UP UNTIL THAT moment, Valiance was convinced vampires didn't sweat. One hundred and sixty-seven years old, and he was as nervous as a long-tailed cat. It made him smile. Violet would appreciate that. Violet wound be proud of this whole endeavor, no matter how badly it ended. He wiped his palms on the legs of his jeans before he took a deep breath and pulled open the door.
The smell of humans hit him hard in the gut. He should have fed. He'd thought about it, but there was an echo within him whispering he shouldn't pulse with someone else's blood, someone else's life, on his date with Esme. Some very old-fashioned part of him wanted him to be pure for this.
Like he could ever be pure again. He had the lives of a thousand people running through his veins. One more shouldn't have mattered. But it did tonight.
His nose twitched with the soft scent of baby powder and flowers. His gaze was drawn to the front window, where Esme was sitting in the window seat, watching him with doe-like eyes.
She stood and smoothed her green skirt over her dark leggings and pulled at her jacket. Her rose sweater reminded him of just that, a flower, with her soft scent and delicate features.
Esme met him halfway to the register. "Hi." Her eyes fluttered somewhere around his elbow as she pulled her dark hair behind her ear.
"Hello." He led her over to the register. "What's your usual?"
"The Mexican Mocha. It's got this kick like Abuelita makes."
Valiance turned to the manager. Bastian was one of the few humans in Dallas who knew of the Wanderer community and happily served them coffees and cookies. It struck Valiance that this might be the first time he'd ordered anything here. "Two Mexican Mochas."
Bastian raised his eyebrow at the order. "Really?"
Valiance pressed his lips together in a tight smile. "Please?"
The manager shrugged and rang up their coffees. "It will be a moment. I'm a little behind on orders."
"Are you hiring?" Esme asked.
Bastian laughed as he went to make their drinks. "Don't I wish."
Valiance saw an instant of sadness cross her eyes, and a metal hook pierced his heart. He needed to change the subject quickly. "You talk about your grandmother a lot."
"I live with her." Esme dropped her face into her hands, and the flower scent around her increased as she blushed. "I wasn't going to tell you that. Now I look pathetic. A twenty-two-year- old still living at home."
Valiance chuckled. "Families should live together."
She peeked out from between two fingers. "Really?"
FROM THAT MOMENT on, he was sunk. She was adorable. And nervous. And honest. She spun the porcelain cup in its saucer as she talked about her college literature courses and how the poetry class she was taking now was her last before she graduated though she didn't know what she could do with her degree. She talked about her incredibly large family and how she had to live with her grandmother to get any peace because everyone in her family was loud and in each other's business. She talked about how he was the first customer who ever asked for her again.
"Oh God. I shouldn't have said that. You're going to think I'm even more pathetic."
"I'm not going to think you're pathetic."
She scrunched her nose. "Can you tell I don't talk to people much?"
"Probably more than I do."
She raised an eyebrow. "So now we're going to play who's more pathetic?"
"I'd win. I work in a storefront alone, selling things online. The only person I talked to this week was the mailman. And you."
She smiled up at him, her sparkling brown eyes, her rosy lips, her sharp chin. The only thing that could have pulled him away from that moment was the spike of icy energy that rammed down his spine and made him jerk.
The cafe was suddenly less illuminated than it had been a moment earlier, a grim shadow quickly cast over his evening. His hand moved to his neck and inside the collar of his jacket. He brushed the familiar hilt just to make sure. He'd tried to leave the house without his sword, but it had been his only companion through all this. And, frankly, he felt naked without it.
"Something wrong?" Esme asked. "Something's wrong. You went all stony."
He was honest. "I don't know."
"Did it get cold in here?" She rubbed her hands up and down the arms of her jacket.
"More than just cold," he said as he scanned the front windows of the shop. It was never cold here, part of the spell the Prima had put on the place. "It's time to go."
"Oh. Um. Okay."
"Where's your car?"
"In the lot out back."
"Let's go."
She didn't question him. She just grabbed her bag and put it across her chest, taking one last drag of the mocha before he escorted toward the rear of the cafe.
"Are we allowed back here?" she whispered as he ushered her through the storage room.
"I know the owner, remember?"
He guided her through the dark and toward the glow of moonlight from the back door window.
His senses heightened by the fear creeping down his back, he was completely lost in the smell of her hair, the flowers, and her warmth as it pushed against him in the darkness.
He knew right then that she was too good for him. Too sweet. Too pure. What was he thinking even talking to her? Valiance reached around her to push open the back door, and they broke out into the cold night.
"Which one is yours?" he asked as he reached into his front pocket to get his cell phone.
"The . . ."
Esme sucked the words back in with a gasp as a dark figure swooped down and skittered in the gravel before them. Valiance pulled her behind him. He inhaled sharply as she buried her face between his shoulder blades, pressing the long, hard edge of iron against his spine.
The darkness faded around the figure, and his Clade Brother Mondrian's violently blue eyes smiled at him. "Nice to see you again, Valiance."
Six months of loneliness hit Valiance like a load of bricks in the pit of his stomach. "What do you want?"
Mondrian ran his fingers through his long brown hair, then pulled at the cuffs of his black leather jacket. "A little hospitality, for starters."
"What do you want, Mondrian?" Valiance repeated.
Mondrian spread his hands out. "Just to talk, older brother."
Slowly, Valiance pressed his cell phone into Esme's leg. Her hand wrapped around the phone, catching his fingers in hers for a moment. The thrill of it jumped up his arm and made him stand straighter. "Now is not a good time."
Mondrian's rage twisted his usually perfect face. "You think you're too good for your Clade now? That shifter bitch tell you that?"
This wasn't right. Mondrian's first emotion wasn't anger. His brother would have tried charm first, seduction. Swung around to flattery before resorting to anger. This wasn't a hospitality visit, and the knowledge grated on Valiance's nerves, setting everything on edge.
Valiance's power spiked around him, and the magic enhanced him. His muscles readied, his vision focused, and his fangs pressed down on his lower lip. "You do not talk about the Prima like that."
"You can't tell me you've actually gone native?"
"And if I have?"
"Going to make this harder than planned."
A shadow swooped down and plowed into Valiance. He slammed against the pavement, the wind knocked from his lungs. The figure was gone as quickly as it attacked.
Valiance's only thought was that Esme was exposed and defenseless against them as she stood frozen.
He sat up too quickly, and black spots swarmed in his vision. "Run."
His hoarse voice must have made something click within her, because she ran off into the night.
When Mondrian didn't blink, Valiance scoured the darkness around the parking lot, looking for others, waiting for the next attack. He didn't have to wait long. The shadow swooped again, but this time he was ready. His hand reached behind his head and pulled out his sword. When the figure hit him, he rolled and grabbed the material on the man's chest. He slammed him down to the gravel and had his sword to his throat in less than a breath.
"Finnegan?"
Valiance dropped the man's shirt, and both were on their feet in the blink of an eye. His muscles rejoiced at the feeling of his sword in his hand, at the use of his speed again, but his heart sank at seeing another one of his brethren on what now had to be a mission from Andrin, the leader of his former Clade.
"Brothers don't attack brothers in the darkness."
Mondrian just smiled, and Valiance remembered everything the two of them had done together.
Every war. Every city. Every woman. His stomach churned as he remembered the carousing, the drinking, and, most of all, the camaraderie he had desperately missed in the past six months.
Valiance's gaze bounced between the men. Three. There were three ways out of this. None left him unscathed, but Esme would be safe. "You left me here, Mondrian. That's not a very brotherly thing to do."
"Andrin ordered us to leave. It wasn't our fight."
"Prima Jordan was fighting for all of us. Fighting to make sure we could still have something to fight for."
Finnegan snickered. "He really did drink the Kool-Aid."
Valiance heard the rumble of an engine, and Mondrian began to turn his head. Valiance flicked the tip of his sword and pressed it to Mondrian's chest. "Andrin was a coward, running from the fight. I will not align with cowards or those who follow them."
Mondrian looked down at the blade against his jacket and shook his head. "You shouldn't have said that."
"Why? You're in the compromised position here."
A yellow Volkswagen Bug revved its engine and flew out of the parking lot. A weight lifted off Valiance's shoulders as he saw Esme's features in the window, her knuckles glowing white on the steering wheel. But he also knew he was watching his last chance for any sort of normal relationship drive terrified into the night.
Mondrian brushed away the tip of Valiance's sword and continued with his speech. "Andrin wants you back. He's gotten us into trouble, and he needs his warrior prince."
"Why aren't you good enough?" Valiance tested the weight of his sword in his hand. She was perfect, had always been perfect.
He could hear Mondrian's teeth grind across the space between them. "He wants you."
"I've pledged my allegiance to Dallas and to the Prima. I will not break my word for a coward."
"You sound like you're still in the eighteen hundreds, Val. Back when you were still Thomas Valmont, son of an aristocrat. Your perspective needs to change. It's not about honor and codes now. It's about survival and us against them."
"You never had honor and codes, Mondrian. You wouldn't understand."
Mondrian had always been faster. At least that part of him remained the same. Mondrian slammed Valiance against the brick wall so hard he was sure they'd shaken the foundation of the coffee shop. Mondrian's breath was fresh with blood, but there was something else beneath the metallic scent.
"Are you drinking from Andrin?" The words themselves left a sour taste in Valiance's mouth.
"He shares his power with us."
Valiance strengthened his jaw against the fresh pain in his head. "It's a way to control you. You know that, Mon. We've seen this frantic power grab before. Next, he'll start trying to bond new vampires to the Clade."
Mondrian's face didn't betray him, but his teal eyes did. The look told Valiance that his former leader had already started hunting for purebloods with the vampire potential. Once Andrin bit them, and their power had been solidified, they'd be his Clade Brothers forever. Like Emilio had bitten Valiance, and Valiance had bitten Mondrian.
Valiance dropped to the ground and swept Mondrian's legs out from under him. The boy never could predict a leg sweep. The younger vampire bounced against the concrete like a child's play ball and came at Valiance again, but Val's sword was faster.
The iron blade pressed into the hollow of Mondrian's throat. "I will not go."
Something happened to Mondrian. He shivered, from top to toe.
"You will rejoin your Clade." It wasn't Mondrian's voice. Mondrian had been born in the Americas, like Valiance. This voice was deeper and had the lilt of an Irishman in it. Full possession.
It was worse than Valiance thought. Andrin's energy coursed through Mondrian.
Valiance couldn't believe what he saw. His best friend reduced to the point that another could possess him. It both fueled him and disgusted him.
"I will not live under the tyranny of a coward."
"Then you will die under one."
WHEN ESME REALIZED she could barely see where she was driving, she pulled into the parking lot of a brightly lit convenient store and tried to get her brain to stop yelling at her.
Of course, he's a monster, and you were just about to be one of those girls in the movies who gets eaten. You are nothing. Why would a guy like him even notice you in the first place unless it was for dinner? How stupid could you be? Maybe there is a reason your parents gave up on you.
Her brain went a little numb after the last thought. The following tears were hot and thick, and she sobbed for a good ten minutes before her tear ducts ran dry.
But he saw her. She shuddered through a deep breath. He saw her, and he had told her to run when those other things showed up.
Esme looked over at the cell phone in her passenger seat. Why'd he given her the phone? Because he knew she didn't have one. What kind of a monster gives you a phone so you can call for help? Her hand still shaking, she reached out to take the phone. The simple flip model jumped to life when she opened it. Did she call 9 - 1 - 1? What could they do? These things moved faster than she could see. What were the cops supposed to do about that? Did she call his family? She'd heard them say brothers. Maybe they were looking for his brother? Not used to the phone's buttons, she pressed a few and ended up opening his contacts list.
His extremely short contacts list. One. Jordan. She'd heard that name before. The coffee shop, as a whisper in the air. He'd said he knew the owner. Was that his only contact? Taking in another breath, she made a decision. Call this person. Let them know Val was in trouble, then race home and never leave her abuelita's couch ever again. That was all she owed him for the coffee.
The phone rang a few times before a woman answered. "Hey, Val. How'd the date go?"
Esme didn't exactly know what to say, so she was honest. "Not good."
"Who is this? Is this Esme?"
Her skin prickled. How did this woman know who she was? "Val was attacked at the coffee shop. He needs help."
"My coffee shop. Nothing can get into the coffee shop."
"Behind it. Look. I don't know what those guys were, but he's in trouble."
"How many?"
"Two, that I saw. I hightailed it out of there pretty fast."
The woman actually laughed. "Thank you, Esme. You may have just saved his life."
Esme closed the phone. Did she want to save his life? Would he try to eat her now? She didn't know, but she started up her car and wished she'd just stayed hidden down in Housewares.