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The vampire king was all about vengeance, hot or cold, and like most vampires, he could wait. He could be as patient as he wanted to be, for as long as he thought he needed to be. As long as he won in the end, the time it took to get there was irrelevant.

Vampires’ inconceivably long lives might not have imparted much wisdom, from what Nick could tell, but it taught them to think in decades, or even centuries, rather than weeks, months, or years.

Nick heard another rifle report from overhead and looked up.

He would deal with Brick later.

Right now, he needed to stop Dalejem before he got himself killed.

It took Nick longer to make his way up to the floor with the window than he thought it would. There had been barriers and time wasters he hadn’t foreseen.

Now, however, Nick finally crept up the fourth landing of the back stairs, with only two left before he’d reach the door to the storage areas above the store.

He’d already broken two locks to get this far.

He’d scared a handful of store employees who’d been hiding in the back rooms when he cracked the lock on the first. Glamouring them––pretty sloppily, Nick was the first to admit––he managed to convince them he worked for French anti-terrorism forces.

Once he felt them going along with his pretense, he convinced them in his horribly rusty French to go back out to the store’s main showroom, then flee out the side doors and into the alleyway behindChamps-Elysées. From there, he instructed them to leave the area. He told them there would be general announcements by authorities when it was safe to return.

Well, Nick assumed there would be.

The second lock he’d broken, Jem must have locked behind him. It led to a rickety wooden stairwell with a worn handrail that led to the storage areas upstairs. As none of the store employees claimed to have the key (the manager had it, a few of them told him, but he had not come to work that day), Nick had been forced to break that door, too.

None of the sounds he heard on the stairwell indicated he’d been heard, but he knew that might not mean much. All he could do is go forward, and hope he wouldn’t get ambushed with a tranquilizer rifle wielded by his own mate.

Or shot. Or stabbed.

He was forced to make his way relatively slowly up the set of very old and creaky stairs.

It was challenging even for his vampire senses, and his vampire ability to adjust his weight to silence his footsteps, to get up there without making a sound. Normally, he would havefound another way, but he worried that would take too much time.

He had his doubts he’d be able to surprise Jem completely.

Jem must expect Nick, on some level, whatever they’d done to him.

He’d at least have Nick in mind as a possible risk.

Knowing Dalejem, he had some kind of advance warning system in place, something that would warn him even of a vampire. Nick wasn’t arrogant enough to think he’d be able to sidestep whatever it was. He kept his senses on high alert as he crept closer, walking half on the wall whenever he didn’t trust the stairs, but he knew he had to be ready to move without a second’s notice.

The goal, therefore, was lessabsolutesurprise, and more about whether he could get close enough to overpower the seer with his vampire strength and speed alone. While seers generally had faster reflexes than humans, they couldn’t hold a candle to a vampire.

It was the one thing Nick really had.

That, and the hope Jem wouldn’t kill him, or even want to hurt him too badly.

Nick heard another rifle shot overhead, and while it didn’t thrill him, knowing the person he loved most in the world was firing into a crowd of panicked humans and seers, he felt himself relax marginally about his own position.

Dalejem in that room, firing the rifle, meant he wasn’t on the stairs.

Nick glanced at the wooden railing that ran along the left side of the stairs. It looked a bit sturdier up here. It would definitely be faster to walk up that, than to continue the way he was going. He reached out with a pale hand and tested the wooden braces. He shook it.

A little give, but much,muchless than lower down.

It would hold him. He glanced up the stairs again.

Another shot rang out, and Nick clenched his jaw.

It was time. His window was closing.