Pretty Little Lion by Suleikha Snyder
31
The private airfield was just that. Private. Damn near deserted except for the car and driver waiting to take Tavi and his briefcase full of presents to Hollister’s luxury lair. That he’d arrived alone garnered not even a blink from the white human who guided the Audi along the five-mile journey. Maybe the henchman was paid not to blink. He’d no doubt seen a great number of disturbing things. A sleek, white supersonic jet without Mirko Aston and his entourage barely rated on the list. And someone had likely notified Hollister of the bulk loss of several useful toadies. No matter, surely. There were always more criminals to recruit. An endless supply. That was going to be Tavi’s party line when questioned at least. He needed to make himself just as indispensable to Roman Hollister as he had to Mirko. And if he was lucky, the men would meet the same untimely end.
What he saw of the island between the airfield and Hollister’s estate was boring to the point of being suspicious, even under the cover of night. Beautiful foliage. A smooth road. Nothing and everything that screamed of hidden ugliness. It was enough to sharpen his canines, and he felt the prick of them on his own tongue. The wounds healed before he could even taste the blood.
This is where it ends, one way or another, Tavi thought as he stepped out of the car and onto a long, winding driveway that led up to a columned portico. He’d made it here…but he was far from out of the woods. That was patently clear when he took in his welcoming committee just a few yards away on the perfectly paved basalt drive.
A woman with a few guards behind her. Lit by the lampposts situated at intervals along the border of the lawn. She appeared pale-skinned, blond-haired, like the Aryan ideal. Clad in a sharply cut gray business suit and wearing ridiculously impractical high heels. None of that masked who and what she really was. Not to his eyes. Because he knew her. The brown-skinned beauty who’d bedeviled him for more than a century. Her riotous black curls rippling across her shoulders. Her ripe curves, barely contained by the confines of her suit. A jinn’s glamour could only do so much. It couldn’t cover up his memories. Or the essence of her that had long ago seeped into his bones.
She realized immediately that he saw through her facade. She had never been a person slow on the uptake. And she knew him too, didn’t she? Uncomfortably well. A wry grin quirked the lines of her full lips. “Octavio. You came. You found me,” she said in perfectly bland and unaccented English that jarred his ears. She’d always been a fair mimic, but combined with her business-school Barbie exterior, it was unnerving.
He curled his fingers tightly around the handle of the hermetically sealed briefcase that had guaranteed his safe entry to this island. Yes, he knew her. It didn’t mean he trusted her. But he did…he did miss her. “I promised I always would, didn’t I?”
“As if you keep promises?” she snorted, sounding a bit more like the person he remembered.
“As if you’ve ever made one?” he countered. “Just how many men have you lured to this place besides me? Am I merely your latest mark?”
Her glamour slipped then. Just a fraction. Revealing the woman he’d been playing cat-and-mouse games with for more than a century. Her gorgeous hair. Her eyes, as deep brown as the wrapping of a good cigar and just as smoky. His greatest enemy. His greatest love. “You bastard!” she cried as she pulled her mask back up, hand flashing out in a slap that rocked his head back. “How dare you?”
Tavi could almost feel the borrowed blood blooming under his skin in the shape of her fingers and thumb. And he smiled. Here she was. The wildly unpredictable jinn with the fiery temper who’d tossed a drink in his face in 1922. “A thank-you would’ve sufficed, Ayesha.”
“Thank you,” she said tartly before leading him up toward the grand building ahead.
If the guards were at all concerned about their odd exchanges, they were as well paid as his driver to feign indifference. They were all white, fair-skinned and light-haired. Tavi wondered, not quite so idly, if they were prime candidates for the serum. Test batches had been used on “less-than-ideal specimens”—Mirko’s words, not his. Women no one would miss. Somehow, Ayesha had avoided being one of them. And he suspected that had a lot to do with her extreme blond makeover. Was it voluntary, or had Hollister wished for it? Either way, it was a complete anathema. Repulsive. To cage someone so vibrant, so thoroughly herself, in what amounted to a white-woman skin suit. It was like something out of a horror novel. Being such a thing himself, he recognized true abomination.
Oh, Ayesha. What the hell is going on here?As he followed her under the portico—where the car could have pulled up but didn’t, a clear intimidation tactic—he let his gaze fall to her hands. Pale, slender, unfamiliar fingers. She’d had a ring. A jeweled ring that never left the middle finger of her right hand. It was gauche to ask a jinn about lamps, about talismans, but he’d always assumed it held meaning or magic. It was gone.
Fuck.He’d come to rescue her. To rescue all of them. If this went sideways, who the hell was going to rescue him?
* * *
Third Shift HQ was buzzing with activity for hours after they all swiped in, bone-weary after the drive from Teterboro. Jack had almost said “fuck it” and landed on the roof in Hell’s Kitchen before remembering he didn’t have a strictly legal helo pad up there. Grace appreciated the concession to practicality. And she even—grudgingly—appreciated having to go through the checkpoint to get back into the city. The last thing they needed was the NYPD and the Sanctuary Alliance cracking down on them for fudging the rules. Especially when they had to sneak a major Hollywood star back to his California hospital before any of the tabloids realized he’d gone missing. The checkpoint guards hadn’t looked too closely at the mound of blankets in the back of their van. Not after Jack flashed his pearly whites and his government clearance.
And now they were back on their home turf. Splitting up for med bay and showers and debriefings. When Grace finished the first two out of the three, she came back to Command to find Finn sprawled in Jackson’s favorite chair at the head of the table. He’d changed out of his gear and cleaned up, too. He looked pale and tragic in a dark-red silk shirt and leather pants. Like he was headed to an anniversary showing of Interview with the Vampire after they wrapped things here instead of straight down to bed with her and Nate—who he’d no doubt seen when he put on his goth-inspired outfit.
Grace could imagine what that reunion had looked like. The soft touches. The fierce kisses. Finn saying something absolutely awful and Nate countering it with something smart and sharp but kind. She’d been caught up with getting Chase stabilized for transport and had cleaned up in the Locker for the sake of efficiency and speed. Because if they’d all been at Finn’s place together…well, the only debriefing would’ve involved their underwear. Even with how exhausted she was, how very done, her pulse jumped at the idea.
Down, girl!She reined in her urge for post-mission sex and closeness, leaning one hip against the conference table. “You heard about Estrada?”
Finn scoffed, tapping out a restless rhythm just inches from her perch. “That he did a fuckin’ runner with the shape-shifter serum and left us all looking like fools? Yeah. Jack and Lije made that quite clear.”
“How do you feel about that?” she asked, fully aware that she sounded like a high-priced therapist who should charge $200 an hour for the answer. But despite her fascination with the brain, psychiatry had never been her field of interest. The only mind she wanted to unlock was Finn’s.
“How d’you think I feel about that, Gracie?” He made a disgusted noise. “I’m considering hiring a plane to fly a banner over HQ that says ‘I told you so.’” But then his defensive shoulders dropped. He dragged one hand through his dark hair, scrubbing his scalp with frustration. “And I’m…disappointed. I’ve been on this earth forever and a day, and I still thought that maybe, just maybe, he’d see what we’re doing here and want in. Maybe I’m the biggest fool of all.”
He was a lot of things—a pain in the ass, a gorgeous hunk of undead man—but he wasn’t that. Grace removed his fingers from the rat’s nest they were making of his hair, squeezing them. “No. You’re not. I think part of the reason we’re all here is because we want to believe it’s the right road. The best way for us to fight everything that makes us mad or hurts us. It’s why I chose this over my job at Queensboro. But I chose, Finn. You can’t make that decision for anyone.”
Finn interlaced their fingers, studying the pattern they made for a few seconds like he was sorting out a puzzle. “That’s why you resisted me for so long, isn’t it?” he murmured, glancing back up at her. “Didn’t let me railroad you into an affair with your coworker. It had to be on your terms.”
It was on the tip of her tongue to make a crass joke about him railing her plenty in the end. He’d appreciate it. Probably follow it up with a lewd quip about him rubbing off on her. But Grace knew he appreciated her sincerity and her no-bullshit approach more. “If we’d slept together at the beginning, would we be here now? Best friends? Partners? With Nate? I like how we got here,” she said. “And for all you pretending that you’re a sexual harassment lawsuit waiting to happen, that was a choice we made together. You respected me, Finian. And I grew to respect you as a result. Maybe Tavi Estrada needs someone to do that for him.”
“And maybe he needs to go fuck himself,” Finn suggested in return, his tone thankfully more amused than angry.
“That is also a distinct possibility, yes,” she agreed. “Honestly, that would be my suggestion for him before any personal growth he might attempt.”
Finn laughed, reaching for her and pulling her close. Until she was verging on falling right into his lap. They kissed in full view of the surveillance cameras, office rules and surly bosses be damned. “I love you,” he whispered as he traced a sensual trail from her jawline to her ear and back. “I hope you know that, Grace of my heart.”
“I do,” she said simply. “And I know I love you.” It was both the easiest and most challenging thing in the world…loving this outrageous and beautiful vampire.
Maybe they both could love the man waiting for them downstairs. Nate Feinberg was everything Tavi wasn’t. Trustworthy. Kind. All in. They could, the three of them, choose each other over and over again. As many times as it took to stick. Grace was actually looking forward to it. She was all in, too.