“Damn straight. This is my fight, too.”
“We are not going there to fight, Arianna.” His face lost its humor. “We will have four guards with us. Do not start anything we cannot finish.”
She grinned at him, but said, “I’ll be good.”
“Try to keep that in mind. Considering your last meeting with Sebastian, I doubt if he finds your temper as…intriguing as I do.”
When she gave an indignant snort, he laughed. “Let us not fight with each other. We need to pack.” He slipped an arm around her waist, pulled her close, and dropped a kiss on the top of her head.
And that was the end of it. Andreas had turned off his annoyance, put it behind him. He’d known she would insist on going. Sometimes he was overly protective, and Ari didn’t understand that. She was a cop, for Goddess’s sake. No one else treated her with kid gloves—except Ryan, on rare occasions. Maybe it was an alpha male thing. In any case, she and Andreas had worked well as partners in the past, and she figured he wasn’t really opposed to her joining the delegation.
Once the decision was made, they hurried to finish preparations. The flight left at 6:03 p.m. and would put them in Toronto a little before midnight. She didn’t call Ryan until they arrived at the airport and was relieved to avoid his questions when she reached phone mail. She left a message stating she’d be out of town a couple days and not to worry. It wouldn’t stop him from wondering where she was, but suspecting she was up to something versus knowing she had gone into the enemy camp were two different levels of concern. Either way, there wasn’t much he could do about it.
The flight was uneventful. Andreas only flew first class, and Ari was curious how much he’d paid to get them all onboard at the last moment. He sat next to the window and brooded at the dark sky outside. Ari read the in-flight magazine and dozed for a while. Russell and Lilith chatted in low voices one row ahead of them. Ari couldn’t see the other two vamps, but she heard Marcus giggling over his video game from a couple rows behind. The flight attendants, aware of the number of weapons they had declared, gave the six members of their party a wide berth.
It was nearly 1:00 a.m. by the time they checked into the Toronto hotel. While Ari and the werelions settled into the suite, Andreas and the other vampires left to explore the city and locate Sebastian’s court. They still hadn’t returned by the time Russell, Lilith, and Ari decided to go to bed. Ari was tempted to stay up, but she needed to be fresh to guard the vampires while they slept during the day. Yawning, she crawled into her bed. Since they never slept together, Andreas’s room was next door. He had understood when Ari made it clear she never wanted to wake to find his “dead” body lying next to her. Way, way, way too creepy.
Around dawn Ari awoke to find a single rose next to her pillow. She sat up, instantly awake, picked it up, and sniffed the sweet fragrance. Slipping out of bed, she blew a kiss toward the connecting door and smiled all the way to the shower.
When Ari wandered into the suite’s common room half an hour later, Lilith was already there.
“Coffee’s made, and we have reading material.” The lioness swept her hand toward the kitchen table.
Ari glanced at the pile of maps and brochures stacked there. First things first. The hotel coffee was only passable, but it held the essential ingredient, caffeine. After several quick sips, she began to feel human again. As human as a witch ever felt.
The werelions and Ari spent the morning chatting about the upcoming meeting with the vampire prince and studying maps of the city. Andreas and his companions had located Sebastian’s Court, and someone had drawn a map with directions. A note from Andreas suggested they should be ready to leave by sundown.
“They won’t be up for hours yet,” Ari said, picking up the map. “I’d like to check out this place. Get my bearings.”
“Good idea.” Russell jumped up. “I’ll go with you.” He paused as if suddenly remembering someone needed to stay behind. “Unless you’d rather I stay here.” He looked at Lilith.
She gave him an indulgent look from her relaxed pose on the couch and put her feet on the coffee table. “Fine by me. I’ll watch the sleepers. I’d rather have you two out of here than pacing all day long.”
Russell gave his wife a sheepish look, but joined Ari in plotting the route on the city map. Fifteen minutes later they were out of the hotel and hailing a cab. As they road in the taxi, Ari noted city landmarks that would mark there way if they had to get in and out in a hurry. Just in case. Exiting their ride several blocks from the vampire compound, they continued on foot.
The entrance to Sebastian’s court masqueraded as an abandoned storefront. Vamps always seemed to pick isolated areas, probably a reaction to being hunted with stakes for thousands of years. Choosing a vacant second-story room in a building across the street, Ari and Russell settled in to watch.
According to Andreas’s notes, Sebastian’s compound was dug under the basement of the former garment factory behind the defunct clothing outlet. Although Ari didn’t see any signs of life right away, she knew the area would be heavily guarded. Andreas’s status as the visiting representative from another vampire court was the only thing that would get their group beyond the front door. They watched the adjacent buildings in the area for the next half hour.
“Sniper,” Ari said, nodding toward a building on the left.
“Yeah,” Russell acknowledged. “There’s a second one behind the building with the girlie sign.”
“I see him. They’re both wolves.”
They waited another ten minutes. Finally satisfied she’d seen all there was to see and that they’d successfully whittled down two hours of waiting time, Ari motioned to Russell. They exited into the alley behind them and returned to their hotel.
Andreas appeared by mid-afternoon, strolling in, wearing his usual Armani casuals—black T-shirt, black jeans. The slight flush to his skin indicated that he’d already had his bag of blood for the day. He smiled when she told him about the surveillance trip.
“Sebastian knows we are here. I called him before dawn. We are invited to his compound at eight o’clock.”
She told him about the snipers.
“Not surprising. There will be more tonight.” He didn’t seem to think it was significant.
Ari wished the meet was earlier. Her whole body was tense, and she wanted to get on with it. Russell had resorted to some shoot-’em-up game on the laptop. Lilith had caught their edginess and was cleaning her guns. For the third time. They all knew the dangers of walking into any unfamiliar vampire court, especially one with a prince noted for his unpredictable violence.
Ari kept thinking of her prior visit. Sebastian had turned his vampiric power on her and attempted to destroy her mental defenses. At the last moment, her magic had formed an inner firewall, stopping the invasion, but it had been close and not an experience she wanted to repeat.
Sitting and waiting added to the tension.
By 7:00, they’d given up any pretense of normal activities, like reading or eating or watching TV, and were merely killing time. Lilith had been filing her nails for the last half hour. The vamps were up, darkness had fallen outside, and still they waited. The other vampires had dined on bottled blood they’d brought with them, a hassle to get through airport security, but easier than dealing with the hotel kitchen. Russell and Lilith had utilized room service. The greasy smell of their cheeseburgers and fries was tempting, but Ari was too keyed up to eat. Her stomach growled; she ignored it. Her outfit wouldn’t look good with telltale grease spots on the front.
At Andreas’s urging, Lilith and Ari were in feminine attire, considered proper for a court appearance. Lilith had dressed in dark blue: short skirt, boots, silk blouse. Ari chose a long, loose black skirt, with concealed pockets, and matching boots, white low-necked top and a black ribbon around her throat. Regular party girls, except for the weapons and magic potions. Ari had concealed most of her normal arsenal—derringer with two silver bullets, knife, potions, magic dust—in her pockets but left the charm bracelet with its protective trinkets on conspicuous display. Lilith’s weapons were in plain sight by design. Sebastian would expect them to be accompanied by armed bodyguards.
Strung too tightly to sit for long, Ari wandered restlessly around the room, looking at the pictures on the walls, watching her companions, thinking about the night ahead. An hour ago, Andreas had changed into elegant, black leather with a black silk T-shirt under his jacket, no doubt custom-made by his favorite designer. Oliver and Marcus sported jeans with brown leather jackets; Russell had favored all denim. Like Lilith, Russell displayed his weapons: an eight-inch knife in a sheath and a sawed-off shotgun slung over his shoulder.
Ari shot a quick peek at Andreas’s still form. He had been standing at the window at least twenty minutes, staring out over the darkened city. The man had nerves of steel. What did he see? Even though the moon was almost full, a dense cloud cover blocked its glow, and only the city lights provided any illumination in the darkness. Ari was glad she had viewed their destination earlier in the day.
“Will you please sit down?” Andreas said quietly without turning around.
Ari came to a halt, realizing she’d been pacing the hotel room like a caged animal. It probably wasn’t helping anyone else. She plopped in a chair, picked up a magazine and began leafing through it. The turning of pages was the only sound in the room.
She looked up in time to see Andreas turn to look at her. His eyes widened, and he threw back his head with a laugh. “Today’s Bride?”
Ari looked at the magazine she held but was obviously not reading. Sure enough, Today’s Bride. She blushed, dropping it on the coffee table. “Isn’t it time to go?”
“Patience, madam witch. I intend to be late. They will expect it, and they will be late as well. The trick is to time it so everyone arrives together and no one gains an advantage or loses face.”
“Wouldn’t it be simpler if both sides stuck to the original time?” she said.