“I know, and I’m sorry. But it’s necessary.”
“What if I wait until daytime?” she argued. “All the bad guys will be asleep, right?”
Vincent’s heart twinged at the suggestion that she wouldn’t be sleeping with him, but he didn’t let it show. After all, she was human and needed sunshine. He should probably get used to the idea, since that wouldn’t change.
“Daytime is no guarantee of safety,” he told her, sliding his hand down her arm and linking their fingers together. “Enrique has human guards, just like I do. If you’d rather, I can assign one of them to you instead of a vamp. That way, it won’t matter what time it is.”
Lana tilted her head back and forth unhappily, but eventually nodded her agreement. “Okay. I guess that works. When do I meet him?”
“I’ll have someone sent up now. I’ll wait until he gets here.”
“That’s not necessary. I promised you—”
“I’ll wait,” Vincent insisted, not quite trusting her intentions. “Besides, you need to be scanned into the security system before you leave, and you’ll need the code.” The buzzer on the door sounded, and he said, “That’ll be Michael.”
“I thought you said he had access.”
“He does. But as long as we’re here together, he won’t use it. Come on, let’s get your print in the system, so you can go shopping. You’ll feel better once you’ve had some real food.”
Lana stepped away when he opened the door, her fingers slipping away from his. Vincent told himself that she only backed off because he needed to open the door for Michael, but that didn’t explain why it felt like she was pulling away a lot more than her hand.
Chapter Twenty-Three
VINCENT SHOVED open the vehicle door as soon as Ortega brought the SUV to a rolling stop in front of his building. Only one night, and he was already tired of the security protocols that surrounded his comings and goings. One of the things he’d miss after he killed Enrique and became Lord of Mexico was the freedom to move around unencumbered by all of this ceremony. As he’d told Lana, he understood the need for it. At least half of it was only for appearances, but the other half dealt with real security issues. He could defend himself, but a territorial lord was a big fucking target, and it would serve no one if he spent all of his energy fighting off every David who thought to take down Goliath.
Still, it grated on him. He’d had to leave the condo building earlier. His supporters were rallying around, but not everyone could, or should, come to him. It made better sense for him to go to some of them, rather than have them all show up here. Especially since Enrique almost certainly had someone watching. Better to leave the old lord guessing as to which of the vampires in his court would support him in the final challenge tomorrow.
But that wasn’t what was bothering Vincent, wasn’t what had made him rush back to the condo tonight. What had been nagging from the corners of his mind all night long was his last conversation with Lana. Everything had happened so quickly, he was sure she was feeling overwhelmed, maybe even threatened as the only human in a building full of vampires. After all, in the space of a few hours, they’d gone from taking a road trip, with the two of them driving from motel to motel across Mexico, to having an entire entourage and a Mexico City penthouse at their disposal. Even he was feeling claustrophobic. How much worse must it be for her?
Which explained his rush to get back upstairs. He’d gotten reports from the human guard assigned to her, so he knew she’d run her errands and returned already. And now Vincent wanted to catch her before sunrise, to make sure she understood how important she was to him, that together they’d handle whatever problem arose with these new arrangements, just as they had when it had been only the two of them. All of those other vampires, the security types, his supporters and hangers-on, they were peripheral. It was Lana who mattered.
He’d gone no more than five feet from the SUV, outpacing the security team in his hurry, when in his peripheral vision, he saw a man rushing toward him. A human, big and vaguely familiar.
Vincent turned, trying to get a better look through the wall of flesh his security people formed around him, while some of the others grabbed the human and began to ungently hustle him away.
“She doesn’t belong to you,” the human shouted.
Vincent stared, then pushed through his bodyguards to get his first good look at the human. Harrington. Dan, no, Dave Harrington. Lana’s former boyfriend or fiancé, depending on whom you believed. Vincent went with Lana’s version. But either way, he wanted to know what the man was doing here.
“Let go of him,” he ordered and watched as the human immediately stormed closer, seemingly too stupid to understand his own danger.
Harrington stopped just out of arm’s reach. He looked exhausted and truly distressed. Vincent almost felt sorry for the man. He’d told Lana that Harrington still wanted her, and now he knew he’d been right. Harrington didn’t understand that he’d blown it all those years ago, didn’t believe he’d really lost her for good. What a fool.
“She’s not for you, vampire. She belongs with her own,” the human said, his eyes filled with hatred.
“And her own . . . that would be you?” Vincent asked coldly.
“You’re damn right. Lana’s mine. She’s always been mine.”
“I don’t believe Lana sees it that way.”
“Because you’ve screwed with her head. I won’t let you have her.”
“Lana goes where she chooses. You’re a fool if you don’t see that.” Vincent glanced around, seeking a familiar face, someone he could trust. “Ortega, Zárate,” he said, falling back on his own people from Hermosillo. “Escort Mr. Harrington to the airport. See that he catches his flight home.”
The two hulking vampires stepped up to either side of Harrington. They didn’t touch him, but they didn’t need to. The threat was clear. Harrington was a big man, but the vamps were bigger. And they were vampires.
“This isn’t the end. You can’t make her happy.”