I opened both my eyes, and the pair looking back at me was not blue like Lucas’s or gray like Desmond’s. These eyes were a brown so dark they were almost black, and the instant recognition made my heart seize. My hand spasmed on his back.

“Holden.”

He rolled onto his side, propped up on an elbow and took an assessing inventory of my body, which was lying fully exposed on top of the sheets. I let him look, unencumbered by the shy morality of humankind. I was more interested in why he was sharing my dream than why he was checking me out.

“So you can’t look at me naked in real life, but in a dream it’s okay?” I asked, recalling all the times he’d come into my home and imposed an outdated sense of modesty on me.

“It’s your dream.”

I made a dismissive grunt and sat up so he was no longer looking down on me.

“Don’t be coy with me, Holden, not now.”

The vampire gave a sad smile, letting the barest trace of emotion say all the things he could not allow himself to utter out loud. He reached out and brushed a curl from my face.

“Why do they want me to kill you? Why you?” I implored.

For a long time he did not reply, twisting a yellow-gold ringlet of my hair around his finger. I took a mental inventory of his appearance and longed for his returned presence in my life.

He looked tired, which was an impressive feat for a vampire, and his skin was almost translucent in places, which told me he wasn’t eating enough. His hair was getting longer, some of the natural curl showing through. It had grown past his ears and now flirted with the base of his neck.

Holden was always vigilant about his appearance. He’d once been an editor-at-large for GQ, and I had never seen him look anything less than perfect. He considered his appearance a point of pride, and his pride ran deep.

Mirroring his gesture, I reached out and ran my fingers through his hair, surprised by how soft it was. I trailed my hand from his hair to his cheek, his cheek to his mouth. His gaze didn’t leave mine, even as my thumb pressed down on his lower lip. I pressed more insistently, and he let his mouth fall open. His fangs were exposed.

I shivered when his tongue flicked against the pad of my thumb.

“You won’t kill me,” he said matter-of-factly.

“I have to.” I began to withdraw my hand, but he caught my wrist.

“You. Won’t. Kill. Me.”

There was a flash of fang in his words, and a deep chill curdled my insides. He did not release me and instead used the advantage of his superior strength to draw me towards him. With his one hand still in my hair, he forced me to look him straight in the eyes.

I was immune to the vampire ability to enthrall their human victims, known as the thrall, but it felt like that was what he was trying to do. Of all vampires, Holden knew of my immunity the best, so I wasn’t sure what his intentions were. I swallowed hard, and he pulled me closer so our bodies pressed together. My skin felt hot where it touched his.

“I need you, Secret,” he whispered against my lips. I shivered again, but this time it wasn’t from fear.

“Where are you?”

“I’m safe, for now.” He trailed his fingertips down my left cheek.

“I can’t come home.”

“You have to. I need you.”

“If I come home, Sig will make me kill you.”

“Will he?” He had his mouth hovering over mine, his lips brushing the oversensitive surface of my own, bringing a new wave of heat over my body. I was having trouble breathing, and he was moving his hands towards my lower back.

“As far as Sig’s concerned…” I trembled, “…it’s you or me.”

A smile curved his mouth as his tongue traced the outline of my lower lip. “It won’t be me,” he promised.

Then, with a movement so fast it lasted less time than my alarmed gasp, he dropped his head and sank his ready teeth into my exposed neck.

Chapter Three

“Secret Merriweather McQueen! You put that in a glass this instant.” My grandmere snatched the old-style glass milk bottle from my hand.

“It’s blood!” I exclaimed, reaching out to reclaim my breakfast. “You want me to put blood in your nice glasses?” Of course, this question was ridiculous on many levels. After sixteen years under her roof, I knew that was exactly what she wanted.

“It wouldn’t be the first time, baby,” she said, practically reading my mind. She was holding the bottle aloft while she rummaged through the cupboards. It was quite the spectacle, seeing my petite grandmother with a bottle of blood grasped in her hand, and keeping me at arm’s reach while she searched. Considering I had the physical strength to take the bottle by force, the situation was all the more comical because I did nothing to fight her. It was like a rabbit telling a bear to hang on for a second while the rabbit got him a plate.

She found what she was looking for and, with a satisfied grin, plunked a glass down on the counter.

I gave her a horrified look.

“You’re kidding me. How is that…” I pointed to the offending object, “…more civilized than drinking it from the bottle?”

She had found an old Sesame Street cup, depicting The Count. His cartoonish fangs beamed at me, and I read the writing on the side which proclaimed, One… One Glass of Milk! I wanted to stab myself in the face with the broken shards of my dignity.

Grandmere filled the glass with the bottled blood—pig, based on the small mouthful I’d tasted—and handed it to me.

“I raised a lady.”

I let that one go, because I didn’t want her to know how far off base she was. I cursed like a sailor, slept with boys I wasn’t married to, and was sort of soul-married to two werewolves in a bizarre, polyandrous, metaphysical mess. Plus, I drank my blood straight out of the fridge back home. Lady was hardly the first word that came to mind when I described myself. But there was no point in telling all this to my grandmere, who I loved more than any human alive.

“It’s blood,” I reminded her again, more insistently. “In a toddler’s drinking glass. This is insulting.”

“Drink it from that or don’t drink it at all.” She put her hands on her hips and gave me a stern stare down, which let me know she wasn’t fooling around.

I picked up the glass with a little harrumph and knew my pouting wasn’t going to faze her. It probably only reminded her of the teenager I’d been when I ran away six years earlier. A lot about me had changed since then. I’d grown up, gotten harder and meaner. In many ways I was the most world-weary twenty-two-year-old in history. But I still knew how to laugh.

She sat down at the kitchen table and picked up a small box that had been left there. Something hard rattled inside when she shook it back and forth.

“I have something for you.”

I placed my empty glass in the sink, and before she had a chance to remind me, filled it with soap and hot water and washed it out. Blood was a bitch to clean once it dried. With the glass now in the drain rack, I sat in the chair across from her.

Grandmere put the box back on the table and slid it across the wood until it was in front of me. I took off the lid, and inside was a necklace made from a blood red, striped stone with a band of gold flecks running down the middle. It was set with simple gold wire and hung on a gold chain.

I raised my eyes and gave her a questioning look. She was a witch, and witches didn’t give away stones without a specific reason.

“It’s tiger’s iron,” she explained. “It wards against evil magic.”

I laughed. “Am I expecting to run into a lot of evil magic out here?” The strange wolf flashed to mind, and my laughter died away. “Am I?”

“Never hurts to protect yourself, baby.” Her halfhearted smile said she wasn’t telling me everything.

Taking her hands in mine, I gave her a comforting squeeze. “Thank you.”

“Let me help you put it on.” She was up from the table in a flash, with the necklace already in her hand. For a senior, she sometimes exhibited supernatural speed.

Her rush to have me guarded against evil made me feel more anxious than anything. She pulled my hair off my shoulders, and for a moment she hesitated. My heart stopped, because in spite of how impossible it would be, I worried she might see Holden’s bite mark from my dream on me.

Talk about a guilty conscience.

Grandmere clasped the necklace, and the stone hung around my neck with a foreign weight. It was a big pendant, roughly the same width as an oyster shell. The color was disconcerting, making it look like there was a splash of gold-infused blood over my heart. I held the stone up, and the gold winked at me under the kitchen lights.

“It’s pretty.”

She let my hair down and placed a kiss on top of my head. “I won’t keep you. I know you had plans tonight.”

Drinking at a dive bar with a bunch of surly farmers. Some plan. I didn’t argue with her, though. I got up from the table and went to the back door to find my shoes, still fiddling with the necklace. From the kitchen, Grandmere cleared her throat. Seems she had decided to say everything on her mind after all.

“Secret, sweetie, you know I love you, right?”

“Of course.” I stopped what I was doing so I could get a better look at her as she spoke. She was staring out the kitchen window over the sink and didn’t turn to face me when I came back into the kitchen.

“Then try not to take this the wrong way.”

I raised a questioning brow.

“Baby, I think it’s time you went home.”

I made the walk to the bar without any supernatural encounters, but this time I was prepared for them. In spite of the necklace to ward off evil, I felt better when I was armed. My Sig 9mm was tucked in the waistband of the black shorts I was wearing. I’d covered the weapon with my yellow tank top, which had just enough give to camouflage the gun. I’d tried to make the casual ensemble into a coordinated outfit by wearing matching yellow flip-flops, but my tangled blonde curls were in a messy bun on top of my head.