“Emery, how do you plan to earn money?” my mother asked, capable of ruining any moment with gusto.
He sauntered toward me with his confident swagger before reaching around me and into the cabinet. When he reached forward for an empty wine glass, his heat fell across me and I shivered. “I’ve promised my spell-working services solely to Darius. For now. He pays extremely well.”
“What sort of harebrained world traveler promises exclusivity to an elder vampire?” my mother asked.
Emery glanced at me before pouring himself a glass of wine. “A desperate world traveler worried about the woman he was leaving behind.”
Warmth filled my heart and a smile played with my lips.
My mother huffed. “Well, now you’re at his mercy.”
He wrapped his lips around the rim of the wine glass, and a different part of me filled with warmth. After he took a sip, he grinned. “That was before he put her in mortal danger, messed up, and made her fend for herself. For now, it’s wise to keep the attachment. He’s an elder, yes, but he’s the best of the lot. He’ll give me plenty of wiggle room. In the future, I have an easy out and plenty of room for bartering.”
“Worst case, we’ll just sic Darius’s girlfriend on him. She’ll be more than happy to ruin his life.” I edged my hand along the counter like a high school kid on a first date and bumped it off his hip. I was nearly twenty-five, but I was acting like a besotted teenager.
He wasn’t. He slid closer and wrapped his arm around my shoulders.
My mother huffed again.
The doorbell rang.
“Reagan is going to meet us there, correct?” my mother asked for what seemed like the eight hundredth time.
“Yes. And Callie and Dizzy. We have lots of backup, Mother, relax. If that old vampire goes crazy, we’ll be fine. Which you know, because your cards told you so.”
“Those cards aren’t always right, you know that.”
“They aren’t ever right for me. But if they’ve ever failed you, you’ve never mentioned it.” Suddenly, all those near misses in Seattle were called into question.
“Come on, love,” Emery whispered softly, sliding his hand to my back. “We don’t want to keep the vampire waiting.”
In other words, he wanted to get away from my mother.
A black limo was waiting outside for us. Beyond it, standing next to the opening of the cemetery, stood Smokey, creepy as ever. He nodded to me as we walked down the stairs.
Next door, No Good Mikey stood near his steps, also watching.
“What’s going on?” I asked, slowing.
“Nothin’.” Mikey shifted so he was leaning against his banister. “Your mother yelled at Smokey for scaring her earlier. I just came out here to see if she’d do it again. Had him scattering like a flock of birds. Ain’t never seen him so spooked.”
“I did not yell at that man,” my mother said, clunking down the stairs behind us in her old boots. Marie was going to hate them. “I simply stated my observation that men who stand on street corners and gawk at women might someday find themselves castrated and thrown down a well.”
“Mother, really?” I pushed Emery to the side and made sure she got down the stairs and moved toward the limo before she came out with something else. “He’s not even on a street corner.”
“He is standing in front of a cemetery. That is worse than standing on a street corner.”
“Then why didn’t you say that?”
“Because ‘street corner’ has a certain ring to it.” She nodded at the blank-faced, handsome limo driver who was holding the door for her. “Couldn’t send a human? They had to send the enemy?”
Mikey cracked a smile, the first I had ever seen from him. “She’s a hoot. She has safe passage in this neighborhood.”
“No she doesn’t.” I pointed at him. “Ban her. Seriously. For your own good.”
He laughed this time, and sauntered off in the other direction.
“Why does everyone always laugh at me?” I wondered aloud, climbing into the limo.
Darius’s front door was fixed. Upon entering the house next to my hard-faced mother, I saw that his entrance way had also been fixed. They’d done unbelievably quick work.
Fragrant flowers lined the stairs like last time, cut from their living plants and on their way to death’s door. They really set the right atmosphere, though I still wasn’t sure if he was intentionally going for that.
Moss, acting the part of butler, greeted us formally, wearing a tux, as stiff as ever. “Miss Bristol, Ms. Bristol, Mr. Westbrook.” Moss offered a slight bow. Very slight. His face could’ve cut granite. Reagan must’ve been harassing him already this evening. “Welcome.”
“Vampires really know how to host,” my mother murmured as we climbed the stairs. “Too bad a body can’t relax in their company.”
Both dining room doors stood open, and as we approached, I felt the first wave of intensely spicy power, vicious and lethal and smooth as silk. It was much more powerful than Moss’s, and it was basically on display, crowding the room and drifting out to catch anyone passing by.
Ja.
“That’s not normal for vampires,” I said, slowing. Magic curled between Emery and me, sparking and fizzing and then collecting above me. I’d largely tried to stop doing that, since it made it easy for me to go off the deep end at a moment’s notice, but amassing elements was my go-to when I sensed even a little danger. It was a hard habit to break. One I wasn’t even sure I wanted to break.
“Just a moment,” Moss said, entering the room.
“Either the vampire doesn’t have control, or she is wondering if you do,” Emery whispered, studying me. He couldn’t feel her magic, but after a week of hardcore training together, not to mention one occasion in which we’d accidentally gotten sucked into (or possibly started, but I really didn’t think it was my fault) a bar fight with a few shifters, he was really good at deciphering my reactions.
He still wasn’t super at heading them off, though. Not when Reagan was enabling me, at any rate. Hence the bar fight.
The magic pulsed once, a shock wave that blasted into my core and crawled up my spine, dragging out my survival magic. I wrapped it around myself like armor, strong and hot and ready to do battle.
“Nope. Don’t do that,” Emery said, using his own survival magic to layer mine, calming me down.
It was another thing we’d been practicing: how to use our survival magic in new ways, often together.
“She has to be baiting you,” Emery said in a low whisper, making sure the vampires, with their excellent hearing, couldn’t catch his words. “Don’t give her a reason to react.”
“Forcing Penny to take the high road, is that it?” My mother asked, not at all worried about vampires overhearing. That, and she lacked volume control at the best of times. “Weak, that. Very weak.”
Moss appeared in the doorway with thinned lips and wary eyes. His bow was furrowed a little deeper, his posture a little stiffer.
Maybe it wasn’t Reagan who would cause problems for us tonight.
“Please.” Moss held out his hand for us to enter.
“I still think this is a terrible idea,” my mother said. “In fact, I ate at a fabulous place in the Garden District the other day. Let’s go there. I made friends with the barman. I’m sure we could get a seat.”
“Come on, Mother,” I said through clenched teeth, this close to taking her up on it.
Emery stepped aside so my mother and I could enter first. The table was set with delicate china and crystal. Candles flickered in gilded candleholders down the center of the table and along the walls, a serious fire hazard that probably didn’t matter, given that Reagan was on scene.
Darius and Reagan stood from their chairs on one side of the table. The three empty chairs next to them had presumably been left for us. The Bankses sat on the other side, with Marie next to them, and the final member of the group—a familiar woman with a beautiful face, slight frame, dark tan skin, and liquid black, wide-spaced, beguiling eyes that held the wisdom of centuries—sat the farthest from the door, directly across from Darius’s seat.
Those dark eyes sparkled as they beheld me, and a tiny pulse of her viciously entrancing magic pushed against my heart, letting me know she was completely in control…and she knew that I was not.
“Hello, everyone,” Reagan said with a serene smile, wearing a striking deep blue dress that plunged down her chest and flowed around her legs. She took Darius’s hand as they made their way to us, playing the part of host perfectly and surprising the heck out of me.
Darius wore a tux, perfectly molded to his muscular body and probably as expensive as the GDP of a small country. When they stopped in front of us, he bowed deeply. “Thank you for joining us.”
“Thank you for having us,” Emery said, sticking out his hand to shake Darius’s.
We took our seats, the chairs held out by vampire servers who showed up at the exact right moment. After they poured our wine, they zipped out again, faster than a human, but not so fast that it looked strange.
“That dress looks lovely,” Marie said to me with a gorgeous smile, her curves showcased in a purple and black lace dress that really got the heart pumping—and I wasn’t even into that sort of thing. “And Ms. Bristol, what a lovely…ensemble.”