“Can I get y’all something to drink?” I asked.

  The woman across from me nodded. “I’ll have a Shirley Temple, and she’ll have a red wine.”

  I flicked my fingers at the waitress, the same woman that had spent the entire night trying to get me to take blood from her vein, and she hurried over.

  “Can I help you, Master?”

  I clenched my jaw. “Mr. Worth.”

  She blinked. “Can I get you something else to drink, Mr. Worth?”

  “The finest wine we have for the lady at my side, and this one will have a Shirley Temple.”

  The waitress, Cassandra I thought her name was, nodded her head and backed away before hurrying in her too-high high heels to the bar where she placed an order with the bartender.

  “May I please ask your name?” I asked, turning to the darkest brown eyes I’d ever seen.

  Pairing those brown eyes with her black hair, they appeared almost black in the muted light of my establishment.

  “Um, Acadia,” she whispered.

  Had I not had supernatural hearing, I wouldn’t have heard her over the pulse and thump of the music.

  “Beautiful,” I murmured. “I’ve not heard of many Acadias lately.”

  “Constantine,” Abraham broke in. “You have a meeting in thirty.”

  I nodded crisply and returned my gaze to Acadia’s.

  “Have you been here before?”

  “No,” the friend broke in. “My name is Keisha…in case you were wondering.”

  “I wasn’t,” I replied to her haughty tone.

  Keisha smiled.

  “Honest.” She snickered. “I like that.”

  Acadia’s hand rose to her mouth, and she started to nibble nervously at her fingers.

  God, why was she so familiar?

  It was like I’d seen her before, but I would’ve remembered this woman. So she couldn’t be… could she?

  Surely one would remember those brown eyes in that beautiful face.

  “What else can I help you with?” the waitress asked as she placed the drinks down on the table.

  I handed Abraham his, followed by Keisha’s.

  Mine, I took as well.

  Acadia’s, however, I handed back.

  “Please ask the bartender to come here,” I ordered. “Place this on the bar next to the trash bin. Also, go see the general manager.”

  The waitress frowned but ultimately did as I said without complaint.

  Which was her only saving grace.

  Render, please make sure the waitress that’s on her way to you is fired for doing something disgusting with a customer’s drink. Make sure she gets scrubbed, too.

  Render’s ‘yes, sir,’ floated through the air to me, and I nodded once before returning to the conversation that was happening around me.

  “What was wrong with it?” Acadia asked softly. “She spit in it, didn’t she?”

  Worse… though I wouldn’t be telling her that.

  “The glass was dirty,” I murmured.

  It wasn’t a complete lie.

  The glass had been dirty.

  However, the vamp behind the bar had had a hand in the dirty glass, too.

  Which was why the second the vamp, a young one named Luther, came close enough to the table, I grabbed him by the throat, pulled him down to me in a move so fast it would’ve been a blur to the human eyes around me, and hissed at the stupid man.

  “That was your last and final straw,” I growled. “You will leave my bar. Then get in your stupid little car and leave my goddamn city. You will never return, because if you do, I’ll make sure you never see the night again. Do. You. Understand?”

  Luther nodded, and I could smell his fear.

  “Good.” I thrust him backward, which pushed him into the tables about twenty feet away.

  “Render.”

  I looked to the man weaving his way through the tables, anger still pounding in my veins.

  “Yes, sir.”

  Render picked up Luther by the shirt collar and started to drag him outside, all the while things went on as normal around me.

  The club was used to my temper.

  The woman at my side, however, was not.

  She was scared.

  I could tell that the minute I’d done it.

  However, it wouldn’t do to have a vampire under me to disrespect me so publicly. I had to let any of the people paying attention know that I wasn’t a pushover.

  Damn far from it.

  “I think it’s time to go,” Keisha stood, swallowing her drink in three swallows. “I have to be at work early tomorrow, and so do you.”

  I reluctantly slid out of my booth, knowing that Keisha had picked up on her friend’s trepidation, too.

  Lucky for me, she stumbled and I had to catch her, otherwise she would’ve walked off without another word.

  The second my fingers touched her skin, though, my mouth watered.

  She smelled like the ocean. All sun and sand. Things that I could experience, but hadn’t indulged in a beach in well over a thousand years.

  I’d been a twenty-four-year-old man, well on his way to having a family, when I was struck upon by thieves in the night. Thieves that’d been my own flesh and blood. Men that I hadn’t been wary of and should have been.

  They’d stolen my horse and left me for dead… and that’s how I was found by Carrion. My maker.

  He transformed me. He also said it was the hardest thing he’d ever done as an undead man, and I’d been so far gone that he thought I might not make it.

  But I’d proven him wrong.

  And I’d continued to do that up until this very day.

  I would also continue to pursue this woman with her brown eyes and black hair. The succulent lips that were made for kissing and fucking.

  “Have a nice night,” I told the woman in my arms before I released her.

  She blinked, leaned forward slightly, and then pushed away so abruptly that I had to work to contain my laugh.

  Yes, this would be fun.

  As she walked away, I watched her, loving the chase already.

  “Don’t,” Abraham grumbled.

  I turned, a smile breaking out over my face, and scoffed.

  “Watch me.”

  CHAPTER 3

  Is ‘fuck you’ something you’re allowed to say to your boss? Because I might chance it later.

  -Acadia’s secret thoughts

  ACADIA

  My heart was still pounding two days later as I made my way down the steps of my apartment complex.

  Keisha, who wasn’t attending the ceremony for the ribbon cutting with me, walked at my side, her cell phone in her hand.

  “You know he’s going to be there, right?” Keisha asked as she looked at me sideways.

  “Who?” I feigned ignorance, my thoughts automatically going to the one ‘him’ that had been on my mind for days.

  “Buford.”

  I snorted. “Bradford.” I laughed. “And he’s always there. He’s a freakin’ lawyer, for Christ’s sake.”

  “Well, I can tell you now that you and him in the same room isn’t a good idea,” she murmured, most likely more to herself than to me.

  See, Bradford and I had history.

  The type of history where we would break up, get back together, break up, and get back together.

  This time, however, I was determined to stay ‘broken up.’

  He, on the other hand, thought we would continue on the same as we always did.

  Little did he know, however, that my mind wasn’t even on him anymore. It was on a sexy vampire that had haunted my dreams for the past two nights.

  “Well, I can tell you now that I haven’t thought about him since two nights ago,” I informed her haughtily. “In fact, I would say that this is the best night’s sleep I’ve had in well over a year.”

  “Because you can’t stop thinking of tall, dark, and dead?”

  I slapped her arm.

  “I don’t think they’re considered ‘dead’ really,” I murmured.

  She tossed me a ‘you’re nuts’ look and stopped once she reached the door that would lead outside.

  “You need anything else before I go?”

  I pursed my lips.

  “That stun gun you keep in your car wouldn’t be a bad thing…”

  She slapped me on my arm this time.

  “I lost the charger for it. I need a new one,” she said by way of denial. “Unless you have some magic charger on your person somewhere.”

  I pushed the bar on the door and walked through it, not bothering to hold it for my laughing-at-her-own-stupid-joke best friend.

  With one final finger wave, I got into my car and started her up.

  I drove a 1967 Pontiac GTO, and it was definitely in need of some tender love and care.

  However, I didn’t have the time, nor the desire, to fix the bad boy up.

  So I drove it with rusted-out floorboards, springs showing in the seats, and a door that barely closed all the way.

  The motor, on the other hand, ran perfectly.

  Why? Because I had a damn good mechanic—one that’d been with me since that terrible day that I nearly died. The mechanic that had saved my life, and to this day I’d still never met in person.

  Seemed he was a night owl, and I never was able to come to his place of business when he was actually in the shop.

  I didn’t care, though.

  The man fixed my car and made it purr, and I’d never go to another soul purely for that reason.

  I was, however, rethinking my choice to drive my car and not take Keisha up on her offer to take me twenty minutes later when I arrived at the large sprawling mansion where the benefit dinner was being held and saw all the other cars.

  All the other cars that were black, shiny, and new.

  Mine was anything but.

  It was old, rusted, and not even the same color paint from one panel of metal to the next.

  Hence the reason I parked and walked up myself instead of allowing one of the valets to take it.

  Not that I would trust my car with anyone but the mechanic that fixed it, anyway.

  I didn’t even let my brothers or Keisha drive it.

  The moment I stepped out of the car and got my first good glimpse at the building, I realized that I was in way over my head.

  Why I’d allowed my brother to talk me into coming, I didn’t know.

  Not when the booger wasn’t even going to make it as my date, anymore.

  I’d gotten that pleading call earlier this afternoon, practically begging me to go anyway. If he hadn’t sounded so pitiful over the phone, and given me some damn good puking sounds, I would’ve totally denied him.

  Alas, this brother was my favorite sibling—even though I had two siblings—and I’d do damn near anything for him. Well, to be perfectly fair, I loved them both dearly.

  Even go to some swanky benefit dinner without him just so I could network for him and his business.

  Ready to get this over with and get home so I could crawl into my bed, pantless with half a roll of cookie dough, I started off across the lawn, admiring the pretty lights as I went.

  They had one of those light shows pointed down from the trees, making the large, sprawling lawn dance with colored dots to the tune of some sound I couldn’t hear.

  I’d just stepped onto the asphalt when I heard someone call my name.

  Bradford.

  Curse it all, dammit!

  “Hi.” I smiled… or grimaced. I wasn’t sure which. At least not until I saw his eyes narrow on my attempted smile.

  “Where is your brother at?” he asked.

  My brother and Bradford worked together, which made our whole breakup even worse.

  See, I was in love with Bradford until he decided to fuck his secretary.

  I’d decided to bring my brother and Bradford lunch, and had walked in to an eyeful of Bradford’s balls swinging as he banged his eighteen-year-old secretary on the front office desk.

  Needless to say, my brother had felt like shit.

  I, on the other hand, had been relieved.

  I’d been in over my head with the man, and it was nice to have a reason to break it off without ruining his and my brother’s partnership.

  That’s not to say that Bradford didn’t try to get me back at every turn.

  It was sad, really, but I wasn’t giving in. Not this time, anyway.

  I was glad to have him in my past—where he belonged.

  “He’s got the stomach flu,” I told him. “He’s spent the entire afternoon throwing up, and only stopped long enough to call me and tell me he wouldn’t be coming in…” I trailed off as the valet helped Bradford’s date, his eighteen-year-old bride-to-be that was pregnant with his child.

  The same one that was still the secretary at their law firm. The same one that thought she was the most supreme being on the planet for getting my man and keeping her job.

  When in reality, the only reason she still had her job was because my brother couldn’t find anyone that was willing, or stupid enough, to do the job besides her.

  See, not many people wanted to defend vampires, and in this day and age, when it was taboo to be around vampires, be friends with a vampire, or be genuinely nice to one, it was understandable why no one would want to work with someone that defended them.

  Vampires weren’t all that bad.

  They were a very new thing on this planet that was so set in their ways, and it was going to be a long time before everyone was entirely comfortable with something that wasn’t completely human being out in the open. Free to walk among them and have rights.

  Rights that were very often taken advantage of… hence where my brother and Bradford came in.

  I had to admit it, Bradford and my brother made a good team.

  “Oh, God,” Bradford moaned. “I hope he didn’t pass that to me.”

  I did.

  “Have a nice night,” I muttered, skirting around the now very agitated that she was being ignored teenager who’d banged my man.

  I waved Bradford off and walked up to the reception/whatever the fuck it was called, stand.

  “Acadia…”

  The man… vampire… waved me through. “Go ahead.”

  Blinking at how fast I was let in when the person ahead of me had practically been strip searched, I stepped foot inside, and immediately came to a halt when I saw what awaited me.

  The house had been beautiful on the outside, but the inside was magnificent.

  Tall, arched ceilings with a massive chandelier that extended from the middle of the ceiling all the way down until about ten feet above our heads. The floor was what looked to be marble, and large marble pillars the same color as the floor extended from the floor all the way to the ceiling.

  Each pillar was decorated with strands of Christmas lights in a perfect swirl from top to bottom.

  And the decorations that hung from the ceilings made the entire place look like a winter wonderland.

  Though, I had to wonder why that was when it was October.

  Then I started to really look closely and realized that the decorations weren’t snowflakes like I’d thought, but mini jack-o’-lanterns that were shimmery and sparkly.

  And then the lights turned from white to orange, and then from orange to green, and I smiled.

  There was the fall look I was expecting!

  Stepping past the threshold of the main entrance, I made a loop around the outside edges of the room, staying to the shadows like I normally did.

  I didn’t much like being the center of attention, which was also a problem that I faced with Bradford.

  He loved being the center of attention.

  On any given Friday night, he was always out doing something, meeting new people, and genuinely having a grand old time.

  Me, I was on my couch, a Coke in one hand, and the remote in the other, watching Netflix and wondering what my next binge-watch would be.

  When I came to a party such as the one I was currently at, I made it a point to stay out of the limelight and keep my face from being seen.

  Why? Because I sucked at speaking. I sucked at putting together coherent sentences, and even more, I hated people.

  That’s right, you heard me.

  I hated people.

  I hated the way everyone acted. I hated how the world had turned into a bunch of angry shitheads who felt entitled to stuff they didn’t work for, and most of all, I hated what people became.

  Killers. Beggars. Law and rule breakers.

  Anything and everything that people could cut corners on, they did, and I saw the worst of the worst as a crime scene tech, and really that only hammered the point home.

  People sucked.

  And I hated sucky people.

  “’Scuse me,” I murmured to a couple that were in a tight clinch.

  I caught a familiar set of eyes as I passed and realized the man in the clinch was the same man that’d sat across from me at the vampire bar that Keisha had dragged me to. The same one who I’d heard never left Constantine Worth’s side.

  Nervously I looked around in the shadows, happy when I didn’t see that familiar pair of blue wolf-like eyes and continued to walk the room.

  I ended up by the bar, and snagged a water that was still capped, and continued walking.

  Really, I was trying to get my steps in.

  I was a Fitbit fanatic and had been a lazy bum for half the day.

  This week had been exceptionally slow at work, which equaled a lot of ass-meet-seat time for me.

  Which inevitably meant not getting the steps that I usually did, and since I was currently in competition with Keisha and a few other ladies from high school for the Workweek Hustle, I sure as fuck wasn’t going to sit on my ass and let them pass me by. Even if it meant I had to walk laps around a damn ballroom in high heels and a ball gown.

  It was on my third pass when the host, a small, older man in his late seventies, called everyone’s attention to the front of the room.

  “I would like to thank everyone personally for attending tonight,” the man’s voice trembled.

  So, this had to be Mr. Cool, the man whose son was dying of testicular cancer.

  The man who’d put on this benefit to aid a man that would likely not be on this earth long enough to see the good his father had done specially for him.