Page 47 of Siege of Blood and Betrayal

The air on the other side of the panel door is cool, and I’m surprised by the volume of people bustling past us. The light from the overhead fluorescents casts a bright shine on the white subway tiles and I read the station stop on the wall.

BAY is written in large, black letters and then YORKVILLE is written in smaller letters below.

“I thought the station was abandoned. Don’t tell me we’re going to jump into the tracks and jog into the darkness. That’s how people like me get electrocuted or squashed.”

Zane chuckles. “This is Bay Station. The compound is in the Lower Bay Station, abandoned by the TTC after only six months of use.”

“And where is the Lower Bay Station?”

“It’s in the name, Scots.” The amusement in his voice carries over his shoulder as he leads us through the crowd waiting for their train.

I scan the faces and expressions of the people we pass and thankfully, no one takes notice of us—well, no one who looks suspicious.

Zane has a confident and powerful air about him and in a snazzy suit and with his vampire genetics, he’s heart-stoppingly beautiful. So, while no one is openly sizing us up for a fight, there are more than a few women sizing him up as sexy eye candy.

Zane scans the area as we head toward the end of the platform, his gaze completely passing over the women as if he doesn’t even see them.

I hate to admit that I’m glad he shows them no interest—no, Iloatheto admit it—but the only way I’ll survive being in his wake is if I’m honest with myself. My heart once belonged to him and even though nothing came of it, he holds power over me.

I will pretend otherwise until I break free of it, but I won’t deny it—at least not to myself.

He’s tense despite his protests that he’s safe. He may say he’s not concerned about leaving the safe house, but the tension in his frame and the clench of his jaw say otherwise.

He’s got himself locked down and will attack at the first sign of trouble.

Not that anyone would attack him in the middle of a human thoroughfare in downtown Toronto. That would be tantamount to declaring the existence of ‘other’ and that would bring an entirely different death sentence into play.

Because while there are some instances where humans are aware of and even live within the worlds of the supernatural, the existence of angels, demons, vampires, and other races of magical creatures isn’t public knowledge.

To openly expose it is not only forbidden, it’s dangerous. I used to feel special being part of the secret. Now I wish I didn’t know and could live a normal life unaware.

“Scots? Are you all right?” He studies me, and his stern gaze warms and softens as he takes me in. “Did you see something that upset you?”

“No. Nothing. Everything’s fine.”

We continue down the platform and I focus on our surroundings, watching the shadows for anyone who might be watching us. No one is. There are two dozen people down here and most of them are more interested in their coffee or their conversations or getting to their next stop.

No one seems to wonder about the vampire prince walking past them. No, not the vampire prince.

Zane’s a Fondatori King now.

I take in his profile as we reach the end of the platform and he opens up a door marked, ‘Authorized Personnel Only’. We walk down the private corridor beyond, and after a few twists and turns, he stops at a nondescript door.

The aura of a magical glamor washes over my skin.

Zane keys in an access code and we step through the doorway and down several flights of concrete steps. When we get to the bottom, Zane drags the meaty pad of his thumb over his pointed incisor and then presses his thumb into a small opening beside the latch of the door.

The metallic click of the latch allows us entrance and we step through.

“You realize that everyone leaving bloody thumbprints in that little hole is disgusting, right?”

Zane chuckles, dragging his tongue over his thumb to seal the wound and stop the bleeding. “Vampire blood burns off surfaces fairly quickly and we don’t carry germs like humans do. Blood is kind of our thing.”

“Yeah. I may have noticed that over the years.”

We move into the Lower Bay Station, and I stop on the empty concrete platform beside Zane. The access door to the safe house elevator antechamber is an oversized posterboard featuring an old Walter Matthau/Jack Lemmon comedy called The Fortune Cookie.

The next one down the platform is Born Free.

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