“Mon amie,” Grégoire said. “You are lovely.”
“Thanks, Blondie. Backatcha,” I said, deliberately rude. I took his arm, pretending not to hear his chuckle. Apparently vamps think I’m funny. “Let’s get you undercover before that loveliness gets you shot full of silver.” It was a testament to his age and his courage that he didn’t shiver at the thought. Or maybe it was all the wars he’d fought in over the centuries. Grégoire looked fragile, but his file suggested he liked a good war, battle, or barroom brawl as much as the next guy.
The four-star Regal Imperial Hotel in Asheville had suites suitable for visiting dignitaries, congregating heads of state, and vacationing vamps. Grégoire—whose standards are set a bit higher than most vamps’, thanks to the century and the French royal court in which he lived prior to being turned—didn’t turn up his nose as I led him through the secure employee entrance and the upscale restaurant into the lobby. There was no fresh blood around to ogle him, which might have been a downer for some vamps, but he seemed okay with it. And when I opened the door to his suite on the third floor, he stood inside and nodded, hands on his hips, his dark silk brocade cloak thrown back like a young Batman, if Batman had weighed a hundred pounds, had fangs, and looked about fifteen. But gorgeous. Utterly gorgeous.
I quickly explained about the security and the bolt-hole/escape hatch. The Mithran Suite was decorated all in gold—like the vamp—with gilded, armored steel shutters on the windows and an escape hatch in the floor at the foot of the bed, leading to a narrow passage down through the walls of the hotel and underground. The suite was secure up to RPGs—rocket propelled grenades. If an opponent was that determined, no one was safe.
“This is acceptable. I am not unpleased.”
“You have no idea how happy that makes me.” I couldn’t keep the sarcasm out of my voice.
He laughed. “You may join me here. Your presence in my bed would please me.”
And theeeere it was. The invitation I had been expecting. Fortunately, after all the vamp-manners studies, I had my line all prepped and ready to go. “Grégoire, you are pretty beyond anything I’ve ever seen.” He nodded as if I spoke only the truth. I resisted an eye roll. “But I have a job to do, and climbing into your bed would surely turn my head and blind me to all proper responsibility.” A strange look crossed his face, as if that one had never occurred to him. “So I’ll reluctantly decline and see to your daytime security placement.”
I left, and Grégoire didn’t try to stop me. I’d like to think he was flummoxed. Floored. Startled. But maybe he was tired—what did I know?
I worked like a fiend all day with my team and with Grégoire and Clan Arceneau’s primo blood-servant twins, Brandon and Brian Robere, finalizing safety measures and arrangements, and reading them into my plans and protocols. Grégoire’s finest were lean, narrow-waisted, broad-shouldered, and former military. Though they looked young, the B-twins were some of the oldest blood-servants I’d ever met. I liked them, and they had kept up with the changes in technology and security protocols better than most old servants.
We also met with Shaddock’s head of security, an Asian guy named Chen, who had intense eyes and looked about ten. He already knew the hotel layout and had little to offer or request in terms of security changes. He was in and out like a precise laser attack, and he set my predator instincts buzzing. I wondered whether we would both survive the parley or try to kill each other.
The big hoedown started just after midnight, with Lincoln Shaddock, the vamp asking for MOC status, arriving in his limo and a group of three armored SUVs that we had brought in to provide secure transportation during the parley. We hadn’t announced the date and time of the first meeting, and the antivamp protestors who had assembled out front were caught off guard, as was the media, so there was no big hoopla. Just a stately procession of vehicles pulling up out front and people emerging faster-than-human.