I’d chosen my go-to wedding/party dress, determined not to spend one damn dollar on a new dress for this shindig. Besides, my green silk dress with the ruched top at my breasts showed off my cleavage, and the mid-thigh length showed off my toned legs. This dress always made me feel confident and beautiful. And that’s how I needed to feel for this particular party. Not that I was trying to show Derek what he was missing because I could give a rat’s ass what he thought. I just needed the kind of feminine armor that screamed, “I am woman, hear me roar.”

“Don’t worry,” whispered Jules. “We’re going to figure this out. If anyone can—”

She flinched next to me, slowing our pace. I followed her gaze to the hotel up ahead. Propped against the wall under the gold-filigreed gaslights at the bottom of the stairs to the Roosevelt was Ruben. And daaaaamn, did he look good. Wearing a black tuxedo with a white satin scarf draped along the lapels, his hands in his pockets, one ankle crossing the other, his blond hair gleaming under the warm glow, he looked like a model in a magazine. A magazine for sexy-as-fuck vampire billionaires. I had no idea how wealthy Ruben was, but he currently looked like a gazillion dollars’ worth of beautiful man.

“Holy hell in a hand basket,” muttered Violet behind us.

Jules straightened, holding onto me even tighter, as we drew closer. Ruben watched us approach, his gaze lingering on Jules. Well, lingering was putting it mildly. He was roving, calculating, imagining things with my sister I didn’t think I wanted to know about. When I’d once asked what was up between the two of them, she growled with complete disdain, “There is absolutely nothing between us but pure hatred.”

While watching Ruben get an eyeful of her with a lusty half-smile plastered to his face, I thought I might need to remind Jules that she might not understand what hatred looked like. Because that wasn’t it. But now wasn’t the time. Especially when he pushed off the cream-colored stone of the Roosevelt’s entrance and pulled out a book from inside his jacket.

“Oh,” I muttered, quickening my steps to close the gap between us.

“Good evening, ladies,” he said with a small bow, making eye contact with all of us, even Clara and Violet who stopped at our backs. “Here is the item you requested.”

“Come on, Violet.” Clara dragged Violet’s ogling self toward the red-carpet-lined stairs. “We’ll see you both inside.”

I waved at them, shaking my head at Violet’s slobbering expression.

“Thank you,” said Jules, taking the small, hardbound book in her hand. The leather cover was green with gold script lettering on the front. “You weren’t planning on attending, I hope.” Jules gestured toward the entrance to the hotel with a superior tilt of her chin.

He chuckled. “I don’t think a vampire would be welcome at the Guild’s cocktail party. Besides, I wasn’t invited.”

Well, that’s the damn truth. Actually, it was the reason I hadn’t invited Mateo either. Another reason I wasn’t a fan of these Guild parties was because they were so pretentious. Witches only and all that. I always wished the Guild would be more open and accepting of other supernaturals. They were the most uppity of the different races. Yes, it was put upon witches to enforce that supernaturals obeyed the laws of magic, simply because an Enforcer was more powerful than any and all of us, but it seemed like most witches held an elitist, superiority complex because of it.

“Unfortunately,” said Ruben with his intense expression focused heavily on Jules, “I have other plans.”

Her gaze dropped to the book in her hands. “Did your man have any trouble acquiring it?”

“None at all.”

“That’s a relief,” she added. “I was worried he’d have a run-in with that Lycan pack you told me about.”

Ruben now had both his hands tucked loosely in his tuxedo pants pockets. “Oh, he did have a run-in with them.”

“He wasn’t hurt, was he?” I asked, feeling suddenly awful for Ruben’s friend or business associate or whoever he was.

Ruben smiled, his blue eyes darker than usual. “Like I said, he had no trouble.”

“So, he’s not hurt then?” asked Jules.

The vampire laughed, and for the first time I think ever, I saw Ruben’s canines extended. Vampires didn’t usually extend them until they were ready to feed, from what I understood. The look of this insanely gorgeous man laughing with a glint of sharp fangs before he hid them away again made my brain haze for a second.

Jules was statue-still next to me, probably calculating how fast she could stun him if he tried to bite her. But Ruben wasn’t an idiot or a violator of rules. He wouldn’t take blood from an unwilling host, no matter how much he wanted it. And right now, looking at my sister, he wanted it pretty damn bad.

“Not even a scratch on Devraj.” He glanced at the book in her hands as she tucked it inside her clutch. It was actually just small enough to fit. “So now you owe me that date.”

She scoffed. “We already discussed that. It’s not happening.”

“Oh, Juliana,” he practically sang in his velvety voice, moving in lightning vampire speed till he was just inches from her, brushing a gentle kiss to her cheek. “It’s so going to happen.”

Then he vanished, leaving a rush of wind in his wake, which pushed my long hair over my shoulder.

“Damn, he can move fast.” I looked both ways. No sign of him. “He’s really powerful, isn’t he?”

She cleared her throat and turned away from the street toward the stairs. “Yes.”

“How old is he?” I asked as we entered the glass doors to the grand foyer of the hotel.

“Two hundred something.”

“Really? I had no idea he was that old.”

Jules didn’t respond, clacking across the shiny floor toward the reception hall where the party was being held.

Of the supernaturals, vampires had the longest life expectancy, around seven hundred years old. Werewolves were second in line, averaging around five hundred, which made me wonder how old Mateo was. Funny, I hadn’t asked before. Why was I so curious now?

Oh, yeah. Because I wanted to spend the rest of my life with him, which would be about another three hundred years if I was lucky. I was still quite young for a witch. Was he? Or was he far older than he appeared like Ruben? What if he was older than Ruben? My mind was on a manic spree of what-ifs as we walked through the door to the cocktail party.

“Eveleen!”

I knew that voice coming from the cluster near the bar where Violet and Clara were laughing with my cousins. Jules slipped off toward Clarissa and her cronies at one of the round-top tables. Travis met me halfway across the room and swept me into a hug, lifting me off the floor.

“Damn. You smell good.” He put me down, grinning like a fiend. “Is that for me? You wore that for me, didn’t you?”

“No,” I said, play-slapping him with my clutch and pushing him back a step. “I have a boyfriend.”

My heart jumped into orbit at the thought of Mateo, wishing I’d invited him now. I mean, so what if we got a few looks from these snobs, right? But it was too late.

“No!” Travis clutched at his heart. “I can’t believe you’re cheating on me.”

“Oh, my God, I’m not cheating on you.” I punched him in his Armani jacket-covered bicep, which felt like hitting a rock. “Come on, I need a drink.”

“Yes, you do.” He smiled like the devil he was. “I plan to get you drunk and have my evil way with you.”

“Travis.” I shot him a disgusted look. “That’s not even funny.”

For a second, he looked confused, then shocked. “No! Not that. Jesus,” he said, looping his arm around my waist and guiding me to the others. “I mean making you dance with me.”

I laughed, accepting the glass of champagne from Clara. “I’m pretty sure you don’t need alcohol to ply women anyway.”

“Well,” he drawled out, “maybe it’s true I haven’t been lonely much.” He gave my waist a squeeze.

“Shocking.” I rolled my eyes.

“Don’t you look amazing,” said Drew, flashing his brilliant smile and giving me a squishy hug. Drew was a hugger. He was an Aura like Clara, so it wasn’t a surprise. He just gushed wonderfulness like she did.

“Thank you. So do you. But you know that.” I sipped from my glass, glancing around the room at the array of beautiful, leggy witches in the room. “Looks like you’ve got a nice selection this year.”

Travis laughed at something Violet was saying, the two of them looking like criminal conspirators at prom, contriving who would get the bucket of blood dropped on them at midnight.

“I think our visit to New Orleans will be fruitful,” agreed Drew with a wink. Unlike Clara, he played his beauty and charisma to the hilt with the ladies.

I shook my head. “You’re really working your Aura magic tonight, aren’t you?”

“Never,” he denied with a smile, sipping his drink from a glass tumbler. “We don’t need to use our magic, do we, Clara? It just happens naturally.”

“What’s that?” asked Clara innocently. Truly, my sister looked like a goddess in a white sheath dress that molded to her thin frame, her blond hair cascading in ridiculously perfect waves down to her hips.

“You know? It’s totally unfair,” said Violet.

“What’s unfair?” asked Cole, stepping up to our group with a beer in hand, his resident scowl in place.

“The fact that she got the Aura magic. It’s a complete waste on her,” complained Violet with a flick of her hand. “She doesn’t even use it to reel in the hotties. Hell, I don’t even know when the last time was that she brought a man home or got laid.”

“Violet,” Clara chastised calmly but with a frown, which wasn’t often. “This isn’t the time or place to blast my personal love life to the world.”