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She looked at me down her straight nose. No one could do haughty like Prima Tremblay. She was the real thing, an aristocrat who would’ve died during the French Revolution if not for the vampire who’d rescued and turned her. She’d lived with him in Paris until World War I, when she’d been sent to Montreal by the Paris Primus to found our syndicate.
“I’ve assured your future. You should be thanking me.”
“My future?” My stomach jittered. “Is it Étan?”
The lieutenant had had his eye on me since I was a teenager. Victorine said I should be flattered. The man was gorgeous even for a vampire, with pale blond hair and the face of a storybook hero.
Too bad he made my skin crawl.
My fingernails dug into my palms. “Tell me you haven’t made an arrangement with thattarbanak.”
Victorine’s full red mouth turned down. A Tremblay didn’t swear, especially in Quebecois. A Tremblay spoke only perfect Parisian French.
“Only if you agree,” she said.
I eyed her. What was the catch? Because with Victorine, there was always a catch.
“Then we don’t have a problem,” I said. “Tell him I don’t agree.”
Her nostrils flared. “Do it yourself.”
“I can turn him down?”
A slight hesitation. “Oui, although I don’t advise it. But Zoe?” Her voice chilled. “You will choose a mate. By the end of the Crimson Ball.”
“But…that’s two nights from now.” Fury and a sick panic churned in me. “For the Lady’s sake, I’m only twenty-six. You didn’t take a mate until you were well into your second century.”
“You’ll be twenty-seven on your birthday. And I was more stable. You’ve shown a regrettable tendency to listen to your heart over your head. You do want to replace Étan as my lieutenant,n’est-ce pas?”
“Of course.” How could she even ask? In the past year since she’d tapped me as her lieutenant-in-training, I’d worked my ass off for her and the syndicate.
“Then prove it.”
“I have proved it. I’ve done everything you asked and more. You know I’d make a better lieutenant than Étan.”
“But his loyalty isn’t in question.”
“What—?” My mouth dropped open. “This is about Rafe Kral, isn’t it? It’s over. Finished. I haven’t seen the man in two years.”
And I missed him. My chest squeezed.
Even though I’d pushed him away myself, I missed him. Étan and Victorine had even showed me proof that Rafe had been using me, and even through my humiliation, I’d tried to make excuses for him.
Not even dozens of social media posts of Rafe with beautiful women—on a yacht off the Greek islands, partying at Mardi Gras, clubbing in Manhattan—had cured me of wonderingWhat if?...
“And yet, in those two years you’ve refused every man I sent your way. No, you’re still pining for that boy. Thatdhampir.” Victorine’s mouth pinched like she’d tasted something bad. “I know what happened last year in New York. How you slipped away from your guards and tried to contact him. The son of our enemy. I won’t have it, Zoe. Do you hear me?” Hard, cold words that battered me like stones. “I won’t have it.”
“I hear you.” I’d wanted to ask Rafe straight to his face if everything between us had been a lie.
At least, that’s what I’d told myself.
Victorine wasn’t finished. “Karoly Kral staked your father. Remember that when you yearn for his so-charming spawn. The Krals stole my mate and deprived you of your father. I only made peace with Karoly to save you—he would have come for you next. I willnotlose my only daughter to the blood feud.”
Her face had gone dead-white, her dark irises edged with the unnerving blue of her vampire. “And I willnotlose you to his half-breed son.”
I stared back, throat tight. I knew all this, of course. I’d grown up with stories of the evil Kral Primus. Karoly Kral had been the monster in my closet.
“Don’t worry. You’re not going to lose me to Rafe Kral. He’d never have me now, anyway. You made sure of that.”
