She went up on her toes and touched only her lips to his, then handed him one of the warm, wet towels kept on hand for just that purpose, waiting as he wiped first his hands, and then his face, cleaning away ash and blood. He touched her cheek then, cupping it in his big hand, his eyes meeting hers for just a moment before Jared and Juro pushed out of the interrogation cell behind him.
They went directly to the warming bin with its supply of towels. Cyn could have grabbed towels for the two of them as well, but she still wasn’t sure she liked Jared well enough to offer him the courtesy, and she wasn’t petty enough to get one for Juro while ignoring Jared. So, she left them both to their own devices. Juro gave her a conspiratorial wink as he pulled two towels from the bin and handed one to Jared. Juro got along with Jared well enough and trusted his loyalty to Raphael, which was all that mattered to Juro. It was all that mattered to Cyn, too, but she was still working on getting past her initial dislike of the lieutenant. She’d get there eventually, though. For Raphael.
Across the room, Raphael tossed his bloody towel, hitting the trash basket in the corner. Cyn didn’t wait. She stepped into his space and wrapped her arms around him. He stiffened for a moment, but then sighed and relaxed into her embrace, as if he’d been holding himself in abeyance, waiting for her to release him. Which wasn’t far from the truth. His powerful arms surrounded her as she rose up on her toes, rubbing her cheek against his, sliding her lips along his jaw to his mouth, and then giving him a warm, lingering kiss. His body loosened further as their lips separated and he rested his forehead against hers. It was times like this that he needed her most, Cyn thought. When he needed her humanity, her warmth, to bring him back from the frozen wasteland of emotion where he sometimes ventured.
“Lubimaya,” he murmured for her ears only.
“Love you,” she whispered back to him.
They remained locked together until Juro and Jared finished cleaning off, but even then Raphael kept one arm around her, holding her close.
“So, this guy was nobody,” Jared said, collapsing the info gained over the many hours of Damien’s torture into a few succinct words. “A malcontent who thought he could get a foothold on this continent by killing Raphael before his bosses moved in for the takeover. And when that didn’t pan out, his fallback was to seize Mexico from Enrique.”
“He seemed very confident in his ability to take out Enrique,” Juro commented.
“Not in a stand-up fight,” Jared sneered. “He took one look at Enrique’s court and figured the Mexican lord was ripe for a good backstabbing, figured none of his people liked him well enough to defend him. Fortunately for all of us, well, for all of us except Damien”—he amended, laughing—“Vincent got there first.”
“Unfortunately, his European masters didn’t trust him any more than he trusted them,” Juro said darkly. “They endorsed his plan to test Raphael, knowing full well he was likely to die in the attempt, which shows how little they valued him. But they gained either way. If he succeeded, Raphael was gone. If not, they got rid of a troublemaker.”
“I would have loved to get my hands on that Violet chick who headed up the team facing off with Raphael in that dinky church,” Jared muttered. “Damien believed her loyalty was his, but she didn’t waste any time rushing back to Europe once the outcome was certain. I’d bet good money that she belongs to someone over there.”
“We’ll almost certainly see Violet again before this is over. And her master, too,” Raphael agreed, his words putting an end to the conversation in the same moment that Juro’s cell phone, which had been sitting on the table while he was in with Damien, rang a jarring note in the small room.
Juro stepped over and glanced at the caller ID, then took the call, giving nothing but monosyllabic responses to whoever was on the other end, even as he exchanged meaningful looks with Raphael who was probably hearing every word the caller said. So was Jared, for that matter. Which meant Cyn was the only person in the dark. Damn vampire hearing.
Juro disconnected. “Sire,” he said to Raphael with a nod. “I’ll get back to you as soon as I know something.” He let himself out of the observation room without another word.
Jared caught the door before it closed, mumbling something about catching a shower before the shit hit the fan, then disappeared just as quickly.
Cyn ground her teeth, waiting until Jared was gone and they were alone. “What was that all about?” she demanded.
“A letter arrived today. Juro will check it out,” Raphael said, steering her toward the exit.
“A letter. From the European vamps?” she asked, her heart fluttering at the idea that war might be imminent, even as part of her rejoiced that the waiting was over.
“It seems likely,” Raphael confirmed, reaching around her to pull the door open.
“How do you know it’s them?”
“In times past, important communications between vampires utilized an ink that left little doubt as to the letter’s origin.”
Cyn thought about that a moment, then wrinkled her nose in distaste. “It’s written in blood, isn’t it?
He nodded.
“Nifty,” she muttered. “Well, let’s get this party started then.”
Chapter Two
RAPHAEL AND CYN made their way upstairs from the detention cells under the garage, taking the outside route across the estate to the main house, where they walked up more stairs to his office, and then traveled down via secured elevator to their private quarters. It was a lot of up and down, but it was all about maintaining their personal safety, as well as the security of the entire estate. There were only three vampires—Raphael, Juro, and Jared—who had access to every building and level, and that didn’t include the quarters that Raphael shared with Cyn. He wanted her to feel completely secure and relaxed when she was home. Hell, it had taken him nearly a year to persuade her to consider his Malibu estate to be her home. She’d clung to her condo down the beach, as if waiting for him to tell her it was over, that what they had wasn’t forever after all.
But that was never going to happen. He’d known the truth of it in his soul even before he admitted it to himself. He loved her more than he’d ever loved anyone, more than life itself. He was never giving her up.
If Raphael had been alone tonight, he would have gone straight to his office and opened the mystery letter. He assumed it was from someone in Europe, if only because he couldn’t think of a single vampire in North America who would have used the old traditions that way. At least, not anymore. They were all dead. One of Aden’s opponents had scribed her challenge to him in blood, but she, too, was dead, and not sending bloody letters to anyone anymore.
This letter was almost certainly the first move in the coming war with the Europeans, and Raphael was curious to discover what their opening volley would be. He wasn’t curious enough to forego his lover’s affection, however. Cyn wanted him to herself for a while. She needed to know that he was safe inside his own head, that he’d come back from the dark place he’d gone when he’d been interrogating Damien earlier.
And he was inclined to give Cyn whatever she wanted. He’d known from the moment they met that she would turn his world upside down, which was the main reason it had taken him so long to admit his feelings for her. He sometimes thought about those months he’d wasted running away, months that could have been spent with her in his life, teasing him as they worked in the evenings, reminding him of his own humanity with every touch of her hand, every kiss of her lips . . . making love to him with an unquenchable desire that made him want to chain her to his bed and never let her go.