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The Basics

My name is Sarah Dearly.

I am a vampire.

But don’t be afraid. I don’t bite.

Actually, scratch that. Recently I do bite, but not because I want to. Three months ago I was turned into a vampire by an amorous and misguided—not to mention creepy—blind date. Shortly after he tried to bury me (don’t ask), some vampire hunters came by and staked him dead. They wanted to stake me as well, but I ran away and straight into the arms of a super-hot, suicidal six-hundred-year-old vampire named Thierry de Bennicoeur. French name. No accent, though. Did I mention hot?

Angsty though he was, I fell for him. Hard.

Bad things happened. Good things happened.

Mostly bad things, though.

I learned that hunters were everywhere and focused on killing vampires—even though we’re not evil. Or dead. Or undead. We’re exactly like humans except for the drinkingblood-to-exist thing, which, unfortunately, is true. And a couple other things like not being able to eat solid food. We have increased strength and senses. We don’t have reflections in mirrors, which, to say the least, is inconvenient. Alcohol no longer has any effect on us, alas. But we have beating hearts and can go out during the day, even though the sun tends to get a bit bright without dark sunglasses.

Oh, the immortality thing is true, too. That is, if somebody doesn’t stake us. So, even though we’re relatively normal, hunters want us dead. They’re the bad guys. One of those hunters tried to kill me and I shot him in self-defense. Yes, shot him with a gun. No fangs involved. The incident succeeded in giving me the false reputation of slaughtering a whole bunch of hunters and the catchy title of “Slayer of Slayers.” Some people are scared of me, some impressed, and others find it a big fat challenge to sink a stake through my heart.

One of those hunters is Gideon Chase. He’s the leader of all the vampire hunters, and a billionaire who was considered quite a ladies’ man before he slayed a demon and was burned by hellfire. The hellfire scarred him horribly and is slowly and painfully dragging him, body and soul, to hell.

Now he wants my help.

Because, thanks to a couple life-or-death situations, I’ve had to drink the blood of two master vampires—

Thierry being one of them—I now have some sort of supercharged blood. This allegedly means that any vampires I sire will be very strong. Gideon is under the impression this means that I can heal him if I turn him into a vamp and keep him from his one-way ticket to hell, but it has to be done along with a ritual under the next full moon. And if I don’t do what he says, he’ll murder everybody I love. Obviously, I agreed to help him out.

He made me end my budding relationship with Thierry because Gideon’s afraid that I’ll reveal his nefarious plans to him in a private moment. But my attempted break-up didn’t work. We’re still together, only now we have to keep it a secret from everyone, even my closest friends. If Gideon finds out that I didn’t do what he demanded… well, he simply

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can’t find out.

The guy is evil. Literally.

Last, but certainly not least, I’m dealing with a curse that turns me into a nightwalker—a vicious, neck-biting, sun-fearing, sultry vixen of a vampire (in other words: so not me)—

unless I’m wearing an ugly but effective magic-infused gold chain. I’m trying to stay positive that everything will work out in the end, but it currently sucks to be me.

The pun is fully intended.

Chapter 1

Okay, Sarah, try not to freak out,” Amy said.

That’s not really a good opener—not when you’re already close to the edge like I was. My two best fanged and fabulous friends, Amy and George, had taken me out for drinks at a place called Darkside, the only secret vampire nightclub in Toronto currently open for business.

I’d known Amy for years, since we were both nonvampiric personal assistants—a day job she still held. I met George three months ago after I was sired into my new life as a vampire. They were trying to help me mend my broken heart and shattered self-esteem after my big, nasty break-up with my master vampire boyfriend, Thierry, a week and a half ago.

Unfortunately, since alcohol didn’t affect vampires other than remaining a tasty treat, I was on my third Tequila Sunrise and not feeling any differently about life, the universe, and, well… everything.

“Perky” was no longer my middle name. Not that it ever was. I eyed Amy cautiously. “What are you talking about?”

She didn’t reply. Amy’s red-lipsticked mouth was frozen in a slightly scared-looking smile. She wore her short, platinum-blond hair like a Papa-Don’t-Preach-era Madonna to contrast her low-cut, black sequined top and tight black skirt. When I glanced at George, he shrugged. He looked like a male model with shoulderlength, sandy-colored hair he currently had back in a low ponytail. He had chiseled features, a square jaw, and under his tight white shirt and black leather pants I knew he had a body worth crying over. Crying, mostly because he batted for the other team. Not that I’d ever harbored any unrequited fantasies about George. Not a chance. I had enough trouble with men without adding him to the list.

But he was mighty pretty.

“She’s definitely going to freak,” he confirmed.

Before I could ask for any more details about this predicted freak-out, a man approached the bar at which we were belly-up on rather uncomfortable stools. He was tall, built, attractive, and wore a dark blue button-down shirt exactly the same color as his eyes. His gaze was entirely fixed on yours truly.

I tensed at the unexpected attention.

“You’re Sarah, right?” he asked.

“Uh…”

“I’m Jeremy.” He smiled wide enough to show off his shiny white fangs. “Amy’s told me all about you, but your reputation precedes you, of course.”

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I flicked a confused glance at Amy, and then back at Jeremy. “Um…”

His grin widened. “Maybe we can get a private table so we can get to know each other a bit better.”

I shot Amy a horrified look as it all started to click in. Was this a… a blind date?

Oh, hell no.

Amy cleared her throat nervously at my expression. “Jeremy works at the office in the HR

department. When I realized he’s a vampire, too, I knew you two would be absolutely adorable together. So I kind of asked him to join us here tonight. You know, without telling you first.”

The last blind date Amy had set up for me resulted in a hickey I’d remember forever since the guy had bitten me and turned me into a vampire. Needless to say, I wasn’t a big fan of impromptu setups with strangers. Especially ones orchestrated by Amy.

“Great to meet you… uh, Jeremy, was it?” I plastered a smile on my face while my eyes tracked back to my Cupid-playing blond friend. “Can I talk to you for a minute, Amy? In private?”

She nodded tightly. “Mmm hmm.”

“We’ll be back in just a sec. Talk amongst yourselves.” I slid off the leather-covered barstool and sidestepped Jeremy and George as I threaded my way through the crowd of thirsty, club-going vampires toward the hallway leading to the washrooms. Amy trailed silently behind me.

“Really?” I said after we were out of earshot and away from the loud music. “You’re kidding me, right?”

“But he’s so nice. You haven’t even given him a chance.”

“I’m sure he’s the nicest vampire bachelor in the city. This has nothing to do with him.”

“I wanted to cheer you up. So sue me.” She pouted at her failed attempt to love-match me. “Ever since you and jerk-face broke up you’ve been no fun at all.”

Jerk-face was her pet name for Thierry. I had a similar term of endearment for her vampire husband, Barry, so I guess it all equaled out.

I cleared my throat. “That doesn’t mean I want to start dating again. At least, not this soon.”

“Jeremy would be perfect for you.” She paused. “Although, he’d also be perfect for George, if you know what I mean. Don’t you love a man who’s flexible about certain things?”

Sounded like an episode of Jerry Springer in the making, actually.

“I appreciate the thought, but I need some time on my own right now.”

She nodded sadly and patted my arm. “Your heart is broken in a million pieces. Sometimes the best thing to do is to get back on that horse and gallop right out of town into the sunset with a new, perfect man.” She cocked her head to the side as she thought about it. “Or having a one-night stand with a super-hot guy would probably work wonders, too.”

“Wallowing in solitude is also a great use of time after a breakup. No one-night stands need apply.”

She sighed. “You’re not thinking there’s a chance you and Thierry are going to get back together, are you?”

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I chewed my bottom lip and shook my head. “It’s over. Him and me were completely wrong for each other from the very start. This is all for the best.”

It sounded perfectly rehearsed because it was.

Amy nodded. “Well, you’re right about that. He was a pompous jerk who didn’t deserve you. I knew from the beginning that he was a complete waste of your valuable time.”

I blinked. “Yeah, except for that dirty little crush you had on him, you mean.”

She blanched at the reminder. “I thought we were going to forget about that.”

“The image of the goo-goo eyes you used to make behind his back is still burned into my brain cells.”

Her cheeks reddened. “Please stop.”

I repressed a smile. “Listen, don’t worry about me. Seriously. Every day is a little easier. I hardly ever think about Thierry anymore.”

Also rehearsed. Every morning when I woke up in my bed all alone I said it to the stucco ceiling—which rarely had any critiques of my acting ability.

“Have you heard from Veronique lately?” Amy asked. “I wonder if she’s planning on swooping down and grabbing him now that you’re out of the picture.”

“Haven’t seen her lately, so I have no idea what she’s up to.”

Veronique was Thierry’s wife. Yes, the man I’d been involved with had been married for hundreds of years to a woman who was the epitome of perfection—beautiful, charming, rich, and powerful.

Their marriage was in name only. They’d been separated for more than a century before I even met Thierry. Veronique unapologetically and frequently dated men a fraction of her age and enjoyed her own life, which she lived mostly in Europe with occasional visits to North America. There was no love there anymore between them. Thierry had recently attempted to get an annulment from vampire contacts at the Vatican itself—apparently the only way to get out of a marriage the length of theirs—but she refused to sign the papers. She wasn’t evil, she was simply self-centered. Ending their marriage didn’t benefit her in any way so she didn’t see any logical reason to sign. Her lightly French-accented explanation still buzzed in my ears like a swarm of Gucciwearing bees.

“Love has very little to do with a successful marriage, my dear.”

The memory still made my blood boil with equal parts frustration and annoyance. Amy and I returned to the bar, and I let Jeremy down as gently as possible. He took it like a champ.

“If you ever want to hook up, give me a call.” He handed me a business card, then turned to George. “Great talking to you.”

“Yeah, you, too,” George agreed as Jeremy walked away. Then he gave me a dirty look.

“Big mistake, Sarah. He was H-O-T. He actually made working in Human Resources sound like fun. Which I cannot imagine it actually is.”

“Sounds like you liked him.”

“Well… I was getting a vibe.”

I handed him the business card. “He’s all yours.”

“Thanks!” He smiled at me. “Now I totally forgive you for spilling your nasty dollar-store shampoo on my carpet yesterday.”

I frowned and absently itched my scalp. I couldn’t help it if I was on a strict budget as the

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remainder of my meager savings trickled away like cheap shower gel down the drain. Hair doesn’t clean itself, after all.

Thankfully, the drinks tonight were on Amy’s tab. I couldn’t eat solid food without yakking, but for some reason mixed drinks didn’t bother me at all. Along with not having a reflection—definitely one of my least favorite parts of my new life—I racked that up to unexplainable phenomena.

Over the last couple of weeks, I’d been on a crash course to learn as much about vampires as I could. Counting on other people to guide me was unreliable at best, dangerous at worst. I’d learned that the hard way. The Internet, however, was a vast resource. As soon as I broke through the crusty covering of popular myths, everything I needed to know about real vampire culture was right there at my fingertips. I might be getting carpal tunnel syndrome and becoming a fanged computer geek, but at least I was getting educated. Better late than never. I sucked the remainder of my drink clean right down to the naked ice cubes. Another Tequila Sunrise immediately landed in front of me. I glanced up at the bartender. “You must be psychic.”

He shook his head. “This is compliments of the gentleman in the corner.”

I swiveled around on the stool to look where he indicated. Other than two slutty-looking vamps shaking their groove thing on the dance floor, nobody was there.

“Who did you say sent this?” I asked the bartender.

“He must have left. Tall guy. Good-looking in a dark and miserable sort of way.”

“Sounds exactly like Sarah’s type,” George observed, then poked me in the shoulder. “I need to dance. Let’s go dance. I love this song.”

“Not in the mood.”

“I’ll go.” Amy slipped off the stool and teetered precariously on her four-inch platform heels. She gave me a pointed look. “After all, somebody should have some fun tonight.”

Well, that was a bit rude. Accurate, but rude.

I watched the two of them depart to shimmy to Madonna and Justin singing about saving the world in four minutes. I absently twisted the gold chain I wore until it began to cut off the circulation to my index finger.

The chain was ugly. It looked cheap and heavy and didn’t go with any of my wardrobe. I’d never wear it if I had any say in the matter.

I didn’t have any say.

Thanks to my nightwalker curse, the chain was the only thing keeping me from biting necks and killing people for kicks. Nightwalkers had existed a few hundred years ago, their vicious nature caused by a rare strain of the virus that turned humans into vamps. They were the reason for all the untrue myths about vampires being totally evil. They were the reason that hunters exist in the first place.

Nightwalkers were wiped off the face of the planet by those hunters to protect unassuming humans—and other vampires.

Which meant that, currently, I was the only vamp in the world with nightwalker tendencies—an uncontrollable dark thirst that spread over me, a need to feed on humans or other vamps as if they were an all-Sarah-can-eat buffet. I also couldn’t go out during the day or the sunlight would fry me. There was no sunscreen on earth that could keep me from turning into a crispy critter if I wasn’t wearing the chain.

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The witch who’d cursed me was dead now. No chance to get her to reverse the curse. Which meant I had to find the answer on my own. If I ever lost my chain—the only thing keeping me from truly becoming a creature of darkness—then I was seriously screwed. And so was anyone who crossed my path and looked remotely appetizing. I shuddered at the thought and willed myself to concentrate on something, anything, else. I stirred the cocktail in front of me with a swizzle stick and stared down into its orangey depths. I pushed the cherry down, holding it under the surface as if trying to drown it. After a moment, I let it bob back up to the surface. Dark and miserable.

Just my type.

I pushed the drink away. With my luck, Mr. Dark-and-Miserable had poisoned it.

“Hey, can I get a shot of B-Positive?” I asked the bartender. A couple of seconds later he slid a shot glass filled with familiar red liquid in front of me. Don’t get grossed out. It’s really not that bad.

Blood is sent to places like Darkside by professional blood delivery services. They get their blood from willing donors who are paid well for their contributions. It was all very civilized. The rarer the blood type, the more expensive the shot. I stuck with B-Positive. It was my fave. Because of the name, I could fool myself into believing it would cheer me up.

I tossed the shot back and waited for the euphoria to hit me. A couple of minutes later I was still waiting.

The complimentary drink rested on a Darkside coaster. Other than the logo for the club, I noticed something else on the thick, round piece of cardboard. Handwriting. In blue ink. Sarah—

I took in a shaky breath and glanced around the club again, paying particular attention to the corner the man who sent me the drink had allegedly been in. Still empty. My palm was sweating as I picked up the coaster and turned it over to see there was more writing on the other side.

Meet me out back. I must see you.

I casually slipped the coaster into my handbag. Without saying anything to Amy and George, still dancing their little hearts out, I slid into the shadows of the club on the other side of the dance floor, moved past the bouncer at the door, and emerged into the cold night air outside. With a quick check over my shoulder to make sure no one was following me, I swiftly walked around the building to the back where it was dark and silent. The nearly full moon cast a pale glow on the deserted alley.

“Hello?” I whispered, barely loud enough for even myself to hear. “Where are you?”

Other than the expected Dumpsters and snowdrifts, there seemed to be no one there. With my sensitive vampire ears, I could hear the bass thump of the dance music from inside very weakly. I hugged my arms tightly around myself. The temperature didn’t bother me much anymore, but it did seem particularly cold that night. I took a few more steps into the darkness. “Don’t worry, we’re alone.”

I was answered only by more silence so I moved over to the other side of the building and peered around the corner. I didn’t have very long before my friends wondered where I’d gone. Although, considering how many drinks I’d downed, they’d probably assume I was in the washroom.

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I froze when I heard footsteps behind me. The very next moment, strong arms came around me and my back was pressed up against the cold brick wall. A hand came over my mouth, since my first instinct was to scream my lungs out. Luckily, it was the person I’d been expecting.

Thierry removed his hand, leaned over, and crushed his mouth against mine in a kiss that took my breath away. I gasped against his lips, but then kissed him back deeply, wrapping my arms around his neck before sliding my hands up into his dark hair. His body warmed me in the cold night.

It wasn’t the first time we’d secretly met after everyone thought we’d broken up, but I hadn’t expected it tonight. Everyone else thought he’d only just returned from a trip to France, but he’d never left the city. Since it was vital that nobody saw us together, it had been difficult finding a time and place to meet. I’d missed him a lot. When the kiss broke off and my heartbeat came back to a normal pace, I looked up at him, raising an eyebrow. “A message on a coaster? Is that seriously the best you could do?”

“I wasn’t sure you’d be able to get away. Calling or messaging you on your phone could be traced.”

“And being spotted in a nightclub buying me drinks is much less risky?”

“I’m very discreet.”

I managed to smile. “By the way, your handwriting is nearly illegible.”

His mouth quirked. “Yet you figured out what it said.”

“Barely.” I grabbed hold of his black shirt and kissed him again quickly. We were shielded by the very romantic trash holders on either side of us but I still felt nervous that somebody might see us together. “What are you doing here?”

“I had to see you.” His silver-eyed gaze moved down the length of me and back up to my face.

Just as the bartender had described my drink sender, Thierry de Bennicoeur was tall and knee-weakeningly delicious—my words, not his. Dark hair, broad shoulders, full lips, straight nose, stern black eyebrows over gray eyes that sometimes appeared to be silver. You’d never expect that he was pushing seven hundred years old, a vampire sired during the Black Death plague in Europe in the 1400s.

Not even my closest friends could find out we were still together. Amy and George were total blabbermouths. Since I wasn’t the best secret-keeper in the universe it had been sheer torture to keep my mouth shut.

I had to keep my mouth shut about a lot of things.

I even kept a few things from Thierry.

For example, if he knew that over the last week and a half I’d become Gideon Chase’s personal assistant and general errand girl, he wouldn’t be very happy about that. And that was an understatement.

He considered Gideon the most dangerous man in the world—and somebody he wanted me to stay far away from for my own safety. But when the burned-by-hellfire leader of the vampire hunters wanted something, he could be extremely… well, insistent was a good word.

Gideon couldn’t find out that Thierry and I were still together, and Thierry couldn’t find out I was currently at Gideon’s beck and call.

Gideon usually checked in with me daily. In fact, he’d sent me to pick up a package for

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him earlier that day on the other side of the city. I got the impression he knew where I was and who I was with at all times. Just being in the alley with Thierry for a few stolen moments made me extremely nervous and more paranoid than usual. Which was saying something.

“Any luck finding Gideon’s hired guns?” I asked.

His expression was tight. “No. That’s one of the reasons I needed to see you this evening.”

“To tell me to be careful?”

“Of course.” He hissed out a long sigh. “I hate standing back and seeing you in harm’s way like this. It has to stop.”

“It will.”

“Not if we can’t discover his secrets. He has too much power at the moment, even if it’s only lent itself to verbal threats. If he harms you—”

“He hasn’t.” I stroked Thierry’s tense face. “Gideon isn’t going to hurt me.”

“Not until he gets what he wants.”

“Exactly.” I frowned. Wait. That didn’t make me feel much better.

“I will kill him,” he said darkly. “If he harms you in any way, the pain from the hellfire will be a pleasant memory for him.”

“I appreciate the offer of mayhem and torture, really. But it’s best if we stay calm and collected about this.”

“You seem calm and collected enough for the both of us.”

“I’m trying to stay Zen. I do yoga now, you know.”

He raised an eyebrow. “You do?”

“Well, I have an instructional DVD on yoga. Haven’t had a chance to watch it with all the drama going on lately, but I’m looking forward to it.”

“We must find a solution in three days. You cannot sire him.”

Thierry had a black-and-white attitude about pretty much everything. He drew his lines in the sand in permanent ink—and how he felt about Gideon was one of those lines. To him, Gideon was 100 percent evil incarnate. Couldn’t say I blamed him much for that impression. After all, Gideon was the leader of the hunters. They didn’t exactly make our lives a Technicolor musical production number. And Gideon, from everything I’d heard about him, had no problem getting his hands dirty when it came to slaying. He was exactly like Buffy—that is, if she was a six-foot-five billionaire playboy with hellfire scars from slaying a demon. And a tendency to kill things that weren’t actually evil. So, really, not like Buffy at all.

“I need to get back inside,” I said, “and try to act like everything’s normal—”

Another kiss managed to easily push my words and thoughts away. Thierry could kiss. Six hundred years of practice would make someone an expert, after all. I’d prefer not to give a lot of thought to how many women may have come before me. We both had our romantic histories. His was simply a little longer than mine, that’s all. By about 650 years.

My heart felt heavy when we parted. This whole situation seriously sucked. Just when I found a man I could be completely crazy about—despite our many differences—and one who loved me in return, we couldn’t be together except for stolen moments like this.

“You shouldn’t try to see me again till this is all over.” I tried to ignore the lump in my

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throat. “I’m afraid he’s going to find out.”

“Perhaps you should have taken Amy up on the blind date she arranged for you.”

I eyed him. “So Gideon’s not the only one spying on me?”

He smiled. “If you had someone new in your life, or I in mine, Gideon would have no suspicions about us, would he?”

“Good point. But are you trying to say you want to see other people? Because I’m in the mood to kick some ass tonight and it might be yours.”

Amusement slid behind his gaze. “I’m talking about appearances, nothing more. In fact, I think it’s a very good idea.”

“You want me to start dating somebody else?”

“Desperate times call for drastic measures. And speaking of that—” He was quiet for a moment. “You need to know something important.”

That sounded ominous. “What?”

“I contacted the Red Devil. He’s in the city right now. I thought we could use his help.”

My eyes widened. “Really?”

He nodded gravely.

The Red Devil in a nutshell was this: a vampire vigilante who had been around for a thousand years, give or take a century or two. He saved innocent vamps from slaughter at the hands of hunters. He wore a mask so nobody knew who he was, and, in fact, most thought he was only a legend. Legend or not, he’d disappeared a hundred years ago and hadn’t been seen since.

Gideon Chase, wearing a scarf over his scarred face to hide his true identity, had convinced me he was the Red Devil—in fact, he’d saved my life when I’d been staked so he could gain my confidence. But the real Red Devil was now in Toronto? Stop the presses.

“Who is he?” I asked.

“His identity is secret.”

“So you don’t know who he is? How did you contact him?”

“We have a mutual connection.”

“Who?”

“I can’t say.”

“You can trust me.”

“I know,” he said. But he didn’t go into any further detail. I pushed my frustration at his vague answers away. Or tried to, anyhow. “What’s he doing here? Or is that a secret as well?”

“I wanted him to assess the situation with Gideon. I thought it also important for him to keep an eye on you and he has agreed to this.”

I felt stunned. “Are you trying to tell me that the Red Devil is my shiny new bodyguard?”

“He promises to be very discreet. You won’t even know he’s around.”

I leaned back against the cold wall behind me and tried to process this info. The legendary, reclusive Red Devil was my bodyguard? And Thierry was acting as if this was a completely normal decision?

“You trust this guy?” I asked.

“Implicitly.”

He sounded pretty certain about it. But how could he trust somebody who’d been off the

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map for a century? Somebody who’d just pop up thanks to a well-timed phone call?

“Where is he right now?”

“Close. It’s best you know as little as possible, Sarah. It’s safer that way.”

“For him or for me?”

“Definitely both.” He hooked a finger under my gold chain. He knew what it was and what it did. When I didn’t have it and was acting all murderous and deadly and seductive, he’d done everything in his power to find a solution. Although truthfully, I think he kind of liked the seductive part.

“If I learn anything new I will contact you as soon as I can,” he said.

“Same here.” The fresh guilt at not telling him about my strange new job as Gideon’s assistant ate at me. It was on the tip of my tongue but I didn’t want to worry him more than he already was. “I love you, Thierry.”

He touched my face softly and slid his thumb over my bottom lip. “I love you, too.”

And, with a last kiss, he was gone.

Well, he didn’t just disappear, but he could walk really fast. I watched his dark form move away into the shadows.

Then I slowly trudged back around the side of the building until I’d nearly reached the front doors. A woman was being unceremoniously kicked out of the club by the big, brawny bouncer.

“Go home and don’t come back,” he advised her harshly. “We don’t want you here.”

She hurled a couple of choice expletives at him and turned her back, stomping away down the dark street in a short red minidress and silver stilettos.

“Nice girl,” I said.

“Fledgling vamp caught her sire cheating on her,” the bouncer explained. “She’d only been turned a few nights ago. She made a scene and nearly bit the chick the guy was with tonight.” He swept his gaze over me. “You’re the Slayer of Slayers, aren’t you?”

Oh, brother. Just what I needed. A fanboy.

I shook my head. “You know, I actually get that all the time. We’re both brunettes and there is a fleeting resemblance. I saw her once, but she’s kind of ugly. Probably from all that slayer slaying.”

“If you say so.” The bouncer shrugged. “You coming back in, or what?”

“Yeah.” I glanced over in the direction of the jilted fledgling and I noticed two men a block up step out from a dark alley and begin to silently trail after the oblivious vampiress.

“Hey, check that out. Do you think those are hunters?”

He followed my line of sight. “Could be.”

I looked at him. “Don’t you want to do something about it? She’s a helpless fledgling out on her own. They’ll kill her.”

“What do you suggest I do?”

“Go save her?”

He laughed. “Not going to happen. I don’t think they saw where she came from, and I’m not getting a stake through my chest tonight for trying to save some worthless bitch.”

“Oh, that’s really charming.”

He smiled thinly at me. “For fifteen bucks an hour I don’t have to be charming. Why don’t you go save her?”

I narrowed my gaze at him. “Maybe I will.”

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“Good luck with that.” He turned around and slipped back inside the club. The door closed heavily behind him leaving me out in the cold night alone. I scanned the street again. No one was around. It wasn’t that long ago that I was the hapless fledgling who wandered dark and lonely places I shouldn’t go. Since then, I’d aged. I’d matured. I would eternally look twenty-eight years old, but I’d been through enough stress in the past three months to give me gray hair. Metaphorically speaking, that is. Thankfully, I had no gray hair, and if I did I’d totally dye it back to normal.

But that was neither here nor there.

I began following the girl and her stalkers. Maybe it was just my overworked imagination that she was in danger. They were probably just heading in the same direction, was all. Nothing to be concerned with. Paranoia was one of my closest pals lately, although normally I had it about myself, not somebody I didn’t even know. It was a gut thing. I had to know. Something felt terribly off. I’d check it out, make sure the girl was safe and sound, and then I’d go back to the club and pretend to have a good time.

And then I heard a shriek: female. And a laugh: male. Shit.

I picked up my pace and my breathing increased. Damn that bouncer for not helping out. I was right. The girl was in trouble, and now what?

Save the fledgling, save the world. Did I look like a superhero?

As much as I’d like to think I was tough and able to bravely face off against those who’d harm others, I knew I didn’t have a chance in hell against the hunters. They were two big, muscular guys, and I was… well, me. And I’d be willing to bet each of them had done this many times before.

Unfortunately, there was no time for me to go back to the club and get reinforcements, and from the terrified whimpering I now heard just around the corner in the alleyway where the hunters had cornered the fledgling, I had only seconds to decide what to do next.

Maybe I should have turned my back and run away. There’d been plenty of vamps who’d found themselves on the sharp end of a stake since I’d been sired. But this… this was different. It was here, it was now, and I couldn’t simply walk away and pretend it never happened.

The girl let out another frightened scream and the decision was made. There was one way I knew how to be a bit tougher than I naturally was. It wouldn’t hurt if I did it just once, would it?

I sure hoped not.

Cursing under my breath, I reached back and undid the clasp of my gold chain with shaking fingers. It slipped off my throat. I slid it into my purse for safekeeping. It was a bit like Diana Prince spinning around three times to become Wonder Woman, only I wasn’t suddenly wearing a shiny red, white, and blue leotard with a magical golden lasso and tiara. My change was a little more subtle than that. I’d tested taking off the gold chain a couple of times since I got it. In the beginning, my nightwalker symptoms took a while to completely manifest in all their nasty glory. But now they came on me almost immediately. It was dangerous—mostly for other people—

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so I didn’t play around with it much.

It started with my vision closing in on either side so I could keep my prey in sight. No distractions. Clear, predatory focus. My heartbeat came to a slow stop. Or almost a stop. A vampire’s heart beats slower than a human’s, but now my heart, without the chain, would beat approximately four times an hour. Nightwalkers weren’t living beings like regular vampires. Nightwalkers were the reason regular vamps had the reputation of being undead. Barely a heartbeat and no real need to breathe. Only a desire to feed.

Horror movie: table for one.

Being a nightwalker was scary as hell, but that was the rational Sarah talking. Without the chain I wasn’t all that rational. But I was still in control. At least, for short periods of time.

Hopefully this wouldn’t take very long.

Chapter 2

One of the hunters leered at the terrified fledgling. “You have a nice body for a bloodsucker.”

“Leave me alone!” Tears streamed down her cheeks.

“She is mighty pretty,” the other hunter agreed. “Fresh, too. I’d say the evil thing is less than a week old. She doesn’t even have her fangs yet.”

“Vampires aren’t evil! Please, you have to believe me.”

“Sure, we believe you.” The hunters exchanged a droll look. “She’s not even denying being a vamp. That makes it way simpler. No unfortunate mistakes.”

“Please, don’t hurt me,” she begged.

“Do you want to see my stake, honey? I’ll bet it’s the biggest you’ve ever seen.”

“I highly doubt that,” I said dryly from behind them. They turned to look at me.

It was dark in the alley, but I could see them as clear as day. Nightwalker eyesight was better than night-vision goggles. One had a bald head and a precisely shaved goatee and the other had long shaggy hair that touched his shoulders and an angry-looking scar on his right cheekbone. They held no fear in their eyes as they looked me up and down.

“One for me and one for you,” Baldy said to his friend. “This is going to be a fun night.”

“Wouldn’t count on that.” My attention drifted from his ugly face to the subtle throb at the side of his throat. I sensed the blood racing through his veins just below the surface. My senses were way more acute in nightwalker mode. It was as helpful as it was distracting.

“Check out her eyes,” the second hunter hissed, and I could finally detect a trace of fear in his voice. “They’re black. She must be really hungry. That’s not good.”

“Don’t be such a wimp,” Baldy scoffed. He pulled his allegedly monstrous-sized stake out of a holder on his belt—as expected, not all that impressive—and confidently approached me.

“See this?” He indicated the stake. “Do you know how many bloodsuckers I’ve killed with this thing? It’s my lucky stake. I whittled it myself.”

I rolled my pitch-black eyes. “You’re a regular Martha Stewart. Do you keep a scrapbook, too?”

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“Shut up, bitch.”

“Please help me!” The fledgling’s voice shook, her attention now fully focused on her potential rescuer, aka: me.

“Just a minute.” I felt bad for her—this small, pale, shivering thing with really bad hair and supremely tacky shoes. A couple of months ago that was me. Except for the bad hair and shoes, of course.

The bald hunter laughed. “You’re going to help her? Is that why you’re here? To rescue one of your own kind? How sweet.”

“Why do hunters talk so much?” I asked. “All talk, no action. Yawn.”

“Dude,” the shaggier of the two said. “Didn’t you hear me? Her eyes are black. She’s dangerous. Don’t provoke her. Maybe we should take off. I don’t feel good about this.”

“Your friend is way smarter than he looks.” I couldn’t stop studying Baldy’s deliciously exposed throat above the line of his leather jacket. “Why don’t I give you a chance? Leave now with the promise to never kill another vampire and we won’t have a problem.”

Baldy laughed louder at that. “Who the hell do you think you are, bitch?”

“I’m the Slayer of Slayers, asshole. Ever heard of me?”

That stopped him for a moment as he recognized my well-known nickname. His eyes widened a fraction and he took a step back so he could study me from my low-heeled, knee-high black boots—fashionable yet easy to run in; an important combo for any female vamp—past my casual yet sparkly outfit of a short black skirt and silver lamé tank top, to my shoulder-length brown hair, currently tucked firmly behind my ears. Since the cold was only a minor annoyance for me now, I’d left my coat inside the club. A slow, confident smile spread across his features. “I heard that rep of yours was only a rumor. So if you’re trying to scare me you’ve failed. The only question is, when I slay you, are you still young enough to leave a body behind for me to prove I was the one to do it, or are you more ancient than you look?”

Vampires die in one of two ways. Those over a hundred years old turn to goo. Those under a hundred leave a corpse behind. According to my recent research it seemed to have something to do with human lifetimes. If vamps lived beyond what would naturally have been their allotted years, then their bodies disintegrated when they were killed. The stains were nearly impossible to remove from carpeting or clothing. Believe me, I’d tried.

“Oh, it was a rumor,” I agreed. “But I’ve had a few changes in my life recently that have altered a few things. I’m not quite as helpless as I might look.”

“All I see is a disgusting black-eyed monster who needs to die.”

“Sticks and stones, cue ball.”

“I’m going to kill you.” He raised the stake.

“Drop it,” I said very firmly, holding eye contact with him. He dropped the weapon and then looked down at it with confusion. “What the hell?”

One of my abilities as a nightwalker was mind control over weak-minded humans. Amy called it my “thrall.” I could tell with a glance that this guy might have lots of muscles on the surface, but cotton balls between his temples. The thrall didn’t work on everybody, but it was a neat trick when it did.

“Why are you taunting her?” Shaggy whimpered. “We gotta get out of here, man. Now!”

Instead of taking his friend’s wise advice, Baldy lunged at me. I easily grabbed him by his throat and he gasped for breath as I dug my fingernails in on either side of his Adam’s

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apple.

My vision narrowed and some more of my nightwalker’s darkness bled through into my conscious mind.

Kill him, it suggested in a helpful manner.

“Give me one reason why I shouldn’t kill you,” I said evenly. The hunter replied with a gurgle. His face was turning purple. It would be so easy to squash this pathetic excuse for a human as if he were no more than an annoying insect.

The unexpectedly dark, murderous thought made me falter a bit and loosen my hold on him. I wasn’t a killer. I hadn’t planned on doing anything but scaring the crap out of these two—although, I hoped, not literally—before I sent them scurrying away.

“Let him go!” Shaggy pleaded, obviously convinced I was about to tear his friend’s throat out with a flick of my wrist. “Don’t kill him. Please!”

“Why not?” I grappled for control of myself and knew it was my nightwalker’s fault. She really wanted to kill this guy. After all, hunters didn’t care who they killed. Would it really be that big a loss?

Shaggy was crying openly now. “Because… because I love him! I love you, Mark! I’m sorry I never told you. I’ve been waiting for the right moment, but it never happened. I can’t lose you. Not now. Not like this!”

There was complete silence in the alley for a long moment. And then, “I love… you… too, Cal.”

I raised an eyebrow. Wasn’t expecting that. I loosened my grip on Baldy’s throat a little more.

Vampire hunters in love. Terrific.

“You… you love me?” Cal sounded surprised. “Since when?”

“Since we… first met… at Clancy’s.” He gasped for breath. “Remember the eighteen beers… we drank… that night? The game of pool? Comparing our… kill counts?”

Cal’s expression turned wistful. “Like it was only yesterday.” He looked pleadingly at me.

“Please, let him go. We’ll leave this city forever. We promise, don’t we, Mark?”

Mark struggled to nod. “Yeah, we promise.”

I eyed him skeptically. “Seriously?”

He nodded. “Maybe we could go to Los Angeles, or something. Open a little Oceanside bar. It’s always been a dream of mine.”

Their eyes met. “That sounds really nice,” Cal agreed. After another moment, I released Mark. The red imprint of my hand on his throat was oddly satisfying.

“Fine,” my voice was shaky. “Go. I won’t try to stop you. But I swear, if I see you in town after tonight, then all bets are off.”

The two hunters embraced and then ran out of the alley together. What the hell was this? I thought. A freaking romance novel?

I felt a warm hand on my arm. It was the fledgling.

“Thank you! That was so amazing. You’re so strong and brave.”

I cleared my throat. “It’s a work in progress, but thanks.” I opened my purse and reached inside to retrieve my chain with trembling fingers, knowing I had to get it back on ASAP. Every moment it was off my neck was a risk—as evidenced by my nearly killing the

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hunter.

And he would have totally deserved it, my inner nightwalker reminded me. Exactly.

I frowned at the thought.

I paused to look at the fledgling. “You need to be more careful out here all alone, you know. It’s dangerous.”

“My sire—” Her voice hitched and she covered her face with her hands and began to sob.

“He… he doesn’t want me anymore. I wanted to be with him forever but now I’m all alone.”

“It’ll get better.”

She shook her head. “Maybe the hunters should have killed me. They almost did.” She reached up to her forehead, which had a small gash on it, and pulled her hand away to inspect the blood. “They whacked me pretty hard.”

A sensation of warmth and wooziness moved through me.

“Well…” I braced my shoulder against the wall to steady myself. “You need to be more careful. It’s too bad your sire was a jerk, but it happens. Find some new friends to help you out—”

“Like you?” she asked hopefully.

My head felt very cloudy. “Like me, or there are… there are lots of other helpful vamps in the city.” I swallowed hard. “It’s really warm out tonight, isn’t it?”

“It’s February.”

“Hot for February.”

The fledgling looked at me strangely. “Are you feeling all right?”

My purse dropped to the ground as the warmth continued to course through me. “I’m just fine.”

She squinted at me. “Your black eyes are a bit freaky.”

The slight cloudiness in my mind turned to thick fog.

“Black eyes are a warning sign. Even the nicest vampires are dangerous when their eyes turn black. Consider that your first lesson in survival.”

Something in the tone of my voice made her take a quick step away from me. She was trembling again.

“Uh…” She gulped. “So I think I’m going to, like, leave now.”

She gave me a look that could only be described as fearful and then nervously began to walk around me. I reached out and grabbed her by the throat much as I’d done before with the hunter. She made a scared, strangled sound. The blood flowed from her forehead like honey. So warm, so alive… so tempting. My vision narrowed more than it already had.

“P-please…” she stuttered. “Please d-don’t hurt me.”

Why did she think I was going to hurt her?

Because you are going to hurt her, the nightwalker inside me said. It was as if I could see myself, but from miles away. The rational me was far away now and I was yelling and frantically waving my arms, scared for the girl, scared for myself. My chain had been off for too long. My nightwalker had taken control now—and she was very hungry.

I pushed the fledgling up against the wall, focused only on one thing—the gentle pulse at

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the side of her throat. I felt my fangs elongate. Normally a vampire’s fangs were small and barely noticeable—sharper than a human’s canines, but nothing that would raise any alarms if you didn’t know what you were looking at.

But a hungry vampire… well, that was a different story. Whether at her core she was a good vamp or a bad vamp, the hunger that raced through her body turned her fangs into the perfect weapon meant to sink into soft, warm skin to get what she desired most. Human blood was necessary for survival, but vampire blood was addictive and decadent—

like dessert, like alcohol, like a drug.

And no matter how much the normal me screamed or fought, the nightwalker’s need to feed would win out. It was clear, focused, and so very natural. And there was no way to predict if the fledgling would survive when it was all said and done. Not tonight. Not with the way I currently felt.

My lips peeled back from sharp fangs as I pushed the fledgling’s head to the side, swept back evidence of her bad dye job, and grazed the surface of her skin. The very next moment something yanked me away from her and I staggered across the alley. I turned with a hiss. There was a dark figure standing in the shadows. He wore a red mask that covered most of his face.

The man glanced at the fledgling. “Leave now.”

Without needing to be told twice, my potentially delicious bleached blond meal ran out of the alley. I couldn’t see straight. I was so hungry. It blinded me to everything else. My thoughts were cloudy and my darkened gaze now locked on the stranger’s throat.

“Don’t even think about it,” he said, his voice low. But I was thinking about it—in my foggy kind of way. The anger at being interrupted filled me and I clenched my fists at my sides. I moved toward him, my focus never leaving the side of his neck. “Let me guess. You’re the Red Devil? The real one?”

He took a step further into shadow so all I could see was his outline. “I am.”

“So that means you’re my bodyguard now.”

“Correct.”

“I don’t need a bodyguard.” My eyes narrowed. “As you can see.”

“All I see is a stupid woman who should be wearing the gold chain that dampens behavior like this. You could have killed that fledgling.”

Stupid? A flash of anger cut through me. Did a pathetic excuse for a vampire vigilante just call me stupid?

I really didn’t like it when people called me stupid.

“You need to mind your own business,” I hissed through clenched teeth.

“This is my business.”

Normally—since Thierry hadn’t exactly been very forthcoming with the details—I would have been curious to know more about who this guy was and where he came from, but I’d had enough talking. I walked directly toward him. He glared down at me through his mask. I registered nothing except his heartbeat and the knowledge that warm blood coursed just beneath his skin. Everything else was background noise. I slid my hands up his firm chest and he didn’t resist or try to pull away. I went up on tiptoes to whisper into his ear. “I bet you taste very good.”

The moment before my fangs would have sunk into his throat, his hands came around my upper arms like iron vises. He pushed me away, turned me around, and before I could do

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anything about it, he slammed me up against the cold hard wall. I tried to fight him, but I was in an awkward position. He crouched for a moment and then got back to his feet. Something cold and thin pressed against my throat. My eyes widened. Was he going to strangle me? Maybe try to decapitate me? According to my research, that was one of the most effective methods to kill a vampire if you didn’t mind the wet work.

But nothing painful happened. The very next moment he let me go. I felt at my throat to find the gold chain he must have retrieved from my open purse on the ground and put back on me. The hunger and darkness left in a near-painful whoosh and my knees buckled. I had to fight to remain standing.

The Red Devil’s back was now toward me.

“Don’t let this happen again,” he growled.

When he left, I sank to the ground, one hand on my chain and the other over my mouth to cover my shock.

Shit. That was close. That was too damned close. I’d been mad about what the Red Devil had said before, calling me stupid. But he was absolutely right. I could have killed that girl. And if he hadn’t stopped me I think I would have. So much for coming to her rescue.

Chapter 3

Sarah!” George exclaimed when I returned to the club. “We’ve been worried about you.”

I glanced at Amy, who was still on the dance floor, attempting an awkward, high-heeled version of the Running Man. “Yeah, it looks like it.”

“Amy hides her concern really well. Where have you been?”

Secretly meeting with Thierry. Trying to save an innocent, but badly dressed fledgling. Going homicidal and nearly making the fledgling more than just a fashion victim. Getting reamed out by the Red Devil.

All of the above.

“I was in the washroom,” I told him instead.

“For twenty minutes?”

I put a hand over my stomach. “You do not want to know the details. Trust me.”

He made a sour face. “Forget I asked.”

I would never take my chain off again. Ever. Stamped it, no erasies. I twisted my finger around the very necessary piece of jewelry.

George gave me a thorough look. “Now that you mention it, you don’t look so good.”

“Really?” I said dryly. “Because I feel like a million bucks.”

He crossed his arms. “Then the inflation rate is not in your favor. Do you want to leave?

Had enough with the partying for one night?”

I let out a long, shuddery breath. “To put it mildly.”

I felt sick and ashamed by what had happened. And sweaty. And miserable. And horrifically embarrassed. And scared. And… well, that basically covered it. That was a whole smorgasbord of emotions to deal with at one time so I knew the stress showing through on my face was impossible to hide.

Amy pranced off the dance floor and made a beeline over to us. “Hey! You’re back. Want

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to dance?”

I looked at her wearily. “Not a chance.”

“You’re such a poet!” She grinned and pulled a cell phone out of her small, beaded bag. “I borrowed this from you earlier. Mine was dead and I had to call Barry. You have a text message waiting there. Somebody with the initial G?” She could barely control her curiosity. “Who’s G, Sarah? Hmm? Someone hot?”

I snatched the phone away from her. I hadn’t even realized it was missing. I glanced at the screen and my stomach took a deeper nosedive. “G is for God, if you must know. I’ve recently become incredibly religious. It must be my Bible quote of the day.”

Yeah, like she was buying that one.

“Grant?” she guessed. “Maybe Gary? Geoffrey? Gerard? Greg? Gaston? Stop me if I’m getting close.”

Gideon.

My knuckles whitened as I clutched the small pink phone.

“I didn’t mean to read it,” she said innocently. “But he wants to see you immediately and apparently you know what he wants.”

I gave her a tight smile. “Super. Thanks for letting me know.”

“Well? What does he want? A midnight rendezvous? A little boom-shaka-laka?” Her smile was blindingly white. “Sarah, I’m so impressed. You had me convinced you were still pining over stupid Thierry. You could have told me, you know, instead of being all secretive about this new piece of yummy. Then I wouldn’t have bothered setting you up with Jeremy.”

“I am obviously an enigma,” I sighed wearily, “when it comes to the yummy.”

“Details! I want details!”

George raised his eyebrows. “That makes two of us. I live with you and even I didn’t know about this. Keeping secrets from your bestest friends, Sarah?”

If only they knew.

I slipped the phone into my bag. “Right. Well, I think I’m going to call it a night.”

Amy and George exchanged a glance.

“Fine,” she said, pouting. “Be that way. But I’ll figure out who your new mystery man is. Just give me time.”

I pasted a frozen smile on my face. “You’re immortal now. Take all the time you need.”

Then I grabbed my coat and left the club, attempting to ignore her dirty look and George’s curious one. Neither attempted to follow me, which, based on my dour mood and where I was headed, was a very good thing.

“You got my message?”

Gideon’s deep voice greeted me from the shadows of his fourth-floor suite at the Madison Manor. If I could find a bright point in this otherwise dark scenario, the boutique hotel at Spadina and Bloor—in the part of Toronto called the Annex—was only a few blocks away from Darkside. His room in the restored Victorian mansion even had a fireplace, which currently wasn’t lit despite the cool temperature of the room. As far as I knew, he didn’t go out. Why should he when I was only a text message away to do all of his chores?

The ensuite bathroom light was on. Otherwise the main room was dark, the blinds drawn. To my left, double French doors led to a snow-covered balcony overlooking Madison Avenue.

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“Obviously I got your message,” I said tightly. “I’m here, aren’t I?”

“You are.”

“Can I turn on a light?” I felt at the wall for the switch.

“I’d rather you didn’t.”

But it was too late as I flicked on the overhead light. Gideon glared at me from the chair in the corner. He immediately raised his hand weakly in an unconscious attempt to cover the scars on his face, but then gripped the armrest instead. I’d seen enough pictures of Gideon in his prime, before the accident, to know that he used to be extremely attractive. Those days were over, at least for half of him. One side of his face was covered in ugly scar tissue, but the other side was still flawlessly handsome. When I first met him, before I even knew who he really was, he wore a scarf over his face to hide his identity and disfigurement as well as pretending to be the Red Devil. Now I didn’t think he left his room at all. Along with the scars came a whole lot of pain as the hellfire continued to burn through him. He was not a happy camper to say the least.

“How are you feeling?” I asked.

“As well as I look.”

“That bad, huh?”

He raised an eyebrow. “Possibly worse.”

“Serves you right. You ever heard of karma? Maybe this is your punishment for killing so many vampires.”

“Maybe.” He drew in a breath and let it out slowly. “Did you bring it?”

“Yup.” I knew what he was talking about. I reached into my purse and pulled out the small package. I didn’t know what it was, only where to go to get it. The man behind the desk at the New Age store had handed it over to me earlier today as if he knew exactly who I was and what I wanted, no questions asked.

“Bring it to me.”

When I approached, he turned his face so I couldn’t easily see the scars. I wanted to roll my eyes. Gideon was very vain. He hated how he looked now and he didn’t want anyone to see him. Couldn’t say I blamed him for that. He looked like hell. Literally. The scars seemed to be spreading and getting worse, causing him even more pain than before. Despite myself, my stomach twisted at that thought. He’d threatened the people I loved in order to blackmail me into siring him. He’d shot me with a tranquilizing garlic dart—twice. He’d forced me to break up with the man I loved. Gideon Chase was evil, no question about it.

But being face to face with him reminded me how much I hated seeing anyone in constant, agonizing pain, no matter who they were or what they’d done. I was such a wimp.

“Is that concern I see on your face?” he asked, as if he’d read my mind, a small smile in his green eyes.

“Concern? For you? Not likely. I hate you. And in three days when this is all over, I never want to see you again.”

He shook his scarred head. “I don’t think you hate me half as much as you’d like to.”

After everything he’d threatened, with everything he represented, it would be completely crazy and illogical for me to feel anything for him except hate. Right?

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Of course it would.

“No, trust me,” I assured him. “I despise you.”

His lips curled, except on one side they didn’t move at all because the scar tissue was too thick. “Quite honestly, I think you should be thanking me for helping you to end things with the master vampire.”

I crossed my arms. “I’m not discussing Thierry with you.”

“You don’t have to.” He placed the package I’d delivered on the small table next to him and leaned back in his chair. “I’m just saying that he didn’t appreciate you as much as he should have.”

“Can I go now?” I eyed the door.

“In a minute. I think you have me all wrong, Sarah. You’ve convinced yourself that I’m the bad guy—”

“You are the bad guy,” I reminded him.

“If I was the bad guy, would I have saved you from being staked that night? You’d be dead right now if it wasn’t for me. I also gave you that very special gold chain you wear around your neck right now.”

I touched the jewelry in question. “That was all to get me to do what you want.”

He sighed. “I don’t see why this has to be unpleasant between us. We can be friends.”

“Friends?” I repeated. “You’re a hunter and I’m a vampire.”

“And your point?” He looked amused with me.

“I’m going now. I brought your… whatever it is. Party on.” I turned to leave.

“Don’t you want to stay to see what it is?”

I actually did. I was extremely curious, so sue me. I’d decided not to open the package when I received it, but curiosity killed the cat and all that. This kitty had had plenty of brushes with death lately, so I wasn’t going to take any more chances. There was a crinkling sound as he unwrapped the brown paper packaging. I swiveled around on my heels as he removed a black box from inside, which he opened to reveal—

“A wristwatch?” I said, feeling less than impressed. “That’s what you had me pick up for you? That’s very underwhelming, I have to say.”

“This is a very special watch. It’s not as special as your chain, but it’s pretty close.” He traced the tip of his index finger over the face of the very ordinary-looking timepiece. Then he stroked the scars on his face. “It’s actually a glamour spell cast into a wearable object. I had it specially made. You wouldn’t believe what something like this costs. Luckily money is no problem for me—I set aside a great deal of cash in case I ever needed to go into hiding.”

I knew that a “glamour” magically helped someone appear beautiful or different. If somebody had a large nose and he or she had a glamour it could look like a small nose. Real-life airbrushing. Didn’t change what was underneath, but sometimes appearances were enough.

Without another word, he slipped the watch on his wrist and fastened it. The very next moment a thin band of light moved over him. Wherever the light touched, Gideon’s scars disappeared completely.

My eyes widened in shock.

“How do I look?” he asked, reaching up to touch his now scar-free face. I swallowed hard. “You look… different.”

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Actually, different wasn’t really accurate. He looked the same as the pictures I’d seen of him. Hair almost as dark as Thierry’s, a disconcertingly warm intelligence behind piercing green eyes, a movie-star-perfect face. He still wore the simple clothes he had on before, of course—black, loose-fitting pants and a baggy blue T-shirt—but now the scars on his muscled left bicep and forearm had smoothed out completely. He flashed a grin at me. “Different is good.”

I felt stunned. “So what does this mean? You’re cured, just like that?”

His grin faded. “No. This is only a glamour. It changes nothing. In three nights the ritual will go on as scheduled.”

“When I sink my fangs in your neck and suck the life out of you? I’m actually looking forward to it.”

His smile reappeared at my false bravado. “Sure you are.”

“I am. I mean, how many vampires can say they were able to chomp on Gideon Chase with his full permission? I should have promotional postcards made up, or something.”

He pressed his lips together for a moment. “I do have some concerns.”

“The fact that I have to keep my fangs in your neck for a few minutes before I can properly vampify you? Is there a little fear creeping in at the sides, Gideon?”

“No. It’s actually the fact that you’ve only consumed the blood of two master vampires. My research leads me to believe that might not be enough to gain enough power to fully heal me.”

I nodded. “Well, in that case, you can feel free to find someone else for the job.”

“I’m sure it’ll be fine, but I do feel some anxiety.”

“Gideon Chase, anxious? Wherever is my camera?”

He rose from his chair to pull the blinds away from the window. He was quite an imposing man, even without taking his reputation into account. Beautiful women from around the world had allegedly flocked for the chance to spend time with him in the past, and it hadn’t only been because he was a billionaire.

Flocked.

He turned and moved toward me.

I took a step backward.

“I have something for you,” he said.

I took another step back until I bumped up against the door. He held up a hand. “Don’t panic. It’s something nonthreatening, I promise.”

“Why do I find that hard to believe?”

He moved toward the table next to his king-sized bed to grab a small fabric bag, which he brought over to me. “A gift for you.”

I hesitated, then took it from him. I opened it up to find a pair of earrings inside. Diamond earrings. Big diamond earrings.

“What is this?”

He raised an eyebrow. “They’re diamond earrings.”

“I can see that. But why are you giving them to me?”

“As a show of appreciation for everything you’ve endured so far. I know it hasn’t been easy for you. I can be a bit of a—”

“Insanely evil villain?” I finished.

“I was going for ‘pain in the ass,’ but you can finish the sentence any way you like.” A

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smile that I was quite sure had melted the panties off many a socialite in the past spread across his handsome features.

“I can’t accept them.” With a twinge of regret—I mean, come on, diamond earrings!—I gave them back to him.

He nodded. “Then I’ll have to find something else you can’t turn down so easily, won’t I?”

There was a buzzing sound and Gideon fished into the pocket of his pants to draw out a BlackBerry. He glanced at the screen and then put it away again. My focus had narrowed on the device. I wondered if the names and phone numbers of his contacts were in it. That would be very helpful.

“So, Sarah, did you have a good time at the nightclub tonight with George and Amy?”

Gideon asked.

A shiver went down my spine. Had a spy just reported in regarding my whereabouts for the evening? And if so, what else had been observed? My stomach churned thinking that Thierry and I had been spotted together. Gideon was being all gift-giving and amiable right now, but I knew better than to push him.

“I had a great time,” I replied. “Amy set me up on a blind date. But don’t go getting all jealous. He’s in human resources. And it’s very possible he prefers men.”

“How is the Red Devil?” he asked evenly. “He stopped you from giving in to your nightwalker instincts, right?”

I spy with my little eye… somebody that is screwed.

“He’s just peachy.” I touched my chain. “Obviously when trying to keep her dark side at bay, a lady should never leave home without her accessories, should she?”

“Why is he here?”

“He’s not much of a talker.”

“What does he look like?”

I chewed my bottom lip. “He was wearing a mask. Plus, I was dealing with a little case of bloodlust at the time, so my vision was a tad fuzzy. He’s tall, that’s all I know.”

“You need to be very careful around him.”

That surprised me. “Around him? This advice coming from the man who bankrolls the wooden stake carriers of America?”

“If this is the true Red Devil, then he is very dangerous. Very unpredictable. I know a great deal about him, enough to know he’s a threat to anyone who crosses his path.”

“So am I when I’m not wearing my chain.”

“It’s different. The Red Devil, whoever he really is, has killed many over his long lifetime—both hunters and vampires. It would have been safer for everyone if he’d stayed away.” He shook his head at my skeptical look. “I know you see hunters, including me, as evil, but I think you know very well that it’s not always the case. There are many hunters who only want to keep the world safe from evil predators.”

“The Red Devil is not an evil predator,” I said firmly.

“Are you sure about that?” He walked to the other side of the room to look out at the view past the balcony. His newly perfected reflection showed up in the glass door. I shifted my feet but didn’t answer him. I really didn’t know the Red Devil from Adam, as the saying went. All I knew was that Thierry trusted him. Thierry. If he knew I was having a friendly convo with Gideon in his hotel room, all alone,

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he’d probably have a conniption.

“I do have something else for you,” Gideon said. “I wasn’t going to mention it yet, but since you didn’t like my earrings…”

“I won’t like anything else you got off the Shopping Network, either. Just an FYI.”

He shrugged. “Maybe you’re right. It’s nothing really. Only the grimoire of the witch who cursed you. The book in which she recorded all of her spells, including the one she used on you.”

All the breath left me in a rush. That was the last thing I had expected him to say. “The witch you killed, you mean.”

“She was evil,” he said firmly.

“And it’s great that you’ve appointed yourself judge, jury, and executioner.”

“You’re entitled to your opinion. But it doesn’t change the fact that I have her magic book. And in it is the incantation to remove that pesky little curse of yours.”

My heartbeat quickened. “You’re kidding me.”

He shook his head. “Not kidding.”

“Where is it?” I scanned the room.

“Somewhere safe. And you can have it for giving me something in return.”

I eyed him with equal parts skepticism and hope. “What do you want?”

“The Red Devil.”

My stomach did a backflip worthy of an Olympic gymnast. “What do you want with him?”

“You’re not that naïve, Sarah.”

I raised my eyebrows. “You obviously overestimate me.”

“I want to slay him. I want to stop him from doing any harm to others now that he’s chosen to return to the public eye.”

“So the only way you’ll give me the grimoire is if I help you kill the Red Devil?” I wanted to make sure I understood him properly.

“That’s right.”

My small piece of shiny hope flittered away. “Don’t you have more important things to be thinking about right now?”

He let out a long, shaky sigh. “Actually, I could use the distraction. I need a new challenge to concentrate on. To defeat the Red Devil—a vampire whose reputation others have raised to mythic proportions—would be my greatest accomplishment.” He blinked. “Other than that demon in Vegas, of course. As you can probably imagine, it’s not exactly a memory I currently cherish.”

The grimoire. The answer to all of my nightwalker problems. “I don’t know, Gideon—”

“Damn.” He groaned, then staggered back a few feet and clutched at his face. “Why did I have to mention it?”

Before I could say anything else, he cried out and fell to his knees on the plush carpet of the suite. It was the hellfire. Gideon convulsed in pain as he fought against the flames that couldn’t be seen, only felt.

I stood, frozen in place, feeling sick as I watched him suffer. I pressed up against the door, wanting to leave, but finding it difficult to move.

“What should I do?” I asked.

“Nothing.” His voice caught as a shudder went through him. His teeth were gritted. I was willing to bet my bottom dollar that nobody had ever seen Gideon like this before. So

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weak and needy and pathetic. The thought didn’t make me feel the least bit better.

“Maybe I can call a doctor—” I offered lamely.

He looked up at me with glassy eyes. “I don’t want you to see me like this.” When I didn’t budge, he raised his voice. “Leave me! Now!”

“Fine with me.” I turned around, opened the door, and left Gideon alone to his suffering and solitude.

I didn’t care if he was in pain. This was the man who held my life in his hands and was forcing me to do what he wanted.

I hated him.

And, even more than that, I hated the small part of me that didn’t hate him. It was very inconvenient.

Chapter 4

Maybe I should have taken the diamond earrings after all. No. I pushed the thought away. In fact, I tried very hard to push away all my thoughts about Gideon, his pain, his plans, and his new scar-free but still evil face. My thoughts, however, had other plans as they continued to churn through my tired cranium. I left the hotel and walked quickly down the sidewalk, my arms crossed tightly over my chest. I wanted to call Thierry and go see him, but I couldn’t. Which sucked. Besides, I really didn’t want him to find out that I was seeing Gideon on a regular basis behind his back.

I’d fully planned on tonight being the last time I came to his hotel like an obedient Girl Scout, but now he’d presented me with something I couldn’t simply forget even if I wanted to.

The grimoire. Did he really have it or was he just messing with me?

Was the Red Devil really as bad as Gideon suggested? I mean, I had figured he didn’t go around giving people fashion advice or handing out gift certificates. He was an immortal vigilante, after all. It was possible that he’d done some super-nasty things in his life to achieve his reputation—things that I might even consider evil. But was that enough proof to stick an apple in his mouth and offer up his head on a platter just so I could get what I wanted?

I felt sick at the thought. I wished I could be a little more heartless. Just a smidge. Nice girls don’t get the corner office, after all. They get trampled on. And, well, cursed. Speaking of heads-on-platters, I sensed something then. It was strange. I didn’t actually hear any footsteps and I didn’t see anyone, but on a deeper kind of vampire-sense level I felt that someone was following me. The sensation of ants doing a conga line down my arms was a tipoff.

And I had a funny feeling I knew who it was.

“I figured you’d be better at the stalking thing,” I said a little shakily to the silence as I approached the nearest bus stop. There was no one else around. “But you’re definitely no ninja, are you?”

“I guess I’m a bit rusty.” The Red Devil’s voice sounded strange, as if he was trying to make it sound lower and raspier than it really was. Maybe he had a cold. Did vampires get colds? I made a mental note to Google that later. I didn’t turn to look at him. I was too busy feeling a tug-of-war of emotions. On one side I

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was wary of him after what Gideon said. On the other side I was still embarrassed about what had happened earlier with the fledgling.

Bottom line, the night had only reminded me how terrible my curse was and how desperately I wanted it to be ancient history.

If the Red Devil hadn’t stopped me earlier—

A shudder ran through me at the thought.

“Who did you just visit?” he asked.

Uh oh. I’d forgotten about my new bodyguard when I’d casually sauntered into the lair of the vampire hunter.

“My aunt,” I said quickly. “She’s in town for a few days.”

“You’re lying. Tell me who you saw.”

The jury was out on whether this guy was bad news or not, but he wasn’t making a great second impression on me. “None of your business.”

“Your safety is my business.”

“Thierry must be paying you very well.”

He didn’t say anything for a moment. “Is Gideon staying here?”

Busted. The Red Devil was bossy, but insightful. I made a mental note. I licked my dry lips nervously. I still didn’t want to turn my head and meet his masked face. “Look, I know I shouldn’t be here. I know it’s dangerous and whatever. But it’s not as bad as you think. He wanted me to pick something up for him and I did. That’s all.”

“You’ve done this before tonight as well?”

“A couple of times.” I hesitated. “But there’s no reason you need to tell Thierry about this. Or about what happened in the alley earlier. I don’t want him to be worried.”

“You keep a lot of secrets from him, do you?” His voice was cold. I swallowed. “Unfortunately, I have to.”

“I see.”

“No, you don’t. You don’t know him. He’d take this totally the wrong way.”

There was no reply.

I chanced a look over my shoulder. There was no one there anymore. Leaving right in the middle of an awkward, unfriendly conversation? That was rather rude. Who was that masked vamp, anyhow? I wondered as I waited at the bus stop. I planned to catch a ride back home to the small house George and I shared, even though I had yet to give him any rent money.

I wondered where the Red Devil had been hiding out for a hundred years. What made him stop helping people? What made him return? Thierry wouldn’t tell me anything, but I was burning with curiosity.

Would he tell Thierry that he’d seen me leaving Gideon’s hotel? I sure hoped not. I’d tell Thierry the next time I saw him. Get it out in the open and deal with his reaction then. I’d also tell him about Gideon’s bargain—the Red Devil for the grimoire. I’d originally wanted to wait until my issues with Gideon had been resolved before I dealt with the curse, but now I saw that there was no time to waste. I had to de-curse myself or somebody was going to get hurt. It was only a matter of time. But was his nausea-inducing deal the only way to save myself? Had I completely painted myself into a corner when it came to dealing with my thirsty nightwalker?

My life had become one big sensible-footwear-owning question mark.

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George wasn’t home when I arrived, but someone else was.

“Twice in one night?” I said. “I’m a lucky girl.”

Thierry was waiting for me inside the little house. Silently. In the dark. You know, like a regular, everyday boyfriend.

I moved toward him for a kiss, but stopped in my tracks when the look on his face registered with me. He rarely showed any emotion. I’d trained myself to read him pretty well, but even I ran into difficulties when he got all expressionless. He wasn’t expressionless at the moment. He looked angry.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” he asked.

Oh, damn. The Red Devil was a total gossip ghoul.

Maybe he had a blog and a Facebook page, too.

“About what?” I decided to play coy even though I knew it was pointless.

“You’ve been seeing Gideon, but haven’t mentioned it to me. I was under the impression you hadn’t seen him since that first night. That you didn’t have to see him again until the full moon.”

I threw my purse and coat onto the sofa, trying to seem at ease when I felt anything but. “I have to see him. If I don’t do what he says then he might go all homicidal and kill everyone like he threatened to, remember?”

“So he’s forcing you to come to his hotel against your will?”

“No, he’s not exactly forcing me.” Damn, this was complicated. And it was all my fault.

“He actually asks politely. It’s not a big deal.”

“If it wasn’t a big deal you would have told me about it.”

“In the three or four minutes we have together these days?”

“The reason we can’t be together at the moment is his threats. Or do you forget that small detail?”

“I don’t forget it for a moment.”

He shook his head. “Gideon is well known for his ability to charm others. Don’t let him make you believe he is anything other than a killer.”

“I haven’t forgotten that.”

“You haven’t?” His brow furrowed and his hard expression finally softened. “I know you have a great capacity for compassion, Sarah. Don’t let that get in the way of your better judgment.”

“It’s not. I wish the Red Devil hadn’t told you.”

“I’m glad he did.” He drew closer to me and stroked his cool hand against my flushed cheek. “He told me about what happened with the fledgling as well.”

I cringed. “That I went insane and almost tore her throat out?”

He shook his head. “That you tried to help her.”

“And then I tried to tear her throat out.” I hugged him tightly and inhaled the light, spicy scent of his familiar cologne.

“But you didn’t.”

“Only thanks to Red. Whoever he is.” I looked up at him. “Are you going to tell me more about him?”

“Perhaps he will remain as much a secret as your meetings with Gideon Chase have been.”

There was a strange edge to his words.

I raised my eyebrows. “Don’t tell me for one moment that that’s jealousy I hear.”

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He leveled his gray gaze with my own. “I know all too well that you have a soft spot for hunters you feel you might be able to redeem.”

I tensed in his arms. “Gideon isn’t redeemable.”

“And you mustn’t ever forget that.” He brushed his mouth against mine in a kiss that helped me stop thinking about all of my problems for a moment.

“Can you stay tonight?” I whispered against Thierry’s lips.

“Do you want me to?”

I slid my hand under his shirt to feel his warm skin. “Very much.”

A smile twitched on his lips. “Then—”

There was the sound of a key in the door and his gaze flicked to it.

“—unfortunately it will have to wait for another time.” Thierry’s smile faded. “Please be careful, Sarah. And please don’t see Gideon again alone. It’s too dangerous.”

The next moment he was gone from my arms and the room. George entered the house and looked at me standing in the dark all by myself. “Oh, hey. Feeling better?”

I sighed. “Until I was interrupted.”

“Did you have fun with the mysterious Mr. G?” he asked and waggled his eyebrows. I forced a smile. “So much fun they should lock me up and throw away the key.”

“Well, I’d love to hear the details, but I’m exhausted. As Scarlett says, tomorrow is another day.”

It was. And I wasn’t entirely convinced that was a good thing. The next morning, I felt something poke me in the shoulder and it yanked me out of a perfect, dreamless sleep. I liked perfect, dreamless sleeps. They were my favorites and very rare these days in my usual sea of nightmares. I pulled the covers off my face and glared at my intruder.

George smiled down at me. “Morning, sunshine.”

“What is it?”

He had the cordless phone in his hand. “It’s your friend Claire. She says it’s urgent.”

That jolted me the rest of the way awake. I grabbed the phone. “Claire? What’s going on?”

“Sarah, I have good news. I found someone who can help you.”

Claire was an old high-school friend of mine who had been present at the reunion when I’d been cursed. Since she was also a witch, she’d done her best to help, but it hadn’t worked out. She left to go home to Niagara Falls with the promise she’d keep trying.

“You have no idea how happy I am to hear that.” My heart was already doing a Rockette kick of joy at the thought I might not be dependent on Gideon to break my curse.

“He’s a wizard and he can see you today. He’s moving somewhere in Europe really soon, so you need to get your butt over to Mississauga while he’s still in this country.”

I jotted down the info she gave me, a phone number and directions to the place, which was twenty minutes west of Toronto. “This is fantastic. How did you find him?”

“Honestly? On Craigslist. But he’s completely reputable. He specializes in breaking curses and his track record is amazing. Or so he says. The best part is he’ll only charge you two thousand bucks.”

My eyes widened. “That’s a lot of money.”

“Trust me, these kinds of things normally cost way more.”

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“You wouldn’t happen to have two thousand dollars I can borrow, do you?”

She laughed at that. “Sorry, no. Why don’t you ask your dreamboat of a boyfriend for the money? He looked like he was loaded.”

I cleared my throat. “We broke up.”

She actually gasped. “But you seemed perfect for each other.”

“You are the only person I know of who thinks that.” I glanced at George, who stood nearby with a curious expression. “We’re not together anymore. I’m moving on. Know any rich master vampires you want to set me up with?”

“Don’t forget dark and miserable,” George added.

“Can’t say that I do,” Claire replied. “But maybe this wizard is single. He sounds nice enough in the e-mails we’ve exchanged.”

“Thank you so much for this, Claire. I’ll let you know how it all turns out.” When I clicked off the phone I looked up at George. “Doing anything today?”

He raised his eyebrows. “Am I possibly chauffeuring your non-car-owning self somewhere?”

I nodded. “But you don’t have to if you don’t want to. It’s only the difference between my future happiness and utter, complete misery.”

He looked torn. “I have a job interview later.”

“The strip club?”

“It’s a nightclub with male entertainment. ‘Strip club’ makes it sound so tawdry.”

“I’ve been there. It is tawdry.”

“I know, isn’t it great? Unfortunately I’m just interviewing to be a waiter, not the talent. I apparently have no rhythm.” He sighed. “But one can dream.”

I glanced at my digital clock. It was 9:00 A.M. “We’ll be back by noon. At the latest.”

“Promise?”

“Cross my broken, cursed heart.”

“Okay, get dressed. We’ll leave in ten minutes.”

I felt a jolt of something. I think it was happiness. I wouldn’t know. It had been a long time since I’d felt that particular emotion in such a pure and undiluted sense. I kind of liked it.

“First we have to stop by Amy’s,” I told him. “I need to ask her for something.”

“What?”

“A loan of two thousand bucks. Unless you want to spot me the cash.”

“Amy’s it is,” he replied quickly.

A half hour later we pulled up at the curb across from my friend’s house. I tried not to get too excited at the prospect of breaking my curse but had a difficult time staying relaxed. This could be it. A substantial loan of money away from being relatively normal again. Without wasting any time, I bounded up to her front door and rang the doorbell. George decided to wait in the car.

A few moments later the door slowly opened inward. I gazed at the interior of Amy’s small townhome and then looked down.

Barry Jordan glared up at me.

All you need to know about Barry is that he became Amy’s husband after they fell in love and he sired her on their first date. He was short. Short, short. He had a tendency to wear small tuxedos and angry expressions, although at the moment he wore a royal-blue

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bathrobe and an angry expression.

He was also Thierry’s… I guess manservant was as good a term as any. They’d known each other for three hundred years, since Thierry had rescued Barry from being displayed and abused in a traveling fair. This act had won Barry’s fierce loyalty from that moment forward.

Oh, and Barry hated my guts with a fiery passion.

From nearly the first moment we met he thought I was trouble, an opportunist, and a gold digger. Not necessarily in that order.

I wondered if he’d be willing to loan me some cash.

“You,” he said ominously.

“Well, hello there,” I replied, deciding it was best not to provoke him in any way. Too much rode on everything going swimmingly today. “Might I speak with your lovely wife for a moment?”

“She’s not here. She’s getting her nails done.” He glared at me with distaste. “Go away.”

He was giving me the evil eye so intensely it burned a bit. It was really too bad that the moment he started to believe I was genuinely in love with Thierry I’d had to “break up”

with him, thereby confirming Barry’s original opinion of me. Oh, well. Can’t win ’em all.

“Who’s there, Barry?” a familiar voice said, and Thierry stepped into the front foyer. Our eyes met and held.

As far as Barry knew, this was the first time we’d seen each other since we officially ended our relationship. Even Barry, who I knew wouldn’t betray Thierry for any price, couldn’t be trusted with this info. There was too much at risk. I really wanted to run to Thierry and throw my arms around him and finish what we had only barely started last night. I wanted to tell him about the grimoire and the appointment with the wizard today. But I couldn’t say anything out loud. Too bad, really. He was a total ringer for the money. I wasn’t a gold digger, seriously I wasn’t. But come on. The man I loved wore a different black, tailored Hugo Boss suit every single day. That had to count for something, didn’t it? Other than a high-end, yet oddly monochromatic taste in clothing.

“It’s nobody, master,” Barry said pointedly. “And nobody was just leaving.”

Oh, that was subtle.

I tore my eyes away from Thierry as someone else came into view. Someone wearing a red dress, with long raven-colored hair, perfectly applied makeup and flawless ivory skin.

“Sarah, my dear.” A smile spread across Veronique’s perfect face. She glanced at Thierry.

“Is this an awkward moment?”

Why, yes it is, thank you for asking.

Thierry didn’t move his gaze from mine. “Not at all. Sarah and I have chosen to go our separate ways. There is nothing to be awkward about.”

“And she’s leaving,” Barry said again. I resisted the urge to kick him sharply and make him cry.

“I have been very curious,” Veronique began. “Whose idea was it for your relationship, short as it was, to end?”

“Mine,” Thierry and I said in unison. He raised a dark eyebrow at me.

“It was a mutual decision,” I clarified quickly.

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Veronique’s impeccably arched brows drew together. “It’s very strange to me. One moment you,” she nodded at Thierry, “are asking me for an annulment, and you,” she glanced at me, “are proclaiming your deep and earnest love for my husband—”

I always cringed when she used that word.

“—and the very same night your love affair ends.” She tilted her head to the side. “Very strange, wouldn’t you say?”

Great. All we needed was Veronique doubting our story. Talk about the beginning of the end. If there was one person I didn’t trust to keep it quiet, it would be her. “Strange but true. What can I say? Can’t stand him now. I’m flaky like that.”

There was silence for a long, torturous moment as she inspected me as if I was a slimy but curious specimen under a microscope.

“Is it true that you’ve met with the Red Devil recently?” she asked. My cheeks warmed. I guess there was no way to keep what happened a secret. It only brought back my shame at not being able to control myself. It was the reason today had to work out. I needed this curse gone. Even now with the gold chain firmly in place around my neck, I felt it there, lurking in the shadows of my mind, like a thick black poison waiting patiently for the perfect opportunity to take over again. I cleared my throat. “I met with him just for a moment. It was no big deal.”

“Are you certain of that?” Thierry asked.

“Yup. He’s in town again and wanted to say hello.”

And stop me from murdering people. And be my bodyguard. Etcetera. I raised my eyes to look at Thierry again. He hadn’t taken his focus off me. His neutral gaze betrayed a sliver of concern.

Would Veronique and Barry notice if I went directly over to him and kissed him?

Wrapped my arms around him and told him how much I missed him and how I couldn’t wait until this was all over?

Yeah, they’d probably notice. They were all observant like that.

“So what’s going on here this morning?” I asked, wanting desperately to change the subject. “A vampire version of The Breakfast Club?”

“It’s none of your business what we’re doing,” Barry replied sharply. “Like I told you earlier, Amy isn’t here. Therefore there’s no reason for you to be, either.”

Again, I resisted the urge to kick him. “You’re right.”

No Amy. No money. No curse breaking.

“It is time for me to leave as well.” Veronique air kissed Thierry on both cheeks and then did the same to Barry.

“Good-bye, Sarah,” Thierry said evenly.

After he gave me one last deep, searching look, so deep that I actually felt it as if it were the brush of his lips against mine—I had a very good imagination—I turned and left. The door clicked shut behind me and Veronique the moment we stepped outside, and I heard the lock turn. Barry wasn’t taking any chances of me sneaking back in. Veronique studied me intently. “One of my many talents is the ability to read people. I read you as being in love with my husband. Even now I see such longing and regret in your eyes.”

At least she wasn’t treating me like a complete smelly piece of garbage, as Barry had. Her demeanor toward me seemed the same as always—dismissive, but vaguely curious.

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I forced a shrug. “What can I say? The man is easy on the eyes. But it doesn’t change anything.” I hesitated. “Besides, I’m sure there have been tons of women who’ve fallen for Thierry in the past, right?”

I regretted asking it as soon as the words left my mouth, feeling a stab of jealousy at the thought of other women in Thierry’s life. Knowing he was married was enough of a cross to bear.

“Of course,” Veronique said simply.

I swallowed. “Oh.”

“However,” she continued, “this annulment nonsense has never been mentioned before. I still wonder what exactly got into him to even broach that subject after so long. If I didn’t know better, I would have assumed he meant for you to have a future together.” She looked at me for a moment. “Are you all right, my dear? You’ve become rather pale suddenly.”

Any mention of my future with Thierry tended to make me feel a bit woozy around the edges. That’s what I wanted. Despite our multitude of problems, I wanted to be with him, and everything currently happening seemed tailor-made to keep us apart. It’s like I was fighting fate itself. I never really believed in the concept before, but I’d lately come to learn that fate was one hell of a mean beeyotch.

“I’m fine. I’m just a bit distracted today.” I glanced over at George’s car. He’d hunched down in the seat a bit so he was mostly out of view, except for the top of his sandy-blond head and sunglass-covered eyes peering over the edge of the driver’s-side window like

“Kilroy Was Here.” Veronique intimidated him, so avoidance was his preferred course of action.

“Distracted because of… your little curse, perhaps?” she asked. Everyone knew about my problems. I guess when your problem was turning black-eyed and scary as hell, that was a given.

I nodded. “It actually has everything to do with my curse. But there’s more than that on my mind, as well.”

“Like the Red Devil? You truly saw him?”

“In the flesh.” I nodded. “And mask.”

Another glance at the car showed George was beckoning for me to wrap things up with Veronique. Time was money, after all. Money I didn’t currently have. Would the wizard only see me today? When exactly was he moving out of the country? Why was nothing ever easy?

Veronique’s expression lit up. “The Red Devil is magnificent, isn’t he? I wonder if he’s exactly the same as when he saved my life so long ago—so strong and brave and handsome.”

“And dangerous?” I asked, thinking of Gideon’s assessment. “And deadly?”

“All of those things.” She let out a strange little sigh of contentment. “I would assume he’s a magnificent lover as well, wouldn’t you agree?”

Oh, boy. I glanced at my naked wrist. “Wow, look at the time. I really need to get going.”

“So many years have passed,” she continued, undeterred, “I wonder if he’d still remember me? Well, of course he would. Perhaps we could begin again where we left off.”

“I don’t see why not.” I took a few determined steps toward the car. Veronique was difficult to get away from once she’d started chatting about her favorite subject—herself.

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“In non-Red-Devil-related news, I’ve found somebody who might be able to remove my curse.”

She reached forward and squeezed my hand. “That’s wonderful, my dear. Such an unpleasant thing, curses are. I really don’t recommend them.”

“I totally agree.”

She frowned at me. “For such good news you seem rather distraught. Is there a problem?”

I chewed my bottom lip. “Actually, there is. There’s a cost associated with the curse removal. If I can’t pay for it, the wizard is moving soon and I’ll be out of luck. Being that I’m el broko, I don’t really know what to do.”

“How much is it?”

“Two thousand bucks.”

“That sounds reasonable.” She reached into her Prada bag. “Will hundred-dollar bills be acceptable?”

My eyes widened and I was about to say something to protest, but my hand jutted out as if it had a mind of its own. She counted out twenty one-hundred-dollar bills into it from the Banque de Veronique.

“I… I can’t take your money,” I stuttered.

She closed my hand over the wad of cash. “Of course you can. And you will. And you will rid yourself of this horrible burden once and for all.”

I felt tears welling inside me. Scratch every bad thing I’d ever said or thought about Veronique, she was incredibly warm, selfless, caring, generous—

“And you will thank me by setting up a meeting between myself and the Red Devil,” she said, “so we can become lovers.”

—and rather horny, apparently.

I looked from her to the cash, and back again. Then I shoved the bills into my purse. “I’m sure you’ll make a lovely couple.”

“You must also find a new lover. A vampire’s life can be very long and very lonely.” She pressed her full red lips together for a wistful moment. “It is best to share it with someone special if you can.”

“I totally agree.” I looked back at Barry’s house, picturing Thierry inside. So near and yet so far. “Unfortunately, love can sometimes be a bit complicated.”

I noticed that Barry stood at the front window. He gave me the finger. A half hour later I rang the doorbell at the address Claire had given me.

“This is great,” George said when I glanced nervously at him. “I can finally get rid of the stun gun I carry around at all times to protect myself from your dark side.”

“Very funny.”

“Actually… I’m not joking.”

I touched my gold chain. I wasn’t close to relaxing about this. Not until it was done. But at least I had the money. I’d play matchmaker between Veronique and the Red Devil even though I wasn’t totally sure I trusted him. It was so worth it if this worked out. A moment later, the door opened and a young kid, probably around fourteen years old, looked out at us. He had long, stringy dark hair, and a morose expression. He wore a black T-shirt with a picture of a morose-looking, stringy-haired rock band on it.

“What?” he asked, succeeding in making the single word sound as unfriendly as possible. I frowned and looked down at the address I’d scrawled on a yellow sticky note. “I’m

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looking for a Steven Kendall.”

“For what?”

My jaw clenched, but I forced a smile. “A business matter. Is that your father? Can you get him for me? It’s kind of urgent.”

He studied me through narrowed eyes. “Are you the vampire?”

I glanced at George, then back at the kid. “Vampire?”

He rolled his eyes. “Well, are you or aren’t you?”

I swallowed. “I am. But I’m a nice one, I promise.”

“Depends on the day, really,” George said from next to me. I elbowed him in the ribs. The kid opened the door wider. “Come in, but we’re going to have to make this quick. My mom’s at the grocery store and she’ll be back soon.”

“And your father?”

“Last time I checked, he was dead,” the kid said without any emotion. “And if he knows what’s good for him, he’ll stay that way.”

“Okay.” I blinked slowly. “So, that leads me to believe that you’re Steven.”

“I don’t go by that name. You need to call me The Darkness.”

“The Darkness,” I repeated.

“That’s right.”

“Maybe I’ll just wait in the car,” George said, but I hooked my arm in his and dragged him into the bungalow. I wasn’t facing “The Darkness” without him. The wizard Claire had found was a teenager. An obviously hate-filled, Goth-boy Harry Potter.

I could deal. It would be fine. After all, it’s not as though I had much of a choice in the matter. This had to work. If it didn’t, my only option to break my curse was to hand the Red Devil over to Gideon and get the grimoire. But since I’d already agreed to hand him over to Veronique, his schedule was already very full.

“You have the money?” the kid asked.

I nodded.

“Then follow me.” He led us down a flight of creaky stairs to a basement with wood paneling and a deer head mounted on the wall. An orange vinyl couch lined the opposite wall and a chipped imitation wood coffee table sat blandly on top of a white, retro shag throw rug. There were piles of packing boxes everywhere, a sign of The Darkness’s upcoming move. Other than that, a hundred candles flickered—a fire hazard that I chose not to comment on—strategically placed leading toward a desk holding a computer tower and monitor.

“Money first,” The Darkness said, holding out his hand. I clung onto George’s arm. “I’m going to be really up front with you. I was expecting somebody older. I don’t want to get scammed here.”

“You have a curse.” He sat down in front of the computer and tapped away on the keyboard for a moment. “I can eradicate it for you. Wipe it away completely.”

I glanced at George, who shifted his feet uncomfortably, then returned my attention to the teenager, who looked over his shoulder at us. “So it’s some kind of a reversal spell?”

“Not exactly.”

My stomach dropped. “Then what are we doing here?”

He rolled his eyes again. “Reversal spells are unstable magic and they’re not my thing.

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When dealing with another witch’s spells or curses, I have to go deeper with my own magic.”

“What exactly does that mean?” George asked.

The kid leaned back in the chair, swiveled around, and studied me, starting at my feet, up my jeans to my purple blouse. He stopped and blatantly stared at my breasts for about ten full seconds. I crossed my arms over my chest.

“Hello?” I prompted. “Earth to The Darkness.”

“I get half the money now,” he said. “Half when it’s done. But you’ll have to give the money to your friend so I can make sure I’ll get it.”

“What do you mean, ‘make sure you’ll get it’? If the spell works, then I’ll pay you. Believe me, you will have earned every penny as far as I’m concerned.”

He shook his head and forked his fingers through his greasy hair. “I already told you, this isn’t a spell, it’s an eradication. I have to use dark magic for this, that’s why it’s not cheap.”

“Why is an eradication different from a spell?” George asked. The kid glanced at his computer screen again. Even the website he had his browser set to looked creepy—skulls, caskets, black background, purple text. A laser eye surgery waiting to happen.

“I’ve never done one on a vampire before. I’m pretty excited about it.” Excited or not, his expression didn’t change from sullen. “An eradication is taking a handful of black magic, shoving it into the subject’s very soul, and scooping out the curse.”

I shuddered. “Sounds like a macabre trip to Baskin-Robbins.”

“There will be side effects, of course.”

Claire hadn’t mentioned anything like that. “What kind of side effects?”

“Sit down.”

“I’m not so sure about—”

“You want this curse gone, or what?” He looked annoyed with all my questions now.

“Like I said, my mother is going to be back any minute, and if she catches me doing another eradication then I’m going to be grounded.” He touched his rock band T-shirt.

“And if I miss seeing Death Suck in concert this week I’m going to kill myself.”

I sat down on the vinyl couch and it squeaked in protest. Then I handed George the money, which he folded and slid into his pocket.

“If anything goes wrong,” he said. “I promise to spend this on a fabulous flower arrangement for your funeral.”

“Very funny.”

“Again… not really joking. But let’s hope for the best, shall we?”

The Darkness brought a black candle over to me and he waved it slowly in front of my face, so close for a moment that I felt my eyelashes singe. I jerked back from him. Then he dragged a chair over so he was facing me.

“I need to concentrate,” he announced.

“Are you going to tell me what the side effects are, or what?”

“I will,” he snapped. “God, be patient, would you? Old people are so annoying.”

I gritted my teeth. I would be patient with this little Emo-with-Attitude. I would. If I could get rid of my curse, I could be the most patient person in the universe. However, I felt the stress welling up inside me and ready to burst out of my chest. It took all my

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concentration to stay calm.

Could he do it? Could he “eradicate” my curse? A line of perspiration slipped down my spine like a waterslide at an unamusement park.

Relax, I commanded myself. Try to stay calm and think positive thoughts. I strained my mind and focused on an image of Thierry in a tuxedo. And me in a big, white, expensive gown. Getting married in a big, fancy church. It was one of my favorite calming fantasies.

Ommm.

“Half the money.” He stretched out a hand to George, who counted off a thousand dollars and gave it to the kid.

“Okay.” The Darkness closed his eyes and then breathed out through his mouth. The scent of SpaghettiOs hit the air. “I need to concentrate. I need to allow the dark magic to fill me.”

For a long, disappointing moment, I doubted this kid was anything other than a teenage scam artist. It was worth a try, but I felt that nothing would come of this. It was too easy. I appreciated Claire for trying, but this was too good to be true. I was about to stand up, grab Veronique’s money back, and walk out of the house instead of wasting any more of my time.

Besides, what would Thierry say about this little situation I’d gotten myself into? It was best he never found out about this, either. Unless it worked. In which case I might throw a small party to celebrate.

The candle’s flame flickered and turned blue. I inhaled sharply as the temperature in the room cooled about twenty degrees in five seconds.

The Darkness nodded slowly. “I see the price beyond money that you must pay. Performing this eradication will remove half a year of life.”

A chill went through me. “Which means what?”

“The results are specific to the subject; in this case, you. Six months will be gone and with it everything that happened during that time. Any injuries, any illness, all of it will leave your body forever. It will still be today, but you’ll be like you were then.”

I looked at George as my heart slammed inside my chest. My eyes were so wide I could feel them quickly drying out. “Does that mean what I think it does?”

His eyes were just as wide. “I don’t know.”

I reached forward and poked The Darkness in the chest. “A lot has happened to me over the last few months.”

He nodded without opening his eyes. “I can feel it. The curse is not the only thing that will be removed. There is also the fresh vampire virus inside you.”

Was this kid saying that when he eradicated the curse, I wouldn’t be a vampire anymore?

The light from the candle flickered against his face. “When I eradicate the curse, you won’t be a vampire anymore.”

Okay. I guess that’s exactly what he was saying.

Chapter 5

My cure. This was it.

Holy crap.

In the beginning, adjusting to vampire life was so traumatic for me that I’d latched on to

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the rumor that there was a cure. The journey had led me to a whole heap of trouble, but didn’t result in anything but disappointment when I learned there was no real cure for vampirism. Once you were infected, that’s just the way it was. Forever fanged.

But this wasn’t a cure. It was an eradication. A completely clean slate, an erasing of everything that had happened to me. Along with getting rid of my curse, I would become human again.

No more worrying about getting staked by an overzealous hunter. No more pointy teeth. No more drinking blood to survive.

I’d get my reflection back. I could eat solid food. I’d have the chance to live a normal life and not need to fret about finding a vampires-only club to hang out at that served my favorite blood type.

“This is great, Sarah,” George said. “I know it’s what you’ve wanted all along.”

Of course it was.

This was seriously too good to be true. Which meant only one thing.

“What’s the catch?” I asked.

The Darkness’s eyes were still closed. “The catch?”

“I go through with this and it removes my curse and my inner vamp.”

“And six months of your life.”

Then it dawned on me. “My memories will be gone, won’t they? Everything that’s happened to me in the past six months.”

“That’s right.”

My heart sank down to my toes. It was one thing to come here looking for the solution for my nightwalker curse. The cure for vampirism was a gift with purchase. But losing my memories of everything that had happened to me as well?

Including everyone I’d met. Everything I’d experienced. Everything that had changed me, for better or worse, into the person I was today?

And aside from that fact, if Gideon found out that I’d played deal or no deal with Gothboy to get rid of the part of me that he was counting on to cure his own problems—and I no longer even remembered who he was in the first place…

He probably wouldn’t take that news very well. Call it a hunch. He wouldn’t be trying to give me jewelry then. He’d be following through with his threats—whether or not I remembered who he was or why he was doing it. Rock and a hard place. My new sucktastic address.

“Listen… Darkness—”

“It’s The Darkness.”

“Whatever. Can we adjust this? Any way we can just lose the curse, and maybe come back later for the other stuff if I happen to have a change of heart?”

His eyes snapped open. I drew in a breath and grabbed George’s hand when I saw that his eyes, even the whites, were fully dark red. I guess he really was a wizard after all. Normal eyes didn’t do that. Obviously.

“You’re joking, right?” he snapped.

“Uh… no. I’m not.”

“Look, lady, this is a one-shot deal. You pay me, I do the eradication. You leave. Besides, this sort of black magic doesn’t usually work in a browse-now-pay-later way. It’s already

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assessed you. If you don’t do it now, you’re tainted.”

“Tainted?”

“Yeah. Which means if I try this again, there’s a good chance the demonic power I’m channeling might mess me up. Badly. We’re talking a lobotomy and a whole lot of drooling. Even if you weren’t tainted, my mom and me are moving to Germany and we’re not coming back. I’m just lucky she’s letting me stay to see the Death Suck concert. After that, it’s all over.”

“Maybe you should go for it, Sarah,” George said. “What’s the difference of a few memories for something this major?”

“Speak up soon.” The Darkness’s voice was even less friendly than it had been before.

“Because the moment this candle goes out, the deal is off.”

George squeezed my hand. “You can get rid of your curse. Poof. Gone. That alone is worth it, don’t you think? Don’t you want to forget all this and be normal again?”

He didn’t know the reason I was stalling. He thought the idea of losing my memories was my only reason for hesitating.

Every possible scenario raced through my mind like a bat out of hell. My head ached. I really wished I could think of another solution, but there wasn’t one. Not today. Not tomorrow. Possibly, not ever again.

“I guess normal—” My voice sounded as strained as I felt “—doesn’t live here anymore.”

I blew out the candle.

The Darkness, otherwise known as the Germany-bound Death Suck fanboy Steven Kendall, pitched a hissy fit when I asked for the thousand-dollar retainer back. We left without it. George pulled his car away from the curb just as the wizard’s mother drove up to the house.

That wasn’t very much fun. To say the least.

I was disappointed. It was as if a piece of chocolate cake—cake that could solve all of my problems—had been dangled deliciously in front of my face a moment before I was reminded I was one of the vampires who couldn’t eat solid food. Wiping away six months of my memories was a much heavier price than two thousand dollars. At least money could be paid back.

Forget about six months. It was the last three months that had contained some of the worst moments of my life. But they’d also had some of the best. If I hadn’t become a vampire, I wouldn’t have met Thierry. Or George.

Or Barry.

Well, at least there was one bright spot.

My cell phone vibrated, and I grabbed it out of my purse to look at the screen. G CALLING.

The day was not looking up.

I considered letting it go to voicemail, but then with a glance at George, whose attention was firmly fixed on the Gardiner Expressway, I pressed the talk button.

“Yes?” I began.

“Did your appointment with the young wizard go well?” Gideon asked. The hair on my arms raised. He seemed to know almost every move I made as if he had supernatural powers instead of spies. It was so unnerving. “It didn’t.”

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“You’re still cursed?”

“Afraid so.”

“Who is it?” George asked, reaching over to lower the volume on the radio. “Is it Amy?”

“Nope,” I told him. “Definitely not Amy.”

“Amy’s having a facial right now after receiving a French manicure,” Gideon informed me.

“At a quaint little spa slash hair salon called Studio V. She tips exactly 15 percent, in case you were wondering.”

A vampires-only business probably wouldn’t be thrilled to learn that somebody like Gideon had discovered it. Easily, too. Any sense of security from hunters I’d ever felt vanished. We thought our vampire clubs were remotely safe from harm?

“I can’t talk,” I said.

“Wouldn’t want George to know about our little partnership.”

“I’d hardly call it that.” I swallowed as I thought about how I had left him last night in his hotel room. “So, are you feeling better today?”

“See, I knew you cared about me.”

I gritted my teeth. “Hardly. But you were in pretty bad shape.”

“I thought I was looking pretty good now, all things considered.” He was quiet for a moment. “But you’re right. I’m not well. If I can hold on for two more days everything will be better.”

“What do you want? Or did you just call to remind me about that? Can’t you leave me alone until I absolutely have to see you again?”

“If I leave you alone, you go running out of town to try to change things. Maybe if you could try behaving yourself for a few more days, then I might be inclined to give you more space.” Some of the charm had left his deep voice. This was my warning. My slap on the wrist. Did he know how close I’d come to screwing up his plans?

“I am behaving myself.”

“I know you saw Thierry this morning. I’m fairly certain we agreed that wouldn’t happen.”

I felt fingers of panic reach toward my heart and squeeze. “It was nothing, just a coincidence he was there. I didn’t mean to see him.”

“I believe you.” But there was something in his voice that made me think he didn’t believe me. I’d made him doubt me. “Please don’t let it happen again.”

“Well, since you said please.”

“I have to see you later. I need something from you.”

“What? Witty repartee? You dialed the wrong number.”

“Something else. Come to my hotel room at eight o’clock. I’ll be waiting.”

He hung up. I clutched the phone so tightly that my fingers were numb. I cleared my throat. “Okay, Mom. Great to hear from you. Hope to come visit you and Dad again real soon. Bye now.”

I flipped the phone closed and looked at George, who stared back at me with confusion.

“That was your mom? I only heard one side, but that seemed like a strange conversation.”

“You obviously don’t know my mother very well.”

I thought I knew what Gideon wanted. Now that he knew my search for a curse solution had fallen through, he figured I was desperate enough to give him the Red Devil in exchange for that grimoire.

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He was right about that.

I didn’t know the guy. Maybe he was evil. Maybe he did deserve to end up on the wrong side of Gideon’s stake.

Then again, maybe he didn’t.

That teeter-totter style of thinking wasn’t going to get me de-cursed. I twisted my fingers through my chain. I needed more time to figure everything out. I’d have to put him off a bit longer. As long as I could.

* * *

I tried to have a nap after George dropped me at home and then went to his job interview. I couldn’t sleep. No big surprise. The events of the day repeated over and over in my brain like bad Mexican food.

So I paced. And I watched TV. And I researched stuff on the Internet. Vampires didn’t get common colds. It was very good to know. Then I tried to find out as much as I could about Gideon Chase. There was lots of information and some very flattering pictures with him and a variety of arm candy at movie premieres and fancy restaurants. He gave money to charity. He bankrolled wings of children’s hospitals.

He was a freaking hero. At least, on the surface.

I had to dig a little deeper to find any references to his even being associated with the vampire-hunter organization. Most regular web surfers wouldn’t pay any attention to that at all, considering 99 percent of the world was ignorant or in denial of vampires existing outside Hollywood. They might think it was just a rumor—much like my nickname of Slayer of Slayers. Or that vampires were completely fictitious. To them, Gideon Chase was simply a billionaire—a rich, handsome dude who liked to travel and have fun. Now he was—as far as everyone in the rest of the world believed—dead. And about to be resurrected as a vampire in two days, courtesy of me. I could totally sell the film rights if I lived long enough. Amy obviously got the message that I’d been looking for her earlier because she called me late in the afternoon wanting to meet me for coffee. Since I didn’t have any plans aside from my eight o’clock meeting with Gideon, I decided to stop obsessing about my problems and meet up with her.

I dragged my butt to a place called Bodacious Bean, a local Starbucks rip-off that had a mighty fine Colombian hazelnut blend. Amy was already there, sitting at a table in the corner of the café. She had a moccaccino and a piece of banana bread in front of her. Another vampire fact: Some vamps could eat solid food without wanting to immediately vomit out all of their internal organs. Other vamps, like me, didn’t have that luxury. Amy could eat anything she wanted. And she usually forgot that anyone might be different from her.

“Banana bread?” she offered.

I waved a hand. “No thanks.”

I sat down across from her and slid my sunglasses up to the top of my head. The always busy Yonge Street was the view from the window, and it looked like your average bustling, chilly Sunday in late February.

She seemed as if she was attempting a smile, but failed. Her mouth seemed to be stuck in Downward Dog. “How are you, Sarah?”

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“You sound a bit melancholy. Your manicure didn’t go very well?”

“It was fine.” She looked down at her airbrushed French manicure with her ring finger sporting both a ring with a tiny diamond—courtesy of Barry—and a tiny airbrushed bat on the nail itself. “Barry said you stopped by.”

“I’m surprised he’d even mention it considering how much he hates my guts.”

She shrugged. “I don’t know why he’s so cranky lately.”

“Lately?”

“He said that Thierry was there when you were there and you looked extremely unhappy about that.”

“He said that?” I took an awkward slurp of my coffee. She nodded gravely and I frowned at her. What was up? She was far from her bubbly blond self today.

There was silence for a long time.

Amy let out a long, shaky sigh. “I’m worried about you.”

My eyebrows raised. “Moi?”

She nodded. “I know you’re trying to convince everybody that you’re okay, but I can see that you’re not. Sarah, we’re friends. You can’t lie to me.”

This wasn’t starting off very well. “I don’t know what you mean. Everything’s fine and dandy. Wonderful, really.”

“I know that you said you were the one to break things off with Thierry, but that’s not true, is it?”

I felt sick. Was I so bad a liar that I couldn’t even convince Amy? I loved her to death, but she wasn’t the brightest star in the sky. She normally accepted news as it was presented to her, with no questions asked. I’d told her that I’d finished things with Thierry and she’d believed it. Been happy for my break from “that miserable jerk.” Those were her exact words, actually.

“Of course it’s true. I broke it off.”

“Then why were you over at my house earlier wanting to talk to him?”

I took a moment to visually scan our general surroundings. Since Gideon seemed to know what I was doing all the time, I was sure he had somebody spying on me right now. But who? The convincingly distracted-looking group of teenagers? The old woman with the double espresso over by the rack of overpriced, hand-painted ceramic coffee mugs? The guy with the seeing-eye dog and the chai latte? He looked shifty. For that matter, so did the dog.

“I went there to see you, not him,” I explained. “The fact Thierry was there was coincidence only. I can’t help it if your husband happens to be my ex’s slave boy.”

“I really don’t like that term. I prefer valet.”

“Right. Well, whatever he is, I didn’t stay very long. Didn’t want to intrude on whatever he, Thierry, and Veronique were meeting about.”

“It had something to do with the Ring,” she said. “They contacted Thierry recently.”

The Ring? Very interesting and enough to near-painfully pique my interest. The Ring was the vampire council, based in California, that had representatives spread across the entire world. They’d been interested in me when my Slayer of Slayers reputation came into being.

I frowned. “I wonder what they want now?”

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“It’s your curse,” she said matter-of-factly. “They heard about it and they wanted to know if you’re a threat to life, liberty, and the vampire way.”

My eyes widened. “And?”

“I know Thierry defended you. He said that the curse is a temporary condition and doesn’t reflect on you overall.”

My hero. “That was sweet of him.”

“Although he did tell them you’re extremely unpredictable at the moment.”

Bad hero. “He said that?”

She shrugged. “That’s what I heard.”

I’d only met one member of the Ring’s elders before. He’d tried to kill me. Even though he was crazy, it didn’t leave me with a favorable impression of the organization.

“So that’s why you wanted me to meet you here?” I asked. “I appreciate your concern, but I’m not going to freak. Thierry can handle the Ring, and as long as I have my gold chain I’m not a threat to anybody.”

Yeah, as long as I keep it around my neck. Forever. A flash of the fledgling’s scared, pale face came to my mind. And the tasty pulse at her throat. I dug my fingernails into the side of the table until my knuckles whitened. Then I forced myself to take a shaky sip of my coffee.

“You’re still in love with him, aren’t you?” she asked pointedly. I shook my head. “Amy—”

“And he’s the one who dumped you, isn’t he? Not the other way around?”

Oh, it was pointless to try to convince her otherwise once she’d made up her mind. She might not be a Rhodes Scholar, but she was relentless. “You got me. Thierry’s the one who broke things off. I was just trying to save face when I said it was me.”

She looked distraught by my false admission. “I knew it.”

“I’m doing what I can. It’s over. It hurts like hell but I’m trying very hard to accept it.”

I had lied so much lately that I was honestly surprised my pants weren’t literally made of fire.

“Barry did say he couldn’t believe you would be the one to walk away.”

“I just bet he did.” I refrained from rolling my eyes. “So, just relax. It’s no big deal, okay?

I’m fine. I’m accepting the way things are slowly but surely.”

“He left you just when things were really difficult… with your curse.” Her expression tensed. “I always knew he was a selfish jerk. First, cheating on his wife with you—”

I cringed at that. “I wouldn’t exactly call it cheating when Veronique knew and was fine with everything.”

“Still.” Tears were actually welling in her eyes. “Oh, Sarah, I don’t want to tell you this, but I have to.”

I leaned over the table and grabbed her hand. “Oh, my God. Amy, what is it? What’s wrong?”

“I… I saw Thierry an hour ago in a restaurant down the street. In fact, he might even still be there. That’s why I called you.”

“Well, that is shocking considering that he doesn’t eat anything.”

She shook her head. “He was having drinks with somebody. When I saw who it was—I was so shocked. I never would have guessed it for a million dollars. Sarah—” She let out a shuddery sigh. “I think Thierry may have been having an affair on you while he was

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having an affair on his wife. He’s a two-timing two-timer!”

My eye began to twitch. “What are you talking about?”

“I wasn’t going to tell you but it’s important that you know this. It just proves that he’s a supreme creep and not good enough for you.”

“You’re saying that you saw him having drinks with another woman?”

She nodded gravely.

“And it wasn’t Veronique.”

She shook her head gravely.

I cleared my throat. “And it seemed as though they were together together. Not just having drinks, but romantically.”

Another grave nod.

“What exactly led you to that conclusion?” I asked stiffly. She reached into her bag and pulled out her cell phone. “I have proof.”

“You took pictures of him?”

“I’m thinking about getting my private investigator license.” She brightened slightly. “I think I might be good at catching good-for-nothing men in the act of adultery. And I hear there’s some great money to be made in that field.”

I wasn’t sure why I found it hard to believe. She regularly sent me pics from clothing store change rooms to get my opinion on new outfits. Why would this be any different?

“You don’t have to look if you don’t want to. I mean, you have gone your separate ways. I just wanted to show you that he’s a cad. An absolute cad, considering who he’s taken up with. And if you’re still upset about your breakup, you shouldn’t be.”

I didn’t believe a word. Especially when that word was as outdated as “cad.” Thierry wouldn’t do this, would he? No. Of course not. We might not agree on absolutely everything—to say the least—but he loved me. We’d been through too much together for him to casually start a new relationship in the midst of this mega crisis in our lives. I trusted him with every fiber in my being.

Sarah + Thierry.

True love forever.

But, still. It wouldn’t hurt to have a quick look.

“Show me,” I said tightly.

She scrolled through the menu and then handed me the phone. I stared down at the first picture, then went to the next. Then the next. And the next. Thierry was having drinks inside an upscale restaurant, right near the window, which was why Amy got some good shots.

There was a picture of Thierry laughing.

Uh. Laughing? That was so unlike him.

Another of him reaching across the table to take his companion’s hand. Another of him… kissing… her… hand.

My jaw clenched.

Another had him actually leaning across the table… and… kissing… her… on… the…

mouth.

My vision went a bit red at that one and my heart slammed against my rib cage. The woman was smiling widely, obviously enjoying herself. One photo showed a clear shot of her face as she glanced out the window.

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“Can you believe it?” Amy said breathlessly. “I thought she was engaged to be married. That skank! That sneaky blond skank ho!”

I recognized her immediately. There was absolutely no doubt who Thierry appeared to be blatantly romancing in the pictures.

“It’s Janie Parker,” Amy said with obvious disgust and outrage. “Can you effing believe it?”

I couldn’t. I really effing couldn’t.

Janie had recently been my bodyguard, hired to protect me from hunters due to my unfortunate and false reputation. In the end, I learned she’d been lying about who she was, and that she was actually a freelance mercenary who wanted revenge on me for killing her crazy hunter brother in self-defense—which is where my Slayer of Slayers rep had originated.

She’d redeemed herself by saving my butt in the end, but we definitely weren’t BFFs. The last I’d heard, she was engaged to another friend of mine, Quinn, after a super-fast romance that took even me by surprise.

Quinn used to be a vampire hunter, but he’d been turned into a vampire and had had a very difficult time dealing with that transition. To put it extremely mildly. I considered him a very good friend, although he’d originally wanted more from me than friendship. I tell you, if I hadn’t fallen hard for Thierry, Quinn would have gotten more. Even though as a hunter he’d tried to kill me a couple of times, he was a good guy. And damn hot, too. He’d left town. Janie had left town. And I heard that they’d hooked up, which surprised me on many levels. The last I’d heard, they were going to come back here to get married. By the look of Janie macking on my man, I’d say those plans were canceled. I was going to kill her. And him. Not necessarily in that order. But, no. No. There had to be more to this.

Thierry had suggested “seeing other people for appearance’s sake” last night, hadn’t he?

How it would help to convince Gideon that there was nothing between us anymore and that I’d definitely followed through with his explicit order for us to break up. If there was one thing I didn’t have the time or patience for at the moment, it was being part of some lame vampire soap opera in the making. But I had started thinking that dating others might throw Gideon off our scent, so to speak. I wondered if the pictures of him and Janie had anything to do with making everyone think we were definitely seeing other people. But if Janie was with Thierry right now, then I wondered where—

“Hey, Sarah,” a male voice over my left shoulder said. “I’ve been looking everywhere for you.”

I recognized that voice. And so did Amy. She looked past me with a shocked expression, which slowly turned into a wide and bright smile before her gaze moved to me again.

“You sneaky little devil,” she exclaimed. “Of course! This all makes sense now. Why didn’t you tell me you were back together? This is so wonderful!”

A man slid into the seat next to me. “Sarah likes to keep her secrets, doesn’t she? But yeah, Amy, we’re together and never been happier. Make sure you tell absolutely everybody you know, okay?”

She was already keying in a text message on her cell phone. “Way ahead of you. George is going to go ballistic when he hears about this. Ballistic!”

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I slowly turned to look at Quinn. The shock at seeing him again out of the blue like this was enough to knock me completely speechless.

Chapter 6

Quinn looked exactly the same as the last time I saw him, which, since it was only a month ago, wasn’t surprising. He had dark blond hair, vivid blue eyes, and a very attractive boyish charm about him even though I knew he was now forever thirty. He dressed casually in faded blue jeans and under a black leather winter jacket he wore a green T-shirt that fit his muscular frame perfectly. I was used to seeing him rather unhappy and angsty, but today he had a smile on his face wide enough to partially reveal his fangs.

“You look gorgeous, Sarah,” he said, and then before I could say a word in reply or greeting, he leaned forward to kiss me.

My eyes widened and I heard a clicking sound as Amy took our picture. He looked at her. “Good to see you, too, Amy.”

“Ditto.” She was beaming. “You have no idea how happy I am right now. I always thought you and Sarah were perfect together. I was totally on Team Quinn. It’s good to see she finally clued in to who her real Mr. Right is.”

“You’re obviously very savvy when it comes to love,” he told her. “That’s definitely what I like most about you.”

“When I heard that you were getting married to Janie—”

He waved a hand. “Rumors.”

Her forehead creased. “But you told me yourself. When you called a couple weeks ago, remember?”

“Oh, right.” He coughed. “Uh… let’s just say that Janie and I had a change of heart. It happens. No hard feelings on either of our parts.”

“Awesome.” She slid the phone back into her bag. “Well, somebody’s feeling like a third wheel. I’m going to take off and leave you two lovebirds to it.”

“Um…” I began awkwardly. “Wait a minute, Amy—”

Quinn reached down to take my hand in his and he squeezed it. “We’ll see you later, Amy. Thanks for taking care of my angel while I’ve been gone.”

She grinned. “No problem!”

She left with a few more excited glances over her shoulder at the two of us.

“She’s sweet,” Quinn said after she’d left the café completely. “A natural blond, right?

You should probably keep an eye on her in the future. Wouldn’t want her to hurt herself.”

“Quinn—”

“Come on.” He stood up. “Let’s go for a romantic walk outside, shall we?”

“But, Quinn—”

He squeezed my hand again and this time it actually hurt. Okay, I got it. Shut up, Sarah.

We left the coffee shop and walked slowly down the street, hand in hand. I eyed him from the corner of my dark sunglasses. “Okay, what’s going on?”

“Not here,” he whispered, then picked up his pace. “Somebody might be following us. All you need to know is that we’ve started seeing each other again and all is well with the world.”

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“Who contacted you?”

“Who do you think?”

Thierry, of course. Instead of being impressed by his planning skills, the thought that he’d done something like this without even giving me a heads-up kind of pissed me off. That man kept too many secrets from me—about the Red Devil and now this with Quinn and Janie that Amy had to tell me about like a fanged Nancy-Drew-in-training.

“I never knew how much I adored you until I left,” he said loud enough for anyone we passed on the sidewalk to hear. “I’ve traveled all over. Arizona, Las Vegas, Florida. I was in New York before I came back here. But you are the ray of sunshine in my dark, dark life that led me back to you.”

“Spreading it on a bit thick, aren’t you?” I couldn’t help but smile a little despite my current annoyance at Thierry. I really did like Quinn a whole lot. When he’d left I thought that he hated me, even though he said he didn’t, and that I’d never see him again. We’d been through a lot together with the whole vampire-fledglings-united thing. He’d be another aspect of my vampire life I would have forgotten if The Darkness had performed that curse eradication.

We turned a corner and his cheery smile faded at the edges as he glanced over his shoulder. “Okay, I think we’re clear. Thierry contacted me.”

“I find that hard to believe, but go on.”

He snorted. “Yeah, I know. We’re not exactly poker buddies, are we? Anyhow, he explained the situation. Shit, Sarah. I feel like I’m to blame here. I’m the one who told you all that Gideon was dead.”

“He’s not.”

“Obviously. He’s like a cockroach; he can survive anything. The man is dangerous. Even more now that he’s desperate.”

My cheeks felt tense as I tried to smile. “And now you’re supposed to pretend to be dating me. What a great way to deal with a desperate killer like Gideon.”

He shrugged. “You don’t know Gideon like I do. We were friends ten years ago until I realized he was a complete sociopath. Don’t underestimate him for a moment.”

“I don’t.” I frowned hard. “So you don’t think there’s any part of Gideon that can be reasoned with? Some part of him that still has a chance of being redeemed?”

“He kills vampires.”

“So did you and you turned out okay in the end.”

He grimaced. “I never took pleasure in it like he does.”

I’d helped Quinn. In fact, I’d helped him when I probably shouldn’t have, back when he thought I wasn’t any better than a mosquito that needed to be squashed. It had taken him a while to realize he didn’t feel any different as a vampire than he did when he was human. He saw what he’d done in the past was wrong. He was a hunter who wasn’t truly evil. Now Gideon was going to become a vampire—if all went according to his master plan. Would he see the light? Was it possible that he wasn’t completely evil? That there was a kernel of goodness somewhere inside him?

Hey, you never know.

“Thierry also told me about your curse,” he said in a near whisper and glanced at me sideways. We began to walk again. A few average, harmless pedestrians—at least that’s what they looked like—moved past us going in the opposite direction. “And he thinks it’s

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a good idea for me to be around just in case.”

My stomach lurched at that. “Just in case what?”

“Just in case the Ring sends somebody to investigate you. And by investigate, I mean eliminate. Consider me a layer of added protection at the moment.”

I swallowed hard. One more thing to obsess about.

“What about Janie?” I asked quietly.

“She’s willing to help out, as well.”

I raised an eyebrow. “I saw a picture of her kissing Thierry.”

His jaw clenched and his expression darkened. “Maybe I’ll kill Thierry just for old times’

sake. I’m sure I still have a sharp stake lying around somewhere.”

“So it’s true? You and her are together?”

He was silent for a moment. “Unless she decides she prefers ancient humorless vampires with zero personality, like some women I know.” He glanced at me and gave me a slight grin. “Yeah, we’re together.”

“You have strange taste in women.”

“You have strange taste in men.”

“Touché.”

He laughed at that. “I know it might seem crazy, but I love her. Completely. And I want to spend the rest of my life with her.”

“But she’s human. Won’t that be kind of awkward when she’s eighty and you look exactly the same as you do today?”

“She’s… well, she’s not exactly human anymore. She’s a vampire, too.” He took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “Long story, okay? Life or death situations call for rash decisions.”

I tried to keep the shock off my face. Everybody seemed to want to become a vampire lately. Were vampires the new black? The old black? We were in fashion? Maybe being a vampire was cool and desirable.

Sure, I believed it. If I was still as naïve as Amy. I kind of wished I was. I let out a long breath. “I’m sure Janie probably wasn’t too thrilled with the idea of you pretending to be with me.”

“She said something about slicing you open and eating your heart if you touch even one square inch of my body.”

My eyebrows shot up.

“She was kidding, of course. Well, mostly.” Then his eyes narrowed as he looked farther up the block. “Speak of the devil.”

We’d turned a corner that brought us back onto Yonge Street. We’d walked around the block during our rushed and half-mumbled conversation. Up ahead I saw two very familiar vampires leaving the upscale restaurant they’d allegedly spent a good chunk of the afternoon at—the site of Amy’s earlier stakeout. Quinn slid his arm around my waist as we approached.

Thierry narrowed his gaze at Quinn, and then at me. “What a coincidence. Sarah, a pleasure as always.”

His words were warm, but his expression was not. In fact, it was subzero. For that matter, so was mine. Half of me was happy to see him. The other half wanted to give him the cold shoulder for not being forthcoming with the info. Any info.

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So annoying.

And yet I was supposed to just go along with everything and keep a smile on my face.

“Thierry,” I said, not trying to sound the least bit pleasant. “I see you have a new friend.”

“Old friend.” He took Janie’s hand in his and kissed it. I felt my cheeks heat up and forced myself to relax and play along. For now. Janie’s gaze fell on me like a death ray. “Great to see you again, Sarah.”

“Likewise,” I said tightly.

“What an ugly necklace,” she said. “But I guess you don’t have much of a choice in accessories these days, do you?”

I touched my gold chain. “Bite me.” I glared at Thierry. “You, too.”

His dark eyebrows went up at that. “Is that an invitation or are you trying to be rude?”

“Let’s try door number two,” I said.

I could tell that amused him. Super. I should charge admission for my afternoon comedy show.

Janie smiled thinly. “Geez, I was just kidding. Somebody’s not as lighthearted about life as they used to be.”

“Somebody’s roots are darker than they used to be.”

She touched her hair. “Take that back.”

I tried to control my inner bitch. It was like my nightwalker was poking around in her cage, growling, and trying to find a way out while I still wore the gold chain.

“You know, Janie, I never would have thought Thierry was your type,” I said. A couple emerged from the restaurant and crossed between us to get into a cab. When they pulled away from the curb, I continued. “I mean, the last time I saw you two together you had him handcuffed and were going to stake him.”

She leaned against his tall, solid form. “No more stakes in our relationship. But the handcuffs are always fun to have around.”

I dug my fingernails deeply into Quinn’s side.

Quinn cringed and cleared his throat. “We should probably get going.”

Janie’s expression softened when they looked at each other and I felt like they shared an unspoken moment. “Wouldn’t want to keep you and your new girlfriend from… whatever it is that Sarah does with her unemployed free time.”

“Tons of sex,” I said. “And maybe a movie later if Quinn’s not too tired. You know, from all the sex.”

“Right. Well, likewise,” she said curtly, hanging tighter to Thierry’s arm. Well, this was uncomfortable.

“Bye now,” I said, as we brushed past them. Thierry reached out and grabbed my hand in his. His touch made my heart thump wildly.

“It was very nice to see you again, Sarah,” he said. I could have sworn I saw some regret slide behind his silver-colored eyes. Did he know why I was peeved? It must have been written all over my face. Luckily it just would have looked as if I didn’t want to be anywhere near him—a believable reaction to being faced with one’s ex. Our fingers brushed against each other as he let go of me. I blinked and nodded, fighting the sudden lump in my throat. I finally managed to tear my gaze away from his. Thierry briefly eyed Quinn and, despite the fact he was the one to ask the ex-hunter to help out, there wasn’t an ounce of

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friendliness in the look.

Quinn and I started to walk away down the street.

“That wasn’t a lot of fun,” Quinn said. “And now I even have to turn down the tons-ofsex suggestion since I’m a one-woman kind of guy.”

“Then it’s good that I was kidding.” I turned back to see Thierry and Janie moving in the opposite direction. Thierry glanced briefly over his shoulder at us, his expression still tight. I was glad that seeing me with Quinn seemed to still bother him. Call me petty. Quinn smiled. “Honestly, Sarah, back when I was all fixated on you I didn’t think there would be another woman for me. But Janie slammed head-first into my life at the completely wrong time. I couldn’t have been less interested in starting a new relationship, but it’s like fate intervened to let me know she was the one.”

“Yeah, she seems like a real sweet girl.” Sarcasm at no extra charge.

“She actually is. But she can hide it when she wants to.” He was quiet for a moment.

“Thierry told me the Red Devil’s back and he’s keeping an eye on you as well.”

I sighed. “So many people are watching me I feel like I’m starring in a reality TV show.”

“It won’t be long before everything’s back to normal.”

“Except for my nightwalker curse and the fact that I’ve sired Gideon to become a super vamp.”

“Except for that, yeah.” He actually laughed. “You’re a magnet for trouble. Anybody ever tell you that?”

“It’s a gift.” It was a bit funny, actually. If I turned my head to the side and squinted—and if this was all happening to someone else—I guessed I could see the humor. “So is there an actual plan you and Thierry discussed that I should be aware of or is everyone just planning to run around the city all helter-skelter?”

Quinn pulled me off the main sidewalk and away from the growing crowd so we could speak in virtual privacy. “Gideon has to die. After we’re sure who his assassins are and that everyone is safe.”

I don’t know why that surprised me. “And who’s planning to pull the trigger? You?”

He shook his head. “Thierry’s given that job to the Red Devil, or whoever the guy actually is. He loves you, Sarah. I know I doubted that in the past. Hell, I didn’t think there was actually a living, breathing person behind that miserable prick exterior—” he grinned “—

no offense.”

“We can agree to disagree about each other’s significant other.”

“It’s a deal.”

“Do you think the Red Devil is trustworthy?” I asked. “Don’t you think he’s dangerous? I mean, where’s he been for a hundred years?”

“No idea. But Thierry seems confident in his abilities. That has to count for something, doesn’t it?”

“I guess.”

It seemed fair, actually. Gideon wanted to kill the Red Devil. Now the Red Devil was going to kill Gideon.

Then why did it feel so wrong?

Did I think this story was going to have a happy ending for everyone involved? Not very likely, was it?

I crossed my arms. “So you condone killing Gideon in cold blood?”

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Quinn cast a wary glance at our surroundings and pulled me closer to him as if we actually were going out and he couldn’t keep his hands off me. His voice dropped even lower in volume so I had to strain to hear him. “What is this, Sarah?”

“What do you mean?”

“The man is a murderer. You’re not going soft on him, are you? Because that would be a huge mistake.”

“Of course I’m not.”

“Thierry says you’ve seen him a few times at his hotel.”

“Thierry seems a lot chattier with you than he has been with me lately.” I crossed my arms. “But it’s true. What am I supposed to do? Say no? In fact, I’m seeing him again tonight.”

“Why?”

“Maybe he can’t get pizza delivery where he is. I don’t know. Are you going to stop me from going?”

“No.” Any humor left his expression. “But I know it’s in your nature to see the good in people. It’s an asset, but it can also get you in serious trouble. Like now.”

“I saw the good in you, didn’t I?”

“That was different.” His expression was tense. “I don’t know what he’s said to you or how he might act, but he is a vicious killer. Remember that.”

“I can handle Gideon.”

“Gideon thinks vampires are a lesser form of life that needs killing. I don’t give a shit if he’s proclaimed his desire to become one to everyone he knows or if he likes to flash that billion-dollar smile at you. He’s dangerous. And because you’re a vampire he thinks you’re disposable. Don’t ever forget that.”

I flashed back to a cold, dark warehouse. Pictures of my friends and family laid out on a table to show me he knew where everyone lived. His cold, desperate warning in my ear.

“I will kill them all.”

Since that night, I hadn’t seen that particular side of Gideon again. He’d either been amiable and happy to see me when I came to his hotel room or he’d been wracked with pain and suffering.

But I couldn’t forget what he really was. What he could do. I swallowed. “I won’t forget.”

He leaned forward and kissed me on the cheek. “Just be careful. And also be careful if you see the Red Devil again. Not sure I trust him as far as I can throw him, either.”

“Me neither. You don’t have any idea who he really is, do you?”

He shook his head. “All I know is I wouldn’t want to be Gideon right now.”

I chewed my bottom lip. “If Gideon dies, he’ll go to hell. The hellfire will drag him there.”

“Gideon was bound for hell anyhow after everything he’s done in life. Don’t lose any sleep over him, Sarah.”

“I won’t.”

And I wouldn’t. I hated Gideon. He deserved to die.

If that was the case, then why did the idea of leading him to that fate make me feel a bit sick inside?

Quinn was right. I was a softy. Like a wimpy marshmallow. I wouldn’t think of Gideon as anything more than an unrepentant serial killer. He wasn’t

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Quinn, who’d changed his ways, and he wasn’t Thierry, who’d had his own share of darkness to deal with in his long, immortal life.

I had to remember that. There was way too much at risk if I forgot. Chapter 7

I was as tense and jittery by the time I arrived at Gideon’s hotel room as if I’d been mainlining double espressos all day. Thierry would be upset if he knew I was there again. I also knew he would likely find out due to my potential tattletale tag team of Quinn and the Red Devil.

But there I was.

I’d deal with the aftermath in due course.

Gideon sat, waiting for me, in the same chair he’d been in last night. His glamour held up well—I still couldn’t see any scars marring that undeniably handsome face of his. The scars were still there, of course, but now they were hidden by magic. He wasn’t dressed for company, however. He wore only the bottoms of loose pajamas, and his toned chest was bare.

On the table next to him I couldn’t help noticing a dagger with a curved blade. He hadn’t said anything since I’d entered his room. He simply stared at me from where he was seated.

It made me more uncomfortable than I was to start with. Which was saying something.

“Is it nice out?” he asked after a long moment went by.

“Nice?” I repeated. “What do you mean?”

“I noticed it was sunny earlier. I didn’t go outside today.”

Small talk about weather with the deadliest man I’d ever known. Sure. Why not? “It was fine. Not too cold.”

“The sun doesn’t bother you at all as a vampire?”

I shook my head. “Not really. It’s a bit glary, like if you forget your sunglasses and you’re driving into the sun, and prolonged exposure makes me feel like taking a long nap, but it’s not too bad.”

“And when you’re a nightwalker?”

I swallowed. “Then I do my impression of the Wicked Witch of the West and melt into a puddle of death.”

“That doesn’t sound pleasant.”

No, it didn’t. And that’s why I needed the witch’s grimoire he mentioned. Badly. The teenaged wizard didn’t give me the impression he was likely to attempt the eradication again, even if I agreed to give up a half year’s worth of memories. I think he mentioned something about needing a lobotomy if he tried. But how was I supposed to get the grimoire without selling out my current enigmatic bodyguard? Whether he deserved my loyalty was up for debate, but there had to be a way for me to get the grimoire and yet also avoid being an accessory to murder.

Although that particular decision was subject to change without notice. The threat of turning into a death puddle was a strong motivating force. I took a good look at the leader of the vampire hunters. “I hope you don’t mind me saying, Gideon, but even with the glamour spell, you look like hell.”

He held on to the chair arms so tightly that his muscles flexed. His skin was sickly white

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and there was a fine sheen of sweat on his forehead. “That’s a very appropriate word to use for the way I’m feeling.”

“Are you in pain right now?”

“Ever since I was touched by the hellfire I’m constantly in varying degrees of pain. Today it’s worse than ever before.”

I couldn’t help but cringe at Gideon’s obvious distress. As Quinn had reminded me earlier, I was basically a vampire-shaped Peep.

Suck it up, marshmallow girl, I told myself. This is the man who threatened to kill everyone you love if you say or do the wrong thing. Never forget that. I wouldn’t forget.

“I need something from you,” he said through clenched teeth.