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22
Just like last time, when Adam knocked on the door, an unfamiliar Nightwalker led him in through the crowded nest. Only this time, he muttered, “You’ve been expected,” without even asking Adam’s name before dropping him off in front of a second door.
Adam had to resist the urge to peek up at the ceiling. From the blueprints, he knew that this was the main room; the room in the building that Tabby was watching over. They assumed this would be where the meet took place and, though he was quickly proven wrong when the Nightwalker told him to step into the next room, it was still a good look-out point. Depending on if things went south, at least Tabby would now have eyes on the twenty or so Nightwalkers milling around this space.
Plus, he didn’t have to worry about her interfering when he met with the mysterious female about the elixir. The last thing he wanted was for Tabby to be involved. He still couldn’t get past how the invitation was for both of them. Whether Tabby was the true target or not, Adam would do this on his own so that he could keep her from becoming one.
Listening to the Nightwalker at his back, Adam pushed the door open, stepping inside of a dim room that reminded him of the place where he met his death the last time. From the dais along the wall, to the thrones perched side by side in the middle of the platform, the only difference was that there were two thrones this go-round.
That, and Julian Koenig wasn’t there.
But his second was.
Sprawled lazily in the throne on the right, there sat Rafe Silverson. He looked up when Adam walked in the room, then immediately went back to filing his already sharp claws to points.
Adam stopped in the doorway.
It might be a trap, he accepted, but he couldn’t ask for a better one.
Only—
It didn’t make sense. Rafe was the one that Adam had been after all along. He was the one he fought during Priscilla’s attack, and the one who served as Julian’s right-hand man. But all the intel Tabby’s slayer contacts had passed along made it clear that it was a female who wanted to meet with him.
Slowly, he tore his gaze from Rafe, paying attention for the first time to the woman perched in the throne next to him.
He recognized her, too. With her angelic features, ruby-red lips, and a soft cloud light blonde hair, she was the female Nightwalker who stood with Julian the night Adam died.
And, when she rose up from her throne, her curvy body accentuated by the skintight red dress she was poured into, silver eyes gleaming as she looked him up and down, he realized that, oh yeah, he’d been the target alright.
“My, my, my. So glad of you to come. And right on time, too. I love a man who’s punctual.”
Lowering his file, Rafe cocked his head, shifting in his throne to face the female. “Alexis? This is the male you want to blood-bond with?”
Of the three of them, he was the only Nightwalker in the room still wearing the trademark glasses. Still, he was sure even they couldn’t hide his expression of shock when he heard that.
“Wait. Are you fucking with me?” he demanded. “I’m here for elixir—”
“You’re here because Alexis has petitioned me to approve her blood-bonding,” Rafe interrupted before addressing the female. “Isn’t that so?”
She tapped a fang with her pointer claw. “Why can’t it be both?”
“Alexis—”
“Rafe. Please. Julian would’ve let me do this my way.”
She said the magic word. Adam knew before the other Nightwalker sighed and said, “Very well,” that just invoking the former Nightwalker king’s name would be enough to get Rafe to agree with whatever stunt she was pulling.
Now if only he could figure out what it was.
“You’ve come alone,” Alexis pointed out. “That’ll make this easier.”
“I got your message. They told me you had elixir. Were they lying?”
In answer, Alexis dipped her hand down her ample cleavage, pulling out a glass tube that was about half the size of one of Tabby’s vials of slayer dust. It was a rich gold color mixed with flecks of dark grey and white.
He knew without exactly knowing how that that was no fake. It was De Vivre and he’d do almost anything to get his hands on it.
“How much do you want for it?”
