AllFreeNovel
Share Us
But the cams would pick him up, and security would wonder why I was meeting privately with an unknown vampire.
So instead, I continued up another floor to my suite. Rafe would find me; beneath that suave, who-gives-a-hell veneer was a smart man. I left the door ajar, because to follow me undetected, he’d have to enter the shadow dimension, and while we’re in the shadows, we can only interact with the physical to a point. We can walk up steps or ride in a car, but we can’t open doors or pick up objects.
I went directly to the bathroom, the one place free of cameras. A few taps on my phone, and a blank feed of my rooms was fed to the cams. To security, it would appear I was still in the bathroom.
Back in the living room, I left the lights off; I didn’t want to chance being seen from the gardens. I lit a couple of black pillar candles and went into the bedroom. I dropped my mask on the vanity, then checked my hair and touched up my makeup.
The way a woman did when a man mattered.
Because Rafe mattered. I might not want him to, but he did.
The turret had air conditioning, but I rarely used it. Like a cat, my cooler-than-human body craved heat. Instead, I’d left the casement windows open.
I should’ve guessed Rafe would come in through a window—the man never did the expected—but instead, I was watching the front door.
Which is why I gave an embarrassing squeak when warm lips touched my spine above my dress.
8
RAFE
From the garden below, the turret had been silent, the third floor dark, but my gut said Zoe would want to confront me in her lair. The first floor of the chateau was filled with Tremblay vampires, so I’d joined a few other guests strolling the grounds. I’d wandered to the garden’s edge, ducked into the trees and faded into the shadow dimension.
A running jump took me halfway up the tower. I continued up, scaling the rough greystone to the open casement windows on the third floor in time to see Zoe walk into her bedroom.
I crouched on the wide stone windowsill, watching from the shadows as she brushed her hair and rubbed a tube of something glossy and red over her lips. She set the tube down on the vanity and turned away, a slim white silhouette in the candlelight.
The back of her dress dipped in a deep V, exposing her shoulder blades and upper spine. The bare, fragile vertebrae made my breath snag in my lungs.
There you are, said something deep inside…something vulnerable, needy, primal.
At last.
It drew me closer, too powerful to resist…even if I’d wanted to.
I dropped out of the shadows and pressed a kiss to her moon-soft skin. Her scent curled around me, new green grass after a rain.
Zoe’s muscles locked. She swallowed but didn’t speak or turn her head. Instead, she moved unhurriedly out of the bedroom, heels tapping on the marble tiles. I stayed near the window, glamour still in place, waiting to see what she’d do.
She shut the door to the stairs and touched a keypad, locking us inside the suite. Only then did she turn to face me.
“Hello, Rafe,” she said in her best Ice Princess voice.
So we were private. That’s all I needed to know. I dropped the glamour, dragged off my mask.
“Hello.” The ragged edge in my tone shocked me.
That flash of vulnerability—ofneed—had left me shaken.
I took a breath, prepared to turn on the charm. It was what I was known for, after all. The likeable, media-savvy prince whose primary job was to put a human—well, half-human—face on the Kral Syndicate. It didn’t even matter if now and then the façade slipped. Humans love a badass.
Zoe studied me from across the living room, her long-lidded eyes glimmering gold in the candlelight.
“Explain to me,” she said in tones that had dropped another ten degrees from ice to arctic permafrost, “why I shouldn’t call security on you.”
I shoved the mask into my pocket and closed the distance between us. “Because you missed me.”
Her lip curled. “Try again.”
