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Jean-Michel eyed us from the corner.
My heart leapt into my throat. “Fuck,” I muttered and pulled out my switchblade. My muscles tensed, my whole self readying for a battle.
No one was taking Zoe from me. Not while I had breath in my body.
But Jean-Michel turned his head and kept going.
“What the hell?” I exchanged a glance with Zoe, who looked as puzzled as I was.
“I think,” she said slowly, “that was his way of saying he’s on our side.”
“Yeah? Well, in case you’re wrong and he’s going for reinforcements, I vote we make tracks.”
“Right with you.”
We took off at a fast walk in the opposite direction.
“Let’s go back to the hotel and see if it’s safe to pick up our things,” I said. We’d done a good job of hiding our identity up until the moment Zoe had walked into Philippe’s lair, and our room was paid up for a week. “I have ID, phones, cash. It would make things a helluvalot easier to get out of France, because I’d rather not use those tickets Lainey gave us.”
“Agreed. But I think we should enter the shadows again. Jean-Michel probably isn’t the only man out looking for us.” Her brows scrunched together. “That is, if you’re strong enough?”
I opened my mouth to sayOf course, I’m strong enough, but that was instinct talking. The instinct to hide any possible weakness from the vampire world.
But Zoe was my mate. If I couldn’t trust her, then this was over before it started.
“I think I can just make it.”
“Okay.” She leaned in to kiss me. “I’ll be right beside you. If you need to stop halfway there, that’s all right. We can find somewhere to hole up for a while.”
I touched her cheek. “Sounds like a plan.”
* * *
Zoe’s blood was apparently powerful, because the small amount I’d drunk kept me going long enough to travel to the hotel in the shadows, then hold a glamour while I grabbed our luggage and left through a side door. Zoe remained in the shadows the entire time. She was too recognizable, even without her vampire glow.
We checked into a large hotel near the train station in Montparnesse where we could be anonymous. My energy was fading fast, and Zoe was getting that tight look around the eyes that meant a vampire was getting edgy from the blood craving.
I was torn between calling my father right away and feeding, but we needed to keep our strength up, so we threw our stuff in the new hotel room, and headed out into the night. We couldn’t risk a trip to even a low-rent club like Le Sang Bleu, so we drank a small amount of blood from a couple of healthy-looking joggers and then wiped their memory of us.
Back in the hotel, I grabbed a new phone and inserted a SIM card. “They took a photo of me that first night,” I told Zoe as I punched in my dad’s number from memory. “To send to Father. But Tomas Mraz said he intercepted it so my father never saw it.”
Zoe’s breath hitched. Her gaze went to my throat. “Just like your brother.”
“Hey.” I put down the phone without making the call and pulled her between my legs. “They didn’t feed from me. D’you see any bite marks?”
She framed my face with her hands. “I was so worried for you. They had me locked in that damn guest room all that time with no visitors except Victorine and Jean-Michel. Then tonight my mother showed up and said she was taking me back to Montreal. If Lainey hadn’t helped us, I’d be back in Canada and you’d still be in that cell.”
I stroked my hands up and down her hips. “I would’ve come for you. Somehow, someway, I would’ve come for you.”
“If I hadn’t come for you first.”
I searched her face. “So this mating thing—you really wanted to do it?”
“Yes. I think I’ve wanted to be your mate from that first night we met. It just took a while for me to realize it.” Her mouth curved wickedly. “Like Lainey says, you’ve got a smokin’ body.”
“So this is all physical?” I nipped her lower lip.
A throaty chuckle. “I’m not going to lie—that gorgeous body is the first thing I noticed about you. But I love your mind, too, and how chill you are. You don’t know how good it makes me feel just to be with you. I missed you, Rafe. That time I came to New York, I wanted to see you so bad. After I apologized, I was even going to ask you for a second chance—not that I deserved it.”
