Vincent bared his teeth. “I don’t think Rajmund had much mercy on his mind at the time. The quickest way for a vamp to get dead is to threaten another powerful vampire’s mate.”
Lana absorbed that bit of information, then asked, “So where are we going, then?”
“South of the city, in the foothills. The guy says it won’t show up on GPS, but he’s been there once or twice. He’s texting me some natural markers that will get us there.”
“How far do you think it is?”
“Sixty, seventy miles. It’ll take us two hours or so. Why, are you in a hurry?”
“I’m curious. Aren’t you?”
“Yeah, I guess I am. It’s unusual enough that Raphael sent a private message to one of Enrique’s vampires. But when he made it personal, sending you to me specifically, making it clear that he wants me there for the delivery, there’s obviously something up. How did he know I wouldn’t go right to Enrique with it? Hell, how’d he know I wouldn’t take you and the message both to Enrique?”
“Why didn’t you?” Lana asked, ignoring the chill that shivered along her spine at the very idea. She hadn’t thought about that possibility. If she had, she’d probably have sent the money back and told Cyn and Raphael to find another messenger.
Vincent reached out and took her hand, the same way he had in the restaurant. It made her heart flutter and her stomach kind of queasy. She wanted to trust her heart, but she had a feeling her stomach had the right idea.
“I couldn’t pass up the chance to go on a private road trip with you, could I?”
Lana scoffed noisily.
“You underestimate yourself, querida. But I admit I was intrigued by the mystery of Raphael’s request. That you were the messenger was a beautiful bonus.”
He squeezed her fingers and Lana got that queasy feeling in her stomach again.
“Well . . . two more hours and you’ll know everything, won’t you?”
“We’ll know,” he amended. “You’re a part of this, too.”
Lana wanted to believe that, wanted to believe there was a we in their future. The problem was, she couldn’t see a future that included her and Vincent together.
IT WAS A GOOD thing the old vampire had sent that list of natural markers, Vincent thought to himself. It was also a damn good thing that his vehicle was both four-wheel drive and had an armored undercarriage, or they’d have bottomed out and been hung up on some rock a long time ago. The so-called road they were following was barely a dirt track. If it hadn’t had two barely visible, parallel lines of dirt amidst the scrub, he’d have assumed it was nothing but an animal trail and ignored it. But it was obvious that someone was using it on an infrequent but regular basis, and every single one of the old vamp’s markers was showing up where he’d said they would. So they kept going.
“Xuan Ignacio must really want to be left alone,” Lana commented.
That was the most she’d said in the past few hours. Other than a word or two pointing out upcoming turns, she’d been unusually quiet. Not that she was normally a chatterbox, but there was emotion beneath her silence this time. A human wouldn’t have sensed it, but he did. His vamp powers were good for more than just tripping along his victim’s memories. He had the full complement of vampire telepathic abilities all amped up by the power that made him a potential vampire lord. And his vamp senses were telling him that Lana was thinking. In his experience, when a woman started thinking, he needed to start worrying.
“Almost there,” she told him, checking the text on his cell phone. “One more turn.”
“You ready for this?”
She glanced at him, then back at the road. “I should be asking you that. You’re the—Wow, look at that organ cactus! It’s huge.”
Vincent eyed the giant cactus that was looming in the headlights like a space alien, then he looked over at Lana.
She noticed his amused expression and blushed hotly. “Sorry. I’ve just never seen one that big. That’s your turn by the way. The house shouldn’t be far now.”
Vincent had to slow almost to a stop to make the sharp left-hand turn, and even then that stupid cactus that Lana admired so much scraped along the side of his SUV, making his teeth grind in irritation. Michael laughed at him about it all the time, but Vincent liked his vehicles to look good. And that didn’t include fucking cacti scratches all down the driver’s side.
“Smoke,” Lana said suddenly. “I thought I saw smoke in the headlights.”
Vincent nodded. He smelled it. “When we get there, you stay behind me, querida, until we know what’s what. This is a vampire we’re dealing with. One who’s wily enough to have survived a very long time.”
He brought the SUV to a halt twenty or so feet from the front door, and sat for a moment, sending a tendril of his power out, sliding it through the cracks of the stone block house in front of him, wanting to learn as much as he could before knocking on the front door.
“There’s one vampire inside,” he informed Lana softly. “No one else.”
“Does he know you’re here?” she asked, whispering, as if the vampire could hear them from inside the house.