An older man, his wide middle wrapped in a filthy apron, ambled toward them, eyes gleaming with anticipation. But his manner turned suspicious the moment he took in Winn's cowboy hat and boots. Then he turned his attention fully back to Alexa. “What can I help you with,
mademoiselle
?” he asked in French, dismissing Winn entirely. He might be speaking a different language, but that didn't mean Winn didn't understand the slight or his words.
She leaned in, and rather than back away as instinct dictated, Winn decided he'd watch her. He'd always been so careful to avoid being glamoured that he'd never actually paid close attention to the process when performed by a vampire. Of course, he'd always been trying to defend people against becoming a vampire's next meal as well.
Alexa's eyes widened ever so slightly, her voice growing husky and deep while she allowed the glamour to form. He could feel the power of it resonating through her, and it made a hungry shiver race through him. “Perhaps you can help us,” she said slowly.
The barman's eyes lost their sparkle of greed and became glassy and unfocused in response to her voice. “We are seeking an airship. Do you know of a captain?”
“
Oui
,
chérie
,” the man said, his voice low, almost a whisper. Winn cast a glare at the others in the small tavern, brushing back the edge of his duster and moving his hand to rest on the butt of his holstered pistol, just to be sure they hadn't taken too much interest in their business. The few eyes looking their direction hastily looked away.
“Tell me,” she breathed. Winn felt himself leaning toward her. While he wasn't nearly as affected by the glamour as the barman, he knew she was impacting him more than if he'd been on guard, blocking her.
The difference was there was no fear, only intense curiosity and a fierce sense of pride that she would undertake this to get the Book back to the States.
“Le Renaud has an airship.”
“Tell me where I can find him.”
The barman's head turned, and his arm rose slowly to point to an open door off the main keeping room. “In there, my lady.”
Alexa didn't waste time. She turned on her heel and strode across the room before Winn could even check to see what lay on the other side and if it might be a threat.
Wait!
he thought hard.
She stopped for an instant and turned, her amber gaze connecting with his.
He's merely a pirate. I think I can deal with him.
How can you be so sure?
Unlike you, most people when glamoured can't hide the truth. Had Le Renaud been anything other than a pirate the barkeeper would have revealed it to me.
Unless he didn't know any different. Then you'd only be getting his version of the truth.
Her brows pulled together slightly. “True.”
Winn stepped ahead of her a pace and entered the small room first, his hand on the hilt of his rifle, ready to draw and fire if need be. The pungent odors of sea brine, machine oil, and wet wool swirled in the air. There was only one table pushed up against the wall beneath the dirty window.
In a pool of watery sunlight sat a slight man. He was nearly lost in the folds of a long, threadbare blue military jacket, fifty years out of date, the brass buttons tarnished deep brown. An oversized, broad-brimmed black hat with tattered, drooping feathers sat upon his head and shaded his face. The man had both small, booted feet propped up on the table, crossed at the ankle. He's too damn small to be much of a threat, Winn thought. “Le Renaud?” he asked.
The pirate took a long draw from the pewter tankard in his hand, then belched. “Go away. I'm busy,” he answered in French. The voice was far richer and a shade higher than Winn had anticipated.
“You're a woman!” In his surprise the words slipped out in English.
Click.
The pirate leveled the barrel of a cocked pistol chest level at Alexa and Winn. “I said I'm busy,” she repeated in English.
Alexa walked straight up to the pirate, heedless of the loaded gun pointed at her heart, and Winn's chest contracted, but he found himself rooted to the spot, still too stunned to speak. God, but she was magnificent, if a bit foolhardy. Of course, unless that shot was silver it wouldn't do much to a vampire of her power besides piss her off, so she had less to fear than a mortal like himself with a gun pointed at his heart.
“We wish to hire your ship,” Alexa said, standing firmly on the other side of the table from the woman, her back ramrod straight, the curves of her form outlined in golden sunlight. Le Renaud took another drink, pretending to ignore Alexa's comment, then tipped the empty tankard to the side, peering into its dry depths. “Damn. Empty again.”
Winn watched in fascination as Alexa pulled up the edge of her skirts, exposing a trim, booted ankle and a length of silky calf. Surely she didn't think to offer herself! He took a step forward.
The tip of the pistol swiveled in his direction. “Stay where you are, sir.” The heavy French accent made her
s
's sound slippery. The pirate regarded him for a moment, her eyes widening slightly, then her lashes half lowering with appreciation. Winn stood his ground.
The sound of tearing fabric captured his attention. Alexa pulled out a strip of cloth sewn with gold coins and tossed it on the table with a heavy clinking sound in front of Le Renaud. “This should help.”
With that sewn in the lining of her skirts, no wonder she'd been terrified of ending up in the water. She would have been dragged under for certain; which in turn made Winn wonder precisely what else she had hidden in the folds of her skirts.
Le Renaud pulled her scuffed boots off the table and sat up straight, pushing the brim of her wide hat up with an index finger. Her face was round, and a deceptive dimple in her left cheek made her appear far more cherubic than any normal pirate should have. Winn could tell from the way her body angled forward and fingers twitched she wanted the gold, but her eyes narrowed with suspicion. “Maybe I have a ship and maybe I don't. It depends.” Her gaze flicked back to him, assessing.
“On what?” Winn stepped forward to stand beside Alexa across the worn sticky table from the pirate.
Le Renaud's hazel eyes shifted back and forth between Alexa and Winn. “Who you are.”
“We're not government agents.”
Le Renaud guffawed and leaned back, swinging her feet back on the tabletop. “I could tell that just by the smell of you. But neither are you French.”
Her grubby fingers pulled the coin-sewn cloth closer, and she brushed one of the coins against her lips. “What's the cargo?”
“Us,” Winn answered simply.
“And the destination?”
“The United States, by way of London. I have a letter to deliver.”
The pirate's lips buzzed as she made a disgusted noise and pretended to inspect the crust of dirt around her nail beds. “That would cost you at least double.”
Alexa grumbled and bent over, lifting the edge of her skirt yet again.
Rip. Clink, clink, clink.
Another strip of fabric loaded with gold coins hit the tabletop. “Now do you have a ship?”
“Yes, but only because you are traveling with him,” Le Renaud said as she grabbed the small pile of coins, blew a kiss at Winn, and nodded. “Meet me at the
Parc de Vincennes
outside the eastern edge of the city in two hours. We'll be ready to leave then.”
Chapter 21
Every one of Winn's senses was heightened and on edge. While the sky pirate had picked a lovely open park to land, it left them terribly exposed, especially this close to the outskirts of Paris.
Wind whispered in the trees, insistent little voices that he didn't like and couldn't understand. People rode their horses or strolled along the many paths that crisscrossed the park's wide swaths of green grass. The rhythmic splash of ornamental fountains produced a soothing atmosphere. The perfect place for a picnic with Alexa, a spot he would've picked if he were trying to woo her, if he hadn't been rushing to try and save the world. The thought rankled.
He tried so damn hard to be normal.
And just like the flick of a lucifer to a rough surface it had all gone up in flames in mere seconds and he'd been back in the Hunter life. Wooing a woman wasn't going to happen. Hell, even having a normal relationship with one wasn't possible. Not with what he did, the kinds of things he fought against. It was just too damn dangerous for those around him on every level. He was like a lodestone for mayhem, destruction, and death.
He glanced away from the increasingly cloudy skies and gazed at Alexa. She stood, hand shading her eyes, looking over the people populating the lawns and shaded areas of the park. Somehow she had changed her clothing and looked immaculate, from the neat, glossy coil of dark hair at her nape, to the froth of white petticoat peeking beneath the hem of her gown, while he looked like a desert rat fresh from rooting around in the sandy earth. She wasn't just any woman.
As a Darkin she knew the risks of what he did, and what team he played for. She knew he was capable of killing, and yet, he knew that much about her too. If there was any female he could have paired up with who would be able to withstand the dangers of being married to a Hunter, it was Alexa.
She caught him watching her. “I don't like how she was looking at you.” Alexa's mouth was pinched, her eyes hard.
“Who?”
“The pirate. She looked at you the way a woman looks at a cream-filled pastry.”
“Ain't no different than every man looks at you,” he fired back, amused and touched by her jealousy.
Her glare turned withering in its intensity. “That's different.”
Winn snorted. “Sure it is.” He'd argue with her on the point, but the truth of the matter was he needed his focus. The sky pirate garnered about as much interest from him as a horse did as a form of transportation. He didn't admire the animal's hide or the shape of its damned ears. The pirate was merely a means to an end.
It was having his brain filled with all things Alexa that was Winn's problem. He didn't have the luxury of thinking about her silken skin, or the sweet-smelling fragrance of her hairâ
Stop it. It ain't going to happen, boy. Just let it go
, he told himself firmly.
“We're taking a chance waiting out in the open like this. Frobisher's men might still be searching for us,” he said.
Alexa nibbled on her lip for a moment, fixated on rearranging her skirts. God, he wanted to kiss her, right there where her teeth had turned her lip more rosy. “No doubt they are, but Paris is large, and they'll be looking for us in the city, not the outskirts. Besides, it's so open here, we'd see them long before they got close enough to do any harm.”
“That was very impressive, by the way.” Winn couldn't help himself. Every time he tried to bring his brain back to focusing on the task at hand, the mere suggestion of her kisses knocked reason on its backside.
She glanced up at him, her dark curls bouncing with the movement. For a long time Winn had wondered what her dark hair would look like unbound and draped over her shoulder, a silken curtain for her bare breasts. He rearranged his duster to conceal his rising interest.
She raised a brow. “What's impressive?”
“The things you manage to hide in your skirts. First a cyanide gun, then a treasury. Have anything else of interest hidden there?” he teased, trying to lighten the monotony of waiting on the pirate.
Her mouth twisted into a saucy smile, and she raised one brow. “I think we might be able to find something you'd be interested in.”
Her words were a match to kerosene, making his skin burn in a flash and causing Winn to be very aware of how the play of light made her flesh luminous. He knew precisely the texture of it in the hollows, and the vivid memory of it made him harder just thinking about it. But despite anything they'd shared, she belonged to someone else, until she said different, and he'd do best to remember it. He turned abruptly away from her, focusing instead on the leaden sky. “See anything yet?” Her eyesight was a damn sight better than his own. She'd see a dirigible long before he could.
His drastic change in demeanor dampened her expression. Obviously hurt, her eyes shuttered. His gut twisted hard in response. Damn. The thought of her being with someone else made him crazy, and yet, neither could he have her. A flirtation was one thing, lust-fueled desire another, but deep down Winn knew he didn't want either of those from her. He damn well wanted more.
The blue skies of the morning had given way to clouds. They rolled in, thick and charcoal gray, a sign of rain. After so many years in the desert, Winn could detect the heaviness of moisture in the air, waiting to fall.
At first he thought it was merely a trick of the light and rubbed his eyes with the back of his hand. There, skimming the tops of the heavy gray clouds, like misty seas, was an old-fashioned wooden ship, complete with unfurled sails and an enormous rudder. Unlike the vampire's airship, this air vessel reminded Winchester more of a wooden sailing ship from centuries before. Only the enormous propellers perched on either side of the ship's stern and the long wide strips of brass just below the deck gave it away as something other than a hallucination.
“What is that?” she asked, shading her eyes with her hand.
“Our ship.” None in the park had glanced up to see what they saw. But they certainly would once it got closer. They'd have to board and get back in the air fast. Damned fast. But it would be a while before it was close enough for them to board.
She glanced at him and burst out laughing. “I can only imagine the shocked looks of your town folk when the sheriff arrives in a galleon in the midst of the desert.”
Winn grimaced. “Too much attention for my taste.” He scanned the picnickers, and people strolling the paths, before glancing back at her.
Her eyes turned keen, sparkling with the need to know all the answers. “Why is it you prefer to operate behind the curtains?”
He tugged at the edge of his mustache. “When you live life in the shadows, the spotlight's a shade too bright for comfort.”
The contessa rubbed her hands together, her fingers worrying the bit of lighter skin where the emperor's band had been. Winn's heart contracted a bit. Was she thinking about him, about the wealth and power he could offer her? He'd been a fool to think she'd ever consider some random American Hunter over one of the most powerful vampires on the planet.
She locked gazes with him, her eyes almost a caramel color as the amber in them deepened. “We are more alike than you realize.” Alexa took what looked like, but wasn't, a fortifying deep breath, which revealed the depth of her anxiety, and she stared hard at him.
“I'm not going back.”
Her pronouncement shocked him so, it took a moment for him to respond. “What are yoâ”
Alexa moved so fast there was barely room between one breath and the next before she was right next to him, her hands spread wide on his chest, her face tilted up to his. And then he found it hard to breathe at all. The scent of her skin, that exotic dark floral fragrance that coiled about his senses, invaded his brain, turning it to mush.
“I want to come with you. Back to America.”
He was certain she could feel the stuttered beat of his heart as it stopped for a second, then started back up again with the force of a mule kick, threatening to break his ribs. Disbelief crept in, its tenacious tentacles wrapping around and smothering the little leap of joy he didn't dare to indulge. “You want to come back with me?”
She stood on her tiptoes, pressing her very female curves against him, bringing her mouth closer to his. It was everything he could do to hold himself back from closing the gap and sampling her lips. “
Da
,” she breathed, then touched her luscious mouth to his in a kiss both soft and warm that stripped away his ability to form a coherent thought. It took a moment for his brain to reengage once her lips left his.
“What about Vladimir?”
She held his face between her dainty hands, and her eyes bored into his very soul. “I'm not interested in Vladimir. I want you.”
“And what of your minions, your children, your fantastic palaces andâ”
She cut him off with the crush of her mouth against his in a searing kiss.
For a moment the world seemed to tilt on its axis, spinning off kilter as it changed the center of the universe to the woman against him. Winn couldn't resist and wrapped his arms around her, afraid the moment might shatter into a million small pieces he'd never be able to fit back together.
She felt so damn right against him. A perfect fit, as if she'd been fashioned just for him. Her kiss became more demanding, and her fangs lengthened against his lips. The gentle, erotic scrape of her teeth as they grew longer and harder echoed his own reaction to her. Knowing that he aroused her made something inside him snap.
He wanted her. Not just as a woman, but her.
The way she taunted him. The way she smiled. The sashay of her hips in those damn bustled skirts. Her damn uppity, refined manners and all.
But how could he possibly make it happen? Sure, she might find it a lark to go to America for a bit. But sooner or later the harshness of frontier life would take its toll on someone so cultured and elegant.
Remington had always been the one with the gift of words and a sly way with women. Colt had both a wicked sense of humor and a devil-may-care recklessness that attracted females like bees to honey. But Winn knew he was just the responsible, solid one. Boring. Plain. Predictable. And good with a gun.
What could she possibly see in you?
the little devil inside him whispered in his ear, even as the delectable slide of her lips against his proved she damn well saw something she liked.
Her fingers sank into his skin, demanding more, and it boosted his need another notch, making his skin feel too damn tight all over. Winn couldn't hold back a groan in response to her kiss.
Only the chuffing air and the whopping sound of the propellers on the airship drew them apart, even though they still gazed longingly at one another. This flair of heat between them was far from over, and now they both knew it.
“Ahoy below!”
They looked up to see Le Renaud leaning over the edge of the hovering airship.
“Ain't you gonna land this thing?” Winn shouted over the propeller noise. A rung and rope ladder unfurled over the side in response.
The pirate cupped her hand around her mouth. “No time! Climb aboard.”
He nodded to Alexa. “Ladies first.”
“I think you may just want to inspect the contents of my skirts more closely,” she said, her tone husky and inviting.
“Damn straight I do,” he growled back. “But it'll have to wait.”
Le Renaud glanced back over the side, frowned, then waved them upward as she tapped her boot with impatience. “Hurry up! The winds are shifting. A storm is coming in.”
They climbed the rope ladder, and as Winn neared the hull of the ship he could tell from the roundish white marks and small points of bleached barnacles it had once been a true sea vessel. Just how damn old was this thing? He hoped it could make it to the States in one piece.
He made it onto the decks, sanded smooth from use. Le Renaud swept her hat from her head and gave a small bow from the waist, which let her loose linen shirt gape open enough to reveal ample cleavage. Her dark curly hair, no longer queued behind her nape, fell over her shoulders, looking even darker against the faded blue of her worn military coat. Now that she was standing, Winn could see she was shorter than even Alexa, the top of her hat barely coming to his shoulder. “Welcome aboard the
Circe
.”
Winn pulled at the brim of his hat. “Captain.” That made the pirate smile, revealing the deep dimple in her cheek. He noticed she had yet to recognize Alexa. Winn slipped his arm possessively around Alexa's waist and pulled her up close beside him, leaving no shadow of doubt that they were together.
“This is quite a ship,” he murmured. “Looksâ”
“Old,” finished Alexa for him.
“I was going to say original,” Winn said under his breath. The women glared at each other, and an uncomfortable prickle worked its way up his back. He scanned the decks and noticed that all the ship hands were like the captainâfemale. That surprised him. What would they do in battle? He was just about to ask about the curious situation when Alexa spoke out.