I pinched my lips closed to prevent more snark from slipping free.
“So, what are you going to do about the vamp?”
“Tell Cricket to remove his house from the tour routes and avoid his street like the plague.”
“I approve of this plan.” She cleared her throat delicately. “Speaking of avoidance…”
“Yes, yes. I saw your brother tonight.” The skin of my throat tingled in memory of his wide palm wrapping the delicate column like a necklace. “Most of him anyway.”
Blood rushed from her cheeks, and she leaned against the nearest wall for support. “He made me promise.”
“Did he honestly believe it would make any difference to me?” I picked at the worn lace on the front of my dress. “I never thought I’d see him—or you—again. Does he think I’m that shallow?”
“He’s a man, and men are ninety percent pride.” She chewed on her thumbnail. “And I think, even if he doesn’t want to admit it, he was punishing you. He had no idea what was happening to you inside…” She let the sentence fade. “He must have figured it was only fair you had no idea how bad things had gotten out here for him either.”
“He tried to kiss me,” I blurted.
“This is Boaz we’re talking about.” Amelie didn’t blink. “What did you expect?”
“For him to ignore the fact I’m a grown woman until the day he died? Probably from having sex with a set of triplets half his age?”
She didn’t disagree. “Do you remember how you two met?”
I narrowed my gaze. “You’re not helping his case here.”
“Picture it.” Her tour guide voice came back in full force. “The playground. Kindergarten. Me and you. Sitting on the swings at recess, eating apple slices instead of sour candy straws, because even then Mom didn’t want me to live my best life. Boaz steps out the double doors, hops down the steps and walks right up to you. He stuck out his hand and—”
“He basically karate-chopped me in the chest,” I protested. “I wasn’t holding on to the chains. I was eating my apple. I fell.”
“The facts are these: he walked up to you, and you hit the dirt on your back with your legs sticking straight up in the air.” She snickered. “He’s been trying to get you back there ever since.”
“He got plenty of other girls in the dead-bug position.” So many I’d lost count of how my heart broke each time he brought a new girl home on his arm. “He just wanted another specimen to add to his collection.”
Having nursed me through many of those late-night crying jags, I recognized her world-class diversion techniques. All he’d had to do was crook his finger, and I would have been his for the asking. We both knew that. Heck, all three of us did, and that made the shame of my open secret so much worse.
Amelie flounced over, bumped hoop skirts with me in solidarity, and I started pulling on her laces.
“You were fifteen when he noticed you were a girl and not just his kid sister’s best friend.” She clicked her tongue. “He was eighteen. You weren’t ready for sex, and he’d just figured out he could sweet-talk his way into girls’ panties and what to do when he got there.” She shuddered at the thought. “He was a decent guy, but he was still a hormonal teenager. He wasn’t ready to give up his new favorite hobby while he waited for you to mature.”
“But has he matured?” The searing intensity in him when he ticked off his reasons for leaving still smoldered in my memory. But Boaz was blessed with a silver tongue, and he had slipped it down way too many throats for me to believe mine was anything special.
“Boaz doesn’t come home often, and he never stays long.” Her casual shrug didn’t fool me for a minute. She was close to her brother, and she must miss him something fierce. “Part of me hopes having you back home will anchor him.” She rubbed the spot over her breastbone. “The other part knows in order for you to heal, you need to figure yourself out first.” She dipped her chin to hide the moisture pooling in her eyes. “But I know how determined he can be. He won’t stop until he gets what he wants. And it terrifies me that it’s you. I’m worried if he cuts and runs again, if he breaks your heart for real this time, that I’ll lose you both.”
I crossed to her and gathered her in my arms, ignoring the dampness spreading across my shoulder. “I don’t know what I want for breakfast most mornings, let alone who I want to share it with.”
No matter how solid Boaz had felt trapped between my thighs, Amelie was right. I might hide from my problems, but he had a bad habit of running from his, and I was tired of being the reason he avoided his home and family. Maybe it was time both our inner teenagers grew up before we ruined a good thing.
“The late-late tour leaves in a few. I need to get out there and twirl my parasol before Cricket has a coronary.” I waited until Amelie peeled out of her corset before I turned. “See you tomorrow?”
“Call if anything else creepy happens.” She pointed a warning finger at me. “I mean it.”
“I will.” I curtsied and unlocked the door on my way out. “Promise.”
On my way downstairs, I ducked into Cricket’s empty office and left a note on her desk about the Volkov heir’s mysterious return then slipped back into the parking lot with a sigh as cool air teased my skirt. Sunlight bathing my face was nice, but give me the kiss of the moon, the call of night birds, the smells of light extinguished, of the darker world rousing to wakefulness, any day.
The ardent cry of a mockingbird caught my attention, and I glanced up at the lightning-struck Bradford pear tree leaning over the entryway. The pale gray bird perched on a charred limb, deep in shadow that ought to have concealed him, chest fluffed out as it completed a pitch-perfect impersonation of Cricket’s car alarm. But I saw him, and when he noticed that, he took personal offense and flew away.
Enhanced night vision came with the necromantic package. We had evolved alongside the vampires we created, both of us embracing nocturnal lifestyles. Us through choice, them through necessity. Vamps wouldn’t go up in flames if exposed to sunlight, but the effects weren’t pretty. Made vamps rose with solar urticaria, an allergy to UV radiation, while born vamps developed a less severe form of photosensitivity similar to polymorphous light eruption, another form of sun allergy.
Theories abounded as to why the vampire population was afflicted. The most prevalent theory, the one printed in our textbooks, was that because Hecate was a goddess associated with the moon, and necromancers were her children, that our magic bound them to the dark, to her whims.
As I hadn’t believed in gods of any kind for a long time now, I had no opinion on the topic.
Careful to avoid the street where the Volkov House sat, I guided fourteen brave souls down a secondary route where I whiled away the early-morning hours. Once the last slightly wobbly patron had pressed damp bills into my palm, I headed inside to change. I met another guide in the dressing room, and we stripped each other with the eagerness of two virgins under the bleachers at homecoming.
Amelie’s warning about keeping her posted about creepy goings on rang in my ears when I arrived home and found an unexpected guest waiting in my driveway on the wrong side of the fence. I parked Jolene, palmed an ash stake from a hidden compartment under the seat, then closed the garage and joined him. “Can I help you?”
“Grier Woolworth?” The stranger eased into a sliver of moonlight, his skin flawless, his gaze fathomless. His presence weighted me in place, and for the second time in one night, I felt myself being measured by predatory eyes. Though these held none of Volkov’s primal attraction. A made vampire then. “Can we talk?”
“It’s late, and I’m tired.” And I had a healthy sense of self-preservation these days. “We’ll have to do this some other time.”
Point to him, he stepped aside and allowed me to reach the porch. “I represent someone eager to make your acquaintance.”