I haven’t seen the vampires all day, which surprises me since Alexander told Sebastian to get me ready—whatever that means. The staff putters around, smiling and nodding at me politely, but they do their work and otherwise ignore me. It’s lonely here. I’m used to living with my sister. She’s full of energy and stories. I swear trouble finds her wherever she goes. I could call her, but I think it’s better to give it some time. I don’t want to confuse her, not when she’s content with the ideas Sebastian put in her head, though I still feel guilty for altering her mind. If she knew, she’d likely have a hard time forgiving me.

Late in the afternoon, I go into the library and explore Alexander’s vast collection. All of the books are leather bound, expensive looking, and worn with age. But they smell earthy, and heaving in their scent comforts me because it reminds me of home.

Most of the books on the shelves are classic novels. There’s a set of pretty encyclopedias with golden spines. I slide my finger along the edge of the shelves, looking for anything to keep my interest. Only when I find a handful of books on the occult and witchcraft do I stop for a second look. I pile them in my arms. They teeter and almost fall to the floor as I hurry to the mahogany table in the middle of the room. They tumble down without a touch of grace. I quickly save one with cat-like reflexes before it slides of the table and dives for the hardwood floor. I stare at my own hand as if it belongs to someone else. I’ve never been that coordinated—or that fast.

“Nice catch,” Sebastian says at my back. I glance over my shoulder. He stands tall in the doorframe, dressed in a black shirt with the sleeves pushed up his muscular forearms. His jeans look tailored to fit him. For the first time since I met him, I imagine the shape of his behind in that blue fabric, a thought that leaves my cheeks burning.

My response doesn’t go unnoticed. He grins mischievously.

I take a seat at the table. A gust of wind and he’s seated at my right. I gasp at his sudden motion. Vampires move so fast, and I know this, but every time Sebastian goes warp speed from one spot to another, he startles me.

“I wish you’d stop doing that.” I take a book from my pile.

Sebastian gently grips the end of the book and slides it from my hands. He flips through it and leans in so our shoulders are touching. I tense as his cold skin chills me, even through the fabric of my long T-shirt.

“This is bullshit.” He tosses it aside. He picks up another one and hands it to me. “Try this one.”

“Basic Spells and Potions.” I open to the table of contents. “It’s like a recipe book. Is this legit? Do the spells actually work?”

He shrugs. “Couldn’t say.”

“Basic Defense Spell…” I read one of the chapter titles and flip multiple pages at a time to get to the page for that spell. “This spell is for an advanced witch. It will reduce physical damage caused by supernaturals, including magical attacks. Hmph.” This sounds like something straight out of a video game.

“Might want to bookmark that one.” Sebastian winks.

I still and slowly close the book. After I press it to my chest I focus on his handsome face. His bright aura has a bit more sparkle to it today, in subtle shades of blue. His expression grows more playful the longer I stare at him. I want to thank him for last night, but I’m having trouble finding the words. I was determined to hate him and make him pay for kidnapping me, but I’ve somehow softened to him. I’m not even sure how he’s managed that.

I run my finger along the smooth cover of the book and note faded color from the middle to the edges. “When I first met you, I never expected you’d come to my rescue, especially when it meant putting yourself in danger.”

He licks his lips, stretches out his arm to rest on the back of my chair, drawing me into his bubble. I should shrink away and leave, but I don’t, and I find I don’t really want to. Sitting in his personal space feels intimate and safe, even if he’s a vampire. No matter how I came to be in his company, I feel an intense need to know more about him.

“I…want to thank you. You surprised me…in a good way. I didn’t expect it.”

He regards me warily, his eyebrow arched and his eyes searching. “You caught me on a good day.” He brushes off my gratitude.

“Alexander almost killed you. He might have if…”

“If you hadn’t saved me?”

I don’t know how to respond. I guess I did do that, not that I knew what I was doing. “Justine said my magic would be there when I needed it, and I guess she was right.”

“She usually is. It’s a rather annoying habit of hers.” He forces a smile I easily return.

“Maybe now I’ll stand a real chance against Markus. I have you to thank for that, too.”

He shifts in his seat, removes his arm from the back of my chair, and leans away from me. “Don’t get overconfident. You’re a far cry from your former self.”

“Thanks for the pep talk.”

“It’s what I do best.”

“Then I’m seriously afraid if you’re my backup.”

He chuckles lightly.

“Is Alexander… Will he come after me again? I can see him getting over his urge to kill you because you’re his brother. But me? Maybe he’s just waiting for me to let my guard down.”

“Don’t worry about him.”

“It’s a little hard not to when I can’t think of a good reason for him to change his mind.” I slump back in my seat.

“I understand why he’s concerned, and I probably should be too. If other vampires found out we were not only hiding you, but planning on using you to kill an elder, we’d both be tortured.”

“Not killed?”

He laughs out loud. “Of course not. Death is kinder. They’d want to cover us in silver and bury us in cement somewhere deep underground to spend an eternity contemplating what we did. Buried alive? Forever? Isn’t that a better revenge plan?”

“That’s unthinkable.” I image how awful it would be: alone, scared, in the dark—I hate the dark—with no hope of being rescued? This is what they’d do to them? No wonder Alexander was so mad. But Sebastian? He talks about it casually, like he’s reading from a text. “Why aren’t you as worried as he is?”

He’s quiet for several seconds, and when I think he won’t answer, he opens his mouth. “I knew you when you were whole. You were magnificent, and I believe you’re magnificent still. You just need a push.”

He called me magnificent. No one has ever called me that before or anything even close. His chair creaks as he leans in closer to me and his breath is a light breeze on my ear lobe. My heart starts to thump so loud I feel the vibration in my chest. With a single hand, he slides his fingers over a lock of my hair, his fingers lightly brushing against my neck, and he pushes my hair back behind my shoulder. Without meaning to, I close my eyes and immediately regret it. I flash them open to meet his blazing eyes. But they’re not angry. They’re hungry, and not for blood.

I swallow hard and fidget. The book slips from my hands. I jump at the hard slap it makes on the table. My cheeks flame, likely brighter than his eyes, and my aura is pastel pink with blue sparkles. I feel like a firework show, and I’m so glad he can’t see it.

I snatch the book and focus on it, but he won’t allow it. Putting his cold hands on mine, he gently pries the book from my fingers and lays it on the table. He cups my chin and forces me to meet his eyes.

“I’m not her.” I try to correct this heat and electricity inside me and around us. I want it to be unwelcome, but it’s not. Instead of wanting to push him away, I want to reach for him and draw him close.

“You are Penelope. And I’ll prove it to you.”

“How?”

“We train.”

“But you don’t know magic.”

“No, I don’t. But I know how to fight.”

“Fight a vampire? With fists and stuff? I might be magical, but I’m no match for a vampire physically. I’m not saying I couldn’t learn to fight because I think I could, but it won’t give me an advantage.”

“You have no idea.” Lines crease his forehead. He strokes my cheek with his thumb. The mix of his cool flesh and the heat his touch generates makes my breath catch. “Your magic will make you strong in more ways than one. You’ll see.”

It takes a moment to find my voice. “I hope so because I’m not convinced.”

His lips form a tight line. “We have no idea how long it’ll take for him to die. Cassandra took a couple of hours. An elder could be days. During that time, you, Alex, and I are all fucked. We might be...fucked a little less if you have magic to fight him.”

He slides his hand down my cheek to rest it on the table. Nervously, I scoot my chair a little farther away from him.

“You need to let him bite you and then stake him,” Sebastian says, his tone commanding.

“You never mentioned this before.”

He stares at me blankly.

“You both thought he’d kill me quickly enough that I couldn’t give you up.”

“Alex did, yes. But I always planned on…fixing you…once I found out you were Penelope.”

I glare at him, surprisingly wounded by the admission. I shouldn’t be, because I’m really nothing to him otherwise, but I can’t deny the way it knifes at my chest. “Before that, it didn’t matter, right? I was just another human sacrifice.”

He hitches a shoulder, completely unbothered or unapologetic.

“You’re an asshole.”

“Yes, I am. Don’t pretend you don’t like it.”

“Who’s pretending?” I open the spell book again. I read through a few spells while we sit in silence, but then I snap it shut. He’s smiling at me when I glance his way again. I roll my eyes.

“Tell me more about her…Penelope.”

His gaze drifts to the left as he goes quiet. After a moment of loud shifting in his chair, he finally relents. “The first time I met her was in the mid-sixteen hundreds. I was drinking alone in a tavern, but there were many others like me mingling with the humans that night, each of them looking for the next meal. The place was full. The Black Death was once again claiming hundreds of victims in London, and the people who were ‘healthy’ needed a drink to escape the reality of the people dying around them by the boatloads. Of course, it was never a plague, it was vampires like me draining humans to near death and causing panic because... I’m not sure why. Maybe to feel powerful?” He thinks about that then shakes it off. “She burst inside that wooden building, swords out and gleaming. She didn’t care who saw her or learned of our secret. She stood there, begging to be fought, and my kind can’t resist a challenge. She took out a dozen vampires that night.”

“But not you?”

He laughs and runs a finger along his chin. “She killed five young vampires in the time it took for me to finish my drink. I continued to watch—enraptured—as she killed another two. The things she could do with a sword... One slice and she took off two heads. Clean. She expected me to run, but I poured myself another drink instead.”

I raise my eyebrows in surprise. This man doesn’t seem to know what’s good for him.

“She asked me why I didn’t run or try to fight when she came to kill me, and I told her I was caught in her spell. She must be magic, of course.”

I roll my eyes, imagining that coming off as a line even back in the sixteen hundreds.

“She looked at me as you do now.” His voice drops, his tone softer. “You look just like her from the button nose and the single dimple in your right cheek to the three tiny freckles in a row on your throat.” His eyes dip, and I touch my neck, never having noticed them, and make a mental note to check that later.

“She came at me. We fought, and she was surprised to find me stronger than the others she’d just slayed. In the end, she got the better of me, and I can’t say I minded all that much. She stood over me, feet on either side of my chest and knelt down to press a stake over my heart. The blade only just broke skin. Her face was all scrunched up in anger, the same face that you make when you’re both curious and annoyed, and then... ”

I lean in closer. “And then?”

“She just stopped. She leaned back on her heels and lowered the stake to her thigh. I never tried to kick her off or get the better of her. She just pushed herself up off the ground and said, ‘I’m done killing today.’ Then she jogged off.”

My lips part, and I lose my ability to speak. I warm all over, and as my heart beats faster, my aura burns brighter.

“If I come in close…” Slowly, he moves forward until his face is inches from mine. My breath catches, and my heart pumps even faster. Every nerve in my body is firing, signaling for my brain to run, to hold him, to touch him, to push him away. But all I can do is sit and wait. The suspense is killing me. “I can still smell the lavender she’d used in her bath water.”

I close my eyes, lost in his words. This body yearns for him, and I can’t be sure if it’s who I used to be or who I am now. Does it matter? I can’t be sure, but part of me thinks it does. Whether I was Penelope or not, I don’t have her memories, so I can’t have her thoughts. She isn’t me, and I’m not her. Not really. The woman he cared for is gone. But dammit if I don’t want very badly to be kissed right now. I lick my lips and wait for him to close the distance. His breath washes over me, and his presence feels warm though he’s room temperature. I wait a long while, at least a minute, but when I’m sure the moment is gone, I finally open my eyes, and he’s no longer beside me. I exhale, disappointed and confused. I’m glad that he didn’t do what we both seemed to want but also devastated that he didn’t.

---

Hungrier than a bear after winter, I find the kitchen and root through the fridge. I make myself a mile-high sandwich with every meat known to man and a few pieces of lettuce to make it healthy. With one of my favorite books that I’ve borrowed from their library—The Time Traveler’s Wife—under my armpit, and my massive sandwich in both hands, I climb the stairs to my room. The moonlight streams in through the grand window at the top of the stairs, highlighting a path since the chandelier is off. The lights in the rooms at the bottom of the stairs glow softly, like they’re lit with only candles. There is a whooshing sound, my hair flutters, and Sebastian is at my side.

“Would you like a shovel?”

I bite a big piece of sandwich and smile with my lips awkwardly parted as I chew. Highly unattractive but you don’t comment on a lady’s eating. It’s just not nice. I swallow the massive bite and take a few more stairs.

“I thought we were going to train?”

He ignores me. “I’ve found us a nomad.”

“Is that where you’ve been these last few hours? I almost starved to death in my room waiting for wolves to find me and rip apart my flesh.”

“Why not vampires?”

I glance at him and roll my eyes. “You were saying?” I take another bite and wipe the touch of mayonnaise that slides down my chin.

“I found a nomad.”

“Is that supposed to mean something to me?”

“A nomad is a vampire without a master—either because their masters are dead or their masters granted them freedom. There are several within a few hours’ drive. We’ve crossed paths with some over the years, but they stay in their county, and we stay in ours…unless we’re passing through. There’s a really young one in Hants. I stalked him for a bit and found his home. We’ll drive over there once you finish your dead meat sandwich, and you can take him out.”

Crumbs fall from my sandwich onto the expensive rug on the hardwood staircase. “Shit.” If Alexander had to clean it up himself, I wouldn’t care. I’d love for him to pick up after me, but the maids have been nice to me.

“You know this vampire?”

“Not well,” he confesses.

“But you know him, and you want me to kill him?”

He slides his hands into the pockets of his black pants. He wears a white shirt that only makes his skin seem paler. Still handsome, though, I think as I frown at him.

“That’s what I said, isn’t it?” He looks at me like I’m simple.

I glare at him.

“I met him in a coffee shop a year or so ago. We both knew what the other was, and he came to sit with me. Sometimes, you just need to be around your own kind, you know?”

I understand that, but that isn’t what I’m questioning him about.

“We had coffee. We chatted. He paid the bill.”

“He bought you coffee, and now you want to kill him? That’s cold, Sebastian, even for you.”

At the top of the staircase, I turn toward my room. I wipe my hands on my leather pants, which stick to me like glue. What I wouldn’t give for jogging pants. In my room, I toss the book on the bed. He picks it up and looks at me with a single raised eyebrow.

“Don’t judge me. You had it in your library and it’s either yours or Alexander’s.”

“Probably one of the staff’s.” He tosses it back on the bed.

I grin at him. “Sure, it is.” I scour the closet for something sensible. “Can I borrow a pair of your jeans?”

“You’re not tall enough to bite my ankles. They’ll never fit you.”

I grab a pillow from the bed and biff it at his head. He whips to the right and winks at me. “You’ll have to be faster than that.”

“Cassandra’s closet is ridiculous. I need something comfortable to wear.”

“Well, that will definitely entice the vampire to bite you.”

After letting out a groan, I slide my pants down my legs, not even caring that I’m in the same pair of underwear I had on when he kidnapped me—though I hand cleaned them last night. I just can’t wear those constricting pants anymore. I chuck them at his head.

“I like your commitment, but he’ll think you’re mad if you show up at his house in panties.”

At this, I laugh because…well, it’s funny. There is something very amusing about his dry sense of humor. Why didn’t I see that before? “I need a pair of leggings and a tunic. Maybe we could go to my house, and I could pack a bag…” Though he doesn’t answer, I let the idea linger long enough for him to consider it. It’s clear that’s not going to happen, and though I don’t like it, it’s for the best.

“I want you to force him to bite you and then stake him through the heart. This will be a good practice run for you. And it’ll show me where we need to focus on your training. You ever box, wrestle, take karate, anything like that?”

“I ran track.”

“Considering a vampire is faster than a cheetah, your running skills aren’t going to help you.”

“Neither is punching a vampire who’s harder than stone.”

He opens his mouth to speak but snaps it shut. Yes, vampire, I have a very good point. He’s not as smart as he thinks he is.

“I saw Penelope fight. She couldn’t outrun them, but when she hit, she hit hard. I don’t know if it was the magic in her blood, but she wasn’t weak, and I don’t suspect you’ll be either.”

“I guess we’ll find out.” I prop my hands on my hips. “So bite, then stake. Got it. Now, are you going to help me find some pants or not?”

He releases a frustrated groan and leaves the room. I stare at the hallway through the open doorway and gently tap my fingers on my hips. Was that an ‘I’m done with this conversation,’ or did he go to get me some pants? Either way, I hope the maid doesn’t walk by. But I’m fairly certain she’s probably seen more weird things here than a human girl without pants.

I wait a few minutes and then a few more. No Sebastian. Where did he go? I make for the door, but he swoops in quickly to block me. I slap his chest, surprised by his movements. Damn, I wish he’d stop that.

He hands me a pair of black leggings. I light up like a ten-year-old on Christmas morning. Without thinking, I wrap my arms around his neck and squeeze him tight in gratitude like he’s given me a kidney. He goes rigid, and I remember myself quickly, but I don’t pull away just yet. It feels nicer than it should. His cool hands slowly touch my back, first so soft I’m not sure if I’m imagining it, but then he lowers them to my hips. His breath tickles my ear, and I inhale his scent. He smells outdoorsy, like cedar with a hint of musk.

“I’m sorry,” I say.

“A thank you would have been sufficient, though if you’re feeling really grateful I have an hour if you want to make use of the bed.”

I push him away and scold him with a single glare. Leave it to him to turn a tender moment into something sexual. And wait…did he say an hour? My aura glows almost neon pink, and it’s blinding.

I increase the space between us while he chuckles at my back. I sit on the plush bed and shove my feet through the pant legs of the leggings. Before I can stand, he kneels in front of me. His expression is serious as he reaches out and places a hand on either side of the bed, close enough for his thumbs to brush against the thin fabric of the pants. My stomach tingles, and I swallow hard. If he turns his smolder up a notch, I might not be able to refuse him right now. He’s growing on me in the worst way possible, in a way I shouldn’t even contemplate. A hunter and vampire? Could there be a worse pair?

“Is there something you want to say?” I ask while regarding his hesitant big blue eyes.

He thinks about it for a moment before standing and taking a few steps backward. Without a word, he shakes his head and I’m left wanting. Wishing more than anything that my magic allowed me to read minds.