Page 25 of Love Bites (Timber Creek #2)
CHAPTER 25
SUMMER
I shivered as Max delicately traced his fingers over my shoulder, trying to focus as étienne described his operation so far.
As we’d followed Rhain through the city, I’d felt the hum of magic tingling along my skin and suspected it meant the shadowmark had grown from our latest blood exchange. Now, as Max’s fingers drew swirls and spirals across my skin, lower with each swipe, I was sure of it.
His touch was distracting, feeding off the last of the blood-drunk haze in my system, making me remember just how it felt to have his hands all over me. Suddenly, my mind was right back in his apartment, sprawled beneath him as he bit into my upper thigh, ecstasy bowing my back off the bed. My nostrils flared, my body nearly vibrating with excess energy until Max’s hand lifted off my shadowmark.
“Larkin, right lass?” Rhain’s whispered voice cut through my thoughts, pulling me back to the present. His lips pursed together to stifle a grin, as if he knew just where my mind had been.
Now that Max’s hand wasn’t on my shadowmark, the blood high was fading quickly, thankfully. The last thing I needed was to be blood-drunk in the middle of a dozen vampires. Again.
I nodded, reaching behind me to lace my fingers with Max’s hand hanging at his side, curious to see if it was touching my shadowmark that left me so unraveled, or just his touch at all. He squeezed my palm, and instantly I was more alert, more centered, more focused. “That’s right.”
“As in, West Larkin, from Timber Creek.”
“As in, Summer Larkin, from Timber Creek,” I corrected, doing little to hide my annoyance at once again being pegged as West Larkin’s little sister. “But yes, those Larkins.”
Rhain leaned back in his hair, crossing his arms over his chest. “I met your brother once.”
“I have multiple brothers, so that doesn’t exactly narrow it down.”
Rhain chuckled, but with each passing minute of Max’s hand in mine and Rhain’s simple conversation, the blood haze faded, and I felt like myself again.
“The scary one,” he whispered. “I hate cats.”
I chuckled at the idea of Cooper being scary. To most, he was. He towered over almost everyone, and had a deepset frown that screamed don’t fuck with me, I’m former Special Ops. But to me, Cooper was still the shy, awkward brother I’d grown up with. Always on the outskirts of trouble, but never far enough he couldn’t swoop in and save us — mostly Terran, or Terran and me — when we went too far.
I glanced around the room, trying to think like Coop would in this situation. We’d wanted to find vampires tonight — well, mission accomplished.
As the Alpha’s daughter, and then, later, the Alpha’s sister, I was used to observing from the sidelines, gathering information from body language and posturing even more than from the words spoken. In fact, it was one of the primary jobs of the Alpha’s family in the pack — monitoring the other members to watch my brother’s back.
Sipping my wine, my gaze drifted across the several dozen vampires here, both seated around the room and leaning against the wall. Most of them were étienne’s, and it was clear they respected him — leaning forward, bodies turned towards him, listening intently, nodding along with his words.
My only other experience with a group this large had been the orgyfest in Boston, but this wasn’t the same.
There, lust had ruled the room even more so than Grigor from his lame golden throne. Here, there was a palpable eagerness in the group, a frisson of electricity that skittered through them. These vampires weren’t here for sex or bloodlust. They were ready to take action, ready to get to work and overthrow the Conclave.
“Leading those news crews to a dead body in my territory was the last straw,” étienne seethed, his fist clenched as he pounded it on the table. Anger rolled off him in waves, so different from the man who’d welcomed me into the room. I sat up straighter, listening as other vampires listed their complaints against the Conclave.
“But certainly not the first,” added a female seated near him, her blue eyes flashing to red as she spoke. “They took my sister’s husband for a pet, only because he is human. We don’t even know if he’s still alive.”
“My friend, a bear-shifter, went missing a year ago,” a male spoke up from where he stood against the wall. “Best we could tell, they took him and sold him to some shady supe fighting ring.”
The hairs on the back of my neck pricked up, something about that ringing a bell. “A fight ring? Where?”
The male shrugged. “Who knows? I’ve heard somewhere out in the American west, but they could have moved by now.”
Out west. My stomach turned over at the thought it might be anywhere near Timber Creek.
“I had to flee my home,” another, a younger female, added. “After one of the bodies made the national headlines, local news ran wild, theorizing about vampires being real too since ‘werewolves’ are. Everyone and their neighbor set up cameras all over town, trying to catch a vampire in the act. I didn’t feel safe anymore.” She set her jaw. “I just want to live my life.”
The others nodded along with each story, like they had similar stories themselves or had heard these things from many others before.
“Enough is enough,” étienne said with a nod, bringing the meeting back around. “The Conclave’s ironclad rule of our species is done. It’s time for a new world for our species, and for equal representation like the others have on the Council.”
Rhain, for all his practiced nonchalance, was equally as invested in these plans. He leaned back in his red leather chair next to me, arm thrown wide across the empty chair to his left, but his finger tapping his ring against the wooden frame gave him away. He was just as impatient for change.
“When the Conclave called for an assembly, Rhain tried to reach out to Malachi, to see if he had heard anything about it,” étienne continued, drawing my attention back to him. “Only, he has not heard back.”
Max’s fingers tensed in mine, a thrum of energy pulsing up my arm at his unease. He hadn’t shared much about his relationship with his father, but he also hadn’t mentioned speaking to him lately. The hair on my arms stood on end and my foot started tapping impatiently, trying to read the blank expression on Max’s face.
He looked relaxed — shoulders down, slightly slumped back in his chair, a small smirk playing on his lips like he knew something the rest of us didn’t — but there was a storm brewing in his dark eyes I couldn’t look away from. It was gone as quickly as it appeared, his thumb sliding over my hand as if to reassure me he was okay.
“And then you two show up at his apartments,” Rhain added, gesturing to us. “Dante, the one person Malachi told me to watch for, falling right into our laps. Except you didn’t seek us out like I thought you would, instead gallivanting around Paris and having quite a grand time” — he winked — “which leads us to wonder what the hell is going on.”
Max’s hand stilled. “What do you mean?”
étienne and Rhain exchanged a glance. “Have you heard from Malachi?”
I tilted my head. “You think he’s missing?” Another shared glance, confirming my suspicions. “And you think Dante, what, knows something about it?”
“He seems quite unbothered about Malachi’s silence,” one of the other vampires muttered with a shrug.
Shadow began to creep up Max’s hands with the unspoken accusation. I placed my free hand on his forearm, rubbing across the inky darkness as if I could absorb it into myself.
“My husband had nothing to do with it,” I shot back, fierceness rising in me for his sake, my fingers tightening on his arm as I fought my claws from punching out. Even if they didn’t know Max’s true identity and his ties to Malachi, the insinuation that he could be the reason Malachi was suddenly missing pissed me off. “I think I’d notice if he disappeared for some dirty deeds, considering we’ve been on our honeymoon. ” I glared at the vampire stupid enough to doubt Max’s integrity, then turned to Max. “You didn’t even know, did you?”
Max shifted, and in doing so, his leg pressed against mine. Whether it was intentional or not was hard to say, but to wolves, it was a show of solidarity.
“I didn’t know, but I suspected something might have come up,” Max admitted. “I haven’t been able to reach him either.”
Max had étienne’s full attention. “This is unusual?”
“Yes. To go this long without a check-in is odd,” Max hesitated, glanced at me, then continued, “especially when I’m on a job.”
“All work and no play, even on your honeymoon.” Rhain shook his head. “Not how I would choose to celebrate with such a beautiful lass.”
“So, let me get this straight.” Max leaned forward and brought our joined hands up onto the table, not sparing a glance in Rhain’s direction. I bit back my smile at the silent show of possession it was, claiming me as his for everyone to see. Our honeymoon had been a work trip, and yet, he’d spent the last several days lavishing me with more time and focus than I knew what to do with. “You think Malachi is a hostage? Or killed? By whom?”
“Hostage is more likely,” Rhain said. “If the Conclave figured out what we have planned, and that he’s been orchestrating it, he’d be a prime target.”
“Hostage,” Max echoed with a huff of a laugh. “He’s an angel . He could fight off any of you.”
“Any one of us, yes.” étienne nodded. “But against more than one? Against a group? Perhaps not.”
Max’s brows furrowed, the words seeming to permeate his mind, his muscles tightening as he faced the implications.
His father, and Premier of the supernatural world, was possibly a captive of a Conclave of angry, betrayed vampire leaders.
“Fuck,” he hissed, pushing to his feet. His hands clenched into fist at his sides, shadow tracing up his veins. “Where is the Conclave? We have to get him out of there.”
étienne shook his head. “It’s not so simple. The Conclave maintains utmost secrecy. Assemblies are at different locations every time, and the location will only be revealed to dukes and duchesses right before it’s held.”
Max cursed under his breath again, and a spark shot from his fingertips. I absorbed the shock through our joined hands, my skin prickling with the electricity, but bit my tongue to hide any signs that it had affected me. No one but Rhain had used Max’s real name here, and I knew how important it was to keep his identity hidden, especially now.
Whatever his relationship with his father, Max was a direct link to Malachi, leverage that could be used to control him. When he’d approached me to help him find these dens, it had been about me helping him while he guarded my back, but now… Now, it was my turn to have Max’s back, and it was a position I would gladly take.
“They will likely want to show off their prize, cocky bastards,” Rhain added, like that was supposed to be a consolation. “So, he’s probably not in immediate danger.”
“Great,” Max bit out. “Probably not murdered, but held captive. I’m sure they’ll give him the finest suite, right? Every creature comfort?”
His implication wasn’t lost on anyone. If they had him, and they knew he was involved in this coup, Malachi was in mortal danger. If the situation was reversed, the Council would be trying to get information out of him, by any means necessary. Something told me the Conclave was no different.
Whatever my own thoughts and feelings about Malachi, he was Max’s father, and he had done his best for supernatural society during his tenure as Premier. He certainly didn’t deserve whatever might be happening to him.
Heaving out a deep breath, Max forced himself to sit back down. “So, now what? We all just sit tight until the assembly location is sent out?”
“ We sit tight, yes,” Rhain said. “But you better believe if we were watching you, they are too. You two need to lay low. We can’t arouse suspicions.”
The thought of more people watching us from the shadows, all because of our connection to a man I’d never even met, turned my stomach.
Max’s lip curled in distaste. “Lay low?”
“Wedded bliss, right?” Rhain gestured between us. “My recommendation? Continue your honeymoon, do your sightseeing, and we’ll let you know when we have the location.”
étienne nodded. “Then, we go in. Our focus” — he gestured to his vampires — “will be taking out the Conclave, while you and Rhain focus on finding Malachi and getting him out.”
“And if he’s not there?”
étienne turned at my question, sizing me up. “If he’s not there, we try to keep one of the Conclave alive for questioning.”
“And kill the others.”
I didn’t say it like a question, but it was one, and I couldn’t keep the judgment from my tone.
He raised a brow, ignoring my tone. “ Exactement .”
We took our time winding our way back to the apartment, neither of us all too eager to discuss what we’d learned tonight. Soft music drifted through the night air, streetlights illuminating the Parisian scene like a painting. It had felt perfect, magical even, just a few hours ago when teasing Max with an ice cream cone had been my most important task, but now a dark cloud lingered over us.
Malachi was missing, probably held captive, and had led his son right into the heart of a dangerous coup with little to no information. That had to sting.
Imagining my own father in any such situation made my stomach churn, anxiety creeping up my spine. I’d be in a panic, my siblings and I flying into action to get him back. But Max’s relationship with his father wasn’t the same as mine, and I was reminded again that I knew next to nothing about my husband.
For all I’d shared in snippets these past couple weeks together, Max was a closed book. Casting a sideways glance at him, I looked for signs of that same panic, that same worry, and came up blank. His dark hair fell in a wave over his forehead, his tanned forearms hanging loosely at his side since he’d given me his jacket back. No tensed jaw. No tight shoulders. No downcast gaze. No clenched hands. And yet…
He was off.
I couldn’t see it, but I could feel it.
Before I could overthink it, I slipped my hand into Max’s and squeezed.
“Never know who might be watching, right?” I whispered, leaning my head on his shoulder as if I was sleepy, headed back home after a late night.
He hummed, but didn’t drop my hand.
Now we knew what was truly going on, Paris had lost its luster. There might not be anything Max could do yet, but judging by the energy simmering just under the surface of his skin, he was too restless for more leisurely sightseeing.
My phone buzzed in my bag, and I pulled it out to a text from Terran.
Terran
Hey, I know you’re on your honeymoon so I hate to do this, and he’d never say anything himself (you know how he is), but I think Dad is upset about the eloping thing.
When are you coming home?
He says he’s good but he’s been sleeping with his Willies.
It’s bad, S.
“Crap.” I sighed, dropping Max’s hand to text back. I’d been afraid of something like this.
Summer
I think we’ll be back sooner than we thought.
Does he bring a sleeping bag?
Terran
When is sooner?
No sleeping bag. Wolf.
I cursed under my breath. That was bad. A shifter choosing to spend that much time as their animal was a cry for help, an attempt to distance themselves from human thoughts and emotions.
Terran
Earlier today I asked if he wanted to run the dessert special — NO LIMITATIONS — this weekend at the restaurant and he said NO
Summer
Oh my GOD
Terran
SEE
I’m telling ya. BAD
Summer
I’ll give you an ETA when I have one
Terran
Shit. He says he just ordered a loom
Summer
A loom??
Terran
To make buffalo fur sweaters?? I don’t know, and frankly, I’m terrified to ask.
Summer
That would be awful. Their fur isn’t even soft!
Terran
My bad. He is now looking at alpacas.
For fuck’s sake, he just showed pictures of baby aplacas to River.
Summer
Oh, he’s playing dirty dirty.
Terran
Using my daughter for his schemes
Help me, Summer Larkin-Russo. You’re my only hope.
Summer
Shut up. I love you.
Terran
I know.
Huffing a laugh at my brother’s idiocy, I stuffed my phone back in my bag and took Max’s hand again. I sensed his curiosity about my texting, but he didn’t need to be weighed down with my family drama. There’d be plenty of that soon enough.
“Well, I guess our work here is done,” I said, trying for a lighthearted tone, but it fell flat even to my ears. We had bigger problems now, so it was selfish of me to be disappointed our travels were over so soon.
He raised a brow. “What do you mean?”
“We found the vampires, and your dad was right — they are certainly unhappy with the Conclave. I guess we don’t need to keep traveling together since you have Project Oleander at your side now. Case closed.” I swallowed heavily, the thought sinking like a stone in the pit of my stomach. “You can take me home now.”
Something flickered over Max’s face, gone before I could figure out what it meant.
He shrugged. “You heard Rhain, though. We should keep up appearances for now, in case they’re watching. Wouldn’t want it to seem like anything’s amiss.”
It shouldn’t have given me hope, shouldn’t have given me any soft and fluttery feelings, that he wanted to keep up the pretense for a little longer. Because he wasn’t doing it for me or us , but for the job. For the ruse. So the Conclave wouldn’t suspect anything had changed.
Still, the tiniest part of me did hope. Did flutter. That maybe, maybe , he wanted to keep pretending for the same reason I did.
We’d come to Paris newly fake-married and adopted a friends-with-benefits situation, but were leaving with something that felt like a whole lot more. Tonight, feeling his hand in mine, had started to feel just a little bit like it could be real.
I shook the thought from my mind, clearing my throat and giving him a smile I hoped didn’t look too forced. “All right. For now.”