“I don’t know. She was on the window ledge outside the kitchen, and when I opened the door . . .” Callie shrugged. “She’s been here ever since.”
“Well, every witch should have a familiar. Ava had one. . . .” Damn! He’d let the proverbial cat out of the bag this time!
Callie stared at him. “I knew it!” she exclaimed. “You did know each other.”
“Yeah.”
She shook her head. Hadn’t she somehow known it all the time? She took a deep, calming breath. “How did you meet her?”
Quill looked at her, one brow raised.
“You fed on my grandmother!”
“Eventually. It was over a hundred years ago.”
Callie stared at him in horror. “You fed on her when she was a child?”
“Of course not! Ava was right around fifty when I knew her and that was a century ago.”
“That’s impossible! She would have been well over a hundred when she passed away.”
“It’s not impossible for witches. Some live for two, three hundred years.”
“But . . . she told me she was in her early seventies, even though she never looked more than forty. She said it was just good genes.”
“Very few witches ever look their real age.”
Callie blinked at him in astonishment. Was it possible she could live that long?
“It took me a while to recognize the resemblance between the two of you,” Quill said. “You look a lot like her, you know. Not only that, but your blood tastes the same. When I put two and two together, I knew you and Ava were related, though I had no idea she was your grandmother when we met.”
Quill had fed off Grandma Ava over a hundred years ago. Ava had known vampires existed and warned Callie against them. How had she put it? One kind would steal her blood and the other would steal her heart. How could Ava have known Callie was destined to meet one? Had she known it would be Quill? The very idea was mind boggling. “I don’t know what to say.”
He could understand that, he thought, sitting on the chair across from her.
Callie frowned as she remembered the dreams she’d had of Quill and Ava. Had they really been lovers? “How do you suppose she knew you and I would meet?”
“She had the Sight. I’m not sure she knew you would meet me, but she must have feared you’d meet a vampire of one kind or another someday. Hence, the spell she wove around you.”
“Where did you meet?”
“At a bar in San Diego.” Quill smiled at the memory. “She’d been dancing with a Marine, laughing and flirting for all she was worth. I took one look at her and I wanted her.”
Much as he had wanted Callie the first time he’d seen her. “I cut in on the Marine, and when he objected, we got into a hell of a brawl.” He grinned at her. “I won, of course.”
“Of course,” she said dryly. “Go on.”
“Well, I bought her a drink and we danced and drank some more and . . .” He paused.
Callie chewed on the corner of her lower lip. She had a terrible feeling that she knew what was coming next. “And?”
“There was no denying the attraction between us. One thing led to another and we drove to the nearest motel.”
Callie stared at him. Ava had met Quill and slept with him the same night. She tried to summon a sense of shock at her grandmother’s behavior, or outrage at Quill for what had happened between them, but all she could think was that the two of them seemed made for each other.
“It was just the one night,” he said. “At the time, I thought she wouldn’t make love to me again because I’d been such a rotten lover. But looking back, I think that having the Sight, she knew you and I would fall in love. I hung around with her and her friends for a few months. We had some good times.”
“Did you love her?”
“I could have, if she’d let me. It wasn’t long after I moved on that she fell in love with one of the Knights of the Dark Wood.”
“Did you ever see her again?”
“No. But I never forgot her.” Quill’s gaze searched hers. “Is this going to change things between us?” he asked, his voice strangely devoid of emotion.
Did it? Callie worried her lower lip as she thought it over. She couldn’t help feeling jealous that Ava and Quill had been lovers even though it had