“Who are you trying to find?”
Vlad’s didn’t look my way, nor did his long strides falter, but I caught a glimpse of a quick, hard smile. “Maximus.”
“Maximus?” I repeated, disbelief raising my voice an octave. “Why? And why here?” I added in a softer tone, looking at the farmlands surrounding us.
Now Vlad did turn toward me, his smile becoming jaded. “This is where he’s from. He’s been thrown out of my line and most of his friends won’t speak to him out of fear of angering me. When people have nowhere else to go, they usually go home.”
He hadn’t answered my first question. With Vlad, that wasn’t an oversight. I shivered. Maximus had been his oldest friend, yet months ago, he’d betrayed Vlad by repeatedly lying to him. Worse, he’d done it over me. The only reason Maximus wasn’t a pile of bones was because I’d extracted a promise from Vlad not to kill him, then used Maximus’s freedom as my “bride price.”
If Vlad was looking for him, he still thought they had unfinished business, and that didn’t bode well. My only hope was that Maximus was nowhere near this rural slice of France—
“What are you doing here?” a harsh voice demanded.
Ha! my inner voice sneered. You lose again!
I turned around, seeing a tall, thickly muscled man next to the river that ran along the edge of the crops. Maximus’s blond hair was shorter, but the rest of him looked the same. The wariness in his gray gaze was certainly familiar. He’d given me the same look the last time I saw him, when he predicted doom for my marriage.
“I had an insatiable craving for turnips,” Vlad replied mockingly. So that was the field we were in. Then his voice hardened. “I came to see you, of course.”
Maximus glanced down at himself and let out a short laugh. “I suppose if you were here to kill me, I’d already be on fire.”
“Yes,” Vlad almost purred. “But I made her a promise. She’s here to witness that I can keep it.”
Some of the chill left my body. Vlad was known for keeping his word, but I couldn’t imagine why he’d want to seek Maximus out. He’d barely been able to keep himself from killing him the last time he saw him. Then again, that might have been because Maximus had told him we’d had sex. We hadn’t, but Vlad hadn’t known that. What he had known was that Maximus kept telling me he thought Vlad had been behind an attempt on my life, and thus I shouldn’t tell him I’d survived the gas line explosion.
You know. That old bro spat.
“I guess I should invite you inside, then,” Maximus said, sweeping his hand toward a ramshackle structure near the river’s edge. I’d call it a stone barn, except it smelled like old fish instead of hay.
I kept my nose from wrinkling out of sheer will. “You live here?” I asked carefully.
Maximus threw me a sardonic smile. “Not as nice as what you’re used to, I know.”
My chin rose. “I lived in an old RV with a fellow carnie for years, remember? Vlad’s the billionaire, not me.”
Vlad let out a derisive noise. “This hovel and her RV are palaces compared to some of the places I’ve lived, so if we’re finished with the poverty pissing contest, I have business to discuss.”
Maximus held open the door and we entered. Inside, it was slightly less decrepit, though the floor had patches of dirt poking through the stone near the front. Water was visible through the back, but that looked to be deliberate, as if part of the house had been built on top of the river. Maybe this used to be the caretaker’s home for an ancient water wheel. Since it looked as old as Maximus, it was possible.
“No wonder you’re not answering cell messages or e-mails,” Vlad commented. “I doubt there’s service here.”
Maximus shrugged. “There might be. I didn’t bring anything electronic, so I don’t know.”
The interior room had a table, but there was only one chair. Both men seemed to expect me to take it. I remained standing, still racking my brain to figure out why we were here.
Vlad didn’t waste time revealing it. “I want you to infiltrate Szilagyi’s operation to spy for me.”
I don’t know who looked more shocked, me or Maximus. “Him? Why?” I sputtered.
Vlad’s coolly appraising gaze never left the blond vampire across from him. “Szilagyi has managed to stay one step ahead of me because he keeps surprising me. I never expected him to successfully fake his own death, let alone wait three hundred years to exact his revenge, yet here we are. Quite frankly, he’s outwitted me because he’s using my knowledge of him against me.”
A muscle twitched in Maximus’s jaw. “And you think you can do the same to him with me?”
Vlad smiled with the same friendliness that usually meant someone was about to die. “Everyone knows I would never forgive someone who betrayed me, and every time I’ve cut someone off from my life, it’s been permanent. Who then would believe I’d offer forgiveness and reinstatement to the man who lied to me while attempting to seduce my wife?” An elegant snort. “No one, especially not the enemy who knows me so well, he’s been able to predict most of my actions before this point.”
I had to admit, I had a hard time believing it. Vlad’s arrogance went hand in hand with his actions—case in point, the current strain in our marriage—but in offering this to Maximus, Vlad was murdering his own ego. He was right: Szilagyi would never suspect that of him. He knew Vlad too well.