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I’d only seen him once after that, a few months later in Maryland. I’d been undercover as a forty-something caterer, and I’d made sure he hadn’t seen me. I’d even disguised my scent with a heavy perfume.
The elevator arrived. Brien and I stepped into it along with the GQ twins, who, like him, were lean and model-handsome. The pair weren’t actually twins, of course.
Talon was darker with deep-set brown eyes and thick curls cut short on the sides and long on the top. Cain could’ve been Talon’s photographic negative: light-skinned with pale blue eyes and cropped white-blond hair. I eyed the shark tattoo on Cain’s neck, the mark of a “made” man in the Maritime Syndicate. Talon had a matching one.
Brien had a similar tat himself, only his was two intertwined sharks swirling around his upper right arm.
Locked in that bathroom, we’d only had time for a fast, explosive fuck—although I had made time to bite that sensual lower lip. While I’d caught my breath, I’d traced the tat’s charcoal outline with my fingertip, acting impressed because Lainey Q would’ve been. But deep down, Ihadbeen impressed.
So Prince Brien had killed for his syndicate.
It shouldn’t have turned me on, but it did. I had a dark side myself.
The elevator let us out in a private foyer near the main entrance of Le Dahlia Noir. Setting a hand on my lower back, Brien guided me outside.
A black SUV waited on the narrow cobblestone street. Talon opened the door, but Cain stopped me before I got in. “Your backpack.”
I shrugged it off and handed it over. He looked through it, examining even the lining before giving it back. Then he crouched and examined my shoes, sliding a finger over each heel and fingering the toes.
He came to his feet. “She’s clean,” he told Brien.
I opened my arms with a twisted smile. “You sure you don’t want to frisk me?”
Brien made a low, angry sound. “No. Put your arms down, damn it.”
I brought them to my sides, aware that didn’t mean he trusted me. You’d have to be damn creative to conceal a blade beneath this dress.
“Inside.” Brien put a hard palm on my ass and practically shoved me into the SUV. He climbed in next to me, his body crowding mine. Talon took shotgun in the front seat, and Cain sat next to Brien.
The driver was a wide-shouldered, stern-faced woman around fifty. “Where to, sir?” she asked in a Canadian accent.
“The chateau,” said Brien.
The chateau was a short way out of the city. We drove up a private lane lined on either side by vineyards. Despite its name, the chateau wasn’t a castle but a large country house, with white-washed walls and an orange terracotta roof—although it did have two turrets, a separate winery, and a couple of other out-buildings including one labeled “Carriage House” in French.
I glanced around. The Maritime Syndicate’s territory covered New Brunswick and Nova Scotia. How had the Maritime prince ended up at a Quebec chateau complete with its own winery?
“I rented it for the week,” Brien informed me, seemingly reading my mind.
“A vampire owns it?”
A curt nod.
That meant it would have an underground lair. Brien was only in his mid-thirties, too young to take more than a minute or so of sunlight without being badly burned.
The driver dropped us at the door along with Talon, then continued to the carriage house. We entered the chateau through a small outer room that opened into a large, homey kitchen with brick-red cabinets and a French country table with blue legs and a scarred wood top.
A third man with a shark tat on his neck was waiting for us. Brien jerked his chin at me. “Take the woman downstairs.”
“Your suite?” he asked.
Brien’s mouth pulled into a nasty half-smile. “Of course.”
I lifted my chin and stared down my nose at him like I was a vampire princess like Zoe Tremblay, not the woman he’d bought at an illegal auction.
“You have an objection?” he asked in silky tones.
“No, sir.”
