Padding out of her room, she walked over to a phone and dialed the front desk. They connected her to Richard’s suite.
“Kristina?” He answered the phone, his voice gruff with concern and no small amount of tired.
“We lived on an island. A beautiful tropical island and it rained every afternoon and I loved to go dancing in it.” The words blurted out of her. Was it real? She had to know.
“Yes. For a few years, not as long as you wished…”
“Because the Prince of London summoned you.” She wound the phone’s cord around her finger and leaned on the wall. “I was so angry with you and I’m sorry.”
“Darling, you didn’t want to go to London, but you did. You were at my side and you fell in love with the city. You brought sunshine and joy with you to those dour and reserved nobles in the London court.” She could almost hear the smile in his voice. “And every decade, I took you back to the isle to try and make up for forgetting our anniversary that night.”
“Really?” Her heart squeezed at the words.
“Yes. We still own that isle.”
“Oh, Richard, I thought it was a dream—but I remembered it. I want to see it again.”
“You will. I swear it to you, my love. How long till your show?”
She bit her lip, wishing for the first time she’d asked Heidi to just skip the show, but she didn’t think the stage manager would go for it. Not after this week. “In a couple of hours. You will be there, won’t you?”
“I wouldn’t miss it. Now, ask for some blood. You need to feed.”
“Yes, sir.” She grinned. “But only if I get to bite you later.”
“You better.”
She laughed and would have lingered, but one by one the other dancers roused and stepped from their rooms. It wasn’t until she hung up the phone that she realized she woke before they did.
Huh. Well how about that?
Richard hung up the phone and glanced at the five men in his suite. “You have two hours. Go.” They rose as one and filed out. David and Anton waited for him at the door.
“Sir,” David motioned to the others. “They may not find the answers you want.”
“I don’t care what the answers are, David. I just need the details.” If she had fucked Andrew to get at him, then he deserved it. He would not allow anger and petty jealousy to take away from him the one person he found most precious in this world.
They rode the elevator up in silence. The Overseers agreement to meet with him had finally arrived five minutes before Kristina’s call. The doors opened on an upper level and the werewolf who’d interfered with Andrew’s assault the night before.
The man’s rough features would never be called handsome, but his dominance was not in question. He leaned against a wall in an over-bright corridor. He straightened from his slouch as Richard exited with his men.
He held out a thumb drive. “I found what you needed.”
Richard nodded and sent a text message to Malcolm. Transfer the funds to Brandt.
They waited in silence until Brandt’s phone chirped. He glanced at the message and handed the thumb drive over. “Do you need my testimony?”
“It won’t hurt.” He offered his hand to the wolf. “And I will owe you a favor.”
Brandt grinned. “I usually collect on those sooner rather than later.”
“Whenever you need it.” Richard didn’t care about the cost. Brandt nodded and motioned to the doors at the end of the hall.
The mysterious Overseers waited beyond the door. The recent sunset left him with a twitchy feeling. He had less than twenty hours left in the city of Las Vegas before he would have to board his private jet for New York. He wasn’t leaving without his bride.
With his men flanking him and the werewolf walking at his side, Richard approached the door ready to negotiate, bully, barter—trade his own damn soul if necessary—but he would have her freedom.
The door swung inward at his arrival. As expected, a gray room awaited him, along with five shrouded figures. Malcolm identified at least one vampire and one witch. But Richard didn’t give a damn about their origins or their life story. They wanted their secrecy intact. They could have it.
But he had three of their identities and he wasn’t afraid to use them.
“Richard, Prince of New York.” The first figure greeted him. The intonations were South American—Argentinean if he wasn’t mistaken.
He inclined his head. He had no idea what if any affectation they preferred and he would rather forgo the political pleasantries. “I will keep my audience brief, if it pleases you all. I am here to purchase the freedom of Kristina Casere.”
“And why should we negotiate with you, Prince Richard? This is neither your city nor your matter. Her debt is owed to the Royale direct.”
“I am her mate, her husband and her sire. She is my bride and the Princess of New York. The burden of her debt should have been brought to my attention.” He kept his emotions checked, his voice rigidly neutral and his gaze frank. “Such oversight could be considered a grave insult at best and an act of war at worst.”
“Perhaps, but the debt was covered, only the punishment remains. The punishment deemed by the wronged party.” This from the figure in the center, cool and feminine—the witch then.
Andrew’s fingerprints were all over this. “So now you are the messengers and minions of outsiders? Does this not violate your oath of neutrality in all political matters?”
“It wasn’t political. It was personal.” The second from the left added. This was the vampire. He should have known better than to speak with a Prince in the room. His identity remained hidden, but the Eastern European accent narrowed the possibilities.
“Personal matters with political underpinnings are even more delicate.”
“Yes, we are aware of your concerns, Prince Richard.” The witch in the center waved a gloved hand. “What is it that you propose?”
He held up the thumb drive and waited for her wave forward before walking to the dais they occupied and setting it down. “This is evidence of Kristina’s arrival at the Arcana Royale. The political enemy stalked her, set her up and was the subsequent cause of her incarceration. I expect you to rectify your decisions where she is concerned and release her from the curse holding her bound and starving.”
A low hum of muttering filled the air. They blocked his ears as they conferred and he allowed them their privacy. He retreated back only two steps and studied each of them. They carried no scent, no discernibly recognizable features, and magic obscured even the room itself. He could almost taste the power present on his tongue.
The white noise vibrating against his eardrums vanished, and the vampire leaned forward. “The debt to the Arcana Royale was paid. The vampire owes us no service.”
“Then why is she still here?”
Silence reverberated.
The witch shifted. “That would be a question for the stage manager of the…”
Richard withdrew a marker from his coat pocket and tossed it on the dais. “That is the chit of Heidi, the stage manager. She is bound by geas from providing answers, and the Midnight Mystery Lounge does not own the contract on Kristina, despite the curse associated with her incarceration. So what, were you lying?”
The temperature in the room plunged to frost. Richard waited. There was a deeper game, a longer game, being played here. Kristina was never the target. It had taken him hours to begin unraveling the twists and turns the clues led him through. But he understood it, now. Every action taken was meant to bring him here—to the Arcana Royale—and this room.