I opened my wardrobe for what had to be the ninth time that day, to look at what was hanging inside, just in case I had imagined it. No, there it was;

My Lawkeeper uniform.

A lot had happened in a short time. With the Lawkeepers anxious to put mistakes of the past behind them and deal with the future, they had placed Kael, Milo and Gage - once he was fully recovered from his injuries - in charge of a group of task forces charged with rooting out corruption from within the organization. The Lawkeepers would refocus on what had always been its prime directive: to deal with vampire crime fairly and without prejudice. With that lofty goal in mind, someone - and I suspected that that someone was Milo - had raised the question of swearing in the first vampire Lawkeeper.

Guess who he suggested.

I had picked up my uniform yesterday and my training would begin in a few nights’ time. I had begged a couple of days grace to settle into my new home and to come to terms with my new, and rather amazing, life.

Living with Kael, Milo and Gage would take some getting used to - I had lived with women for as long as I could remember - but it felt... good. Layla had been right - take a chance and see how things worked out. So far, they had worked out pretty damn well. The four of us made an unconventional 'couple', but it seemed to work, and when you find something that works, then you hang on to it.

I had plans to catch up with Layla tomorrow. She had moved back in with Max and the two of them were quite happy living together and were planning to turn my old bedroom into a games room.

"Heading out!" Kael called goodbye into the apartment and I hurried to kiss him and Milo farewell.

"Have a good day. Catch lots of bad guys."

"Will do," smiled Milo. "Love you."

The words still made me tingle with happiness. "I love you, too." I kissed Kael. "Love you."

"Love you, too."

Never thought I'd be one for the 'L' word, but I couldn't hear it often enough. It made me feel like a different person and I kind of liked her. It was hard to think back to that girl - the one who propped up bars getting wasted on Bulbous, scanning the room for someone to fuck the darkness out of her in an alley, the one who could never quite suppress the violence of her nature. I was still a vampire and damn proud of being one. But couldn't a vampire have a love story that wasn't tragic? I'd earned my happy ending over three hundred years.

"Have they gone, already?" Gage came in. The wound in his side was still visible but his bio-engineered body healed fast and he was itching to get back to work.

"You should be in bed."

"I feel fine. I can't believe that damn doctor put me on another week's bed rest."

I sidled up to him, drawing him to me and kissing him. "Does it have to be a bad thing."

"Well, when you put it like that..." I felt him stirring to life against me and kissed him again. "I was about to take a shower."

"Want some company?"

We left a trail of shed clothes behind us as we hurried to his shower and tumbled into the cubicle, naked and gasping at the sudden heat of the water. As soon as the cubicle door was closed behind us, Gage dropped to one knee and pushed me back against the glass, his tongue seeking and finding me with expert skill. I leaned back and let the hot water run down my body as hot pleasure shot up through it. Gage wasted no time in prying my firm clit from its hiding place and flicking it to sharp arousal with his tongue. One hand slid up my wet thigh to nestle against my heated core, then probing fingers entered me, circling, stretching my tunnel, locating every hot-spot until I was running with liquid desire. The other hand now made its way up the back of my leg, squeezing at the soft but resilient flesh of my ass cheeks before delving between them. I squirmed in delight as first one, then two, fingers pressed into my backside, stretching and filling me from behind.

"Gage..." I keened through clenched teeth as his tongue lapped relentlessly at my throbbing clit and he began to work his fingers in and out of me like a man on a mission to bring me to orgasm.

I clutched his head, dragging him tighter against my heat; I rotated my hips, trying in vain to match the deliberately irregular rhythm he had set up, fingering my front and back doors. The steam of the shower suddenly seemed all the hotter as I came, Gage working my body all the way. As my hips rocked and rolled against the glass of the shower wall, Gage kept hold of me, not letting up even as I came, wringing every last shred of hot pleasure from my exhausted body until I practically collapsed on top of him.

Now, he stood up and I got my first look at his huge cock rearing between us. I grabbed it and began flogging my hand up and down it hard, knowing that he could take this rough treatment without losing his load. I pulled him to me and we kissed as I continued to work his cock in long, sure strokes.

"I want you inside me," I whispered.

Gage's hands lingered on my hips, teasing across my erogenous zones. "Front or back?"

I grinned. "First one, then the other."

Well, I'd had a hard time recently and was starting a new job soon; wasn't I entitled to a bit of self-indulgence? I dipped my head to give Gage a long wet suck, lubing him up for the task ahead, then turned my back on him, sticking my ass out proud behind me and bracing myself against the walls.

I felt Gage's hands gently caressing my ass, then gasped in shock as he delivered two swift spanks, one to each cheek.

"Couldn't help myself," he confessed.

"Seems like you're very happy to help yourself." I smiled back at him as I felt the broad blunt head of his member nose between my cheeks and butt up against my back entrance.

“Uhhh,” I groaned in delightful discomfort as Gage's massive cock spread me wide and forged its way in. Fortunately, my saliva and Gage's early finger work eased his passage and, after initial discomfort, there was nothing but delirious pleasure as he worked himself on and on, deeper and deeper inside me.

When his hard, muscular hips finally touched me, squashing my ass cheeks, I laid my head against the wet glass and sighed in pleasure. Gage pulled me back against him, my back flat against the contours of his expansive chest, strong and comforting. He kissed me and I answered eagerly, stealing my tongue into his mouth. As he held me there, I was overtaken by a powerful and entirely unexpected orgasm that made my whole body spasm with sharp pleasure. It was an orgasm borne of intimacy, of the heat of the moment, and of the love between us.

I leaned forward again, and Gage needed no other instruction. He moaned in barely controlled ecstasy as he drew his cock back from the vise-like grip of my ass, then grunted in almost despair as he thrust back in again, making me wail in response. For the first few thrusts, each moment felt like the end of the world, both of us overwhelmed with pleasure and fighting back the need to come there and then. But as we found our rhythm, the sensations became more bearable, though no less beautiful. Gage fucked my ass with strong, slow strokes, savoring the feel of my constricted tunnel squeezing him, while I, in turn, savored the feel of his massive organ plowing into me. Each thrust put me on tip-toes, almost knocking me off my feet, even though Gage held me steady with one hand. The other hand now slipped beneath me and was playing games with my clit and my pussy, turning my whole body into a raw sexual nerve.

It was not a situation I could stand for long.

"Oh, Gage. I'm... I’m going to-” I broke off with a gasp, and then I did.

Gage held me tight and close as my body was wracked with orgasmic shuddering, still caressing my swollen clit, his hard cock buried in my ass.

When I came back to earth, I felt... I felt satisfied, I felt elated, I felt exhausted, I definitely felt up for more. But I also felt loved, safe, wanted. I had no idea that sensations like that could contribute to sex, but they surely could.

"You're incredible," I breathed.

"I'm nothing without you."

Gage eased his member out of my ass, the size of it making me wonder afresh how it had ever gotten up there.

We then turned off the shower, got out and dried each other, Gage taking delicate care around my private areas, me being wickedly rough with the towel on his raw and frustrated organ.

"Bed?"

"Bed."

I squealed in surprise as he swept me off my feet - I'm not really a squealing type of girl, but I guess it's never too late to become one. He carried me through to his bedroom and laid me on the bed.

"You are so beautiful."

I drew him down on top of me, enjoying the feel of his muscular weight crushing me to the mattress. I reached between us, grabbing hold of that lovely big dick and bringing it to my greedy pussy. Gage pushed in and we both sighed.

"Can we go slow?" I asked.

"We can do whatever you want."

As his cock continued to drive me to new heights of pleasure, Gage moved a stray hair from my face and kissed me, gently.

I had found love. I had found it in three wonderful men who were the reason I was now able to look to the future - because that future contained them.

Whatever else the world might throw at me - and I'm still a vamp, which means that shit still happens - I knew I could handle it, because they weren't going anywhere.

And neither was I.

Want more steamy romance?

And for another sexy, reverse harem read, check out , out now and free with KU!

That summer in Ireland was like a dream. Full of magic and mayhem I’d never quite managed to forget.

But when three males—far more than mere men—come to tell me they need my help to rescue their sister, present and past merge together, dragging me into a dark, underground world where fairies and mermaids are real, and they’re in grave danger…

Chapter One

I sometimes wonder if that family vacation to Ireland when I was a child was real or just a dream.

Which is silly, really, because there are photos of it, which my mom keeps in one of the big albums on the bottom shelf of the bureau in the living room. It was one of those idyllic periods of childhood that seem to last forever and linger on in your mind long after the event, when the days were long and the sunlight caught the sea like it does in a painting.

Maybe it wasn’t that the vacation itself radiated a dream-like aura, but that certain specific events did. In my mind's eye, I can still see the sandcastle I had been building while my parents dozed in the sun and my brother was off throwing rocks at other rocks.

I can still remember the shadow falling across the castle and looking up to see the face of a girl, about my own age, with red hair, green eyes and freckles, looking down at my castle and then up at me and giving me a smile.

I can still hear her voice.

"Do you want to play?"

I nodded without hesitation, like kids do, and we ran off together to splash around in the surf, laughing ourselves silly as the cold waves came in and we danced away from them.

Her name was Saorise - a name that, at the time, I couldn't have spelled if I’d had a gun to my head, and even now I'm still not clear how those letters give you a word pronounced 'Sersha'.

I told her that mine was Sienna, and we both thought it was funny and somehow special that our names both began with a 'S'. Sienna and Saorise, Saorise and Sienna; friends from the moment we met, friends for the rest of our lives. That was what we decided that afternoon, as we played endlessly in the sand and sea, clambering into rock pools to discover scuttling crabs and darting fish, slipping on sea weed, digging holes in the sand and, above all, playing in the sea.

Saorise loved the sea; that was evident from that first afternoon. She was brave enough to venture out way further than I was. I preferred to stay in the shallows, or if I was feeling especially bold, I might go out to waist depth.

Not Saorise, though. She went so far, her head was a mere speck in the distance. She’d duck beneath the water, vanishing from my view and then pop up suddenly in front of me, laughing, her red hair plastered to her forehead.

I would have liked that afternoon to last forever, but as the red sun dipped into the Atlantic, I heard my mom calling me, and my pleas for 'five more minutes' fell on deaf ears. I looked at Saorise.

"Will you be here again tomorrow?" she asked.

I looked desperately at my mom.

"We did have plans…” But to my delight, she shook her head and said, "But if this is what you want, I guess we can come back again tomorrow."

I waved goodbye to Saorise as we walked away from the beach and she frantically waved back, not moving from where she stood, her feet washed by the incoming tide.

"I wonder where her parents are," my mom murmured. "Should we have done something, do you think?"

But my dad just shrugged. "It's Ireland, not New York. People can afford to be a bit more easygoing here."

Saorise was there again the next day. Still no sign of her parents or any other family, but she certainly didn't seem to be in any sort of trouble. Her accent betrayed her as a local, just as mine proclaimed me to be a tourist. We tried out each other's accents, laughing at our abject failure. We played all day in the sand and the sea and the sun, and sundown once again came too quickly.

I suppose we must have done other things on that trip, but I don't remember any other part of it. I know that some days we went elsewhere then back to the beach so Saorise and I could play for a few hours before bed, and on others we'd meet in the morning before going someplace else.

It never struck me as odd at the time that Saorise was always there. As far as I was concerned, she lived on the beach. Looking back on those two weeks now, I remember them as two weeks spent with Saorise, the days and games all blur into one happy memory.

With one exception.

It must have been on a day towards the end of the trip when, tired with Saorise's ability to swim out farther than me, I decided to give chase.

I could swim well enough, they taught us at school, but swimming in the clear, chlorine-flavored water of the pool was very different to swimming in the green, rolling waters of the sea. I don't think Saorise had noticed that I was following her as she struck out for the horizon, swimming like a fish. I guess my parents hadn't noticed either, they were now so used to me playing with my little friend that their attention could happily drift elsewhere.

But as I swam, a strong wind blew in, making the waves billow and swell. I vividly remember the first pang of fear as I realized I was out of my league. The waves overwhelmed me, burying me, and I tasted salt water with the sharp aluminum of adrenalin. I flailed beneath the surface, desperately trying to claw my way back up, but suddenly my strokes didn't seem strong enough to move me, as if the water was drawing me down, closing around me with darkness.

Panic flooded me as I sank, and I felt unconsciousness beckoning, though I tried to fight it.

I might have died there that day, but in the next moment before I blacked out and surrendered to the void, I felt arms about me, cradling me and pulling me upwards. My face broke the surface and I gulped in precious lungsful of air. Saorise bobbed in the water nearby, her face wracked with anxiety. Only, she hadn’t been my savior.

My savior was a boy. One who still supported me in the waves as I recovered. I have no idea who he was or if Saorise knew him. All I knew was that, when Saorise and I arrived back on the beach, my legs trembling and unable to hold me up, he was gone. Like a puff of smoke on the wind.

"Are you okay?" asked Saorise, genuinely worried.

"Don't tell my mom and dad," I replied. I didn't want them to worry and, more importantly, I didn't want them to stop me from playing with Saorise.

For whatever reason, I have no memories of the end of that vacation. I guess my mind chose to block out what must have been a heartbreaking separation. I'm glad I don't remember it, because if I did, then perhaps my abiding memory of that wonderful time would be sadness rather than joy.

Among all the photos in my mom's albums, all the pictures that were taken on that trip - and my mom is a serial family photographer - there is only one of Saorise. She's smiling - as she always seemed to be - but, as she squints at the camera through the permanently wet strands of her red hair, there is also a strange, haunted expression on her face that always tugs a chord within me.

Almost twenty years had passed since that idyllic vacation and, whether all my memories of it were real or not, I still dreamed about Saorise maybe once a month. I guess that was an indicator of how strong an impression that period left on me. Sienna and Saorise, Saorise and Sienna - friends forever.

We never saw each other again.

I don't know if attempts were made to stay in touch or if that seemed futile given the literal ocean between us. Maybe our parents felt that trying to stay in contact would ultimately end up being more hurtful, enhancing the pain of not seeing each other. I guess I must have been very sad about that, but time had been kind and I was still glad to have the memories. I felt that Saorise was one of the most important people in my life, and when things turned to shit, as it’s wont to do, it was to those memories that I would turn.

Like now…

"But, babe..."

My throat ached as reality came crashing back in again and I swallowed past the knot lodged there.

"Don’t babe me, you piece of shit. We’re done."

I made a move to slam down the phone but stopped just in the nick of time. Of all the things we have gained with the advancement of phone technology, I do feel that no longer being able to slam down the phone on people in a rage is a major loss to humanity. Slamming down the phone on Benny the Bastard was something I felt a deep need to do to make a clean break. Something I should have done long ago.

But the lying prick wasn’t worth the cost of a shattered screen.

With a groan, I curled up in my big, cozy armchair and stared out the window as the sun went down over New York City, and contemplated life without Benny. It would be better in a lot of ways, but it would also be lonelier.

For all his faults - and there were many, including mouth-breathing, his love of televised bowling and the fact that when he ate garlic, it oozed from his pores for a week- Benny had been very good at being there, an attribute that is grossly underestimated.

To come home after a hard day at work to find that he had let himself in - Dammit, I had to get my key back from him - and that he had made dinner. Maybe even lit candles and run me a hot bath on a few precious occasions? Had made him seem like a keeper.

He was there as a shoulder to cry on, as someone to listen and someone to snuggle up to in the long comfortable silences.

Yes, Benny had been very good at being there. Unfortunately, he was equally good at being other places, as well. Most specifically, inside other women’s vaginas.

In fact, he was so good at it, this had been the third time that I had caught him cheating on me - I doubted very much that it had been the third time total.

Per his usual MO, he had been almost desperately apologetic, but 'she meant nothing to me' had lost its efficacy at the third time of asking. I was confident that ‘she’ - in this case, a blonde who worked in the corner bar - had meant nothing to him, but I was equally confident that I meant the same, otherwise he wouldn't have kept doing it.

The truth was that I shouldn't have taken him back after either of the first two transgressions, but along with 'being there' Benny had also been very good-looking, very sexy and very charming. He was good at getting what he wanted from a woman, good at saying all the right things and making you feel special - which is probably how he got to be such a successful serial philanderer. He was also quite proficient in the sack, and while I don't like to think of myself as shallow, there is something to be said for a man who can make your toes curl.

Was it really so much to ask to find a man who could do that and not be a pathetic shit who couldn't keep it in his pants? Was that really asking the earth?

"Jessie," I called for my dog to come and join my pity party, "here, girl."

Jessie didn't move, which wasn't surprising, really, as Jessie was a stuffed toy given to me by my parents when I was little, and who had been a constant companion ever since. Yeah, it’s kinda sad, and yeah, I don't care. She makes me happy and is better company than unfaithful men.

I got up, crossed the room to pick up Jessie, and brought her back to my chair to sit with me and watch the rain. I talk to Jessie exactly as you would talk to a real dog, but she has the advantage of being maintenance-free and doesn’t shit on my carpet. People often asked why I didn't have a pet of my own - I was a veterinary nurse for goodness sake, it seemed ridiculous. In fact, my job was the main reason why I didn't have a pet. You can only watch so many weeping owners before the idea of having a pet in your life palls. Pets die. I would rather stick with Jessie.

For a while, Jessie and I watched the rainfall and my mind drifted to its default happy place; a beach in Ireland. I smiled involuntarily as the memory of playing in the sand and surf with Saorise tugged me out of the funk into which I had slipped. So long ago and yet it still made me happy.

"Want something to eat?" I asked Jessie. "Something to drink?" Without meaning to do so, I looked at the box of Benny's stuff that I had placed by the door. The contents were mostly broken and shredded but that was half the fun of returning them. "I'm thinking beer with Ben and Jerry's."

So sue me. That was my post break-up meal. And unless New York started stocking a better quality of man, then that was going to be my diet for a little long while.

"You stay there."

I left Jessie to keep the chair warm while I went through to the kitchen. I wasn't really that sad about losing Benny from my life. Even when he had done nice things for me, I had always secretly felt that he was doing them to keep me happy rather than to make me happy. Maybe I had stayed with him because then I could pretend there was something in my life. It didn't have to be a man, although men were good, it was just that...

Whenever I talked to my parents, which was quite regularly, or my brother, which was less regularly, I always over-emphasized how happy I was. I was living in the city, doing the job I had always wanted, I was comfortable and had a great family and great friends. It wasn't that I was unhappy. I was just... empty. Which was somehow worse.

Worse still was that I didn't know how to fix it.

I had returned to my chair and made myself comfortable with Jessie on my lap, ice cream to my left and a bottle of beer off to my right, when there was a knock at the door. It was not the most confident of knocks - as if someone wasn't sure this was the door they wanted but it would do until a better one came along - and I thought about leaving it. I wasn't up for company tonight, and I definitely wasn't up for someone trying to sell me encyclopedias, double-glazing or Jesus. On the other hand, what if old Mrs. Guzman had locked herself out again? I had her spare key and I didn't want her to spend another night on the couch in the lobby.

I sighed, put Ben, Jerry, Jessie and Bud to one side and went to the door as another knock sounded. My building had no peepholes in the doors - though the building manager had been promising that he would 'get to it' for at least three years now - so I just had to open it and be surprised by whoever awaited me in the hall.

I was surprised, although, in the event, I didn't get a good look at the face as the figure outside collapsed on top of me.

"What the hell...?" Although the person was very light, I still floundered under them in shock.

I was more than ready to push whoever this was back out into the hall - I liked to think that I was a decent person but you had to draw the line somewhere - when a voice emerged from the crook of my shoulder where the figure's face was buried.

"Sienna..."

It was not that the woman knew my name - she could have gotten that off my mailbox - but as she spoke I felt a rush of familiarity. Readjusting my load, I pulled back the tangled mess of red hair on my shoulder that hid the face, and as the woman's eyelids fluttered uncertainly open to reveal vivid green eyes staring wildly back at me, I drew in a sharp breath.

"Saorise?"

Chapter Two

She looked different. Leaner. Older. But I knew it was her as sure as I knew my own name.

Kicking the door closed, I helped her inside. Although, 'dragged' might have been a more accurate word.

She seemed barely conscious and there was not an iota of strength in her body. Her limbs were limp, her legs not supporting her at all. I managed to get her to the couch and unceremoniously dumped her in a tangled sprawl. I straightened her limbs and then pulled back the hair, wet from the rain, from out of my way to look her in the face. Maybe there was still some resemblance - enough that my unconscious mind had made a connection that my conscious was unable to follow. Or perhaps the fact that I had been thinking about her had made me jump to a conclusion that just happened to be correct. Yet none of that could adequately explain the certainty I felt that this was Saorise.

She had grown. Obviously - it had been almost twenty years. And she had grown into the woman that she had always promised to be, pretty, wild-haired, white-skinned, slim and waif-like. And yet, I was not seeing her at her best. Her naturally pale skin had an unnatural pallor, her cheeks seemed sunken and her face lacked vivacity. It worried me.

With no way of learning more until she woke, I set to work to make my surprise guest as comfortable as I could for the meantime. Her clothes were wet so, with a little anxiety, I undressed her and covered her with blankets, turning up the heat in my apartment to coax some life back into her. As I did this, Saorise stirred and I heard her mutter something that sounded like, '...took my skin'.

With a start, I wondered if I had scratched her by accident or if the blankets were itchy in some way, but checking, I could find no rash or mark. She made no more complaint, in fact, by the time I had tucked her in, she already looked better, color returning to her cheeks. She seemed to be sleeping naturally now and I decided that it would be best to leave her to it. As an afterthought, I placed Jessie on the couch beside her to watch over her as she slept.

I headed for the bedroom but could not help turning back as I reached the door.

This wasn’t a dream. Saorise was sleeping on my couch.

The hectic panic of her entry and the necessity of looking after her had not given me time to stop and process the actuality of what had happened. It was like a dream had taken on flesh and fallen through my door. She had clearly been in some sort of trouble and had come to my door. We hadn't seen each other for twenty years and, though I would never have admitted it to myself, it should have been far more likely that she did not even remember me.

Not only had she remembered me, but when she was in trouble, it was to me she had come.

I went to bed, but I slept only fitfully. My dreams, which I had expected to be filled with images from that Irish vacation, were instead dark and violent. I felt trapped. I felt rope and chain against my skin, I felt a tremendous sense of loss. I saw ugly faces looming in on me and strange creatures as trapped as I was. I felt danger, I felt naked, I felt fear, I felt the overwhelming need to escape. Where these dreams came from I could not say. During the night, I got up to get a glass of water and passed Saorise. I heard her turn over sharply, as if flinching away from something, and heard her moan in her sleep. Apparently, she was having nightmares, too.

Sleep eventually came and when I woke, the rainclouds of the last night had cleared and early morning sun was streaming through my window. It took a minute for my brain to put itself back together and recall the night before. Had it all been a dream? It hadn't felt like one but surely Saorise could not be sleeping on my couch? Perhaps it had just been some homeless person in need of help and I had let nostalgia and my melancholy over the break-up with Benny overwhelm my better judgment. My childhood friend could not be in my living room.

Had it all been a vivid dream?

One way to find out. I got up quickly, tucking my feet into slippers, and tip-toed across the room - whoever was on my couch, assuming someone was, I didn't want to wake them. I need not have worried. The couch was unoccupied, though the blankets remained. At the window, a figure stood, naked and so light-skinned that the sun seemed almost to shine through her and made a red halo about her hair. She turned her head on hearing my door open and I saw green eyes, full of life, and a quick smile that sprang to her lips as easy and natural as I remembered.

"Saorise..." I breathed, any lingering doubt forgotten.

"Sienna." She ran across the room and I met her halfway to embrace her. "I found you."

"I can't believe it's you."

After a long minute of hugging, we parted. "I should find you some clothes."

"Okay." Saorise shrugged, apparently not that concerned by her nakedness.

When I came back with clothes for her to wear, I found that Saorise had tidied the couch and folded the blankets.

"Thanks."

"Seems like the least I could do in the circumstances." She grinned as she took the clothes from me.

"Yeah." I didn't want to push her on the subject if something traumatic had happened, but I had to at least broach it. "What were the circumstances, exactly?"

Saorise opened her mouth to speak but no sound came out. She looked confused, almost scared by her own silence. "I don't think I can..."

"It's okay," I hastened to add. "You don't have to say if you don't... You know. You're very welcome here and... well, why ever you're here and whatever brought you, I'm really happy to see you."

Happy didn't cover it. It surely couldn't be as it was when we were children? When you're a kid the next smile is all that matters. Life gets more complicated as you grow up, and the purity of happiness that children are blessed with is no longer an option. But seeing Saorise, it felt as if that simple joy was mine again, and I saw the same reflected in her face, a face I recognized though I did not know it at all.

"So... What's new with you?"

And with that, it was as if the intervening years had not happened. Well... we didn't run around like mad things, build sand castles on my carpet or splash about in the bath, it was more as if we hadn't been out of touch for all that time. If in some alternate reality, another version of Sienna and Saorise had gotten to grow up together, then they could not have been any closer than Saorise and I now felt, meeting up after so long apart. As I made breakfast for us both, Saorise perched on the work surface in my kitchen and we chatted happily away, laughing, interrupting each other and finishing one another's sentences as we went.

I realized that, although we were both doing equal shares of the talking, it seemed as if I was the only one who was saying anything. In the time we'd been chatting, I had caught Saorise up on my family, on my schooling, my training and my dream job of veterinary nurse, I had even shared with her my current, and frustratingly vague, dissatisfaction with my life, something I had not shared with any of my friends or family yet.

And in return, Saorise had learned all this about me. It was not that she had sat there and listened or that I had deliberately monopolized the conversation, but when she spoke then, it was to ask questions about what I said or offer opinions and commentary. When I asked about her life in polite reply, enquiring about her family and what had brought her to the States, then she somehow took the subject at a tangent and it would be some minutes before I realized that she had not actually answered.

Was it deliberate?

She had not seemed able or willing to talk about what had brought her to my door, but I had assumed that that had been because it was some traumatic event. Was her presence in this country linked to that? Were her family? Or was she just generally closed lipped. I hadn't considered it when we were kids, of course, but while she had met my parents - and seen my brother as he ran past - I had seen none of her family at all. I didn't even know if she had family.

Perhaps because of that, I didn't push now. Partly, of course, I didn't want to press her on what was clearly a difficult subject, for whatever reason. But there was also a part of me that wanted to maintain the impression of Saorise I had always had - of being just Saorise. She had changed so much, and yet she had not changed at all.

We ate together cross-legged on the sofa, facing each other, the presence of food not slowing our chatter, and when we finished, we placed plates and mugs on the floor beside us and kept talking in the same happy fashion.

Finally, perhaps just because we needed to pause for breath, a lull did come and we just looked at each other.

"It's really good to see you again," said Saorise. "I didn't think I ever would."

"How did you find me?" I asked. Surely that was a safe question? As long as I didn't ask why.

"I was in town." Saorise's words suddenly seemed to come a little less easily - I could see the tendons standing out in the white skin of her throat. "I... wanted to see you and there you were."

There was presumably more to that. But just that much response seemed to have cost her a physical effort, so I left it there.

"So what now?" I asked, trying to perk the mood back up again.

"Can I stay with you?"

I laughed out loud. "Of course, you can! I'm never letting you go!"

It might have been my imagination but I was sure that, just for a moment when I said the words 'I'm never letting you go', I saw a spasm of cold fear pass across Saorise's face. Maybe I had misread the expression, perhaps she had shivered from a sudden chill or something. But fear was my strong impression of it, and the sight unnerved me.

"That's really kind of you,” Saorise said with a smile a moment later, the haunted expression on her face fading as quickly as it had come.

"You looked after me," I pointed out, "way back then. It's about time that I repaid the favor."

She grinned. "Now, I come to think of it, you're right. I showed you all the best of where I lived, I'd love to see the sights."

"What are we waiting for?"

We spent a great day checking out the must-see sights of the city. You never really know a place until you see it through someone else's eyes, and what I found was that, however impressive the Empire State, the Statue of Liberty or the Met are, to me, they pale in comparison to the smaller, more personal landmarks.

And I was delighted, though not that surprised, to find that Saorise felt the same way. Cavalier's Coffee, situated not far from my apartment, was one of those places which seems invisible to the average passerby but was a haven for people like me who were a little odd.

Saorise fit right in, and sat, sipping a frappucino as she gazed at the walls lined with books, art by local artists and various bits and pieces fished out of other people's garbage. We lunched at my favorite pizza place, an underground joint where the kitchens were open and made it feel as if the tables were situated just outside the mouth of hell.

We went to the roof of my building and Saorise stood on the edge fearlessly, with the whole city spread out beneath her, and whispered, “Sienna and Saorise. Friends forever."

As afternoon wore on, I led the way to a neglected spot on Newtown Creek - everybody does the Hudson and the East River.

"Okay, here's what you do." I stood behind Saorise and guided her hands with mine. "You look straight down at those buildings over there - I don't know what they are. Then you put your right hand up by your eyes - like this - to block off your view that way, and boom! You're in the nineteenth century. I don't think that view has changed since... Okay, so now you have to ignore the motor boat, but you get what I'm saying. Saorise?"

Her eyes had glazed over as she stared at the water.

"Saorise, are you okay?"

She snapped out of it and gave me a smile, more wan now. "Suddenly feeling homesick."

“This reminds you of Ireland?” I demanded with a snort. “I mean, I know there's a lot of people in this city who like to make pretend that New York is a little bit of the old country, but most of those people wouldn't know Killarney from Kill Bill."

Saorise laughed and shook her head. "Just the river, I guess."

She looked back over her shoulder, her green eyes flicking left and right, searching for something but apparently not finding it. As she did so, there was an anxiety in her face that came close to the fear I had seen in it earlier.

"How about we go home? We've walked a million miles today."

We headed back to my apartment and Saorise stared out the window of the bus, pointing at things and places and asking where and what they were so much that my limited knowledge was soon exhausted. But the wonderful thing about Saorise was that other people seemed drawn to her in a spirit of pure goodwill, and soon the whole bus was pitching in to answer her questions.

"Thanks for today," she murmured as we entered my apartment.

"Thank you. I had fun. Like old times."

Sure, we had been running around a big, busy city rather than a deserted beach, but it had still felt like a little slice of way back when.

Saorise turned and took my hands. "I did miss you those years, you know. It's funny how you can meet a person for so brief a time and they can stay with you. There are people who I've known for far longer who - I don't think I could remember their names."

It was a relief to know that she had felt the same as me all this time, but it was also quietly wonderful, because it meant that now we really would be friends forever. Adults get to stay in touch in ways that kids generally don't. And, of course, these days there's always Facebook.

"I'm just so glad we got to meet up again," I replied.

Saorise shrugged and gave me her bright smile. "We'd have been friends anyway. If we'd never met again, then we'd still have been friends."

"I prefer this way."

"Me, too. When I was in trouble, I knew exactly where to turn."

I caught my breath as she spoke and waited to see if more was coming - not feeling like I could ask but desperate to hear more. But as the words had left Saorise's lips, she stumbled and bent over slightly, touching her stomach as if she felt suddenly unwell.

"Saorise?"

The color had gone out of her face but when she looked at me it was with a smile. "Maybe New York food doesn't agree with me yet."

"Do you think Chinese would settle your stomach?"

"I do. I really do."

Of course, I wanted to ask more, but it seemed that my best chance of learning what had happened to her, what had led her to my door in the state she had been in, was to wait for it to come when she was ready.

I could be patient.

We had a lovely meal together, then sat up watching TV and talking over it late into the night, and swore that tomorrow we would do it all over again - just as we had when we were kids.

By the time four more days had passed, I no longer found there to be anything odd about Saorise living on my couch. In fact, I weirdly struggled to recall a time when she wasn't there in my apartment as part of my life. It never got old, we never ran out of things to talk about, we never stopped being able to make each other smile or giggle or sympathize when the subject called for it.

I cried a little on her shoulder over Benny - which was more than he deserved, Saorise said. She made me laugh re-enacting stuff we had done or conversations we had had when we were children - which she remembered with a pinpoint clarity I envied. She even got to know Jessie and followed my lead, treating her like a real dog.

Of course, on the Monday I had to go back to work - I thought about calling in sick but I don't like to do that - it was nice to come home to a friendly face who had cooked and wanted to hear about my day. Through those days, no more came out about what had brought her here but it didn't really matter, we were both having too much fun. I wondered if she had plans to move on but didn't ask because I didn't want it to seem like I was hinting that she should leave, and because if she did, then I didn't want to know. Why question something that suited us both so well?

And then she was gone.

Initially, when I got back home after work to find the apartment empty, I wondered if she might have gone out shopping or for a walk or something. She wasn't a prisoner, she was free to come and go as she pleased - I had even given her a key. But immediately I felt that she had gone. I waited an hour, until we would usually have had dinner together, and then I went out looking. I went to Cavalier's to see if anyone there had seen her, but she had not been in. I went to all our favorite haunts that I could think of, but all to no avail.

Hunched and morose, I plodded back in the direction of my apartment, wondering if I should call the police and what I could reasonably tell them if I did. On the one hand, I was terrified that something might have happened to her and badly needed to know that she was okay. On the other, I was haunted by the selfish fear that nothing had happened to her and she had just become tired of my company and wanted to move on.

As I was weighing up these two options and not much liking either of them, I became aware of footsteps behind me. Even in my relatively quiet neighborhood, and even at this unsociable time of night, footsteps behind you in New York are not unusual - if you jumped every time you heard them then you'd be jumping all day long. But these steps were matching mine - something I tested by speeding up and slowing down. They seemed deliberate, placed, certain. They were footsteps of purpose.

Perhaps my imagination was getting out of control because of Saorise's disappearance, but I wasn't about to test that theory. I walked quicker. The footsteps sped up. I walked quicker still and they matched me step for step. I broke into a run. So did they.

Rounding a corner quickly, I ducked down an alley to try and throw off my pursuer. But there, up ahead of me, was another figure - tall and dark. It looked to have been waiting for me, and as soon as I entered the alley, it made for me.

I took to my heels again, running as fast as I could. There was no longer any room for doubt.

I wasn't just being chased.

I was being hunted.

Get the rest of now, free with KU!

Other Books by Savannah Skye

Her Demon Harem 1 (Succubus Chronicles)

Her Demon Harem 2

A Witch’s Harem

Kidnapped by the Dragon Harem

Her Howling Harem 1

Her Howling Harem 2

Her Vampire Harem

Her Immortal Harem 1

Her Immortal Harem 2

Her Deadly Harem

Axe to Grind

Breaking Colt

Better to Eat You

Hard Lesson

Hard Sell

Bad Boy Next Door

SIGN UP FOR FOR INFO ON CONTESTS, PROMOTIONS AND NEW RELEASES!