Because if she did not, she must then face her beast. And that was something she could not bear.
* * *
Outfitted in hazmat gloves and a face mask, Rhys Hawkes had been waiting for the delivery in his office. Stryke had chuckled, but then asked when he would be issued his own safety equipment.
“Sorry,” Rhys said as he took the silver scepter from the cardboard box. “I knew it was silver, but the thought to warn you didn’t occur at the time. I’ll have the company car outfitted with some precautionary equipment.”
“Precautionary,” Stryke repeated as he followed Rhys into an open vault that stretched back about twenty feet and featured an aisle four feet wide. He strolled his gaze up and down the security boxes, each fronted by a digital entry pad. “What all is in these boxes?”
“Gold, silver, coins from ages past. Magical items. Demonic accoutrements. Personal possessions that hold such great power the owner fears keeping them too near. Everything you can imagine. This is the preliminary holding cell for items the owners intend to retrieve instead of having them stored long-term. As well, I keep items I’ve purchased in here—like this scepter—until a spot can be coded for them below. I’ve a marvelous warehouse underground this building. I’ll show it to you sometime.”
“Kind of Warehouse 13, eh?”
“Hmm?” Rhys punched in a code and pulled open a drawer. He hadn’t gotten the reference to the sci-fi show Stryke caught on replay every so often that featured a massive storage shed for items and devices of supernatural origin.
“So that wasn’t a very dangerous job,” Stryke commented. “You know I am capable if you’ve a particularly harrowing task.”
“Oh, indeed.” Rhys closed the drawer and tugged off his gloves. “You looking for some danger, Saint-Pierre?”
“Always.”
“Your father told me you’re the wise one of his children. Sort of the calm center amid a storm of fur and trouble.”
“Trouble being the key word in that statement. My brother definitely lives up to his name.”
“Malakai also tells me he’s encouraged you to start a pack?”
“Yes, Dad wants to retire. And we could use a more varied pack where I live. A mixture of families.”
“Always wise to integrate the pack with new blood. So you are married?”
“No, but I’m looking.”
“Heh. I’d introduce you to my granddaughters at the wedding—Trystan’s girls—but no. I don’t want you taking any from my family across the ocean.”
“Thanks. I do have my eye out while I’m in town.”
Rhys patted him on the back and led him back out to the office. “You enjoy the show last night?”
“It was interesting.” If not curious. And a boost to his ego. Until Blyss had shoved him out the door, and then his ego had fallen onto the concrete. “Met a gorgeous woman.”
“Ah? Werewolf?”
“No. Doubt I’ll find such luck so quickly.”
“You two have a date, then?”
“I think we’ve done the date, the first kiss, the— Let’s say it was sweet while it lasted.”
“Parisian women can be baffling. Such pretty baubles to admire, but try to nudge beneath the sparkle and learn them?” Rhys shook his head. “I am thankful for a long and loving relationship with my wife. Dating nowadays would stymie me. People don’t even talk anymore. They text. What is that about?”
Stryke offered him a shrug. He wasn’t much for texting. A long talk and hand-holding were more his style.
“But if you’re looking for a hookup in town,” Rhys continued, “talk to Johnny. He knows a lot of—”
“Vampires aren’t really my style. But thanks, Rhys. I’m going to head out. Unless you’ve more work for me?”
“Not at the moment, but I’m sure I will in a day or two. Thanks for helping out, Stryke. See you at the wedding this weekend.”
On the way home Stryke stopped for a crepe from a food stand across the cobbled street from Notre Dame. He’d been eyeing this stand every day since arrival. Worth the dive into unhealthy. Sickeningly sweet chocolate oozed out around thick slices of banana between the folded crepe.
Bananas were always healthy, right?
He consumed the crepe and wandered in through the lobby of the apartment building. Knocking on the door to the apartment his brother Blade was staying in, he waited, but no answer. Must still be out with the twins.
His parents were likely helping with the wedding stuff. And Kelyn had been serious about seeing the sights. The youngest Saint-Pierre brother had left the building this morning with a map in one hand and his iPod set to a city tour.
Shaking his head in admiration over Blade’s roguish prowess, Stryke headed up to his place. He surfed the television but couldn’t understand French or the Indian-language stations, though the talk shows that emulated the confrontational style so popular in the US were a hoot.
After fifteen minutes all the hair-pulling and shoving annoyed him. Time to head out and explore the city. Maybe he could pick up Kelyn’s scent and join him. He scanned out the window and eyed the row of shops across the river. He’d start there because he was pretty sure one of them was a bookshop.
A knock at the door must be a family member. Expecting a brother or even his mom or dad, Stryke answered the summons and chuffed out his breath at the sight of who it really was.
The sexy siren stood with one arm raised, her hand grasping high on the door frame, while her sinuous body slinked and seduced in red velvet. The dress hugged her from breasts to curvy hips. A party this early in the day? Stryke decided that every day—all day—was a party for this glamour girl.
“Blyss?”
She winked and strode across the threshold, handing him a filmy black scarf. He fumbled with it, not sure whether to scrunch it up and toss it aside or press it to his nose to inhale her scent. He compromised and brushed it over his face as he tossed it aside to land on the kitchen table littered with toast crumbs from a hasty breakfast.
Following the click of her high heels into the living room, which was bare of furnishings, save for a baroque couch and chair set that looked as if it hailed from the eighteenth century, Stryke waited for her to announce her reason for the visit.
Did he need a reason? Hell no.
The woman he’d thought to never see again stood not six feet away from him, looking like a sex goddess wrapped in red. Her dark hair was pinned up again, with a few wispy tendrils drawing his eye directly to her elegant neck. Right there. That was where he really wanted to kiss her.
She turned and crooked her finger at him and he almost lost it right there. But he was cool. Mostly. He got an instant hard-on, though. No fancy suit today, just a T-shirt and loose blue jeans that had gotten remarkably tighter.
“How’d you find where I’m staying?” he asked as he padded up to her and didn’t dare touch her. Yet. She smelled like flowers. And again he got lost in a meadow of blossoms.
“You told me you live above the candy shop. Only one on the island.”
“I didn’t think I’d see you again after that hasty send-off last night.”
“Excuse moi. I sometimes slip out of hostess mode, and then when I realize my guests are untended, I refocus with a vengeance. It’s a thing with me.”
“You often slip out of hostess mode at such gatherings?” Meaning, did she