Cruel, pitiless eyes.

  Eyes that had scoured my face while I lay dying, just before he slashed his own lips with his fangs and pressed velvet-soft lips to mine, bestowing the one spell vampires were truly adept at.

  The vampire’s kiss.

  A mark of favor for a human, and what had once been a death sentence for a witch.

  “You!” I shrieked.

  Then I lunged for him, nails extended, going for his eyes.

  Chapter Four

  The vampire moved quickly, vacating his spot on the stairs with astonishing speed. In an instant, he’d moved ten feet back, leaning his lean body against the hood of his Escalade. I stumbled, feet twisting beneath me, only saved from planting myself, face first, onto one of the stairs by catching hold of the iron railing.

  Fury sent a burning flush across my chest, up my neck and into my cheeks.

  He was still there when I rounded on him, still smirking at me like a damn clown, those deep green eyes twinkling with some mischievous thought. On anyone else, I might have thought it was cute, but this bastard had ruined my life. He didn’t even have the decency to look contrite, no, he was too busy perusing my body.

  “I like the undergarment,” he said, the faint accent I’d detected in the hospital thickening as he took me in. “You’re quite lovely when you’re not covered in lacerations, aren’t you?”

  I didn’t agree. My waist-length hair was tangled from the drive over, whipped into a frenzy by the open windows. The Vega lacked cooling, and Mother had hexed the car to be unseasonably hot. My makeup was smudged from the useless bout of crying. I’d lost weight in all the areas men usually appreciated. I imagined I looked as haggard as I felt.

  Not that it mattered. All that did matter was this… this penis and the reason he was standing on my front steps.

  “What the hell are you doing here?” I seethed.

  Mother had looked into him after the incident, of course. In a fit of irony, the vampire had obtained his first doctorate in dental surgery sometime in the 1970s and had been practicing in some city or another for the last fifty years under different names, graduating from colleges all across the U.S. as he continued to educate himself. He had a social media account, appeared to be serially monogamous, and had at least four homes in Oregon that Mother knew about. He was currently operating under the alias, Lorcan Rowe.

  But aside from the superficial information she could scry, we still knew very little about Lorcan. I wasn’t sure what vampire line had turned him, when, or why. I didn’t know why he was in Haven Hollow, and ultimately, I didn’t give a damn.

  He crossed his well-muscled arms over his chest, his full lips twitching up into an even broader smirk than before.

  “I came to welcome my new tenant, of course.”

  Wait, what?

  “Wait… what?”

  He nodded and didn’t seem nonplussed by my confusion at all. “I’m surprised you arrived so late.”

  Lately, I’d been cursed with potent insomnia, sometimes falling asleep just before the sun rose. Like a stinking vampire. Sunbathing made me anxious, garlic smelled rancid, and I edged around anything pointed, absurdly terrified I’d manage to impale myself. All vampire phobias I’d inherited thanks to this creep.

  Only after a silent moment of stewing did I return to his first statement.

  “What do you mean, welcoming your new tenant?” I demanded.

  Anyone who knew me would have been taking cover behind the Escalade or, better yet, pulling out of the driveway at speed before I could hex them. But the penis didn’t know me, and the mischievous twinkle in his eye blossomed into full on schadenfreude. He was enjoying my anger.

  “It means you are my tenant, my dear,” he answered with a shrug. “And I am welcoming you to your new home, as well as Haven Hollow.”

  “How in the hell am I your tenant!” I yelled.

  He smiled more broadly. “I assume you know how the rentee/ rentor relationship works, sweetling? Or does your ivory tower extend too far into the clouds for you to acquaint yourself with such commonplace things?”

  My hands clenched into fists at my side, magic sliding into my palms to glow like embers. Vampires were fairly flammable, and I could probably find an accelerant around here to speed up the process of lighting him on fire.

  But, then reason reared its ugly head. If he was living here, in the Hollow, it was under the grace of the local council. That meant he’d been extended protection, just the same as I had. If I killed him, I’d be kicked out of Haven Hollow, and barred entry to any of the others.

  “I hate you!” I hissed, hurling the magic in my palms toward the ground, just to ensure I didn’t change my mind at the last second.

  The magic burst into a useless spray of golden sparks, just like every other spell I’d attempted since stepping foot on the property. Still, it looked impressive and Lorcan actually stepped away from a stray ember that brushed his Oxford leather shoes. I was secretly gratified when it left a small scorch mark.

  This time his smirk gave way to a genuine smile, lips parting to reveal perfectly white teeth, and sharp incisors and bicuspids, in particular. My stomach performed a traitorous summersault, completely taken off guard by the way the sincere expression lit his face. But for the fangs, it would have been boyish.

  But, it wasn’t boyish. It was stupid, just like him.

  “There, there, I’ve already explained to you I didn’t know you were a witch upon our… meeting.”

  And, just like that, memories of that fateful day descended on me like a plague. I shook my head against the images. I didn’t want to remember our first meeting, didn’t want to recall the velvet softness of his mouth, the delicious tangle of our tongues after he’d parted my lips, the tang of his blood as it ran in a thick gush down my throat…

  He’d held me when I slipped in and out of consciousness. I hadn’t registered what he’d done to me then. He was just a lukewarm body I’d clung to until the paramedics arrived, injecting something into me that rendered me mercifully unconscious. It had been so horribly intimate to be held to his chest, knowing that I could die, that his chiseled beauty was the last thing I would ever see.

  “I don’t believe you that you didn’t know!” I fired back.

  “Well, you are entitled to your own opinion,” he responded with an unconcerned shrug. “Even if it is incorrect.”

  “I… I hate you!” I yelled again, angry with myself that I couldn’t think of anything better.

  “Yes, so you’ve said,” he answered and faux yawned. The bastard.

  “When did you purchase this place?” I demanded, the puzzle pieces starting to sink in.

  “As soon as I learned you were planning on moving into it.”

  I glared at him. “And how in the hell did you know that?”

  He shrugged again. “Haven Hollow is a small town, and news of a witch moving in makes headlines.”

  “Why did you purchase it?”

  “To look in on you, of course.”

  He said the words so casually, like the answer should have been obvious. The point was lost on me, though, because I couldn’t understand why he’d move his practice to this dinky town when he’d had a thriving one in Portland. I knew because I’d come up close and personal with the backend of the building.

  “Well, I’m doing just great,” I said, trying to cram some semblance of enthusiasm into my words. “Now you can slink back to whatever hole you crawled out of.”

  “No,” Lorcan said, pushing away from the SUV. “I’m afraid I can’t do that, Wandellmellia.”

  I gritted my teeth.

  He paused, waiting for another fireball to reveal itself between my fists. But, when that didn’t happen, he started forward again, moving with sensual purpose. His presence saturated the air, which was just a degree colder than the ambient temperature. He was old enough that his aura preceded him, and I could taste his power. It had a lot in common with the death in the graveyard, but multiplied tenfold. It was a real effort not to touch it, to draw it into myself and try to shape it.

  He was a beacon for my worst instincts.

  He stopped when we were an arm’s length and I could tell he’d read the struggle on my face. When I didn’t move or say anything, he reached for my hand, catching it before I could yank it back. The pad of his thumb pressed into my wrist, just above the pulse point. He probably felt it when my heart gave an uneasy thump.

  “How do you know my name?” I demanded.

  His smile was gone now, and he quirked a bushy brow at me. “You think the High Witch of the Crescent Circle of Portland, your mother, is the only one with the ability to dig into the past? You’d be shocked how cheaply you can learn a person’s life story.”

  I yanked my hand free of his grip.

  “My life is not your business! And don’t you dare call me by my given name, you bloodsucking… penis! That’s a witch name and you have no right to speak it!”

  “Did you… did you just call me a ‘bloodsucking penis’?”

  I held myself upright and jutted my chin into the air. “I did.”

  He held my attention for another second or so before he erupted into a fit of chuckles. “That is… the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard.”

  I didn’t know what to say to that so I just held my ground and crossed my arms against my chest to show him I wasn’t amused.

  “And as to your life not being my business,” he said, the laughter fading out of his voice. “Your life became my business the moment you took my blood, Miss Depraysie.”

  “I didn’t take your blood!” I railed back.

  “Whether you took it or I donated it, the result is the same.”

  “And what result is that?”

  He smiled again. “I keep track of my heirs and I take care of them. I know what it’s like to have an absentee sire, and I will never allow any of my line to experience the same.”

  Rage was flowing through me like a hot river of magma. I took a step towards him and narrowed my eyes as I held my index finger to his chest, like I was an old grandma scolding him. “I’m not one of your heirs. I’m one hundred and forty, Lorcan Rowe. I was alive for the second Blood War. I’ve seen what your kind does to mine, so forgive me for not buying into your paternal concern. I don’t need you and I don’t want anything to do with you.”

  His brows climbed higher. “As I recall, you asked for my help, my dear. It was all I could do for you at the time.”

  And just like that, he took me back again. To the sounds of the tires screeching, the shaking of the car, the way it overturned before it plowed into the wall of his dentistry office. And the one question I’d never been able to answer suddenly revealed itself.

  “I went through the windshield and collided with the wall. Blood was everywhere. How the spell could you have missed the fact that I was a witch?”

  “Witches have nothing about them to reveal what they are. You looked and continue to look human.”

  “We may look human, but we’re not. And you know that. You could have smelled the difference in my blood.”

  “Of course,” he said, confusing me.

  “Of course? Then you could scent me?”

  He nodded. “At first I mistook you for a simple human, but then I realized my mistake as soon as I came close enough to… scent you, as you say.”

  I frowned. “But in the hospital you said…”

  “I did what I had to do, under the circumstances. Whether you were human or witch, it didn’t change the fact that you were about to die. And I stopped that from happening. Instead of castigating me for such, you should be thanking me.” And this time, he was stern.

  I gaped at him, fresh outrage coursing through me. Thank him?! All this time I’d thought it was an accident, and that he’d been ignorant to what I was—that he was just a fool. To learn he’d wrecked my life on purpose was galling.

  “Then you knew you were creating… a Blood Witch?” I glared at him, shock still warring through me.

  “Blood Witch, Sandwich, the point remains the same... I saved your life.”

  I wanted to shout, but I could only make a pained whisper, unable to even understand my own words. I could barely swallow past the lump in my throat. What kind of monster was he? Didn’t he understand what he’d done? Didn’t he realize that a witch without her coven was nothing? Didn’t he understand that I’d become something, someone I didn’t recognize?

  Lorcan shrugged. “If my hygienist hadn’t phoned the paramedics, I would have had time to transition you fully into one of my heirs.”

  “A vampire?” I managed, the word sounding like something detestable.

  My eyes bugged, and I stared at him, appalled. The bastard had been set to turn me? I’d have to find the hygienist and kiss them full on the mouth. To think: I could have woken sans pulse with this bastard as my only lifeline.

  He frowned at me. “It beats the hell out of dying, don’t you think?”

  But I couldn’t answer, couldn’t find the words to even begin to explain. Lorcan continued, oblivious to the faint nausea twisting my features.

  “That is part of the reason I’m here, actually. You see, vampires don’t like Blood Witches any more than your precious covens do.”

  Lorcan seized my wrist again, his grip harder, tugging me close enough that I could smell the faint hint of sandalwood in his cologne. I could count each individual eyelash, and spy faint flecks of gold in the dark green of his eyes, very near the pupil. The earnestness in his gaze seared me.

  “Then you came to kill me?” I asked.

  He threw his head back and chuckled heartily. I failed to see what was so funny.

  “No,” he managed, at last. “Why kill you after all the trouble it was to keep you alive?”

  “I don’t know.”

  He smiled, like I was some stupid kid. “I’d like to bring you over to my side completely,” he whispered. “Just a little blood exchange. It doesn’t hurt, and I would be with you every step of the way.”

  I wanted to sprint into the darkness, screaming. I hadn’t imagined things could get worse; this just went to show that I’d vastly underestimated the universe’s sick sense of humor.

  Though it went against my every instinct, I leaned closer to the vampire, angling just so, smirking when his eyes darted to my mouth.

  Men.

  They were so predictable.

  Our lips brushed, and the kiss was almost chaste. It was quickly followed by a more urgent press of lips: hard, demanding, and, as much as I hated him for it, toe-curlingly intense.

  He released my wrist, aiming to run his fingers through my hair, but before he had the chance, I pulled my knee up, right into his groin.

  “I will never let you sink fangs into me ever again, Lorcan Rowe,” I hissed.

  He didn’t answer because he was too busy tending to his bruised produce.

  Meanwhile, I hightailed it back into the duplex, but not before lobbing the firecracker that my spells had become back at him so he wouldn’t try to follow me. Once inside, I bolted the door and tried to catch my breath.

  All I heard was grumbling as my vampire landlord ascended the stairs into his side of the building. Then the silence was total, and I was left with only the roar of blood in my ears, and the memory of his mouth on mine.

  Chapter Five

  My fingers tightened around the edge of the desk. If I wasn’t careful, I’d come away with large chunks of oak, and the woman sitting behind the desk would be even less happy than she already was.

  Ophelia Ponsobby glared up at me from the other side of the executive desk, a blight on the otherwise well-appointed office. Ophelia was the owner of the local realty company, Hallowed Realty, and she also sat as head of Haven Hollow’s City Council. Regarding my meeting with her today, I was hoping to kill two bats with one charm.

  Hallowed Realty was sleek and modern, with plenty of glass and steel partitions separating the individual offices. The lobby was spacious, and two of the six members of staff could be consulted from the hours of eight-thirty in the morning to six in the evening. At the moment, most of them were at showings. The only member of staff still in residence appeared to be a woman in her late thirties or early forties, exceptionally pretty, but exuding an aura of misery so palpable, it dampened her appeal somewhat.

  I was betting she was a succubus, given the unconscious pull she seemed to have. If she was a succubus, her name was unfortunate: Seraphina Stenham. Someone must have thought themselves very clever with that one—Seraphina as in… Seraphim.

  It was hard to keep my eyes off Ophelia for long. Her aura drew attention and kept it there, transfixed, like you were watching a train wreck. She’d only been born in the 20th century and wasn’t terribly old for a night hag. She was one of the Mora, and she thrived on fear and misery.

  By night hag standards, she was actually an outlier, one of only a dozen or so born every century who could pass for human. A very homely, very unpleasant human, but human all the same.

  She’d seemed to embrace the fact that she’d never be a looker, something made even more noticeable by her ridiculous wardrobe. The bottom half of the outfit could only generously be called ‘dress slacks’. They swirled like psychedelic koi swimming in inky water, and it made my eyes water to look at them for long. She’d arranged the zebra-striped silk blouse in a French tuck and had, thankfully, draped the paisley blazer over the back of her office chair and largely out of sight. A string of pearls draped around her neck twice and trailed out of sight behind the desk.

  In short, she was an assault, not only on the eyes, but an assault on good taste in general.

  “What do you mean, there are no other rentals available?” I managed through gritted teeth. “There has to be something.”

  A pair of rose-colored glasses perched on her hawkish nose. She gave me a scathing look over the wire rims. “I meant precisely what I said, Ms. Depraysie. There are listings available, of course, but none in your price range. Cost is an issue, yes?”

  The way she said it… it was as though she was looking down on me—something I found extraordinarily ironic considering her choice in clothing. “Yes, but…” I began, but Ophelia cut across me, irritation flashing in her eyes.