Chapter One

“You’re wrong. He’s totally looking at you.”

Ivie pushed her Grey Goose and tonic away. “Can we focus? For just a minute here.”

The human cigar bar she and her cousin were in was packed with non-vampires, and not for the first time, Ivie wondered why in the hell she had agreed to meet here. For one, she hated smoke, especially the kind that smelled like sweat socks—hello, stogies. Two, it wasn’t that she didn’t like humans…she just didn’t care for them very much. And there were so many of their kind here, all competing for air space, their voices loud and grating.

Like they were at a ballgame. Except, noooo, she wanted to point out, we’re all indoors here, and unless she was seriously missing something, there was nothing to referee—

“I’m so serious right now.”

Ivie let her head fall to the side so that her eyes ran into her cousin’s hopeful face. Rubia, a.k.a. Rubes, was a red-haired romantic, the anti-Ivie, as it were. She was everything that was bright and happy, a hopping, skipping ball of optimism that was just…pink…even when she wasn’t wearing the color.

Which was rare.

Why were the pair of them friends? It was the classic childhood hangover of two relations who had lived next door and had played together because there had been a dearth of other distractions. Now, as fully transitioned adults, they had shared too much history to go their separate ways.

And, Ivie guessed, Rubes didn’t ever let anybody go. There were bits and pieces of the female’s heart everywhere in the world, and how she could stand that was a mystery.

“I think he’s one of us,” Rubes whispered, her stare locked firmly on the other end of the bar.

“As I was saying”—Ivie took back her V&T and grabbed a sip off the sharp, cold rim—“I waited for two hours in that drawing room. Two hours. I read through the four Town & Country’s that were on the coffee table through twice, memorized all the oil paintings and marble busts, and briefly considered committing suicide by hanging myself from the chandelier. The only thing that saved me was the very real possibility they might charge my parents a cleaning fee to remove the body.”

“He’s definitely one of us. He just smiled at the bartender without showing his front teeth.”

“So after I created a butt-divot-and-a half in the silk sofa, that female comes back in. I swear to you, she looked like a cross between a librarian and a fascist. She was wearing this gray suit that quite possibly could have been made out of a base metal and her hair was scraped back into a bun that was tight enough to be considered a solid. She says to me—”

“Holy crap, did he just pay the bartender with a hundred-dollar bill?”

“—‘The master cannot see you the now. He is not feeling well.’ ” Ivie stirred the lime slice and her ice cubes with the red swizzle stick. “And I’m all, ‘Sure, no problem. Whatever is good for you’—”

“He’s not accepting the change. He’s tipping the bartender all that money—what a nice guy.”

“I mean, listen, I can understand that it’s hard if you’re old and you’re sliding downhill—it’s horrible to have to interview the nurse who’s coming to help you in your end stage. It’s like your disease is screaming in your face, I won! I get all that, and I honestly would have gone back there at a later time, but get this. The female walks me over to the door and does that head-to-toe thing people do. I knew what she was going to say before she opened her mouth—”

“Oh, see. Another smile with no front teeth. Yup. One of us.”

“She says, ‘Aren’t you a little young for this.’ ” Ivie put her palms up. “Young? Look, I know I’m not as old as you are, Ms. Punic Wars, but I am a fully trained nurse who’s been working under Havers for a decade—and I’ve even done a human program. I have meaningful experience with end-of-life patients, and Havers himself sent me over here. You think just because of this face”—she motioned around her puss—“and the fact that I have long hair means I can’t do my job? Give me a break—”

“Ivie?”

“—and no, I’m not interested in the position if you’re going to call into question my skills on the basis of age alone.” Ivie shrugged. “So I said I was probably not a good fit and that she might want to find someone else. She seemed very relieved—”

“Ivie.”

“—which tells me that she had already decided she didn’t want me the second I walked into that mansion—”

“Ivie.”

Ivie wheeled around toward her cousin. “What, Rubes. What. Do you want to tell me about the guy not showing his canines again? Have you considered that he might be a human with orthodontia issues? And if he dropped a hundy, good for him. Let’s petition the human government to give him a stamp. An obelisk. A reality TV show. Oh, wait, you’re going to tell me you’ve psychically deduced his name—”

“It’s Silas.”

Ivie froze at the sound of the deep, low voice. Later, much later, she would remember most clearly not the moment she looked into his eyes, but rather the split second before she did. And that was because, when you were falling from a great distance, spinning and turning in mid-air, uncertain of your chances of surviving the landing, the thing that was even more vivid than when you hit was the last moment before consequence owned you.

His eyes were so pale a green that they were almost white, nothing but a black border to prove he wasn’t some kind of deity fallen to earth. And he was a vampire just like her, his scent heady and full of spice, not anything that came in a cologne bottle. Hair was black and on the long side, pushed back from his forehead in waves. Shoulders were broad and strong. Clothes were expensive, but not showy.

Those lips were…

“Her name is Ivie,” Rubes spoke up. “And she doesn’t have a boyfriend!”

Ivie felt her eyes bulge even before the embarrassment hit, but she recovered enough to look the guy fully in the face. “Just so you know, I pay my cousin to make me feel like a two-day-old truck-stop sandwich. It’s a bizarre relationship, but it keeps her off the streets and my ego in check.”

There was a heartbeat of pause, as if that were the last thing in the world he expected her to say. No doubt he was used to beauty queens who blinked their fake eyelashes and fluffed their hair at every word he spoke, and assuming that was what he was into, he was going to find her—

The male threw his head back and laughed.

The rolling sound was so attractive, all kinds of people looked over, the human men and women captivated by him.

Just as she was.

When his eyes came back to level, he was smiling widely, flashing fangs that were probably only noticeable to members of the species, although she got the idea he didn’t care one way or the other.

“Fair enough,” he murmured. “May I buy you a drink?”

“I have one—”

“Absolutely!” Rubes got off her stool and pulled her wool coat on. “And she lives alone, so you should make sure she gets home safe.”

Ivie rubbed her forehead and wondered if you could disown a relative you weren’t financially responsible for. “Since when did you become a Tinder app?”

“Bye!”

Looking over her shoulder, Ivie watched Rubes bounce out the door, all that red hair making her think of Merida from that Disney movie.

So here’s a question, she thought. If you put her on Valium, would those follicles relax?

“How about I just take her seat while you finish what you’ve got?”

Ivie shook herself. “Ah…yeah, sure. But I’m not good at this.”

“You haven’t spilled on yourself yet.”

“What?”

He nodded at her vodka tonic. “If the ‘this’ you’re talking about is drinking, in the short time I’ve known you, I’ve found you quite competent.”

“How is it you’re still tall even though you’re sitting down?”

There was another pause. And then he laughed again. “Do you always say anything that’s on your mind.”

“Pretty much. Although I managed to keep the Valium comment to myself out of respect for Rubes.”

“I’m sorry?”

Ivie waved a hand. “Nothing. So tell me, what’s an aristocrat like you doing in a human place like this? I thought your kind only socialized with itself.”

As his stare narrowed, she thought, Gotcha.

A couple more comments like that and he was going to huff off and leave her to Uber home in peace. #perfect.

Or…#inevitable might be more like it.

“What makes you think I’m a member of the glymera?”

Ivie counted things off on her fingers, one by one. “That’s a cashmere sweater you’re wearing. Your watch is gold and weighs as much as this bar. And your accent screams multi-millions and a bloodline back to the first time the Scribe Virgin sneezed. Honestly, you stretch those vowels out any longer and we’re going to have to put you on life support.”

He recoiled, and for a second, something crossed his face. But it was too quick and she didn’t know him well enough to read it.

“Maybe I’m a self-made male posing with good enunciation.”

“Bone structure,” she ticked off.

“Plastic surgery.”

“That signet ring.”

“Pawn shop.”

“FYI, this is the best I’ve ever done at playing tennis.”

As he laughed again, she shrugged. “Why don’t you want to be who you are? Most folks in the species would kill to be in the aristocracy.”

“How about you? Do you want that?”

Ivie took a drink to buy herself some time and she was glad that things were getting watered down in her glass. She’d ordered the V&T even though she usually wasn’t into alcohol, to take the edge off that failed job interview. But with this guy sitting next to her? She found herself wanting her brain to function at its highest level.

“The money would be fun,” she hedged. “I mean, I have to stay in the kind of budget where getting clothes from Nordstrom Rack and shoes from Zappos is a treat. It would probably be exciting to have to agonize between whether you’re buying the Porsche or the Rolls—and then say, Screw it, I’ll take them both.”

“There’s a ‘but’ in this statement, isn’t there.”

“Well, here’s the thing. I’m not sure aristocrats are any happier than I am. I mean, especially the females, given all the social restrictions on them. But more to the point, from what I’ve seen at my job, health is the great equalizer. If you’re sick or old, it doesn’t matter what your bank account or your family tree looks like.”

“What do you do for a living?”

She glanced over at him—and promptly got lost in his lashes. Jeez, they made Kyle Jenner look like an alopecia patient. And his weren’t fake.

“Do you like what you see?” he said in a quiet voice.

“Nurse!” she blurted too loudly. “I’m a nurse. I work at Havers’s. As a nurse.”

That chuckle of his was grating as all get out. “Sounds rewarding—”

“Listen, could we just stop right here.” She pushed her tall glass away and got her purse and coat from the back of her chair. As she rose to her feet, she offered him a professional smile—the same one she used when she had to take out a catheter. “It was nice to meet you, blah, blah, blah, but let’s cut the crap and stop wasting good oxygen on this going-nowhere conversation. I am not into casual sex, I don’t get picked up in bars—or anywhere else, for that matter—and I can’t fathom any good reason why a male like you would be out on a night like this sitting next to me.”

“No reason? How about the fact that I saw you and I wanted to talk to you.”

“I said no ‘good’ reason. There are a lot of bad ones.” She went back to ticking things off on her fingertips. “You’re mated, but bored and looking for a little nookie before you go home to your judgmental shellan and your two perfect kids. You have a fetish that involves feet, bunny ears, Krazy Glue in strange places, or maybe, God forbid, gerbils. You have a bet with some other incredibly good-looking male vampire in here about how long it will take you to get the plain girl’s number. You’re a serial killer looking for a victim. You think I’m a lesbian and want a challenge. Maybe you’re mentally ill and believe we’re all going to get abducted by aliens at midnight and you figure, what the hell, I better get it in one more time before we’re all dead. How’m’I doing here? I can keep going.”

The smile he gave her was slow and breathtakingly beautiful.

As in she literally couldn’t breathe as she looked at him.

“I am so impressed you used ‘nookie’ in a sentence.”

Now it was Ivie’s turn to blink like she’d forgotten the language they were using.

“And,” he said as he finished what looked like bourbon or scotch in his rocks glass, “I can tell you with all honestly, I am none of those things. I am not mated, I don’t have any fetishes, I know no one else in this cigar bar, I’m not a serial killer, and I don’t believe in extraterrestrial life.” He leaned in, his lids going half-mast. “Oh, and with the way you’ve been looking at my mouth, I don’t think you’re a lesbian. I also find you far, far from plain.”

“Is it hot in here?” she said out loud.

“When I’m next to you, yes, it is.”

Ivie looked away, to the wall of windows in the front of the bar. The name of the place had been painted on the glass so it showed toward the street, the old-fashioned, 1920s’ writing all cursive and outlined with gold when you were on the sidewalk. When you were inside, however, you couldn’t read it, the reversed pattern opaque and black.

Kind of like destiny, she thought. You didn’t know what was going on until you were out on the other side of things.

“I have to go.”

God, she would have given anything not to have had that sadness creep into her voice right then.

“I’m not even going to ask if I can take you home,” he said.

“Good.”

“But I will see if you’ll meet me for dinner tomorrow night.” When she glanced at him, he put his palms up. “Public place. Let’s say Sal’s Restaurant. Do you know the one?”

“Who doesn’t.”

“Ten o’clock.”

Ivie frowned. “You know…you’re making me think of something my father always told me.”

“What’s that?”

“If something looks too good to be true, it is.” She put her coat on. “It was weird meeting you.”

“So dinner is a no?”

“Yeah, it’s a no.”

“If you change your mind, I’ll be—”

“I won’t.”

She turned around to start working her way to the door, when he said, “Ivie.”

“What.” She focused on the door, aware that she was being rude, but too discombobulated to care.

Wonder if he would like the way she used the word “discombobulate.”

“It was nice to meet you.”

Glancing over her shoulder, she found him staring at her, those pale eyes intense, his elegant hand turning his squat glass slowly around on the bar. He was like an ad in a lifestyle magazine with his elbow braced on the mahogany, his legs crossed at the knees—

Oh, look, his loafers had tassels on them.

Come on, like she’d expect him to be sporting a pair of fuzzy slippers down there?

“Wow, that’s a picture.”

“What?” he said.

“Never mind. Have a good life. I guess. Or…yeah.”

Cutting her losses, before her departure involved a pratfall or a wardrobe malfunction that flashed her butt, Ivie squared herself and weaved her way through the various humans until she could put the exit to good use. Outside, she took a series of deep breaths and was glad it was a cold January night and not the middle of August.

Head clearing and all that.

The neighborhood was full of gourmet restaurants, high-class boutiques that were currently closed for the night, and walk-ups that had brass door knockers and lots of molding around their entrances and windows. Going down one block, she found a nice little dark alley…and dematerialized back to her normal life.

Which did not include a male like that.

Nope. Not even close.