“Have you seen Mac yet?” Jenny gave her a sidelong look as they stumbled out of The Fiddler’s Head.

“No. And don’t you start.” Fuck, why did Guinness always seem stronger on the island? Maybe Keith had a special brew or . . .

“Start what?” Her tone was innocent but Jenny’s blue eyes were bright and sharp.

Sloane shook her head. “For god’s sake, Jenny. I’ve been over that stupid crush for years. I’ve been married, divorced. Hell, I’m over men entirely, at least for the next year or so.” Damn straight. She needed the breather after Josh, whose neediness had made her claustrophobic where relationships were concerned.

As usual, Jenny was like a dog with a bone, never knowing when to let go. “Come on, Slo, you loved him for years.” Jenny would know better than anyone, she’d been Sloane’s confident, listening to every whispered fantasy, sharing every hope and tear. “Before Josh, before all this divorce bullshit. I know Mac was mean to you, but—”

“Mean?” Sloane stopped to stare at her friend, her vision blurry with remembered pain and alcohol. “He ripped my innocent little heart to bits and, and stomped it into bloody bits of blood and bone and spit on the pieces.”

“That’s colorful but a bit dramatic, don’t you think?”

“Goddamn it, Guinevere Joyce Creer, they were my bits, I’ll call it how I see it!”

Jenny snorted but wrapped a warm arm around her shoulders. “I’m sorry, Slo,” she said softly. “I’m not saying he didn’t hurt you something awful.”

Sloane cleared her throat, trying to hide the sudden thickness there. A virgin trying to seduce her lifelong crush only to have her declaration of love ruthlessly turned aside? Yeah, awful didn’t quite cut it.

Mac’s rejection had sent her headlong into the dating world. Taking any and every offer, trying to wipe out the memory of that wind-swept day her heart had been broken. Then just when she thought she might be healing, might be able to move on, there had been Josh’s proposal and her disastrous marriage and the whole thing with her parents and . . .

She shook her head, irritated with the sudden bitter direction of her thoughts. Mac wasn’t responsible for her choices. Nor did he have anything to do with her decision to move to Manx. In fact, his presence had been a large black tick in the cons side, but . . . She loved this place. She always had. With or without Mac, it had always made her happy. Right now, she really, really needed happy.

So she’d told herself she would find a way to deal with the inevitableness that was Mac Alloid. Manx was worth it. “It doesn’t matter,” she said tonelessly. “I don’t give a fuck about Mac anymore, so—”

“He asks about you. All. The. Time.”

“He does not.” Sloane pulled away to stare at Jenny in shock, one hand flying out against the alley wall to steady herself, her woozy head trying to make sense of the ludicrous words. Mac asks about me?

She’d spent the last five years sure that Mac had put her and that day on the hill right out of his head . . . and wishing she could do the same. That she could stop seeing his face when he’d pulled back from her, the anger, the disgust—she winced—and something darker. Something she’d never been quite able to define. “What does he ask?”

Jenny smiled. “Thought you didn’t give a fuck.”

“Jenny.”

With a tipsy laugh, Jenny tripped her way down the block, Sloane trailing in her wake, neither woman noticing the figure in the shadows under the abandoned bookshop.

The vampire who emerged from the darkness wore a smile on his thin, pale lips as he watched two women move off down the street.

So close.

Revenge, blood, death. So tantalizingly close. All he had to do was reach out and take it. Take her.

It should not be possible, but Sloane smelled like her da. Declan lifted his head and sniffed the air again. No wonder Abhartach had been obsessed all those millennia. O’Neill blood smelled downright heavenly. Declan couldn’t wait to see how it tasted.

Timing, though, was everything.

He’d been warned the woman was well protected and while he’d been given the means to circumvent that protection, he intended to test both thoroughly before making a move. His master’s death at the hands of a mere mortal had taught Declan the importance of caution and the price of arrogance.

Forcing down the heady drug of anticipation, he walked down the street, gathering shadows again until they swallowed him up entirely. A minute later he passed by unseen as the smaller woman was opening her flat. Jenny. Behind her friend, Sloane suddenly lifted her head, frowning into the night.

Declan stiffened, fearing for an instant if she had inherited some of her father’s extrasensory gifts, but when she didn’t sound the alarm, he relaxed. Her reaction was only a bit of animal instinct. Something primal that sensed a predator nearby. Nothing for him to worry about.

With a smile, he blew her a kiss, flashing his fangs until she turned away, rubbing her arms as if she’d caught a chill.

Declan laughed softly before turning the corner.

Soon.