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Lucas clears his throat from across the table, annoyed and clearly not amused. She arches a brow in challenge but doesn’t say a word, and for a moment the table is washed in an uncomfortable silence.
The waitress steps toward Campania who adds to the list before she moves to the next. I have no doubt they’ll need to use the vacant table next to us to hold all the platters that come out with that order. When she’s finished, she looks down at her list and laughs. “Now that’s an order.”
I smile at the good-natured woman who wears the black skirt, high heels, and nothing else. I hear the quickening of Catina’s pulse as the waitress flirts with me. “Good, two can play games, and she’ll soon learn that she’s going to find her on the losing end of the little one she’s started with me. There’s no way she’s going to come out the winner in this.
My cell beeps, curtailing my planned continued flirtation with the attractive woman who smells of desire and has become the heated target of Catina’s eyes across the table. I glance down at the message, grimacing, because paying her back for at least a little of my earlier embarrassment and hurt feels good. “Excuse me. There are a few things that need to be taken care of before I eat.”
I leave the table, and Catina’s eyes sear me with their intensity. I can feel the racing of her heart until I walk out the door and close it behind me. Even making my way to the room that Catina and her family used earlier for their little visit, the beating lingers as though a ghost of a sound, faint and barely there, but there just the same.
Lord Braedon stands against the bar. He adjusts his shirt sleeves at the wrist of his custom-tailored suit. A tell that he’s had for centuries and probably will always have. “You said it was urgent. I expected to see you accosted by rogues or shifters. What couldn’t wait until we’ve had a chance to eat and rest?”
He looks toward the door. “Let’s head to the bar area. You’re going to need a stiff drink for this.”
Chapter 17
Catina
The air felt different the minute he came back to the club. Not even a glance in my direction. Icy and cold, as though a winter storm had passed through the hemisphere and left a chill between us. I could have passed it off as worry about the work he’s doing with the rogues and shifters, if I didn’t know better, but I do. All the doubt and warning signs of trouble swirling in my mind, all at the very same time while butting against that icy chill every time I look his way.
No, something is definitely wrong between us. I have no doubt it has something to do with my family. It’s the only thing that makes sense. Them arriving at the club was the only thing that changed, and it would be stupid of me not to think he knows something. But he never even gave me a chance to tell him. Just iced me out. Maybe my father and brothers were too anxious to get their greedy hands on the money that I pretended would be coming after the auction. Maybe they detoured around me and cornered him with an offer instead? Or said something to someone who told him. Who knows, but I intend to find out right now.
Lucianna and the others are talking with the waitress as she begins bringing pieces of the long order to our table, shifting things around to make room for more plates and platters as they come out from the kitchen. Mass amounts of foods for vampires who require much sustenance.
Feeding time…
I tap Madria on the shoulder. “I’m going to find Botosoni. We’ll be back soon, okay?”
She gives me a wink. “Sure, like the last time you two love birds disappeared. Don’t think we don’t know what you’re up to.” She lowers her voice. “Maybe I’ll ditch out of here with Sardinia too after everyone’s eating.”
I laugh at the good-natured young woman. “Try to save me and Botosoni just a little,” I tell her, standing and excusing myself from the table. The group barely looks up from their chatter over which pieces of chicken they want, and which dish to pass, but Lucianna never misses a thing. Her eyes glow a deep green. “Find Botosoni. Then perhaps the chill between you two will dissipate.”
I give her a warm smile. Lucianna is a good and kind person and will make a great queen someday, of that I have no doubt. I mouth a quick thank you, grab my purse, and head to the exit door that he left through some minutes ago.
Each hall looks the same. I don’t know if he went left or right, but I fully intend to search every nook and cranny of this club until I find him and set him straight about the whole sordid affair with my family. Clear the air between us once and for all, because having him not talk to me, sit next to me, or touch me with even the slightest of caresses under the table is causing my heart to ache.
I recall coming out by the little bar outside of the room where I met my family and put my hand on the handle to open the door when I hear my name. “Catina and her family are not our biggest problems. Our soldiers tell me they left and went back to a campsite not far from the base of the mountain range but not before stopping at the stores in town and purchasing a ton of stuff on credit. They told the shopkeepers that they would be back to pay it off in a few days.”
Botosoni lets out a low growl that I would recognize anywhere. “Sure, with all the money they plan to get when I buy the little liar at the auction. After what I heard her tell her family, it’ll be a cold day in hell before she gets a red penny. Let her family figure out how they’re going to pay for all that merchandise in a few days because it sure as hell won’t be from money used to buy her at the auction.”
My mouth gapes and chest tightens because now I know exactly why I’m getting the extreme cold treatment. Either my parents and brothers found him and told him what I said, or he has this place wired. I’m beginning to think that with all the rogue and shifter stuff he probably has security that allows him to know exactly what’s going on in every room of the club as well as his estate. But that realization comes a little bit too late.
Why I didn’t think about that before now is beyond me, damn it all to hell. Maybe because I had no reason to think even if he did that it would be used against me. I thought that he actually cared for me in a way that I do for him, that we had found our soul mates, because that’s exactly how I feel, did feel, until this.
Botosoni was listening. He heard every terrible word that I said. My chest tightens, recalling all the horrible things that were said only to get my parents to leave so that I could stay here and help the vampires with the rogues, giving me and Botosoni time to come up with a plan to deal with them for good. And instead of asking me about it, he thinks I’m a liar, a manipulator, and out to take his money. The anger flares from deep inside and heats my body as though I was standing in a ring of fire, causing my blood to race with unprecedented speed.
His voice sounds tired and gravely. “So, what’s so important that it couldn’t wait? I’m crabby, tired, and beyond hungry with a meal fit for a king waiting for me in the other room.”
“A few of our soldiers spotted the rogues. They actually laid eyes on them. They’re buried in and watching them, doing nothing, just keeping an eye on them until they get word to do something else. They have a few shifters with them, but the majority are heading this way. I got a notice from someone I know about the auction being held here on Friday.”
Botosoni lets out a breath that sounds familiar. “Sorry, I would have told you if I could. Every move we make is as secure as we can make it right now.”
“I completely understand, but what you should know is that word about it is traveling at an incredible speed, and I’m not sure if the rogues and shifters plan on waiting until the auction on Friday. My guess is they plan to attack before you’re expecting them to arrive.”
Botosoni doesn’t say a word, at least one that I can hear for long moments. When he finally speaks it’s low and guttural. “Good, then the plan is working. The patrons are moving out tonight, and then the club will be vacant for the next couple of days. Our soldiers are in place around the perimeter. Don’t tell your men why, but keep them in the field and vigilant. I can use some real time information as those sheisty bastards move in closer to the city and toward the club.”
“You need not worry. My men are in place and will do as you ask. In the meantime, I’ll keep my phone on in case you need to get ahold of me. In case you want to alert Catina, and I wouldn’t blame you if you don’t, but her parents and family are camped not far from the shifters and rogues. I don’t have to tell you that the rogues will take the first chance they get to harvest fresh and pure blood. They will smell her family the minute they thirst for blood, and it won’t be good Botosoni.”
My anger quickly turns to fear, pure unadulterated fear like I’ve never felt before envisioning the monsters tearing my family apart. They may be the worst family in the world, but there’s no way I can stand by and allow them to become the vampires newest source of pure blood.
