A hell of a lot, I realised, as I chucked the bottle into the bin, making it clink against Jett’s. There was his line. And if he was still under the fairy’s influence, then that desire to have me join his line needed to go somewhere. The armor certamen might have been over, but Aliath’s influence was not.

  That was our agreement. I got a reprieve from the Master of Auckland City trying to kill me, tell the Iunctio about me, or force me to join his line for three months. Aliath got three uses of my talents over those three months. But Aliath was a cunning trickster and so simply removing Jett’s desires completely wasn’t part of the Fey Prince’s plan.

  Small print, I thought. What loophole could the fairy have left?

  I stomped out of the bar room and headed toward the chamber I’d used last time I was here. I thought perhaps it was becoming my room because when I opened it, a black duvet covered the bed with a red throw artfully arranged across the end of it. On the walls was an assortment of modern art. It wasn’t my art, but it might as well have been.

  Jett had been to my home; he knew how I had it decorated. He’d replicated the look for me here.

  In other circumstance, I might have thought the move nice. But this was Jett Vardi we were talking about. He had ulterior motives.

  But what they were now, I just didn’t know.

  I sat down on the bed and waited for dinner to arrive.

  It was the same girl as last time.

  “Hey, Sandy,” I said when she walked in.

  “Hello, Mistress,” she replied. Jett had trained her well.

  “How are you?” I asked; somehow diving straight into biting her wrist and not making small talk seemed wrong.

  “I am in good health. Are you hungry? Shall we begin?”

  I guessed she had places to be and people other than me to see.

  “Sure,” I said, waving her over.

  She knelt before me and offered her wrist. Either she could read minds, or she was extremely good at picking up on a vampire’s demeanour. I didn’t feel like the intimacy of feeding from a neck. I licked the skin, anaesthetising it for the upcoming pain, and then bit. Even the Dark Shadow didn’t feel compelled to eat more than Sandy was offering.

  Not polite, she told me.

  I smirked. Vampires-within had manners, then.

  There were rules to this world that I still didn’t know about. Probably rules about feeding from a Master’s stable. I trusted my Dark Shadow to work within them. Somehow she’d earned that trust over the past few months of being with me.

  “What date is it?” I asked my donor.

  “Monday the sixteenth,” she replied, dreamily. I’d infused my bite with a little bliss.

  “November?” I checked.

  “Yes,” she said, smiling.

  I’d been gone another week. That meant the MPs had been missing for less than a fortnight. What could be done in a fortnight? Too much, I thought, licking Sandy’s wound closed again.

  “Thank you,” I said.

  “You are welcome, Mistress.”

  She stood up without any help from me and left the room. I checked the clock, but I didn’t need to know that the sun was about to set. I took a quick shower, changed into a spare set of clothes that looked suspiciously like mine, right down to the kitschy necklace, and then left the room.

  The night beckoned, and I had work to do.

  Sensations had already opened by the time I walked onto the main bar room floor. Doug wasn’t behind the bar yet; it was still a few minutes too early for vampires. But the new human barmaid was. What was her name again? Carli.

  I walked up to the bar, wending my way through the already surprisingly busy crowd, and slipped onto a bar stool. Not the same one I’d been on before; a heavy set male was sitting there already. I signalled for a drink, and Carli delivered a Vanilla Vodka.

  “You’re early,” she said with a smile.

  I wanted to tell her to run. I wanted to tell her she was in danger working here. I wanted to tell her that the world was not as she knew it. But I couldn’t. It was a rule I understood now, even if I had failed to understand that Samson had been chained by the very same rule as I now was.

  I smiled back and said, “Places to be.”

  “People to see,” she finished for me and went off to serve another customer.

  She was all right, I thought. For a human. Kara would like her.

  I checked my phone, but my BFF hadn’t left any messages. Samson had though. Several. One a day for the past week.

  Call me when you get back.

  I almost did it, but the sun chose that moment to set.

  I downed my mixer and nodded to Carli, and then stepped out into the night.

  It was the work of a moment to bring the shadows to me, to wrap them around my body and hide from Norm sight. I was pretty sure, I was hidden from everybody’s sight; human or supernatural. But tonight, I needed to be hidden from the Norms. From one in particular.

  I chose the MP who had the girlfriend. Mark hadn’t rescinded the invitation into her house; although being back to Mixed Up Georgia meant an invitation was no longer needed. I flashed there, anyway, using a small amount of Sanguis Vitam. My Dark Shadow was alert, welcoming the night. Eager for the hunt.

  It wasn’t much of one. The MP was with his girl. I slipped through an open window and followed the sounds of their lovemaking to the bedroom. The same room that he had been abducted from once already. The girl’s wrists were padlocked to the bedhead; her face pressed into the pillow as the MP got his rocks off, pounding into her arse.

  I screwed up my nose, and as I did, I smelled it.

  Ozone and peaches. Wet dog. And something else.

  I backed out of the room and sat down on the couch, trying to deny what I’d scented even as the Dark Shadow told me that scents don’t lie.

  “A fairy, a shapeshifter and a vampire walk into a bar,” I muttered, just as the MP shouted his release to the heavens and his mistress joined in with a high pitched squeal of faked delight.

  Not the way I wanted to find out my Sire still existed.

  Fuck. I hadn’t killed him. And he was sending me another message.

  I just didn’t speak Rogue.

  17

  Lust

  If my Sire was still alive and kicking, then this just got a whole lot more personal.

  Jett had instructed me to check on the MPs and then touch base with Mark. But there wasn’t much Mark could add to what I’d already found. And what I’d already found was shocking.

  The closest I had come to the final death was at the hands of my Sire. He had killed the human in me when this all began.

  I wasn’t afraid of him as such. I was afraid of the connection between us.

  Xavier was my Sire, despite the fact that he was rogue. Despite the fact that he hadn’t successfully turned me. He was…sick and powerful; an unbelievably dangerous combination. And he wanted me. Just like Jett wanted me, and Gregor wanted me, and Aliath wanted me.

  But Xavier would go to any length to get what he wanted.

  The first phone call I made was to Kara. I had her booked on a flight to the Gold Coast before I’d even reached St Heliers Bay. The second phone call was to Mark. Even if there was nothing new he could tell me about the MPs abductions, I wanted him to know I was back.

  If my Sire approached the detective, Mark would know I had his back.

  Not in so many words, but I think he got the drift.

  By the time those calls were over, I was standing on Samson’s doorstep.

  It said a lot about how discombobulated I was about the return of my Sire. It said a lot about how far I’d come since I’d been turned, died, and saved.

  It said a lot.

  “Georgia,” Samson purred in his deep, seductive voice when he opened the door to me.

  My eyes were drawn to my Sigillum on his neck immediately. My fangs descended and the need to mark him again, to bite him where I had marked him already, was all-consuming.

  He grinned down at me.

  “Come in, babe,” he said, pulling the door open and stepping aside.

  I walked in without argument, which wiped the smile right off his face.

  “What’s wrong?”

  He didn’t mention the length of time I’d been gone in Álfheimr. He cut right to the chase.

  I stopped in the middle of his lounge; the shutters up for the night, showing a picturesque scene of the Hauraki Gulf. I tore my gaze from the view and looked him in the eye.

  “He’s back,” I said.

  “Who’s back?”

  “My Sire.”

  Samson was beside me in the next heartbeat. His arms around me before my heart had managed one more. He held me close, breathed into my hair, and said, “It’ll be all right.”

  “He’s behind the MPs’ disappearances,” I said, my voice muffled where I had buried my nose in his chest, inhaling his scent.

  I wasn’t sure whether it was the fact that he wore my Sigillum that made it easier to be so vulnerable. Or whether it was the fact that I had finally accepted that I still loved Samson and that he hadn’t had any choice but to keep things from me before I’d been turned.

  I wasn’t sure which revelation shocked me the most, but Samson just held me tighter, making it impossible to pull away when I would have chosen to run and hide.

  “That explains a few things,” he said, stroking my back.

  I lifted my face to look up at him, noting the small smattering of stubble on his chin. I’d caught him before he’d readied himself for a night at Sensations. Somehow this Samson was more personal. Somehow this Samson was my Samson and no one else’s.

  Mate, the Dark Shadow said, and there was an edge of finality in her words.

  I didn’t say anything back. But I also didn’t argue with her.

  “What do you mean?” I asked Samson.

  “Why take the MPs in Auckland?” he said. “The Taniwha reside in Wellington. If the MPs in question are the key, then why not take them when they attended Parliament? If they’re not the key, then why pick MPs in Auckland?”

  “Me,” I said.

  “Yes. He’s sending a message.”

  Samson pulled back and looked down at me, and then he cupped my cheeks with his hands and leaned down and kissed me. I hadn’t expected it; that’s why it took me off guard. That’s what I told myself anyway.

  The Dark Shadow just laughed.

  We separated a moment later as if he sensed I was about to run. It always felt like I was about to run when I was around Samson, and yet I ran to him as soon as I knew my Sire was not dead.

  I was so mixed up.

  I pulled away and paced to the other side of the room, stopping by the empty fireplace and staring at Samson in the mirror that hung above it.

  He watched me. He looked good enough to eat.

  Mate, my Dark Shadow said.

  Shut up.

  “What do you plan to do?” Samson asked.

  “Mark said the case is practically closed,” I told him. Mark had given me a rundown over the phone, brief as it had been. “Although, I think he suspects something. Another shoe to drop at the very least.”

  “He has questions.”

  “So does Jett.”

  Samson’s lips stretched into a self-satisfied smile.

  “You’ve seen Jett?” he asked.

  “Aliath dropped me off at Sensations.”

  “The fairy likes playing games.”

  “I’m not a pawn.”

  “No, you’re the queen.”

  I rolled my eyes at him. He grinned back.

  “Jett,” he reminded me.

  I sighed. “The amor certamen is over.”

  “Hallelujah,” he said wryly.

  “I’m not mating you,” I snapped.

  “The mark does not mean we are mated.” It wasn’t an argument, but it felt like one.

  Samson smiled and crossed to the drinks cabinet.

  “Let’s toast the end of discord between the Master of Auckland City and us,” he said.

  “The Master of Auckland City and you, you mean.”

  “Semantics.”

  “It’s not.”

  He handed me a glass of whisky. I screwed my nose up at it.

  “All the best toasts are made with single malt, love.”

  “I would have thought you’d go for gin.” Being English and all.

  “What? That swill? Never!”

  He clinked his glass against mine and raised it up.

  “To the winner.”

  I whacked him on the arm.

  Samson laughed and downed his whisky. I hesitated and then decided a whisky was a whisky and downed my own glass.

  He reached out and cupped my jaw, stroking a thumb across my cheek affectionately.

  “I want you,” he husked.

  “Samson,” I said because it was what I always said. And then I did what came next in my repertoire of distractions; I changed the topic. “I need to go back to Wellington. My Sire will be waiting for me there.”

  Samson lowered his hand from my face and sighed; then he took our glasses and placed them carefully on the cabinet as he formulated his reply.

  “It’s exactly what he wants,” he finally said.

  “So, because of that, I should ignore the threat?”

  “Is it a threat? Or is he just toying with you?”

  “Either way, I want it to stop. I want him to stop. He’s a rogue, Samson. It’s a miracle all the MPs survived.”

  Samson cocked his head to the side and said, “Why? Why did he let them live?”

  I shook my head. I didn’t have time for this. Rogues barely made sense as it was.

  “Are you going to come with me or not?” I asked.

  He was on me in the next heartbeat. His lips crushed against mine before I could catch my breath. Not that either was necessary, but he still caught me by surprise.

  I made a mumbled sound against his mouth, but he only kissed me harder. His hands began to roam, and when one found my butt cheek, I pushed against his chest. He pulled back, grinning down at me like the lunatic he clearly was.

  “What the hell was that?” I demanded.

  “You love me,” he said.

  “Because I want you to come to Wellington with me?” I shouted. Idiot.

  “Because you’re entering into a dangerous situation and you would have no other at your back.”

  “That’s trust,” I yelled at him. “Not love.”

  He smiled. “Exactly.”

  He spun away and headed toward the stairs and his bedroom.

  I stared after him and shook my head in disgust.

  He was crazy. He was certifiable.

  He’s getting naked, the Dark Shadow said and pushed me up the stairs after the stupid vampire.

  He’d left his door open. I paused on the landing, my goal in sight. My Dark Shadow laughed at me and called me a coward. I strode into his room and found him getting out a clean shirt. His chest was bare. His muscles rippled in the light. He looked over his shoulder and then removed his pants; standing before me as naked as the day he was born.

  “I won’t be long,” he said, taking his sweet, sweet time.

  He put deodorant on first. Then some cologne. All naked. All muscles rippling in the light. He brushed a hand through his hair, then ran a palm over his stubble.

  “Should I shave?” he asked as if he were asking about the weather.

  Is it warm out, Georgia? Do I need to put on a shirt?

  “No,” I said.

  “You like the stubble?”

  I like you naked.

  “Yes.”

  “You haven’t even touched it. Maybe I should shave it off before we depart. One should be well presented when visiting another vampire’s city.”

  I stepped forward and reached up to run my fingers along the edge of his jaw. He stilled and let me, a twinkle in his eye.

  “This doesn’t mean I want to be your mate,” I said.

  “Not at all,” he said and reached out to slip my jacket off.

  I let him. When he smiled, I caught the glint of his fangs. My shirt followed. My jeans were next. My stake rolled out of my jacket when it fell off the edge of the bed. Samson glanced down at it and then raised an eyebrow at me.

  I didn’t answer his silent question; I pounced.

  Hunt, the Dark Shadow said.

  Caught him, I replied.

  Good hunt, she murmured.

  Be quiet.

  He kissed me slowly. As if we had all the time in the world. We didn’t. My Sire awaited. Jett wanted a report. Gregor would have to be placated. The MPs would be back in Wellington tomorrow, and something about that made me anxious.

  “Shhh,” Samson said, kissing the side of my face, across my jaw, and down my neck. “Don’t think. Just feel. Inhale.”

  I breathed in and landed in the soft clouds of Samson’s scent. Pine needles and musk surrounded me, protected me, wrapped around me. Then more scents invade my nose. Sweet passionfruit. Cotton candy and caramel popcorn. Indulgent chocolate mud cake. Smooth and dry merlot, laced with a floral bouquet.

  He desired me. He was happy. He lusted for me. He was feeling satisfied.

  Satisfied?

  I pulled back.

  Samson groaned.

  “You planned this?” I demanded. “This…this…”

  “Seduction? Yes.”

  I shoved him away from me.

  “Tell me you don’t feel all of the same things as you scent on me,” he said.

  “I don’t feel satisfied!” I snapped back.

  “Does your Dark Shadow?”

  Damn him. I tried not to, but she wasn’t making it easy for me. She let me feel her satisfaction that I had chosen a mate.

  “But I haven’t!” I shouted, making Samson’s eyebrows rise again.

  Mate, she said and mentally presented every decision I’d made that led me to Samson’s door.

  We’d taken a long and winding road to get here, but there was no denying that we were here now.

  “I don’t want a mate,” I said, almost whining.

  “Then we don’t mate,” he said. “Yet. But, Gigi,” he added, “let me love you. Come back to me, babe. It won’t be the same; nothing ever could be. Not after what you’ve been through. What we both have. But that doesn’t mean it’s not real. That’s it not right. It is. This feels right. Doesn’t it? It feels right, Gigi, because we are right for each other.”