Chapter Two
MINA
Rain started to fall as I ran home, quickly turning into a downpour. My footsteps sent up splatters of cold water that oozed into my shoes, and when a van passed, it hurled a curtain of water at me.
“Dammit,” I muttered — only to be drenched a second time by the sports car that rushed up behind the van, then overtook it.
“Assholes,” I muttered, watching them race onward.
Red brake lights flashed a moment later, and both vehicles took a hard left.
I stared, because the only thing down that road was Chateau Nocturne.
I checked my watch again. The clients referred to me by my godfather weren’t due for another two hours. But, shit. A van and sports car would fit a group of four — the number I’d been told to expect. Were they early, or had I mixed up the time?
I’d run my best 5K times a decade earlier, but I felt on track to set a new personal record now, following the road rather than the winding path through the woods. When the chateau came into view at the end of the tree-lined road, I cringed, spotting two vehicles parked there.
I sprinted the home stretch, practically crashing into the front door.
Panting, I pushed it open, whipped off my cap, and toed off my running shoes, cursing the whole time.
Apparently, my clients had let themselves in.
Crap. I pictured a group of older businessmen drumming their fingers impatiently.
I squeezed my ponytail, and rainwater ran out of my long brown hair.
“May I come in?” A man stepped out of the shadows of the entryway.
I jumped, barely holding back a yelp.
His dark eyes and slicked-back hair gleamed as he stared down at me from an inch or two above my five foot nine.
“Gordon sent me,” he explained. “And the others.” He motioned upstairs with disdain.
His accent was that of a man who’d mastered half a dozen languages and forgotten which one he’d started with. His bearing hinted at old European nobility — or plain old arrogance. Something about him set off all my inner alarms, though I wasn’t sure why.
“Apologies for running in like this, but I wasn’t expecting you until later today,” I explained.
“Obviously,” he sniffed.
I nearly gave him a piece of my mind, but heck. A client was a client — especially one in such a crisp, pricey Louis Vuitton blazer and shirt. And while this group was small, they could make or break my hopes of attracting more lucrative business in the future.
So I stuck out my hand, trying to maintain a sense of dignity despite the rainwater dripping into a puddle at my feet.
“Welcome to Chateau Nocturne. I’m Mina.”
“Henrik,” he said, shaking briefly, then dropping my hand.
And, yikes. His touch was cold and clammy. Or, shoot. Was that me after running three miles through the rain?
“Please, come in.” I waved him in.
The main doors opened to a grand entrance hall with a huge chandelier. Twin stairways curved up either side to a mezzanine, making for an impressive sight. But Henrik set off up the right-side stairs without so much as a second glance at it all. Was he used to even grander surroundings?
I followed as my inner alarms screamed wildly. A split-second later, I realized why.
The stairs creaked under my feet but not under his.
My heart revved, and I stared as he continued over the next few steps.
No sound. Not so much as a whisper. No warmth in his voice either, and no scent. All that, plus cold, pale skin and asking for permission to enter despite acting like he owned the place.
Vampire. I’d just let a vampire into the house — er, chateau.
My grandmother had been quite the socialite, hosting huge parties attended by all manner of supernatural beings.
As kids, my sister, cousin, and I would spy on the grown-ups from beneath tablecloths and work out what kind of supernatural each was, aided by acute senses and instincts passed down to us through the family line.
We’d only ever seen a few vampires, though.
Henrik glanced back, arching one cocky eyebrow if to say, Ha. What are you going to do now?
I did my best to appear nonplussed. Vampires came in two varieties — lethal and merely dangerous. I was banking on the fact that Gordon wouldn’t have sent me the former. Not that the latter gave me much peace of mind.
I would be giving my godfather an earful later, that was for sure. Yes, I was desperate for business. But vampires?
On the very small plus side, the other three weren’t vampires. Otherwise, they couldn’t have let themselves in.
But let themselves in they had, and, like fleas drawn to a mangy dog, they’d homed right in on the most comfortable room in the house. The only comfortable room, one might say — the grand drawing room on the upper floor.
A switch flipped in me, and I went from patient to pissed off.
I pushed past Henrik, who had paused at the threshold of the room. This was my chateau, dammit. And I was going to seize back control.
A tall man paced just inside the door with a phone glued to his ear, exuding I’m in charge vibes.
Light brown hair, amber eyes, bright and cool as gemstones.
Carefully tended, three-day shadow of a beard, and close-cropped hair.
David Beckham with a military twist and without the smirk.
Oh, and an olive tint to his skin that hinted at the Near East.
“Excuse m—” I snipped, stomping up to him.
He stuck up a hand, like I was a waitress offering a refill of his coffee. No thanks, the gesture said. Now, please toddle off. As you can see, I’m very busy.
He paced right by me, as if I was part of the goddamn furniture.
The earthy, herbs-of-the-jungle scent behind his cologne hit me, and I did a double take. Tiger shifter?
My inner detective corrected Near East to India, but only a splash, perhaps from one of his parents or grandparents. That would explain the tiger part. But, yeesh. The guy might have a body to die for, but the dismissive attitude just wasn’t doing it for me.
“Roux, meet Mina,” the vampire murmured, ghosting past us and into a corner of the room, where he started inspecting the small items on display.
An antique snuff box. A nineteenth-century porcelain clock.
A music box with an exquisite lid of inlaid wood.
One by one, he studied each treasure, then set it down — in the wrong place, despite the dust-free footprint clearly marking its home base.
I stomped over and snatched a brass candlestick out of his hands.
“Don’t touch.”
He scoffed. “You’re worried about these knickknacks?”
They were heirlooms, dammit, not knickknacks. There was a difference.
“Don’t touch,” I growled.
The tiger was still pacing, intent on his phone.
Intent on everything, in fact — in contrast to the blond flopped on the couch with a coffee in one hand and his feet on the Louis XVII table, looking all the world like an off-duty lifeguard.
One I’d be tempted to ogle from behind a pair of dark sunglasses if I happened to be on his beach.
But I wasn’t on his beach, dammit. He was in my drawing room, and his boots rested on the spot reserved for my grandmother’s tea service.
I snapped my fingers in front of his face. “Feet off the table. Now.”
“Well, hello to you too.” He chuckled, lowering one foot, then the other, to the floor. Every move he made was lazy and confident, and no wonder.
Lion, my sixth sense told me. King of the jungle, at least in his own mind. I knew the type.
If Henrik, the vampire, was straight out of GQ, this guy was a vision from a teen fangirl magazine. Roux, the tiger, fit somewhere between Guns & Ammo and Field & Stream. All were in roughly the right — er, my — age bracket.
“Bene — short for Benedict. Nice to meet you,” the blond on the couch said in an accent that was hard to place. South Africa? England? North America? Every syllable visited a different continent. He raised his mug in a toast, sipped, then grimaced.
“Mina,” I grumbled, though I was drowned out by the tiger shifter complaining to the person on the other end of the line.
“Well, that’s just not going to work,” he said. “We need twice the gear you’ve supplied. A better vehicle, too.”
“And a decent coffee machine,” Bene called out.
I wished. Did he know how expensive those were?
I turned to the fourth man in the room — the tall, brooding one staring out the window and into the very gates of hell, it seemed.
I had the impression he was looking in more than out, though.
All in all, he would make a good candidate for the cover of Bikes, Booze & Tattoos magazine, if there was such a thing.
Definitely the tortured soul type. I stepped closer, then halted, glimpsing bright, swirling flames in his midnight eyes.
That man was a dragon shifter, and he was not in a good mood. I turned away. Quickly.
“This place is just not suitable,” Roux ranted into the phone.
I glared. Not that he noticed.
“Also,” the tiger went on in rapid-fire English delivered in a slight French lilt, “you need to contact this Wilhelm guy and tell him to get his ass over here now.”
I stalked closer, not amused.
“Say again?” Roux frowned into the phone. “Wilhem-who?”
Six inches away from his broad chest, I crossed my arms and tapped my foot. His eyes caught on me, and he made one long, drawn-out sound. “Ohhhhh.”
He looked me up and down. Slowly. Disapprovingly — and frighteningly approving — at the same time.
“Wilhelmina,” I growled.
“She goes by Mina,” Bene called out, like we were old friends.
“Oh,” Roux said. Again.
Finally, he shrugged and spoke into the phone. “I’ll call you back.” He clicked it off, stuck it into the thigh pocket of his cargo pants — as if the bulging muscles underneath didn’t provide a sufficiently sculpted landscape — and gave me his undivided attention. Finally.
“Uh, hello. I’m Roux.”
“Pronounced like kangaroo, but spelled funny,” Bene interjected.
“He’s implying he can spell,” Henrik observed in a dry aside.
“Of course I can, Mr. T-R-A-N-S-Y-L-V-A-N-I-A.”