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left Cyn to her teasing of Elke she was engaging the female
vampire in a serious discussion of which board game they
should occupy their time with this evening and joined
Robbie, who had ducked into the dining room out of sight.
"My lord," Robbie said as soon as he saw him.
"Robbie," Raphael greeted him. "Cyn tells me you had an
uneventful day."
The human's surprise was obvious and all too predictable.
"Not exactly, my lord."
"Ah. So, tell me then, what exactly did happen?"
A short, but informative conversation later, Raphael left
the dining room and headed straight to the couches where
Cyn sat talking to Elke and some of the others. He'd already
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assured Robbie that he'd done the right thing, both in the
performance of his duty and in reporting the details to
Raphael. Not that there'd been any question of that last.
Raphael had made it clear that he wanted a full report on
Cyn's activities, knowing well her tendency to gloss over the
fine points. She claimed it was to avoiding upsetting him
unnecessarily, but even she no longer believed he fell for that
excuse.
"A moment, my Cyn," he said, taking her hand and pulling
her off the couch and back down the hall to the elevator.
Vampire hearing was excellent and he didn't want the entire
compound to hear the coming conversation.
She spun around as soon as they were downstairs, her
mouth tight with irritation. "Robbie finked, didn't he?"
"Finked? Robbie did his duty, which is first to protect you,
but second to inform me of any danger incurred during his
watch."
"There was never any "
"Then why did I have to hear it from him instead of you?
White supremacists? Vampire hate groups? You didn't think
this was relevant? And what about the clear threat to you
made by a man with enough connections to know the men
who savaged Mariane?"
"I knew you'd freak out like this," she mumbled.
He looked down at her impatiently. "I am tempted to lock
you in this room "
"You just try!"
"But, as you so often remind me, you are who you are. So
I will content myself with warning my security people to be
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extra vigilant." He turned on his heel and entered the elevator
once again, eyeing her dispassionately from within its depths.
"I am disappointed, my Cyn." The doors closed seconds
before he heard something hard hit their surface. He laughed
loud enough for her to hear as the elevator started upward.
He was still grinning when he emerged upstairs, meeting
Duncan halfway across the nearly empty great room.
"My lord," Duncan said somewhat warily.
"We'll be taking a short detour this evening, Duncan. Let
the others go ahead."
"Yes, my lord. Juro will accompany us, of course. Will you
want anyone "
"No others. We'll join the hunt later."
Raphael strode out into the wet night, for once not noticing
the weather. It was time these humans learned there was a
price to pay for threatening that which was Raphael's. And he
intended to begin their instruction tonight.
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Chapter Twenty-Four
Sophia drove slowly down the narrow lane to Colin's
house. She'd nearly missed the turnoff, had only caught it at
all because of the GPS's melodious female voice urging her to
turn right. As it was, she'd passed right by it and had to back
up to make the turn. The lane seemed barely wide enough for
the luxury sedan Wei Chen's people had provided for her, but
she thought that might be due more to her lack of driving
experience than anything else. After all, she remembered that
Colin drove one of those oversized American alpha-mobiles,
as if a man's courage was somehow tied to the size of his
truck. Or perhaps it was something else, something more
intrinsic to being a man? She laughed out loud at the thought.
As she recalled, Colin had no worries in that regard.
All thoughts of laughter died as Colin's house finally came
into sight. She saw the lights first, shining through the
ubiquitous trees which gathered closely around and above the
narrow lane. Before too long, she entered a large clearing and
saw the house itself. It was a big A-frame, all wood and glass,
with light beaming from every one of the many windows,
including the entire top half of the A itself. Short wings tucked
out to the left and right, but only the one on the right had any
lights showing.
At least she could be fairly certain Colin was home. Either
that or he didn't like to come back to a dark house. But, no,
his truck was there, parked off to the right in front of a
detached garage.
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Sophia half expected him to hear her arrival. Not that the
car she drove was noisy, quite the opposite, but it was so
quiet here, especially compared to the cities she was used to.
She turned off the engine and sat for a moment, waiting for
the house door to open. When it didn't, she opened her car
door, closing it gently and walking up onto the porch. There
was no bell, so she knocked . . . and knocked again. She
frowned and sent a narrow thread of power past the door and
into the house. There. A human heartbeat. And running
water, which probably explained why he hadn't heard her
knock.
There were few times that Sophia regretted being
Vampire. This was one of them. Had she been human, she
would have simply opened the door and walked in, surprising
Colin when he finally emerged from his shower, or whatever
washing up he was doing. Unfortunately, as a vampire, that
wasn't an option. So she waited until the sound of running
water ceased, and she knocked again.
Footsteps came from inside and she repeated her
knocking. The footsteps drew closer, the heavy tread of a big
man and her heart beat a little faster.
The door opened and Colin stood there. He was only half-
dressed, his broad chest completely bare, a pair of low-slung
sweat pants hanging on narrow hips, revealing a flat
abdomen ridged with muscle. He had a towel draped around
his neck, and his hair was still damp.
"Sophia. What do you want?"
His voice startled her into meeting his sapphire blue eyes,
so striking in contrast with his black hair, and she realized
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she'd been staring. But oh, he was so stare worthy. If
anything, he was more delicious now than he'd been when
she'd met him nearly a decade ago. He'd held the promise of
a man back then, young and strong and fit. But now he was a
man fully grown, with thickly muscled shoulders and arms
and a man's deep chest. A light sprinkling of dark hair across
his chest arrowed downward, teasing her eye as it
disappeared beneath the loose, drawstring waist. There were
slices and puckers of shiny scar tissue across his torso and
down his arms, but they only made him seem more fearsome,
a warrior in his prime.
And suddenly Sophia remembered why she'd taken him as
her lover. Men had always wanted her, some for the bragging
rights of claiming her, others for the things she could give
them. But no one had ever wanted her for herself. Until she'd
met Colin Murphy. He hadn't wanted Lady Sophia Micaela
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