“Yes. She wanted it. They loved each other, even though she was a huntress and he was a vampire.”

  “I’m surprised the New York League didn’t object.”

  “You don’t hold it against me, do you?”

  He smiled. “Not at all.”

  “Like here, during those dark times, everything was in turmoil. As far as I know, my parents hid the fact my mother had been a hunter and none of her family had survived the plague so there was no one to say that she hadn’t been turned into a vampire when she became sick with the Black Death. Besides, in the beginning, vampires turned willing hosts who wanted to live longer and have our special abilities.”

  “Which isn’t allowed now.” He wanted to hear her take on that.

  “It can’t be done. If we turned all the humans, we would have no hosts.”

  “True. Have you ever wondered how things would have been had you been a hunter instead?” he asked.

  “No. I was born a vampire. It’s hard to envision being anything else. But for you, I can imagine how difficult it was.” Jasmine pulled him to a stop. “I really like you, Stasio.” She shrugged. “In my line of work, I’ve never found another assassin who would agree to split a commission with me for a job. Or who would buy my meals when I can afford to pay for my own. This has been so nice. I never take any time for myself to do anything fun. Certainly, it wouldn’t have been the same if I hadn’t been with you. I would love to see you again if you ever have a chance to come to New York.”

  “I would love to see you there.” Stasio would make a special trip to do so too. “I feel the same about you.”

  She smiled up at him and kissed him then as the sun sank into the water, coloring the sky and clouds oranges and pinks. She made him feel on top of the world and he kissed her back with abandon, knowing this could be the last time they ever saw each other, despite wanting to see her again.

  “Pierre has returned and he’s with two of the Welsh League of Vampires assassins. We must leave at once,” Levka warned Stasio telepathically.

  “I understand.” Stasio kissed Jasmine one last time. “I must go now.”

  “What’s wrong?” she asked, concerned.

  “I can’t explain. If I get to New York, I’ll look you up.”

  Suddenly, Pierre and two other men showed up on the beach, all armed with swords.

  “I’m facing Pierre and the assassins right now,” Stasio telepathically told his friends.

  “Ruric and Caitlin are grabbing all our bags and taking them to the van,” Levka told them.

  “What is this all about, Pierre?” Jasmine asked, her voice hard. “The hunters told you to leave.”

  “I checked with the local vampire league and guess what I found? Stasio is wanted by them. By all accounts, he is a rogue,” Pierre said.

  Stasio wanted to kill Pierre outright but it was a Catch 22. He couldn’t without proving he was indeed a rogue.

  Jasmine looked stunned. She pulled away from Stasio and stared at him. “Tell me it isn’t so.”

  In that instant, Stasio felt bad that she had to learn about him in this way.

  “Since you’re consorting with a rogue vampire and calling him your boyfriend, you know what that makes you?” Pierre asked.

  Stasio swore Pierre was having way too much fun with this.

  “I didn’t know.” Jasmine’s voice was hot with anger.

  “It pays to know who you are making friends with.”

  “You’re not an assassin?” Jasmine asked Stasio.

  He hated seeing the confusion and hurt in her eyes. “I—”

  Levka, Ruric, Arman, and Caitlin suddenly appeared on the beach in front of them.

  Caitlin said some strange words and the sand lifted off the beach around Pierre and the two Welsh assassins, swirling like a dirt devil, scouring their skin as they shielded their eyes.

  “We go now,” Levka ordered and then they flew off into the night sky, Stasio grabbing Jasmine’s arm right before he took off with her.

  “It seems you are following in your mother’s footsteps, a bit of a rogue too,” Stasio told a shocked Jasmine telepathically.

  “As soon as we are safe, I will kill you,” Jasmine promised, her eyes flashing with venom.

  Why was it that Stasio had to fall for an assassin who would become a rogue that he and her friends would now have to save, and he would become her target? He smiled. Only he could get into this much of a mess without even trying.

  They reached the parking lot where the van was and all piled in. Though Jasmine bared her teeth at Stasio as he pulled her inside with him.

  “You don’t have to go with us,” Levka said as Ruric got behind the wheel.

  “The assassins believe she’s with me and so she’s not safe on her own,” Stasio said.

  “I’m safer with you, as much as I loathe to admit it. What did you do back there?” Jasmine asked Caitlin.

  “I can control some elements like dust or dirt or sand. They had a good sand blasting anyway. It will follow them for a good twenty minutes, keeping them busy, and then the sand will drop to the ground, wherever they are,” Caitlin said.

  “I thought you were a vampire.”

  “I am.” Caitlin smiled. “And a witch.”

  Levka warned Ruric, “Do not drive at hyper-speed.”

  Arman said, “You should have let me drive. I would obey the speed limit.”

  “And we would never have gotten anywhere safely,” Stasio said.

  “Where are we going?” Jasmine asked.

  “Scotland,” Levka said. “We have never caused any trouble there.”

  Jasmine folded her arms. “I can’t believe you lied to me about being an assassin, Stasio.”

  “You assumed I was. I never said I was with the Welsh League or that I was actually an assassin.”

  “So tell me why are you considered a rogue here, besides letting me believe you were an assassin.” She still sounded furious. Her world as she’d known it had just been turned inside out.

  “It all began with when we first had a League of Vampires in Wales,” Stasio said, “and the rules were not good.”

  She groaned. “You told me you didn’t think all the rules were just. No one does. I didn’t think you could be considered a rogue for it.”

  “Yes, but we sided with the group who wanted to change the rules and lost.”

  Her mouth gaped.

  “That was only the beginning.” Levka smiled.

  “But that was the trouble we had with the Welsh League.” Stasio believed they should ease Jasmine into learning all they’d been up to, not overwhelm her with all the news right off the bat.

  “You said something about Caitlin having difficulties. Don’t tell me she’s newly turned,” Jasmine said to Levka.

  “Uh, yes, that was another situation.” Levka told her how that had all come about.

  Jasmine scoffed. “I wondered when Stasio started to say it was something new. Newly turned vampire. Sure. Not bad blood. All of you are as old as me—except for Caitlin—and you should know better.”

  “It’s not a matter of knowing better because we’re older but knowing when something isn’t right with the vampire rules.” Stasio didn’t know if he could ever convince Jasmine that the league was wrong in many ways and they were right, but he suspected he would die trying, if she stayed with them that long.

  “So you became rogues.”

  “Just because we didn’t have the power to overthrow the old regime in Wales, doesn’t mean we’re wrong and they’re right. Don’t tell me you’ve never wanted to right a wrong using your vampire strength and had you acted on the impulse, you would have been labelled a rogue.” Stasio really liked Jasmine, but he couldn’t believe she would be so set in obeying every rule that she couldn’t see a way to help someone in need and break a league rule in the process.

  She shifted her chilling gaze on his to the window and stared out.

  No one else was talking, all of them listening in on the conversation. Too much was at stake if she decided to give them up to save her own skin. He thought she could still claim she didn’t know he and the others were rogues. Which was the truth, and he wouldn’t blame her if she wanted out of this situation with them. She could say they forced her to go with them. He’d only done so because she seemed to be in shock at the time over the whole matter, and he was afraid they would turn on her and she would be defenseless.

  He had more selfish reasons too. He wanted to continue to see her.

  “We’ll trade off driving when you need relief, Ruric,” Levka said. “It’s about a six-hour drive where we’re going. What do you want to do, Jasmine? We can drop you off anywhere along the way and you can make your way out of here on your own. Or you can stay with us. We’ll offer all our protection to you, just as we protect each other. Which means no killing Stasio for getting you into this bind.”

  7

  Jasmine didn’t know what to do. She knew Pierre would return to the New York League and be sure to tell everyone in charge now that she was a rogue so he could have all her missions and probably be assigned to take her down too. She could no longer work as an assassin for them, unless she could clear her name. Pierre would undoubtedly tell them he had hunter witnesses who would state unequivocally that she’d said she was the girlfriend of a rogue and that would be the end of her trying to prove otherwise. Not to mention she had run away with them—not her choice, but Stasio proved he could take charge in an instant—where she was concerned.

  If she stayed with this bunch of rogues, she was sure to be roped into doing stuff like they did and get herself into more trouble than she was in now.

  She glanced at Stasio. He was watching her, concern etched on his face. “If I have you drop me off somewhere along the way—”

  “I’ll stay with you.” Stasio appeared serious.

  She shook her head. “If I stay behind and you stay with me, I could see you getting me into even more trouble.”

  “I would protect you. We’ve been at this for a very long time.” Stasio seemed sincere.

  She appreciated that he wanted to be there for her. She noticed that none of the others said that he couldn’t stay with her on his own. She had thought they were really good friends. Inseparable. “What do you say to that, Levka?” She believed he was the one who made more of the decisions.

  “I would say that Stasio is willing to risk his life to protect you,” Levka said.

  “He is in love,” Ruric said. “Undoubtedly.”

  Arman shook his head. “Only more trouble will come of us harboring yet another female vampire.”

  “I am not newly turned,” Jasmine said, annoyed with Arman. There was a big difference between a vampire who had lived for a very long time as one, and one who was just taking baby steps into the world of vampirism. Plus, she wasn’t really like Arman and his vampire friends because they’d all been turned by the plague while they were human. She had been born to a hunter-turned vampire and a vampire, which made her unique. She had never been strictly human.

  Caitlin smiled at her. “But I am a witch with special abilities. I believe you should stay with us so we can protect both you and Stasio.”

  “I didn’t say I was staying with Stasio, only that you could drop me off somewhere along the way and—”

  “Do what?” Stasio asked, as if he had to know her plans to make sure they were sound.

  “I have money saved in…special accounts. At least the League can’t confiscate that,” Jasmine said. “I could live off it indefinitely. Though I would have to live more frugally. Surely, the Welsh assassins would not try to follow me here. Or would they?”

  “Not likely,” Stasio said, “Which is why we aren’t flying out to some other location.”

  “Because airline travel makes him sick,” Caitlin said.

  Jasmine looked at Stasio and smiled. “A vampire who can fly gets sick on a plane?”

  “Laugh all you want about it. If I’m in control, I have no problem. When I let someone else do the flying, I get sick.” Stasio gave Caitlin an irritated look.

  “It’s no big deal, Stasio. I have an aversion to cruise ships,” Caitlin said, then told Jasmine more of the story of how she had joined the merry little band of vampire mischief-makers.

  “Okay, so I feel your pain on that one.” Jasmine couldn’t believe Caitlin had lost her parents and sister in the ocean, then nearly died some years later there herself. That had to give her nightmares. “Are you really princes? That wasn’t just a story also? The castle was yours, Stasio?” Jasmine wanted to hear the whole story, since he hadn’t been truthful about being an assassin, or a rogue.

  “We are all princes, and yes, the castle was mine,” Stasio said.

  “And Gareth? You had no intention of taking him down. Was he a friend of yours?” The more Jasmine learned, the more she couldn’t believe any of this.

  “My first cousin. And the hunters you met? They are his brothers. Also my first cousins.”

  She sat back in her seat, shocked. “Gareth is your cousin? You were protecting your cousin. And the hunters? They were trying to save him from Pierre and me then?”

  “Yes. Though we had no idea they would go against hunter league rules to protect their vampire brother,” Stasio said. “We haven’t been here in eons. Not even Gareth knows how his brothers feel about him. Unfortunately, he escaped before they arrived and before they could visit with each other and clear the air.”

  For a minute, Jasmine considered if she could use the knowledge that the hunters were Gareth’s brothers as leverage if she wanted to refute their claim that she was Stasio’s girlfriend, but she realized she couldn’t do it. Truth be told, she’d done her fair share of saving humans when she wasn’t supposed to interfere. She was just lucky no one had caught her at it. She thought she might have a hero complex—save the vampires, humans, and hunters by terminating the vampire rogues. Save the hunters and humans by eliminating human and hunter rogues. Though without the league’s approval, the latter would earn her rogue status. She’d done it alone without witnesses. No one but she had ever known she’d been involved in taking down murderous hunters or humans.

  Stasio and his companions had told her of a number of cases they’d been involved in, yet she couldn’t tell them what she’d done. Part of her wanted to keep her assassin status, even if she felt it was slipping away by the minute and she would never get it back again. Part of her hated to admit she might be a rogue like Stasio and his friends, and like her father had been by turning her mother.

  She liked to think of herself as a pure assassin, yet she knew she really wasn’t. She lived by the rules when they suited her. When they didn’t, she played by her own rules. She was just like Stasio and his companions.

  “Wouldn’t it be more dangerous if you have one more rogue traveling with you?” Jasmine expected everyone but Stasio to say yes.

  “No,” Levka said. “We’ve been doing this forever. Though Caitlin is a new addition to the party. At least, like you said, you are not newly turned, so that gives you an advantage. You are not known in these parts, though neither are we, and you are a highly trained assassin, which could give us an edge, should it come to that.”

  Jasmine really was surprised that Levka saw her as an asset. “I’ll go with you for a short while and see how things work out.” Jasmine figured she could do that until she decided where to go from here.

  Arman cleared his throat. “Ruric can work magic with computers. If you need airline reservations, or room reservations, he has got you covered.”

  She groaned, though she guessed they couldn’t carry around bags of money to travel when they were on the run.

  “Levka is the man with the plan, Ruric is the one with an eye on the future—way off future, Stasio is our historian, and I am the one who is the man of reason,” Arman continued. “In other words, I try to keep us from breaking too many laws. Caitlin brings her own special magic to our little vampire clan. What can you do?”

  Jasmine cast Arman a wicked smile. “My specialty is eliminating rogue vampires.”

  Stasio and the others heartily laughed. “You fell right into that one, Arman.”

  When they stopped for gas, Levka took over the driving. Neither Caitlin nor Jasmine wanted to drive on the left side of the road. Levka wouldn’t let Arman drive because he would go too slow. He always obeyed speed limit signs, walked in through the in door at stores and out the out doors. He was a stickler for doing what was right. Stasio had offered, but Levka said he had it.

  Then they were on their way again.

  “We have no change of clothes or toiletries, you know.” Jasmine was annoyed she’d left her stuff behind and couldn’t return for it. She had a couple of her favorite jeans and boots in her suitcase. Not to mention her favorite leather jacket! Dang it!

  “We packed our stuff before we heard you and Stasio were in trouble on the beach,” Arman said. “We’ll stop some place where you can buy some things when the stores are open.”

  “This whole trip has been a fiasco. Remind me never to go to Wales again.” Jasmine folded her arms across her chest.

  Ruric said, “I’m sure I speak for the others also when I say we don’t plan on returning there anytime soon. On another topic, I’ve made reservations at three different bed and breakfasts. At this late hour, I couldn’t get us all into rooms at the same one. Even then I had to use a little vampiric persuasion to get them to listen to reason.”

  “Which means you bumped guests scheduled to be there?” This got worser and worser. She’d never done that ever. Well, there was the one time when she was after a rogue vampire and that was a necessity. He was staying at bed and breakfasts and feeding on the unsuspecting guests. They didn’t have a room for her, so she had to…make one for herself. Suddenly, the guests in one room were told to leave—gas leak in the room, their accommodations reimbursed, and she slipped right in, no trouble at all, no gas in the room either. But nobody was the wiser. Especially the vampire she had to eliminate. She was certain her league would have understood, though she had no intention of telling them, just in case they frowned on her actions.