Page 23 of Love, Rekindled

Chiron spun away, trying to imagine what had happened. “So, who would have pretended to be speaking for you?”

“Only someone very stupid. Or with a death wish.”

He nodded. The room pulsed with her frigid power. She wasn’t a vampire he’d want to take on in a head-to-head battle.

“It had to be a trap for Jayla,” he muttered in absent tones. “Why else create such an elaborate ruse to get her out of the hotel?”

“Or for you,” Emile countered.

He turned back to meet her dark gaze. “What do you mean?”

“You’ve acquired a number of enemies over the centuries.”

Chiron shrugged. He hated to brag, but his list of enemieswasimpressively long. “I try.”

She looked as if she were resisting the urge to roll her eyes. “They would be fools to attempt to attack you in your own lair.”

He followed her logic. “So they kidnapped Jayla to lure me to Hong Kong.”

“It worked, didn’t it?”

“Possibly,” he slowly agreed, a whisper of unease making him hesitate. It was the most logical conclusion, yet… “No,” he abruptly burst out, hit with a sudden realization.

“You have another theory?” Emile demanded.

“They could have kidnapped Jayla without involving you,” he pointed out.

“True.”

“But making me believe you were behind her disappearance was guaranteed to cause trouble between us.” He recalled the large vampires with bad attitudes who’d been in the lobby. “Perhaps even a war.”

Emile blinked. “Who would want that?”

“Who wouldn’t?”

* * *

Levet ignoredthe nearby building’s open door. It was a red heifer.Non. Wait. That wasn’t right. A red herring.Oui. A red herring.

The vampire they were chasing had pretended to duck through the door, but Levet could sense the creature beneath their feet. Bending low, he moved along the alleyway. At last finding the small grate set in the ground, he pulled it off.

Bertha bent down beside him, her nose wrinkling. “You’re certain he went down there?”

“Oui,” Levet assured her, not giving himself time to consider the possibility that it was a trap.

He’d discovered that assuming that something great was about to happen made life much nicer. Could there be a clan of rabid bloodsuckers waiting to do terrible things to him? Possibly. But it was also possible that a K-Pop group used the tunnels to hide from their rabid fans, was it not?

Dropping through the opening, Levet landed on the hard cement far below. He grimaced, holding his wings off the damp ground as he glanced around the massive tunnel. Thankfully, they used it for drainage and not sewage, but it was still dark and dank and boring. A long tube of cement with cement pillars and occasional ventilation shafts. Why couldn’t the vampire have hidden in a nearby resort? Perhaps in the kitchens, where there would be platters of roast goose and fried rice and hot, braised abalone. Mmm. His stomach rumbled.

Bertha landed lightly beside him, the air stirring as she used her invisible wings to break her fall. “I smell him,” she announced with a sparkle in her eyes. “This way.”

She darted off before Levet could halt her, and he was forced to scramble to keep up. It was annoying. He should be the one recklessly charging into danger. She was stealing his swagger. Rude.

“Wait,” he warned as he caught the sound of voices. “The leech is near. And he is not alone.”

Together, they pressed against the cement wall and inched toward the side tunnel just ahead.

“Escaped?” The voice was muffled as if they were behind a closed door. “What the hell are you talking about? You promised she would be dead before dawn.”

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