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Two damn years, and I still wanted the woman—and gods, I hated her for it.
I moved closer, toyed with a lock of her hair, deliberately imitating Étan.
She brought her arms back to her sides and stilled, her face an expressionless mask that I longed to rip off just to see if there was still a real woman beneath.
“Étan put his hand on you. Here.” I touched the hollow of her throat. “He wasclaimingyou. He might as well have put a blood-bond bracelet on you.”
I’d wanted to break every finger in the lieutenant’s hand. Slowly. Painfully.
“And I know you didn’t want him touching you,” I added, “which makes me wonder why the hell you let him.”
Zoe’s mask broke. She hissed and showed her fangs.
I was making her edgy.
Good. Anything was better than that expressionless façade.
“Tell me you’re not going to mate with that asshole. The man treats you like you’re a brainless doll.”
During the negotiations for the joint venture, Zoe had represented the Tremblays, but Étan had come to every meeting and proceeded to interrupt her and correct her statements until I hadn’t known who was really in charge.
“Get. Away. From. Me.” She shoved me back a step. “I don’t have to explain myself to you.”
I raised my hands, palms out. “Okay, okay.”
Focus, Rafe. You’re not here to sex Zoe’s brains out—or even to rescue her from Étan and her viper of a mother. You’re here for Zaq.
Zoe’s irises were rimmed vampire blue. At her sides, her fingers curved into claws. “My mating has nothing to do with you.Nothing, do you hear?”
And that was the problem, wasn’t it? Her mating had nothing to do with me.
I dragged a hand down my face. “You’re right, it doesn’t.”
“Now for the last time,” she said between her teeth, “why are you here?”
Charm her, you ass.
But instead, I found myself speaking the simple truth. “I need your help.”
Zoe shook her head and started to turn away.
“Not for me,” I hurried to add. “For my brother—Zaquiel.”
“I see.” Her shoulders slumped, as if I’d disappointed her somehow.
“He’s been kidnapped by the slayers.”
“Which doesn’t explain what you want from me.”
“Hear me out. Last we knew, Zaq was in Paris. We think he was captured and held there by the slayers. You know Moreau.” Philippe Moreau was a high-level Paris enforcer, but more importantly, he was Victorine’s sire and sometime lover. “There’s no way in hell he wouldn’t know if a cell of slayers was operating in his city.”
She moved a shoulder in a shrug. “So ask Philippe, not me. Or take it up with Slayers, Inc. Sounds like a rogue—let them handle it. Or your father for that matter. You’re not telling me Karoly Kral can’t take out a rogue slayer?”
“Listen to me, damn it.” I took a breath, then continued more calmly, “It’s not just the slayers. Zaq’s neck showed bite marks. A vampire’s been feeding on him—maybe more than one.”
Zoe made a shocked sound. “You’re sure?”
Only another vampire could understand the shame of being fed from against your will. It wasn’t simply the loss of blood, it was the humiliation of someone taking it without permission, of a vampire touching that no-go zone. To us, it was a form of rape.
