“Would you like a drink?”
She managed not to startle visibly at the question. She hadn’t forgotten he was there. He was far too dangerous for that. It was just his voice. It was . . . hypnotic. As deep and smooth as the best whiskey ever made, it was pure seduction. Pure fucking lies, she reminded herself bitterly.
“No thank you,” she told him. “What’s this about?”
He tsked softly and strolled past her to the door. She laid a hand on her sidearm, watching with suspicious eyes as he closed the door and walked behind his desk. He didn’t sit, but stood there with both hands raised, palm out, and smirked. “Just closing the door, cariño.”
She stared at him. Cariño? Oh, hell no. He’d lost the right to call her that a long time ago. But if they waded into that fucking mess, they’d be there all night. “Why close the door?” she demanded.
His dark eyebrows rose. “For privacy, of course. Some things—”
“We don’t need privacy for any things.” She would have stormed out, but his next words stopped her.
“Why are you so angry, Layla?”
She turned to stare at him in disbelief. He was serious. “Are you kidding me?”
He shrugged gracefully. “Not unless I misunderstand the American phrase.”
“If you don’t know, then . . . ” Then what? she asked herself. She wasn’t about to bare her soul and tell him the truth. It was bad enough that she’d trusted him when she’d been young and stupid. She wasn’t going to make that mistake again. “Look, I’m here because my father asked me to stay,” she snarled. “I’ll do the job, give it everything I’ve got. But it’s a job, nothing else. So, good night, Lord Xavier,” she finished.
She snatched open the door quickly, before he could stop her. Though if he’d really wanted, he could have been in front of the door before she’d even reached for the handle. That knowledge did nothing to improve her mood as she exited the vampire wing and strode across the main courtyard at a brisk, hard pace, stopping only when she reached the stairs to her parents’ apartment. If she went up there in this mood, they’d notice immediately, and then she’d have to come up with a convenient lie to explain. And what would she say? She couldn’t say she’d fought with someone else in the Fortalesa, because it might come back to bite her in the ass. She had to live with these people—human and vampire both—maybe even for two or three months. She could always say she’d had an argument with Brian, or someone else from her team, but that seemed disloyal to them.
Fucking Xavier, she fumed and turned instead for the wall, climbing the stairs and walking the long length of the Fortalesa until she was above the gate and looking down at the town far below. It was the same direction from which the humans must have come, and yet somehow, they’d managed to disappear into the forest, according to her father who wasn’t a fanciful man, as if they’d never been there.
How was that possible? Sure, people from the town knew the forests well. So did those who lived in the Fortalesa. So had she, once upon a time. Even now, she’d never get lost out there. The trees had gotten taller, the forest thicker, but the land remained the same.
And then there were the vampires. Many of them were old enough to have been with Xavier when he’d first claimed the Fortalesa more than two hundred years ago, even before he’d become Spain’s vampire lord.
So how the hell were a bunch of humans managing to disappear so completely that even the vampires couldn’t seem to track them? It worried her, though it would have worried her more if she hadn’t been certain that Xavier knew something. Something he wasn’t telling anyone. It might be more suspicion than knowledge, but he was still keeping whatever it was to himself. She didn’t think even her father knew, certain that he, at least, would have told her.
Damn. She needed to have another meeting with the vampire, after all.
“Fuck.”
LAYLA WOKE TO the scent of fresh coffee, which wasn’t that unusual. Someone was always brewing coffee in the team’s kitchen. What was unusual was the accompanying scent of fresh bread and olive oil. After all these years, her mother still baked for her father every morning. The bread would be served at lunch and dinner, as well. Except that by the time lunch rolled around today, her parents would be at a hotel in Barcelona, where they’d stay until her father had received whatever treatment he needed.
She tossed the blankets aside, wondering whether her mama had baked the bread for her, or if she was taking it with them to the city.
“Papa.” She kissed him on the head where he sat at the table, crossed to hug her mother, then sat across from them at the table. “I stayed up late last night, reading files,” she told him, as she smeared marmalade over her still-warm bread. “You have a good team.”
“Good,” he agreed, “but too young, and with no serious fighting experience. They mostly grew up here, in the Fortalesa, and they’ve never seen anything like these attacks. Hell, before this started, we left the gates open most days. Guarded,” he added, “but open.”
“In reading the files, I didn’t see much in the way of an investigation into who’s behind all this.”
He gave her an even look over his coffee cup, then set it down. “That’s because I haven’t done much. I don’t have people with that kind of experience. I’ve made a few queries in town, asking after any visitors acting strangely, carrying guns, or coming and going at odd hours.”
“Good luck with that.”
“Precisely. This is a tourist area, and it’s early summer. Every town on the coast is filled with strangers. Lord Xavier was checking into something else, an idea he had about these people. He hasn’t shared any information with me yet, which might mean there was nothing to find, and his idea came to nothing.”
“Or he’s still working on it,” she suggested.
“That, too.”
“I’ll ask him at the next briefing. By the way, does he meet with you every night? Or only when something big happens?”
“Every night, though if nothing ‘big’ as you say, happens, it’s more in the way of a drink among friends, with only Lord Xavier, his lieutenant Chuy, and his security chief, Joaquim. Along with myself.”
“Thank God for that. You and Mama ready to go?” she asked, intentionally changing the subject. It was time for both her parents, but her father especially, to forget about the Fortalesa for a while and think about his health instead.