Pursued: A Vampire Syndicate Paranormal Romance (The Vampire Syndicate Book 1) Page 2

  My hands fisted at my sides. “You’re not Gabriel,” I rasped as the man turned to face me.

  2

  Gabriel

  My brother Rafe and I stared at each other, slit-eyed.

  “Well?” I smirked. “Is that the best you’ve got?”

  We were alone in my private gym, stripped to the waist. A training fight, but with real knives—switchblades long enough to plunge into a vampire’s heart. The only elongated blades were stainless steel, not silver. Even a deep wound wouldn’t kill us, although it would hurt like a motherfucker.

  Rafe prowled around me, torso damp with sweat, and then lunged, knife out.

  I twisted aside. The blade drew a thin red line across my ribs. I pivoted, slammed an elbow into his kidney—and with my other hand, jabbed my knife into his back beneath his rib cage. Not deep enough to do any real damage, but enough to draw blood.

  Rafe grunted and dropped into a forward roll, springing back up to face me. “Got you,” he taunted, his gaze flicking to the blood on my abdomen. His fangs lengthened.

  “That papercut?” I snorted and glanced down at where the thin line was already healing over. “You’d be dead if this was silver.” I brandished my blade at him.

  Rafe danced around me, searching for an opening. “Like hell I would.”

  I crouched, instinctively peeling my lips to show my fangs. This might be a mock fight, but that didn’t mean we didn’t take it seriously. Winning was in our blood.

  Father had made sure of it. Me and my two brothers had been home-schooled, with half our day given to boot-camp-style training: martial arts, street fighting, and how to handle the special silver switchblades that were the most efficient way to stake a vampire. His three sons might be dhampirs—half-vampire, half-human—but he’d honed us like weapons.

  Rafe feinted—and I leapt, deliberately overshooting him. Mid-stride, I flipped the blade in my palm and slammed the base into the back of his head. He stumbled forward and dropped to his knees.

  I grabbed his chin and yanked back his head. “Give.” I touched the sharp point to his throat.

  He snarled and gripped my wrist. I dug my knee into his back to block whatever evasive maneuver he was planning. Last week, when I’d gotten him in a similar hold, he’d managed to toss me over his shoulder. I was damned if he’d do it again.

  On a nearby ledge, our phones buzzed in unison. I stilled, breathing hard, and released my brother.

  “That’s Father.”

  Rafe nodded and came to his feet in a single fluid motion.

  I strode to the ledge, tapped the screen. “He wants me downtown ASAP.”

  “Same,” Rafe said, looking at his phone. “Wonder what bug he’s got up his ass now?”

  I jerked a shoulder. “Hell if I know.”

  But we duly headed for the showers. When the Primus of the Kral Vampire Syndicate summoned you, you obeyed. Even if you were his sons.

  No, especially if you were his sons.

  Ten minutes later, we were tricked out in suits and ties. Father was old-fashioned that way. Business was conducted in the proper attire.

  The private gym was directly below my penthouse in the apartment building I owned on the Upper East Side. We ignored the elevator to jog the eight flights down the service stairs to the underground garage.

  “I’ll drive,” I said as we entered the garage.

  Rafe pulled out a quarter. “Flip you for it.”

  I snatched the coin in mid-air. “I win,” I said without looking at it. Being the oldest of three brothers had its privileges—and besides, my Jaguar, my rules.

  “Prick,” he said amiably. But he settled his long body into the sleek silver coupe’s passenger seat.

  I dropped my sunglasses on my face before exiting the garage. Beside me, Rafe did the same. It was evening, but the sun still hovered above the horizon, enough to bother our sensitive eyes. A dhampir could tolerate more sunlight than a vampire, but our eyes were adapted for darkness, not light.

  “Have you heard anything from Zaq?” Rafe asked as I turned the Jag south toward Greenwich Village. “Or is he still in Syria?”

  “He left three days ago.” Our middle brother had been in northwest Syria on a humanitarian mission. “I got a text when he landed in Paris. Said he’d be back by last night.”

  “So I guess he got the summons, too.” Rafe grinned. “After we find out what Father wants, maybe we can grab us some pretty thralls and go out. Just the three of us.”

  I nodded. It had been a while since we’d all been in the same city.

  “Unless you have plans,” Rafe added.

  “No. I’m free.”

  “And hungry, I bet. Blood-wine only goes so far. And when’s the last time you got laid?”

  I cut him off with a hard look. “I drink when I need to. As for who and how often I fuck, that’s none of your damn business.”

  “Sure, dude,” Rafe muttered, but dropped the subject.

  By the time we arrived at the Syndicate’s anonymous brownstone in the Village, night had fallen. Even this quiet, treelined street buzzed with the special energy that was Manhattan after dark.

  I pulled into one of the spaces reserved for the Syndicate’s top people. As we exited the car, a curvy woman in a short summer dress dragged her boyfriend to a halt.

  “That’s them,” she hissed. “The Dark Angels.”

  “Yeah?” He raised a brow, trying to appear unimpressed, but I sensed his spike of fear. He kept walking, but she’d already whipped out her phone.

  “Can I have a photo?” she asked me. “Please?”

  “Not now.” I went to move past her.

  Rafe grabbed my arm and flashed her a grin. “Just one, sugar.” To me, he muttered in a voice too low for humans to hear, “We’re the face of the Syndicate, remember? Father’s orders. Make nice with the humans.”

  I ground my back teeth. “Right.”

  Somehow, we’d become media darlings—the three Kral brothers. The Syndicate’s Dark Angels.

  We were a goddamn hashtag, for fuck’s sake.

  I blamed my mom. She’d insisted on naming us after angels: Gabriel, Zaquiel and Rafael. It was her little rebellion against the vampire world. An angel, after all, is a creature of light—a bright, shining being. A vampire’s complete opposite.

  “Awesome.” The curvy woman shoved the phone at her escort and inserted herself between us. “Let me guess. Gabriel”—she twinkled up at me—“and Zaquiel.” She winked at Rafe.

  My mouth twitched up. But nothing phased my youngest brother.

  “I’m Rafael, darlin’,” he said without losing his grin. “The good-looking one.”

  I snorted, but in fact, of the three of us, Rafe was the most classically handsome, with the sculpted face of those pretty-boy gods you see in museums.

  She chuckled and put an arm around both our waists. “I’m Ceci, and that’s Connor.”

  I set an arm on her shoulders and stared unsmiling at Connor. On the other side, Rafe did the same thing, only he smiled.

  Connor scowled and took three photos in rapid succession.

  “Here.” He shoved the phone at Ceci and waited, arms crossed, while she told Rafe thank you—three times—and then with a flirty wave at me, continued on her way with Connor.

  When he sent a last scowl over his shoulder, I showed him my fangs. I understood why he was pissed, but I didn’t take shit from humans. He gulped and sped up, dragging Ceci with him.

  I smiled and turned for the brownstone. “Oh, Rafael,” I said in a high falsetto as I jogged up its three steps. “You are just too irresistible.”

  “Go fuck yourself,” Rafe suggested in a pleasant voice. “Besides, she was just as interested in you. You didn’t see those looks she was giving you. That whole dark-and-brooding thing you’ve got going on really sucks them in.”

  I snorted. “Should’ve staked you when you were a baby.”

  The doorman was a wiry, world-weary New Yorker. “Good evening, si
rs,” he said as he opened the steel-and-silver reinforced door with exquisite timing.

  “Evening, Dino.” I strode into the stately marble-and-bronze lobby, Rafe at my heels.

  My brother glanced around. “No Zaq,” he observed as one of the Syndicate soldiers on guard duty pushed the button for Father’s private elevator.

  “Late,” I returned. “As always.”

  We exchanged a wry look. Like our mom, a New Orleanian down to her scarlet toenails, our middle brother ran on his own relaxed time. According to Mom, he’d even been late to his own birth.

  The elevator descended three floors to a secure area carved out of New York bedrock. We passed through another two layers of security before reaching Father’s inner sanctum.

  Tomas Mraz, his lieutenant and righthand man, waited in the outer room to let us in. A big blond Slovak, Tomas had grown up with my dad in the Carpathian Mountains, and had been turned at the same time. When I was a kid, the blunt, ever-smiling Tomas had reminded me of a Teddy bear, until I was brought into the Syndicate and saw him slice a man’s throat without losing the grin.

  The lieutenant wasn’t smiling now. “Gabriel. Rafe. Go in. He’s been waiting for you.” He jerked his head at the study.

  Inside, Father was pacing the antique red-and-gold carpet, his lean frame clad in one of his usual hand-tailored suits. At three centuries, he was still young for a vampire. His face was unlined, his dark eyes clear. But his short black hair was ruffled as if he’d been dragging his hands through it.

  Rafe and I exchanged a glance. Karoly Michal Kral was never ruffled.

  Father turned to us, his relief palpable. “You’re here.”

  I frowned. “What’s wrong?”

  He scraped a hand over his face. “It’s Zaquiel. He’s missing.”

  My stomach tightened. “You’re sure? It’s not the first time he’s gone A.W.O.L.” Zaq hated the Syndicate, would resign in a heartbeat if Father allowed.

  “I’m sure,” Father said grimly. “He hasn’t been seen since Monday.”

  “Hell.” Rafe’s black brows lowered. “Could the Syrians have him?”

  “No. We’ve traced him to Paris. He disappeared sometime after landing at de Gaulle.”

  “I can vouch for that,” I inserted. “He texted me from the airport. At least, that’s where he said he was.”

  “He was. The surveillance cameras recorded him talking to a middle-aged female with big sunglasses and brown hair, and then—nothing.” Father spread his long, elegant hands.

  “Fuck.” I squeezed the back of my neck, tried to think beyond the fear gripping my gut. “Okay. Dark glasses. Could she be a vampire?”

  “Or a dhampir?” Rafe added. “Or it could just be part of her disguise.”

  “If she’s even a she,” I muttered.

  “I haven’t ruled anything out,” was my father’s reply. “But if she’s a vampire or dhampir, she’s not in our database.”

  I frowned. “So not a member of one of the larger covens.” We kept extensive files on the major covens and syndicates, but there were always small nests of vampires who preferred to fly under the radar.

  “Could be a rogue,” Rafe pointed out.

  “Or Slayers, Inc.,” I added.

  Rafe’s eyes met mine. Not all slayers were human. In fact, dhampirs made the best slayers. We were almost as strong and fast as vampires, and had a vampire’s enhanced senses.

  Father’s smartphone buzzed. He glanced at it and stilled.

  “What?” I asked.

  He wordlessly turned the screen toward me and Rafe.

  One down.

  Beneath the message was a photo of Zaq, his wrists in silver cuffs attached to a dirty concrete wall. He stared defiantly at the camera, his T-shirt ripped, a scruffy beard covering his cheeks and jaws.

  I zeroed in on the bruise blooming on the side of his neck. In the center were two tell-tale puncture wounds. Some S.O.B. had fed from him without bothering to heal the wound.

  “It was sent on his own phone,” Father said.

  My nostrils flared. Scarlet hazed my vision, and my fangs slid out. For a few moments, I was pure predator.

  Beside me, Rafe snarled, “Those thrice-damned bastards.” I didn’t have to look at him to know his vampire was dominant right now, too.

  My father’s gaze locked on mine. He wasn’t calm—far from it—but the icy rage I saw brought me back to myself.

  I had to stay in control. Zaq’s life might depend on it.

  I drew a slow breath, retracted my fangs. “You’ll trace the message.”

  “For what good it will do. They’ve probably destroyed the phone already.” But he opened the door, handed the phone to Tomas. “I want to know who sent this, and from where. Highest priority.”

  The big blond lieutenant glanced at the screen. His bushy brows climbed. “Right away.”

  “And Tomas? This has to be kept a secret. No one else can know.”

  The lieutenant gave a curt nod and closed the door again.

  I eyed my father. “Tell me something,” I asked, tight-lipped. “When did you first suspect Zaq had gone missing?”

  “Early yesterday morning. He was supposed to check in as soon as he landed in New York.”

  “So you’ve known for thirty-some hours that something’s wrong.”

  Father’s spine straightened. His black eyes narrowed in a look that would’ve sent his minions running for cover.

  I stared back. It was an old argument between us. He was supposed to be grooming me to take his place as the Kral Primus, yet I was continually left out of the loop on important developments.

  Beside me, Rafe shifted uneasily.

  “I knew nothing,” Father bit out in cold, precise phrases. “In fact, I believed that this was another of your brother’s stunts, or that he was indulging in his tendency to play white knight for humans.”

  I heaved a breath. “Fair enough.”

  “But,” he admitted, “perhaps that was a mistake. I’ve heard rumors of a coup attempt.”

  Yet another thing my father hadn’t bothered to tell me. “Who?” I demanded.

  “I don’t know.” He sank into the big black armchair behind his desk. “The rumors are just that. Nothing concrete. Whispers in the fucking night.”

  He slammed a fist onto the desktop, rattling a box of Cuban cigars and toppling the sole family photo, the one taken at Mardi Gras back when me and Zaq were teenagers.

  I leaned forward to right the photo. For a moment, we all looked at it.

  My father stared coolly at the camera as if he’d rather be anywhere else, but he had my pretty, dark-haired mom snugged up close to his side, while she, in turn, had an arm draped over my shoulders. Eleven-year-old Rafe had wormed his way between me and Mom and was flashing his trademark cocky grin, his neck smothered in cheap plastic beads. On my other side was Zaq, an easy smile on his face, his T-shirt sporting powdered sugar from too many beignets, his brown hair streaked from the sun and looking like it hadn’t seen a comb in days.

  Fury clamped hot fingers around my throat. Zaq was the good one, the kind-hearted man everyone loved. Hell, he’d given away most of his trust fund to poverty-stricken humans, saying, “They need it more than me.”

  He was the one who least deserved to be a pawn between my father and the vampires who wanted to take him down.

  I met Father’s eyes. “I’ll leave for Paris tonight.”

  “No.” He leaned back in his chair. “You will conduct business as usual. The other syndicates would love to know someone found a hole in my security, and even some of our own people might try to take advantage of it. No one but you and a few of our top men can know Zaquiel’s gone missing. No one.”

  I slapped my hands onto the desk’s polished mahogany surface. “With all due respect, I’m not going to sit on my ass here in the States while Zaq is pinned like an insect to a goddamned wall.”

  “I’ll go,” inserted Rafe.

  “No,” my father and I barke
d at the same time. Rafe scowled but subsided.

  I opened my mouth to argue further but Father held up a hand. “Hear me out.”

  I straightened. “Go ahead.”

  “They’ll expect me to send you or Rafe to France. They may even be counting on it, which is why you’re staying here. You’ll go out, be seen, handle any routine business. Tomas will be staying in New York to advise you. Here.” He handed me a burner phone. “I’ll contact you on this—it’s secure. But don’t try to contact me. I intend to go completely dark.” His face hardened. “I believe someone here at headquarters is behind this, either working on their own or with another coven.”

  “A mole?” Rafe breathed.

  “Yes.”

  I stared down at the phone, trying to absorb that not only was Zaq a prisoner, my father suspected someone close to us was behind it. “You’re going to Paris?”

  Father nodded. “It’s a start. Perhaps I can find something our people in France missed.”

  “I see.” My mouth twisted. I knew why Father was going, and not me or Rafe. We were dhampirs. In his eyes, we’d never be strong enough.

  My brother stirred. “Take me to Paris. I’m one of the Syndicate’s best trackers.”

  Father shook his head. “That’s why I’m sending you to Montreal. I can’t be sure the Tremblay Syndicate isn’t a part of this. Victorine Tremblay would love to take out my sons.”

  My fingers constricted on the burner phone. “The blood feud.” Of course.

  The blood feud between the Kral and the Tremblay Covens dated back two centuries, although in the past decade, a fragile peace had held.

  My father nodded grimly, but Rafe went still as a hunted animal.

  “Zoe Tremblay,” he said flatly.

  Two summers ago, something had happened between the two of them. Something Rafe refused to talk about, even to me and Zaq.

  “Did you think I didn’t know about you two?” Father asked.

  My brother lifted a shoulder, let it drop.

  “She’s her mother’s second-in-command,” Father continued. “Use her.”

  “Bad idea,” Rafe returned. “Victorine Tremblay told me personally that if I ever touch Zoe again—if I even breathe the same goddamn air as her daughter—she’ll consider it a deliberate act of war against the Tremblays and will respond accordingly.”