“Yes, sir.”
Jon rolled his eyes as he walked into his bedroom and shut the door. He’d be damned if he would have some guard in his bedroom while he was showering. He tossed his dirty washrag in the clothes hamper and then peeled his own dirty clothes off, tossing them in as well.
The shower took a little longer, mostly because he spent a few minutes just basking in the hot spray of water down his back and over his shoulders. He was tired, bone-weary exhausted. He didn’t even jump when the shower door opened and muscular arms closed around him a moment later. He just leaned back into the strong body holding him.
“You’d better not let my petjya catch you crawling in here with me,” Jon mused as his head rolled against the solid chest behind him. “He’s a very jealous vampire.”
“You’re right,” came the amused reply. “He is.”
“Get your mess cleaned up?”
“I did,” Nikolas said. “We missed the air shaft on the top of the building.”
“Why are the rogues so determined to get inside?” That confused Jon. How could they think they wouldn’t be caught?
“If they kill me, they have a chance at ruling the tribe.”
Jon was baffled at Nikolas’s blasé attitude. Vampires were trying to kill him and he discussed it like it was an everyday occurrence. He turned in Nikolas’s arms, wrapping his arms around the man’s neck.
“You sure don’t seem to be very concerned that you have a target on your back.”
“I am very concerned, especially now that I have something precious to protect.” The adoration in Nikolas’s piercing blue eyes gave no doubt as to whom he was talking about. “But the only way to discover our weaknesses is to allow them to breach our defenses.”
“That’s just crazy.” Insane really, and Jon didn’t know why he hadn’t thought of it. “Okay, I’ll go along with that as long as we make the penthouse off-limits to your little games. I need to have one safe place to be.”
“We have panic rooms.”
“No.” Jon was going to be firm on that. He understood that things in the vampire world were a bit chaotic. Made humans look like puppies. But he refused to have his home invaded if he could help it. “This is my home now. So unless you want me to live somewhere else, you’d better make it secure.”
Jon’s eyes widened when he was slammed into the shower wall. It didn’t hurt, just surprised him. “You will live here with me,” Nikolas snapped. “Your place is at my side. Nowhere else.”
“Then make my home safe.”
Nikolas’s gaze was fierce, his blue eyes edged with red. “It will be done.”
“Good.” Jon held up a washrag. “Now to the important stuff.” He heard Nikolas’s strong inhale when he allowed the man to see the lust burning in his eyes, leaving no mistake as to what he was thinking. “What do you need washed, handsome?”
Chapter Thirteen
Nikolas groaned as he hung up the phone. He reached up and rubbed the bridge of his nose between his finger and thumb. The ache between his eyes was growing into a full-blown migraine.
“You sound tired, Nikolas.”
“I am.”
“Your young mate keeping you up late?” There was pure amusement in that tone.
Nikolas glared at his head of security. “Do you remember back when we used to chain humans to our beds? We called them pets? They did what we wanted when we wanted and they didn’t talk back?”
Louis chuckled. “I remember.”
“Yeah, not only would Jon nail my balls to the wall if I tried any of that, but he just doesn’t understand that I’m the leader of our tribe and what I say goes. He just doesn’t care. If I say something he doesn’t like, he gives me this look like he thinks I’ve lost my mind.”
“I think to him, you are merely his mate, not the leader of one of the biggest tribes in North America.” Louis’s smile was sad. “Be grateful you have that. Not all of us do.”
Nikolas nodded. He knew Louis had been looking for his rajaaka for years, just as he had. Just as most of their kind had. Rajaaka’s were so rare now days that they were coveted by everyone, treated like treasures by even the most venomous of vampires.
“He is very opinionated.”
“Face it, Nikolas, you love that about Jon. He’s the one person in the world that couldn’t care less who you are. He loves you because you’re his Nikolas, not because you are Nikolas Vaile, owner and CEO of Vaile Industries or the leader of our tribe.”
“Yeah.” Nikolas grinned. “I just wish he wasn’t so damn stubborn.
Louis snickered. “You wouldn’t want him any other way and you know it.”
“Did you seal off the penthouse?”
“Yes.”
“Then I won’t sic him on you.” Nikolas chuckled when Louis shuddered. “He scares you, doesn’t he?”
Louis’s eyes were wide, tinged with real fear. “He does know we’re all vampires, right?”
“He knows. He just doesn’t care.”
“He’s dangerous, Nikolas,” Louis said as he stood and started for the office door. “You might want to rethink that whole chaining him to your bed thing.”
“Only if he asks me nicely.”
“Wow.” Louis rubbed a hand over his face. “TMI, man. T.M.I.”
Nikolas chuckled as he stood. “Jon is expecting me for lunch. If there are any other problems, I’ll be upstairs in the penthouse. Otherwise, don’t bother us or you’ll really see more than you ever wanted to.”
“Duly noted.” Louis was still chuckling as he walked out of the office and shut the door behind him.
Nikolas crossed to the hidden elevator and climbed inside. He started tapping his foot as he waited to reach the penthouse. He liked being able to go home and have lunch with his rajaaka, especially since his lunch breaks usually turned into afternoon romps.
“Rajaaka,” he called out the moment he stepped off the elevator into their private quarters. For a moment, he didn’t think anything was wrong until he walked into the kitchen and found it empty. “Jon?”
When he received no answer, he tried the old-fashioned way—through their bond. “Jon, where are you?”
“I’m entertaining company in the living room.”
Company?
Nikolas’s steps were hurried as he walked toward the living room. When he stepped through the large double archway, every ounce of control he had learned over the centuries he had been alive flew right out the window.
His nostrils flared with fury. “Marcus Aguilera, I do not remember inviting you into my home.” He didn’t remember anyone saying anything about the other tribe leader being in his territory, let alone in the building.
Someone’s head was going to roll.
“Marcus was kind enough to bring my stepfather to me,” Jon said from his position by the window. “It would seem he heard we were looking for Carl.”
Nikolas’s eyes snapped to the two guards by the far wall. They held a bound man between them, Carl kneeling on the floor with his hands tied in front of him. Pure terror lived in his eyes.
“They are armed, I assume?” Nikolas asked, already knowing the answer by the smirk on Marcus’s face.
“You may call your head of security and one other, Nikolas. Any more than that will be considered a threat.”
“And coming into my home is not?”
“I am merely delivering that which you have hunted so hard.” Marcus’s eyes turned to stone when they fell on Carl. “This vermin was trying to peddle his illegal wares in my territory. I could not abide that.”
“No, I’m sure you couldn’t.” It was a well-known fact that Marcus hated illegal drugs. His territory was probably the only place in all of America that was truly drug free. No one dared bring any drugs into his territory for fear of their life.
Nikolas sent off a quick text to Louis, requesting his presence in the penthouse. He’d smack the guy later for the lapse in security.
“He says he knows where my mother is, Nikolas.”
Nikolas’s eyes snapped to the head vampire. “You know where Margaret Payne is being held?”
“I do.” Marcus nodded. “But you know nothing is free, Nikolas.”
Nikolas ground his teeth together. “What do you want?”
Marcus looked at him with a sardonic expression that sent Nikolas’s temper soaring. “I want a kiss from your rajaaka.”
“Are you insane?” Nikolas snarled. He’d no more let Jon kiss Marcus than he would offer the man a sword and kneel at his feet.
“Just a kiss?” Jon asked.
Nikolas’s jaw dropped. “Jon!”
Marcus raised a brow. “Yes, just a kiss.”
“And then you’ll tell me where my mother is being held?”
“Yes.”
“Don’t do this, Marcus,” Nikolas said with a growl. His hands clenched into fists, his body tensing as he strove to not wrap his fingers around Marcus’s throat. “Jon is my rajaaka. This action is unforgiveable.”
“I believe this decision is up to him,” Marcus said, but there was a smirk on his face that said he knew he had won and he was relishing in his victory.