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  “It’s not in Embarrass,” Sophie began, but Sinclair interrupted her.

  “I quite agree. This behavior is not acceptable in the least. Also, it’s messy and people are bound to notice.”

  “Here we go,” Jessica said into her smoothie.

  “Messy? It’s messy?” The queen looked around, but Jessica and Tina were hurriedly clearing all the empty glasses off the small table. Nothing was within throwing reach. “How about, ‘He’s a shit and we’re gonna stake his ass.’ How about, ‘Those poor girls, let’s avenge them.’ How about anything besides messy?”

  “He did say anything besides messy,” Liam pointed out. “He said it wasn’t acceptable behavior. Which I guess it’s not.”

  “Dude: so not talking to you.” The queen gave him a good glare, so he hung tight to his glass. “I don’t—”

  “So, you’re the queen of all the vampires, huh?”

  That took the wind out of her sails. “Yeah, I guess,” she replied, and her shoulders slumped.

  “So all the vampires have to do what you say?”

  “No,” Eric Sinclair said.

  “And I’m not a vampire,” Jessica said. “I’m just a hanger-on.”

  “Me, too, I guess,” he joked.

  “You shut up, too. Everybody shut up. And to answer your question…uh, I’m sorry, your friend told me your name but I—”

  “Liam.”

  “Right. Anyway, they’re supposed to, but I don’t want ’em to, and a lot of them don’t listen anyway.”

  “But that’s not because you’re resisting your destiny or anything,” Jessica said, smirking at him.

  “Jess! Repeat after me: not helpful.”

  “With all due respect, Your Majesties, shouldn’t we be driving north? He could be seducing another girl this minute.” Sophie’s expression darkened. “He could be breaking up with another girl this minute.”

  “He could feel the tip of my shoe up his ass in another minute,” the queen vowed, slipping off of her stool. “Jess, you stay here.”

  “Oh, come on,” she protested. “I always miss out on the good stuff.”

  “If by good you mean hideously dangerous, then yeah, you do. Look, it’s vampire business, anyway. And last I looked, you were alive.”

  “Then he shouldn’t go, either,” Jessica said, pointing at Liam.

  “It’s my truck,” he said mildly.

  “Shit, it’s my house,” she said, starting to pout. Some women couldn’t pull it off, and some looked charming as hell when they tried. Jessica was one of the latter. “That doesn’t stop them from leaving me out all the time.”

  “What is the sound of one woman bitching?” Betsy asked the air. “If nobody’s around to hear the sound of Jessica bitching, does she actually bitch?”

  “Oh, you’re so evicted.”

  “She’s right, though,” Sinclair said mildly. “It’s inappropriate for Liam to come with us if we leave Jessica behind.”

  “Tough shit,” he said. “I’m going.”

  Betsy’s eyebrows arched but, shockingly, she said nothing.

  “Sophie’s not facing down some bad killer vampire without me, and that’s how it is.”

  “So there, Sinclair.” To Liam, Betsy said, “Good for you. It’s kind of romantic. Totally annoying, but romantic.”

  “You’re right, yes, you certainly are,” Sinclair said smoothly. Liam was having trouble looking away from the man’s deep, dark gaze. “However, I—”

  Suddenly, he couldn’t see Sinclair anymore. After a second, he realized Sophie’s hands had shot out, covering his eyes.

  “Sir,” she was saying, “please don’t. He’s been so good to me. So helpful. And it is his truck. And he wasn’t afraid to come. He’s known about me and he…he deserves to come.”

  “If he’s going, I’m going,” Jessica said crossly. “I’ve earned the right to come, too.”

  Gently, Liam pushed Sophie’s hands down. He guessed the guy was going to hypnotize him or whatever, and he was grateful for her intervention. “Come or stay, but let’s get going. Sophie’s right. Time’s wasting.”

  “You guys!” Jessica wailed.

  Betsy shook her head. “Too dangerous.”

  Tina nodded hers. “She’s right, Jessica.”

  “But inconsistent and annoying if we take him and not her,” Sinclair added.

  “Look, Jess, let’s settle this fair and fast, okay? Rock, paper, scissors?” Betsy asked.

  Jessica brightened. “Sure.”

  Both women’s left hands fisted. “Rock, paper, scissors,” they chanted in unison.

  Then, “Shit!”

  10

  “POOR Jessica.” Betsy was gloating. “She always goes for scissors.”

  “I’m sorry about your shoe,” Sophie said. They were on cell phones. Sophie and Liam were in his truck. The vampire king and queen were following in an electric blue GT Mustang convertible. Odd that such a cool and controlled man had such a flashy car, but it was none of Sophie’s business. “I do think she shouldn’t have thrown the left one in the blender.”

  “She’s got a temper,” Betsy agreed, “and she knew just where to stick it to me. That’s okay. I’ll steal her credit card and get it fixed at the leather shop. Worry about your shoes. Seriously.” Sophie heard the queen laugh, then the click of a disconnect.

  “Well, I guess they’ll follow us up there and we’ll…you know.” Sophie paused, then sighed. “Are you not speaking to me?”

  “That was the plan. I guess with all the lecturing, you didn’t notice. Then we were talking to the other vampires and I forgot I wasn’t talking to you.”

  “It’s the sheep thing, isn’t it?”

  “Yes, it’s the sheep thing,” he said, sounding annoyed. “Shit, what else would it be?”

  “I promise, I won’t refer to you like that again, and I won’t allow anyone to—”

  “It’s not that, Sophie. Sheep is just a word. It’s you. I’m sure you’re older than I am…I just don’t know how much older. And I don’t care. But you do. Right?”

  “It’s not that I…care, exactly,” she said slowly. “I’m just used to things being a certain way.”

  “Yeah, well, I love you.”

  “What?”

  “I figured, best to get that out of the way,” he explained, as if he hadn’t just said a shocking thing, as if he hadn’t changed everything. “You know, being in love with you. The thing is, I’ve always loved you. And I’ve always wanted you. And I knew you were a vampire and I knew you were pretty old—”

  “Not that old,” she said, her vanity pricking her. “Not for a vampire. I’m not even a hundred yet.”

  “Yeah, well, I’m just saying, I don’t care about any of that, I care about you. But this won’t work unless you don’t care, either.”

  “Liam, you drop this bombshell on me—”

  “Yep,” he said cheerfully.

  “—all in the last forty-eight hours…do you realize that before Tuesday, we’d never spent any time together that wasn’t pet-related? You have to admit, this is all very fast.”

  “Yep. I have to admit that.”

  “Well, you have to give me some time.” She folded her arms across her chest, feeling stupid and happy and annoyed and afraid.

  “How much time?”

  “More than two days,” she snapped. “It shouldn’t be a problem, since you’ve been waiting your entire life to be with me, right? So you can give me another forty-eight hours?”

  “I’m glad you hit me over the head with that right away,” he retorted. “I wouldn’t want you to wait.”

  “I’m just saying.” If she could have blushed, she would have. That had sounded much worse out loud than she had meant. She was just…surprised. She hadn’t a clue he had such deep feelings for her. All this time, and he never told her.

  “You never told me.”

  “Well, I was waiting for exactly the right time.”

  “A vampire serial killer th
rowing us together? That was the right time?”

  “Well, yeah.”

  “And there’s a lot more to it than love, you know.” She said this with triumph, as if she were thinking of reasons to make him be wrong about loving her.

  “Sophie, what the hell are you talking about?”

  “There’s the issue of how I need blood to survive.”

  “Yeah, I know.”

  “Liam: I drink blood from living donors in order to function. I have to do it a lot.”

  “So? I have to eat regular food to survive.”

  “It’s not the same thing.”

  “But it doesn’t make you a bad person, right?

  “No,” she said slowly. “Feeding…biting and taking blood…it’s like any weapon, I think. You’ve got a shotgun at home, yes? Well, is it a good shotgun or a bad shotgun?”

  “Guess that depends,” he replied. “If I use it to blow the head off a serial vampire scumbag killer, it’s a good one. If I used it to, I dunno, hurt a kid or whatever, it’s a bad one.”

  “Well, I think feeding is much the same. I could have hurt you. I could have killed you.”

  “I think you did kill me,” he said cheerfully.

  She didn’t smile. “I’m being serious, Liam.”

  “Yeah, I can tell by the way you’re sucking all the enjoyment out of this moment.”

  “And I’ll outlive you,” she continued doggedly, “unless we take steps.”

  “I know.”

  “I don’t think you do.”

  “There it is again.”

  “What?”

  “That I’m a vampire and a lot older, and so I’m smarter and just in general better than you.”

  “That’s ridiculous!” she cried, freshly stung.

  “Ha!”

  “Ha yourself.”

  They didn’t say another word until they got to the town where the last girl, Shawna, had lived and died. Then Liam said, “I’d prefer to ride with Betsy.”

  “You took the words right out of my head,” she snapped, her idioms suffering, as always, when she was angry. She swung her door open and jumped out of the truck. “I’ll send her over.”

  “Good.”

  “Good!” She stomped over to the king and queen, who looked to be in the middle of their own lover’s spat.

  “You don’t suck like ordinary people suck, by the way. You suck like Academy Award–sucking. If there was an Oscar handed out for Most Sucking, you’d have it locked.”

  “You’ve got to come up with something new. Anything new.”

  “Excuse me, Majesties,” she interrupted, her nervousness in their presence evaporating. She could be angry or she could be nervous, but apparently she couldn’t be both. “Liam would like the queen to ride with him.”

  “Ride with…oh, right. The B and B thing.” Shawna’s mother had told them the killer was staying at a local bed-and-breakfast. There were two in town; they didn’t know which one she had meant. So they had decided to split up. Originally each couple would make a team. Not any longer. “That’s fine with me. Later, Sinclair.” She walked over to Liam, who had gotten out and was standing beside the truck. “Hey, can I drive?”

  He wordlessly handed her the keys, then walked around to the passenger’s side. Sophie waited for a moment. For an apology? Whose?

  “Dr. Trudeau, we need to be going,” Sinclair told her.

  “Sir,” she replied miserably, and fell into step behind him.

  11

  “WHAT’S the matter?” Betsy asked him. She was so tall, she didn’t have to adjust the seat, just the rearview mirror. “Did you guys have a big wicked fight, or what?”

  “Something like that.”

  “I know what that’s like.”

  “Mmm,” he replied, secretly doubting she had the tiniest clue. Nice enough gal, and super-pretty, but a regular guy like him didn’t have much in common with the queen of the vampires. “Okay.”

  “Dude, seriously. I’m supposed to be the consort of a guy who’s totally arrogant and sneaky and has, like, eighty hidden agendas.”

  “You’re supposed to be?”

  “Don’t even get me started. It’s a whole long story, and I come off really bad in it. But so does Sinclair! Anyway—”

  “You’ve got something…” He pointed to her neck, where three mosquitoes were currently having a party. He guessed…did mosquitoes bother vampires?

  “What?” She brushed in the wrong spot, as people always did when told they had something on them. “What? Did I get it?”

  “Here, I—” He brushed at her neck, and was startled when something snagged his finger. Well, he was pretty bad at this stuff. “Aw, shit, now I’m caught on something…” He pulled back, surprised to find a gold chain entwined on the end of his finger, and even more surprised to find a cross dangling from the end of the chain.

  “Oh, crap! The chain broke!”

  “I can fix it,” he told her, since she seemed pretty upset about it.

  “It’s just, Sinclair gave it to me. I wouldn’t want anything…it’s nice, right?”

  “Right.” He stared at it in wonder…she was a vampire, correct? “Let me hold on to it for you, and I’ll fix it when we’re done tonight.”

  “Thanks. It used to belong to his sister, I guess it’s a family heirloom thing. I wouldn’t want anything to happen to it, is all. Anyway, where was I?”

  “I’m sorry,” Liam said. “But I’ve just gotta know. You’re a vampire, right? The queen of them? What are you doing carrying around a cross? And if Sinclair gave it to you…I guess it’s just an old wives’ tale, huh?”

  “Oh no, no,” she assured him, stomping on the clutch and shifting into third. “Sorry, didn’t mean to go all Bela Lugosi mysterious-ee on you. I haven’t been a vampire very long…just a few months.”

  “That’s why crosses don’t work on you?”

  “No, no. Nothing works on me. Crosses normally burn the crap out of a regular vampire, but I guess I’m special.” She said it glumly, as if it wasn’t a good thing at all. “Crosses don’t burn me, and holy water makes me sneeze, and stakes through the chest don’t work, but they sure wreck my clothes.”

  “That’s too bad,” he said, because he had to say something. “About your clothes, I mean.”

  “Tell me. My dry cleaner totally freaks out when I come near him these days. Anyway, crosses would burn Sinclair, except he got that one way back when his sister died, before he was a vampire.”

  “Oh.”

  “Okay? Everything cleared up?”

  “Uh, sure,” he said, pretending he heard this sort of thing all the time. Of course, very little had been cleared up. Why was this woman so special? Why had Eric Sinclair, whom she professed to dislike, given her a family heirloom, a religious symbol, no less? Could she be killed? Should she be killed?

  He guessed he’d never know, and wasn’t sure if that was good news, or bad.

  “Now where was I? Oh, right, the jerkiness of Eric Sinclair.”

  “And the whole consort thing,” he prompted her, pocketing the necklace.

  “So, I’m supposed to just throw all my doubts aside and be his wife for, like, a thousand years or whatever. And nobody can understand why I’m not getting with the program.” She laughed, sounding a little bitter. “Just forget everything I’ve ever learned and trust some guy who’s as scary as he is good-looking.”

  Hmm. Wasn’t that what he expected Sophie to do? Toss aside all she had learned, all she was, because he was mortal and he demanded it? Maybe her thing was more his problem than hers.

  “Hellooooooo?” Betsy was saying, waving a hand in front of her face and steadying the steering wheel with the other. “My lips are moving; it’s polite to pretend to listen.”

  “I heard every word,” he assured her.

  “IT seems your evening has been almost as stressful as mine.”

  “Sir, you have no idea.” She glanced over at him and was surprised to see a compassionate expre
ssion on his face. “I’ve had a lot thrown at me in the last few hours, that’s all. I’m certainly not going to bore you with it.”

  “I’m interested,” was all he said, so she found herself telling him the entire story…her loneliness since her friend had died; how wonderful Liam was; how she didn’t know he had loved her in secret all those years; how wonderful Liam was (when he wasn’t being a tiresome pig-head); how he seemingly accepted her vampire nature; how wonderful Liam was…all of it.

  “It sounds like a wonderful problem to have.”

  “Sir, it’s not that simple.”

  “No?”

  “Sometimes it’s…easier to stay by yourself.”

  “Keep the status quo, you mean.”

  “Yes.”

  “It’s certainly safer.”

  “Yes.” She saw where he was going and gave voice to her biggest fear. “He’s a child with a crush.”

  “He looked full-grown to me. He also looks like a man who knows what he wants.”

  “Hmph.”

  They had finished searching the bed-and-breakfast, which was free of guests except for a couple on their honeymoon, currently enjoying themselves behind a closed bedroom door. No serial killers in that room.

  Sophie was embarrassed; for a while she’d completely forgotten that there was quite a bit more at stake than her love life. But she and the king were almost half-hearted about the search; their enhanced senses had already told them the B and B was virtually deserted, but it was always best to make sure.

  “Thank you for listening,” she said, following him back out the front door. “I appreciate your advice and will think hard about what you’ve said.”

  “I didn’t say much,” he replied mildly. “Compared to my queen, I’m not much of a talker.”

  “Is that some kind of slam, pal? Because if you wanna go, we’ll go.” Betsy was walking through the front yard, Liam on her heels. “No luck at the other place. They’ve got a full house, and none of them are our guy. It’s all couples.”

  “Couples like the killer with his new girlfriend?” Sophie asked.

  “Naw,” Liam said. “Couples like retired people on vacation. You guys didn’t have any luck?”