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De Froulay poured two glasses of blood-wine and handed one to me, leaving the bottle on the cabinet’s black granite top. He touched his glass to mine and took a seat on the couch’s opposite end.
“How have you been? You are well?”
“I’m good, yeah.” I sipped the wine. My cells happily soaked up the blood, my vampire-half starved for the blood fix.
It was hands-down the best blood-wine I’d ever drunk. I sneaked a peek at the label. Some vineyard I’d never heard of.
De Froulay nodded at my glass. “You like it?”
“Yeah.” I heard myself and winced at my awkwardness. “I mean yes, it’s very good.”
“It’s from my private vineyard.”
“Of course it is,” I said under my breath.
He heard me; he was a vampire, after all. He lifted a dark brow and let it pass.
I set the glass on the coffee table. “Why am I here, Primus de Froulay?”
He pursed his perfect lips. “Can’t a father spend some time with his daughter?”
And there it was, finally out in the open. My pulse gave an agitated skitter.
Fuck, fuckity-fuck.
We’d first met three months ago. At that meeting he’d skirted around the issue, questioning me about my mom and where I’d spent the last twenty-seven years.
I had no doubt he’d had me investigated before he’d ever contacted me. He must know how things had been for my mom and me, and about that missing six months of my life before Crow had stumbled upon me.
But he couldn’t know I was a slayer. My cover was too good, with layers upon layers.
To the world, Ridley Crawford had graduated from a high school in small-town Pennsylvania, then enlisted in the Army and spent the next four years in various global hot spots.
Peel away another layer, and you’d find that after leaving the Army, Ridley had become a mercenary for hire.
What you wouldn’t discover was that I’d once been known by another name, one even I didn’t know because I was still a toddler when my mom changed it.
That my mom had been murdered by the vampires who’d come for me a few days after my twelfth birthday.
And the biggest secret? I never attended that high school in Pennsylvania or enlisted in the Army. Instead, I’d been recruited by Slayers, Inc. and spent my teenage years working my ass off to become a vampire-slaying machine.
“So,” I said. “You’ve decided I’m your daughter?”
And what did that mean to me?
Because being the daughter of a vampire syndicate primus was basically my worst nightmare come to life.
But I couldn’t just walk out. On the way here, I’d texted Crow to tell her I’d been summoned to de Froulay’s lair. She’d ordered me to play along, find out what he wanted. Of course, she didn’t know he was my father. No one at SI knew that.
“I’ve known since January. But—” he spread his hands—"a man in my position can’t be too careful. The DNA test confirmed it.”
He’d had my DNA tested? He had been thorough. The question was why?
I pressed my lips together. “Don’t worry. I don’t want a damn thing from you.” As far as I was concerned, he was my sperm donor, nothing more.
“No?” He leaned back against the couch arm, eyeing me.
My knee was jiggling. I forced it to still. My hand went to my pocket, seeking the reassurance of my blade. But I wasn’t wearing pants, I was wearing a dress, and my blade was tucked into the pricey leather crossbody bag I’d also borrowed from Moreau. I’d had to hand over both the bag and the blade before security allowed me into his lair.
