My step hitched, as did Roux’s.
Celeste,he muttered.
I was tempted to U-turn and give the succubus a piece of my mind. Then I remembered the vampires and changed my mind, real fast.
I took off, and even Hot Young Thing had the sense to hurry along.
Faster. Go!Roux hollered into my mind.
A message I didn’t need to hear twice. I rushed Hot Young Thing along. Whatever happened next, we needed to be as far from it as possible.
Chapter Twenty-Five
ROUX
I brought up the rear of our little group, cursing Grepper the whole way. He’d acted as though giving Gen her father’s painting was such a magnanimous gesture, but I wasn’t buying that. He would probably enjoy watching the vampires hunt us down once he’d dealt with Celeste.
Meanwhile, we hurried through that concrete block the warlock called home. The austere hallways felt more like tunnels, an effect enhanced by the slanted walls.
“I bet some architect won a prize for designing this place,” Gen muttered, leading the way around another blind corner.
Danielle nodded proudly. “He did. It was on the cover of magazines and everything.”
Her tone suggested she somehow shared in the accolades when all she’d done was sleep with the architect’s rich client, a man four times her age.
She should count herself lucky that Grepper hadn’t offeredmethe choice of Danielle’s life or the painting. I would have taken the painting and run, principles be damned.
I scowled. Okay, probably not, but I would have been tempted.
Still, it proved one thing. Gen and I might be opposites in a hundred small ways, but we were on the same page when it came to the important stuff.
A match made in heaven,my tiger hummed.
Yes, but we had to make it out of here alive first. And if we did—
When, not if,my tiger snarled.
— andwhenwe did, I vowed to make her mine.
But first, we had to evade those vampires.
Gen pushed through a big steel door, and we jogged through a subterranean garage illuminated by eerie green lights. The place was the temperature of a refrigerator and filled with two perfectly aligned rows of four cars each. I rushed past the first two, then slowed to gape at the next pair. One was the vintage Porsche 356 we’d seen earlier, and the other, a 911 that dated back to the 1960s, judging by the chrome trim and short wheelbase.
“It’s like the goddamn Batcave,” Gen muttered, rushing on.
“You should see the rest of Kurt’s collection in Zurich,” Danielle said, chalking up another nonachievement. I ought to have pitied her, but all I felt was contempt.
I did, however, feel a little awed by the cars. Grepper even had a 1950s Porsche Roadster down there — one of only sixteen ever produced, if memory served. I paused to admire the two-piece windshield and hammered aluminum body.
“Roux!” Gen hissed.
I hurried on, chagrined.
Gen peered out the high window in the main garage door, then shook her head. “Dammit. The driveway is full of vampires.”
I couldn’t see out the windows in tiger form, but I could sense the vampires out there.
“Rear doorway…rear doorway…” Gen searched around. “Where the hell is the rear doorway?”
