Page 27 of Vacation with the Vampire
“You’ve never met him?” Raoul asked, gaze sharp as he leaned forward across the table. A waiter came by at that moment and slid small cups of cappuccino onto our table, accompanied by a dish of colorful macarons. Both men ignored these offerings, but I reached for my cup and the cookies just so I’d have something to do with my hands.
“No,” Thibault admitted with a sharp nod. “He does not travel far, and I… I have not left my roost of late, either.” Roost? I blinked, confused by the choice of words.
“That’s comforting,” I deadpanned, then quickly buried my face in the macarons. He was sending us for help to a guy he’d never even met? Great idea.
Thibault ignored my comment and continued to Raoul. “Recently, word has spread that he is searching for something. He has taken an interest in jade—specifically jade objects of unknown origin and about the size of a thimble.” His hand flicked to the small jade stone still lying on the table between us, exactly the size of a thimble.
I stared at it like it might suddenly sprout legs and run away. “You think this is what he’s looking for?” I asked, and dread began to spread through my belly. Had this sorcerer sent a werewolf to search my room, or was that werewolf working for someone else? My life was so weird right now.
“It is possible,” Thibault said, his tone so grim I was beginning to think this sorcerer was really bad news. “And if it is, returning it could be advantageous.”
Unfortunately, my vampire lover didn’t seem to have the same response to this information as I did. Raoul’s lips curved faintly, his eyes dancing with excitement. “A favor from a powerful sorcerer, that is very useful. It is no wonder that shifter faction you talked about is after this piece.” He shifted the jade across the table toward me, and I got the picture, tucking it back into my compact and the compact back into my purse.
“Yes,” Thibault said simply. “One many factions in this city would desire, I should think.” I sank back in my chair, my purse sitting heavy in my lap, and the macaron’s lingering flavor turned to ashes in my mouth.
Factions. Sorcerers. Jade rocks with trust issues. Two weeks ago, my biggest problem had been a cheating boyfriend and a ruined vacation. Now this—and what was even more confusing—Logan was tied into it all somehow, but what was his role? I gulped the still piping hot cappuccino down in a few sips, but that only gave me a singed tongue; it didn’t make me feel better.
We stepped back out into the daylight a short while later, the café door closing behind us with another soft chime. The world looked the same, people walking, cars passing, the distant hum of the city continuing as if nothing had changed. I clutched my purse more tightly to my chest. “We could just throw it in the Seine,” I said. “Problem solved. No sorcerers. No favors. No mysterious magical politics.”
Raoul glanced at me, amused. “Such a waste,” he drawled, his mouth curving into a wide smile. He tucked me under his arm and began guiding me down the street toward where our car and driver were waiting.
“It’s a rock, Raoul,” I pointed out. “You heard Thibault, there isn’t anything special about it.” Not true. It was very special, because they suspected it had a hidden memory attached to it. I might be new to this, but I wasn’t an idiot, and it was easy to guess that for creatures like Raoul and Thibault, information was currency.
“It is an opportunity,” Raoul stated firmly, and I knew I’d already lost this fight. He was going to talk to that sorcerer no matter what. Would he try to stash me in his fancy Parisian home first, or take me with him? Another adventure in a world of magic and the impossible? That kind of thrill was almost worth the risk.
I stopped walking and tried to convince him, and now myself. “It’s a potential disaster.” It really was. Bringing the rock to the sorcerer might make the other factions in town stop hunting me for it, but it would also seriously piss them off, wouldn’t it?
He faced me fully, dark eyes steady, his hands landing lightly but firmly on my shoulders. “It is both,” he said. I stared deeper into that gaze, felt the connection between us flare bright and warm, welcoming me in every way.
I crossed my arms and huffed at him. “You’re enjoying this,” I said accusingly. It was there in the twinkle in his eyes, and in the buzz I felt along my spine and over my hip, where his mark satbeneath my skin. A warm, glowing reminder that our lives were now intertwined.
“Immensely,” he admitted, his smile growing wide and sexy as sin. My stomach dropped, and something pulsed between my thighs in response, and his grin grew even wider. He stepped closer, his voice lowering enough to make my pulse betray me. “A favor from someone like him could protect you.”
That made me hesitate. Protect me. The words settled differently than everything else. He wasn’t chasing power for the sake of it, not entirely, anyway. There was something else there, something that also pulsed in the strange, ethereal bond that now thrummed between us. That’s what Raoul was all about: protecting me.
I exhaled slowly, but my arms uncurled from around the purse and my midriff. “I don’t like it,” I said, tempted to pout, but I held that back by a shred. “I don’t want you to be in danger either, you know that, right?” He’d come to mean the world to me in such a short time. Rational, goal-oriented Susie was gone, and I was a soft-hearted romantic now, already more than halfway in love with my swoony, aristocratic vampire.
“I know,” he said, his head lowered, and then his mouth was on mine. Warm, firm, comforting. I let myself cherish the moment, and the heat he called forth so easily. The pulse of my heart, the heat between my legs, all of it was his with just that touch.
Still, I couldn’t stop myself from expressing my discontent. I narrowed my eyes at him. “You’re still going to do it.” Raoul didn’t let anyone tell him what to do or how to act; he was the one in charge. Even between him and Thibault, I sensed theywere equals, and Thibault was very obviously in charge of a whole lot.
“Yes,” he said simply. His hand cupped my chin, and he gave me another kiss, this one quick but tender. He wasn’t saying the words, but I almost felt like his eyes were telling me he loved me. That he was doing what he thought was right for me.
I groaned, because it was overwhelming, and I’d never mattered that much to anyone before. “You are impossible.” A deflection, and one he handled with the kind of grace I’d come to expect from him.
“And yet,” he said softly, “you are still here.” Ah, fuck, he was right. He was the most impossible man I’d ever met, and with every step of this strange journey, he’d made me fall harder and harder for him. For his moments of vulnerability, his gallant nobility in every choice he made, and the deep confidence in his ability to protect me.
I looked down at the stone again, then back up at him. “Fine,” I muttered. “But if we get cursed, haunted, or turned into frogs, I’m blaming you.”
His smile deepened, slow and certain. “I would expect nothing less.”
Chapter 15
Raoul
The act of sending a message, of compressing intention into a handful of sterile words and releasing it into the ether, felt, to me, profoundly undignified. I stood beside the car, Susie at my shoulder, watching the small, glowing screen in my hand as though it might bite.
“You’re overthinking it,” she said, far too amused for my liking. “You just type what you want to say and hit send.” She made it sound easy, but while calling someone had felt intuitive on the strange device, pressing tiny letters did not.
