“I don’t think he knows the details, but it’s to do with the wedding. It’s all wedding, all day. No one thinks about anything else.”
Lexie shifted the strap of her bag. “Still, it’s a wedding. What’s so wrong that they’re shooting at each other? Did someone order the wrong napkins?”
Chloe gave a derisive laugh. “This isn’t like an ordinary marriage, sweetie. With royal families involved, it’s as much a treaty as anything else. The politics are above my pay grade, but even I know everything could fall apart in a blink.”
The wing of the palace where they slept was just ahead, and Lexie’s spirits began to recover a little. They walked without speaking, the way old friends could, and she caught the scent of the sea. The Mediterranean was visible from the upper balconies of the palace, but here there were only trees and pale stone walls.
“Who’s that?” Chloe asked, pointing ahead.
Lexie squinted. Someone was sitting on a rock wall, hunched over as if he was resting. The waist-high wall—according to the official palace guidebook—was part of an ancient fortification no longer in use. The breeze gusted again, rustling leaves. The ambient light caught a shock of fair hair. Lexie stopped, dumbfounded for a second. Faran.
Chloe gestured with the hand that held her shoes. “I’m sure you two have something to say to each other. I should go.”
“Don’t you dare!” Lexie reached out to catch her arm.
But Chloe was too fast. “I’ll see you in the morning. Maybe Sam will actually tell me something by then.” She retreated across the lawn.
“No, wait!” But Lexie’s feet were glued to the earth, and it felt as if that earth was opening up to swallow her whole. Defeated, she set her bag of equipment on the ground.
Slowly, Faran slid from the wall and landed with easy grace, although he seemed to favor his right side. Lexie felt the same tug of recognition as when she’d seen him inside. Now that he was in human form, he was terrifying in a completely different way.
Faran had shaggy fair hair and strong-boned features that reminded her of a Viking. But it was the memory of what she couldn’t see beneath the black T-shirt and jeans that made her mouth go dry. Faran Kenyon was tall, with a warrior’s lean and muscular body that had made Lexie reach for her camera time and again because she barely trusted what her naked eyes told her. She could have made a fortune from those photos. For a moment, she drifted in memory, recalling the hot, hard feel of him beneath her hands.
They’d met in Cannes when she’d been photographing a swimwear collection. He’d been catering private events, and looking as sexy as sin fresh out of the box. When he’d turned on the charm, it had been a full-on sensory assault.
Two months later, they’d been living together in Paris. She’d had no idea he’d been working undercover the whole time, hunting down a ring of rogue vampires who dealt in the traffic of runaway girls. Not until the end, when she was halfway out the door.
“Hey,” he said, watching her warily. It was too dark to see the color of his eyes, but she knew they would be blue now, and not wolfish gold.
“Hey,” she returned, hot embarrassment stealing over her. She groped for something to say that wouldn’t be inane. “You got dressed fast.”
So much for sounding cool and collected.
His eyebrows gave a slight lift. “The guardhouse has lockers.”
“Oh. So you’re prepared.”
He gave her an exasperated look. “Normally I’m a prepared kind of guy. Though I didn’t expect to see you here.”
There wasn’t anything to say to that. “Are you hurt? Did they use...” she trailed off. “I should stop talking now.”
His mouth flattened with anger. The next words came out hot and fast. “Silver bullets? Yeah. Thirty-eight hollow point ammo and hunting dogs. Way to make a guy feel special. I was lucky it wasn’t a direct hit.”
“What are you saying?” she asked in a small voice.
“I’ve been patrolling the grounds every night after dark. They knew I was coming. I ran to the one place I could think of where they would have to stop shooting.”
“Inside the palace.” She realized they were talking as if years hadn’t passed since their last conversation.
“Leaping through the window was not my best move, but I’d tried everything else and I’d been hit.” He ran a hand through his fair hair. “I appreciate that you stood up for me.”
“No problem.” She wasn’t sure what she expected, but appreciate felt lukewarm. Then again, she was talking to a werewolf ex-boyfriend who’d never been a stickler for etiquette. “Do you know what’s going on?”
“No.” His voice held a ring of bitter truth. “But it’s nasty.”
He touched his ribs, probing gently. His breath hissed inward, surprising her. Faran rarely showed pain or any kind of vulnerability, so it must have really hurt. Her hand rose, automatically reaching out to comfort him, but she dropped it before he noticed.
“I thought you healed when you changed form,” said Lexie.
“Wounds from silver are different.”
“Do you need a doctor?”
He gave her a narrow look, his expression changing as if he suddenly remembered how everything had ended between them. “In a human hospital? That would go well, don’t you think?”
She took a step back. “I’m sorry. I didn’t think.” Hollowness opened up in her, recalling everything that she’d lost when she’d slipped out of their apartment, leaving no more than a note behind.
His tone grew sharper. “What are you doing here, Lexie?”
“Chloe hired me as the wedding photographer.”
“I don’t mean that, I mean...” He gestured from her to him. “I mean why are you talking to me? I don’t exist for you.”
“What is that supposed to mean?” she shot back, irritation rushing in to salve her hurt. “If I close my eyes, you’ll disappear?”
His glare reminded her of why she had left him. Beneath his charming exterior was a predator. That beast was fully present now.
“But one day I did vanish, didn’t I?” The resentment was thick in his voice. “The day you learned what I really was, you just stopped seeing me. It didn’t matter if I was standing right in front of you.”
“That was years ago, Faran,” Lexie said, fresh shock rising in her. She’d expected time to blunt emotion, but clearly that hadn’t happened for either of them. “Why are you still so angry?”
He stood with one hand over his side and a stubborn glower on his face. “Why am I still angry?” he repeated softly. “Do you have to ask?”
She matched stubborn for stubborn. “Yes.”
He closed his eyes. “Lexie, what does happiness look like to you?”
The question caught her off guard. “What does that have to do with anything?”
“Just answer me.”
“I’m an artist,” she said automatically. “Taking pictures is what makes me happy.”
He moved so fast she never saw it. All at once, his hands were on her arms, pulling her close until their bodies all but touched. Werewolves ran hot, their body temperatures a degree or two above humans’. A long line of heat vibrated between them, tantalizing Lexie through the silk of her tunic and slacks.
She didn’t like being trapped in his