Compelled (Vampires in America #10.5) Read Free

was any particular need.
    Fucking vampires.
    How the hell had his Cyn ended up with a vampire lord? Well, okay, so she’d never really been his, and really, he wasn’t all that surprised that she’d hooked up with Raphael. As he’d tried to explain to her in Hawaii, she had a unique talent. It was like an extra sense that she’d been born with, maybe even a tiny kernel of the magic of old, that let her feel the magic of others. It was the reason she’d been drawn to him, and almost certainly why she’d been drawn to the vampire too.
    As for why the vampire had wanted her . . . well, shit, Cyn was beautiful, sexy, and fairly violent when provoked. There wasn’t a more perfect woman for a creature like Raphael. She was not only stunning, but fearless, and the fact that she was also a human magic detector would have made her irresistible. Vampires liked to pretend they were nothing more than the next step in human evolution, but they were drenched in magic for anyone with the senses to detect it. And vampire lords like Raphael knew the truth of it, no matter what they admitted to.
    With a final blast of the engine, he shut down the Ferrari, opened the door, and unfolded his long frame, pretending not to notice the piercing looks of the vampire guards. He had to give it to Raphael—the bastard had a well-trained security team. One of the guards stepped to the sheet-metal door and pulled it open just as Nick approached. No doubt, they’d been muttering away to each other on their Bluetooth earbuds from the moment he’d turned onto airport property. His arrival wasn’t a surprise to anyone. Except maybe to himself. Even a few weeks ago, he’d never have believed he’d be working with vampires. It was just bad luck that vicious bitch Mathilde had gotten her hands on the Amber Manacles and then been stupid enough to use them on Raphael.
    Although maybe it had been good luck. What were the chances, after all, that the first time the manacles had surfaced in hundreds of years was to imprison someone he knew? Or at least someone he knew of and had access to. It was almost as if the damn things had wanted to be found, as if they knew they were far too dangerous to exist in this world.
    And that was attributing self-awareness to things that were nothing more than magic-infused pieces of metal, crafted by a very skilled sorcerer.
    He stepped over the raised threshold and entered the hangar that was, for the time being, Raphael’s domain. He scanned the interior. The hangar space was sharply diminished by the presence of a Learjet 60, which was crowded into a hangar meant for much smaller aircraft.
    A conference area had been set up next to the plane—a table big enough to accommodate the six leather chairs that were arranged around it. All of it sat on a huge rug which covered the concrete floor. And how the hell had the vampire managed to arrange that? This wasn’t even his territory. In fact, Nick was surprised that Raphael had managed to travel here on such short notice. He’d rather counted on him not being able to come.
    Actually, he’d been hoping he could secure Cyn’s assistance without her broody lover tagging along. Vampire lords were notoriously hostile to one another and very prickly about letting each other wander around their domains. Raphael’s presence here only a few hours after he’d agreed to the meeting seemed to support the rumors Nick had been hearing about a coalition among the eight vampire lords who ruled North America—at least the vampire part of it. If that was true, if the powerful vampire lords really had joined together and were all buddy-buddy now . . . that would a formidable force. They could take over the continent if they wanted, and they wouldn’t hesitate to go after anyone who threatened their power base. Especially not a sorcerer like Nick. Vampires and sorcerers had never gotten along, and that was a massive understatement. They’d done their best to wipe each other