vampire. It was more a way to keep tabs on who was living where and associating with whom than a complete archive of every breed that trod mortal ground. Their files on faeries were sparse. Those creatures lived in an entirely different realm, yet the knights had occasion to deal with the sidhe who lived in FaeryTown. Mortal vampire sympathizers also were kept under close watch.

Under Witches, the database didn’t list any more on Verity beyond her name, believed to be Veritas Von Velde. Or so he assumed she was the only witch named Verity who lived in Paris. Records guessed at her age as more than two centuries. Because she was associated with the Demon Arts Troupe, a known address was listed for her. A recent move within the past few months?

He made a note of her address and headed out. Half an hour later he stood in front of a pretty little walk-up townhome with a vast and lush herb garden out front, enclosed by a wrought-iron fence painted deep purple.

He clanked the greenman brass door knocker and after five tries decided she was either not home or not answering a hunter’s raps. He didn’t sense anyone inside; it wasn’t a magical skill, he just felt as if the place was empty. So he scribbled a note and tucked it under the mat.

He’d wanted to see that she had survived the attack last night with little wear and tear and check that she had found a spell to counteract the bite. The last thing he needed on his watch was a witch turning vampire. The double-whammy of magical skills and the hunger for blood tended to make such a creature deadly and place them on top of the Order’s Most Wanted list.

* * *

The field trip to search for the necklace resulted in disappointment. But stocking the pantry had been successful with a quick stroll down the Rue Cler.

“Wanted to know that you are okay,” Verity read from the note she’d found fluttering up from under the doormat. “Need to talk to you. Please meet me at the coffee shop on Quai d’Orsay at eight p.m. Rook.”

She fanned the note over her lips as she strode inside and set the reusable grocery bags on the kitchen counter. Drawing the multicolored silk Hermes scarf away from her neck, she touched the bite wounds. She’d applied her great-grandmother’s ointment on the punctures, and the swelling had calmed nicely.

After putting away the groceries, she cut a head-sized watermelon into chunks, which she transferred into a glass container. She ate a few pieces, then picked up the note again and marveled over the precise, squared letters that reminded her of an architect’s writing style.

It was already evening. Dare she meet the man? She had an idea what he wanted to talk about. Couldn’t tell him she’d lost the thing, could she? No, she had to be certain of his identity before she started worrying about that.

And she did want to learn more about the man who had saved her. Sort of saved her. It would have been a hell of a lot better had he staked all the vamps before the bald one had bitten her. And she was just snarky enough to let him have it for that omission.

But should she meet a strange man out of the blue? Especially a hunter?

Though her mother had been dead for more than a century, her warning words still resounded clearly in Verity’s memory. Amandine Von Velde had been betrayed by a hunter—a betrayal that had taken her life.

Sighing, Verity popped another watermelon cube in her mouth. Yet grandmother Freesia’s entreaty to find the one man she could trust dallied with the learned maternal diatribe. Verity had lived alone for more than one hundred and sixty years. She’d had many lovers and a few boyfriends, but never had she allowed herself to completely let down her guard. To trust. Even her male friends she kept at a comfortable distance. A witch had to be cautious.

She wanted that trust. That moment of releasing her breath and just accepting. And she wanted love. What woman did not? Yet would she recognize it when finally it entered her life?

“I hope so. I don’t want to die alone. Companionship sounds…lovely.”

Yes, she would go see the hunter named Rook. Because she wanted to look at him in the light and see if he had been as handsome as she’d remembered while in her fearful, panicked state. And if he embraced her again, maybe gave her a welcome hug, then her night would be complete.

Because his hug had made her feel safe. And that feeling was all too uncommon of late.

* * *

Rook paused mid-sip of his espresso. The witch striding across the street toward his table positioned out front of the café was the sexiest thing on two legs.

Shod in shiny black patent leather high heels, her long legs stroked the air sensuously. Those sexy gams were sheathed in sheer black thigh-high stockings that stopped about four inches below her skirt, and those four inches of skin made his mouth water.

He finished the sip and winced at its heat. Or was that the heat suddenly moving over his perpetually cool skin?

A miniskirt flirted with black ruffles at the hem, and above that, a plain white T-shirt emphasized her pert nipples as the swing of her long, curly, purple hair brushed over them. An unbuttoned gray sweater slouched off one of her shoulders and hung longer than the skirt length, giving her a tousled bedroom look. As if she’d just been given a sound tumbling between the sheets.

Fuck, she was gorgeous.

The dark eggplant hair was curious but not shocking, the color of a lush bloom one would nuzzle to their nose to smell the fragrant perfume. Something he wanted to push his fingers through and clutch to his face while he was giving her the tumble her sensual allure demanded.

And with that thought, Rook straightened and set down his coffee before he spilled it on his lap and singed the erection that had suddenly tightened his pants.

He stood and offered his hand, which she shook before sitting down in an elegant glide and crossing her legs beside the chair instead of under the table, giving him a great view of her gorgeous gams.

“Purple, eh?” he asked stupidly.

She swung thick ringlets over a shoulder. “It’s natural.” With a gesture to the waiter, she confidently summoned him.

“I wasn’t sure you’d come,” Rook offered, inwardly admonishing himself for his sudden timidity. He didn’t do insecurity. He’d overcome that weakness, at the least, three centuries ago. “I’m glad you did.”

“I had to come. I wanted to thank you in a more coherent manner than I must have done last night.” She patted his hand before releasing it. “You’re cold. It is a bit chilly this evening, isn’t it?”

“It’s the way I am. I’ve always been cooler than most. But I warm quickly when…” He stopped himself from saying stroked properly.

Just met the chick, Rook. Dial your lust down a notch.

This one he did not want to scare off. She could help in his investigation.

The waiter stopped by, saving him from having to finish the sentence. Verity ordered mint tea and two vanilla macarons.

“So, thank you,” she said when the waiter walked away. “Did you stake the vampire who bit me?”

“I, uh…” He didn’t want to answer that question but had known it was coming. “He got away. I’m sorry. By the time I left you, the longtooth had given me the slip. I searched the Order database but couldn’t find him. I didn’t get a good look at his face. All I know is that he’s bald.”

She nodded and looked aside, tugging down her skirt in a nervous gesture. On her fingers glittered copper rings clasping amethysts. Witches were into gemstones and precious metals. He’d once known the meanings of the stones and how they could be utilized in magic. That had been so long ago.

“It’s fine,” she offered sweetly. “You took out four others.”

“Were you able to find a spell to prevent the bite from…?” No way to put it gently so he would not even speak it.

“Performed it last night as soon as I got home. I’ll be fine.”

Fluttering her fingers over the glass tabletop, she grasped the creamer with one hand while the other tugged up her sweater collar to hide the bite marks Rook managed to note with a glance.

“So, Order of the Stake. How long have you been a knight?”

“A long time.” And leave it at that. He never revealed the details unless he felt it was worth the trouble of helping the person through the shock. However, she was a witch and nothing should shock her when it came to paranormal particulars. “I’m actually the trainer and leader of the knights, just under the founder.”

“Impressive. Now I feel special. The big man on top saved me?”

Her flirty lash flutter captivated him. Her blue eyes were tinged with deep violet, almost as purple as her hair. As if some kind of rare jewel, they briefly stole attention from her soft, plump lips. But not for long.

Tea was set before her, and she stirred the tea bag about with a spoon. A nip at the macaron summoned a purring approval from her kissable lips.

“I love macarons. If you want to know the way to my heart?” She held the pale ochre pastry up. “This is it. I can tell you which patisseries in Paris sell the best macarons, which offer the crispest, softest and most unique in flavors. And which ones to avoid.”

“Duly noted. It’s always helpful to know the way into a woman’s heart.”

She lowered her gaze.

Rook sipped his espresso and took in the graceful lines of her hand wrapped about the teacup and the flick of her tongue as it dashed out to lick off a flake of pastry from a fingertip. Every move she made was sensual; he fought to not lean in and kiss her.

But what he desired more than a kiss? He wanted to lay his palm over her chest and read her, as he could read any person. He’d gotten such a strange read from their brief contact last night. All night he’d wondered about that flash of knowing that had washed over him as if heat had flooded his nervous system.

Oz had also been distracted through the night. In fact, the demon had been the one to prod him to visit Verity’s home and invite her to this meeting.

“I have to ask you something,” he started.

“It’s about what you said to me last night, isn’t it?”

Her eyes brightened and, compelled, Rook leaned across the table. To be nearer. In her aura of lush flowery scent and sweet sugary macarons. He wondered if her perfume was rose. He wanted to remember her scent when he returned home alone.

She added, “About your soul?”

He sat upright. So she had heard him utter that last night. Even shivering with fear, she’d been coherent and so brave. “Yes. I…felt something when I laid my hand on you.”

“You mean when you grabbed my boob?”

“I didn’t grab it.”

Not purposely. He’d been in a rush to ensure she was all right while the vampires had closed in on him from behind. But her flirtation amused him. She wasn’t afraid of him. In fact, the woman exuded an engaging confidence. Maybe she was interested in more than a chat over tea. He certainly wouldn’t rule it out.

“You felt me up,” she said, drawing her tongue along the jagged edge of the second macaron. He didn’t know her well enough to guess if that tone had been a tease or if she was actually offended.

“It was an accident,” he offered. “I wanted to touch you, to make contact, and let you know you were not alone at such a harrowing moment.”

“Sure.” She tapped the spoon against the plate and sipped her tea. “Admit it. You got a free feel.”

“Well, sure. And what an appropriate time, when four vampires were on my ass.”

“Touché.”

Her lips pursed as she sipped, and Rook sat up straighter, easing his leg to the right to allow some room in his rapidly tightening pants. Damn, she was gorgeous. And a witch. He held great respect for witches. Even when considering his not-so-illustrious history with the breed.

You are not here to flirt but to find your soul. Ask her!

Oz had the worst timing, but like it or not, the demon had always been more forthright than Rook’s conscience.

“Do you…” he started, not sure how to ask such a thing. “I mean, the touch. It felt familiar.”

She set the teacup down and tilted her head. Her assessment of him delved a bit too deep to remain a simple flirtation. She looked into him, beyond the suit and tie and the well-groomed jaw stubble. Beyond his vain need to slick back his hair in an attempt to coax the tufts of gray behind his ears. Her look felt as much like a touch as if she’d actually laid her palm over his chest.

“I need to tell you a story,” she finally said. “About something that happened to me, oh…a hundred and ten years ago. It was around 1908, I believe. A few decades after my mother died.”

Rook sat back, wondering where this was leading but content to listen to anything this sultry vixen wanted to tell him, even a story. “1908? It was a good year, if I recall correctly. The tale end of bohemia.”

She nodded, their shared history refreshing. Rare did he meet someone who could remember the history he did—that is, someone he didn’t want to stake.

“So, there I was, in bohemia—actually, it was more the Victorian era coming toward an end. I remember the stuffy long black skirt I was wearing. Wool. Ugh. So gothic. Anyway, I was wandering the edge of the Bois de Boulogne.”

The park that hugged the modern peripherique road that surrounded the city had once been a forest—and still was—though by the nineteenth century it had already been commandeered by less upstanding citizens for midnight liaisons and occult rituals. Not that Rook would admit to knowing anything about such rituals firsthand. Some things a man liked to keep close to his vest.

“Have you lived in Paris all your life?” she asked.

“I’ve traveled France and Europe and stayed in some countries a year or two at a time, but Paris has always been my home.”

“Then you’ll know that the forest had some wild parts. And I’m not talking about the illicit parties.”

Perhaps she also kept a few dangerous liaisons close to the vest. The thought that he may have passed by Verity Von Velde while wandering in a sex-blissed haze at a midnight orgy dialed Rook’s lust up another degree.

“It was near a field,” she continued, “and I saw a fallen rowan tree. Actually, I was compelled to the tree. My soul does that to me sometimes. Makes me go places and do things I would never intend to do. It always works out swell, though.

“The trunk had split away from the stump and had fallen with old age, but the wood revealed in the split smelled fresh and alive. I was lured closer to inspect, and I ran my hands along the jagged wood and down inside where the deepest parts had been reduced to soft decay from insects.

“At the core it was solid and hard, and I felt something there.” She looked at him, her bright gemstone eyes waiting for him to respond.

“A soul?” Rook’s heartbeats thundered as he began to grasp the hope he was aware Oz had tread for ages.

She dipped her head and gazed up at him. “Is that what you believe?”

“Don’t you know?”

“I do. I also knew the soul belonged to a man. A sad man. And that it needed to be kept safe. I can recognize things like that. A person’s heritage and, well, I can generally tell if that person has fathered children or been reincarnated. I have a reincarnated soul. And you…” She twisted her lips as she studied him from tufts of grey to the perfectly knotted tie at his throat. “Yes, you’ve fathered a child.”

“Sorry to disappoint, but I have not.”

“Hmm…I’m usually never wrong. My intuitions are like my magic. Spot on.”

“There’s a first time for everything, eh?” Her blatant confidence appealed to him. “But let’s get back to your tale about this soul in a tree.”

Rook’s memory flashed to the end of the sixteenth century, that fateful night he’d stood in the open field near the edge of the Bois de Boulogne, where he had made his home with Marianne. That cruel, dark night that the devil Himself had stood before him and presented an offer Rook had not refused.

“My soul was taken from me and buried in the ground,” he blurted out. “Very near the forest.”

“Hmm, that makes sense. If it was buried, a tree could have grown up through and around it, encompassing it in the core of its structure.”

A thick violet curl fell over Verity’s shoulder, and she cupped her hands around the teacup, lifting it just below her chin to inhale the spicy aroma.

“I couldn’t walk away from it,” she said, “so I dug out the core of the tree. Took me all day because I had but a small athame with me. Maman always berated me for carrying it around. One must revere instruments of magic,” she said in a haughty tone, obviously imitating her mother.

Rook chuckled, but he wanted her to continue, so he didn’t speak.

She set down the teacup. “The chunk I took away was about the size of a baby’s head.” She formed the shape with her hands. “I took it home and carved at it for months until I felt I’d carved to the essence of it. I made it into a heart shape about this size.”

She pinched her fingers together to represent something the size of a half golf ball.

“I polished it and strung it on a leather cord and have worn it around my neck ever since.”

Rook found words impossible. That she had done such a thing. Actually found his soul? It had to be his. The devil Himself had placed his soul in the ground, a wicked remuneration for the bargain they’d agreed to. A foul bargain that no sane man should have made.

What man could ask for such a thing?

He had. And he lived with regret even now. Never would he have forgiveness. Yet it was all he desired.

“So you have it?” he asked, tapping hope with his tone.

Verity took another sip of tea and looked aside, rubbing a hand along her sweater sleeve. She shook her head.

“You don’t have it? But you said you’ve worn it since. Protecting it?”

“I was wearing it last night. It must have fallen off during the struggle with the vampire. I went looking for it this afternoon, but…maybe I need to look once again.”

“Yes, you must. I’ll go with you.”

Rook stilled as she placed her hand over the back of his. Not clasping but simply calming his desperate need to rush into action. “How can you be sure it was yours?” she asked.

“How many times does a man have his soul stolen at the edge of the Bois de Boulogne and then watch it be buried? It can’t be anyone else’s soul. And like I said, I felt it when I touched you last night. It was a brief knowing.”

“Yes, I had a moment of knowing when you touched me, too. I think we’re connected, Rook.”

“Maybe.” He certainly felt some compulsion toward this beautiful woman. But it could simply be that she was gorgeous and appealed to his desires. “I’m sorry, but…could I touch you? Just to see if I can feel it again.”

“My boob?”

He chuckled. “I’d like to put my palm above your breast because that’s where I can feel your heartbeat. I, uh…can read people. Not like you claim to know things about people—I can actually see their truths.”

With a sigh, she turned on the chair to face him and propped her elbows on the wrought-iron chair back. “Fine. But don’t perv out on me.”

Much as he’d love to do that, he was a gentleman. Until he was not.

“Trust me, when I cop a feel, you’ll know it.”

Verity tugged the sweater open wider, and the soft T-shirt beneath revealed nipples so hard Rook could already feel them against his tongue.

Gentleman, remember?

He placed a palm above her breast, spread out his fingers over the shirt and closed his eyes. The heat of her was delicious; it spread up his fingers, up his arm and through his system like waves of rose blossoms shushed by a breeze.

At the sound of her sigh, he opened his eyes to see she had closed hers. Her lips were slightly parted. Long dark lashes dusted her cheeks. If they weren’t sitting out in the open with tourists and Parisians passing by, he’d kiss her.

“What do you feel?” she whispered in a breathy tone, eyes still closed.

Nothing.

Nothing?

Hell, he felt absolutely nothing. He couldn’t read her truths as he could do to any person or creature in this realm. It was an odd gift he’d had since the incorporeal demon had landed inside of him. Oz was a truth demon, after all.

Really? he asked inwardly.

A mystery, Oz answered. One you must explore further. I need you to get your soul back, my friend. My wife waits for me!

Yes, Oz’s faery wife, who was soon to give birth to their first child. He owed Oz his freedom. And there was only one way to do that—find and restore his soul.

Retracting his hand, Rook stared at his palm a few seconds before wiping it along his pants leg. Nothing. What was that about?

“That bad, huh?” she said, remarking on his actions.

“I didn’t get the same feeling as I did last night. But if you lost the necklace, then what I felt last night could have been true. And now with it missing, it makes sense I would not feel it.”

“I’m so sorry. I will find it. I’ve had it so long it’s become a part of me. And if it was your soul, well…”

“It’s not your problem anymore. I’ll track back to the site of the attack and have a look around. Your neck.” He gestured to the bite mark. “It’s healing? I did feel latent traces of vampire when I touched you.”

“Like the shimmer?”

The shimmer was the subtle vibration of connection vampires felt when they touched one another. It was the only way they had to know one another, unless, of course, fangs were down.

“A bit like the shimmer, but I’m not vampire. I just know that feeling.”

“You have been bitten?”

“Many times.” He wouldn’t tell her it had been voluntary. And that it always delivered erotic pleasure. That was another of those secrets he’d take to the grave. “Part of the profession. Like I said—”

“You can read people.”

“Except, apparently, you.”

Tilting her head down, she looked up through her lashes. “I’ve a bit of intuition about people.”

“Still never fathered a child.”

“Maybe. But I do sense something about you. Your touch is cool. I thought the knights in the Order were mortals?”

Oops. “They are.”

“You’re not mortal, Rook. Especially because you seem to recall the bohemian period at the beginning of last century. What are you? There’s…something inside you.”

Her intuition was surprisingly on the mark.

“What are you that you can read me so well?” he countered.

She shrugged and sipped her tea. “My mother always said I had a keen sense of place in this world. And that I could place others too. Though I’m a bit of a mystery to myself. Thanks to the reincarnated soul, don’t you know? It’s a demon inside you,” she stated suddenly. “Am I right?”

Rook nodded, finding the centuries-old lie to protect his identity did not come forth with the usual practiced ease. What sense was there in lying when she had so cleverly figured him out?

Yet why couldn’t he see her truths? How annoying.

He toyed with the porcelain coffee cup. “A truth demon,” he offered. “Asatrú has been with me for centuries. Allows me to read people’s truths.”

“But not mine?”

“I’m not sure why that is. Oz is as baffled as I am. You’re the first person I haven’t been able to read. And your name is Verity. How ironic is that?”

“I’ll count that as a good thing. A girl can’t give up her secrets too quickly. A little mystery is a good thing, yes?”

As she drew her tongue along her upper lip, Rook decided that yes, mystery was indeed good.

“So you call the demon Oz?”

“Asatrú is his full name, and he is pleased to meet you,” Rook offered, though Oz made no whisper that he cared about the witch one way or the other. The demon was pouting because she did not have his soul.

“I don’t understand why the vampire would want my necklace. It’s just a wooden heart and of no value to anyone else. I don’t think vamps can detect souls, can they?”

“I’m not aware that they can. He may have claimed it as a sick kind of trophy. Did you get a good look at him?”

“I was frantic and more upset that I’d expelled all my fire magic and was feeling helpless. He was bald, but you already know that.”

“Right. The one you blasted with fire. Good shot.”

“I’ve expert aim, but unfortunately using so much fire magic depletes my stores quickly. And I had been rehearsing earlier.”

“Rehearsing?”

“I’ve a fire act with the Demon Arts Troupe.”

“Interesting. It was a good thing I happened along last night. I need to find that vampire. If he has the necklace with my soul in it—”

“If it is your soul.”

“I think it is.”

“You want to believe it is.”

“Is there anything wrong with wanting to believe?”

“Not at all.”

Her mouth curved so prettily, Rook thought surely, if it had been his heart stolen by her, he’d let her keep it for as long as she wished to wear it around her neck on a leather cord.

“Would you mind taking a look at some mug shots at Order headquarters?”

“I, uh…hmm.” She twisted the teacup around on the saucer.

“If you’re unsure about what you saw…”

“It’s not that. I’m not particularly fond of taking sides within the paranormal community. I let the vamps do their thing, and they tend to leave me alone. If I should dabble in their affairs…”

“You fear reciprocation. What if I could promise you protection?”

She shook her head. “No. I’m sorry. I just…”

“That’s fine.” He didn’t want to push, though he couldn’t understand why she wouldn’t want to catch someone who had harmed her, no matter the breed. If he had been mortal, would she have helped him?

He wouldn’t dwell on it. He had other ways to make the woman talk. And he didn’t really mind what the topic of conversation was, so long as she didn’t walk away from him now, never to be seen again.

“Would you have dinner with me?” he asked. “I find I don’t want you to walk away from me. I’d like to get to know you better.”

“Where would we have dinner?”

“The location hinges on your decision?”

“Of course. If you suggest a seafood restaurant, I’d have to refuse. I’m not much for slimy cuisine.”

“My place,” he said. “I want to cook for you.”

“I’ve never had a man cook for me.” Her eyes brightened as she pushed aside a thick curl from her face. “It’s a date. Right now?”

“Have you other plans?”

That smile would undo him. “Not at all. Do you live close?”

“On the Ile St.-Louis. My car is parked just down the street.”

“I am at your beckon.” She took his proffered hand and followed him down the street.

That had been too easy. Yet disappointment weighed down Rook’s shoulders. He’d been so close to his soul, and now it was gone. Possibly taken by a vampire. He had to get it back.

Because he owed Oz for four centuries of imprisonment.

Chapter 3

The buildings on the Ile St.-Louis where Rook lived were old, and Verity knew anyone living here had to be wealthy. She suspected Rook was rich, judging by the stylish suit and Italian leather shoes he wore. She wasn’t into brand names, but she could pin a designer label merely from the way it made the man stand, erect and proud, elegant and tailored. Right with his place in the world and not afraid to take on any challenge.

Of course, that could be the hunter in him, too.

And he smelled like something worth more than a quick spritz from a cheap bottle of cologne. Like burnt peaches and tobacco. The idea of tasting him effervesced in her core and warmed her skin.

Occupied by a truth demon, eh? Yet he couldn’t read the truth in Veritas Von Velde. Interesting. And definitely worth further exploration.

After shedding her sweater and handing it to him to hang, Verity sat at the kitchen table with a goblet of Bordeaux to watch her host work culinary magic. Admittedly, cooking was not in her arsenal of magical or just plain practical household skills. She ate simple whole foods that required little preparation, but that was only because she’d never taken the time to learn to cook. She had always been busy with her magical studies. And when a woman grew up with a grandmother, great-grandmother and mother who always cooked, why bother? So to watch this gorgeous man move about with such ease as he concocted food for her was a dream.

Rook was tall and sleek. Beneath the gray dress shirt flexed steel muscles, and the very sinews of him conformed against the fabric as he reached for vegetables or high on a shelf for cooking oil.

In her imagination Verity glided her palms over his cool skin, mapping his contours and memorizing his hard angles. She bit the corner of her lip to contain a squeal of glee.

His slicked-back dark brown hair touted tufts of gray near his temples and a few sprigs of salty strands mixed here and there throughout. Dark brows commanded her attention to his gaze when he regarded her. While sitting at the café table she’d noticed a tiny scar above his left brow and fancied it from a rapier or even a vampire fang.

The groomed stubble that edged his jaw as if to frame his façade begged her to touch. A small triangle of stubble sat beneath his lower lip, and along with the mustache, it gave him a swashbuckler appeal. She loved facial hair and wanted to feel his mustache tickle her upper lip as he kissed her.

All in all? The man possessed a brutal beauty that she wanted to trace and learn.

Rook’s frequent glances over his shoulder acted as if invisible touches shot through the atmosphere and made it impossible for her to relax because her entire body hummed with desire. Tracing the inner curve of her lower lip with her tongue, she tapped a fingernail against the crystal wine goblet.

“You like quinoa?” he asked over a shoulder.

“I’ll like anything you offer.” Including a tickling kiss from that sexy mustache. “It’s a treat to have a man cook for me.”

“I’ve been cooking for myself for centuries. I hired a chef for a few years in the early twentieth century but decided I prefer doing things for myself.”

“You like the control,” she guessed.

He nodded, conceding with a guilty grin.

“That’s the difference between the two of us,” she said. “I prefer people doing things for me.”

“It pleases me to do this for you.” His wink caught her as if a hand about her heart clasped ever so gently.

Verity swore under her breath. The man was sexy. But she’d only just met him. Cool the fire, and calm the jets. She didn’t need to trust him at this stage, but learning a little more about him would prove wiser than leaping blindly into lust. And after her last disastrous relationship, she was skittish.

By all means, she wanted to help him find his soul. Because—and this was just occurring to her now—if this hunter could find the vampire who may have stolen her necklace containing his soul, then naturally, he’d slay the longtooth. Then, if for some strange reason the spell she’d worked last night hadn’t been effective, she would have a backup reassurance that she’d never transform to vampire.

Not that she needed backup. Her spells were always effective.

She wandered over to the stove and peeked around Rook’s arm to inspect his creation. Bright chopped vegetables glistened in the frying pan. Scents of lemon, pepper and rosemary teased her nose.

“Looks delicious. Mind if I snoop about while you

create?”

“Go ahead. The bathroom is through the bedroom if you need it.”

“Thanks.”

As she strolled into the living room, her heels clicked on the parquet flooring. A vast ballroom-sized area, it was sparely furnished with only a massive turquoise velvet couch and a sleek glass coffee table that harbored a laptop and precise stacks of mail and books. Even the man’s clutter was controlled.

Along the far wall stood various large artifacts that drew her interest. A marble sculpture of a nude woman stretched backward in an impossible bend intrigued Verity enough to glide her fingers along the cool white curve of her torso. The creation felt as cool as Rook’s skin. Was he cold because of the demon within? Had to be. She studied the smooth stone. It had been carved especially for Rook. She knew it as she knew things about living, breathing people. It was that thing she had about knowing a person’s place in this world.

Touching the small brass knobs on the unstained apothecary’s cabinet next to the sculpture, she wondered at what might be inside the dozens of tiny drawers but respectfully did not pull any open.

Her heels clicked on the spotless wood floor as she crossed to the floor-to-ceiling windows that looked out over the Seine. Although the sun was setting, the gray sky was illuminated from all the unnatural light that burst forth from a city that never slept. Across the river, lights inside the four- and five-story buildings formed a pixilated artwork against the cityscape.

Verity performed a twirl right there because she felt light, despite the events of the previous evening. She didn’t want to think about that darkness. Tonight she would enjoy spending time with a handsome man.

Her mother would turn over in her grave.

“Just in it for the adventure,” she reminded herself, knowing her staunchly warned heart would never allow her to actually fall for a hunter. Any man, for that matter. Because just when she began to let down her guard and welcome in love, she had gained a stalker.

She walked on light feet to a door impressed with rococo carved wood scrollwork. She decided it must lead into Rook’s bedroom. Glancing over a shoulder to ensure he was still in the kitchen, she pushed open the door and stepped inside.

A bedroom was a person’s thumbprint of their personality, and what an interesting study of the stoic knight. This was his sanctum.

Grays and blues designed the room’s color scheme, with the parquet floor painted a soft gray, much like in her attic bedroom. Calming and serene. Verity released her breath and then inhaled the subtle blend of cinnamon and myrrh. Exotic scents for an equally exotic man.

She decided suddenly that Rook was chocolate yuzu. She had a tendency to assign macaron flavors to the people she knew. Crisp and delightful on the outside, with a surprising tang on the inside.

Smiling at her assessment, she wandered inside the room. Again, little furniture, as if to collect possessions would somehow clutter the man’s vita. She liked that. Some who lived many centuries tended to collect hoards of material things. This home showed restraint. Control was certainly Rook’s mien.

A large turquoise velvet tufted ottoman—must be a match to the couch—sat near the window. Next to that a cloth yoga mat was spread out before an altar that featured a stone Buddha with tumescent belly and a gleeful grin.

“Disciplined,” she further assessed the man. “Yet also open, and…” her eyes fell over the bed “…so sensual.”

The middle of the room offered a peek beyond the tight-fisted control. A king-size bed sat beneath a fall of turquoise fabric tied up to allow entry to the innermost sanctuary. It resembled a harem hotspot, a post where illicit and exquisite pleasures could be had.

Verity tapped her lips. Such fantasies she could entertain beneath that gossamer fabric.

Keeping to the wall that hugged the living room, she tiptoed over to the wardrobe. Drawing her fingers along the steel front, she decided the modern-styled piece felt out of place in the room. A hinged door was open a crack.

Chewing the corner of her lip, she vacillated between whether or not to peek inside. She hadn’t done so out in the living room, but here, so far from the kitchen…?

She slid a finger between the crack in the wardrobe, and the heavy steel door glided toward her to reveal not clothes but—

Bloody Hecate, it’s an armory.

Must be the weapons he used when engaged in hunting. Dozens of titanium stakes were lined along the back of the wardrobe. Pistols and a crossbow and an assortment of blades. She marveled over the throwing stars she’d only seen used in movies. Ninja stuff. Did he use all this in the fight against vampires?

Daring to draw her fingers along the cool column of one of the stakes, she took it and held it, finding it was much lighter than expected. A flashlight was twice as heavy. Careful with it, she knew that the actual stake part came out of one end with some kind of release mechanism—

“You take that snooping thing seriously, don’t you?”

Startled, Verity squeezed the titanium column. The stake sprang out, jerking her arm back to hit Rook in the chest with her elbow. He wrangled her wrist and spun her around, an expert offensive move that he may have only practiced on vampires previously.

“Uh.” She gasped and looked from the deadly stake, pointed toward his chest, to his smirk and those laughing blue eyes. “Sorry?”

“Be careful. That thing could take out an eye.”

“Or a life,” she whispered, releasing the weapon to him. He extracted it from her shaking fingers and set it inside the cabinet. “I’m sorry. It was open a little, and I—well, I did say I was going to snoop.”

“You should be chastised for such daring.” He looked at her over his shoulder. “And I’m of a mind to do that.”

“But I was just…uh…” She sighed and lifted her chin, losing all powers to reason as she fell into the depths of his intimately delving stare.

The man answered her astonishment with a kiss that landed on her mouth as softly as a butterfly. But as their lips joined, the too-gentle pressure demanded they seek one another more forcefully. Pulling her body against his, he claimed her in that moment. His fingers moved along her hip and curled, forcing her closer. His other hand swept through her hair and clutched it aside her cheek. He tasted like the herbs he’d used to season the meal, which mingled with the wine lingering on her tongue. His mouth seared fire against hers, teasing her to match his urgency.

And she did.

Every part of Verity shimmered, seeking, grabbing, wanting this delicious connection to never stop. It was as though she had not been kissed for centuries, and finally, exquisitely, she was being fed the life she had never known she needed.

Rook’s hand swept down her derriere and his fingers traced along the ruffles that hemmed her miniskirt, his fingertips every so often touching the bared skin between skirt and thigh-high stockings.

Verity pressed up higher onto the tips of her toes, clinging to his shirt collar to keep him at her mouth. She needed his breath. Their connection made her feel as powerful as she did when throwing fire. Combustible, that was the word for this embrace. And if she could, she’d melt right into his arms. May he lay her across his vast bed of untold exotic pleasures and continue his exploration with a million more kisses.

Suddenly the kitchen buzzer tinged, and he abruptly pulled away from her. Verity gasped, stepping on her tiptoes to maintain balance at the loss of such utter sensual strength. The kiss had completely discombobulated her in the best way possible.

He bracketed her face with his hands. “Dinner’s ready.”

Screw dinner. Another kiss, please?

Seeming to completely dismiss that he’d just kissed her silly, Rook closed the wardrobe doors, secured the latch, then strode out of the room.

Verity obediently followed him into the kitchen and sat when he pulled out a chair for her. Her body was still in the bedroom, crushed up against his powerful build. Her mouth was at his…

Licking her lips to savor the taste of his chastising kiss, she pressed a palm over her heart. So fast, it rushed toward something she hadn’t thought to ever know. Excitement, adventure, romance. It all sounded deliciously decadent.

Yet he’d walked away from the kiss as if it had meant nothing more to him than, well, peeling away the rind from the lemon as he’d prepared the meal. Perhaps he was not as enamored of their embrace as she had been. Or maybe it had simply been as he’d stated: a punishment for her snooping.

If so, then what other kinds of mischief could she get into that required such admonishment?

Play it cool, Verity. It hasn’t been that long since you’ve been kissed. Why the silly swoon this time? He’s just another man. Take it slow or you’ll end up in another wacky relationship with a stalker.

But Rook wasn’t any other man. They had met for a reason, and she wanted to learn why.

When he offered white wine, she held up her goblet. Its scent was ridiculously strong, and she picked it out, even over the herbs and cooking aromas. “Raspberries?” she guessed.

“Very good. A friend of mine owns a vineyard in the south of France. They plant raspberries and peaches within the vines.”

After a sip, she said, “It’s delicious.”

“You may claim an epicurean mastery of Paris’s macarons, but I challenge anyone to match me at wine.”

“I bow to your sommelier skills. But is wine the way to your heart?”

“No.”

“Then what is?”

“You have your unreadable secrets. I have mine.”

He set a plate of quinoa and vegetables before her. Verity closed her eyes, drawing in the crazy-good scents, until Rook touched her shoulder to sweep her hair back.

Meeting his gaze, they shared a smile that said everything she had wanted that kiss to mean to him.

“This meal won’t be anything to talk of after that kiss,” he said.

So he had been affected by it.

Smiling to herself, she forked in a bite. True, his kiss had been delicious, but the food was nothing to sneeze at. “I’ve only known you a few hours and already you’re spoiling me. If you keep feeding me like this, I may never leave.”

“Is that a promise?” He winked and poured a goblet of wine for himself.

* * *

While Rook loaded the dishwasher, Verity wandered into the living room. She didn’t feel compelled to help. Domesticity was not tops on her list. Admittedly, she spoiled herself with maid and catering services. She could afford it. An immortal witch with a mind to living many centuries compiled a nice portfolio over the years, and a cache of seventeenth-century gold given to her by a former lover who had taken infatuation to new levels was something she would appreciate for centuries to come.

The sudden awareness that Rook was behind her made her bow her head and smile. He was so quiet. Stealthy, like a hunter. But a sexy, cool stealth that disturbed her need to remain cautious around him. She was normally not so quick to jump into a man’s arms, let alone allow him to kiss her, but with Rook all her personal boundary rules seemed ridiculous.

Trust? Certainly not. But trust had nothing to do with lust.

He wanted to touch her? Bring it on. And don’t stop, pretty please.

He raked his fingers up through her hair, clutching a good portion of it, and tugged her head and shoulders back until she bent at the waist. Looking down at her and holding her firmly before him, he traced a finger down her neck and the vee décolletage of her T-shirt, leisurely skimming the mounds of her cleavage. To be held like this—controlled—excited her.

“Your skin is soft.” With a twist of his hand, he righted her to stand straight. His fingers never left her cleavage, and they felt like a cool summer breeze against her warm skin. “Your skin is like the flame you seem to have mastered. I’ve known witches over the years, and most avoid fire.”

“Because it can bring our death.”

He nodded, his jaw tensing. Burning a witch at the stake, or in any other manner, was the worst and most assured way to end their life. Had he witnessed such a travesty? Verity got the impression he suddenly wasn’t in the present moment, so she sought to lure him back.

With a teasing dip of her tongue out the corner of her mouth, she held up her palm, and with nothing more than a thought summoned a fireball the size of a plum to hover above her fingers.

Rook’s eyes alighted with the flame’s reflection, and his smile grew. “Marvelous. And so controlled. May I?” He opened his palm as if he wanted to hold it. “Can I?”

“If I allow it, you should be able to hold it a few seconds without getting burned.”

She tilted her palm, and the ball of ensorcelled flame rolled onto his hand without touching skin, only skimming above it. Her magic kept it from settling onto his palm, and she had to concentrate to make it stay there. He didn’t flinch at the heat, and she gave him credit for that. Perhaps his cooler skin also made it possible to hold it as long as he was.

Lifting his hand before his eyes, with his other fingers he touched the top of the ball. “Incredible.” The flames licked at his fingertips and he hissed, retracting and shaking out his palm and dropping the fireball.

Verity bent to sweep a hand through the flame, extinguishing it before it hit the wood floor.

“Sorry.” He studied his fingertips. “I’ll leave the fire magic to you.”

“You had to try it,” she said, taking his hand to inspect the damage. “I sense you are a man who likes to control whatever you can. You exude power.”

“Is anything wrong with that?”

“Not at all. So long as you don’t corrupt that power with greed or malevolence.” She kissed his fingertips, which were warm but had not touched the flame long enough to receive more than a red blush to the skin. “You want to play with something dangerous that’ll warm your hands?”

She stepped back, teasing her fingers along the neckline of her shirt. A dip of her head, and she looked up through her lashes at him. The hunger in Rook’s eyes brightened. He followed her as she backed across the room, nearing the Buddha statue. Only when the windowsill behind her stopped her progress did he smirk. Triumph. She was now trapped by the hunter, unless she dodged to the side.

Verity planted her feet. She preferred the capture.

Rook did not disappoint.

He swept a palm along her thigh and hooked her leg with a hand, coaxing it up along his hip. Pressing her back against the window frame, he placed a hand over her head as he leaned in and captured her mouth with another of his devastating kisses.

Verity tugged him closer with the leg she had wrapped behind his hip, and he nudged his erection against her Hard and ready. Goddess, but she could unzip him and take him in hand if she could get beyond the fact that this was happening so quickly. They’d shared a drink at a café and then supper, and now…

The devouring. Which she didn’t mind at all if she didn’t think about all the reasons to mind it. Reasons that included the fact that she knew nothing about this man and generally she was a bit more prudent when it came to intimacy.

His kisses tickled along her jaw and up her cheek, where he nuzzled into her hair and his breath hushed across her ear. The touch sent shivers up and down her skin. Verity coiled against him, wanting to pull him into her and become one with his powerful distraction of masculinity.

“You were right,” he said at her ear. “You are as hot as the flame but infinitely more interesting to play with.”

He slid a hand over her chest and she gasped, tilting back her shoulder to fit her breast against his palm. A squeeze of her nipple stirred up a moan, and in response he bent and mouthed her roughly through the fabric.

“Rook,” she gasped. “This is…”

“Fast?” he guessed, nudging his nose along the neckline of her shirt. A finger dragged the stretchy fabric aside. A dash of his tongue traced the rise of her breast. So sensitive there. “You want me to stop?”

“Uh…” Did she?

Hell no, and blessed be, yes.

She grasped behind her, and her fingers landed on the carved woodwork coasting a windowsill. Leaning away from him only thrust up her breasts and offered him more of what he wanted.

Yes, this is too fast, her conscience finally blurted at her. She and the hunter should take it slowly. Couldn’t give him everything he wanted so quickly. Bad things happened when she gave in—like stalking.

Verity shoved at his chest.

Rook stepped back, putting up his palms. “Sorry.”

“Don’t be,” she said quickly and offered him a sheepish smile. Swishing a curl of hair over her shoulder, she took a much-needed breath of air. “I didn’t want to stop you, yet I needed you to. It is a bit fast. Not that anything is wrong with fast. I just think—”

“I got it.” He dashed a hand across his lips and flicked a wink at her. “You’re right. I tend to take things that I want when a little prolonged desire is best employed. We should savor this.”

She nodded eagerly. “Savoring is good.”

At the same time she wished she wasn’t so prudent to hold him off, and instead, could grab him by the shirt and pull him back for more.

“Any way I can convince you to go along with me to headquarters tomorrow to look at mug shots?”

“Still don’t want to take sides.”

“The victim chooses her own side. Very well. I won’t push you to do anything that would make you uncomfortable.”

Being labeled a victim did not sit well with her. She had merely been in the wrong place at the wrong time. Yet the idea of missing out on his coercive sensual skills made Verity drop her shoulders. Should she reconsider helping him? What if she refused to help unless he kissed her?

“Come. It’s time we called it a night.”

He tugged her hand into his and led her through the living room and into the kitchen, where he promptly helped her on with her sweater. Gathering her long hair into his hands, he pulled it from the sweater and let it fall across her shoulders. He nuzzled his face into her hair and wrapped a hand around and across her stomach from behind.

“You have gotten inside me, Verity.”

“And yet you claim an inability to read me.”

“Frustrating, but the mystery of you is as sweet as a vanilla macaron.”

He’d guessed it right. She had always considered herself a vanilla macaron.

“Mmm…your hair. I want to lose myself in this.” He bunched up her tresses against his face. “You’d better leave now before I decide to keep you here against your will.”

Sounded rather adventurous, actually.

But Verity declined her lusty imagination. With a nod, she turned to give him a quick kiss. “Thanks for a lovely evening.”

He stroked her neck over the vampire bite. “This should be gone by tomorrow, yes?”

“We witches take a little longer than most paranormals to heal. Give it a few more days.”

“Sure. That’ll give me an excuse to see you again. To make sure you’re looking as good as new. Bonsoir.”

Closing the door behind her, she exhaled and shook her head. Damned vampire bite. Did it bother him? Surely, as a hunter, he wouldn’t like to look at anything left behind by a vampire. She’d have to practice her cover-up skills with makeup before she next saw him.

Date number two couldn’t arrive fast enough.

* * *

Rook caught his hands on the back of the kitchen chair and listened until he could no longer hear Verity’s heels tapping away down the outer hall. They’d been so close to stripping away clothing. He certainly wouldn’t have stopped it. When the hell had he been such an animal around a woman?

Besides always? He did have a tendency to take and then push them aside, never to see them again. Easier that way. When a man lived this long he couldn’t dream to have real, lasting relationships. Such a connection would only result in heartbreak. He’d been there and done that enough times to have learned his lesson.

Verity had bewitched him; that was it. Because he couldn’t imagine not touching or kissing her. He wanted to put his hands on her. Constantly.

Are you forgetting why you need her?

“No,” he muttered to Oz.

She can help you find your soul. End of story.

“Why can’t it be the beginning? I like her, Oz.”

She will muddle everything if you do not treat this as a business arrangement.

Could be true. Oz was the wiser of the two of them. If Rook became further involved with Verity, his brain would certainly not be en pointe and he could not expect to have the focus required to hunt Slater and find the bald vamp who might have his soul.

It was all tied together in some way. Zmaj, Slater and the vampire who had stolen his soul from Verity.

Ah, but he hadn’t felt this way about a woman in a long time. A little muddling was all right, wasn’t it?

Rook, you are not thinking straight.

“No, I’m not,” he whispered. And the smile that followed spread up to his eyes and into his heart.

Chapter 4

Verity slipped her feet into thigh-high black suede boots. A fitted blue sweater dress stopped above the boots. With winter, she’d have to switch to longer skirts, but she was holding out with the shorter, more flirty skirts as long as possible.

Strolling through the house, her thoughts admonished her silly need to take sides yesterday. Because really? By not helping Rook to identify the vampire who had attacked her, she was taking the side of the vampires.

What could it hurt to take a look at a few pictures? Especially if it meant seeing the handsome knight again.

“I’m not a victim,” she said. “And I’ll prove it by doing the right thing.” She touched the cell phone sitting on the kitchen counter. “I should have gotten his number.”

The doorbell rang, startling her from her thoughts. Dashing down the front hallway, she opened the door and, stepping out, walked right into Rook’s arms. He slipped her into his embrace with an ease that didn’t give her time to comprehend that he was also kissing her until her shoulders hit the door frame behind her. And the man’s tongue slid across hers.

He certainly knew how to kiss. Forget “Hello, how do you do?” or even “Bonjour, mademoiselle.” She’d take this silent yet intimate greeting any day. His entire body fit up against hers, feeling the shape of her, speaking his command with the jut of his hip to hold hers against the doorframe.

Verity tucked the toe of her boot around one of his ankles, wanting to draw as much of him against her as possible. His tongue lashed hers. He tasted like espresso, the dark, bitter kind that she’d never dared try—until now. A sigh ended the surprise connection.

“Namaste,” he said.

“Right back at you. To what do I owe this pleasure?”

“I thought I’d make one more attempt at coercing you to look at mug shots today.”

“Oh, well—”

He put up an admonishing finger. “I have a bribe.”

Verity lifted a brow. A bribe sounded promising. Far be it from her to confess she was just considering helping him.

From behind his back, the man produced a pretty sky-blue box embossed with white lettering.

“Ladurée,” she whispered with glee.

She recognized the signature Bonaparte box; it was filled with eighteen macarons. It was a treat she never indulged in because so many at a time felt too decadent. She dashed her tongue across her lips and reached for the box.

Rook pulled it away. “It’s yours if you accompany me to headquarters and look over some mug shots.”

Wasn’t he a sneak using macarons to coerce her? If she told him she’d had a change of heart, surely she’d spoil his perceived success and the prize would be reneged.

She nodded. “Agreed.”

He lifted a brow. Had she agreed too quickly?

“Uh, well, you know, I suppose it couldn’t hurt to take a look at a few photos. But I’d be doing it against my original convictions.”

“Of course, your convictions can remain strong. Let it be recorded that I coerced you and you fought mightily to the end.”

Smiling, he stepped back onto the walk, paralleled by flowers and vines and, box held out as a lure, began to step backward. He crooked a finger in beckon.

Verity closed and locked the front door behind her. Following the bait, she took delight in Rook’s little-boy grin. He thought he was being so clever. Far be it from her to reveal otherwise.

Once through the purple iron gate, she saw the car parked in front of her property and her attention diverted from sweets to something even sweeter. Oh baby. The sports car’s curves were obscene. The paint color resembled the inside of a crushed pomegranate. Verity actually wanted to lick a vehicle. She’d bet the interior was soft, creamy leather that a person could absolutely melt into.

The knight had expensive tastes that she could appreciate. And just because she could take care of herself didn’t mean she couldn’t get behind a man with money.

Forget behind. She preferred a man to stand alongside her or even allow her the lead on occasion. Date number two?

Wait, no. Today wasn’t a date. This was work. Which meant she still had two dates remaining on the three-date rule.

“What do you call this sexy contraption?” she wondered as he held the car door for her to get inside.

“It’s an Alfa Disco. A little out there in style, but I love the curves. You like?”

Her eyes darted from the interior of the car to the little blue box he held.

“Oh yes.” She liked everything about this man.

She slid onto the passenger seat and he shut the door, taking the box of macarons with him and placing it on his lap as he got in and revved the engine. A pulse of his jaw momentarily switched the playful man over to focus. Certainly he had a dark side that he seemed to guard as precisely as he ordered his home. The heart was a home, after all.

“Want a sip? If I had two cup holders, I’d have picked you up a cup.” He handed her a paper coffee cup and shifted into gear.

The espresso was dark and commanding, much like Rook. Verity sipped the bitter brew while the crushed-fruit Alfa Disco glided through the city as if on air.

Settled into the leather seat that was as soft and buttery as she’d guessed, she observed her dashing host from the side. So intriguing, that tuft of gray hair above his ear. Immortals tended to age slowly. How long had he lived?

A furrow in his brow made her wonder if he concentrated too intently when driving. Cool, calm, yet ultra-aware. A hunter to the core. She wanted to reach over and trace the triangle of stubble that underlined his mouth, but instead she curled her fingers into her palm.

“What?” he suddenly asked after they’d driven ten minutes. He turned, navigating the car into an ill-lit underground lot. “You’ve been staring at me since we left your place. Do I have my shirt on inside-out?”

No, but if he had, then he’d have an excuse to remove it and give her a look at what she felt sure were sexy abs. The shirt in question stretched snugly across his pecs and about his biceps.

“Is this normal business practice for the Order of the Stake?” she wondered as he stopped the car and dashed around the front to open her door.

She stepped out. “Inviting witches into headquarters?” she reiterated. “It feels sneaky to me.”

“We’re not being sneaky. Just clandestine.”

“Mmm, clandestine appeals.”

“Everything about you appeals, Verity.” He nudged her hair with his nose as he tucked a kiss behind her ear. Stepping back and pressing his palms together as if to remind himself to keep his distance at work, he then said, “It is rare an outsider is invited into the inner sanctum, so to speak. So forget everything you see inside, will you?”

“Or you’ll have to kill me?” she joked, handing him the espresso as he led her toward an elevator.

“I don’t kill witches.”

She wanted to trust that statement but could never get beyond the distinct scent of burning flesh reminiscent of her mother’s death.

“But you’ve killed female vampires?” She followed him into the elevator.

He tilted his head at her, his eyes seeking but probably not seeing what he wanted to see. He couldn’t read her? Good.

“On occasion I’ve had to stake a woman,” he finally said. “It’s never easy. But my job, first and foremost, is to protect humans, and I do it no matter the costs.”

She nodded. The man was a killer, and she didn’t want to get on his bad side. But only a vampire could do that. She hoped.

The elevator doors slid open to a limestone-walled hallway. It appeared as though it had been carved from the stone beneath the city, much like the hundreds of miles of labyrinths that coiled under Paris.

“Cozy,” she commented, following Rook’s sure strides past a few steel doors that looked out of place nestled within the stone walls. The air was humid, the light thin. “What’s above?”

“Don’t ask me to reveal the exact location of this place,” he said over a shoulder. “I probably should have blindfolded you.”

“You had me at clandestine escapades, but I’ll swing for the blindfold, too.”

She walked right into his embrace. The man slid his mouth along her jaw, and at her ear he whispered, “That can be arranged. But not here.”

“Of course, not at your place of business. Don’t worry. You can trust me to keep a closed mouth about this visit,” she said.

She tapped the blue box, and the knight swung out of the embrace and into a stride. Verity picked up her steps to keep his pace. And to keep the box in eyesight.

Excitement scurried through her system. She had been invited into the inner sanctum! There was something cool about that. A bit like playacting the spies she’d seen in movies. Too bad the man didn’t keep a blindfold in his desk drawer. A little kink never hurt anyone.

Rook arrived at a door. “Ready?”

So much unsaid in that word. An invitation to much more than was exposed on the surface of the sultry look he cast her.

“Always.” And that was a yes to both helping him and the lascivious deeds his eyes promised. “Anything I see while I’m here will go to the grave with me. Promise.”

He spread his hand before her chest, as if to touch, then did not. Must have remembered he couldn’t read her. “I believe you. My office.”

He opened the door and gestured her inside. Expecting hi-tech cyber décor with blinking lights and secret passkeys, Verity let out a sigh of disappointment as she entered the room. It was plain and spare, much like his home, with only a marble-topped desk and a few ancient weapons hung on the limestone walls. Not a retinal-eye-reading device in sight, nor a green laser security beam threatening to cut her off at the knees should she make the wrong step.

“Collected over the years?” she asked and tapped the cold iron spike protruding from a mace. The tip of it was blunted, no doubt from repeatedly connecting to stone or perhaps skull.

“Yes, and used in battle more than a few times.”

She imagined Rook swinging the mace at a vampire’s head, and then—no, she didn’t want to consider the gory details. Besides, beheading a vampire wasn’t always the trick to ending its life. The heart had to burst to guarantee sure death.

Rubbing her palms over her sweater skirt, at Rook’s direction she took a seat in the office chair, while he stood beside her and booted up the computer. Tilting her head closer to his chest, she picked up his tobacco and peaches scent. Wonder if she could lick that delicious scent off his skin? She would certainly like to try. And she’d start…there, just under his jaw where it formed a square corner of his face.

“Verity?”

Had he said something to her while she’d been imagining dancing her tongue over his body?

“It’s yours.” He placed the box on the desk next to the mouse pad. “Thank you.” He winked.

“Always willing to help. Uh, for macarons, of course.”

“Of course. You’ll find we have a few photos. Some vamps photograph well enough, but many do not, so there are sketches mixed in with the photos. Click the right arrow to scan through them. Let me know if you find a face you recognize. Are you cool with this?”

“Oh, yes.” She sat up to the desk and palmed the mouse. “I like a good adventure.”

“Then I’m going to leave you a few minutes to check on operations. I’ll be back with more espresso, yes?”

“Sure. Cream, too, please!” she called, still tasting the bitterness at the back of her throat.

As soon as he had left the office, she lifted the top of the box. Inside nestled colorful jewels that smelled like heaven. If a witch were to believe in heaven, Verity felt sure her ethereal diet would consist entirely of macarons (and the occasional cup of hot chocolate from Angelina). She strolled her fingers over the soft yet crisp pastries and landed on a deep golden jewel that she then drew out and bit into.

“Mmm, chocolate yuzu. I love that sneaky knight.”

She smirked at how easily it had been for the man to win her over. So he’d won this round. She wasn’t at all ashamed of the loss. And really, it wasn’t an official loss considering she’d decided to help him before the bribe had been revealed.

Focusing on the faces before her, she clicked rapidly through the first half a dozen or so because they all had hair, but then she stopped herself.

“He could have shaved his head recently. Better look at them all,” she cautioned.

Again, her gaze swerved to the macaron box. Such a distraction would prove this a most challenging task.

* * *

Smiling to himself at the forethought to purchase the macarons, Rook strode through the locker room and checked in the gym to see if any knights were using the facilities. Most days the headquarters was quiet, and without any current trainees, he usually had the place to himself.

“Kasper,” he said to the man who sat on the weight bench. Clad in sweatpants, his formidable biceps shone with sweat. “How’d it go with the Magic Dust situation?”

Recently vampires had discovered a new drug. Although faery dust was a vamp’s favorite drug, the past few months Paris had been hit with a much crueler version of the stuff that drove vamps insane. And to feed their cravings, they went in search of anything that sparkled. That had resulted in innocent humans getting their necks ripped out as the vampire clawed for the diamond necklace they wore. Even rhinestones had attracted them. Nasty stuff.

“We’ve seen the last of Magic Dust,” the hunter said, standing and grabbing a T-shirt to pull on. “I can promise that.”

“Excellent.”

Kaspar Rothstein was one of Rook’s best knights, and he had recently hooked up with a pretty little witch who made her home on the edge of FaeryTown. Kaz had been recruited into the Order when he was seventeen, the youngest knight to take vows. Tor had found him.

“I’d appreciate it if you’d take some time to update the database with the information you gleaned regarding the sidhe while on the investigation,” Rook said. “You had a few close calls with the Sidhe Cortege, yes?”

Kaz rubbed a hand over a hip where Rook suspected one of those close calls had landed. “Oh yeah. But Zoë fixed it up for me. She’s an amazing healer. You know, the Order should consider having a healer on staff.”

It was a good idea, and Rook was surprised he’d not considered it over the centuries. Probably because he had a way of healing that was more appealing than being tended to by a physician or healer.

“I’ll take that under consideration. I’m conducting a private investigation in my office. Keep your distance, will you?”

He left the knight nodding and probably wondering at that statement. Rook knew he had an abrupt manner, but it was a powerful tool for a trainer and for a man who had centuries of secrets to keep under wraps. He’d learned that less talk and more action was the optimal way to teach, learn and guide. Because he wasn’t much for small talk, the method suited him well.

In the lounge where a full kitchen was kept stocked, he brewed fresh espresso, found some cream in the fridge, then wandered back to his office.

He found Verity gazing at a sketch on the screen. The box of macarons was open to reveal three missing treats. Good girl. Rook walked up behind her and recognized the face on the monitor.

“That’s Johnny Santiago,” he said. “It wasn’t him.”

“I know. He’s too pretty to be the creep that bit me. Thanks,” she said, taking the cup from him and sipping. He’d poured in a lot of cream after noticing her wince in the car. He liked his brew tough. “I’ve seen him before, though.”

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