“I'm not complaining.” Amaliya's gaze swept over the night sky. “It already feels so much better without him.”

“Very true.” Cian cocked his head to gaze at her. “You okay?”

Covered in blood, wounded, and a little dazed, she smiled. “I'm more than okay. For the first time in my life, I know who I am and what I am. I know exactly what I am capable of and it’s the most amazing feeling in the whole damn world.”

Hooking his arm around her neck, he drew her close to him and pressed his lips to her forehead. She wrapped her arms around him and leaned into him. Together they walked across the same field they had fled across to escape the sun and The Summoner.

“Sorry about Roberto.”

“He made his own choices,” Cian said sadly. “We all do.”

Amaliya nodded as she sighed. “It still must have hurt you.”

“Yes,” he answered, and lapsed into silence.

They walked slowly back to the car.

“We're free now,” Cian said as the cool night breeze flowed over them.

“We can do whatever we want,” Amaliya agreed.

“Will you leave?”

“Yes. No. I'm not sure,” Amaliya answered.

He stopped and held her against him. “Stay.”

Resting her cheek against his, she gazed toward the cemetery and thought of The Summoner laying in pieces beneath the soil. If she stayed as part of Cian's cabal, they would be a mighty force to be reckoned with.

“Why?”

His fingers caressed her torn neck and his beautiful hazel eyes gazed into hers. “Because you love me.”

“Do not!”

“Oh, yes, you do!” He laughed and his lips brushed over hers in a tantalizing kiss.

“Do not,” she argued in a soft voice. She couldn't help but smile even though she was terrified out of her wits.

“You love me as much as I love you,” he assured her.

Tears slipped down her face and she thought of the dreams Pete had shared with her. This was no three-bedroom house with a pink canopy. It was much more and she knew it.

“Are you sure you want me?”

Cian laughed at this. “Yes. I'm sure. You have made me a better man. Or should I say vampire. For the first time in my very long life, I feel I have a distinct purpose. A reason to be strong and a reason to be.”

Amaliya tilted her head. “Really?”

“Samantha made me want to be a better human. You allowed me to be a better vampire. I think it's time I truly became master of Austin. And I want you at my side.” His hands smoothed her hair back from her face and he kissed her brow. “Stay.”

“Okay,” she said at last as she fully took in his words and believed him. “I'll stay.”

“And you love me,” Cian said softly.

“Yes,” she answered very softly. “Dammit.”

When, they reached the Lexus, Amaliya looked toward the passenger window. It was devoid of a reflection. “You said that you could teach me to see myself through someone else's eyes.”

Cian slid his hands into her hair and kissed her again. “Yes. When you're emotionally close to someone, you can see yourself through their eyes.”

“Close how?” She stroked his back lightly with her fingertips.

“Like this,” he answered, and kissed her deeply.

She clung to him as his mouth worshiped hers in a sacred kiss, then he drew back and held her close. Together, they looked into the glass once more and tears came to Amaliya's eyes as slowly a reflection of a man and woman intertwined in a sweet embrace came into view.

Nothing had ever been more beautiful to her eyes.

And for once, she knew, her luck wasn't really all that bad at all.

In fact, she thought, as she looked at her expression as Cian kissed her brow once more, she had never been so lucky in her life.

Epilogue

Standing on the balcony of his apartment, Cian leaned against the railing and looked toward the glowing pale pink countenance of the Capitol. The night was muggy as a light summer rain fell over the city. The weather wasn't deterring the people heading out to the clubs and the sounds of conversation and the steady traffic drifted up to him from the street below. In the distance, the lights of suburbia twinkled in the hills and he smiled to himself.

Time had a tendency to heal all wounds. Of course, sometimes the wounds were very deep and it took a very long time for them to mend. When he had died at the hands of The Summoner, he had lost everything that had defined him up to that point: his position at the plantation, his family, and his people. He had felt hollowed out, empty a mere shadow of a man. Only the compulsion to survive had pushed him on for more years than he cared to think about. He had often thought of just lying down and letting the sun take him, but could never bring himself to do it. Despite everything The Summoner had done to him, he had the tiniest hope that someday, somehow, he would find his way back to life and to himself.

Now, at last, he felt reconnected to the man he once was. He had been foolhardy to think being with Samantha would make him human again and therefore closer to the man he had been. It had not been the mortal coil that had defined him, but the man within. He understood that now.

Strange how it had taken someone so completely unorthodox to awaken him.

He was not an overseer at a plantation anymore, but he was the master of Austin. Before, it had seemed like just a title, now it was his duty. He did not have a wife and two darling children anymore, but he had a strange makeshift family with a tattooed girlfriend, spunky former girlfriend and her new vampire hunting boyfriend, and two fearless West Texans. And as for his people, in the last four months he had held court to emissaries from four vampire masters in Texas. They had long steered clear of him, afraid of his creator, and afraid of the game he was entangled with. But now they saw him as an unknown equation in the constant struggles in the supernatural realm and were seeking him out.

And, of course, Amaliya standing at his side was what truly brought them to him.

They were afraid of her.

In the time that had passed since The Summoner's death, he had become more aware of the great upheavals occurring throughout the shadow world that lay hidden beneath what was considered reality. Since his overthrow of the Austin cabal in the Seventies, he had hidden away from the rest of the supernatural world, trying to avoid the politics he had been witness to during his long stay in the court of Etzli in Mexico City.

His last great move in the vampire realm had been to set up the Austin cabal and have the vampire hunters slay them so he could seize control of the city. He had been desperate to win against The Summoner and had felt no remorse when he had plotted to destroy the vampires in Austin and take over. At the time, Austin had been a college town and it seemed his best chance at claiming a city. Slaughtering a few innocents had been something he had been willing to do to make sure Summerfield moved against the cabal. He was a vampire and had no real regrets about his choice at that time, but now with The Summoner gone, he was just as much of a target as the former master of Austin had been.

The “Satanist Murders” were now laid to rest. The real Professor Sumner's body had been found outside of Shreveport, Louisiana and since he had been the primary suspect to begin with, the media and public considered the whole affair closed. Cian knew through his growing number of contacts, that the police were still looking for clues, but the evidence trail was long dead.

There had been one frightening moment when they had questioned Sergio about the call Amaliya had made from the motel where she had killed Rob. But Sergio had quickly deflected them by saying he had many prank calls and how was he to know one was serious? Rob was considered another victim of the nefarious Professor Sumner and his unknown accomplices.

Amaliya received her newspaper obituary and funeral notice from Sergio. She was dead in every way to the mortal world. Strangely, she seemed to embrace this. Whereas Cian had hated becoming a vampire, she loved it. And because she loved it, it made him feel more at peace.

Sighing, he looked out toward the hills again and wondered how Samantha was doing. They had avoided each other for a week after The Summoner had died and then, as Sam had a tendency to do, she barged into the apartment and demanded to talk to him. They had spoken on the balcony while Amaliya lurked inside, looking pensive and he had received an earful from the tiny blond.

Samantha completely and utterly reamed him out, her eyes flashing, and her foot stomping. He was completely guilty of all she accused him of and had profusely apologized to her. She had burst into tears and told him he was still a good man and that obviously he should be with Amaliya because she made him be who he really was. He had embraced Samantha warmly and remembered all the reasons he had loved her and still did in a different way. She had clung to him and told him that he sucked and that she wanted Roberto's old job without the blood stuff. Cian had laughed and not refused her.

She was now his right hand person and better at the job than Roberto had ever been. Samantha would always be a tiny whirlwind whipping through their lives, but he rather liked that. She was dating Jeff and they seemed very happy. Jeff could hang out on Sunday afternoons with her family and go to football games. He was everything Samantha needed and everything Cian was not. He was very happy for both of them.