“Okay. I can see that you’re not going to talk, but at least tell me about the wedding. Was it much different than ours?”

*** *** ***

Gerrod shouted up the hall from his private sitting room. “Gus, where the hell are my socks?”

He’d been shouting a lot lately and his scowl was sitting hard these days, low on his brows. Gus told him yesterday he was developing a troll-ridge and that if he wasn’t careful he’d be switching species any day now.

His temper was off the charts. Two weeks, two horrible weeks had passed since he’d last seen Abigail at Vojalie’s. Sweet Goddess but he was irritable and the blood starvation was back. He needed to call one of his doneuses, but the Goddess help him, he couldn’t tap the number on his phone.

He blamed Abigail for this, that he’d gotten a taste of rosemary blood and now nothing else would do.

He returned to pace his bedroom. He couldn’t find his socks, at least not the kind he needed for his boots. He had to have just the right kind. Gus knew that. What the hell was wrong with his castle staff anyway, that his drawers couldn’t be kept full of the socks the Mastyr of Merhaine preferred?

If he had to fight the Invictus now every night and if he had to make sure that one million souls were safe, he should at least have the socks he wanted.

He went to the doorway, and shouted again, “Where are my fucking socks?”

Gus appeared at the top of the hall, the only one that led to his private suite. His expression was grim. He carried a large wicker basket in both hands. His lips had become a thin white line.

“About fucking time.” He moved back into his sitting room, stomped into his bedroom, paced in front of the bed. His boots sat there, waiting. Gerrod had Invictus to face tonight again. Did no one understand that his life had become a nightmare?

The bastards had become active as hell and now he cursed as much as Ethan.

Why the hell hadn’t Abigail even called him? A simple courtesy call was the very least he had expected. ‘No, I can’t become a vampire. So sorry.’ At the very least she should have called and said that to him.

Goddess, he would kill to hear her voice.

Gus appeared in the doorway, lifted the wicker basket to his shoulder, and with the apparent use of all the strength he possessed, he flung it at Gerrod.

The wicker struck him with all the force of a pillow against his right arm. He batted it away and about a hundred socks flew in every direction, some pink, some purple, many embroidered with flowers, none of them his boot socks. The basket landed upside down near the bathroom. “What the hell? What’s going on here. Gus—” His bellows echoed around the stone-walls of the room.

He followed after him and shouted one more time, “Gus, what the fuck was that all about.”

Gus did not even turn around. He just flipped him off and kept walking.

*** *** ***

Abigail iced another cupcake.

Megan sat on a chair, bent over, and with artistry and skill, squeezed another leaf from yet another bag of well-crafted green icing. She did the leaves swiftly, one after the other, and they were nearly identical, perfect, and very leaf-like.

She was recovering well and insisted on doing what she could to help with all the orders, especially the ones to Merhaine.

“Joy tells me that you haven’t once been here when Gus comes to pick up the cupcake orders.”

“I think it’s best.”

Megan lifted the icing bag from her leaf job. “Are you ever going to tell me the truth about what happened two weeks ago?”

Abigail shrugged. How could she explain the silence that had fallen on her, as though to speak of Merhaine was to make it more real than she could bear. She had made her decision. She couldn’t leave Megan. Ever.

Megan set the bag of icing down and rose carefully from her sitting position. She rounded the long stainless steel worktable, getting in front of Abigail. “Talk.”

But Abigail moved away, turning in the direction of the sink. Maybe cleaning up the dishes would help. She flipped the hot water on and thrust her hands into a pair of heavy duty yellow gloves.

She began to rinse and arrange the dishes in the commercial grade dishwasher.

Megan got up close supporting herself with forearms on the counter. “You’re in love with him.”

“Maybe.”

“There’s no maybe. Oh, my God, Abigail, are those tears?”

“What of it?”

Megan reached over and shut the water off. “You have got to talk to me.”

Abigail couldn’t pretend anymore. She slumped to sit on the tile floor, pulling up her knees and balancing her arms right on top of both. Megan eased herself down to sit beside her. “Just so ya know, I won’t be able to get up by myself.”

Abigail nodded, but she couldn’t see much. Everything was a blur behind a wall of unshed tears. “I just have to get over him. I’m sure I can.” She rubbed her throat, trying to ease the sudden painful constriction. She remembered the last time Gerrod had sunk his fangs. He’d held her pressed against the storeroom door in the Merhaine bakery.

Then there was nothing but tears, about a million of them.

Megan rubbed her shoulders, her arms, her hands. At some point, she must have struggled to her feet then returned to sit beside her once more because she shoved about a dozen tissues at Abigail. She used every one.

When at last the tears began to subside, and the brokenness of her heart had become more of a drifting kind of pain in her chest instead of a painful strike against a forge, she told Megan everything.

‘Oh, my God’, fell from Megan’s lips about a hundred times.

“So you would become a vampire.”

“Apparently I’m almost halfway there as it is.”

Megan blinked a couple of times, staring at her hard, her eyes narrowed slightly as though considering everything Abigail had been through. Finally, she said, “You have to go back.”

“Don’t be ridiculous.”

“I’m not. You have to go back to Merhaine.”

“But, if I do, I’ll want to stay.”

“Exactly. I think your heart is already given.”

“I can’t leave you. I won’t.”

“Abigail, the truth is, I don’t want you to leave Flagstaff either, not if it means you’ll never come back as just human. I’d rather keep you here as my big sis, the one I can always turn to no matter what happens, the one who gave me such tremendous security for a good long decade. But I think you need to do this especially since I know you’ve been unhappy for years now.”

“No I haven’t,” Abigail retorted. “I’ve enjoyed the bakery and I love your girls. You’re my life, Megs.”

“That’s not what I meant. Let me say it differently. You’ve never had a choice about your life before. Never. Now you do. And the only question you really need to ask right now is: what do you want?

“I’m not that sickly child anymore and our parents have been gone for a long time. I found the love of my life and I’ve built a life with him. The bakery, Abigail, well, it was the biggest gift you could have ever given me.

“I’m suited for this work, but the one thing I’ve come to realize, especially when you got so excited about opening a second bakery in Hollow Tree, is that you’re meant for different things, maybe even bigger things.” She gestured with a wave of her hand in the direction of the leaves she’d been making. “How many of those have you made?”

“What? The leaves?”

“Yeah, the leaves. How many have you made today?”

“None.”

“I’ve made about a thousand, did you know that?”

Abigail shrugged but she was a little surprised. “Really? Although, given how many cupcakes we sell, and how many leaves go on each one, it makes sense.” She laid her head on her knees. “Don’t you ever get bored, though?”

“You mean like you?”

“Yeah. Bored like me.”

“You’ve just made my point. I’m never bored. Not even making a thousand leaves a day. Never.”

At that, Abigail lifted her head and stared at her sister. “We’re very different, you and I.”

“Yes, we are.” Megan squeezed her arm. “I think you need to look at this situation differently and ask whether or not this new, unexpected path is the right one for you. Joe and I will adjust, so long as the girls get to see their Auntie Abigail every once in a while, fangs or not.”

Abigail couldn’t believe that Megan was actually giving her permission for something so outrageous. “So you really wouldn’t mind if I became a vampire?”

Megan shrugged. “I’ll admit it would be strange, and probably would be for awhile, but that’s not what matters. I want you to be happy and I want your life to mean something to you. Right now, here in Flagstaff, Abigail this isn’t your life you’re living. It’s mine.”

All the pieces fell together with those words. This was Megan’s life that Abigail helped build for her, with never a thought for herself. But she had meant what she had said. She’d never been unhappy.

But now, for the first time in her life, she could think beyond the bakery, beyond her human life, perhaps even embrace a life lived mostly at night, in the dark, in a castle, beside a wonderful vampire that yes, she had come to love.

“I love him,” she said.

“Oh, Abs, even I could see that.”

Abigail laughed. “I feel like I just wasted the last two weeks.”

“I would take that as an insult since you’ve been helping me, but in this case, I think I agree with you.”

Abigail’s heart grew light, as though a tremendous burden had been lifted. She turned to her sister and hugged her, although taking care since she was essentially still recovering from surgery.

“Thank you,” Abigail said. “I mean, I have no idea what has happened in the last couple of weeks or even if he wants me. But I’m going to find out.”