Blood Bond

Dad walks us outside and hands us the keys to the Citroen. “Do you remember the way into town?” he asks.

I nod. And stand on tiptoe to give his cheek a peck. “Thank you,” I say.

“Are you kidding?” he shoots back. “This is the best thing that’s happened to your mother in months. I can’t wait to tell Trish and John-John.” He stops and quirks an eyebrow at Frey. “Unless you’d rather I not say anything until you can tell him yourself, Daniel.”

Frey grins. “You can tell him. He wanted us to be married as soon as Anna said yes to my proposal. He’ll be thrilled!”

Once Frey and I are on the road, I ask, “Is that true? John-John wanted us to get married right away?”

Frey, in the passenger seat, glances over. “Are you afraid he would think it too soon after losing his mother?” he asks quietly.

I nod, keeping my eyes on the road.

He reaches over and squeezes my knee. “No. John-John loves you. He wants us to be a family. He’ll always love his mother, but he sees in you what I do. Besides, neither of us wants to take the chance you’ll change your mind.”

The last is said with a hint of humor. I don’t answer, my throat suddenly tight with emotion. How could I change my mind? I’m about to get everything I’d thought unobtainable to me since becoming vampire—a husband who is strong, brave and understanding and a child to love as if he was my very own.

CHAPTER 11

LORGUES HAS THE FEEL OF A MEDIEVAL VILLAGE WITH the shopping amenities of a modern city. Frey and I spend an hour wandering the narrow streets hand in hand. Frey has never been here before and he’s as taken with the vaulted passages, ancient stairs and elaborate stone carvings on the buildings and doorways as I was at first sight.

It’s a beautiful spring day, and after checking off all the items on Mom’s shopping list, we stop for coffee in an outdoor cafe on the Boulevard Georges Clemenceau. The sky is deep blue and cloudless, the air still.

Frey breathes it in. “I can see why your family loves it here.”

I let my gaze wander up and down the street. Across from us, the open-air market we visited earlier teems with shoppers. The pile of our own packages, tucked under the table, holds bread, fresh vegetables, olives. It’s still too early for the platan trees lining the streets and parks to have budded, and their white spindly trunks look like skeleton hands lifting bony fingers to the sky. Most of the buildings in Lorgues are painted soft pastels or brilliant primary colors with shutters of contrasting blue or green. It’s an artist’s concept of a French village . . . only real.

Once again I find myself grudgingly admiring Avery’s choices. He couldn’t have picked a more beautiful spot to set down eternal roots.

Frey picks up my hand and gently squeezes. “Are you thinking of Avery?”

I look at him in surprise. “How did you know?”

He points to the bridge of my nose. “You get a furrow, right there, whenever you think of him.”

His comment makes me laugh. “Wow. Who needs mind reading when you have such keen powers of observation.”

“It’s true. I know you very well.”

I place one of my hands over his. “Better than I know myself, I think.”

Our coffee arrives and we settle back to enjoy it. One of the things I appreciate most about Frey is that we can be quiet around one another. As we are now, each alone with our own thoughts, but connected in a way that transcends words. It’s a heady, comfortable feeling.

Until I feel him suddenly tense beside me. When I look at him, his face is drawn, tight with anger and taut with the primal instinct to defend. A low growl escapes his throat, the panther at the ready.

His reaction is so unexpected, it brings vampire to the surface, too. I swing around, senses on alert, scanning the crowd until I find a face I recognize.

A face Frey recognizes.

A face we intuitively know is about to shatter the peace we’ve found as surely as the cup I’ve let slip from my fingers shatters on the sidewalk at my feet.

A waiter approaches and makes quick work of cleaning up my broken cup, tsking and mumbling in French but reappearing in an instant with a new cup.

Along with a third for the man now standing beside the table.

Chael.

CHAPTER 12

CHAEL. MY TONE IS GUARDED, CLIPPED. WHAT ARE you doing here?

In his perfectly tailored Armani, a white linen shirt open at the neck and polished brogues, he looks right at home in this French sidewalk cafe. Only his complexion and eyes, dark and exotic, emphasize his mideastern rather than French roots. He is, in fact, the head of the Middle Eastern Vampire Tribe and literally the last man, human or vampire, I would have expected to run into here.

With a snapping of fingers, and flawless French, he bids the waiter to fetch another chair.

Somehow his rudeness appeals to the waiter, who while only a moment ago was grousing at me for dropping a cup, now springs into action to not only grab a chair from another table but hold it out for Chael to slip into.

Irrationally, his imposing presence ratchets my dislike for Chael up another notch.

I asked what you are doing here. I did not invite you to join us.

Frey has my hand under the table. He will not be able to hear what I’m saying—since Chael speaks no English we must communicate telepathically—but he will understand Chael’s side of the conversation. He squeezes my hand softly, as if assuring me that he has my back.

Chael, for his part, has taken a leisurely drink from his cup. His eyes flick to Frey. He knows him, from Monument Valley, knows he’s a shape-shifter, knows he’s my friend, but he neither acknowledges his presence nor bothers to demand he leave us while we talk.

He merely dismisses him entirely by ignoring him and shifting his gaze to peer at me intently over the rim. You still see me as an enemy.

Not an enemy. An annoyance. A rude annoyance. The words resonate in my head like a hiss. Like a mosquito I’m about to swat.

He laughs. Colorful as ever, Anna. But there is a reason I am here. Just as I believe it was fate that you should arrive here, too, at just this moment. When I heard you were coming, I—

A chill touches the back of my neck. We, Frey and I, had only found out about my mother’s illness a day ago. No one else knew except David and Tracey. How could you know I was coming to France?

Chael lifts his well-dressed shoulders. You are an important figure to the vampire community. I make it my business to know what you do as I’m sure most of the leaders of the Thirteen Tribes do as well.

You have me followed?

Nothing so pedestrian, he replies, his tone registering disdain that I would think so little of him. I have contacts in all major airports. When your pilot filed his flight plan, I was notified.