Steal the Night (Thieves #5)(116)

“Neil?” I could still see him being dragged away. God, I might never be able to get the horror of the night out of my head.

“I don’t know, Zoey,” Dev answered, his forehead furrowing with worry. “He’s very clever and he has skills Stewart doesn’t even know about. He thinks Neil is just a pretty face. Neil can use that to his advantage. If anyone can get away, it’s Neil.”

He let a few moments go by as I knew we were both thinking about Lee, who hadn’t gotten away. We’d left him there because there wasn’t anything else we could do, but now I wondered if the Order had found his body. Had they taken his body so Zack could bury his brother? How was Zack feeling? Was he angry with me?

“Zoey?” Dev was treating me very delicately, but I could tell he wanted to talk. Dev would want a plan going in, and he wouldn’t feel comfortable until we agreed on one.

“Yes, Dev.” I tried to sound stronger than I felt.

“We need to talk about what’s going to happen when we get to Paris.” He held my hand in both of his and rubbed, trying to bring some feeling back into my body.

“I have to f*ck Marini.” I said it out loud because it was real and it was going to happen.

Dev’s face fell, but he nodded slowly. “My goddess, I don’t see a way around it. If I can think of anything, any way…”

I stopped him cold. “Stop thinking, Devinshea. I lost Lee today. I have no intention of losing you, too. We can’t fight Marini. There’s too many of them, and Marini is just as strong as Danny when he’s on the Blood Stone. Fighting him gets me nothing but hurt. He’s already proven that he’ll hurt me to get what he wants. I can’t have him knocking me around.”

Dev’s hand went down to my stomach, and he touched me gently. “Goddess, he could hurt our baby.”

“Babies,” I corrected him. “It’s twins. Don’t ask me how I know but I know. How is he going to react to me being pregnant?”

“He can never know, Zoey. We have to keep it a secret. Daniel will come for us. It might take him a few weeks, maybe a month, but no longer than that. You won’t be showing even with twins. We can’t tell anyone. Not even Chad.”

“All right.” I placed my hand over his. Chad would do his best to protect us while we were in Paris, but he was too unstable to be trusted with information like this. “I have to protect the babies and I have to get that Blood Stone back. How do I get Marini to trust me?”

I didn’t like to even think about getting close to the bastard who’d killed Lee, but I had to think about Dev and Danny and our babies. Fighting Marini would just cost us all. If I was going to steal from him, it would be so much easier if he wasn’t watching me suspiciously twenty-four hours a day.

“Louis, Zoey. We must call him Louis from now on,” Dev corrected. “It’s more intimate and we need for him to feel close to us. You know, we’re going to have to play a part and it won’t be pleasant. We need to get our stories straight, my wife, and we cannot deviate from it. The first and most important lie is this. We never really loved Daniel. He took you, forced you to be his companion. You loved him when he was a human but he changed when he turned. He was cruel at times and convinced you all other vampires were much, much worse than he was.”

“They are,” I pointed out.

“Of course, my wife, but we must get Louis into a position where he wants to convince you he isn’t a vicious killer.” Dev ran his fingers soothingly through my hair. “I will work on him. I know what he wants deep down.”

“You know what he wants sexually.”

Dev turned my head up to face him. “Don’t think that doesn’t matter. I can tell a lot about a person from their sexual needs. How they want to treat their partners and want to be treated says something about them, and not always what you think it does.”

It was a serious subject for him. He’d told me once that when he had met me, he knew from the moment he met me how to seduce me. “So what does Louis want from us?”

I hated the fact that I had to use “us.” Louis had made it plain he found my faery prince very appealing. I wouldn’t be the only one dealing with Louis’s advances.

Dev seemed to be relieved I broached that subject so he didn’t need to. “He’ll want us both, my goddess. I’m not looking forward to it but I can handle it and I can handle him. I’ll convince him to take his more violent impulses out on me.”

“Dev…”

“Shhh.” He put a finger to my lips. “I can take a lot of damage. The vampire blood in my system will stay around for a long time. My body was built for sex of all kinds. I’ll turn on my magic and I won’t notice the pain. What Louis will want from you is softness. He’ll want you to be Zoey, but he views himself as your savior. He wants you to want him. Don’t overplay your hand, though. It must be convincing. Follow my lead. This is a game of sex and seduction. I know how to play.”

“Or we could not play at all,” Bris said, taking over suddenly. His deeply green eyes were practically begging me. “I’m sorry I could do nothing to save Lee. I’m still very weak, but in a few days I’ll be back at my full strength. I can get you out of this situation, my goddess. When we get to Paris, I will call all things green to our side and we’ll escape.”