Mac laughed at that. “True, but you didn’t this time.”
“I was busy. I’m only half a vampire, I think that made it easier to hold back. Plus, you’re not really food anymore.”
“Maybe.” He wound another piece of her hair around his fingers, using it to draw her in for a kiss.
“You were good to me,” she said.
“You were good to me.”
They kissed, taking their time over it.
“You left me that book about Elizabeth and Mr. Darcy,” she said.
“Did you like it?”
“I did. I liked everything about it.”
“Like what?”
“It wasn’t just about one or two people; all the folk fit together. It reminded me of so much of my old life. There was the wise sister and the foolish sister, the pretty one and the one you just knew would never make a match. And the men had fine families, too, although they weren’t altogether what I would call easy sorts to get along with.”
Mac was enchanted. “And were you the pretty sister, or the wise one, or both?”
“I was the baby straggling behind the rest.” She smiled ruefully. “All my sisters were wed. Only the last of the boys were still at home. I wished I would’ve been older, when there were more of my family in the house. Still, it was grand at celebrations when everyone came home. That’s what I’ve always wanted—everyone around the table, eating and laughing.”
Such talk of domestic bliss was enough to make most men bolt. Mac was too comfortable to move.
“What about you?” She blinked away a strand of hair that was hanging in her eyes, tangling in her lashes.
He brushed the hair away. “There was just me and my mom.”
“Just you? No one to share the chores?”
“It’s not so bad when you live in the city.”
“All the same, lucky for your mother you were there!”
“So she liked to remind me. She’s gone now.” He paused. “But say, I brought you another book. I’m not sure what it’ll be like because I picked it up in the grocery store. It has a pirate on the cover.”
“A pirate?”
“With no shirt. He’s going to get a sunburn.” She gave him an incredulous look. “He’s daft! Even a sailor can afford a shirt. I’m not sure about your pirate.”
“But you’ll give him a try?”
She gave him a wicked look. “If you insist. Although he’ll have to cut a fine figure to shoulder past Mr. Darcy.”
Mac rewarded that look with a kiss.
“Do you know...” she said, trailing off into an uncertain sigh.
“What?” He touched his finger to her chin.
“I want you to know there’s a place you can always lay your head.” She shimmied up his torso until her face was poised above his. “Wherever I am. Sometimes it helps to know where you can go when everything else turns upside down. I’ll always take you in.”
“Would you?”
She hesitated. “You don’t have a family standing behind you. Everyone needs a family. You’ll get lost if you’re all alone.” Her eyes were serious.
Just like that, she had turned the tables on him. He had promised her protection. Now she had just done the same. The solemn look on her face said she meant it.
Mac felt a pang of tenderness in his chest. She’d found his soft, marshmallow center and sunk her dainty fangs right in.
Constance survived in a violent world. She might be small, but she had to be tough to have made it this far. Clever and stubborn enough to keep her values in one piece. That moved him.
Logic said the bond they had formed was instant and intense, the kind that happened during wars and disasters. Perhaps there was something supernatural to it, too—the result of the room, or his new body, or her vampire nature.
None of that mattered. He knew one thing with conviction, something that no sorcery could ever change. He wasn’t letting Constance Moore slip out of his life. In the most unlikely place of all, he’d found a forever kind of woman.
Chapter 16
“You did
Alessandro was fairly sure he’d made a tactical blunder. “She’ll like it in the Castle. There’s lots there to kill.”
“When did you put her there?”
“Right after she tried to stake me. And bit me.”
Holly’s angry eyes seemed to fill her face. “What. Time. Did. It. Happen.”
Alessandro balked. The housekeeping spell Holly had laid on the vacuum cleaner suddenly wound down. The motor died with a sickly wheeze.
“Um. This afternoon.”
Holly clenched her teeth. “She’s only human, Alessandro. She doesn’t even have her witch’s powers anymore. She’s my big sister. She used to read me stories.”
He sighed, but it was an angry sound. “What should I have done, Holly? She tried to kill me in my bed. She damned near succeeded.”
Holly dropped into the nearest chair, covering her face with her hands for a moment. He knelt in front of her, sorry that he’d snapped, and captured her hands, one by one, and drew them from her cheeks.
Her eyes were moist, catching the lamplight like stars. “She’s my sister. How could you do that?”
He could have torn out his own heart then and there.
“I don’t know what you should’ve done,” Holly said, her voice thick with tears. “I don’t blame you. You had to do something, and I don’t have any answers. I could kill her myself.”
Confusion washed over him. How could he fix this? “I can go look for her. Bring her home. Right now.”
“No!” She squeezed his hands. “If she doesn’t get you, the guardsmen will!”
Alessandro blinked, his male pride flattened to road kill. “I can look after myself,” he said gently. “I was the queen’s champion swordsman. I’m still pretty good with a blade.”
“Of course you are.”
“I’m in and out of there all the time.” Long enough to toss someone in, at least.
“I know.” Holly closed her eyes, and fell silent.
The house was silent but for the ticking clock. A car whooshed by outside. From the kitchen, the cat was crunching kibble. They were home sounds. Sounds Alessandro had begun to treasure.
Holly swallowed. “I can’t bear to risk you right now.”
“But Ashe ...”
She shook her head. “I don’t know what to do about her. She’s not the same person I remember, the one I want her to be so badly. It’s like I keep trying to fix her in my mind, fit the old Ashe over the new one, but it doesn’t work.”
