“What did you find out?” Reina asks as I get into the back seat of the rental car.

Honestly, the vehicles here are smaller than matchbox cars and my knees are squished behind Reina’s front seat.

“About the evils of drink.” I click my seatbelt. “Seriously, I’m giving up all alcohol.”

“Can we go?” Row asks.

“We better. And fast.”

“Why? Was there a problem?” Row meets my gaze in the rear view mirror as he pulls the car away from the church.

“No. I don’t want any more than we have. That’s one crazy son-of-a-bitch back there, and I understand now why people said to stay away from him.”

“Did he hurt you?” Row frowns.

“No. But there was a price for the information.”

The car hit a hard bump in the road, and Row swears.

“Of course,” he growls. “What was it?”

“We need to send him a case of whiskey every week.”

“That’s it?” Row shouts incredulously. “He didn’t ask for something involving your soul?”

“He was more interested in the whiskey than either of my souls.”

“I don’t know if that is good or bad.”

“Why is that, sweetie?” Reina twists in her seat so she can get a view of both of us.

“If he didn’t get his price, he might have given her crap for information.”

“I paid his price,” I say. “That’s one sick freak back there. It must suck to be an alkie immortal.”

“Hmph,” Row taps his palm against the steering wheel, “Looks like it's not just ancient vampires that develops a fatal weakness.”

Reina’s eyes grow wide. “Wow. That’s a hell I don’t wish on anyone.”

“Right? I mean it's worse than a weakness to sunlight, or iron or anything else everyday. But a bonafide drug?”

“Vampires believe they are immune to the long-term effects of drinking or using drugs, or even,” Row grins wickedly, “sex.”

Reina smacks him on the arm.

“Ouch,” he jokes.

“Quit it. I know I can’t hurt you.”

“Only my heart, love. But as I said, it makes you think. We might be more fragile than we give ourselves credit for. It might be the wise thing to forgo vices for our immortal health.”

“What? You want to give up sex?” Reina shrieks.

“No. I’m saying vampires shouldn’t engage in promiscuous sex.”

“Oh,” Reina says softly. “Oh!” She yells again when the lightbulb in her head goes off.

“You two settle the particulars of your love life on your own dime. Besides, it's obvious that you two are true love and forever fuck buddies, so why do you keep trying to kid yourselves?”

Row frowns as I run a red light straight into his love zone. Why can’t I keep my mouth shut? Forever meant something different to a mortal, than an immortal, and I peeled the scab off the real problem to true love for Row and Reina. Someday, and in a time frame that flies faster for Row than Reina, she would die.

I would lose my best friend which would hurt forever, but Row would lose the love of his life which would be a kind of death I cannot contemplate. There just was a reason the vampires didn’t keep human lovers very long or profess not to love them. Talk about a sucky situation.

Why not make Reina a Kresova? No. I won’t and I won’t allow anyone else to either. Even Row.

This is too damn complicated and above my pay grade for the moment, so I steer the conversation to a more manageable subject—destroying the queen of all vampires.

“So get this, destroying the ring is simple. All we need is the ring, a white candle, a black bowl, spring water, a few well-chosen words, and red-hot blacksmith hammer.”

“Is that all?” Row asks in droll humor.

“Yep,” I reply perkily.

“And did he say where the ring was?”

“Oh yes. Morana wears it, on a chain around her neck.”

Row hisses through his teeth, and Reina’s eyes fly open wide.

“Well, that just makes it impossible.”

“Hey, you know what the Marines say. The difficult we do immediately. The impossible just takes a little longer.”

“That,” says Row, “was the slogan of United States Army Corp of Engineers in World War II.”

“You sure, sweetie?” Reina asks.

“I was there,” he says grimly as he downshifts to slow down as we grow closer to the village.

Oh, hell, another land mine. Vampires pointedly did not like to talk about their impossibly long lives. I had to take a hard left to steer out of dangerous territory.

“Is there any place around here I can get a magazine?”

“Yeah, and some munchies,” Reina adds. “I’m hungry.”

Row glances to her and smiles. “When are you not?”

Reina frowns as she GPS’sed a shop that would fill our requirements. “Here. This place.”

Row listens to the coordinates that Reina rattles off and changes his direction. One of the things we learned in this trip is that Row is a walking GPS. All we have to do is give him a set of coordinates and he brings us there. It’s kinda cool like a superpower, but scary too. What did one have to do to absorb all the longitudes and latitudes in the world? How did you make them work for you without the aid of a computer or a map?

There’s a lot more to Row than being a bodyguard, that’s for sure.

We stop in front of a little convenience store and Reina and I go in while Row stays with the car and keeps the engine running. Reina riffles through the snack section frowning at the unfamiliar choices while I find the magazine display. Behind me, the bell for the front door rings and I turn instinctively. A brown-haired man step inside, but I only catch a brief look at his face.

Our eyes meet a microsecond before he turns away, but damn if it didn’t seem like I’ve met him somewhere before. I notice I’m curiously aware where he is in the shop as he moves, and I’m not paying attention to why I’m here. Shaking my head, I focus again on the magazines and move them around until I find a rag called Irish Traveller.

One of the teaser captions along with an inset photo on the side is “Romania’s Premier Museum,” but it’s the photo that makes my jaw drop open. A full on shot of the castle that had housed Abe’s captured body, with the lede line, “The Castle of Romania’s Dracula?” One and one collided in my head to make two, and I knew to the core of my bones where Abe was.

“Reina!” I shout. “Come here!”

* * *

A surprise waited for us when we returned to the guest house.

“Lucian!” I shout with glee as I jump and throw my arms and legs around him.

“Hey sexy,” he rumbles with satisfaction. “Looks like you missed me.”

I kiss him fiercely, and he presses his lips harder into mine. The fire that binds us forever flares hot enough to burn the wallpaper and I sigh in content. I grab his hand and pull him to my room. It’s been too damn long, and I don’t need the matriarch that runs this place staring at us over her wire-rimmed glasses and clucking disapprovingly. Plus, I want this gorgeous man all to myself.

My hands fumble on the door key in my excitement, and he holds my hand in his and steadies my grip. “You’re so eager,” he whispers in my ear, and with those words in I melt back into him. I’m ready for him already, and he’s barely touched me.

We turn the key together and tumble into the room and onto the bed. He manages to kick the door shut as we do and it closes with a hard thud.

Vampires and their super fast reflexes.

We tear at each other’s clothes, and I’m glad for the New York shopping trip because he’s shredding mine in his passion. He snapped my bra off me as if it was tissue paper and my breasts jiggle with the force of it. Without wasting a second he sucks a nipple into his mouth, lapping it with his relentless tongue as he squeezes the other with his fingers. Fire builds between my legs, and I jut my hips against his hardness still encased in his slacks. I growl with feral intent because I don’t just want him, I need him, now and I don’t want to wait.

“Ssh, ssh, sweetheart,” he whispers.

He pulls aways, though he still keeps his massive erection pressed against my pubic bone and I’m wild. He strokes my hair gently and smiles and I want him so badly I’m about to cry.

“I need you,” I say. “Now.”

“Is that a command, my queen,” he teases.

“Damn straight it is.”

He smiles wickedly and moves enough to unzip his pants, and I pull them down frantically. My hands meet his bare ass, and I growl again because the bastard is commando telling me he fully intended to take me as soon as we met.

He pulls up my skirt and tears off the lace panties that cost more than my former weekly salary, but what the hell. He’ll just have to buy me another.

Lucian stares at my sex which must be dripping like a faucet for how wet I feel and licks his lips. He’d torture me more with that tongue if I let him.

“Oh no, you don’t,” I warn. “Inside, now.”

With a smile more wicked than a man had a right to, he grips my hips and speares me in one thrust pushing me to the headboard. My hands fly up to hang onto it while he hammers me. Man, that vamp must have missed me. Lucian doesn’t let up until stars burst before my eyes three times. He shouts my name as he grinds into me a half-dozen more stokes and collapses on top of me.

Now that is a homecumming.

We lay in a tangle in each other's arms and I sense that this is the first time in three days all the tension drained from him. I sweep his dark hair from his forehead.

“So how did it go?”

“What?”

“You, Erica, the families.”

He tenses again. “Not good. There was talk of skewering her lover anyway with the thought that once out of sight, he’d be out of mind.”

“Sounds rough.”

“It was. When I told them I supported her decision, they thought I was nuts. My mother…” He groans.

“Did you tell them about me?”

He swears under his breath which is not a good sign. Then he fixes his gaze on me. “When the time is right, I will, we will, together. But to tell them I’m part of future vampire queen’s harem? At that moment, not a politically correct move.”

“I understand,” I say. I didn’t want to, but he’s right. We were all in too much danger now to stir up more trouble.

“Right now,” he says, “I’m on call for any potential problems with Erica and my family. So any time, I might have to leave.”

A thread of jealousy burns through me that this part of his past still holds sway on him. But it is his past, and he still has obligations and I have to honor them, too.

“I’ll always be waiting for you,” I say. “Besides homecoming sex is awesome.”

He smiles. “You are magnificent.”

“Who me? Little old me?”

He kisses me. “So tell me, what did you find out?”

I tell him about Leander, the ring, and finally, the magazine.

“That’s where she hid him. The old bag hid the oldest among us in the Romania Museum.”

Lucian frowns. “Romania again?” He shakes his head. “We spent our capital in our first attempt. The Romanian vampires won’t suffer us on their territory again.”

“Look,” My tone is deadly serious. “We need to get to Morana to take her ring, so we can destroy it to weaken her. And we won’t get close to her without Abe’s help. If there is any chance for Carver, we need Abe. There just isn’t an end-run around this.”

Lucian closes his eyes tight because he knows I’m right.

His lashes snap open and he stares at me intently.

“You’re right.” Lucian tugs me into his arms on the bed, “We have to do this. Not just for Carver, but all of us.”