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I took a shaky breath. There’s four of them and one of you. Attack him, and they’ll take you down.

And I’d find myself back in that thrice-damned cell.

First, I’d hear what the sonuvabitch had to say. Then I’d get that switchblade from Reaper and shove it into his goddamn heart.

“Zaquiel.” Moreau nodded at a gilded wood chair near the couch. “Sit, if you please.”

The adrenaline surge carried me the last few yards across the Persian rug. I lowered myself into the chair.

Reaper took a stance behind me. I spared a puzzled thought for her actions. She’d kept me from attacking first Ines and Blaise, and then Moreau. And now she hovered over me like a mama hen—or maybe a mother wolf.

She was protecting me. So she did feel this thing between us.

“A glass of blood-wine?” Moreau’s question brought my attention back to him.

I stared at him without speaking. Wanting to tell him to stick his blood-wine where the sun don’t shine.

But my starving, poisoned body craved blood.

I jerked my chin in assent.

Moreau waved a slender white hand at Aubin. “A glass of wine for M’sieur Kral.”

While the butler went to a carved wood buffet, Moreau told Blaise and Ines to wait in the hall. They obeyed, closing the door behind them.

Aubin brought me the blood-wine, then left as well, leaving me alone with Reaper and Moreau.

I took a small sip of wine. It slid over my tongue like liquid silk, but it had been days since I’d last eaten. My shrunken stomach rebelled and tried to heave it back up.

I set my jaw, aware of Moreau watching me, and waited for my stomach to settle before taking another sip. This time it went down easier, my thirsty cells soaking up the blood in the wine like rain on parched earth. Energy spread through my body, warming me from the center out.

I wanted to finish the glass, but I placed it on the small table at my elbow. I knew from my work with malnourished people that you had to reintroduce food slowly.

Moreau was still staring at me. His dark eyes glowed blue at the edges.

I lifted my lip in a silent snarl.

His gaze went to the marks he’d left on my throat, and his mouth edged up.

Bastard.

I dug my fingers into the chair’s wooden armrests. It was that or ram my fist down his throat. I waited until he looked at my face again, then stretched my own lips in what was supposed to be a smile but probably looked more like a dog baring its teeth. Which come to think of it, was how I felt.

“Calm down,” Reaper murmured from behind me. “Listen to him.”

I grunted. “Talk, then,” I said to Moreau.

The enforcer picked up a gold cigarette case from the coffee table in front of him and removed a hand-rolled cigarette. He tapped the end on the case’s lid and lit the cigarette. “You think Prima Tremblay was behind your kidnapping, don’t you?”

“You’re her sire, aren’t you? You tell me.”

Things were falling into place, including why a member of the Paris Syndicate had kidnapped me. Paris might not be at war with my father’s syndicate, but vampires had a special relationship with those they’d turned.

Moreau dragged on the cigarette. He pursed his lips and released the smoke in a perfect ring.

“Then you know the prima and I are close, that I take a special interest in her. In fact, I encouraged her to sign the treaty with your father. It was best for both Victorine and her daughter to end the feud.”

I nodded. I already knew most of this. But hey, if it got me out of that damned cell, I’d listen to Moreau drone on about the Tremblays all night.

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