Lucas surveyed the milling crowd. He was still as thin as ever—his meals weren’t regular enough for anything else—but at sixteen he was too tall to slip easily through the crowd as he’d once done, plucking purses at will. He had to choose his target more carefully these days, had to move decisively, make the grab and get away with no one the wiser. Because he was too old for a boys’ home. If he was caught now, it would be prison for him, and for a very long time, too.
His eye fell on a tall man, black-haired like Lucas himself, but with eyes just as black as his hair. He stood out even in this fancy gathering, supremely arrogant in an arrogant crowd. The man was dressed finely, his breeches clean and tucked into shining, knee-high leather boots. His gleaming white waistcoat was richly embroidered, and his coat was the finest wool, expertly tailored to fit such a big man. The only flaw in this sartorial splendor was the absence of a hat, as though he disdained the need to hide or shelter beneath its brim. All of that said money and position to Lucas’s well-trained eye. Unfortunately, his well-trained brain was telling him there was something not right about this one. He didn’t have the look of the other fools, with their eyes everywhere but where they should be. Lucas’s experience was telling him that not much slipped by this dark-eyed stranger.
The man called something over the heads of the crowd, and Lucas turned to look. Another aristocrat, nearly as tall as the dark one, but pale instead, with hair as red as any Lucas had seen on the streets of Dublin. Lucas strained to hear what was said, but they were speaking a strange tongue, and he couldn’t understand a single word. The pale man responded in the same language.
Foreigners, then. Lucas grinned. What a feat it would be to steal a purse from this one. None of his thieving friends in the rickety hovel they called their own had ever managed such a grab. It was risky, but he was certain the purse would contain enough coins to make it worthwhile.
Lucas’s gaze followed his new target, observing the way the foreigner moved among the crowd, the way his clothes shifted around his purse, and the purse itself. Well-crafted leather, but with a narrow strap that would fall easily to the small, sharp knife Lucas carried up his sleeve. He studied the mark longer than he normally would have. With most of his marks, he could simply slip up behind them, dip a hand into a satchel or slice a strap, and be gone before the fool even knew he’d been there.
But when the purse was rich enough, one had to be extra cautious. Such people frequently had companions or even guards to be wary of. It paid to take a few moments and observe.
With this man, this tall, dark foreigner, he’d take those few moments and more.
Lucas finally made his move when the bells sounded, and the mingling gentry began shuffling toward the front doors of the opera house. He swiftly descended from the roof and hung back in the alley, scanning the crowd one last time, checking the location of the various watchmen who always lingered nearby. Once set upon his course, however, he didn’t hesitate. He moved through the crowd with the ease of long experience, dropped the knife into his hand, strolled up to the mark and slid the knife beneath the strap of the foreigner’s purse. A flick of his wrist and . . .
Long fingers curled around his wrist with surprising strength. Lucas raised his eyes in shock and met the cold, black gaze of the dark man. The man smiled, and it chilled Lucas to the bone.
“I believe that’s mine,” the man said, his voice deep, the English words heavily accented.
Lucas clenched his jaw and stood to his full height, straightening his shoulders. If he was going to go down, he’d do it with a man’s dignity.
The dark man’s expression warmed fractionally. “I’ve been looking for a boy,” he said. “You’ll do.”
“I’m no boy,” Lucas spat back at him.
The man laughed. “No, you’re not. But you’ll do anyway.”
“And that’s how I met Raphael,” Lucas said, running a hand up and down Kathryn’s arm.
She waited for him to continue, frowning when he didn’t.
“What’s the rest of the story?” she demanded.
He shrugged. “That’s it.”
“But what about the vampire part?”
“The vampire part?” he repeated, laughing.
“Stop it.” She pinched his stomach, or tried to. Lucas’s washboard abs didn’t leave much to pinch. “I want to know how he turned you into a vampire. And when. Because you don’t look sixteen years old, bud. I don’t sleep with babies, no matter how old they really are.”
“So far you haven’t slept with me, either,” he murmured, nuzzling her jaw while one hand snuck up to cup her breast.
Kathryn turned into his embrace, unable to help herself. Every time he touched her, her body responded, as if it was programmed into her genes. She curved one leg around his thigh and began stroking herself along his hip.
Lucas made a rumbling sound deep in his chest and bent to suck gently on her neck. Kathryn shivered. She put her lips next to his ear and whispered, “Tell me when you became a vampire.”
Lucas slapped her ass playfully and pulled away from her to lie back on the pillows. “Why do you want to know?”
“Because I’m curious. How does it work?”
“I’m not going to tell you that. If you ever become a vampire, you’ll find out. If not—” He tugged a length of her hair. “—you won’t. Which, as far as I’m concerned, means you’ll never know. I like you just the way you are.”
“Spoilsport. I hate secrets.”
Lucas laughed again. “We all have them, a cuisle. Even you.”
Kathryn scowled at the Irish endearment. He never had told her what it meant, but she didn’t want to derail their current conversation to ask, so she let it slide.
“Well, at least tell me what happened after that night,” she said instead.
Lucas gave a dismissive shrug. “Raphael needed someone to be his daytime eyes and ears. It wasn’t like now, with everything done on the Internet and all sorts of places open twenty-four hours a day. Someone had to deal with the hundred and one things necessary to running a household, things that needed doing during the day. Even vampires need clothing and supplies, and there were social necessities, mail and such. Invitations to events like the opera. Raphael and his people weren’t high profile, but they travelled in very ritzy circles.”
“So you were his errand boy.”
“Something like that.”
“For how long?”
“How old do I look to you?”
“Twenty-seven,” Kathryn said immediately.
“Close enough. After a few years, Raphael decided to leave Europe. I went with him, of course. There was nothing left for me in England, or Ireland, either. And my life with Raphael had been better than anything I’d known before that. For the first time, I wasn’t hungry every night. I had a clean, safe place to sleep and decent clothes to wear. So, I booked ship passage for all of us and dealt with the captain and crew, safeguarding the vampires as they slept, and arranging quiet encounters at night so the vampires could feed discreetly. Once we arrived in America, Raphael gave me a choice. I chose to become what I am.”
“What if you’d chosen otherwise? What would he have done?”
“He’d have kept me on as his daylight guard, or given me enough money to set myself up doing whatever else I decided. Loyalty is important to him.”
Kathryn studied him for a moment, surprised by the honest emotion she heard in his voice when he talked about Raphael.
“You love him.”
Lucas nodded. “He’s my Sire. That’s the most important relationship any vampire has, unless he takes a mate. Even then, the two—Sire and mate—are equally significant to him. But more than that, Raphael was the first person, other than my mother, who ever treated me like I was worth something. I would give my life for his without hesitation.”
“Well, please don’t.”
“Don’t what?”
“Don’t give your life away.” She looked up and held his gaze so he’d know she was serious, but then, feeling the need to take a step back, she added, “I’m using it right now.”
Lucas regarded her intently. A slow smile curved his lips, and he said, “No promises. But if you’re nice to me, I’ll do the best I can.”
“I am nice to you.”
“I meant . . . right now.”
Kathryn felt something hard brush against her hip. “Oh, that,” she said playfully. “I’m sure I can come up with something nice for that.”
Daniel woke to the sound of voices. He lay still, afraid to move, not wanting whoever it was to hear him and stop talking. There’d never been anyone but his kidnapper before. No one for either of them to talk to but each other. But now . . . yes, that was definitely a woman’s voice.
His breath caught as he hoped, briefly, that it was Kathryn, that she’d found him, and the FBI was going to break in with guns blazing. Or at least with badges flashing since it didn’t sound like there was much shooting going on out there. But it wasn’t Kathryn. Her voice was much huskier than this woman’s, sexier, or so his friends told him. She was his sister. He didn’t want to think about whether her voice or anything else about her was sexy.
The woman out there, whoever she was, was agitated, her voice rising in volume and emotion.
“I’m telling you, that FBI bitch is cozying up to Lucas, and that’s not good.”
“Maybe you’re just jealous. You’ve always had a thing for him.”
“Fuck you!” the woman snapped. “Besides, they left together. How’s that for proof?”
“Whatever,” his kidnapper muttered. “What difference does it make?”
“We need to end this. You never told me his sister was a fucking FBI agent.”
“How the hell was I supposed to know something like that?”
