When I looked up, he was right in front of me. I’d never even seen him move.
“It’s never over with those people,” he growled, offering me an up-close view of his fangs. Viscerally, I was shocked at the sight of them, my muscles freezing, although I wasn’t sure what I’d expected. Forge was a vampire; I knew that. It was only that he seemed so genteel, while nothing about those long, sharp canines was civilized.
“It is, I promise. He’s gone.”
For a second, I thought he’d ask for the loan shark’s name again, but he must have decided against it. His eyes were completely unreadable when he ordered me, “Go home. Keep practicing. I’ll see you tomorrow.”
This time, I followed his orders without question.
9
Ten minutes later, I was navigating the winding roads back to the city, replaying Forge’s rather abrupt brush-off. I thought maybe he’d give cracking my shield another try, but we’d veered into territory that—especially in my dark car on a dark country road—I deeply regretted entering.
I hadn’t intended to go to him, hat in hand, begging for money, then lay the clusterfuck that was my life right in front of him. Far from it. I intended to secure the loan, pay him back in six months and never see him again. A one-and-done sort of thing.
I’d saved the company, but now circumstances were throwing us together too often for comfort. The bigger problem was that there was something about Forge that made me want to tell him everything. He probably thinks I’m crazy. I groaned, maneuvering the car around a tight turn.
I wasn’t even lying when I’d said I wanted to help him. For some reason—maybe simply to avoid my own problems—I was looking forward to this Scotland trip, even if it did involve vampires. I’d always planned to go, but life got in the way, more times than I cared to count.
Besides, I was beyond curious about this freaky ability of mine. I didn’t understand it, but with Forge willing to help me, at least I had a safety net. A grumpy, enigmatic safety net, but still, I had someone to help me through this. While I was grateful, questions continued to stack up. Could it be genetic? Some kind of family curse, although I’d never heard so much as a whisper of such?
Or was it a fluke, with no rhyme nor reason to it?
I mulled over that one for a few miles, chewing on the possibilities. The human world and the vampire one rarely—if ever—overlapped. It wasn’t like I knew much about them, despite Forge’s historical entanglements with my family.
If vampires were a mystery, then Forge was the biggest one of all. I’d been fascinated with Forge my entire life, from the mysterious loan, to how he’d gotten tangled up with Ambrose in the first place. He was the skeleton in the Langston closet, and I always assumed everyone had one just like it. It wasn’t until I was fifteen that I realized not every family personally knew a vampire, much less put their name on the front of the building.
Stories about Forge—and about Ambrose, my whisky-loving ancestor—were traded between Dad and Grandpa, between Holloway and Dad, between the long-timers who’d worked for L&F their whole lives. I’d listened to every single one, some more than once. The result? I was completely mesmerized by Bastian Forge, which was why I’d left his painting up. Just a little reminder of the family secret, and the vampire who’d become somewhat of an obsession.
I didn’t hear from Forge for a week, which was strange, considering our deadline.
When he did contact me, it wasn’t with a scrawled note thrown on my desk. He sent me a text message. Brutal and to the point, which I was learning was Forge’s style.
We are ready to resume. Come prepared.
That night, the gates were once again thrown open, and the gardens looked almost sculpted as compared to a week ago. Like last time, light blazed from the windows. And, like then, Forge ambushed me, just before I managed to extricate myself from the car. I ended up getting caught in the door this time, and tumbled out onto the gravel.
“You need to learn to always be prepared, Selena,” Forge said as he offered me his hand. I ignored it and dusted gravel off my ass.
“Every second of my life?” I asked. I’d agreed to help him with this distasteful favor, but I had demands at the company, decisions to make now that we were in the black again. When I’d approached Forge, I didn’t think I’d be worrying about mind-reading vampires. Come to think of it, how was I supposed to tell the difference between vampires and humans? Forge looked… Well, true, he looked different than any human I’d ever even seen before, but maybe that was an anomaly. Surely all vampires weren’t this muscled and hot.
Shit, Selena, mind reading—remember?
He observed me carefully, his face going blank when he saw how closely I was watching him. “Of course not. You have to be able to protect yourself, and that means being prepared. You know what happened last time; you should have expected me to try something similar tonight.”
“Yeah, well…” I’d spent the entire drive here mulling over the puzzle that Forge presented. Instead of, like he’d said, readying my defense. “Okay, point taken. Try again.”
This time I actually managed to hold him off for almost a minute. Then my shield cracked like an egg and split open, offering up my innermost thoughts like an oyster. “No mind reading,” I warned him sternly.
“I wouldn’t dream of it,” he assured me as he ushered me inside. The house seemed…newer, somehow, as if twenty years had been taken off the interior. Each
