said ruefully. His eyes lightened, seemed to smile, and her breath caught. She wanted to walk into his arms and hug him. She wanted to fall onto the bed with him and repeat all the things they’d done last night. Instead, she spun the other way, opening the wardrobe door to rummage for the wrapped Christmas gift. It was a small parcel—a ring—so it was difficult to locate. “I’m going to see my witch friend. She lives near Loch Lomond, so I’ll be gone most of the day.”
Finally retrieving the ring box, she shoved the fallen things back in and closed the door. “Nicholas Smith is into magic—real magic, like Phil said, not conjuring. Jilly found stuff on the Internet.”
He hadn’t moved, just continued to watch her. She drew in her breath and walked toward him. “I can trust you, can’t I, not to touch my friends?” She brushed his hand lightly. It might have been casual, almost accidental, but Blair would know better.
His mouth tugged upward on one side. He said nothing. His mind was as silent as his lips.
“Can’t I?” she repeated with a shade of desperation. “Blair, please!”
“What do you take me for? A trained animal?”
Uncomprehending, she frowned.
He leaned closer. She could smell him, earth and spice and sex on legs. “Don’t make that mistake,” he whispered. “I’m not trained at all.”
She snatched her hand away from his as if it burned her, but he moved faster, grasping her wrist and yanking her close into his body. Remembering and yearning, she found her gaze riveted on his lips, so close to hers they were almost touching. Her nipples, pressed into his chest, ached for attention. Between her legs pooled the moist warmth of sexual arousal, made all the more intense by the feel of his erection growing against her stomach.
“I have no interest in drinking your friends.” His words seemed to echo around her mind with contempt. “I am quite capable of finding my own supper.”
Only pride stopped her struggling in his hold. As if he felt it, he smiled and ran one finger down the artery in her neck. She gasped without meaning to. And he released her, walking past her to flop back down on the bed. This time, he closed his eyes.
Sera felt like a disciplined child. And she had never taken well to discipline. It didn’t help that he spoke the truth.
“Sleep well,” she said nastily and marched out of the room without looking back. It was tempting to slam the doors as she left, but she refused to give him the satisfaction.
****
Dropping in on the Bells, she was surprised to be ushered into their sitting room by Ferdy. Under the stark wooden cross on the wall sat Mrs. Bell, a tired, worried smile on her pale lips. Shit, who was she to get angry with people suffering like these two?
“I thought you were running away with us last night,” Ferdy said as she sat down. “How did you get away?”
“I had friends there with—er—a getaway vehicle.”
Mrs. Bell stood abruptly. “Cup of tea, Miss MacBride?”
“No thanks. I can’t stay long.”
“We need to know which vampire you killed last night,” Ferdy said in a rush.
Mrs. Bell sat back down. “Was it Jason?” she blurted.
“No, it wasn’t Jason,” Sera said quietly, and Mrs. Bell dropped her head into her hands.
“It would be so much better if it had been Jason,” she wept. “And yet I’m glad; I’m glad.”
Sera stared at her, frozen by the conflict suddenly tearing her apart. The Bells needed closure, to grieve for the death of their son and begin to move on, to cope with life without him. And yet Jason wasn’t just dead; he was undead. Like Blair.
She was right—she was sure she was right—to fight the takeover bid of the banking vampires. But was it right to kill them? Would it be right to kill Blair? “I’m not trained at all… I’m quite capable of finding my own supper.”
Somehow, murmuring soothing inanities, she managed to get out of the house and back into her car to begin the drive across to Loch Lomond. She hoped Melanie had some answers for her, but because right now, she was struggling to know anything at all.
****
Blair was no knight in shining armor.
He’d never wanted to be. Or had he? He had some vague recollection, hundreds of years old, of a boy desperate to save his mother the killing drudgery of work in the factory by obtaining food and clothes for her, some