“Are you ready to go, my beloved?”

“As ready as I’ll ever be.”

As Julian Allard zipped his suitcase closed, he listened to the two men speaking in the second bedroom of their two-bedroom hotel suite. He and his coven master, Jean-Paul Tremblay, had arrived in Las Vegas nearly three weeks before. They’d originally only planned to stay a week, but that had all changed when, on the first night of their visit, Jean-Paul had stumbled across his beloved in a wine bar.

Jean-Paul had made quick work of wooing Saul Mandisa, not that the human had tried to play hard to get. Saul had even handled the whole paranormals are real and I’m a vampire reveal with amazing ease. The mate-pull sure had been working hard for Master Jean-Paul that day.

Julian was happy for the pair. Truly, he was. If at night, when he went to bed and his arms were empty while hearing soft croons from across the way—the hotel rooms weren’t totally sound-proofed against a vampire’s exceptional hearing—Julian did his best to ignore his jealousy.

Saul wasn’t Julian’s type anyway. He just wished he could find his own beloved—the other half of his soul. A vampire’s beloved was the one person on earth that they could bond with, connecting their life-threads and giving them someone to spend their long, sometimes five-hundred-year-old life with.

Closing in on the three-hundred-year-old mark, Julian had waited a long time.

But now my coven master has found his beloved. That gives me hope that Fate is finally smiling upon us.

With that thought in mind, Julian hefted his suitcase off the bed and placed it on the floor. He extended the handle, tipped the case, and began rolling it out of the room that had been his home for the last number of days. He looked forward to heading home. While Las Vegas held many attractions, the fact that so many tourists filled the streets, casinos, and other venues damn near twenty-four-seven, had made security a living nightmare.

Julian was their vampire coven’s head enforcer, and he took the safety of the master very seriously. They’d been there to meet up with a few vampire friends and their beloveds, so he hadn’t thought extra security would be necessary. That had been before Jean-Paul had found his beloved.

Can’t wait to get them both home to the safety of our coven in Montpellier, France.

The hot desert was definitely getting to Julian, too. He longed for the cooler climate of his home, and he missed the scent of the sea. Tourists were a fact of life in Montpellier, too, but their coven home was situated in the hills above the city, surrounded by rolling hills covered in vineyards.

Blessed solitude.

After leaving his suitcase in the foyer of the two-bedroom suite, Julian returned to his room. He did a quick sweep of the room and the attached ensuite to make certain he hadn’t inadvertently forgotten something. He hadn’t. Julian did the same for the shared rooms, too.

By the time Julian finished his double-check, Master Jean-Paul and Saul were waiting for him in the foyer.

“Ready, Julian?” Jean-Paul asked with a quirk of his dark eyebrow.

Julian nodded once. “Yes.” With a soft chuckle as he pulled the door open for his master, he added, “And if we missed something, it probably wasn’t important anyway.”

Jean-Paul smirked. “Indeed.” With his hand resting on Saul’s lower back and his other holding the handle of his suitcase, he urged his beloved out of the suite. In a soft purr, he murmured, “I look forward to showing you my home, beloved.”

“Can’t wait to see it,” the laid-back human replied, flashing a smile at Jean-Paul. He rolled a brand-new suitcase of his own behind him, compliments of Jean-Paul. “How long is the flight?”

As Jean-Paul answered, Julian tossed their key cards onto the side table. They’d already checked out via telephone. Then he grabbed the handle of his own suitcase and left the suite, anticipation filling him.

Just as Julian had requested from the valet, a town car was waiting at the front door to drive them to the airport.

*

Twenty-five minutes of Las Vegas traffic later, the town car traveled through the guard gate leading to a private hangar. There was absolutely no way Julian would allow his coven master to board a commercial aircraft. Instead, they utilized the services of a charter service.

The car stopped before the hangar, and Julian exited first. He did a quick visual sweep of the area, searching for danger. While his vampire senses felt on alert for some reason, he couldn’t spot anything amiss.

After a second of hesitation, Julian eased away from the door and allowed his charges to exit. “I’ll be right back for the luggage,” he told the driver. “Please stay in the vehicle.”

“Yes, sir,” the human replied, although he looked a little surprised at the order.

Julian figured the man usually unloaded the luggage. He’d helped them load it, after all. With his senses on high alert, Julian didn’t want to give the man a chance to slip any explosives or whatnot into their luggage.

Paranoid much?

Except, something is bothering me.

Julian always trusted his instincts.

Once Julian had escorted Jean-Paul and Saul to the plane, he stepped into the cockpit to talk to the pilot. The man—a human—was already seated at the controls and appeared to be doing paperwork or a pre-flight check. Julian wasn’t a pilot, so he could only guess.

“How are we looking?” Julian asked. “Will we be ready to leave soon?”

The pilot lifted his head from his work, turning to look at him with clear blue eyes. “Yes, sir,” he replied. “I’m just waiting for clearance and what strip to use.” After a glance at his instruments, the man returned his focus to him. “Probably less than ten minutes.”