It’s an evening wedding. I’ll pick you up around six?”
She nodded. “It’s a date.”
Step three of the plan had failed miserably. On to step four. Emergency procedures.
“I’ll need your address.”
Blyss strolled out into the bedroom, stepped into her heels and spied his mobile phone on the nightstand beside the bed.
“I’ll enter it for you.”
She typed in her address on the contacts app, but she didn’t enter her number. She never gave any man her number.
When Stryke took the phone he leaned in to kiss her, but she performed a twist and managed to avoid the contact as his lips brushed her cheek. She clicked toward the bedroom door, abandoning the toothbrush with a toss toward the bed.
“I’m so sorry to rush off, but I have to get back to the gallery!”
She didn’t listen for his reply, but suspected he was probably kicking himself for inviting her to the wedding after that cold brush-off. Of course, now the man would have another day to think and wonder over her. Not a good thing.
Grabbing her scarf and purse as she breezed through the kitchen, she hastened through the front door and skipped toward the elevator.
A vampire wedding would prove a challenge. But if she did not find the suit, she would not be able to pay off Edamite Thrash. And life as she knew it would never again be the same.
* * *
“It freaked me out,” Stryke said to his brother Kelyn as they strolled down a narrow cobbled street somewhere in the 5th arrondissement. Trouble walked ahead of them. “I had no idea she was werewolf.”
“Something must be wrong with her,” Kelyn offered in his usual quiet tone.
Of the four Saint-Pierre boys, Kelyn had no wolf in him and was 100 percent faery, thanks to their mother’s genes. Physically he looked like no one in the family—save their mother—and was tall, lithe and pale. He usually covered the faint white markings that traced his arms, chest and back of his neck. Faery markings even he wasn’t sure about. His violet eyes had a tendency to make women swoon. And Stryke had heard more than a few whispers about Kelyn’s prowess between the sheets that made the ladies collapse in delighted exhaustion.
His sidhe brother seemed to navigate Paris as if he knew the city, yet used the ley-line excuse when Stryke asked about it. Faeries were inexplicably connected to the ley lines that crissed and crossed across the planet.
Trouble, who strode in front of them, his shoulders swaying with each sure stride, eyed a pair of women in stilettos and brandishing patent leather purses as they sat sipping café au lait before a chic café. The dark-haired Trouble winked and nodded to them. The women ignored his blatant flirtations with a chill Stryke was all too recently familiar with. Blyss’s quick escape earlier had made him want to check if icicles had formed on the doorknob.
There was something up with her. Beyond the weird aversion to discussing the fact they were both wolves. That was why he’d asked her to the wedding. He needed to know more. And—to have one huge question answered.
“The city girls are snobs,” Trouble said as he slowed and parted Stryke and Kelyn to walk between them. “I can’t get a rise out of any of them. I’m ready to go home.”
“I like Paris,” Kelyn commented. “It feels familiar. And Stryke found himself a werewolf without even trying.”
“Dude, really? How’d you score that?” Trouble wrapped an arm about Stryke’s neck and gave him a noogie. “Thought you were at some fancy-schmancy gallery last night with Blade? Did you hear about Blade?”
“What?” Kelyn asked.
“Scored twins,” Stryke confirmed.
“That man is a master,” Trouble said in awe. “But a werewolf, eh? ’Bout time my little bro hooked up with his own kind. Dad will be happy to hear you are serious about starting a pack. Where’d you find her? Vail hook you up?”
“I met her at the gallery. I think she’s the owner, but we didn’t talk about much. Mostly I pushed her up against the wall and had a quickie.” Because brothers shared everything. And he had to tell someone about the insane but amazing encounter.
“Nice.” Trouble wasn’t the most discerning when it came to women. He liked them fast, sexy and amiable. And they couldn’t be too fancy or prissy. Trouble was a man’s man, and he liked a woman who did all the kinds of things he liked to do.
Same with Stryke. If she couldn’t handle a fishing rod or ride behind him on the four-wheeler while careening through a muddy field, well then, that was it.
Blyss was none of the above. But hell, she was his Paris fling. And what happened in Paris stayed in Paris. Right?
“She stopped by my place earlier for more sex,” Stryke explained, “and it was the first time I realized she was wolf. When she came, I scented her. How the hell could I have not known before then?”
“Weird.” Trouble pounded his fists together, a sort of tic. “What did she say about it?”
“She didn’t want to talk about it. I had sex with a werewolf. You know how rare that is? Back in Minnesota the packs guard their females so well, if you can manage a date it’s like breaking into Fort Knox. I don’t have a clue why she didn’t want to talk about it when she learned I was wolf. But I’m seeing her again. Taking her with me to the wedding.”
“I’ll sniff her out,” Trouble offered. “See what’s up.”
“Keep your nose away from my woman,” Stryke said with a less-than-gentle nudge to his brother’s ribs. “I’ll figure it out. She’s...complicated.”
“Ah, hell, complicated women are not for me.” Trouble wandered ahead again at sight of a gaggle of tourist girls who couldn’t be a day over the age of sixteen.
“This way,” Kelyn called, and they veered to the right to distract their brother’s wandering attention. “Let’s get something to eat at that gyro place we ate at last night.”
“I’m going to head across the river,” Stryke said. “I want to walk through the Tuileries and check it out.”
“The what?” Trouble asked.
“It used to be the royal gardens a few centuries ago.”
“Dude, I don’t care about flowers.”
“I know. That’s why I’ll head there by myself.” And he didn’t need the harassment of his brothers should he manage to find Blyss’s place while pretending to be interested in some stupid flowers. “I’ll see you two later.”
The brothers exchanged fist bumps, and Stryke headed across a bridge laden with padlocks and toward the garden. He’d eaten a sandwich after Blyss left and wasn’t hungry yet, so he didn’t miss the food break. Trouble could eat all the time. And Kelyn, well... That kid rarely ate. So he was odd. Stryke worried about him at times. This world was not the place for Kelyn, but he wasn’t sure Faery would welcome him either.
The Tuileries was a disappointment. Where were the flowers? It was mostly espaliered trees and trimmed shrubs and some marble statues. The French had strange ideas about gardens, that was for sure.
Crossing a wildly busy roundabout intersection, Stryke then wandered down the Champs-Élysées, taking in the elegant storefronts and dodging tourists who wielded armloads of shopping bags. He pulled out his phone and clicked on Blyss’s address. The GPS located her immediately. About two blocks from where he stood.
Spying a stand selling flowers, he detoured.
“Can’t show up uninvited and empty-handed.”
He purchased some flowers then wandered deeper down the narrow