A multitude of stars twinkled in the inky sky above them when Mateo and Selena exited the car. He’d forgotten how dark it got at Broadmoor, his childhood home that sat high atop a bluff overlooking the Gulf Islands. The sound of chirping crickets filled the air and a lone coyote howled in the distance.

The stone entryway steps were covered in a thin layer of algae. Mateo made the mistake of touching Selena’s elbow when she slipped.

“Get your hands off me,” she snapped, jerking away from him.

If looks could kill, he’d be long dead by now.

Selena hadn’t spoken a word during the entire drive. Right shoulder pressed against the passenger door, arms crossed, she’d sat as far away from him as possible and stared into the darkness as his sports car hugged each winding curve in the road.

But he’d done what he needed to do. And he would continue to use any means necessary, including acting like a total caveman, until she was safe. That was all that mattered. Everything else, including how she felt about him, came second.

Inserting his key into the ornate lock, he pushed open the heavy wooden doors. They creaked from neglect. A musty dampness met his nostrils, and he wondered if there was a leak in the roof somewhere. With four years of no maintenance in this rainy, windswept climate, the house was bound to have some issues. He reached for the nearest light switch and flipped it on only to have nothing happen. Fuck. Of course. No electricity.

He’d need to get ahold of one of his brothers. Hopefully one of them could get the power turned back on at Broadmoor without him having to contact their parents, because he seriously couldn’t deal with them right now.

“Great,” she muttered under her breath. “Could this night get any worse?”

Luckily, he found a few candles and a pack of matches in a nearby sideboard. Soon the entire entryway was bathed in flickering light.

Selena drew in a sharp breath. “How big is this place anyway?”

His parents hadn’t approved of him dating a human girl, particularly one who was a sweetblood, so he’d never brought her here before. He could still see the distasteful look on his father’s face whenever Selena’s name was mentioned.

“If you’re talking about just the mansion,” Mateo replied, “there are fifteen bedrooms and suites spread throughout the various wings and two kitchens.”

“Holy smokes. I had no idea.” She gave a low whistle as she followed him into the adjacent sitting room. “Just the mansion? You mean there’s more?”

Her curiosity had overridden her fury…at least for the moment.

As he lit a fire in the huge stone fireplace and pulled the dust covers from the furniture, he told her about the carriage house down by the gates and the cottages nestled in the fir trees along the bluff. “My grandfather, who built the place, originally planned for it to be a resort.” A resort for other vampires, he thought, where they wouldn’t have to keep their true natures a secret.

“What happened?” she asked.

“My grandmother died while giving birth to my father. My grandfather was so heartbroken that he took his son and never came back.”

“That’s…so sad,” she said softly.

Unfortunately, his kind was well-acquainted with sadness and heartbreak. Successful pregnancies were rare. Many vampire couples who dreamed of having families remained childless for centuries.

“But your father came back.”

He nodded. “My parents wanted to restore the place to its original grandeur.”

She ran her hand along some of the ornately carved woodwork. “The workmanship and attention to detail is truly incredible. They must have loved it here.”

“They did.” Until he’d fucked up everything.

Unable to keep the emotion off his face, he turned away from her and threw open the French doors leading onto the terrace. A blast of icy air instantly cooled his skin, and he heard the surf crashing on the rocks far below.

God, he’d missed it here. He closed his eyes and inhaled deeply, smelling the saltwater and the nearby forest. He’d lived in a number of exciting cities since he left, but the wilds of British Columbia, with its supernatural beauty, was the only place where he ever felt truly at home.

* * *

Selena held the cup of tea Mateo had prepared for her and watched while he set a pillow and blanket on the sofa. A, as in singular, which meant what? That he wasn’t staying here?

Her heart beat out a low, ominous rhythm in her chest. “Are you planning to tell me what’s going on before you leave or are you just going to keep me guessing?”

“I have to deal with some things, but I’ll be back by dawn.”

She eyed the jacket he’d tossed on the piano bench nearby. Thinking about her cell phone and the car keys that were probably in one of the pockets, she set her cup down and took a casual step in that direction. She could continue to argue with him and get nowhere, or she could take matters into her own hands.

“Well, that’s comforting to know,” she said. “I’ve always wanted to be taken against my will by my ex-boyfriend and spend the night alone in a creaky old mansion out in the middle of nowhere. Fun times. You really know how to make a girl’s dreams come true.”

His jaw remained set and rigid. “I’m…sorry, Selena. If there were another way, I’d have done it.”

She was tempted to stomp her foot and throw this tea cup at his head. She’d never been more frustrated in her entire life. “You keep saying that. Another way for what? You can’t keep me in the dark forever, Mateo.”

His hard expression faltered, and she glimpsed a sudden sadness behind his eyes before he turned away. He still wasn’t going to tell her.

Sneezing a few times, she had an idea. “Can you open the doors to the balcony again? I think all this dust is getting to me.”

“Of course.”

She waited until he reached for the door handles before making her move. With her eyes on his broad back, she stepped closer to the piano bench. As he opened the doors, she slipped her hand into one of the pockets. Bingo. His keys. She wrapped her fingers around them and withdrew them slowly so they wouldn’t make a sound. She hesitated and thought about searching the pockets for her phone, then changed her mind. She probably couldn’t get a signal up here anyway.

Assessing the distance to the front door, she guessed it had to be twenty or thirty feet away. Inching backward, she noted that she’d have to get through both the sitting room and the entryway. Could she make it there before he noticed? There was a baby grand piano and two sofas between them, so it was possible. Once she got to the front door, could she then make it to the car? In high school, she’d been on the track team and had broken several sprinting records that stood to this day, so she knew she was fast. Or at least, she used to be.

She took a step backward, not taking her eyes from his back. And then another. But because she wasn’t looking where she was going, her calf bumped hard against the corner of the coffee table, jostling her cup and saucer, sending tea everywhere. Dang it. When she looked up, Mateo wasn’t near the open doors to the terrace anymore. He was gone.

What the—

“Going somewhere?”

She spun around and gasped. Mateo stood by the front door like a rigid sentry, his arms crossed over his chest. She blinked a few times, confused. He couldn’t possibly know that she’d taken his keys, but clearly, he did. She glanced over her shoulder at the piano and the sofas in the sitting room, then back at Mateo. How did he get over there so fast? How had she not seen him?

Her cheeks burned from embarrassment at being caught red-handed. It was worth the try though. She headed toward the cool air blowing in from the French doors and heard Mateo’s loud boot steps behind her. But when she stepped onto the balcony, she got another idea. Reaching into her pocket, she withdrew the keys.

“What are you doing, Selena?” Anger dripped off each word. “Give those to me.”

“You’re going to tell me what the heck is going on or I’m dropping them over the edge.”

“Damn it, Selena,” he said through clenched teeth. “I would…but I can’t.”

She didn’t believe him. “Really? Is that so?”

She put a hand on the rail and that’s when she heard a loud crack. Suddenly the railing was gone, and her body pitched backward. She scrambled to regain her balance, but it was no use.

She lost her footing on the slick surface and screamed as she fell into the blackness.

They say your life flashes before your eyes as you’re dying, but that wasn’t exactly true. All Selena could think about were the things she’d never get a chance to experience in the future, not the things she’d already done. She’d never get a chance to see her father eat lemon cake from her mother’s lost recipe. She’d never cater a wedding—hers or anyone else’s. She’d never hear the sound of her own child’s laughter. She’d never grow old with the man she loved.

Suddenly, something strong and warm gripped her torso. The wind rushing past her ears stopped as her downward momentum came to a halt. She couldn’t have been falling for more than a second or two, but it had felt like an eternity.

“I’ve got you, babe. I’ve got you.”

“Mateo?” she croaked, hanging onto him for dear life. She opened her eyes a crack and saw that they were clinging to the side of the cliff.

“Shh shh shh. I’ve got you,” he kept saying, making her think she must be crying.

With the ease of a powerful swimmer cutting through the water, Mateo climbed up the side of the cliff face, left arm around her body like a vise, right arm and both legs propelling them upward. When they got to the top, he collapsed to the ground with her. She must’ve been in shock, because all she could do was hold onto him, her lips pressed against his neck, breathing in his musky male scent.

“What…what just happened?” she asked in a shaky voice.

“That fucking rail. I should never have let you go onto the terrace before checking things out first.” Rocking her gently, he stroked her hair over and over, as if trying to convince himself that she was fine.

And she was. Here in his arms, she felt as if she was truly safe for the first time in ages.

Teeth chattering, tears streaming down her cheeks, she looked into his handsome face. “I mean, how did you save me?”

“I still don’t want to tell you,” he said, his voice choked and full of emotion, “but you deserve to know the truth. I’ll explain it inside.”

Back in the sitting room, he wrapped her in a blanket and started to turn away, but she tightened her grip on him.

“Selena, please,” he said. “Let go. I’ll tell you, but I’ve got to stoke the fire and—”

She could tell that was just an excuse. The fire was fine. “Stay here.”

He had a pained look on his face. “Trust me. You don’t want that. What I have to say will frighten you.”

She couldn’t bear the thought of not feeling him next to her right now. She sucked in a few gasping breaths, trying to control her rising anxiety. “You…you think I could be frightened of you? Mateo, you saved my life. I’d be…dead if it weren’t for you.”

He said nothing for a few long moments, then finally, he caved and sat next to her. She relaxed, resting her head in the crook of his arm as he began to speak. The sound of his voice reverberating in his chest soothed her even more.

“Before I get started, I want you to know that I would never intentionally hurt you. I’d rather die a thousand deaths than have any harm come to you.” He paused for a moment then continued. “What I’m about to tell you is going to seem utterly impossible, but I swear, it’s the absolute truth.”

Over the next hour and several more cups of tea, Mateo proceeded to tell her the most unbelievable things she’d ever heard. Things about vampires being real and her blood being addictive. He explained that contrary to popular fiction, most vampires lived peacefully among humans only needing their blood occasionally. Then he demonstrated how they could absorb a human’s energy just through touch, and she felt a subtle tingling sensation where his hands pressed against hers, before he abruptly pulled away. Any more than that, he told her, and she’d start to feel mildly tired.

Honestly, if he hadn’t saved her life, she never would have believed any of it. Nope. Not in a million years. The stories he was telling her were that insane. That crazy.

“And you came back because…?” She gripped the blanket tighter around her body, not sure she really wanted to hear the answer and yet knowing she needed to.

He told her about Darkbloods, a hidden society of vampires that lived like their brutal ancestors did, killing humans and selling their blood. And how he’d discovered her blood on the black market.

Hugging her arms close, she felt as if she might get sick. “Since I’m still alive, when did they do it? When did they come for my blood? When I was sleeping?”

“That’s possible,” he replied.

She shivered as she tried to imagine the evil creatures sneaking into her bedroom at night. Had they used the front door? One of her windows? She searched her memory for something, anything that would jar loose the memory of what they had done to her, but there was nothing. Only the fatigue that had plagued her for weeks.

He continued. “However, I believe the customer who supplied you with the Sweet-laced rum is responsible, so it may have happened there.”

“I don’t understand how I wouldn’t remember. I mean, I had to have been terrified. Why didn’t I notice needle marks or bite marks?”

“I’m sure you were.” He cursed under his breath. “Our ability to wipe human minds has allowed us to live in secret among your kind, and feed from you, for thousands of years. With just a touch of saliva, we can heal any marks we make on our prey. Do you understand why I had to get you out of town tonight and why I couldn’t allow you to go home?”

She sighed, nodding reluctantly. “But did you have to be such a…a pig-headed brute about it?”

“Do you really think if I had told you then that you’d have believed me? My first and only priority was getting you away from a possible place of danger as quickly as possible. I sure as hell didn’t have time to elaborate why.”

He brushed a strand of hair from her face and his gaze dropped to her lips, sending a deep, stirring need thrumming through her body. Although she’d been with a few men since Mateo, at that moment, she wouldn’t have been able to recall any of their names, including a man with whom she’d been briefly engaged, even if she’d tried.

The sound of her heart pounded loudly in her ears. How would it feel if he took her vein? Would it hurt? He’d said that vampire couples often shared blood during lovemaking, so it had to be pleasurable on some level, but what about lovemaking between vampires and humans? She could’ve sworn she’d seen his gaze flicker to her throat then back to her mouth again.

“Can you hear that?” she asked softly.

He glanced around the room, drawing his brows together. “Hear what?”

“My…heartbeat.”

He looked back at her, a startled look on his face, before he closed his eyes and nodded.

“I thought so.”

She tilted her head up, needing him to kiss her. They had much more to talk about—she still had a lot of questions about the strange new world that had just been revealed to her—but that could come later. Right now, she needed him.

He gave her a chaste peck on the forehead, however, and she groaned in frustration.

“What’s wrong?” he asked, concern knitting his brow.

“Nothing, nothing,” she said quickly, trying to cover up this crazy desire she had for him, because he clearly wasn’t having any of it. “So if I’m a…a sweetblood and my blood is so hard for vampires to resist, why haven’t you tried to kill me?”

He stiffened, then his arms dropped away from her and he rose to his feet. She shivered from the sudden loss of his warmth. Striding to the fireplace, he poked at one of the logs, sending a spray of sparks up the chimney. Firelight flickered on the angles of his face, making it look even more chiseled.

“Mateo?” she prompted when he didn’t answer.

“I have,” he said with a harsh laugh, stabbing another log. “You just don’t remember.”

She blinked a few times, confused. And then with a terrible realization, she knew the truth.

She hadn’t almost died four years ago because of a car accident. No. She’d almost died because of him.