“Well done, sweetheart,” she said, brushing off her sandy backside. She put a hand on his bare shoulder. “You sincerely impress me.”

Phin propped an elbow on top of my shoulder and leaned close. “Your brother has serious gifts,” he said. “Not many can best my mother.”

I smiled. “It’s his extreme Southern mannerisms that make him so deceiving. I bet Elise wouldn’t allow it to happen again.”

Phin grinned. “You’re probably right.” He glanced down at my thigh. “How’s the leg?”

I followed his gaze to the place where Luc’s blade had hit my thigh. I shrugged it off. “Barely hurts at all.” The red splotch had started to turn purple. It wouldn’t last long.

Had I been there, I’d never have allowed that blade, rubber or not, to reach your beautiful body.

I jerked my head around. So profound was Victorian’s voice, it’d sounded as though he was standing right beside me. He, of course, wasn’t. I’d known from his last message that he’d be back. I pushed my thoughts, and his voice, out of my head—for now, anyway. My eyes cast around the gathering. No one looked concerned. No one but I heard the voice inside my head. I wondered why Eli couldn’t. He and the other Duprés could read my thoughts. How was it they couldn’t hear Victorian?

Because, love. It is I injecting your mind with my thoughts. They’re mine alone, meant only for you. See the power I possess?

“Go for a walk with me?” Eli said, suddenly behind me, his arms snaking around my waist. He pulled me close. “I’m a little tired of sharing you with the whole Dupré family.”

“Some would call that stingy,” Phin said.

Eli led me away. “I’ve been called worse.”

I glanced over my shoulder as we walked, shrugging off Victorian’s voice in my head. My vision caught my brother. Seth waved. “See ya, Ri.” I smiled back. “Later, Bro.” I’d been a little clingy with him, once I’d awakened this last time. The impact of what could have truly happened to Seth hit me hard, and I was petrified that I’d lose him. Estelle had been the one to tell me to back off a bit, and with only a little resistance, I had. God, I just loved him so much. The pain and fear I’d gone through when the Arcos brothers had taken him almost did me in. I’d worried until I was sick from it. Damn, I couldn’t help it. He was my brother. But I’d chillaxed a bit since, and I trusted him. I mean, Jesus. He could fight like something out of a movie. It was amazing to watch.

“Are you going to make me interact with you through your thoughts,” Eli said, his mouth brushing my ear, “or what?”

I stared at him.

“Supper in thirty minutes, da both of you,” Estelle called after us. I glanced over my shoulder at her and the setting sun gleamed off her flawless dark skin. “I mean dat, girl.” She grinned.

“Yes, ma’am,” I answered, and threw her a smile. “We’ll be back.”

“Hmm, you’d better. Naughty child,” she answered, then turned and headed up the beach with the rest.

“Do you know what I can do to you in thirty minutes?” Eli whispered against the skin of my throat as we walked. His hands caressed the bare skin of my exposed stomach, grazed my belly button, slipped below the waist of my board shorts, then skimmed upward and gently tugged at the string tie holding my bikini top together. His lips moved down my neck and over my shoulder, and I shivered.

“All talk and no action, Dupré?” Completely turned on and burning at his touch, I egged him on, bending my head to the side as Eli’s mouth moved against my skin. I grabbed his ass. “God, do you seriously need thirty minutes—”

So fast, my head spun, Eli whipped me around to face him. The waning afternoon sun behind him, he looked down at me, a small shift in breeze rustling his tousled hair. Blue eyes, dark with desire, stared so hard at me, I thought he would devour me, right there. “Trust me,” he said, his voice low. “I want to.” He slipped his hands over my waist, my buttocks, and pulled me against him. He was already hard, and he throbbed against me, the seam of my board shorts grazing just the right spot. I gasped. “Come.” He grabbed my hand and pulled.

“Oh, don’t worry,” I promised, allowing Eli to drag me fast up the beach, putting distance between us and the others. “I will.”

There really was nowhere else for us to go but the water; the small barrier island was void of most maritime forest, and what little of it there was housed Preacher and Estelle, and the rest of the camp. That left either the wide-open beach, or the water.

Eli read my thoughts; he pulled me into the warm surf, let my hand loose, and dove under. I did the same, and we both broke the surface. Eli glided to me, gathered me, and lifted my hips, pulling me onto his lap. Beneath the water, his fingers kneaded my lower back, and I draped my arms around his neck. For several seconds, we simply stared, the rising tide lapping at our skin, and he studied me with such intensity, I nearly looked away.

“Don’t,” he said, grasping my jaw to make sure my gaze remained on his. “Look at me, Riley.”

I did, and my heart skipped a beat. It was almost a painful act to accomplish, fully looking upon him. Eli’s beauty was so great; it literally stunned me every time my eyes raked over his features and his body. With his hair wet and sideswept, and water glistening off his lean frame, my breath involuntarily hitched.

“Yeah,” he said so softly, I barely heard him. “That’s what you do to me, too.” He tucked a loose wet strand of hair behind my ear. “I can’t get you off my mind. Ever. You’re all I think about.”

I smiled. “You’re a horny vampire. I get it,” I said.

“No,” he replied fast. “It’s not that. Well, not only that,” he said. Then, those surreal blue eyes locked tightly on to mine, and I couldn’t have looked away if I’d wanted to.

“It’s that whole danger aspect, right?” I asked, trying for some reason not to be serious. “You know—you have to be extra careful with me because I’m still human and you can’t let yourself fully go—” His fingers over my mouth hushed any more ridiculous words I might have spewed.

“No, Riley,” he answered. “I’ve had a lot of sex, with a lot of willing partners,” he said matter-of-factly. “But none of them reached me here.” He drew my hand from around his shoulders to rest against his heart—rather, the area where it should have been. His gaze grew darker, more intense. “Not one. Only you. Nothing, or no one, will ever hurt you again, I promise.” His knuckles grazed my jaw. “I thought I’d be alone forever. Now, I have you.” He shook his head. “It’s like a miracle or something.”

My heart leapt. No one has ever made me feel the way Eli does. I know that our relationship is way more than based on just sex. Way more. This is probably why I joke around and try to make light of the serious stuff. I admit—I’m scared. Of what exactly, I’m not sure yet. What I do know is that I feel the same way toward Eli as he does toward me. As corny and obsessed as it sounds, I can’t stand to be away from him for long. I want him close all the time.

“Oh yeah?” he said, pulling me closer, his smile wide. Then he moved his mouth to my ear. “That’s what I’d hoped to hear,” he whispered, then kissed my lobe. “Part of me never wants to leave here.” He pulled back, meeting my gaze with one that was hooded, filled with a hunger that I’d never, ever seen in the eyes of a human male. It was … different. I can’t explain it other than it made you feel wanted. Desired. Craved. Not just like … an object of sex for the moment, but more like … like a necessity.

Eli shook his head, moved his hand to the back of my neck, and lowered his mouth to mine. The sun had dropped now, and the breeze hitting my wet skin felt a bit cooler. But with Eli wrapped around me, I hardly noticed or cared. His lips grazed mine, his tongue slowly caressed, and I lost myself in his powerful, seductive kiss. And just as I lowered my hand, pressed against his chest, and trailed my fingers over the ridges of his stomach, he stopped and raised his head.

A smile—pained though it might be—tipped his sexy mouth. “And to prove I’m not just some horny vampire who only wants in your pants, we’re heading back to camp. Now.”

With a lot less grace than I’d imagined, Eligius Dupré dumped me right into the Atlantic and walked back to the beach.

“Wait!” I said, sitting in the water. “It’s totally cool if you only want in my pants!”

Eli laughed. “No.”

I slapped the water and swore something filthy-nasty in Romanian. After Eli turned and stared at me in shock, he laughed again, so loudly it resounded off the palms of Da Island. I ducked underwater to cool my heated, raging, hormones.

Sitting around a roaring campfire on a Georgia barrier island at night with a handful of centuries-old vampires, Gullah conjurers, and adolescent boys with vampiric tendencies made for a way more interesting crowd than any other I’d ever hung with in my wild teenage years, or in my adult years, truth be known. No lie—it was surreal. Bizarre. Oh, and Zetty—can’t forget the big Tibetan. The fact that he sat across from me with a pouch of ground-up black cat bone (I pray the poor thing was dead before its bones were harvested, but I have my doubts), graveyard dust, and God knows what else Estelle mixed up made me want to write to Zetty’s mother in Kathmandu and tell on him. He was one seriously superstitious dude who no longer trusted me, and it’d probably be a long time before he did. I’d really freaked him out when I was detoxing on the vampire venom.

I looked around at my other fireside companions. Of course, the Duprés were their same charming, French selves. Phin and Luc sat in conversation, and Luc was peeling a piece of saw grass and throwing little slivers of it into the sand as they spoke. Strangely enough, they both looked serious, and it made me wonder what they were talking about. Gilles and Elise, next to them, were totally into each other, which I found pretty cool, given the number of years they’d been together. Gilles held Elise’s hand, and her eyes lit up when looking at him. I’m guessing that’s one of a vampire’s greatest perks: When they love you, they really love you—obsessively, faithfully, and forever. I liked it.